74 I Why Myofunctional Therapists Aren't Getting Clients: The Niche Mistake That Keeps You Stuck

What if the reason you're not getting myofunctional therapy clients has nothing to do with your website, your marketing, or your followers — and everything to do with the one decision you've been avoiding?

Hi friend,

Every single week, I talk to trained myofunctional therapists who are convinced there's some secret to getting clients. Some magic marketing strategy. Some perfect website setup. Some underground recipe that everybody else has and they don't.

I'm going to save you a lot of time and spinning today. There isn't one.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the real reason your content isn't landing, your calls aren't booking, and your message is getting scrolled right past. It's not sexy. It's not complicated. But it is the thing that separates the therapists who are getting clients from the ones who are still waiting for the phone to ring.

I'm walking you through the exact exercise I make every single one of my coaching clients do — the one they all resist and the one that changes everything once they finally commit. We're going to talk about your dream client, your not-so-dreamy client, and the "I Help" statement that's going to become the foundation of your entire business.

This is for the therapist who is tired of posting and praying. The one who knows she's capable but can't figure out why nothing is clicking. The one who's one decision away from it all falling into place.

Grab your ☕coffee and your courage — and let's dive in!

Xo, 

💙 Carmen

🌐 The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ 

https://theprofitablemyofunctionaltherapist.com

✅ Grab the Trained to Booked Checklist

https://offers.theprofitablemyofunctionaltherapist.com/trainedoptin

📅  Need help? Book a "Get Unstuck" call today 

https://theprofitablemyofunctionaltherapist.com/contact/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, friend. I am super glad you are here. I have a great class planned today. I just went through the outline and I really wanted to go do some uh work for myself. But this is what we're doing. Um, I am Carmen. If you are new to the group, hello, welcome. I run a uh global, a large global myofunctional therapy practice. And one of my favorite parts of my job is teaching trained myofunctional therapists how to build profitable myofunctional therapy practices. That's what this group is for. You've probably figured out, and that's what today is about. We're gonna talk about the secret. Everybody wants to know the secret to getting clients, the thing that successful therapists are doing that maybe you're not doing. The one thing that you need to do to make the phone ring. You're gonna be really sad, my friend. There isn't one. I'm sorry. I know, I really am, because I know that that's not

Welcome And The “Secret” Myth

SPEAKER_00 1:04

what you wanted to hear. Whenever I'm in my coaching with my business uh coaching clients, they think that I just had this magic recipe. So, but here's what I do know after building my own multi-million dollar practice and coaching therapist through this process. The people who are getting clients aren't doing something magic, okay? They're not smarter than you, they don't have a better website. In fact, some of them don't even have a website. And for those who do, quite honestly, the ones that I do audits on and I go take a look, they have zero SEO and they have zero, they have a complete incorrect website set up. So I can see why no, nobody's finding them, but I digress. I digress. Um, what they didn't find is some uh, you know, like some super secret underground marketing strategy that nobody's talking about. They did something really unsexy. Okay. The successful people did something really unsexy. They got clear. I call these boring business basics, okay? Not sexy. Um, they got clear. They stopped trying to talk to everyone and started talking to someone. You've probably heard me pounding this drum if you listen to the podcast. One specific someone. And when they did that, everything changed. Their content starts landing, their confidence starts showing up. Clients start finding them. That's the secret, that's not the secret. And today I'm gonna show you exactly what that looks like because I think you, if you're trying to build your business and you're not just here as a looky-loo and just curious, um, I think that you're probably one decision away from it clicking in for you as well. So here's what we're covering today. We're gonna talk about why what you're currently saying isn't working. We're going to do an exercise that gets you very clear on who you serve, and we're gonna talk about what becomes possible once that clarity is locked in. Okay. So you can pause this video, rewind it, do the work at your own pace. But I do want you to actually do the work, okay? Not just watch, not just nod along. The people who get results do the work, even when it's messy. Okay. I have all of my business coaching clients do this. Everybody always resists it. But it is step one and it is so important. Okay, so let's get to it. Let's start with what you're actually saying right now. If I asked you right now, today, what you do, what would you, what would your answer be to me? If your answer sounds anything like I'm a myofunctional therapist, or I help people with myofunctional therapy, or I work with patients who have tongue ties and airway issues, that's the problem. And I don't say that to be mean, I say it because I have heard it so many times. And every single time, I want to grab that person and shake them by the shoulders and say, your dream client has no idea what that means. Here's the truth. You know what myofunctional therapy is. You've studied it, you're passionate about it, you can talk about it all day long. But the person you're trying to reach, she is not laying awake at night thinking, I really need to find a myofunctional therapist. She's lying awake at night thinking, why is my kid still snoring after the ENT said everything was fine? Or I've

Why Clinic Speak Kills Marketing

SPEAKER_00 4:51

had three sleep studies and nobody can tell me why I'm so stinking exhausted every single morning. Or my son can't focus in school. He's been evaluated for everything and something still just doesn't feel right. That's her world. That's her language. And if you, if your message isn't meeting her there, she's gonna scroll right past you, my friend. Not because she doesn't need you, but because she doesn't know that you are talking to her. That's what I call clinic speak. You're marketing your modality, you're marketing what you do instead of her transformation. And it creates this massive disconnect between what you provide and what she's actually searching for. Let me give it to you another way to think about it. Imagine you walked into a room full of people and you stand up and you say, Hey, hi, hello, I'm Carmen, I'm a myofunctional therapist. Does anybody need one? Is anybody gonna raise their hand? Maybe one, maybe somebody knows, maybe none. Because most people in that room have no idea what it is. None. Now imagine you stand up and you say, Hi, I'm Carmen. I help kids who can't sleep, can't focus, and breathe through their mouth, get to the root of what's actually going on. Now you said something different, and suddenly half of the room is leaning in. Okay, now they're curious because they know that you're talking to them. Same skills, you have the same skills, same services, completely different message. That's the power of a clear who. That's the power of nailing your who, okay? Nailing your niche. Here's another piece I want you to hear. Trying to talk to everyone doesn't make your net bigger, it makes your message weaker. Casting a wider net does not catch more fish, it catches the wrong ones, or maybe even none at all. The right person is out there right now looking for exactly what you do. But if your message is vague, she's gonna scroll right past you and she's gonna find somebody who speaks her message, her language. How do you fix it? You decide who you're talking to on purpose with specificity, and you build everything around that. That's what we're gonna do next. That is one of the first things. You know, I talk on my podcast a lot about uh seasons of business, and so you know, we have your planning and setup. Those are one of the first things. Once once you've got the stuff like your EIN number and your business name and your domain and all of that sub, the first thing we do, my friend, is this okay? So you're getting gold here. Okay, so this is the actual work. I want you to hear me on this. This is not a watch and nod thing, okay? You have to pause and write down. If you don't have anything to write with, go get it. I will wait right here, my friend. Okay. So grab your pen, grab something to write on because I'm gonna walk you through four parts. Each one is gonna build on the last. At the end, you're going to have the foundation of something that's very important to you. Your who. Okay. And with it, the beginning of a message that is actually going to connect you to clients. So pause after each part if you need to, um, pause wherever you need to do the work before you move on. That is the whole point. Okay. Part A. Your dream client. I want you to think about a client that you have worked with in uh myofunctional therapy or even in the hygiene chair or speech practice or the physical therapy practice or your chiropractic office. Who was just easy? Who was just lovely? Who was just a dream, okay? She showed up, she did the work, she didn't complain about the price, she got results, she probably told somebody about you.

The Dream Client Clarity Exercise

SPEAKER_00 9:10

You know who I'm talking about. You can picture her right now. I can picture it all the way back to hygiene. I can picture it now for my uh myofunctional therapy practice, okay? I want you to write down what made her so dreamy, what made her so delightful? Was it her attitude? Was it her commitment? The way she took ownership and her results. Did she pay on time? Did she show up on time? Did she follow the plan without you having to chase her or babysit her? Write it down. Write it down, all of it. Okay, once you've got that done, I want you to think about what she was struggling with when she found you. Not in clinical terms, in her terms. This is important. What was her life like before? What was keeping her awake at night? What had she already tried that hadn't worked? And most importantly, what does she want most? Okay, not what you want to give her. What does she want in her own words? Pause here, write your answers down. Don't skip this. All right. Next, I want you to think about your not so dreamy client, okay? So the opposite. You know, we all know somebody here. You know exactly the person that you dread seeing on your schedule every single time. The one who makes excuses every session, doesn't show up, doesn't pay, needs hand holding for every step, doesn't do the work, okay? That person who feels like you're pushing an elephant up a ladder, a boulder uphill, okay? It's a ton of work and you're drained after this person every single time. Write that down. What made this human so draining? Okay. Here's why this part matters. We are not building your business around that person. My friend, you're building boundaries around that person. We build your business around the easy peasy dreamy client, but we build boundaries around those other people, okay? It's okay. You want to repel

Boundaries For Draining Clients

SPEAKER_00 11:23

those people faster than you can shake a stick at, okay? Um, but you can't work towards building your business around that dreamy client if you don't also know what you don't want. Okay, so pause here, write it down, do the work. All right, part C. Now we're gonna get specific. I want you to take what you just wrote and I want you to get more specific. Before I ask you these questions, I want to plant something in your brain really quick. Okay, there's two ways people find their who. Both are completely valid. So some of you know who your who is by the person, okay? Moms, kids, athletes, tired women in their 40s who have been dismissed by every doctor that they've ever seen. Um, you can picture this person and everything clicks for you. Now, others of you are going to know your who by the problem, okay? Sleep disordered, breathing, tongue ties, airway dysfunction, uh, temporal TMJ, TM, TMD. Okay. Um, you are not necessarily attaching that to a person yet. You're you're on fire about the problem you want to solve. Okay. So that passion is your starting point. So I call this, you know, you're deciding on your who from a person

Person Vs Problem Based Niches

SPEAKER_00 12:44

or a passion base. So either one is gonna work. The part it, the the point is to be very specific, okay? Vague doesn't convert, okay. Passion and specificity do. So what I explained to my coaching students is that, or my coaching clients, is that if you don't specifically know your who, like if you don't like working with kids, that helps you self-select that I know that it's gonna be an adult. You don't know maybe whether it's gonna be male or female, and it may or may not matter. But if you're gonna work with menopausal women who aren't sleeping well and mouth breathing, then clearly your who's gonna, you know, have ovaries, right? Um, but as far as um, you know, something with a passion, you're going to really have your knowledge be kind of like I always say an inch wide and a mile deep. So you're really focused just on whatever that topic is, sleep disordered breathing. You're you're gonna be talking only about that, not about sleep disordered breathing, tongue ties, TMD, all of those things. So hopefully that makes sense to you. So as you answer these questions, notice which one pulls at you more. Are you drawn to a specific person or a specific problem? That answer is going to tell you a lot. Okay. Five questions, pause after each one. First instinct. Okay, messy is fine. The first question: who do you actually love working with? Kids, like I said, do you know that you love kids or don't love kids? Okay. Is this um adults, women, mom, men, sleep-deprived patients, chronic pain patients? Or if you're more passion-based right now, what problem, what are you most fired up for about solving? Now, I do have to tell you this here. If you're more passion-based, I still also recommend that it's one. It's one passion. Each different time you have a different topic, that's like running a whole other business. You're starting your business and you need to figure out what works, how you're gonna reach people, how you're gonna do it better, how you're gonna build SEO, how you're gonna bring in traffic, how things are gonna deliver, what keywords you're gonna use, all of those things. And so if you tell

Five Questions To Nail Specificity

SPEAKER_00 15:15

me that you want to do um sleep-deprived women and um children with behavioral issues or something, like those are two completely different audiences. And going back to that scrolling thing and being very specific, if somebody it if they see your content and they don't know that it's for them, you might also be serving another audience, but it's gonna just be so convoluted. And if you're just starting your business, you're giving yourself double the work without having any experience to know what you're doing. So this, I know it so hard, and I always get so much pushback right here. But as you're thinking about this, whether it's your person or your passion, specificity. Okay. And I'm not, I don't recommend it. I mean, I'm not bossing you around, but if you're giving me a specific list of five different things you want to touch on, you're just never going to get good at one. And you're never gonna just be known for one thing. Okay, so that was question one. Question two, what is keeping your dream client up at 2 a.m.? Okay. I don't mean something like, oh, she needs malfunctional therapy. Okay. I mean what does she think her problem is? What is she Googling at midnight? What is she venting about or asking about or joining Facebook groups about? Okay. Get it out of your or get out of your clinical brain and into her world. Okay. Pause. Right, right. Answer question two. Question three, what has she already tried? Because your dream client is not uninformed, okay? She's been to the ENT, she's had the sleep studies, she's bought the mouth guard, she's tried the speech therapy. She's not starting from zero. She's frustrated and unresolved. What was her history before she finds you? When I do an exam, you guys would not be, you wouldn't believe how much time I do listening. Tell me. People want to be heard. They want you to ask them this stuff. They want to tell you all the details, all the ways that they've suffered, all the things that they haven't that hasn't worked for them. You gotta, you have to know that. All right, question four, what does she want most? What does she want most? Not the clinical outcome that you want to deliver to her, but what does she want? A kid who sleeps through the night, a husband who stops snoring, to finally feel rested, to stop being told everything is fine when she knows it's not fine. Name the desire in her language, not yours. Again, this is another thing that I have to do when I do an exam, because you know, I sit and look at all of their information that they're telling me on their paperwork, and I have my own agenda in my brain, but what is she after? A great example. When I have somebody who comes to me because I'm also, you know, a nutritionist, they will come to me because they're struggling to lose weight. That might be all of their concern. And then I look at their paperwork and I can see sleep-disordered breathing, sleep disordered breathing, sleep-disordered breathing everywhere. I have to find a way to bring my agenda to her goal. She wants to lose weight, and I'm seeing she has all these sleep issues. I have to find a way to bring those together or it's going to be a complete mismatch. Okay. So you have to know what it is she wants, and you need to be able to name that in her words. Okay. Question five: what would disqualify someone from being your dream client? Okay, who is she not? What behaviors, attitudes, circumstances are going to make that person the wrong fit? Okay. This is for you. You want to know this because remember what I said, you want to get very good at attracting and repelling. You don't want all the clients. I know, I know right now you're sitting there thinking that you do want all of them. And that goes back to the whole, hey, I want everybody with a purse, a pulse. You don't want that. All right. So those were your questions. Next, we're on to the next part. So this is all about your I help statement. Okay. That last part is where it all comes together. This time we are going or those with those questions you asked, this is going to help bring that all together. So you're going to write one sentence. Yes, I know it's going to be hard to take everything that's on your paper and put it into one sentence. One sentence. Okay. Here's the formula. I help who insert your who with what? What do they want? What is the outcome that they desire? Okay, that's it. It's simple on purpose, my friend. Okay. So let me give you a few examples so you can see what this looks like. I help tired moms get to the root of their child's sleep and behavior problems. Pretty clear. If somebody is scrolling past that on Instagram and they are a mom who has a child with sleep and behavior issues, she's gonna say, Oh, hey, hi, I need you, right? What about I help adults finally address the airway issues that are keeping them exhausted? Pretty

Write Your One Sentence “I Help”

SPEAKER_00 20:48

clear. I help kids with tongue ties get the support they need to breathe, eat, and sleep better. Okay. I want you to do that. Okay. Notice how none of these say myofunctional therapy. Each one speaks directly to a person and a problem that she knows she already has. Okay, that's what you're going for. Now write yours. Pause the video, take as long as you need, come back when you have your IHELP statement written down and solid. Okay. I'm waiting, I'm waiting. Write that I help statement. All right, so hopefully you have it. Uh, is it perfect? Probably not. It's okay. Perfect is not the goal right now, my friend. Specific. Specific is the goal because messy and specific beats polished and vague every single time. Okay. I say this to my students all the time B plus work changes lives, and I want you to remember that. You just did something that a lot of therapists will never take the time to do to get specific on purpose. You just picked a person or a problem. Okay, maybe both. Maybe you're so dialed in. on your person and problem, that's even better because that's really micro, micro niching in. And I love that for you. Um you've built a statement around it. Okay. So that's your I help statement. And now you're probably thinking, okay, what do I do with this? Okay. So let's talk about that. You've got your who, um, person or a problem, okay, that you're passionate about. Maybe it's a both. Okay. Um you what you just did was laid the foundation. Okay. Everything in your business gets built on this. Remember I said when I was working with students and we look at what season of business they're in and and figuring out their who comes very early. That's that's this that's this foundation. You're going to build everything around this your content, your service packages, your pricing, your messaging, all of that stuff, okay? You're confident when you show up online of knowing who your who is okay. I know it sounds like a big claim, but when your who is vague, you will sit down to do something and you're trying it's so much harder because you don't know who you're talking to. It's so much easier for me when I sit down and I go, okay, I'm writing to Lola. Lola me and Lola that's it. Okay. So it takes more time when you're

Build Content And Offers Around Her

SPEAKER_00 23:25

writing something general for sure. Something that can apply to everybody is difficult. And then because it applies to nobody it's not going to connect to anybody. Okay. So you do not want to do that. You want content that has a target. When your who is clear, whether that's person or specific problem that you're all fired up about, everything is shifts. Okay. You're going to sit down, you're going to know exactly who it is, you're going to know exactly what she's struggling with, what she wants, um, what she's already tried and you're going to write to her and she's going to be heard. She's going to feel seen. Okay. When she reads it, she's going to say, how did this person get in my head? I can't tell you how many students have come into my most expensive training programs and that I have never met them. And that's because they met me. They consumed the content. I built that no like and trust factor. I built the the expertise and the authority and the trustworthiness. And I was very specific. And that is one thing that they had told me it's like you got in my brain and you knew everything about me. Okay. Here's another great example. So I have a coaching client already trained, already had her business up and running. She came to work with me because she was already thinking about closing her doors because she wasn't earning any money. She couldn't figure out why. Okay. So she had a struggle thinking about investing in herself. But once she realized the value of it, we got right to work. So one of the first things that we did was work on her who. And when I asked her who she was trying to serve, she really didn't have an answer. So you know I gave her this homework. She had to do all this stuff. And I said go think about it. Come back next time with something specific. So when she came back the next time she told me her who was a middle aged woman who wasn't sleeping well. Okay. Somebody who was tired, somebody who was dismissed by every doctor being told everything was fine. I loved it. That's a real person. It's a specific problem. Okay. Something that she could build her messaging around. So I went to her social media to see what she was actually putting out there. And two of her most recent posts one was about sleep

Mixed Messaging And The Confidence Trap

SPEAKER_00 25:43

struggles and middle-aged women. Okay. I was I was not mad at that at all. We were getting somewhere right the other one was about facial development and children with tongue ties. So both topics are valid. That's not what I'm saying. Both things are topic are are valid. Both things are things that she was knowledgeable about. But the problem is that if I'm a tired middle-aged woman who thinks she found her human, somebody who can help her, something caught my eye about sleep and then I look at her page and I see she's also talking about children's face development and tongue ties, I'm going to be confused because I want my specialist okay I'm going to be saying is she my person I don't I don't know I'm confused. So I leave that's how I that's how I do it in real life. I go look and I'm looking for a certain type of practitioner and if they don't speak what I'm expecting them to speak I just move along. Okay. So mixed messaging is what she was doing. And it happens all the time. And not because therapists don't know their stuff but because they haven't committed to a who yet. And so many of you guys like I said you fight me on this it's your who that gives you confidence. Okay. I want you to think about that for a second. So much of the paralysis that I see in this business space the overthinking the second guessing the posting and deleting um the I don't know what to say spiral it comes from not knowing who you're talking to. Okay. When you try to talk to everybody every word feels like it has to be perfect. You're trying to please a group of people who do not exist. Okay. When you know you're who you stop performing for a crowd and you start having a conversation with one person. It is so much easier. And it's also honestly a lot easier to create your content talking to that one person Lola Sarah okay name her name him most therapists never get here. They stay busy they stay vague they keep posting they keep praying they keep crossing their fingers hoping that something is going to stick um and a lot of of a lot of you guys are just posting about what you think is important. Okay. And that's not going to help either the truth is that when you have clarity on your who everything starts there and and it just gets so much easier. So once you know who that is then the next question is then now what? How do you build your message around her? How do you structure your services so that they sell I I always ask people this how do you set your prices when you don't even know who you're serving right how do you set up a package how do you market it if you don't even know who it's for so by taking the time to do all of this stuff that I've talked about here today you just got the best head start. That's where you're going to start okay um so take it and run with it. This is one of the first things that you need to do. Now if you're sitting here and you say well I still want help with this then I'm going to give you three different options okay um if you're here and you're in this group clearly your goal is a profitable myofunctional therapy business wherever what whatever time frame that is. Okay. So you have a couple options if you want help with this. First of all, if you the the first thing I ask everybody who comes to apply to work with me if you are not confident in your clinical skills if you have no clinical training then learn myofunctional therapy in 60 days or less is where you start. It is the most simple but yet comprehensive training to get this clinical stuff done. Okay. And we have done that on purpose. I've taken clinical training from my over 100 hour course and distilled it down into the most important stuff because in today's day and age ain't nobody

Ways To Work Together And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 29:54

got time for all the extras okay so it is very very specific and I call it bite-sized learning okay so there's no two hour lectures here. We're just getting them down as short as possible so that you can get the information and move on. I have to tell you this you guys education without or information without implementation is just entertainment. So many of you guys are just gathering all of this knowledge and you're not doing anything with it. That's where I help you. Okay. So first are you confident with your clinical skills if you have no clinical skills where you're watching this I'll make sure you have the links you want to get into learn malfunctional therapy in 60 days or less yes 60 days because we I my goal is to get you your first paying client the fastest. Okay you get to decide if it's 60 days 90 days 120 days. It's meant to be small okay because then when we start working on the business building stuff we've got that whole clinical confidence stuff done and dusted okay so that's the first step. If you're not confident in your skills or if you have no skills that's where you start. If you are trained and you aren't experiencing any business growth you're not experiencing consistent revenue you're not experiencing anything positive in your business then business coaching is what you need. Now I know some of you guys are very hesitant just like our many of my business coaching clients they're hesitant to make that investment because they already invested well unless you invested in a program that specifically taught all of the ins and outs of business a business program that taught you about Google Analytics and how we study metrics and how we set up SEO on your website, how you do marketing all of that kind of stuff if if the business training in your program was just a footnote, then you still need the profitable malfunctional therapist because that's the type of business training that I do. I have a master's in business and I know the business stuff that's important and and I teach it in like a step-by-step framework. Okay, not just throwing a whole bunch of theory at you. But I get it a lot of you guys are are nervous to make that investment because it's another investment. And I tell you this, my friend, you can invest time or money and sometimes you're investing both and you're still not getting anywhere. So if you want a specific outcome which to me your specific outcome is a profitable business, a business that lets you build a life your bonkers about a business that lets you work less and earn more be in total control of your calendar work from anywhere. I love that live in yoga pants um if that's what you want if that's a specific outcome you want then you need somebody whose expertise is getting there and somebody who has done that. Okay. But I get it. If you're not ready for that there is um the free checklist the trained to booked checklist that's going to help you figure out exactly where you are in your business. If you're not yet ready to have a conversation with me about getting into the profitable myelfunctional therapist which is a six month coaching program where I take you by hand, me, one-on-one, step by step by step through all of that stuff. If you're not ready for that, grab that checklist it's going, it's free, it's going to help you, okay? If you are ready to finally quit spinning your wheels, you have a couple options. My preference is that you book your unstuck call so that you and I can talk one-on-one about exactly where you're at, what type of business you want to build, kind of what's your timeframe, what's your business acumen, what kind of experience you have, what what are you bringing to the table so that I know what my team and I need to bring to the table so that we can get that transformation for you. So we talk about that during a call, okay? Or you can just jump in and then you get lots of calls with me because you're going to see this pretty little face all the time. So that's it. For those of you who are already working in your business, I would take a step back and just make sure that you know that your message is reaching the person that you want it to remember we build our business around our easy peasy dream customer and we build boundaries around the other person. Reach out to me if you have any questions and I thank you for taking the time to be here today.