Promoting Your Reiki Business

Recently in my Facebook Reiki group, the SHARe Reiki Community (please join us), ​someone asked about how best to market and network for a Reiki practice. I thought I'd post my answer in my blog her so other wondering about marketing can access it, too.

Things to Consider Before You Create a Marketing Plan
Any business, even an energy healing practice, needs a business and marketing plan. However, it's important to approach a business plan for a Reiki practice from a place of intention and authenticity. So the very first part of that is double checking your thinking, beliefs, self-talk, etc.as it relates to your work as an energy healer.

Some things to consider:

• Why do you practice Reiki?
• What is your goal (and by this I mean, is your goal making money only, or is it creating vibrational change for people - either of those are perfectly fine goals, you just need to know what your primary goal is and work from that).
• What is your intention?
• What do you hope healing partners get from you?
• What do you hope to receive from healing partners?
• What type of clientele do you serve - who is your healing partner?
• What about you draws you to that type of work and what about you draws that person to you?
• How well do you understand Reiki and the work you do?
• What can you do to improve that understanding and come from a place of true and trusted authority?
• What are your personal beliefs around an energy healing practice?
• How do you feel about taking money from people for a practice such as this? Do you have reservations or conditioning that suggests you should be giving it away for free?
• How is your confidence level as a Reiki practitioner?
• What does your ego say to you about your Reiki practice?
• How does what you hear from your ego differ from what your higher self tells you about it?
• How do you resolve or reconcile those differences (between ego and soul?)

Clear-eyed self-understanding, intention, visualization, and action all need to go hand in hand in any endeavor if you want to be successful, especially a vibrational practice like Reiki. From this, you can create a mission statement as an energy healer and Reiki business.

Personal Branding Considerations
As a businessperson, you also need to develop a personal brand. Some things to think about:

• What's your brand?
• Who are you as a healer?
• What makes you a trusted authority?
• What experiences have you had that shaped you into a healer?

You need to know this and be able to communicate it with others quickly and succinctly.

• Do you have an "elevator pitch"?
• What's your USP (unique sales proposition)?
• Why should a healing partner come to you versus another energy healer?

You need to very clearly be able to state this USP in a short, couple of sentence, sound bite - but it also needs to be heartfelt, honest, authentic, and sincere. This elevator pitch is what you use in all of your marketing and networking efforts. You also need to convey that brand through things like logo, website, fonts, marketing materials, business cards, signage, etc.

Developing Marketing Strategies
Once you have your plan, intention, mission, and pitch in place, you need a multi-faceted strategy including friends and family, online, social media, local clientele, and B2B (business to business). Your outreach in each of these sectors will depend on your USP and business plan, but I can offer some suggestions that may spark an idea or two.

B2B Strategies
For a B2B  strategy, you can begin building your local pipeline by partnering with local yoga studios, wellness centers, etc. (teach classes tangentially related to energy healing, etc. or even an intro to energy healing).

• See if local naturopaths, wellness centers, yoga studios, chiropractors, massage therapists, etc. would be open to having a Reiki practitioner come in a day or two a week to offer services out of their office.
• Look for businesses with synergies to yours and reach out to them. Introduce yourself. Share your elevator pitch. Provide them business cards. Show them why you and your services would be a good fit for their clientele.
• Partner with a psychic medium or someone who practices another energy healing modality and see if there's a mutually beneficial way you can work together or mutually refer to one another.

Local Clientele
To develop local clientele, consider:

• Hosting discussion in-person or online groups about energy or energy healing (on Zoom works).
• Speak at local events.
• Ask for referrals ("It's such a joy to work with you, and I'm so happy to see how much Reiki has helped you. If you know of anyone else who could benefit from this, I'd be honored to work with them.")

Online
You'll need a good website that conveys your mission and vision as an energy healer, as well as your authority and know-how, your personal brand, and your USP.

• Create a pipeline to "capture" visitors through newsletter sign ups, etc.
• Consider the people who have signed up for your newsletters as precious; only reach out when you have something of value to share (it can be short articles, videos, coupons, etc.), and never abuse your list.
• With any sales or marketing outreach, also provide value such as a short article, an "affirmation of the week" etc.

Social Media
Maintain a regular social presence.

• Maintain separate personal and business SM pages.
• Only curate a presence on SM sites you're willing to keep up with. 
• As a business entity, start your own SM groups related to Reiki.
• Do things like guest blogs, podcasts (offer to be a guest - there are tons of podcasts out there) and more.
• Offer a free FB live class with a five minute Reiki share at the end and a coupon code for ___% off their first treatment.
• Offer exclusive treatment packages to your SM followers only (sign up for a package of 10 - save 20% or something like that).
• Share posts related to Reiki that your followers may find to be of value.
• Content doesn't strictly have to strictly come from you, and it doesn't have to be all Reiki all the time (but if you use someone else's content, do so only with permission). They can be memes, blogs or articles you found interesting, healing partner testimonials, etc.
• Share something of yourself on SM. While Reiki is a business, I find that there's a level of trust people have with energy healing practitioners they may not expect in other professional relationships. Therefore, share your authentic self with your SM followers. Tell them of your struggles (within reason) and how you solved those problems with Reiki, for instance.
• Always share with integrity, and if you share someone else's story, do so only with permission and always do everything you can to maintain confidentiality and protect private, personal information.
• Additionally, visit sites like Quora and answer energy healing related questions with authority.
• Make comments on blogs related to Reiki if you have something of value to offer to the conversation. 
• Establish yourself as an authority (know your business and Reiki inside and out), and always only answer questions you truly understand the answer to. Make yourself a trusted and authentic source.​

Friends & Family
With friends and family, be proud of what you do.

• When someone is struggling, offer to send them some distance Reiki (it only takes a few minutes - I have a large, rotating group of people I send distance Reiki to every night for about five minutes before I go to sleep). While these may not "pay" now, you never know who is going to become that essential healing partner and your biggest supporter and a referral source.
• Ask friends and family for referrals (if you feel comfortable doing so).

Being Authentic in a Helping Profession
I struggled with the business aspect of my energy healing and metaphysics practice for quite a while, but I shifted how I perceived the value of my services. Once I had the knowing of how deeply affected other people are by these practices when they partner with the right practitioner, I began to recognize the true value in the work I do. While it is a business for me, it primarily a mission, and the mission is the most important thing for me. The business comes because I have created the energetic (and emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual) circumstances to draw the people to me who truly need what I do. And if you're setting up your Reiki practice as a business, it's essential you do so from a place of authenticity and a true desire to make a difference in the lives of others.