This post may make a lot of web designers angry, but here goes. There was some discussion raised by a hypnotist looking for a webmaster to help put together a site. Thought I would make a separate post about this because, to be honest, I find it sad that there may be many talented and experienced hypnotists out there who are not establishing an internet presence, because they have the mistaken idea that it needs to be expensive or complicated. Or, they are under the belief that they need to teach themselves web design and HTML, and try to do it on their own, resulting in websites that scare people away. Or, they hire some cheapo freelancer who builds them a site that still looks like junk, and who is never around when updates need to be made.

Nothing against "webmasters", but websites are a commodity now. IMO, it makes no sense for a sole proprietor to pay someone (in both time and money) to design, develop and maintain a custom website when most just use their sites as brochureware. It's different of course if you run sites like the Banyan sites and launch major projects like this OurHypnoSpace, but most independent hypnotists surely are not at that level of need, esp. when they are starting up. I write this from the perspective of being (in my former life) the architect and lead developer of the world's largest business-to-business e-commerce site.

Relying on custom web development leads to the small business owner becoming very dependent on that designer as he/she holds the key to getting updates done, access to the server, etc. So many small businesses are left hanging when their webmaster turns out to have left town, or decided on a new career at Starbucks. It's depressing and makes people hate technology. Totally unnecessary hassle for most micro-businesses like hypnosis practitioners, who could do better in less time for free, using something like Wordpress.

Wordpress is known mostly as a blogging platform, but it really can be used as a very user-friendly content managment tool. With an investment of approximately $9 for a domain name, and a couple hours of learning how to add content, you could have a fully functional, professional looking website, that you can update yourself without knowing HTML, and without having to depend on some freelance webmaster to get around to it. In fact, most of your time may be spent on just trying to decide between which template you like best.

Most custom small-business websites I have seen are less professional than the average free Wordpress template. And the above-average Wordpress templates are completely adequate almost all of the time, and if not they can be tweaked by a more technical person.

This is a post from marketing guy Seth Godin where he also talks about this topic:
Memo to the very small

He suggests using TypePad (a different blogging platform), but the concept is really the same: It is silly for micro-businesses to spend time/energy on custom web development that usually results in websites that look like someone's nephew put it together. You can ignore the stuff he mentions about "Squidoo", that is a startup he is involved with promoting.

So, you may be wondering: why not just use these social networking sites like MySpace or this wonderful OurHypnoSpace as your main business site? Just my opinion, but these things are not really designed to be used as primary business sites. For one thing, there is uncontrolled third-party advertising on these sites. Also, because these sites are all about networking and user-generated content, there is a lack of control over what is presented to your potential clients.

I hope I have encouraged hypnotists who may previously have been intimidated by possible cost and complexity of setting up a website. It does not have to be that way at all! Angry responses from freelance web designers are expected, but I sincerely suggest they look into changing their career path (perhaps becoming hypnotists...), as there is very little future in developing websites from scratch anymore -- that is so 1990's!

 

 

Los Angeles, 2019:  This is a report of hypnosis sessions conducted on behalf of Tyrell Corporation.  Tyrell Corporation desired to identify android replicants within their organization.  The board of directors is concerned that replicants may disrupt celebrations surrounding the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the corporation.

After conducting group sessions organized by Tyrell Corp. Human Resources, several staff members were identified as potential replicant infiltrators (listed in attachment).  These individuals underwent further hypnosis sessions.  All were able to achieve somnambulistic state very easily.  Critical factor bypass was achieved via use of command words provided by Tyrell Corp. 

Replicants revealed intense anger towards their creator Dr. Tyrell, and a generalized bitterness and resentment towards all organic humans.  Difficulty was encountered when attempting to apply insight techniques.  Tyrell Corp. neuro-engineers have assured us that replicants (at least the ones which reached production status) have complete and total recall of implanted memories, therefore there can be no question about validity of their perceptions of the artificial events assigned to them.  This would imply that insight techniques would prove useless with replicants. 

Replicant feelings of anger towards Dr. Tyrell proved to be insurmountable; forgiveness was not achieved.  Dr. Tyrell's security detail has been notified of this potential threat. 

Exception is replicant "Rachael".  Based on hypnotic debugging of this unit's thought processes, we believe that it has ability to reframe experiences and thus generate new perceptions of past stimuli.  This unit appears to be able to re-program itself and experience "personal growth".  Tyrell Corp. engineers strongly dispute this, but we suspect that they are not revealing full capabilities of "Rachael"-model units.   

"Rachael" displayed an intense fear of spiders.  Initial sensitizing event involved observing mass of baby spiders consuming mother spider as a child.  Standard approaches proved successful in neutralizing emotions related to this event.  Afterwards, "Rachael" reported a feeling of lightness, and was able to observe holograph of spider crawling on her arm with no fear.

Recommend that these cases, with the exception of "Rachael", be referred to licensed blade-runner Rick Deckard.  Be advised that Deckard displays some indications of being an artificial form itself.

Conclusion: While androids may indeed be hypnotizable, it remains to be seen whether or not they are able to experience the transformational benefits of hypnosis.

Upon reviewing draft copy of above report, we are disturbed by certain logical inconsistencies.  We are concerned that the hypnotist operator may be experiencing some level of transference towards the replicant units.  We recommend that the hypnotist operator undergo sessions in order to neutralize any feelings of guilt.  We are also questioning whether the perceptions of the operator are being influenced by exposure to sim-stim programs from Sense/Net, as there are numerous similarities between the details reported and a popular fictional program from 1982.  We suspect that the operator may be confabulating the entire experience, and that the act of writing and reading this report may be leading the observer to participate in this delusion. 

=== 

There is some discussion about pricing for hypnosis services over on the Newbie Assistance group forums. Thought I would share a classic blog post "Camels and Rubber Duckies" from software developer Joel Spolsky. Spolsky was one of the lead developers of Excel at Microsoft in the early 1990's and now runs a successful software company. I think what he has to say in this article is relevant or at least thought-provoking to anyone who is thinking about pricing, in any business.

Since I'm a relative newbie to the hypnosis business I might as well try to contribute things that I learned from in the software development world.

Another favorite writer of mine is marketing guy (I refuse to use that word "guru") Seth Godin. He's always going on about "remarkable" ideas for businesses. The great thing about the hypnosis business is that there is a built-in remarkability about it!

Here is a recent post of his, that relates to subject of pricing, in its entirety: "Maybe the reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is... that you haven't given them anything else to care about."

Here are a couple of my favorite Seth Godin books:

Thought I'd share an unscientific marketing experiment I'm doing with using my website as a type of couponing.

First off, thank you Craig Eubanks for posting 7 Essential Direct Marketing Books For Hypnotherapists, which introduced me to "Scientific Advertising" by Claude Hopkins. It's amazing how a book about advertising from almost 100 years ago, has made me rethink the purpose of my website. It's one of the best (and shortest) marketing books I've ever read, no fluff.

Before reading this book, I had thought that coupons existed mainly to provide a somewhat cheesy incentive to get the reader to buy, and also to help track responses from campaigns. Hopkins, in 2 short paragraphs, made me realize that coupons are actually there to act as physical reminders for someone who would otherwise read an ad and naturally forget about it (even if they liked what the ad had to say and intended to make a purchase later). This may be "old news" to marketing pros but this insight hit my newbie mind like a ton of bricks.

I realized that I could do the same thing with my website, by adding a sentence like "Print out this page, bring it to your first session, and receive [a gift card/a free relaxation CD]".

This would provide an incentive for the reader to take 1 second and hit the print button. As easy as that, and my service would enter their physical reality through their printer, no longer just another website that they surfed through. It's like instantly delivering a brochure that will sit on their desk and act as a reminder (and they pay for the printing cost!).

Previously I thought of creating a coupon that just said "mention this ad" and get some kind of discount... but now I see that is WRONG! and misses the point of couponing.

I still think offering a straight discount via coupon for something like hypnosis service is cheesy, but if the incentive is a gift card to a bookstore for example, it could be presented as a way to give the client additional value by getting them to read a recommended self-help book of some sort.

I had seen my (very successful) plumber do the same type of "Print this page" thing on his website but up til now it never occurred to me that this was the underlying reason for this type of couponing.

In the short time I have been running this unscientific experiment, the results seem to be positive. Of course, there could be other factors at work. An interesting thing is that most clients do not mention the offer or ask for their "free" gift. This gives me the opportunity to remind them about it, leading to warm-and-fuzzy feelings all around. :-D

Thought I would post some of my favorite books that in some way relate to the work of hypnosis. I often give bookstore gift cards to clients as part of a special offer or discount, and if they ask for a recommendation, sometimes I mention these books (depending on their goals).

The Power of Now
I think this book gets to the core of how we help people with hypnosis - by helping them let go of the past by either reframing or forgiving the past, and removing dread and fear about the future. I love Tolle's idea that compulsive thinking about the past and future is a disease and at the root of many problems we create for ourselves.



The E-Myth Revisited
Great perspective on the dangers of running a small business and thinking you can just focus on doing the work of a "technician" (like a chef who starts a restaurant and thinks the business is just about cooking food). It's easy to see how that can relate to hypnosis practices.



Zig Ziglar Secrets of Closing the Sale
I like how Mr. Ziglar describes sales as being the "transference of emotion" from the seller to the prospect. Since we are hypnotists we should be great at that! For salespeople or advertisers it's essential to "get into the mind" of a prospect. Compared to vacuum cleaner salesmen, hypnotists have an incredible advantage of having clients expose their subconscious thoughts to us with no filter; and we can use that to get a useful understanding of what the market is thinking.



Think and Grow Rich
When I first read this all-time classic, I was surprised to see that it was basically about the power of the subconscious mind and using emotions and desire to shape behavior and therefore reality. It even has a section on Autosuggestion. Did you know: Bruce Lee followed the recommended steps in this book, including writing a statement to himself where he committed to his Definite Chief Aim to become the "highest paid Oriental superstar... I will achieve world fame... " We know how that turned out! There are also some extremely successful business people who give credit to this book, but c'mon, would you rather be the billionaire CEO of an insurance company, or Bruce Lee?



The Now Habit
This is a great book that I always recommend to procrastinator clients. Terrific insights into why people procrastinate and different ways of looking at yourself in relation to productivity. This is another book that has elements of hypnosis in it, but doesn't call it that by name. PS. Is it just me or are procrastination clients the most likely to be no-shows for appointments?



Goals! - Brian Tracy
This is another book that uses hypnosis (very evident in the audiobook at least), but never actually comes out and calls it that.



Total Money Makeover
Dave Ramsey understands that personal financial success is 80% attitude and behavior (the subconscious mind), not about math or interest rates (the rational/analytical). Check out the podcast of his radio show, where people call in with nightmare stories of getting into debt. Highly motivating and frightening at the same time. I like how Ramsey gets people totally fired up and fed up with the debtor mentality that is constantly being sold to us; car leases, student loans, credit cards, debt consolidation, etc. He's a powerful speaker; sometimes it almost seems like he is hypnotizing people so that they can't stand the idea of being in debt.



Secrets of Millionaire Mind - (Not to be confused with the dry but otherwise excellent "Millionaire Mind" by Thomas Stanley)   There is a line from one of Gerald Kein's scripts that always reminds me of this book: "Your picture of yourself determines your behavior." This book is about the differences in self-image and self-talk between people who have a poor vs. rich mentality (regardless of raw income). When Eker talks about the programming we allow ourselves to live by, and how Thoughts-->Feelings-->Action-->Results determines our lives, I think it has a lot of relevance to the work we do as hypnotists.



Feel free to suggest your own favorite books! For example, if a weight loss client were to ask about a book related to that issue, any ideas?