Horses are growing in demand for personal and professional development - mostly because more and more humans are shifting into getting help in their personal and professional journey. The demand for mental health professionals and the short supply of them leaves overflow in the coaching and learning space. Coaching became the second fastest growing industry in the US, second only to IT during the pandemic.
How can you, the equine assisted professional, capitalize on this growing trend and build a sustaining business?
I have been working with equine assisted professionals for over a decade in getting their business with horses established and matured. Getting your business where you want it is simple, but sometimes not so easy.
Why?
Equine assisted practitioners have a love for horses and helping humans. The power to heal and grow through horses is obvious to all of us in the business. The problem is that the rest of the world does not see this so easily, mostly due to misconceptions and ignorance around horses and the lack of effective marketing.
This leaves you, the practitioner, charged with making that connection for the horses.
Making that connection requires new learning on your part. Learning about marketing, business acumen, and yourself. I realized early on that mindset in business, money and about oneself overall matters more than the strategy established to build and grow the business.
You will promote and market your business only to the level you are comfortable doing so orto the level you are comfortable being seen. This has NOTHING to do with the horses and the power they are already bringing to the arena of your work, but it certainly impacts the amount of work you garner.
Here are some quick tips to consider in growing your equine assisted business:
One key to your business growth is your own personal growth. Work on you. Grow you and watch your business grow. I keep a coach or three along with the occasional therapist much of the time to continuously check myself in areas where I catch myself playing small.
Marketing and business acumen are skillsets you can learn. Marketing is not creating a flier about your weekend workshop, sending an email, calling the HR department about it, posting it in the coffee shop and hoping it populates. Hope is never a good marketing strategy.
Marketing is not advertising. Advertising is a piece of marketing. Buying social media ads without the foundations of marketing in place is like setting fire to your hay supply.
When it comes to pricing, another marketing foundation, calling another facility and asking what they charge for a weekend workshop so you can establish pricing of your own is not fair to you or your horses because your value proposition is different than the other facility's offer.
You want to gain clarity about who you want to serve with the horses - specifically. Your niche matters.
The people you want to serve + The specific problem they have + The specially branded process you and the horses bring to solve that problem = YOUR NICHE. This is not a demographic. There may be a demographic that emerges in your niche.
What is your brand? Your brand = the promise of the experience. Your logo is not the brand. Your logo is informed by your brand. Brand and niche go hand in hand...like peas and carrots.
Finally, creating content can create so many conundrums because many have a tendency to overdeliver and undercharge. A common plight in our business. The thing to remember is that horses bring much greater value than the average personal and professional growth offer.
Consider the results your ideal client is seeking and the steps you take with the horses to get them to that result. This informs the packages you create and the pricing you set in.
While I am talking about results...that is what you need to talk about in your marketing efforts. People care about results and not so much about the process that will get them there.
If you'd like to learn more about making the connections in your business, join me live at the upcoming Six+Figure Framework To Find Freedom & Flow In Your Equine Assisted Business Master Class. April 10th at 5pm CT / 6pm ET. Reserve your seat here.