One of the best things about working for yourself is that you can let your best professional judgement prevail when it comes to handling a client, without ever having to ask anyone's permission, or justify it later to a skeptical manager or boss who doesn't even understand what you do!
This even stretches to the matter of whether to charge for a session or not.
Now, obviously, a private professional hypnotherapist charges for their sessions! As a general rule, you might say we always charge, because we are providing our time, best efforts, experience and specialist knowledge, and as this is still fairly uncommon knowledge it doesn't come cheap. But there are odd occasions when something unusual occurs, and I might choose to bend the rules a bit:
"Hi Chris, It's Bek. I came the other day for hypnotherapy help with anxiety and anger issues. I was just wondering if how I feel now is normal. I've been feeling very irritated and don't feel any calmer. Does it take time to work?"
Well, no! Not normally. And didn't Bek phrase that very politely, since it's pretty obvious that "feeling very irritated" and not any calmer would lead most people to assume they had wasted their money, rather than wonder "if how I feel now is normal"! Bek has obviously been 'brought up proper', as they say... but anyone with anger issues would obviously be simmering under this well-managed surface. Human nature, isn't it? So I responded:
"Hi Bek, Something is obviously blocking the usual response, you shouldn't be feeling like that! You need to come back so I can investigate. No charge. When are you free?"
Wait, WHAT? No charge? She wasn't expecting that! Why on Earth would I do that? Well, just look at the next message:
"Hi Chris, just letting you know that I haven't had any anxiety, IBS or migraines since I had my second session with you. I'm so happy! Thank you so much for helping me, it's made my daily life much easier to handle. Thanks, Bek."
She's SO HAPPY. That's usually the outcome of hypnosis session one. But if it's not, there is always a reason, and it can often be fixed... but do you think there would have ever been a session two if I had tried to charge her for it? Even if there had, what kind of a mood would a person with anger issues be in, during that second session? Mood affects outcomes in hypnotherapy... and a suspicious, resentful mood (or any negative mood) could have blown it altogether!
I want my clients to go away happy, and say nice things about Central Hypnotherapy, and hypnotherapy generally, because that's worth far more than the fee for a single session. It's just good business, good client care, because I know - even though the client wouldn't - that some of the greatest successes don't actually happen in session one. Nearly all of them do, though, so I can afford to bend the rules a bit if that's going to make everyone happy in the end. more about this
Some of you may be wondering why the second message from Bek mentions IBS and migraines when the first message didn't. Well, it's because we ended up dealing with all those things, but that was how she happened to write the messages, and I can only ever quote them exactly as they were written, so... looks slightly odd but we fixed everything, so everybody's happy!
If you'd like to be SO HAPPY but you've got problems with anxiety, anger, IBS or migraines currently preventing that, why not give me a call on 0161 474 8120 (Office Hours), or call/text any time, any day on 07748 838 644 any day, any time.
Consultant Hypnotherapist Chris Holmes is Director of Central Hypnotherapy and has been helping the people of Stockport, Cheshire, Manchester and Tameside to get rid of anger and anxiety issues since August 2000.
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