ep010: Practitioner Spotlight: Better Clients and Steady Monthly Income With Julian Corwin

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In this episode, I speak with Julian Corwin about his journey into fitness and nutrition that lead him to quit his engineering job in order to start his own business as a movement rehabilitation specialist. We discuss the ups and downs of business, modalities, systems, and avoiding the freelancer trap.

About Julian Corwin:

After working as an engineer, Julian got into fitness and nutrition which lead to an injury within six months. After seeking help from a sports medicine doctor, a chiropractor, and a massage therapist and not seeing any results, he turned to Google, which is where he discovered an Active Release Techniques practitioner. After just a couple of sessions, he was pretty much cured. And so began his interest in the bodywork industry. He quit his engineering job to pursue training in the Active Release Technique. Today, Julian owns Santa Rosa Pain and Performance where he integrates various modalities in his treatments.

In this episode of the Business (R)Evolution Podcast:

  • Anatomy in motion
  • Active Release Techniques
  • PDTR, SFMA, NGT
  • Online appointments
  • Phone consultations
  • Client receptivity & belief
  • Initial consultations & assessments
  • Explaining the treatment plan & process
  • Client emotional & financial commitment
  • The freelancer trap
  • Scholarship models
  • And more!

Resources and links Joanna mentions in this episode:

Joanna Sapir is a business strategist and coach helping innovative wellness practitioners build more profitable and sustainable businesses. She's on a mission to build a movement of people creating a new vision and reality for our future as humans on earth.

Want to talk about how to grow your wellness business?
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Full episode transcript

[JOANNA SAPIR]

Welcome to the Business Revolution Podcast, where practitioners and coaches that provide services in health, wellness, and education, come to learn the business side of things like marketing, pricing, hiring, finances, all the things you need to streamline and organize your business, create steady and predictable income, serve your clients even more deeply and reach your full potential as a business owner.

If you are a skilled, experienced practitioner of your craft that has or wants to have a profitable and sustainable business doing the work you love, you’re in the right place. I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s get into this episode.

This is our final episode of season one of the Business Revolution Podcast. To wrap up the season, I invited practitioner Julian Corwin to join me. Julian is the owner of pain and performance solutions in Santa Rosa, California. In this interview, Julian shares how he became a body worker and some of the many different modalities he uses, what his business was like in his first few years, and what it’s like now that he’s implemented various aspects of the client champion formula through working with me.

You’ll hear about how his relationships with clients have changed, how his client results have changed and how his monthly revenue has changed. I hope this episode inspires you as a practitioner to see how you can build a business with committed high quality clients and steady predictable five-figure monthly income, even as a solo practitioner like Julian working just 12 to 16 client facing hours a week. In other words, working with a schedule that gives you ample time for your family and for yourself.

Now, one thing I just want to note before we get into the interview, you’ll hear that Julian and I are local to each other, and we’ve known each other for several years. He’s been a client of mine in both businesses I’ve owned and I’ve been his client as well over the years. So he mentions in the conversation of fire and that fire was the tubs fire here in Sonoma County, California in 2017. That was the first of what have now been yearly wildfires that have come into urban areas in California. The tubs fire specifically came into Santa Rosa where he lived and where his business is and burned thousands of homes including Julian’s. So that’s the fire that we mention briefly. Okay, let’s hear about Julian’s business, Pain and Performance Solutions.

[JOANNA]

Hi Julian.

[JULIAN CORWIN]

Hi.

[JOANNA]

Thanks for being here on the Business Revolution Podcast.

[JULIAN]

You’re welcome. Happy to be here.

[JOANNA]

I would love it, if you would share your backstory and how you came into body work, how you became the body worker you are.

[JULIAN]

So I was working as an engineer here in Santa Rosa for a company called Agile Technologies. While it was a great learning experience, I eventually started getting bored there as many engineers who, if they were listening to this, that understand that sometimes you get bogged down in bureaucracy and emails and less so the creative technical side of engineering. As a creative outlet, I started getting into fitness and nutrition. In that process, you go from like a sedentary desk worker to someone who’s lifting heavy weights and running. I got injured, I don’t know, few months into that process, maybe six months in and being an engineer, we solve a lot of our problems if we don’t have a textbook handy with Google. So we just Google all sorts of things.

I Googled solutions for my arm, it is my left shoulder mostly. I had also read, I think Tim Ferris’s book and he had mentioned Active Release Technique, but before I did all this Googling, I actually just went to my doctor first. Then I was referred to a sports medicine doctor, then I’m like, well, maybe I could try massage. Then I went to a chiropractor and nothing was really changing. Then the Googling and the Tim Ferris Podcast, I found an Active Release Techniques practitioner and like one or two sessions later, this shoulder, which had been bothering me for like six months and I couldn’t drive with this hand was like pretty much cured of its elements.

I could reach across my body, no problem and that blew me away because as, this is my friend Thomas, well, I want to give him credit. He’s my friend now, but he’s the guy who was working on me. As he was doing the work, I asked him questions and he told me what he was doing. It sounded very interesting. Like there was a thought process behind it. He was trying to figure things out as he was reading what my body was doing and I became intrigued. So the idea of like that there’s someone out there that could fix the body with the training that he had done, that just stuck with me and I couldn’t let it go. So I’d lay awake at night and be thinking I want to know more about this.

So I came up with sort of a plan. I started like coming up with a plan of how I’m going to leave engineering and start doing this work and one day I was nervous, but sharing it with my wife and like, I didn’t even get done with the whole sort of presentation if you will. She was like, yes, you should totally do it. I always had tons of support from my wife in this transition. But basically around the time we did some good planning around it too. Like my son around that time he was born, I went to part-time. Then I started taking the classes, going to massage school and really studying the human body.

Then from that point on well it’s been a long journey, like learning how to run a business, which you’ve been a big part of, but that’s how it started, how it first got me into body work. So I started off working in his office and then I started working in a club and then I eventually moved out into my own business. Only a small part of the challenges was learning the how to do the modalities and the fixing the body. A huge part of it was just like learning how to run a business and get clients and get the clients better.

[JOANNA]

Well, let me back up a little bit before you actually opened the business. So I met you in the midst of all that learning, correct?

[JULIAN]

Yes.

[JOANNA]

And you actually came to my gym that I owned. So that’s how we met for everyone to know. You mentioned right now, ART, but at this point you use a whole bunch of modalities. What are some of the modalities that you use?

[JULIAN]

So the three main modalities I would say is anatomy and motion, which is like working with the movement of the body. You can rehabilitate a lot of things just by exposing the body to some novel, some movements that are not novel, but it’s forgotten how to do in a sense. The pattern that it has forgotten is displayed in the person’s walk, in their gait. So that’s one modality. Active Release Techniques is definitely my soft tissue modality. Then the last and sort of the broadest and most complicated set of things I do have to do with neurology. The modality that initially got me into this was called PDTR. It’s not of great name, but it’s all about the pro-receptors of the body, circuitry and the brain and that sort of stuff. So those are the three main things I do. I have training in a number of others. I can get into them if you want, but, it’s a lot of word solid. SFMA NTKT

[JOANNA]

Yes. I mean, I want you to name them only because I think a lot of people listening also, well, you just did, but a lot of people listening also use a lot of different modalities. One of the things I want to highlight about how you work is how you are not separating them. You’re not offering a session of this modality. They’re all integrated into your services, right?

[JULIAN]

Well, and one of the things you pointed out to me was like, would a client know that they need neurology versus tissue? Maybe a practitioner like myself could go and be like, I know I need some of this, but even then I’m usually wrong because we can’t really see what we need ourselves very well. So yes, offering a session of this isn’t necessarily the wisest thing to do if your goal is to get the person as far along in the healing process, as possible in the shortest amount of time that you have together, which I think that should be everyone’s goal, if you’re actually in it to make people better. And monetarily, it will benefit you as well, because then you get referrals if you’re the more effective you are.

[JOANNA]

Great. So you’re getting into some of the business stuff. So back to the chronology, you spent quite a while, it sounds like at least a year learning your craft before you started on your own. I think it was even more than that. I think it was a few years, which is good, because you’re actually really good at what you do. I think it’s taken years to get that good. So what was going on in your business? You started your business on your own. You had been at the athletic club, you had been under in somebody else’s office and then you set out on your own in some way. So tell us what that was like and what was your business like at that point? You weren’t working with me yet. So what was it like?

[JULIAN]

Let’s see. Yes, I left the athletic club when basically the cut that they took was enough to justify expenses that that I could have control over. Also I had ideas of things I wanted to purchase. Anyways, long story short, I left the athletic club when I had a good client base, probably had seen almost a thousand people at that point with various problems. I felt really confident in my abilities to help people and then I was like, well, it’s time to strike out on my own. So I moved out and then actually a bunch of disruption happened all at once in my life at that point. So it wasn’t like smooth sailing, like move out, everything’s fine. All my clients follow me. It was leave the club and then fire burns down my house and then a whole bunch of chaos.

[JOANNA]

Just so people know, you literally mean fire. So we had the major fires in 2017, come through Santa Rosa and you’re one of the people who lost everything in that.

[JULIAN]

Yes. For a while it was like, I don’t really care about my business right now. I’m just dealing with the trauma of that and relocating my son’s school and moving all this stuff and buying new stuff and trying to find new home. So the business was like a back burner type of thing, but people were still looking for me for referrals from the old airport club. So I had this sort of business that was, but it wasn’t my main priority. So for a while there, it was on the back burner, secondary to these other life issues. I don’t know how much detail you want me to get into. Some of this is going to be fuzzy in my memory, but I was doing probably, I was doing decently well in terms of income, not as well as I had been at the club because I didn’t, eventually clients do fall off and they don’t refer enough to replace themselves.

So I think, forgetting exactly the timeline here at some point, you and I were talking again and you came into my office because I wanted to show you the space. I was, oh yes, so my business was ups and downs. I’d have like periods of time where I was overworking. I was like eight sessions a day or something like that and then periods where I was bored and there was not much to do. So I was in one of these, not much to do moments when, and I knew you had transitioned your business into helping people with their business and you came by and I think I asked you some quick, I’m like, Hey, I’m in a bit of a lull. If I had to do something really quick, if you had to like, give me a one minute speech or one minute idea to drum up some business, what would it be?

I forget exactly what it is, but you gave me some advice in it. I implemented that advice and quickly had like, I was busy enough again and satisfied. So that got me, that is another idea that got stuck with me. I’m like, oh, I should really work with Joanna and see if I can make things better. I also, I think obviously we were friends on social media and I saw some posts, things you mentioned. I’m like, yes, I would like that. I would like this. I would like to not worry of the highs and the lows. You were speaking to me basically. I think that’s how we started working together, something like that.

[JOANNA]

So in my memory, this must be, I mean, I think you initially were starting your own training and education in what maybe 2012, 2013. Is that about right?

[JULIAN]

I started, I left the company I was working for August, 2013. I had been studying the body, but only for like selfish purposes, nutrition and diet and exercise and then that’s when I entered massage school, took my first therapy class and just started really investing a lot of money and learning the modalities. But I didn’t, wasn’t really concerned about the business part. That was like in the back of my mind, like, oh, I’m just going to copy, whatever Thomas is doing. That’s the timeline of when things all started. Then I think I, and then 2017, so four years later is when I really struck out on my own. That’s after working at Thomas’s office, renting a space from him and then after going to the club.

[JOANNA]

Okay. So four or five years later?

[JULIAN]

Yes.

[JOANNA]

Cool. So we started working together and, let’s just fast forward and say, well, so you mentioned income being up and down. If I recall, like, yes, there were good months and then there were low months, but average was around 6,000 a month in revenue? Is that what I remember?

[JULIAN]

Yes.

[JOANNA]

Okay. All right, let’s fast forward to today. This is many years later, at least five years after that. It’s like 10 years, 10 years down the line from the very beginning of your journey. But just a few years after we we’ve been working together. So what is your business like now?

[JULIAN]

Income is pretty steady. Like there are some seasonal fluctuations, but between 10 and 14,000, 10,000 is pretty usual and then peaks around 14,000 a month

[JOANNA]

Let’s clarify and specify that you are a solo practitioner. You have no support staff, right?

[JULIAN]

Correct.

[JOANNA]

So just you. Then how many hours a week, or like, what are your business, how many business hours a week do you have?

[JULIAN]

I think on average, it’s somewhere around 16 to 20 a week of like clients, client facing. Sometimes it’s lower. Sometimes it’ll go down to 12. Sometimes it goes up higher to like 20 to 25 at most. But I think average is like somewhere around 16 or 18 hours.

[JOANNA]

Yep. Cool. I mean, I interrupted you, but what are some structures that you have in place that make it flow?

[JULIAN]

So now initially I started with clients just being able to book their own appointments online.

[JOANNA]

Then they’d purchase them that way too? They would book and purchase or they’d book, come in, and then pay?

[JULIAN]

Come in and then pay.

[JOANNA]

Okay, standard way that so many practitioners do it. So then that’s a scenario where if somebody cancels, you’re just out of —

[JOANNA]

Yes. Now they, if a client wants to work with me, they have to book a phone consultation and that’s 15 minutes of my time and it’s free. I ask them a series of questions then I hear about what problems that are going on with them. Then I give them a little explanation of what I do. This is all just to filter them out, make sure it’s a good fit, make sure that I’m excited to work for them and work with them and that they’re not too put off by some of the interesting things that I do. A lot of this body work is about receptivity, like how receptive are they to something? If something appears dangerous or outside of their beliefs or in some way, or it’s challenging their beliefs in some way, they’re not going to receive it as well. So I basically want to make sure that this is someone I can actually help. The phone call does a pretty good job of screening that. I mean, it’s not perfect, but like probably 90%, it’s a good screen.

[JOANNA]

So yes, this is part of the red velvet rope policy. So any long time listeners or listeners of the whole first season will know that this is part of the predictable sales system. So you have the in-person, brick and mortar version of that, that starts with this phone call and that’s a pre-qualification process. Just like you noted, it’s just as much qualifying them for you as it is you for them. So sure, you’re qualifying them, you’re identifying, is this somebody that I can really help? Is this somebody I want to work with? You’re also running stuff by them to make sure that they’re interested in proceeding and going forward. One of the questions I know that you asked that I love, and I talk to, I tell other clients about it as well, is that question about, do you believe that you can get better? Do you believe that you can heal, which you’re talking about right now, like the receptivity piece? It’s a great question and it’s not something you can ask out of the blue too. It’s like you have a process and then you get to that question.

[JULIAN]

Yep. So the explaining a little bit what I do. Then I go over the three domains, like we talked about earlier of how I work with people and then I’ll ask them, I’ll tell them I’m about to ask them some questions and I have five questions. Most people find them really easy, but even if they are easy, technically it’s also preparing them to adopt a mindset that then they start to think, oh, why did you ask that question and, oh, there’s something important about my belief. I think anyone who’s done any research on placebo effect and stuff like that would know that belief has a huge impact on how much we get better. So their belief needs to be in the right place, otherwise you’re wasting your time.

[JOANNA]

Yes. That’s awesome. So once somebody qualifies in that phone call, so then you’re inviting them in. So you still haven’t done an assessment or anything. That’s just to schedule the initial assessment?

[JULIAN]

Yes. So then the first, the initial consultation and assessment is like an hour and a half long. A big portion of it is me just explaining how it is that we’re working together. I set it up in such a way that, well, I don’t want to get too far into the details of the neurology and the big explanation which you’ve seen, but is like part of them and me are working together to solve another part of them. There’s a big explanation into neurology and the parts of the body that we’re going to be making changes to. Then I do a treatment on one of each of the three sort of domains we talked about, the structure, the movement of the body, the tissue, and then the neurology.

Then there’s two outcomes from that. Either they’re blown away. They’re like, whoa, this is, or they’re at least intrigued, “This is different. I do feel there’s a change or that this is a positive path forward,” or they’re confused, didn’t understand it, or it’s too challenging. Then we go our separate ways. And those are both good outcomes actually. There’s no bad outcome. If they went their separate way, then that’s a good sign that they’re not ready. Then if, obviously if they proceed with a treatment plan after that, then that’s great as well. I skipped some details in there, which I think you’re going to get to here, but some questions

[JOANNA]

I mean, not necessarily. I’ll just say that even though I helped you design all of this, I didn’t go through it myself as a client until just very recently. I loved your, I mean, I just loved in the assessment session, the explanations. That’s something that is so important for a practitioner to be able to explain not only what they’re doing, but why, and what’s needed. Like, so you are laying out the treatment plan for this client in that session and your explanation of this is part of what enrolls them, what gets their buy-in into saying, oh, yes, awesome.

So just going back to this thing about the modalities, like the modalities you use don’t matter at all. This is the place where you might name them if you want to. We do this, I’m going to do this and this and this, or you need this and this and this, and it’s called this, but that’s not ever what we’re leading with. We’re not saying you’re not getting people in by saying ART or whatever it is, PDTR.

[JULIAN]

I mean, sometimes people are looking for Active Release Technique and sometimes they find me that way. But the thing that actually sells them on working with me or sells them on working with me, none of that explanation involves the three letter acronyms of like ART and KT, any of that. It’s all far more detailed than that.

[JOANNA]

It’s more than the sum of its parts. It’s not simply three things put together. It’s what they are integrated with each other and that is part of what you bring. The way you do that would be different from how somebody else does that.

[JULIAN]

Oh, totally.

[JOANNA]

So that’s really, really important for practitioners to understand, the way you do it is your way and you need a way to explain that.

[JULIAN]

Yes, totally. I get this all the time. Like there might be a client traveling through or they’re moving and they’re like, how do I find someone who does what you do? It’s like, well, I can find people who have one of the trainings, things that I’ve done easily. I can find people who have maybe two and rarely, I can find people who have done three of the trainings. But even if they’ve done all the trainings that does not mean they will practice the way that each individual does because we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, biases, and beliefs and whatever. So I always just tell people, “Hey, I’ll find someone who’s trained in something that I do.” You try them out and see if it’s a good fit, but keep trying until you find someone that’s a good fit. Don’t just settle on the first person I gave you or whatever. That client practitioner fit, I think is very underestimated.

When I was, say beginning out as a body worker, all the teachers teach about the modality and obviously they’re teaching how great it is and how it’s the solution, but far more important to that is the solution of the fit, like you fitting to this other person. So in that part of the journey, it’s been a journey of like, oh, what am I like and how do I fit to other people? That do I like to work with? Interestingly, that’s had spillover effects in every way that I act with people even when they ask me about my business.

I used to be like, I’d share tons, like, “Oh, I do this, this, this.” I’d tell them, I’d ask them about their problem. I’d get all invested in it and interested. Then if they didn’t come to my business, I’d be disappointed. But because now that there’s a filter and all this other, I don’t treat, I never interact that way anymore. It’s like, if they’re interested, they can ask me, otherwise I’ve moved on to talking about something else. They got to prove it to me that they’re good enough to work.

[JOANNA]

So this is part of the sales process. It’s part of the predictable sales system. Let me just go backwards a little bit and say, you really, you’re speaking to when you’re talking about how that practitioner client fit, how important that is, you’re speaking to other people listening. I hope you all hear this. You’re also highlighting, I believe it’s episode eight, which is the magic tool to differentiate your services from others. Go back and listen to that if you haven’t already, where I talk about exactly this, what you bring is way more than just the modalities and just the training and background you have. What you bring is informed by all of you, your life experiences. It’s unique and you need a way. The way I teach people to do that is with a visual framework, but you need a way to be able to explain that.

And you’re speaking, Julian to then that filtering process. So then just to clarify for folks previously, you were on that session by session traditional people pay as they go, people pay as they go and don’t necessarily come back. So what is it like to have, so now you enroll people in the actual treatment plan that they need. I tend to call these programs, but in your case, it fits really well to call it a treatment plan. But for anybody listening, this is the same thing as a program when I talk about a program. What is that like for you as a practitioner to be working with people in that way?

[JULIAN]

It seems like a subtle, it seems like such a simple change, like you either session by session or selling them a plan of what they need, but it’s like, it has definitely been the biggest single change to my business I think that I’ve ever had and profoundly made the results better, which I didn’t expect at all. The reason is this, like, let’s say you’re selling each session individually. You perform the session, in a sense, they pay you for the session and then you book for the next week. Then at any point they can stop. They can cancel, they can lose faith in the process. So each session you have to bring your performance, your performative.

It’s not necessarily even real in the sense of true performance of getting them where they need to be. It’s an act that makes them feel good and makes them believe in the process for next week. That’s all you need them to commit to, is the next week. Whereas you got to begin with the end in mind, so you should., so like, I can start treating them when they have a treatment plan as if I’m trying to get them where they need to be after four, six or eight weeks. Not so that they feel better the next session. What if I’d actually need to make things worse for them temporarily?

What if I need to manipulate a joint that I know is going to possibly inflame them, but I know it’s the best thing for them? I wouldn’t maybe have taken that risk previously, because then they might be like, oh, it really hurt and so I’m going to cancel next week. Then I have all these, all the negative side effects of that. Whereas this, in the case that they’re committed, they already spent the money and they’re not necessarily going to be super upset if they do have a negative reaction for that temporary amount of time because they also know they’ve committed and it’s a process because they’ve done the act of committing their finances ahead of time, committing their time ahead of time.

[JOANNA]

Let me say, you’ve explained what the process is going to be. They know that. It’s not just totally random. That’s part of why they’ve committed themselves financially as oh, okay, I’m going on this journey here. This is the way for me to get what I’m after. So it’s not, it’s like the financial commitment is almost just the symbolic piece of really the emotional commitment to, here we go.

[JULIAN]

So it’s been such a relief. Like I don’t have to worry anymore. Once I’ve met the person gone through the assessment, given them my best honest opinion of what they need and they buy it, then my stress about that situation is over because then next time they come in, I open their file and I meet them right where they are. Then I perform the work as I’ve been trained and as I know or believe is going to result in the best outcome and then I’m done. It’s funny. I don’t know if it’s that I’m getting older or it’s this process, but I actually forget way more details about them now. Because this might be considered like a bad thing or something, but I think it’s, I’m less obsessive about them individually and about the work.

Before I would be thinking about their each individual case or maybe instead I’m just better now. I don’t have to, like, there’s not as many problems to figure out, but I do think there’s something about me not worrying about whether they’re going to stay my client. That makes me not obsess over them as much thus, I like, I can forget a little bit more. I write better notes now, but it’s interesting. Maybe I’m just getting older.

[JOANNA]

You’re really speaking to something important here, which is that, I call it a lot of times the freelancer trap or this mentality that whether or not we’re conscious of it, where we are, you’re calling it performative, which is exactly what it is, where we are bending ourselves to fit what we think somebody else wants in order to please them so that they will stay a client. It’s just like this removes all of that. This is about service. This is about helping them.

[JULIAN]

That bending is why you remember so much about them because you’re like fitting your, becoming the puzzle piece that matches their puzzle piece so you can remember every contour of them so to speak, not to, that’s a weird reference, but you get the idea. Whereas in this case it’s the reverse. They, not totally the reverse, but they’re going through a process and the process is much cleaner. There’s no weird boundary and there’s no, not so much these weird boundaries of expectations and stuff that are inherent. I mean, I think that’s part, it’s a big part of this sort of alternative. I see a lot of it in the alternative healing modalities, is weird.

[JOANNA]

Lack of boundaries?

[JULIAN]

Lack. Yes.

[JOANNA]

Can you talk a little bit more about your experience with that before versus after, because you’re totally right. I don’t talk about it that explicitly. Well, I do within with my clients, but I haven’t here on the podcast, but the boundaries issue where part of that wanting to please and perform for people means bending over backwards and often sliding people in to sessions when you were supposed to be at home with your family. Or coming out on a Saturday or Sunday when those are not work hours. That’s where I see it. Do you have experience with that before and after around the boundary stuff?

[JULIAN]

Yes, certainly, like discounting services. And I’m not saying I’m perfect at this. Like I still have a strong amount of sympathy for people who can’t afford to some sense. I try, but, it is like a tug of war within me; part of me wants to give a little, but most of me is like, no, you shouldn’t do that. But yes, someone, let’s say saying, I can’t afford it, do you work on a sliding scale? It’s the most recent question I got. It’s tough for me. I’ll sit there and think about it for like 10 minutes or craft a text and then delete it all and then rewrite it but in the end it’s, I guess in this stage of the business, I don’t have any reason to accept a lower price because I’m not desperate for another client. So I just tell them, I’m happy to refer you to someone else if the price is an issue. Then they usually end up finding the money for it if that’s really important to them. But they usually, you find out that if you hold your boundary that they can meet it.

[JOANNA]

That’s interesting. You and I never worked on a scholarship model, but, and I’ll do a whole episode on this in the future, but if there’s a particular population, so in this case it’s around just simply finances. If there’s a specific segment of the population that you want to serve and provide some discounted or scholarship type services too, there’s a way to build your business so that you do that. The main thing is that we want it to be objective. So it’s not because somebody asked, because like you just mentioned, those people have most of the time come back and figured it out. So that leaves, there’s so much gray zone and wobbliness around money, just everybody’s ideas of money.

So if truly there’s, you want to serve a population that is of a particular income, you want to identify what that income level is. Then actually create a process where they’re completing some application and you have scholarship money put aside just for those people. It means the rest of your business has to be funneling money into that. So it means your services are subsidizing, are priced so that they subsidize scholarships for a very particular people that you want, who are applying for that. So that’s a little nutshell of scholarship model, but we’re talking about those boundaries. The question I want to ask is what are you most proud of in your business?

[JULIAN]

This goes for body work in general, but I definitely wouldn’t trade how I’m working now for how I was working prior to this transition because this is just so much better. But what I love about my business is the engagement, that is helping someone sort through their problems is very meaningful and helping them have a better life is very meaningful and that when I’m working with them the time flies. So I don’t suddenly it’s time for the session to end. I think that’s a good sign you’re in a place of optimal meaning and engagement is when the time flies. So yes, that’s what I love about it. The second question was, I’m most proud of probably that thing that you saw. And this was like in the back of my mind for many years, the sort of, you had a name for this, but when I go on the whiteboard and I explain, and it’s a sort of dialogue —

[JOANNA]

Your framework

[JULIAN]

Framework, yes.

[JOANNA]

I call it your framework.

[JULIAN]

Dialogue with the client, explaining things, making sure we’re on the same page, getting the person basically from where they are to, so we’re together figuring the thing out. That whole explanation I’m very proud of and feel like it’s mine to some extent. None of it’s like there’s no copyright to it. But it was a creative process that I think in some ways came out of, well, it was born around the same time that you and I started working together and then it fit perfectly into the process. I think around the same time you and I working together, I spontaneously did the explanation, started doing an explanation like that with a client. Then I’m like, oh wait, this is really useful. Then it was refined with the processes that you taught me and then it fit together. So that’s what I’m most proud of for sure.

[JOANNA]

Yes. I will say having been, having gone through it as a client recently of yours, I mean it was even more profound because, like I said, A, I knew what the process was, but B I even know a lot of the ideas and concepts behind what you’re doing and still it’s really complex. The neuroscience stuff is really deep. So it’s like I have my own understandings and learnings around the nervous system, for example, but the way you were explaining, well, here’s how I do this and here’s why, and here’s what’s going on, it just so landed. So yes, you’re, I mean, it’s really, really cool. I just imagine if every practitioner could do that, how much could do that and could learn to truly be creating treatment plans and enrolling people in them that really are getting people results, just how much more success we’d have for each individual client and what change could be made sort of, I mean, this is me big picture, but globally.

[JULIAN]

It could be, it could be huge for sure.

[JOANNA]

Yes. Cool. So I just want to celebrate that you just bought a building for your business, so you just moved your business, you’re in a new location and you own that building now. Congratulations.

[JULIAN]

Thank you.

[JOANNA]

What else are you looking ahead at doing? Any other goals in the future for your business?

[JULIAN]

Hmm, that’s a good, I have some goals that we made back in the day that I would like to re-attain probably. Right now, the move to this building was so taxing and the remodeling was so taxing and everything that I’m coasting right now. Like work is probably —

[JOANNA]

Rest and recover time.

[JULIAN]

Yes. Health is probably priority number one right now, just like recovering and resting and work and family are well, family is two and work is probably number three, just like having good quality time with family right now. Then this place is settled in enough that the sessions go by just fine. So I’m going to coast for a bit. Then I think the goals would be more recurring clients that I really, really enjoy working with. I know there are some out there that because I’ve been busy I would like to continue working with them and I know they could still use it. But I’m not in any rush. That would be a goal. I think I will probably start to formulate clearer specifics on, in the future when I’m recovered and starting to get anxious to do more work and stuff like that.

[JOANNA]

Well, I remember your specific goals around the maintenance level programs afterwards. I totally remember them. So good stuff. Anything else? Anything else you want to say, Julian? It’s awesome to just hear about your business and thank you for sharing with our listeners. I hope that they’re inspired. Anything else you wanted to say?

[JULIAN]

No, I think this was great as it was like, one thing I love about having a good conversation is you discover things in it. I feel like we did that here, like, oh yes, that’s why that fit together. I didn’t even piece together how the creative process was being born at the same time that you were helping me create the business solutions sort of process and those how well those fit together. I didn’t even realize that until we just spoke about it. So I think that’s a good place to end for sure.

[JOANNA]

Cool. If anybody, even if they’re not local, wanted to learn more about you, where would they go?

[JULIAN]

Probably the best place is santarosapaintandperformance.com.

[JOANNA]

Okay. Thanks Julian.

[JULIAN]

You’re welcome.

[JOANNA]

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast and you want to apply what you’re learning here in your business, did you know that you can meet directly with me and ask me questions and get my help when you come to the Practitioner’s Business Round Table. The Practitioner’s Business Round Table is a free gathering for innovative practitioners that I host each month. We meet live via Zoom and when you sign up for a spot, you have the chance to submit your questions beforehand, to get them answered by me at the round table discussion. You can grab a seat for the next Practitioner’s Business Round Table, by going to joannasapir.com/roundtable. Let’s go deeper. Come learn more about how to build a fulfilling and profitable practice with long-term clients and stable income. I hope to see your face there.