[Greekgirl]

Taken from: www.Dolfzine.com

A semi-serious look at the application of the psychology of persuasion in the fitness and health market.

NOTE FROM THE THREAD POSTER: as this is a semi-serious/fairly caustic look at said market, you should keep this in mind while reading it and try to see the humour of it.

Editor's Note: This form of deception takes place in all forms of therapies. In the New York University medical school, there is a doctor who has a 100 success rate with back problems. What is his secret? Intensive Screening. He takes on no patients who have a physical ailment that can be detected through an ex-ray or any other diagnostic machine. He has appeared on numerous talk shows with "the answer" and has received numerous grants. The only fault: his program does not work for people with genuine back problems.


If it is true that, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free", what do we say to those who believe what is either patently false or so far removed from reality as to be intellectually dishonest?


Many will continue to be duped because the practitioners of these
types of deceptive arts rarely report their failures: their glowing claims and testimonies on endless lists of websites creates the impression - that such methods are invariably successful, when the opposite often is true. It is well known that as little a success rate of 25% is sufficient to keep any alternative therapist (or fitness instructor) in business because failures often are attributed to individual idiosyncrasies.

Furthermore, research indicates that at least a third of those success stories are due to psychological reasons, and the same sort of figure for those who will heal without any therapeutic intervention. So, while the persuadable mind and the self-healing body exist, even the most dubious practitioners or coaches will continue to flourish.

Now let us take this analysis and turn it into something very positive for anyone who wishes to learn from these successful business folk who sell their therapeutic (or fitness) wares:

ADVICE FOR THE NEW AGE THERAPIST OR INSTRUCTOR


Anyone can run a successful and very lucrative New Age therapeutic or fitness business if you:

1. Obtain some training in any of the healing or fitness arts, irrespective of its origins, philosophies, validity or methods

2. Learn excellent marketing and managerial skills (many chiropractic courses offer very useful input on this, as compared with what is taught to doctors and physios)

3. Become a good, empathetic communicator who listens well and makes the client feel safe, special and convinced. Remembering their birthdays and anniversaries with cards can help a lot.

4. Handle any problems by attributing them to "individual differences", insufficient time, patient stress or excessive physical exercise or reinjury processes (if the client is an athlete)

5. Apply the hands and move the body in a confident, soothing and reassuring manner, because this alone can promote or initiate the healing process. If you are not touching the athlete, then deliver your instructions in a similarly convincing manner.

6. Fill your walls with testimonials or leave albums lying around which contain details of your successes. If you can locate some well-known film star or pop musician whose sore back you have successfully massaged to relax, or muscles you trained for only one weekend, you must use a signed photo from that sort of person for mounting on your wall.

7. Decorate your office walls with impressively framed certificates of every conference, course and workshop that you have ever attended

8. Place official-looking initials behind your name - the more the merrier -- if you haven't completed any genuine higher-level degrees, then simply create your own impressive-looking initials for some abstruse qualification or another. Use these qualifications and claims to make your business cards as impressive as possible.

9. Produce a professional website and brochure which contains every claim and testimonial that you can rake up and make frequent use of highly sensational, emotive language to sell what you have as "the greatest" and "the latest". You can be sure that most people simply are too busy to query what you claim, so that you can often "get away with murder."

10. Give discounts to any clients who successfully recommend more clients to you (give these clients plenty of business cards to hand out).

11. Have a repertoire of several different methods of treatment or training available to use, because one of them is sure to use if the others don't (e.g. if you rely simply on 'manipulation' or trigger point methods, these will not be as physically or mentally as successful as also using massage, stretching, "energy methods", water therapy, relaxation methods, acupressure, 'mobilization', "Rolfing", "Therapeutic Touch" and the usual collection of other such methods). Similarly, in personal training, emphasize the importance of variety and different routines - at least one of them sometime is sure to produce some results for the average client.

12. Apply pseudoscientific or approximately scientific tests and impressive jargon to convince your clients that you really know something. Remember that anything which looks technological like an impressive set of skinfold calipers, blood pressure devices, 'Palm Pilots' and computers makes quite an impression on non-technological clients.

13. Use "power words" and eye contact with powerful emotional impact to help elicit any favorable psychological climate for enhancing healing or physical progress (many books are available on this topic).

14. Spend some quality time with your clients - look attentively at them, sympathize with them, show a genuine interest in their every ache and pain, use your voice competently, never pontificate - in fact, do all the things that many in the medical profession rarely offer to patients and you can hardly go wrong!

15. Make your facilities look as impressive as possible - note that a
computer, anatomical charts, technological toys, training machines,
acupuncture charts, dermatome charts, and the like are fundamental items to be placed in your business.

16. Have at least one well stocked book shelf filled with books on relevant and impressive topics. Always throw in some books on modern physics, quantum mechanical healing, Chinese healing arts, philosophy, genetics, clinical nutrition, sports injuries, patriotism, the National Geographic, Space Medicine, the Great Musicians, the Great Artists, Metamagical Themas, Caesar's Gallic Wars and suchlike, just to show how eclectic and intelligent you really are -- even if you have not or cannot read them. Reproductions of Hippocrates, Einstein, Madame Curie, Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Paracelsus or Florence Nightingale on the wall wouldn't hurt, either.

17. Casually drop into conversation names of well-known public figures whom you may even just have visited you or with whom you have worked in even the most trivial manner.

18. Offer special package deals for regular visits, realignments and
"tune-ups". Always create the impression that the body, like a car, needs regular check-ups, service, special new training methods and refueling. Try to link your packages to those of sympathetic other therapists, doctors, athletic trainers or coaches.

19. Talk positively about what you do to every person whom you meet and spent a few minutes with.

20. Talk widely about how limited allopathic medicine is or how mediocre methods used by other coaches are and how many forms of "complementary" or "alternative" healing like yours are being shown "scientifically" to help. Always cite the failures of allopathic medicine and the cases that doctors bury, and cite the successes of your type of therapy or training.

21. Avoid working with people who have serious chronic problems or who are already top athletes because their status is more likely to deteriorate than improve and this can be very bad for your business.

22. If you are not enjoying much success with any clients or if any clients are really difficult personalities, refer them to other professionals by stating that "Coach or Therapist A specializes in your sort of case and really should meet your individual needs extremely well." In this way, you rapidly distance yourself from someone who can only lower your reputation and your professional colleague might well be happy for the extra business.

23. Never run down another professional but, if ever asked your opinion of anyone else, simply say, "She has some interesting methods or ideas", "He has very successful business" or "Yes, I read some articles of his in Muscle and Fatness, etc.". In that way, you defuse any encounters and you are not compromising your beliefs about how silly their methods actually are, because you have said nothing that is not true.

24. Throw some comments into your discussions about "Russian", "Chinese" or "Eastern" secrets because the West currently seems to accept a lot of non-Western material folklore as fact.

Many more could be added, but this short list should help all neophytes -- happy hunting and many happy clients!

Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://*************.com/group/supertraining/
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Dr. Mel Siff is a sports scientist and biomechanist with a PhD in physiology (specializing in biomechanics), MSc (in Applied Math) awarded summa cum laude in brain research and other degrees in physics and applied math. He lectured for over 30 years in the mechanical engineering and linguistics departments at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and competed in Olympic weightlifting, karate, trampolining, cricket and track-and-field. His textbook, "Supertraining" is one of the most definitive books in serious strength training to have been published, and his popular Supertraining strength and fitness online discussion group has already become an institution on the Web.