We highly recommend checking out this article from our Summer 2019 issue, in which Dusty Staub and Cliona O’Hanlon outline how to embrace the art of fearless, inspired leadership.
business
Not seeing Facebook updates from pages you really do like? We’re here to help.
See What You Want to See in Your News Feed
Elva Carri, Digital Detective
Facebook always change things just when you’ve gotten used to them don’t they? Recently, I realised there were a lot of Pages I’ve ‘Liked’ that I wasn’t seeing any news from. I frequently ‘Like’ pages on Facebook from small businesses, musicians, creatives etc. that I’m not necessarily going to hear news about anywhere else. So I did some investigating. I even put on my special detective hat to ensure I’d get to the bottom of it all.
As it turns out, Facebook changed how Pages work again. One used to be able to hover over the ‘Like’ button for the page, and then select ‘Show in News Feed’. This is now gone. So how do you stay updated with the pages you want to be updated by? There are two solutions. We’ve shared both below so that you can see more posts in your feed if you want. Obviously we would love if you did this with our page, but we’ll also be really happy if they help you with your own Facebook Page or you share it with other small businesses etc. that could benefit from sharing it with their fans too.
1. Interact and Engage More
If you visit the Page, make sure to Like some posts and comment etc. a bit and try to do this over a few days. If you’re missing out on updates from numerous pages, this could be a time-heavy task. Something I’m not a fan of. I am lazy, or as I like to call it, ‘efficient’, so I found another option – Interest Lists!
2. Or Create an Interests List (The quicker option for multiple pages)
1. Visit the page you want to see posts from in your feed and hover over the Page’s Like button. In the image below you’ll see that an option pops up to ‘Get Notifications’, ‘Add to Interests List’ or ‘Unlike’. Getting notifications can be a little bit of a bombardment if a page posts a lot, but it might work for you. If not, select ‘Add to Interests List.’
2. You can see one I made earlier in the below screen shot. You will probably be selecting ‘New List’
3. You’ll see this pop up window. If you want to add other pages you’ve Liked, this is a good time to do so, rather than visiting them all individually. Just click in to Pages, Following, etc to select them. Then click ‘Next’ in the bottom right hand corner.
4. Give your list a name. And choose privacy settings for it. And click done!
Now you’ll see this list of interests appear in the column below your profile pic when you’re ‘Home’ on Facebook.
Bonus Step: Hover over the list and you’ll have the option to ‘Edit’, you’ll see a little pencil icon. Click it and select ‘Add to Favourites
Now this list will appear right up at the top of the column. What’s even better is that although it looks like you will have to click in here especially to see posts from these pages, what actually seems to happen is that Facebook now recognises you really do like these pages and their posts start showing up in your general feed more often! Brilliant.
Making Business a Pleasure with MiStudio Software
Barbara Carolan, or “Babs” as she is more affectionately known, set up ‘Yoga Boaan’ along the beautiful banks of the River Nanny in Co. Meath.
After years of teaching in Dublin, she wanted to make quality Yoga classes available to the people of Meath and Louth. She succeeded and provides a full weekly schedule of friendly, mixed-level, heated, Vinyasa flow classes.
“One of the most positive aspects is the personal touch and the fact I can offer cheap rates…people are struggling but I encourage them to come. Some barter, some bring eggs, some do my nails, others pay me 5 euro, others go free but I have built up a community spirit and people enjoy that. That’s what I wanted.”
Babs’ most recent addition to her studio has been to incorporate MiStudio Software to manage her business. “Even though it’s not a corporate or really busy studio, I use MiStudio Software to help me be more professional and to prompt my memory on people’s names when they enter the Studio! I chose it because it’s an Irish company, it’s user friendly and it’s affordable.”
Gary Corley, a practising Yogi who has visited India several times, developed and launched MiStudio after seeing how much time is spent on the organisational side of businesses like Yoga Boann. He launched MiStudio to allow all sizes of studios, even smaller ones, to focus on the yoga and the teaching, and let the software run the management and organisational side.
Finding the whole picture in more than one place
Picture this… a confident 19-year-old approaches a landlady who had a shop premises for rent. He had no money, no stock, no fancy business plan, just an overwhelming belief that if he could open a business in the space it would all work out. The landlady said “Yes” and the first 24-hour supermarket in Dublin was born.
Since then, David Ellis has opened and managed many businesses, shops, restaurants and hotels. The journey has been an interesting one with many successes, some failures, and a few twists along the way. His work as a personal trainer brought him into the realm of the physical, and taught him the importance of nurturing our bodies as a support for all the other work we do. When his father died, the path took another twist as David commenced his spiritual journey and discovered hypnosis, crystals, colour therapy, etc.
Now life is about balance. “I’ve realised that everything in the entrepreneurial world is not the whole picture, and having spent 14 years in the spiritual world, that’s not the whole picture either.” Today, for David, life and living is about employing all the tools he has gathered, and using those tools with integrity and without attachment. His work in Atlantis Crystals is about coaching people to reach their full potential for themselves, their relationships, their businesses and careers.
“In order to succeed, we need to have joy and happiness in our lives, but sometimes we need someone objective to help us see what we cannot see in ourselves.”
Staying positive and staying in business
We are a multi-disciplinary venue with over 50 individual holistic businesses working together under the same roof. We care. We try to help our clients using our various trainings. We make mistakes. We have our good days and our bad. We are only human too.
Sadly one of our founders passed away this year, and although we are tinged with sadness, the support and kindness of everyone here created something more than can ever be expressed. Our clients, our students, our society, we all have challenges to face, but the Dublin Holistic Centre is very lucky to be thriving.
The buzz of South William Street in Dublin bodes well for us, the wide selection of therapists bodes well for us, the standard of our teachers bodes well for us, but in truth: we are worth more as a whole than the sum of our parts.
As a practitioner, you choose this field because you care, because you want to help, and when you multiply that by 50, it is so much more than just a workplace. This year we shared empathy, hugs, kind words, patience, grief and hardship. We became friends.
Of course we must still be accountable, but if you can become more than money, become more than marketing… The DHC works because we became more than just a business.
The Apple Farm in Tipperary was set up in 1968 when William and Ali Traas moved from Holland to grow apples. At that time a lot of Dutch farmers left Holland, as there was not enough land to farm.
In the early years in Ireland, the family grew many crops, including fields of flowering tulips and vegetables such as peas and brassicas. However, the flavour of the apples here was spectacular, and the farm came to specialise in fruits such as apples, pears, plums, strawberries, raspberries and cherries, most of which are sold directly from a shop on the farm.
When Con Traas took over the farm in the 1990’s, he began making apple juice, which became an instant success, thanks to the unusual collection of apple varieties from around the World that were grown on the farm. The juice won awards on a regular basis, including the Bridgestone Award, which has recently been received again for 2009, the best European juice in the UK National Fruit Show competition, and a Blas na hEireann silver medal just last October.
Con has for a long time been interested in traditional and natural medicines, and he had often been asked by farm shop customers why he did not make a cider vinegar from his apple juice. So about ten years ago he began on the slow process. Cider vinegar takes a long time to make and mature, and Con’s oldest stocks have been ageing in oak barrels for the last eight years. “It’s worth the wait” says Con, “when you see the quality of the end product.”
“Cider vinegar has been recommended since Hippocrates used it, and probably for much longer” continues Con, “It has antibiotic properties and is also said to ease arthritic pains, along with many other beneficial properties. I have horse trainers and dairy farmers who come to buy it in bulk as they really find it beneficial for the health of their animals.”
The good news about the health-promoting effects of Con’s produce does not stop with the cider vinegar however. According to a study published in the latest January 2009 edition of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, two glasses of apple juice each day can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
Thomas B. Shea, PhD, of the Center for Cellular Neurobiology & Neurodegeneration Research, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and his research team carried out a number of laboratory studies demonstrating that drinking apple juice helped mice perform better than normal in maze trials, and prevented the decline in performance that was otherwise observed as these mice aged.
In the most recent study, Shea and his team demonstrated that mice receiving the human equivalent of 2 glasses of apple juice per day for 1 month produced less of a small protein fragment, called “beta-amyloid” that is responsible for forming the “senile plaques” that are commonly found in brains of individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Shea commented that “These findings suggest that regular consumption of apple juice can not only help to keep one’s mind functioning at its best, but may also be able to delay key aspects of Alzheimer’s disease and augment therapeutic approaches.”
Since this study was publicised on Sky News, Con says the response has been unbelievable, and that his juice sales have almost doubled. He says he is delighted as it will enable him to expand and provide more secure local employment, both in growing the apples and making the juice.
The shop at The Apple Farm is open all year round 7 days a week from 8am to 6pm. The farm is located on the main N24 (Limerick/Waterford road) between Cahir (6km) and Clonmel (9km). Juices, jams and cider vinegar are available to buy online at www.theapplefarm.com and in selected retail outlets.
Phone 052 744 1459
Client Attracting Secrets offer you 3 simple goals. To get more clients, make more money and have more time off to enjoy it all!
By Siobhan Guthrie and Kieran Haughey
I have to be honest, when people talk about being a complementary practitioner, rarely do they consider themselves to be in business.
Let’s face it, as practitioners, we are driven more by helping others than making millions. In fact we’ll often hear “money’s not important”, especially when it comes to deciding what you’ll charge!
Isn’t it true that when we started our holistic training we never really thought we’d need to know how to market ourselves, how to place an advert, how to start running our practice like a business? Sure wouldn’t clients just love what we did, and keep coming back? And our business would easily “grow” by word of mouth. If we are just really good at what we do, then we wouldn’t have to worry about all the yucky “big business” stuff.
For most of us, there is a real calling to help as many people as we can. And that’s the catch 22 – can I give up my “proper job” to dedicate myself to full time practice in the therapy that I love?
Because to take that big step from part time to full time, we need to have a steady stream of clients already seeking our services. And many practitioners struggle to find an easy way to do this on a consistent basis.
So why it is that so many GREAT practitioners struggle to grow their practice and eventually give up? At the end of the day, all we want to do is treat more people. But by not knowing how to market your practice and treat it in a more business-like manner, growth is more difficult. All businesses need customers. Favourable word of mouth is just one way (albeit a very nice way) to get more customers. And it needs to be nurtured with our 3-step system!
Is it your dream, like so many practitioners, to go full time? Why is it that for 80% of practitioners this may never be a reality?
For some time now, I’ve wanted to help practitioners build their practice by getting more clients. I’ve been running my own clinic and holistic school for over 10 years and learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t.
This is the year that I’ve finally found a way to fulfil this dream. With the magic of the internet and the wide reaching possibilities it allows, I’ve set up a site specially to support holistic practitioners like you, called ClientAttractingSecrets.com.
This site is dedicated to helping you with the tools you’ll need to build your practice. And more than tools, we’ll help you to think differently about your practice. Your clients will thank you for it!
Some of the things planned (as well as the usual helpful tips and advice to implement immediately):
- we will be holding master classes on how to write your brochure,
- what to charge for your treatments,
- how to ensure you always have clients,
- and much much more.
So, if you are interested in making more money from your practice, but confused as to where to begin, join me, Siobhan Guthrie, and Kieran Haughey at ClientAttractingSecrets.Com and order your FREE copy of our CD “the 11 biggest mistakes that practitioners make when promoting their practice … and how YOU can avoid them”.