Now if youve read the E-Myth by Michael Gerber, youll know that loyal clients who come back and back dont just jump at you out of nowhere. To attract and retain clients who rave about your business, you have to be providing a technically great service backed by good business practices, all of which needs to be delivered with a smile.

In fact, Michael Gerber talks about in his book that the key reason most businesses end up failing is because the person who started the business was what he calls an excellent technician but not someone who is strong at understanding whats required from a business perspective.

And while things have moved on a bit from when Michael Gerber first wrote the book that in essence is still an incredibly true statement.

There might be much more business help available out there these days. There might be way more self help books, far more marketing seminars and business owners in general might be much more switched on in terms of whats required but in essence most people still get into business not because they want to OWN a business, but because they are incredibly GOOD at what they do and it just seems like the next logical step.

And thats where a lot of people are today. They become very very good at whatever service they provide, they want the lifestyle that can come with being self employed or a business owner and so they start their own business... a clinic, a practice, a salon, a spa, a mobile company... And then they realise if they want to make that clinic / practice / salon / whatever successful, they realise theyve got to master the business skills too. Because even if you are the most amazing therapist, coach, stylist, healer, therapist or practitioner in the world, you wont make any money if clients dont know you are there.

They cant book if they dont know your phone number. They cant buy anything if they dont know where you are or what your website is called. And they cant become regular clients if theyve never met you. Which means the amazing therapist who started the business ends up feeling as if they are wasting their time because the business isnt doing as well as they want it to.

So thats why Ive done so much work over the years on learning what works. I felt very much the same way. I was working so hard to get my clinic going, we had amazing service but noone was coming in. And I realised that while we could carry on giving the best service ever, it wasnt any good if I was going to end up bankrupt because we didnt have any clients coming in.

So I watched what the bigger more successful businesses were doing, adapted their strategies, copied them and then kept testing and refining them till I came up with a blueprint for running my business which worked.

And these strategies that I used in my first therapy clinic, Ive used again in other practices since then and in fact Ive even adapted the exact same strategies to use it in my current business today even though now I run a coaching business and membership site instead of the spas and clinics I used to run.

As Michael Gerber says, to get around the fact that most peoples key skill is their ability as a technician (or therapist or stylist or coach for many of you on the call), and they are in new territory with the business side of things, they need to find systems that work, adapt them to their business and then apply them over and over again for guaranteed success.

Some questions to think about... What about you? Where do your key skills lie? Is it in the technical, service side of things or is on the business side? And what do you need to learn to move your business to where you want it to go?