Tentacles.

The problem with being self-employed is the difficulty with getting your name known. I've done a couple of health/beauty/psychic fairs, which I think is helping. I love doing them though, so it's not the end of the world if they don't help. The thing is I know I'm good at what I do. I just don't know how to let the everyone else know.

I've tried advertising through the Kings Hill Directory and the Yellow Pages. KHD was quite good, but it was too expensive to keep up without getting enough people coming back to me from it. I needed one treatment a month simply to pay for the advert, and another to cover the overheads of the first treatment. Yellow Pages was a nightmare. It cost a fortune, and I was plagued with phone calls from other companies trying to sell me more advertising. Not a single person so much as looked at my website with an interest in what I do.

The problem with holistic therapy is that people don't look in the usual places for it. If you want to try reflexology, say, you don't turn to the Yellow Pages straight away. You ask your friends whether they can recommend someone. They give you a business card, and you find your therapist that way. Hands down, the best way to do it. This means that the way I need to get myself known in the area is... to be known in the area. Pants.

My new way of thinking is that I want to get people through the door. I don't mind not making money at first, as long as I'm not losing any.* After all, I'm not making any money now. I'm thinking about offering discounts to local businesses who want to send their employees along in their lunch hours, and having offers on particular therapies to get people to try something new. And I've got a couple of beauty/health/psychic fairs lined up, which are always good opportunities for mingling. Basically, it's time to get my tentacles out as far into the community as I can.

*Successful advertising doesn't count as losing money; that is investing. Unsuccessful advertising on the other hand...