Show Notes
Kathy started out in an acting career, but after losing her mother at 18 years of age, she was inspired to enter the healing professions. Kathy’s primary work is as a massage therapist, but she also incorporates hypnotherapy and alternative health consultations into her sessions with clients. In the interview, Kathy also talked about several books she has written and how she speaks at conferences around the USA.
Highlights from the Interview
[01:43] Kathy introduces her work – She is a private medical massage therapist and hypnotherapist. She also does writing, lecturing and has been a part of a government project working on stress reduction for the military.
[02:30] Kathy talks about her book about health and wellness called The Journey of Healing, which was released last year and is available on her website and as a paperback and eBook on Amazon.
[03:21] Kathy talks about her initial interest in studying theatre. After losing her mother to cancer at 18 years old, she was influenced by a masseuse who came into the theatre. This masseuse inspired her to enter the healing professions.
[05:02] Kathy explains how writing books and articles as well as appearing on the radio has increased her audience.
[06:43] Kathy talks about how originally pursuing a career in acting helped her with the public speaking aspect of her business.
[07:47] Kathy recounts starting to study massage full-time and starting her own practice. As her clients began to ask her more about health, Kathy decided to undertake further education. She now has a Ph.D. in Natural Health and a Hypnotherapy Certification.
[09:43] Kathy says that most of her revenue is generates through her massage private practice and that she doesn’t make a lot from her public speaking or her books yet.
[10:54] Kathy explains how she offers massage at her practice but that her massage work is often accompanied by hypnotherapy and health consultations.
[12:16] Kathy talks about traditional advertising campaigns that she ran in the past. She stresses that self-promotion is important for therapists and natural health businesses.
[14:53] Kathy says that although she still keeps a small presence in the phone book and has a small online presence, she has a loyal local client base and continues to gain referrals through word of mouth.
[18:17] Kathy stresses the importance of networking and discusses how she has done joint marketing with health professionals, and how this helps her get referrals.
[21:30] Kathy describes how she is pursuing speaking spots and talks about travelling to conferences worldwide to speak.
[23:43] Kathy mentions wanting to do more corporate work with stress reduction this year.
[24:45] Kathy talks about her massage practice schedule and the clients she sees. She also stresses that doing extra work outside of business hours can sometimes be beneficial to building your health practice or business.
[28:27] Kathy recalls how she wasted money running unsuccessful ads in phone books and the difficulty she had when offering a Groupon experience to an unrealistic amount of people. She says that these challenges did not discourage her from continuing to build her business.
[33:41] Kathy did not have a natural health business mentor when she started up and so she had to learn from her business mistakes.
[38:03] Kathy believes that the combination of possessing business sense and being a good practitioner, as well as her acting background have all contributed to her personal business success.
[38:42] Kathy advises others starting a business to take a chance and go for it, regardless of their fears. She says that nothing is a failure unless you didn’t learn from it.
Bio – Kathy Gruver, Ph.D. , Award-Winning Author & Alternative Health Practitioner – Santa Barbara, California
Kathy Gruver, Ph.D. is an award-winning author and the host of the national TV show based on her first book, The Alternative Medicine Cabinet (winner Beverly Hills Book Awards). She has earned her Ph.D. in Natural Health and has authored five books in all with two on stress: Body/Mind Therapies for the Bodyworker and, Conquer Your Stress with Mind/Body Techniques (Winner Indie Excellence Awards, Beverly Hills Book Awards, Global E-book Awards, Irwin Awards, Finalist for the USA Best Books Award). Her latest book, Journey of Healing just won its first award.
She has studied mind/body medicine at the famed Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and has been featured as an expert in numerous publications including Glamour, Fitness, Time, More, Women, Wall Street Journal, CNN, WebMD, Prevention, Huffington Post, Yahoo.com, Ladies Home Journal, Dr. Oz’s The Good Life, First, Women, Massage and Bodywork Magazine and Massage Magazine.
Dr. Gruver has written dozens of health and wellness articles and contributing posts. She has appeared as a guest expert on over 250 radio and TV shows including NPR, SkyNews London, Morning Blend in Las Vegas, CBS Radio, and Lifetime Television, and has done over 200 educational lectures around the country for everyone from nurses in the Middle East to 911 dispatchers in New Orleans, corporations around the US and teachers in her own backyard. She is currently working a project for the military to create and institute a stress reduction program. For fun and stress relief Dr. Gruver does flying trapeze and hip hop dance. You can find out more about Dr. Gruver at her website.
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