Have a business workspace. A desk, a notebook, a decent laptop, a decent phone and internet, in a space where your body knows it's your place to concentrate. A candle or incense, and a ritual of setting an intention each time you start to work on your business, can help.

Schedule business time in your Google Calendar. If you don't, life will just keep happening and taking priority. Business time means taking strategic action on your business. It's separate from time with clients and time at courses.

Choose a realistic number of hours each week and keep those appointments like you would your day job. Allocating time to work on your business is one of the main factors in getting it off the ground. Start with 3-5 hours a week working ON your business.

Cowork and get accountable. Meet a friend on Zoom, say what you'll work on, mute and get to work, then feed back at the end. Focusmate.com is free for 3 sessions a week. Or send each other your goals on Monday and check in on Friday.

Build a second brain. One Google Doc with a tab for each idea, so everything about your business and ideas and learning is in one searchable place.

Make a business vision board or a simple whiteboard you scribble epiphanies on. Keep it separate to your life vision board, with a section for each aspect of your business. This serves as a one-page business plan. Tweak it as your clarity emerges.

Get clear on your business model (the way you make money). What you offer, the price, who it's for, where, and what marketing you do. It's completely unique to you, and it's shaped by both you and the market.

Turn the bigger vision into a near-term plan. Choose one or two things to focus on between now and a date in 3 months time. I like to use the school holidays- Christmas, Easter, Summer, Halloween.

You figure it out by trying. Learn, try things out, gather data, decide, then start again. Business is one big experiment, so keep "I wonder..." in mind. There's no such thing as failing, just lessons learned.

Inner work is part of the job. It's a personal development course you didn't realise you signed up for. A business won't grow beyond the capacity of the person running it.  Evolve into the next version of yourself.  Journaling, affirmations and nervous-system work can help when a new business identity still feels unfamiliar.

Have a growth mindset. If you catch yourself saying a sentence like "I'm no good at videos/ marketing", a top tip is to finish that sentence by adding the word "yet", so it becomes "I'm not good at marketing YET".  

Marketing, accounts and running a business are skills to learn. You're not expected to know them already. Business is a skillset, not a personality trait. Many holistic practitioners avoid business and tech skills because they feel icky or hard. That's a big mistake, because you need business skills to run a business. If you haven't learned them yet, that's not a flaw.

Have a plan for business learning each week. Attend the University of YouTube! Listen to audiobooks. Take training courses with the Local Enterprise Office. Choose 1 thing to learn about each week.

Get a mentor formally or informally, someone who is experienced at what you're doing who can guide you. Some skills will feel uncomfortable while you're learning them, but chip away at it.  Having someone to share your ideas with, who shows you other perspectives and asks questions, helps you move forward more easefully than going in circles on your own.

Find peers who are building businesses too. They'll understand why making a video, going to an event alone or putting yourself out there can feel difficult.  You become the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with. The spiritual path can be lonely, and so can the business path. Find business friends who truly understand what you're going through.

Be proactive about making business friends. Invite someone to have a chat on Zoom for 30 mins. Reach out to people you meet at workshops, people you get to know through Instagram, or someone you met ages ago and still have their number.

Avoid Procrasta-Learning: This is where we keep taking more and more courses about different therapies to try and feel "ready". Effectively, we are trying to buy confidence. Confidence will not come from another course, it will come from small, micro-steps forward, so make yourself an unofficial programme of learning by doing. 

Decide on the legal structure of your business. Many holistic practitioners begin as sole traders as it's the most simple way to get started. When they are earning more and charging VAT, they would often then become limited companies. Accounting fees for a sole trader are 350 to 600 euro for an accountant to submit your tax return once a year. A limited company has much higher accounting fees and reporting requirements.

Register your Business Name: If you trade under a business name rather than your own name, register this business name with the Companies Registration Office. It can be done online and costs around 20 euro once-off.

Your legal obligation is to track your income and expenses. As a sole trader, you will need to report that to Revenue by October 31st the year after. e.g. Sometime between 1st Jan and 31st Oct 2027, you'll submit your tax return detailing how much your business made in the full year of 2026. I recommend having an accountant but technically you can do this yourself. 

Make an email folder called "Receipts 2026" and save all email receipts in there. Make a google drive folder called "Paper receipts 2026" and scan all paper receipts into there.

Get your insurance in place. OBF, Burke Insurance, Brian Mullins and Balens are all options.

Get a business bank account. I suggest Revolut. Many people use Revolut already, in which case, within the regular Revolut app, you can open a Revolut "PRO" account. This is for freelancers/ sole traders. It gives you a seperate IBAN and you can even send invoices and create payment links within it (check their fees). I just use it as a bank account and take payment in other ways.

Taking payment: I recommend bank transfer or cash at the start. Keep it simple for now. As you progress, you will likely have an appointment calendar or events booking system that you take payment through. 

Invoices: An invoice should have: 

1. A unique invoice number, in sequence, with no gaps

2. The invoice date, and the date you supplied the service if it’s different

3. Your name or business name, your address and your contact details

4. Your client’s name and address

5. A clear description of what you’re charging for

6. The amount owed, how to pay you, and the due date (suggestion 30 days)

Pricing:  A 1-hour session is not just 1 hour. Price for your overheads (tech subscriptions, insurance, accreditation, accounting fees), the training you've paid for, and the time you spend administering each client. 

Resonant pricing is where you pick an amount to charge for your service eg. 10 euro and that will feel too low. Then pick a price like 1000 euro and that may feel too high. Continue this by going high and low and working towards that number that feels "just right" for you at this time. Remember, you can say "Prices valid until the end of 2026" and change then if you want. 

Work out your "enough number". What you need for essentials like accommodation, food and transport. Starting part-time, or reducing other work gradually, can give your business room to grow without carrying all the financial pressure straight away.  Security and safety come first.

Don't put your head in the sand about money. Avoidance creates anxiety. When you don't have a handle on your income and expenses, your business doesn't feel legit yet.

You can help everyone, but you can't market to everyone. When you're speaking to everyone, you're speaking to no one. That's why you need a niche. 

Niche is the French word for nest. A niche is a problem, not a demographic.  Working mothers in their 40s are not all the same, so choose a specific problem a group of people have, one your work is very effective with. 

People buy solutions to real problems. Your problem needs to be specific, something real humans are struggling with and willing to pay to solve.

Niching makes everything easier. You become known as an expert, you feel more confident, clients trust a specialist, and marketing gets simple because you know who you're speaking to.

Your own lived experience may point you towards work you understand particularly well. Your mess becomes your message.

Pay attention to what excites you. The sessions, topics, books and conversations. You don't have to know your niche before you begin. It can emerge through the work.

Do market research. Do some market research before you fall in love with your idea. You may love it, but if nobody is looking for it, it won’t sell. Start small and talk to real people. Ask friends, family and acquaintances what they’ve googled recently when they needed help with something. Ask what they already know about [your therapy], and what they think it actually does. Ask if they know anyone who fits [the niche you’re thinking of], and whether that person might chat to you for ten minutes. Be curious, not salesy. You’re listening for their words, their problems and what they’ve already tried.

Your offer is the transformation you provide. Draw two boxes: before working with me, and after working with me. Get them crystal clear.

Say it in one sentence. I help [people] struggling with [problem] to achieve [result] via [method].

Offer single sessions and packages. A single session is a low-commitment way to find out if you're a fit before either of you commits to a package.

Manage expectations. Tell people in advance that 4 to 6 sessions are recommended to see results. Holistic therapies work incrementally, not like pharmaceutical medicines.

Talk about benefits, not features. A benefit is better sleep. A feature is 90-minute sessions. Give your offer a name, try it and change it in a few weeks, and skip the expert-speak. Use language that normal people understand.

Think through the whole client journey and experience. Map the client journey and experience. Onboarding, follow-up, feedback and boundaries (your rules of operation) are all part of it. Map the whole journey from first enquiry to after the last session.

Systematise your admin. You'll feel more confident and less drained. Client notes, booking, payment and reminders all need a system.

Ask for testimonials and referrals. Ask for feedback while the experience is fresh, and ask permission to use it. A great client experience leads to referrals, testimonials and repeat bookings, so give happy clients a link they can send to their friends.

Build your inner circle. For working locally, a WhatsApp group for holistic therapists to post announcements. If you work online with people, an email list becomes your inner circle, and a welcome email sequence helps new subscribers get to know you.  It's important to keep in touch with people who have already worked with you.  "Regulars" are wonderful for your business.

Remember that someone recommending you may not know how to explain the therapy. Give them somewhere clear to send the person they're telling (eg your online precence: a website or active social media account.

If people can't find you, they can't work with you.

A free and easy way to get yourself listed online is to create your Google Business Profile. It puts you on Google maps and gives you the ability to get Google Reviews. It is free and takes around 20 mins. Set yourself up as a "service based business" so you don't need to show your address publicly, but instead you can say the areas you serve (within 90 mins drive of your home is advisable for this platform as it's aimed at local businesses, not national or online.  You do not need a website for this. You could put your social media link in the website section or leave it blank. 

I think having a website can help you to feel like your website is officially open and legitimate. A website is like building your house. It's the central place you refer people to.

Start with a 1 pager so you don't get overwhelmed with too many decisions.

Build it on Google Sites sites.google.com. I am confident you can DIY it. It's important that you're able to edit it yourself, because as you work with clients, more clarity will emerge.  Fancy branding and fancy websites are best done when things are more settled, and you know what you're about and have solid offers. 

Write the words first on a document.

Include a photo of yourself, where you work, the problems you help with, what you offer and how to contact you.

If your therapy is unfamiliar to many people, consider an explainer video so visitors can understand what to expect. It can be a video from YouTube, you don't have to make the video yourself. 

Publishing a website doesn't mean people will find it. Think about the pathways that could lead them there (aka marketing activities).

Your first clients may come through people who already know and trust you, or through their friends, rather than strangers finding you online.

Reconnect with people naturally. Ask how they're doing, or share something useful that made you think of them. It doesn't have to be a sales message.

Think about where the people you want to help spend time, and who is well connected within those communities.  Look for ways to be helpful tot those people and build genuine relationships.

Business grows through relationships. If you're not actively connecting, you're relying on luck by hoping strangers find you.

Short-term marketing involves client-getting activities: reaching out to people, going to events online and in person, relationship building, offering a first free session to people you already know. 

Longer-term marketing is discoverability and authority: blog posts, guest features, podcast guesting and PR. Speaking at events, speaking to other people's existing audiences, looking for opportunities in your local community or online.

Do both short-term and longer-term marketing activities, so you attract clients now and build long-term opportunities too.

Choose marketing that plays to your strengths. When it connects to your purpose, it can feel like a way of being helpful by sharing educational info/ insights/ advice, not a chore. Visibility isn't shouting. It's resonance.

If you choose to use social media, expect it to feel awkward at first. 

Social media is just one marketing tool. It should not be the only marketing you do.

Videos are really effective. Especially if you are offering a service in which you're expecting clients to come and share vulnerabilities with you. They need to feel like they can trust you and that they connect with you. 

Speaking to a camera, and not knowing who will see it, can be scary. Practice makes it easier. Try making short videos just for trusted business friends before you post publicly. If perfectionism gets in the way, jot your key points on a post-it and try a single take.

What's good about social media is that it gives you immediate feedback. What you post is a good way to gather data on what people are interested in.  

It's a space to practise and get clarity. Writing and making videos is the only way you become more proficient. Think of it as evolving out loud. The very act of expressing your ideas makes them clearer and helps you know what you're most passionate about sharing.

Watch the downsides. As you already know, it can leave you feeling fried, with an over-activated nervous system. It can be a black hole of time and energy. And comparison can make you feel less than. Mute or unfollow people who activate your comparision fears. Restrict people you know in real life if you feel awkward with them following you. 

Main tip: Don't take it too seriously. Treat it more like chatting at a house party than a formal presentation. Share an idea, notice what people respond to, and talk with others. Be a contributor, not a guru. 

Social media requires you to be social and spend time on the app. Most people want others to comment and like their posts but don't want to do that for others. Engage with people whose work interests you and reciprocity, shout-outs, collaborations will emerge.

Make sure your bio is clear, not clever.

Keep going even if it looks like you're getting very little traction. It takes time and reflection and learning to figure what's working and what your way of doing social media is.