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It smelled like chlorine, dish soap, and the tangy musk of sweaty female bodies. 

The room was a windowless expanse of tile and cement. Sound bounced off the slick, wet surfaces like tiny rubber balls of unfamiliar words.

Overwhelm washed over me. Where am I supposed to start? What are the rules? 

Surrounded by naked women, bars of soap, and disposable paper shoes (which promised to save me from busting my ass while exploring this slippery terrain), I felt very much like a stranger in a strange land.

To be clear, I love being nude! 

Mandatory nudity, in my humble opinion, holds the key to personal liberation and world peace. 

But being nude in a basement-level Korean bathhouse surrounded by signs you can’t read and words you don’t understand promised nothing except humiliation and deep, searing shame. 

I considered myself an aficionado of Scandinavian bathhouses. Usually accompanied by mandatory silence and a reverence for hygge, the Hot, Cold, Rest protocol is what my dreams are made of. 

“How different can it be?”, I assured myself as I descended the stairs and sauntered into the basement of communal cleansing. 

The space was divided into 5 sections: soaking tubs, saunas, an authentic Korean shower area (an open space where you squat on a plastic stool and bathe yourself while chatting with your neighbors), an authentic White Lady shower area (partitioned, standing shower stalls where you bathe yourself while avoiding eye contact with your white lady neighbors), and open-air spa services stalls (where you get scrubbed and massaged). 

The spa service stalls were bustling with activity. 

Dozens of women laid bare on plastic-covered massage tables being scrubbed, soaked, sloshed, and slathered in mysterious products that promised ultimate rejuvenation. 

Thirty minutes later, I found myself lying facedown on one of these tables, holding my breath as buckets of hot water sloshed over my body, one after another. Slosh, slosh, slosh. 

Next came the body scrub. To be clear, this wasn’t a gentle cleanse; this was a straight-up assault on my epidermis. From neck to butt crack to the ticklish tissue between my toes, this woman was on a spiritual mission to cleanse my body of dirt and demons. 

Another slosh of hot water. 

“Okay, turn over.” 

It was the first time I’d heard her speak. 

I looked up, speechless, helpless, terrified of sliding right off the table and onto the concrete floor with a wet thud, like a salmon who jumped too far out of the river and landed with a splat on a nearby rock. 

She laughed, reaching across the table to grasp my shoulder and thigh, pulling me towards the safety of her semi-nude body, ensuring I flopped over safely before repeating the cleansing ritual on my other side.

After another round of scrubbing and sloshing, she lathered my body in lotion, covered me with freshly sliced cucumbers, wrapped me up like a burrito in a crinkly mylar blanket, and then she just walked away. 

Disappeared. Vanished. Gone without a trace. 

I laid there, staring at the ceiling through my cool cucumber lenses, and wondered how I could turn this unusual experience into an email to share with you. (This is what happens when you start email marketing, btw. Every moment of your life becomes fodder for an email. 😉) 

And then, it hit me! 

This experience was a perfect example of how to sell our services as therapists.

Allow me to break it down… 

This is the description I read on the spa website before booking my service: 

This head to toe, exfoliating treatment has been practiced in Korea for generations! Utilizing exfoliating pads and cloths, the body is polished with a milk body scrub to gently remove dead skin cells leaving one’s complexion looking refreshed and revitalized, while feeling soft and hydrated. Once the skin has been primed, a Swedish-inspired massage is performed with aromatherapy oils that promote unique healing properties as they soften and nourish. Next, a pure gold powder and serum wrap are applied, leaving the skin’s texture with a well-hydrated appearance. Lastly, a firming collagen and cooling cucumber facial mask is applied and allowed to set, while one’s hair is shampooed and conditioned to wash away any remaining tension.

This service description is a perfect example of my favorite sales mantra → Sell them what they want; give them what they need.

To be clear, we’re going to do this with integrity and informed consent. This advice isn’t about baiting-and-switching our clients; it’s about emphasizing the results we help our clients create. 

The description was honest. I knew I’d be exfoliated, massaged, and wrapped up like a space burrito. But what made me say YES to the service was the description of the results… 

→ leaving one’s complexion looking refreshed and revitalized
→ while feeling soft and hydrated
→ promote unique healing properties as they soften and nourish
→ leaving the skin’s texture with a well-hydrated appearance
→ wash away any remaining tension

Those words (or the results) caught my attention and inspired me to hand over my credit card!

The other details were important for informed consent but the “what we’re going to do” isn’t nearly as enticing as the “how you’re going to feel after we do it” part of the sales copy. 

I see therapists make this mistake all the time on their websites. 

They focus too much on the “what we’re going to do” and not enough on the “how you’re going to feel after we do it”. 

And let’s be honest, describing what’s going to happen in the therapy room is boring on a good day and downright terrifying on a bad day. Neither is helpful for inspiring optimism about the future! 

Your potential clients need to feel hope when they read your sales copy. Hope inspires optimism. Optimism inspires courage. Courage inspires reaching out to schedule an appointment to work with YOU.

Let’s break that down again…. 

Writing about the results leads to hope → which leads to optimism → which leads to courage to finally start working with YOU! 🥳🥂🙌

Writing about the process leads to exiting your website → which leads to binge-watching Queer Eye on Netflix → which leads to crying and hugging your dog. Not a terrible way to end the day, but not exactly the outcome you’re hoping for when an ideal client visits your website.

The scrubbing and sloshing of my spa experience were intense and unfamiliar. Similar to the way therapy can feel intense and unfamiliar to clients who are new to the healing process. 

If the spa’s website said, “We’re going to launch a nuclear assault on your epidermis, wrap you in a space blanket, and leave you stranded on a table for 20 minutes”, I probably would’ve passed on the experience. 

Just like a therapy website that says, “We’re going to process your childhood trauma using a combination of Internal Family Systems and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,” will likely lead to a potential client abandoning your business forever.

It’s just human nature, folks! We want to do things that make us feel good! 

Here’s my invitation for you today → pop over to your website and review your copy through the lens of “sell them what they want; give them what they need”. 

How do you score? Are you painting a pleasurable picture that’s going to inspire hope and optimism? Or are you pulling me into a narrative that feels heavy, scary, and overwhelming? If your website is tilting towards terror, adjust accordingly. 😉

That’s all for today. Hit reply and let me know if you have any questions! 

Here’s to learning to love marketing and selling as a therapist! (I promise, it’s possible.)