Growing your Spiritual Direction Business

Guest blogger Laura Lies of streamsgrace.com shares her entrepreneurial tips for spiritual direction practices.

Laura began her deep interest in helping spiritual directors grow their business after authoring an article for Spiritual Directors International in May 2020. In August of 2022, she offered an SDI webinar in the Making a Living Anthology which inspired her to create an online course on the topic. She offers these tips on my blog as a testimony to her experience. –Teresa Blythe

I continue to allow myself to stretch into the journey of growing my own Spiritual Direction business. As I now enter my 8th year in private practice, I have begun to focus more on supporting other Spiritual Directors in beginning and growing their own business.

Best Practices to help potential clients find their way to you using

Digital Marketing.

1. List your business on dedicated Spiritual Director search websites. Partner with online lists that already exist for this purpose, like SDI Spiritual Companions. Purchase a Premium listing that allows more text about you and your practice, photo, and video.

2. Establish an online presence. Ideally, plan to have a dedicated website, with at least a home or landing page. In this increasingly digital world, having a web presence will help to lend credibility to your offering. Find recommendations for the best website
providers in the ever-changing online world. Link to this website at every opportunity.

3. Blog. Put a blog on your website and update it regularly to increase your search engine optimization. Teresa Blythe’s blog Spiritual Direction 101 (the one you are reading this on!) was used to create her book Spiritual Direction 101 by blogging one section at a time.

4. Social Media. If needed, “make your peace” with social media, using it “for good.” The more social media sites you post on, the more opportunities people have to find you and your website. Start small and build from there. Best sites based on the number of
monthly users globally: Facebook Business, YouTube Business, Linked In Business and LinkedIn Spiritual Direction Group, Instagram for Business, Twitter, and TikTok.

5. Video. Reach potential clients through simple video offerings through a YouTube channel for your business, which according to HubSpot Academy is the world’s second-largest search engine behind Google.

6. Google. As Google accounts for over 90% of all online searches, learn how to partner with Google. According to HubSpot Academy, they use their Blog to often rank #1 on Google searches. Blogging is their number one source of traffic.

7. HubSpot Academy. Learn how to help searchers find their way to your website through these great teachings from HubSpot Academy.

The all-important Elevator Pitch

As you prepare How to reach out to them, you also need to prepare What to reach out to them with. Consider a short “Elevator Pitch” to grab their attention, with a way for them to learn more.

1. What to include in your Pitch? What do you love about Spiritual Direction? How do you practice Spiritual Direction (what would a “typical” session look like.) Emphasize that you are open to new clients at this time. You need to make this very clear,
otherwise, people seem to assume the opposite.

2. How to share your Pitch? Share your pitch in both written form and video. Share it on your personal and business profiles on every social media outlet. Plan to share at least monthly to keep your offering fresh and in front of folks. Again, the email flyer
blast is a good way to accomplish this.

3. When to schedule your launch? Plan the “launch” of reaching out to your network at times of the year when people may be more open, such as in early fall (September) and after the holidays (January.) (Note: this timeline is most relevant in the USA. Please
adjust to the rhythms of your region.)

You now have several new ideas to attract more clients for your Spiritual Direction business. When you need encouragement along this journey, be reminded that the very act of establishing a Spiritual Direction business is in itself a Spiritual journey. May you be inspired to step out in faith, to start something new, and to bless a desperate world, for such a time as this. — Laura Lies

Seven years ago, Laura launched a new Spiritual Direction business. Now, supporting a full-time practice of over 30 clients, publishing over 85 blog posts, and welcoming nearly 50 thousand unique visitors to the website, she shares the steps and resources that have been the most helpful in building a private practice. Laura is a popular instructor with Spiritual Directors International. Learn more at https://eremos.site/course-growing-your-spiritual-direction-practice/