We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Beth Drayer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Beth, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?

First, get a mentor/coach. I should have done this sooner! I read a book and thought that would be enough for me to get started….and it was a great starting point.
I knew I had the clinical skills to help people. But the business/marketing/time management aspect is much harder than anticipated. Friends and family advice really doesn’t help you win unless they truly understand business and what needs to be done to run a practice.

Thankfully I knew a few gym owners and was able to use space in various gyms starting out. This was great because it got me a lot of exposure to a lot of different people. Both on the coaching side and possible clients. Different types of gyms attract different types of people so really being clear of the type of person you want to work with is important and then go find them!

Once I figured out who I wanted to work with the next was figuring out how to attract them to me and my business….a work in progress I’d say!

The other big thing was time management. At first you have a ton of time to work on building what you want, but then when things get busy it is easy to let the other parts go like marketing and such because you are busy working with your people. Learning to schedule time in the week for the business stuff was imperative for me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hello! I’m Beth Drayer of Beth Drayer Movement. I am a Certified Athletic Trainer and Injury Recovery Specialist.

I started my career working in Division I athletics with their athletes. Here I did everything from pre-hab to Rehab. Since, I have worked with everyone from pediatric to geriatric, middle school to professional and Olympic athletes.

Currently, I focus on assisting active adults in living a pain-free life while staying physically active and doing the things they love. I use a truly holistic approach to get your brain and body on the same page for getting you to move better and feel better.

One of the things I am the most proud of is how many people I have been able to help get back to the activities that they love! I want to play (like all the time, really) I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way! It is the best feeling when someone I’m working with gets out of pain and can return to their favorite activity that was too painful to do previously! Or was told they shouldn’t do anymore due to their pain. Movement is Medicine and if we can keep moving we are way ahead of the game!

Another thing that I am super excited about is that I have become known as the person that gets results! I can’t tell you how many people come to me after seeing a variety of different practitioners without seeing any results. Most people leave saying they should have come to see me sooner!

I owe a lot of this to my mentors. I always want to be learning and making myself better to help YOU get better!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

At this point I do things slightly unconventionally….or what appears to be so. So when I have someone lay on a ball and breath and their shoulder pain goes away, they are usually skeptical at first but then blown away. There isn’t really any magic (contrary to popular belief) it is all based on the anatomy of the whole person, I’m not just focused on the body part that hurts…. a lot of times that isn’t where the pain is coming from! This has definitely helped my reputation especially with people who have “hard to solve” issues.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

One of the things I do with EVERY person I see is listen. On our initial visit I make sure that we go through and extensive history, Literally every injury as far back as they can remember is important to me! To the current stress in their life. I give them time to express their concerns and what they are looking for. This is a huge piece missing in todays health care system and I feel is such a huge component. People just want to be heard….so I make sure I listen! This has helped me build a great reputation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.BethDrayer.com
• Instagram: @BethDrayerMovement
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BDMovementNutrition
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethdrayer98/
• Youtube: @BethDrayer

Image Credits
David Liehn