100% Success Rate With Smokers

I have a 100% success rate with smokers. That’s right 100%. Not one smoking client has ever smoked while in my office. I’m being ridiculous right? Yes, but there’s no denying that my success rate is 100% under that criterion and that’s the point. You cannot have a meaningful success rate without defining what success is. So exactly how long does a smoker have to refrain from smoking before he goes into your success column? If I define the time as 2 weeks and you define it at as 2 years we can both have the same rate, but who is more successful?

Sorry, but you cannot base a success rate on the percentage of clients that come back for free follow-up sessions if they continue to smoke. You do not know that those that do not are not smoking. Dividing those that do not come back into multiple possibilities, some smoke because they want, some don’t bother to come back, and some are smoke-free doesn’t help either. You cannot say that your success rate is least 33% because there’s nothing that says your clients are going to be evenly distributed amongst those outcomes. A full 100% might still be smokers.

So if you’re really serious about knowing what your success rate with smokers is you have to start by defining the interval that defines success and you must follow-up with every client during that term to see if they are smoking or not. Now you’re at least being honest with yourself, but your client is still in the dark. Your competitor might define her success rate less stringently than yours. Even if she defines it exactly as you do and is just as diligent in following up there’s still a piece of the puzzle missing. How many clients did she see and how many did you see? You both might legitimately claim 75% success rates, but she’s seen 25 clients and you’ve seen 250. Who would you have more confidence in?

It’s for these reasons that I find quoting personal success rates misleading at best. In short, it’s very unlikely that there is any scientific basis for them. When a potential client asks me about my success rate I tell them that I do not find them useful and tell them why. Further, I’m not sure it’s useful for the client to know. You could say that quoting a good success rate will increase the expectation of achieving success. Perhaps, but if you quote, say, a 75% success rate, could it not be just as likely that the client will identify with the 25% that fail? If you’re going to base your success rate on anything other than solid statistical methods, you might as well go all the way and claim that 100% success rate
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I believe that it is more useful for the smoker to know that he is an individual who has the power within to stop smoking with hypnosis. That’s the only success rate that matters.

Tags: Rate, Smoking, Success

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Comment by Marjorie Cameron (Poodle) on August 5, 2009 at 4:50pm: Very much a point of readiness. We do not MAKE people do something they really don't want to. Again, this is where my 'ORDEAL" kicks in. At the price I charge, my clients do not mess up. I have had one return and all I had to do was to ask: Do you really want to pay me that amount again or do you want to go home and just quit now. Definitely decided he could do it on his own now. I've generally found that giving the mind something it would rather do instead works wonders together with a few other goodies. A lovely lesson taught to me by a man who has had 100% success in weight loss for about 50 years and an excellent hypnotist. He also shared his secrets of weight loss with me and he is amazing -- $500/session. I promised to never share until he passes on. There are definitely some very fantastic people in our profession. He even taught me body sculpting. We can do marvelous things in this world -- take the tried and true and mix in some new and whoofie!! I wish everyone a mentor like that~Marjorie

Comment by the grumpy hypnotist on February 15, 2009 at 7:13pm: You are right. In my FAQ I even address this issue directly by poking fun at specific claims of success rates and how meaningless they are. This is even used as part of pre-screening mechanism by statement that "If you need to hear a made-up success rate you probably aren't committed to the change." Implication: please go away if you aren't serious about becoming a non-smoker.

As I mentioned in previous post on this subject, even the fact that very few people return for follow-up sessions cannot be used as basis of a "success rate", for just the reasons you mention.

However, it is possible to determine, especially with multi-session approaches, whether or not "most" or "few" people stop after that first session. Some people's experience seems to be that "most" take longer than 1 or 2 sessions, while other practitioners experience that "most" stop after just 1 session. Therefore, it would be logical for people who are taking longer to help people stop (whatever that definition/time frame of "stop" is), to first of all at least recognize that faster interventions are possible, and also to perhaps consider different approaches which may be more effective (or at least quicker), would it not?

Comment by Pattie Freeman CH.t, MST on February 15, 2009 at 7:10pm: I agree with the 100% if quoted there is no excuse for the smoker. If you say 75% as stated then they have a doubt about hypnosis. Since Hypnosis is all mental and so are the numbers.
I do keep contact with my client in order to see how effective the session was and I agree with John about the craving. The other is I found some our smokers and the others are really addicted to the nicotine and if you as a hypnotist see this you can use what is needed to provide your client with the right service.
Thanks for the post...

Pattie

Comment by John Cleesattel on February 15, 2009 at 10:57am: To provide the best possible service to the client, I guarantee the result of my stop smoking session for a year. Since we do not affect free will, I just say that of all the people I helped become non-smokers there have only been two that returned for a free second session. Both were after several months of being non-smokers and they began smoking again looking for comfort. One had lost a family member, and another lost their job. When they didn't get the comfort from smoking that they were looking for, they came back to me and I did help them again.
I tell people they will be a non-smoker as long as they want to be. They will not be drawn to cigarettes because of a craving or withdrawal symptom, but their free will is not affected either, and if at some time they choose to smoke, they will.

John

Comment by Shirley R. Patterson on February 15, 2009 at 10:29am: "I believe that it is more useful for the smoker to know that he is an individual who has the power within to stop smoking with hypnosis. That’s the only success rate that matters."

That is a very good way of putting it!