Excerpt From the Article

“We don’t want to be paid in meatballs,” Mr. Bhalla said with a nod to Adam Sandler fans, dropping the first of many pop culture references in a session that was sometimes playful and always on point. “A sustainable mediation practice needs to include consistent work and a decent income.” That was Mr. Bhalla’s frank assertion after recognizing that most aspiring mediators are drawn to the profession because of a natural inclination toward the work and because of how personally rewarding it can be to help parties in conflict arrive at mutually agreed solutions. Yet they may lack the business development and marketing skills to navigate the entrepreneurial challenges of being a practitioner.

With the “Building Your Practice” webinar workbook in hand, participants were treated to Mr. Bhalla’s entertaining presentation on how to launch and maintain a mediation business, and Ms. Bellamano and Mr. Moore contributed their substantial expertise along the way. Bucking convention, Mr. Bhalla’s approach was to focus on the bad advice he had been given about the business-side of mediation, and the mistakes he had made on the path to his own successful practice.

The first of five pieces of bad advice was to always present oneself as impartial, which Mr. Bhalla described as both impossible (because everyone has opinions and biases) as well as counterproductive (because any attempt to do so would come across as inauthentic and undermine building rapport with parties). A second was to begin your practice as a generalist—poor counsel since you would miss the opportunity to distinguish yourself from other new practitioners. It is far better to promote your expertise in a few areas, said Mr. Bhalla, whether that be derived from training, or professional or life experience.

“Start cheap—low rates will get you through the door” was the third example of misguided advice, since oftentimes practitioners find themselves later unable to increase their fees. Mr. Bhalla’s recommendation was to develop a business plan to grow from low to higher fees, making sure that any volunteer or low-fee work you do to gain experience does not create an unsustainable expectation of the value of your services among your target market. One workaround is to gain mediation experience via low-pay work within an area different from your target field.

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For the second portion of his presentation, Mr. Bhalla invited participants to “laugh and learn” as he recounted his own mistakes in building his mediation practice. He recalled burning giveaway CDs of himself hosting a segment on Jazz.FM91 radio themed around how the improvisation required of a mediator compares with the improvisation of a jazz musician—but the marketing attempt fell flat when it turned out that almost no one had CD players anymore (in the end he posted the segment on his website). “Think through how your audience reaches you and how you can reach them,” said Mr. Bhalla, noting that online is not the only effective advertising and that (well considered) print or other products can be successful.

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Another general discussion followed, and webinar participants asked questions like “Does it make sense to publicly disclose your fees?” “How effective is it to promote your practice through publishing articles?” “How do successful mediators handle quoting?” “What payment methods work best?” Attendees came away with highly practical solutions and new ideas, both from the three mediator mentors and from each other. Coloured by his forthright style and fun “know what not to do” approach, Mr. Bhalla’s webinar gave participants solid advice and an actionable plan for a business-savvy start to their mediation practices.