I see it all the time: Advertisments saying:

“Quit Smoking In One Hour — Guaranteed!”
“Lose 10 pounds in 10 days!”
“One-Session Smoking Cessation!”

Etc., etc., etc.

Or, hypnotists saying things like:

“I guarantee you’ll lose weight!”
“You’ll quit smoking in the first session.”
“You can lose that weight fast — probably within three months!”

You get the idea.

Remember: You cannot guarantee how fast or how much! It’s against the law and may get you in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

You cannot say that someone will quit smoking in one hour or in one session.

You can say that most of your clients do quit smoking in the first session. However, by law you cannot promise that since you “cannot guarantee human behavior”.

You cannot say that they will lose a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time.

You can say that you start to “hear certain comments by the third week”, like their clothes are “getting looser”, etc. However, you explain, you cannot promise that since you “cannot guarantee human behavior”.

Get it?

This isn’t hard to do. Just don’t over-promise and you’ll be safe.

Just don’t disseminate false or exaggerated claims regarding hypnotism. And only make specific claims for the effectiveness of hypnotism as can be justified by outcomes data. This goes for information given out in your office, web site and/or advertisements.

Note:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires you to use a disclaimer in your ads.

Use phrases like:

• Individual Results May Vary
• Results May Vary
• Results Not Typical

These should be places in smaller type somewhere in your advertisements and spoken in radio ads.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 5th, 2007 at 11:37 am and is filed under The Hypnosis Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.