Meet Teodora Virban
Meet Teodora Virban
Founder of The Sound of Healing and certified holistic practitioner of alternative therapy with energy, sound, and color.
Hustle Global (HG): Where are you originally from? Where are you currently located and running your business from?
Teodora Virban (TV): I am originally from Romania, studied and worked in Brussels, Paris and now since 2018 I have been in Amsterdam, where I run my holistic healing practice.
HG: Tell me about your business. What’s your mission? Who’s your ideal customer?
TV: My mission is to accompany as many people in their healing journeys, supporting them with my intuitive, trained, and experienced self in a multitude of alternative healing practices such as energy, sound, color, and vibrational acupuncture. I plan to reach as many people as possible to help them go inside, using sound, meditation, and other wisdom from other energy-gathering techniques (Breathwork, Yoga, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, etc.).
HG: What’s your day-to-day like as a business owner?
TV: My day-to-day as a business owner is twofold — business development on one side and being present in my practice offering healing sessions on the other side, either in my physical practice or in shared spaces with like-minded individuals (yoga studios, group-relevant locations).
Also, I am in my final year of Acupuncture studies. I am in an apprenticeship with other acupuncturists, in the clinic, doing practical days with Demo Patients and most recently I started engaging with other therapists, shadowing their practices for more exposure and understanding of everything there is around healing — shiatsu, chiropractic, physiotherapy, osteopathy, fascia release therapy, orthomolecular medicine, etc.
In the evenings I attend business events in most cases.
In the business development part, I am working on the main tools of business strategies and management, but also creating substantial connections with the external world for continuous collaboration. In my practice, I need to be physically present and emotionally available for my clients, either for energy healing or for acupuncture. Recently, I started volunteering for Acupuncturist Without Borders, supporting refugee women to ease their physical and emotional pains and get some comfort.
HG: What do you wish you had known before starting your business?
TV: I wish I had known better the tax legislation for small businesses in the Netherlands and how to create content on social media (especially Instagram) to have been more consistent in the publications.
HG: What has been your biggest obstacle so far? And what did it teach you?
TV: The biggest obstacle was asking for money for my time. Coming from the corporate world, with a standard monthly pay on the relevant professional level, I never had to monetise my time as I do as a business owner. You need to be very confident in your value and ask for the right amount. This obstacle taught me to search for answers, read about best practices, and engage in conversations with people who wanted to share their success stories about asking for money for their services and time.
HG: What challenge(s) are you facing right now?
TV: Social media content creation remains my biggest challenge. I think I need to hire someone who dedicates his/her time to doing this, so I can allocate my time and energy to my clients in the healing sessions, rather than spending it online publishing posts/stories/reels/etc.
HG: What has been your biggest win so far? And how did you celebrate?
TV: My biggest win so far has been quickly selling out the collaborative sound healing events, and having very good feedback and further demand. I think the celebration was just a dinner after and offering some discounts to those who supported me getting there as my gratitude.
HG: What has been your most successful marketing strategy? What were the results?
TV: The most successful marketing strategies I constantly use in my business are:
Partnerships and collaborations → I am always open and actively searching for collaborations with other practitioners, masters, and experts in well-being practices such as yoga teachers, breathwork practitioners, Traditional Chinese Medicine enthusiasts, Buddhists, Taoists, Qi Gong and Tai Chi masters, singers, other sound healers, etc.
Community engagement → actively giving and receiving from all my communities, I am engaged and connected in the climate change works, women’s communities, professionals, spiritual community, etc.
To this day, word of mouth has been the marketing strategy that attracted the most clients in practice, due to my proactive behaviors in multiple communities and my engagement in events, professional or spiritual. I am a very social person and coming from the corporate world, and being involved in the spiritual community and women’s groups, I was able to use this as a marketing strategy. It has its limitations, so I will need to tap again into the other strategies.
The results were increased clients in the individual healing sessions and fully booked group events. Nevertheless, I will need to double or triple these results in the upcoming quarters. Ever since I shared the location of my practice in Amsterdam in 2022, I can account for 50 new clients receiving individual healing sessions, for around 400 hours of therapy, and more than 200 new clients attending the group sound journeys.
HG: Name one book or resource that helped you the most with building your business. How did it help you?
TV: Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age by Jonah Berger is a resource that helped me in my business, from the beginning. It speaks in simple terms of what works and what is a waste of time in making your business known in the digital area.
He makes it more about the customer’s views, needs, triggers, and offering a solution to a problem. I am more and more directing my business towards a niche, so I can identify all these points in a useful way, and provide the right service — supporting employees to prevent burnout through regular sound healing sessions.
HG: How do you incorporate wellness and self-care into your daily routine to avoid burning out?
TV: I have my routines.
Morning: Grounding meditation with rose protection. And Qi Gong for harmony (balancing all my organ systems and boosting my energy).
Mid-day: Breathwork even for 5 minutes to calm my spirit and regain clarity.
Evening: Normally I attend yoga or wellness classes or use sound healing instruments at home.
Short and sometimes fast walks make your blood move, boosting your energy so I am trying to do this every other day at least.
Q: What tools or technology do you use daily to improve workflows, operations, communication, etc. in your business?
TV: Top 3 — Hubspot, Canva, and Watermarkly.
I use Hubspot for CRM tracking, campaigns, and direct communication with my clients. Chat GPT is fine-tuning my posts or my event descriptions. I use an invoicing tool for accounting purposes and my own Excel for taxes.
I will start a LinkedIn campaign in the fall when I will reach out to HR managers in corporations.
I was planning to maybe create a community, but it looks like a high-maintenance job at this point, therefore I will look more into it after I finish my acupuncture school this summer.
HG: Are you currently using any AI tools in your business or personally? If so, which ones? What do you use them for? And how have they benefited you/your business?
TV: As mentioned, only for fine-tuning my messages for the IG posts and sound healing events descriptions, I use ChatGPT.
HG: What’s one thing you do every day to keep your business on track?
TV: Be present physically or online for the different communities I am part of, checking in with my network, and following up with former and present clients. Plus, IG presence, not educated though, so maybe not too consistent. Yet to learn this part.
HG: How would you describe your working style in 3 words (or less)?
TV: Flexible, yet structured collaborator.
HG: What 3 tips would you give to aspiring and fellow entrepreneurs?
TV:
Do not be ashamed to ask for guidance from the more experienced ones.
Do not give up when you think you cannot do it yourself, there are always ways.
If you are dedicating your energy and time to be in service for others, as a well-being entrepreneur, collaboration is always the key to success.
HG: Lastly, what do you love most about being an entrepreneur? And what would you change?
TV: I like the most that I have the freedom to create something that was not there before and I am not told to do it, I simply choose to, and it’s magical.
As far as changing something, I would be stricter about organizing my daily schedule. Coming from a highly paced environment, where I was engaged on average 12 hours a day in back-to-back calls, having clear objectives, reports, and deadlines, it’s easy to mix up the working hours with free time when you are an entrepreneur.
About Teo
Teodora (Teo) is a Holistic Therapist & Internationally Certified Sound Healer, offering individual therapy sessions in Amsterdam, in a personalized combo of the following for any type of health issue (mind, body, and spirit):
✨Energy Healing: Reiki — Japanese Hands-on-Healing & Pranic — Indian energizing and cleansing healing
🎨 Chromotherapy (Color healing)
🪘Sound Healing or Music Therapy (Voice, Vibrations and Sound Instruments) &
🎎 Vibrational Acupuncture 🪡
Teodora collaborates in designing and leading workshops with enthusiasts, teachers, or masters of Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Kung Fu, Breathwork, Yoga, and Tea Ceremonies in combination with Sound Baths/Journeys for groups, on different themes. Burnout prevention or mental health are topics brought into play by Teodora the most, in group healing sessions.
Soon to be a licensed acupuncturist, Teodora is an economist by profession, with 11+ years of Programme Management experience in EU-funded projects in climate change and sustainability, having supported cities to reach the net zero carbon journey.
Having had to overcome painful experiences in her life, she is an optimist and full of empathy. She’s a planner at heart, committed to her word, open-minded, and very curious to find out about people’s journeys through life. Her mission in life is to accompany people in their healing journeys.
She loves singing and dancing and has always built deep relationships with people from all over the world, in Romania, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, where she has lived, studied, and worked so far.
🛜 Where to find Teo & The Sound of Healing online and IRL: website, Instagram, LinkedIn, and practice location.