It Makes Me Wonder

I've made the point here before that how you handle the business side of your practice affects how your clients look at you as a massage therapist. I had an experience today that underlined that for me.

I had an appointment with a therapist (licensed clinical social worker-type therapist, not MT) at 3:30. At 3:25 I walked into her waiting area, right behind her and one other woman. Since she's been late for every other appointment I've had with her, I was both delighted she wasn't running late with the previous session but also wondering who the other woman was.

The therapist showed the other woman into her office and I took a seat at the (always unstaffed) desk because I find her chairs uncomfortable. The therapist came back out into the waiting area. She asked me to sit on one of the couches rather than at the desk in the office because her confidential files were stored in the desk. I didn't check to see if the drawers were locked.

And then she walked out.

10 minutes later she hadn't returned. I left her a note. It said:

I have arranged my day to ensure I could be here for our 3:30 appointment. I need you to do the same. We will need to re-schedule.

And I left. 1-1/2 hours later, I still have not received a call from her.

I find myself wondering just how effective her consultations, advice, and perspective will be. Just how professional is she? She appears to be distracted, even in the sessions (she spends a significant amount of time with her back to me while she rummages through drawers for files, throwing questions over her shoulder). Do I truly have her undivided attention and her imagination? Are my confidential files out there in the waiting room for anyone cooling their heels for another late appointment? Is she tired and over-booked? If so, what am I really getting from her?

Technically, all my complaints with her are about the "business" side of her practice so should I presume that she's a good therapist but a poor administrator? Does her inability to keep up with her schedule say anything relevant about the quality of her therapy?

When we operate in a slipshod manner in any part of our practice, it reflects on the whole. Our clients may not separate "treatment" from "business practices" any more than I am with this woman. Your business practices absolutely can affect how your clients see you, even in the treatment room.

No Coupon Love?

A few days ago I posted a link to an article about using coupons from companies like Groupon and Living Social, most importantly the article talks about how to get ready for the possible deluge and some warnings. I also posted this link on the listserve for the Washington DC chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association (I'm a member).

I didn't realize how many local MTs had already experimented with these coupons. Here's a sampling of their responses and experiences:

I worked for [a yoga studio] last fall. I was hired at end of summer to help with the Groupons. They sold them for 50.00, I got 20.00 per coupon plus tips. It almost ended this lady's business. She did not have enough therapists to cover all the calls, they overbooked, and everyone was stressed out. Then the customers started complaining about not getting sessions. She chose to honor the coupon holders for 3 months past the deadline if they called before it expired. Everyone calls the last week before the coupon expires...looking for an appointment.

On the other hand here is a good example: Other massage therapy places like [a local spa] were smart.She had a groupon for 45.00 which gave you 30 min massage, plus a free product (body scrub), and a 30 dollar discount towards the next massage! Very smart. Separate Groupon booking online and I could tell the  staff were not getting abused by the Groupon Coupon. That looks like one way to make the groupon work out.

I also got a response from a former chapter member who's now working in South Carolina. He makes an excellent point about "converting" coupon users to regular users:

 

I ran two Groupons here in Charleston, and know several Spa/Salon/Massage/Facial/Nails business owners who have done the same.  To a person, they all say it's a losing proposition.

1- You're required to discount the service by 50%, and then only get 50% of that (Groupon keeps the other half).  Once you account for overhead, product costs, etc. you are making close to nothing, if not nothing.

2- Though it does give you "exposure," the conversion rate to regular clients is very low.  In some cases it's as low as 5%.   The problem is that the proliferation of online deals (in Charleston there's Groupon, LivingSocial, DealMobs, and Savvy Shopper), means that there is a massage deal available every week (sometimes 2/wk).  Consumers have been trained to expect to NEVER pay full price for a service, and most hop from one deal to the next.  I know most therapists think that they are good enough to keep those clients, but it just doesn't happen.  I've had people sincerely say I gave them the best massage of their life & promise to come back, yet they don't.  In this economy, why should they when there's a $30 massage offered the following week?  Other business owners complain of exactly the same problem. 

3- The only way I would ever do it again is if I could come up with such an expensive service (a luxury massage with lots of add-on's) that I would still make a reasonable profit with my 25% cut. 

4- For all of the above reasons, I'm predicting that these companies won't be around in 3 years.  Businesses have caught on, and aren't participating as much, if at all. 

An example of a place that made some classic mistakes:

Back in the summer I responded to an email from a local health club looking to hire MTs. 

The club was small but had advertised with Groupon and sold 1700 massages at $40 per massage. They needed to increase their massage staff (they had 3) to handle all the groupons.  When I inquired about what they pay the answer was:

For any non-coupon you keep 100% (they charge $90 per massage). This is supposed to make up for any groupon/coupon they only pay  $16  per massage to the therapist - oh and you get to keep whatever "tip" the client gives. 

Now -  how many full price non-coupon sessions do you think you would get compared to the groupon sessions? I was not interested.

In many ways, these experiences validate the article's initial advice about getting ready for coupons. However, I think we have to think carefully about why we want to offer a coupon. In my years of experience, once someone puts massage in that part of their brain reserved for "free / crazy cheap" it's almost impossible to get them to move massage to the part of their brain reserved for "things I pay full price for".

In my experience, you can offer discounts as long as they are modest. For example, a $10 discount for the first appointment has worked quite well at places I've worked. The client gets a small "reward" for trying a place but doesn't find paying the extra $10 the next time a huge hurdle.

Keep the incentives small but attractive and you're less likely to get into trouble.

Is Pay What You Can a "Healthy Boundaries" Problem?

Two years ago I radically changed my pricing policy -- while I have “list prices” for my massages my policy is that all my massages are Pay What You Can (PWYC). Now that I’m back in the US I’m re-building my practice, working hard to attract new clients, I’m discovering that my PWYC policy is causing some consternation, oddly enough.

I spoke to a psychotherapist about this recently. She said she’s known a number of psychotherapists who have tried a PWYC approach as well and have abandoned it. She suggested I do the same.

For many people a PWYC policy is too much pressure. It moves the responsibility for deciding the monetary value of my work from me to them. Clients can end up feeling they are walking a tightrope between doing what’s good for them and doing what’s right by me. In that way, I’m making them take care of me instead of me taking care of them.

Of course, I didn’t think of it that way. I thought of it as giving my clients freedom and control over a situation. I thought of it as offering them a gift. But for some segment of the population, I was wrong.

Having well-defined and consistently-observed business practices and rules can be a way of taking care of our clients, of extending the massage room into the front office. When we are clear and up front about how we work – both in and out of the treatment room – our clients know what to expect, know what they have to do and what we will do. They know how things are going to work. There should be few surprises.

Given the intimate nature of the relationship with our clients, that’s a good thing. Solid business policies (including rates) provide clarity, consistency, dependability, and reliability. Those are the kind of words we use for companies we value and respect.

As a culture, Americans are generally uncomfortable with bartering. A lot of Americans are not comfortable in markets in other countries where they have to “haggle”. Having a wide-open pricing policy can feel like the client is going to have to bargain or haggle.

There’s one other wrinkle to having a PWYC policy. I’m looking into new ways to promote my practice. A lot of popular options are based on discounting my prices to entice new customers. I can’t hardly discount “pay what you can”, can I?

So, what do I do if I’m still committed to giving my clients a financial break if they need it? I’m considering a couple of options.

Oklahoma MT Sandi Kissane instituted a min/max policy last year. She’s in Norman OK where the going rate for an hour massage is hovering around $60. She lists a minimum of $30 and a maximum of $50 for an hour session. She says it’s been very very popular with her clients.

The psychotherapist who suggested I drop the PWYC plan suggested I might offer several levels of payment. For example, full price ($80), small discount ($65), and large discount ($50). Maybe I could call them bronze, silver, and gold like the Olympics?? Maybe still offer PWYC days to keep things really flexible?

On the other hand, I had a new client yesterday who is a student, just coming off an extended period of unemployment, and could only afford $40 for her massage. I was delighted that she'd heard of my PWYC policy and was able to take advantage of it.

Money can be such a tricky thing, can’t it? It’s more than numbers and pieces of papers, that’s for certain. It comes to reflect so many things for us – value, standing, worth, respect, etc. I should not be surprised by how complicated this pricing business is yet, after almost 12 years in practice, it can still confound me.

How about you? Have any of you tried any creative pricing policies? How successful were they?

Do You Want To Offer A "Groupon" (or other online discount?)

I just ran across an article about small businesses offering coupons / deals through online services like Groupon, Living Social, etc. It warns about how this can all go horribly wrong for the business and what you can do to make it go better for you. It's a short article with practical advice.

If you're thinking of going the online discount route, I strong advise your to read THIS first.

It's Never Too Late to Go Back To Basics

I had two experiences this week that reminded me that after almost 12 years in practice, it's good to get back to basics.

First, I had a new client who has experienced years of physical abuse. She came for massage as part of her efforts to maintain a healthy relationship with her body.

Yes, this scares me. I feel a little blind in these situations because I can't possibly know everything I want to know about how best to work with her. So I went back to basics:

* Work slowly and pay attention throughout the session to everything I'm doing.
* Maintain TWO hands on her at all times so she always knows where my hands are
* Drape with care and precision
* No talking during the session
* Get centered before the session and maintain that centering throughout the session

They are some of the first things I learned in school and they are what I went right back to. The client reported loving the session and asked for another appointment.

Second, my alma mater (Potomac Massage Training Institute) is offering a neat little continuing ed thing -- supervised practical exchanges. That is, once a month you can sign up to get and receive a massage. Instructors from the practical side will watch your work and help you with body mechanics, draping, or whatever else they see you needing help with (just like they did in school).

Now, I've been practicing for more than a decade so I should be just about perfect at this, right? Hah! I noticed during the session that I just wrote about that I was "catching" in my sacrum and really struggling with my alignment and body mechanics. I am looking forward to having someone check me on those again. I know I've picked up bad habits over the years and I'm grateful for someone to help me correct. those.

It's never too late to go back to the basics.

How Quickly It Can Go Bad

Two weeks ago, I went in to the American Red Cross donation center to donate platelets. I made a New Years resolution back in January to donate as often as I can this year. I was donating plasma every two weeks in Brisbane. I've got my act together (finally) here and was ready to jump on the donation bandwagon again.

The donation did not go well. The needle never felt right in my arm (I've been donating for almost 35 years so I know what "not right" feels like). The machine that was supposed to filter out the platelets and put everything else back in my arm kept beeping during the "put it back" part. After 30 minutes of trying, the tech decided to call it quits.

Two days later, my "donation" arm looked like this:

The bruising got worse and it got painful. A week later my doc diagnosed phlebitis (inflammation and infection of blood vessels), put me on antibiotics, and told me to cancel my clients for the rest of the week.

The good news is that the antibiotics kicked in pretty quickly and less than a week later my arm is much better and the bruising is 75% gone. The other good news is that "clearing my schedule" for the rest of the week only meant cancelling 3 clients and I was able to get back to work by the weekend.

But what if it had been a blood clot and my doc had told me to clear my calendar for several weeks (or months)? I don't consider a blood donation "risky behavior" and, like so many MTs, I don't carry disability insurance, short-term or long-term. How quickly could I have been in deep doo-doo financially?

The answer is: pretty damned quickly.

My husband and I have enough savings to get by without my income for a month or two but it gets tight after that. And what if I didn't have a partner and/or savings? What the heck would I do? Re-tooling for a new not-dependent-on-my-limbs profession takes time and planning!

As MTs, we can be put out of work very very quickly and relatively easily and most of us are not prepared for that, financially. I got lucky this time. But I gotta get much more serious about disability insurance!

Working Without A Net

You've probably all seen the ads:

Make $90 an hour as a massage therapist!
Join one of the fastest growing profession in America as a massage therapist!
Be your own boss in only 5 months!

If you've been practicing for any length of time, you know these come-ons do not even begin to describe the reality of being a massage therapist. These glossy come-ons (and too many schools) also don't clue you in to the fact that you will most likely be self-employed (even when working in someone else's setting) and that being self-employed is tough (and often not wealth-generating).

There's another....well, I won't call it a lie but I will call it a mis-direct...that our own profession is touting. That everyone can be financially secure strictly through working as a massage therapist. When I look at the "success" stories in the trade pubs I notice something -- while they don't say it outright, they imply that it is perfectly reasonable to make a comfortable living as a massage therapist. Many of us know it's actually much harder than that.

Our dirty little secret  is that many of us are "making it" financially because we have partners with better incomes and/or other means of support. I'm one of those that has a partner with a solid steady income that provides us with the all-important health insurance, retirement accounts, savings accounts, etc. There are a lot of co-workers, however, who are doing it "without a net"; that is, entirely on their own. It's a completely different world for them.

Sadly, since so many of us work on our own (and are loathe to tell our financial stories) too many MTs think they're the only one struggling. They think they're making some big mistake because "everyone else" seems to be doing fine. There are people leaving (or not even entering) massage therapy because they can't figure out how to make it on their own.

It's time we started telling each other the truth about how our profession really works. It's time to start telling our financial stories so we know we're not alone. I write a column for the quarterly newsletter of the DC chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association. My next column (January '12, which is closer than you think!) will be all about this. I'll post a link when it's published.

Honoring My Limitations

I spent four hours this morning working with Eye Street Massage, doing seated massage for parents weekend at George Washington University. I used to work at Eye Street and I know what a big deal this is every year. The university provides free 15-minute massages for the parents and it's enormously popular.

The owner, Pam, has 8 massage stations for 3 days and we are generally full. She's been doing this for a couple of years and every year her organization and management of the setting gets better and better. I was really impressed with how well it went today.

We are all lined up along the wall of a foyer where the parents come in and register for all the different activities of the weekend. There are people passing through the hallway the whole time we're there. There are people on our chairs the whole shift (with appropriate breaks; thank you Pam!). It is a people-rich environment.

I came home from the event, fixed myself a sandwich, and slept in the recliner for 3 hours. I wasn't physically exhausted but psychically / energetically you could stick a fork in me because I was done. See, I'm an introvert. Touching 14 people in 4 hours while surrounded by MTs and strangers will drain me, every single time. I know how to prep myself, I know how to ground, clear, shield, etc. etc. etc. But at the end of the day, I'm still an introvert who gets wiped out by that much people-contact.

It's why I no longer do corporate massage every week. While it's profitable (and a great steady stream of income) it takes too much out of me. Even when I have a lovely private room and have complete control over my schedule, I can only interact that intentionally with a limited number of people in a day. This happens when I teach too.

I learned through trial and error (the best teacher there is) what my limits are. I don't care how much money there is in corporate work, I don't care how much bigger my client base I would be if I saw more clients in a day or a week, how much more money I would make if I turned clients around faster. I am who I am and only a fool ignores that.

We've all got hard limits on what we can do (or at least do well). Maybe we can only see so many people in a day. Maybe we really stink at long-range planning or bookkeeping or writing session notes. Maybe we're a terrible public speaker or just not a good writer. You need to know what your limits are and honor them. Get help doing the things you can't do.

Lots of "success" advice out there in the world is based on some mythical "average" business owner (or, worse, on what the writer is really good at and enjoys). It may be couched in terms of "you have got to [fill in the blank]...". If you're self-employed, you don't have to do much of anything (OK, except pay taxes and you can get help with that!). Your business, your rules.

Yes, there are things that have been proven, over time, to be smart, effective, or useful. You still get to decide what you want to do, what you don't want to do, and where you need to get someone else to do it for you. For example:

• When I know I'm going to have intensive people-contact time, I make sure there is at least a 3-hour block of time after that for me to sleep or at least be alone.
• I am pretty good at bookkeeping but when something requires absolute precision, especially around numbers, I get help.
• Filing is the same. I know how to do it but I don't like doing it so I ask for help when it's time to clear that stuff off my desk.

No one can do everything. Learn how you really work -- your best and your worst -- and honor that. Pretending you can do everything (or pretending that you don't have limits) is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.