I Wish I Knew What I Was Doing

I spent this past weekend at my annual business retreat. I usually spend one day analyzing the past year and one day planning the year to come.

The last year didn’t have much to “analyze” since I didn’t start working again until August. I spent more time thinking about what I want out of 2012, professionally. Success in 2012 comes down to “marketing” almost every time:

• Grow my client base so I can see more clients each week
• Find other MTs and healers to share space 
• Meet the minimum registrations for 6 workshops 
• Finish one book and find a publisher

Even after 12 years I’m really guessing when it comes to marketing, promotion, and increasing my visibility.  I know what people talk about and suggest -- speaking engagements, websites, Facebook, flyers, direct mail, etc. -- but I can’t tell you what absolutely works. It’s frustrating, even discouraging. It can leave me face-planted on my desk, frankly.

And I write about business (and even about marketing)! Shouldn’t I know? Am I totally scamming you by writing a blog about business when this major piece of business (marketing) is still a mystery to me?

More desk face-planting.

I don't have a degree in business, an MBA, an accounting degree, or any formal training. All I have is what I read and what I've learned a long the way. Some days, that works really well for me. Some days it doesn't.

I can only plod along, trying the things I think will work (and that I'm willing to do) and hope for the best. That's business.

News I've Been Waiting For

In June 2011 I submitted an application to be a presenter at the October 2012 American Massage Therapy Association annual convention. It seems to have taken them an unusually long time to make their decision but I got the news today...

I'm in!!

I will be teaching a 2-hour session titled "Business Plans Deciphered". I'll be offering it twice, both on Thursday afternoon of the convention. It will discuss:

* what a business plan is and the two ways you can use it
* the common elements of a business plan and what they mean
* how to customize a standard business plan (i.e., which parts you can ignore) to meet the needs of a massage therapy practice

I'm so completely jazzed! I really do love to teach and I really do love to teach healers how to understand business stuff and use it to their advantage. I'm also glad for the increased visibility and validation that comes from presenting at a conference like this.

Yeah!!!

Don't Eat The Bunnies

At the beginning of this month I took over a corporate massage contract from a friend who felt it was time for her to move on. It’s at a large government agency in downtown DC. They’ve had a massage therapist here, once a week, for maybe 8 years.

These kind of contracts turn over every few years. They can be popular and lucrative so when an MT is ready to move on, they often hand-pick their successor, inviting an MT from among their acquaintances to take over for them. Being offered a healthy contract is a gift.

And how many clients do I have on my schedule today at this government agency? None. In fact, I’ve had exactly 1.5 hours of work in the 4 weeks I’ve been here.

It would be easy to panic (soooooooo easy.....) but I won’t. I've had this kind of government contract before and learned a valuable lesson -- people hate change; government employees really hate change. It can take as many as 6 months (especially at a government contract) for the employees to accept a new MT and start filling up the schedule again.

I refer to government employees (lovingly, I swear!) as “shy woodland creatures”. That’s probably not the mental image you have of federal workers but when it comes to change, they are. When there’s a change in their world, they metaphorically run back to their burrows and hide until they’re sure that you are not a predator who is going to eat them.

When they decide it’s safe to engage with this “new” thing, they can be some of your most consistent and reliable clients. But they’ve got to respond to the change in their own way and their own time.

I’m committed to showing up every week at this corporate contract through the summer. I will give the “shy woodland creatures” in this government building 6 months to confirm that I will not eat them.

In 12 years I have learned (over and over and over and over) that building a client base is a marathon, not a sprint.  I have to pace myself and be patient. I have to market my practice -- newsletters, emails, a web page, flyers, etc. I also have to be grateful for what I do have. In the weeks where I only have one client, I need to be grateful for that one client rather than resentful about the 9 clients I don’t have. I have to keep my heart pliable.

A marathon is won by endurance as much as it is by speed. So is a successful massage therapy practice.

And if you are in or near Washington DC, The Healing Core is sponsoring a one-day workshop on marketing. 

“One Year To A Successful Massage Therapy Practice”

August 12

Taught by Laura Allen, author of One Year To A Successful Massage Therapy Practice, A Massage Therapist's Guide To Business, and Plain & Simple Guide to Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork Examinations.

A Working Woman

I have been delaying responding to two emails. It's embarassing how long I've been avoiding them. A week at least.

It's illogical -- these emails are from people I have invited to come to DC and lead workshops under the auspices of The Healing Core, my new training company partnership with Kitty Southworth. I want them to come and teach workshops, both for the knowledge they will share and because this is how our training company makes money!

So, why the email avoidance? Because the emails are to finalize our contracts with them. And all of a sudden I'm asking myself "who the heck am I to be entering into these contracts??". All of a sudden, I've got a bad case of self-doubt.

It's even more illogical because I've done this before! I've sponsored people before (including one of the women I'm avoiding!). But it was never so official before. I'm saying to these women "trust me, I can make this happen, I know what I'm doing" and they're going to clear time on their schedules and buy plane tickets based on my word alone.

Oh.....dear.

Yes, I can do this (more specifically, Kitty and I can do this together). But I (we) are taking ourselves out on a limb, we are pushing ourselves into new roles and responsibilities. We've laid all the groundwork so this really should work.

Still. Oh.....dear.

It's damned tough sometimes to really accept ourselves as business owners, even when we know better. If we're open to new opportunities, we will find ourselves doing things that bring up self-doubt, that stir up our insecurities. We've all got them.

But I did, just now, respond to the emails. I've taken that step and fulfilled my responsibilities. I'm going to do everything I can to make these workshops work. Despite my quivering duodenum.

So, when you've got the self-doubts and/or quivering duodenum, know that you're not alone!

Speaking of workshops.....

March 30 - April 1:  Create Quality Continuing Education. If you've got something you want to teach (or even something you're already teaching) this workshop will help you design your workshop for the greatest student experience. Don't just do education, do it really well. Rockville MD

May 19 - 20:  Taxes & Bookkeeping for the Healing Arts Professional. Learn how to fill out your tax returns to your greatest benefit, understand quarterly taxes, and be smart about the day-to-day "deductions" decisions you make as a business owner. Rockville MD

Energy 101: A Comprehensive Unified Introduction to the Energetic Body
July 14 - 16: Norman OK
July 20 - 22: Denver CO
September 7 - 9:  Washington DC

Understand how your energtic body is put together, how you are living in it, how it interacts with other energetic bodies, and how it matters in the larger world.

August 12: One Year To A Successful Massage Therapy Practice. Learn all the ins and outs of successfully marketing your massage practice in a way that is consistent with your values, time, energy, and income. Ashton MD

Sneaking Away With Another Woman

I spent this past weekend locked away in a cabin in the woods with my dear partner. No, not my husband (dear as he is). My business partner, Kitty Southworth.

She and I have officially launched The Healing Core, a company devoted to healers teaching healers, a company devoted to making us all smarter around matters of business and the energetic body. We needed to tweak / update our workshop (Energy 101: A Comprehensive Unified Introduction to the Energetic Body). 

It was a wonderfully productive weekend but why did we spend the money for a cabin and truck in our own food and drive 2.5 hours? Why not save the time and money and do all this at home?

Simple. It wouldn't have worked.

Several times this weekend we came across things we didn’t really want to deal with, didn’t have an answer for, or disagreed about. If we were at home, we’d have a wealth of distractions to take us away! Checking email, answering the phone, throwing in a load of laundry, emptying the dishwasher. When there’s something you really don’t want to do, anything else looks like a good idea.

Kitty admits that when we were in massage school, she would regularly be consumed with an urge to clean the oven -- usually about the same time she was supposed to be writing her practice logs. When I was in college, I resorted to washing down the steps to avoid studying for finals.

Did Kitty really love cleaning her oven? Did I really enjoy washing down the steps? No, but those activities look so virtuous compared to studying or writing practice logs!

When the work is really important to you (and possibly kinda difficult) you may well have to escape the temptations of home, even if just for the weekend. A lot of massage therapists balk at the time and expense. Compare that to the value of getting the thing done, whatever the thing is. 

In the same vein, Kitty and I actually went to couples counseling together! (Don’t worry, my husband knows all about this and approves). During the process last fall of setting up our company, we came across some interpersonal issues that we needed to work out. Sometimes, you need an objective 3^rd party to walk you through the conversations necessary to resolve conflict.

We came out of that session a stronger working unit, with a better understanding of each other and, consequently, a better working relationship. Money and time well-spent.

As healers, we accept paying for things that will be useful to our clients -- equipment, linens, lotions, music, training, etc. What are the things that will make us stronger as healers (and as business owners)? Training? Mentoring? Get-aways? Books? Support? Are you willing to pay for those things too?

Spend the money that will make you (not just your clients) stronger.

Working Without A Net

There’s a lot of buzz these days about “complementary” therapies -- like massage, acupuncture, etc. -- and it’s bringing more and more people into the field. There are a lot of people entering the field without really examining the economic realities of our work.

Sadly, the schools aren’t usually doing a good job of helping them understand these economic realities either. It’s not exactly in their best interest to say to incoming massage therapy students, for example, that the average earnings of a full-time massage therapist is $32,000 nationally. And that’s before taxes, business expenses, continuing education, etc.

The “dirty little secret” of massage therapy is that a whole lot of us are making it because we’ve got another revenue stream, frequently a partner. Not only do they provide the enviable steady income, they are usually the source of the all-important health insurance!

I’m definitely in that boat, especially now that I’m re-building my practice after our sojourn in Australia. I’m struggling. If it weren’t for my husband, his steady income, his health insurance, and the savings we’ve put away over the years I’d be in deep doo-doo. Deep doo-doo.

There are, however, those among us who are making it all on their own. They are making all (or most) of their living from massage therapy. I spoke to several local massage therapists in the last few months to get a sense of how they do it. They were generous with their time, insights, and experience.

The most common trait of all of them is that they have chosen to live simply. They are very conscious of living within their means and keep a close eye on their finances. They live both alone and in shared housing. Some own their own places but they usually bought them before they became a massage therapist. If they have a car (here in DC it’s feasible to live without a car if you live in the city or in a close-in suburb) they keep them as long as they can.

When they go out, they are conscious of the income disparity between themselves and their friends and sometimes it makes them self-conscious. They don’t travel as much or as far as those with other income support. They don’t do recreational shopping. They pay attention to sales.

Some of them have small side jobs that supplement their massage income. Some have deeper savings from their lives/careers before massage therapy.

The group I talked to were about half split between those paying for their health insurance themselves and those doing without. Both groups are more vigilant about taking care of themselves.

The one subject that had almost of them (metaphorically) sticking their fingers in their ears and singing “lalalalala I can’t hear you!” was the subject of retirement. I don’t think any of them had a clear idea of how they were ever going to retire. Their ages ranged from the late 30s to the 50s; all of them are aware of the problem but none of them had a solution.

[Curiously, one friend of mine who is doing very well financially, even without a “net”, makes enough to fully fund her retirement account every year and has done so for years. Even she worries about retirement!]

Are these massage therapists laying awake at night with an icy knot in their duodenum, worrying about paying the rent and subsisting on ramen noodles? Every now and then but actually not that often. To a person, they all said, in effect, “I do the best I can and there’s no point in getting anxious about what I can’t control.”

I was expecting to hear more dramatic tales, honestly, of scrimping and worry and resentment and angst. Didn’t get it. They’re all working all the hours they reasonably think they can. No one is working killer-hours just to pay the rent.

And here’s the thing that really struck me -- their story is the story of a lot of Americans today. Living simply and consciously. Living within their means. Staying away from credit cards. Keeping a close eye on spending and finances. Working what they can when they can. And still enjoying their lives. Being -- mostly -- optimistic that things will be OK.

It gives me hope that if it all goes to heck in a hand basket, my husband and I will keep it together too. That definitely helps me sleep at night.