Continuing the "2" theme: if you think of your business
as a house, it's a house with two rooms -- the first room is your practice room. The second room
is your office. You need to spend time, energy, and money in both rooms.
In the practice room, you
spend your time, energy, and money on being the best massage therapist you can
be. In your office, you spend time, energy, and money being the best business
owner you can be.
How are your energies
currently being divided between these two rooms? If I were to guess, a lot of
MTs probably split their time 95 / 5:
95% of their time, energy, and money are devoted to being a good massage
therapist; 5% are spent on being a good business owner.
In my experience, a more
useful split would be 80 / 20. If you're just starting out, it might be more
like 60 / 40, maybe even 50 / 50. You
may be able get away with 90 / 10 if you have a mature practice full of repeat
clients who never leave you. But it's never going to be 100 / 0 (or even 95 /
5) if you want to be truly proficient in both sides of the house.
What does it mean to devote
20% of your time, energy, and money to your business?
In a 40-hour week, spend
about 8 hours on your business. That includes doing your bookkeeping, updating
a website, writing a newsletter, doing the laundry (sigh), buying supplies,
reading trade pubs, etc.
If you spend, say, $1,000
a year on continuing education, set aside at least $200 for business-related
workshops.
When you dream about your
ideal practice, remember to imagine what the business side looks like too!
If you go to a conference
offering workshops, take at least one business-related workshop (if they're
offered). If you organize those conferences, make sure you offer business
courses.
Spend at least one weekend
a year on a business retreat. What would you do there? Close out your books for
the year and get them ready for filing taxes. Update your business plan for the
coming year. Begin writing a business plan! Evaluate how you did meeting your goals for last year. Decide what
continuing ed you'll take in the coming year. Catch up on your massage magazines. Finish reading that massage book you bought at your last conference. Get a massage. That sort of
thing.
See how I'm thinking about
this? Running your business happens every day. Making time, energy, and money
available to become a better business person needs to be part of your regular
schedule as well.
Now on to a more self-serving
note....
If you find taxes,
bookkeeping, or marketing (important business-owner kind of activities)
baffling, The Healing Core is offering two workshops to help you:
Taxes & Bookkeeping for The Healing Arts Professional (early bird discount ends in a week)
One Year To A Successful Massage Therapy Practice (which is all about marketing)
Both are taught for massage
therapists by massage therapists. Signing up for either can be a first step in
getting your 80 / 20 lined up properly.
Do you do a post on taxes? I'm struggling with mine.
ReplyDeleteNot yet. What are you struggling with?
ReplyDeleteIt's not a simple question but there is a workshop in May for just that (yes, I know it's after this years taxes but at least you'll be ready for next year!)
www.taxesandbookkeeping.eventbrite.com
I love how you broke down the 40hr work week. My struggle, time management.
ReplyDelete