A New Picture for the Photo Gallery In Your Head

A few weeks ago, I talked about how the pictures in our head can help or hinder us. Specifically, what does a “business person” look like in your head? Is it motivating you or pushing you away?
 

I want to give you an example of a “business person” that might be better than the picture in your head.

Brenda Teal is a massage therapist and the owner of The Teal Center. The Teal Center has 2 locations in Arlington VA – one in a hospital, one in a residential high-rise – and about two dozen practitioners (four of whom are acupuncturists). The practice is well-respected in the massage community and in the client community.

Brenda readily admits that she didn’t plan her way to where she is now. She simply responded to what was right in front of her.

She started as a massage therapist and a single parent working out of her home in Washington DC. She just wanted to have enough work to support herself and her kids. Her focus was pain relief, primarily through neuromuscular therapy. If she hadn’t gotten a “cease and desist” order from the city for practicing physical therapy without a license (she wasn’t but that’s what the city called it before we had MT licensure) she might still be there.

That visit by the police meant she had to move into the nearby Virginia suburbs. Though she found a space, she wasn’t entirely satisfied with it. A client who was involved in corporate real estate encouraged her to take on a space in a residential high-rise. It was 4 times bigger than what she had (or needed) but the opportunity was too good to pass up. She added massage therapists as she was able and has grown her practice to where it is today.

When she was starting out, she began attending a small business support group, where she was strongly encouraged to operate her business in a more traditional way. They told her she “wasn’t creating enough profit”. She found their worldview and their values simply “didn’t suit me”; she left the group and followed her own values.

What values have guided her? “To create a business based on the same values as my practice. Service to massage therapists and to my clients. Respect. Collaboration.”

In fact, The Teal Center has a specific list of values that governs their operations as a business:

·       Service

·       Compassion

·       Collaboration

·       Professionalism

·       Personal responsibility

Brenda says these values aren’t just something you hold in your heart; it governs the kind of behavior she expects to see in the practice.

While The Teal Center is supporting her (so she doesn’t have to do massage to be able to pay herself!) it just makes enough money to support the practice. “I earn a living for me but I don’t have a huge income.” She said her salary is less than 10% of The Teal Center’s gross when standard business wisdom is that it should be 20%.

Brenda says her “main goal is not profitability but sustainability.” Yet she’s managed to be profitable and sustainable while still being able to look at her center, look at her values, look at the satisfaction of the people who work for her and be pleased with what she’s done.

Many of her therapists have been with her for years, in no small part because Brenda is dedicated to “helping massage therapists earn a livable wage. I pay therapists as much as possible.” Because she started as a massage therapist, that dedication is deep in her bones.

Traditional business advice is that a business in the service sector (such as massage) should have no more than 55% of their expenses going to pay their employees. The Teal Center is right at 55%.

Brenda makes a distinction between a “business person” and an “entrepreneur”. Business people pay their own taxes, rent, and overhead. They pay attention to details. They can imagine their future and forecast what it will take to get there. They have a certain ability to (and may actually take pleasure in) analyzing their business. They are consistent and dependable.

Entrepreneurs, according to Brenda, are driven by “a vision to create something bigger than what they can create on their own”. While business people may be able to operate on their own, entrepreneurs work in partnership, as part of a larger community. (Though, yes, they still need to do all the things a business person does.)

While she is clearly a business person, she defines herself as an entrepreneur. When she thinks back on her business development, she cites a list of people who have been part of her journey.

Actually, she says “I was the engine for my business. Now my business is working for me. I’m now an executive. I make decisions and guide the practice.”

Even as an executive, she keeps coming back to service as her primary motivator. “I can [run The Teal Center] as a service to other massage therapists who don’t want to do this.” By “this” she means the management of a practice – laundry, scheduling, processing payments, renting space, marketing, etc. In fact, she says “service done well is the most effective marketing.”

Brenda is a great example of holding the highest values in your heart – service, compassion, professionalism, etc. -- while still be able to function as a business owner – pay the rent, set the rates, analyze your numbers, etc. She is the picture I want you all to have in your head (well, it doesn’t have to be her specifically but you get the idea) – someone who combines the heart of a healer and a head for business and doesn’t lose herself in the process.

We Change

Yesterday was another no-clients day at the gym. I got a lot of reading done but, of course, I would rather have been doing massage.

When I began my career in massage therapy in 2000, I was all about building my own practice! I wanted it to be all mine all the time. I wanted to work for myself, by golly!

13 years down the road and I have the experience of building a practice, of being fully my own boss. My energies seem to be shifting now. I'm not as interested in running the whole show. My "build it yourself!" energies are more engaged in my continuing education partnership with Kitty Southworth.

My roommate and I talked about the pros and cons of working for yourself last night. We both ponder whether we wouldn't just rather go work for another organization and let them deal with the nuts and bolts, leaving us free energetically to pursue our other passions.

I may be headed that way. 10 years ago I would have felt like I was giving up or betraying myself. I would have been silently frowning at myself for not "making a go" of it. I don't know that I need that satisfaction -- the "and I did it myself!" feeling -- as much as I did 10 or 12 years ago, at least not in my massage practice.

I've changed. That's not an "issue", it's a common and simple fact of life. I doubt any of us are the same person we were in 2000, even apart from the world events that have transpired in the intervening years. We mature, we experience, we change.

That's one of the reasons I take a yearly business retreat and update my business plan. While my mission and vision statements do not change often, they do need to change sometimes. I may have actually, by golly, achieved my earlier goals and need to set some new ones!

Don't let youself get trapped into one version of yourself forever and for all time. If you needed one thing 10 years ago, make sure you aren't still chasing a goal that doesn't motivate you any more. You, too, are allowed to change. You should expect it.

Check in with yourself and make sure you know who you still are.

4 minutes to a less painful tax time

Is there a quick and easy way to get your bookkeeping out of the way every day? (Hint: yes) Keeping up with your bookkeeping makes tax time a breeze.   It improves the odds of not losing track of business deductions.   It avoids the pain of tracking down receipts from days, weeks, or months ago.   It means you don't give yourself brain cramps trying to remember what you did when and where and how much you paid for it.   You can give yourself all these benefits in less than 4 minutes a day (trust me, I've actually timed it) (because, yes, I'm that much of a nerd). Let us show you how. Learn: The choices you have for doing your bookkeeping. How to set up your bookkeeping to save you time and aggravation (and make tax time simpler and less painful). The minimum amount of information you need to record to take care of yourself. How to use all that data you enter to be a lot smarter about your business. And, yes, we will practice, practice, practice. You will walk out of this seminar with the skills you need deep in your hands.   Make 2013 the year that you become both the best practitioner you can be and the wisest business owner you can be (and the year that you reduce the pain of tax time!).     This workshop will grant 2 CEs for massage therapists.

Registration is now open  Bookkeeping, Quick & Dirty Wednesday, March 6 Potomac Massage Training Institute 5028 Wisconsin Ave NW / Washington DC $40

It's A Sign!

So, I was feeling pretty grumpy yesterday morning. Draining weekend. Rainy Monday.

As I was getting my bag ready to go to the gym to work, I found myself frustrated that I have to spend time and energy to be ready to provide massage at the gym even though I might end up with no clients. These clients tend to book at the last minute so I have to go even when I don't have anyone scheduled at the beginning of the day. It's just the way it works.

I found myself thinking "I can't do this any more. I hate the drive. I hate the uncertainty. I'm going to have to find another place to work this year. This is just too much aggravation. I bet I don't have one single client today!"

I ended up with a full schedule. Not just a full schedule, but a full schedule of interesting people who are exactly the kind of clients I love to work with.

I'm presuming it's A Sign that I need to shut up and just keep going to work. Don't you just hate it when you suspect the Universe is snickering at you?

(with apologies to GhostBusters) I Ain't Afraid of No Numbers!

I've been having a lot of conversations with MTs lately about the emotional aspects of embracing their inner business person. When we get down into it, one subject keeps popping up -- fear of numbers and, more specifically, fear of money. When does that fear manifest?

• Keeping up with our bookkeeping
• Filing our quarterly taxes
• Preparing our annual taxes
• Setting and raising rates
• Offering discounts
• Crunching the numbers to see how our business is really doing

If you're self-employed (whether as a solo practitioner or as an independent contractor), you are a business owner. It doesn't matter if you want to be a business owner or not. If you aren't a W2 employee, you're a business owner.

Being a business owner means having an up-close and personal relationship with numbers. To be more accurate, being a successful business owner means having an up-close and personal relationship with numbers. You can always choose to be a mediocre business owner (but I hope you don't because I like you and I want you to be successful).

"But I caaaaaaaaan't!" you wail.
"But I haaaaaaaaaate dealing with numbers!" you moan.
"Look, shiny object!" you trill (in a desperate effort to avoid this entire conversation).

I get that. I also fully accept that a fear / suspicion / phobia about numbers is common and real. (Don't even ask me about my Bad Experience learning my multiplication tables when I was 8.) You may need to get some help.

It's OK to ask for help. Maybe you need a good therapist. Maybe you need a good tutor. Maybe you need a bookkeeper and accountant. Maybe you just need someone to hold your hand. Whatever help you need, go find it. A savvy person is honest with themselves about what they need and they go get it.

My business partner, Kitty Southworth, had a desperate fear of numbers. I used to joke that as soon as I started talking about numbers, her body was there but her spirit was half-way down the block and picking up speed. At the end of 2011 I also told her that our professional partnership needed her to find a way to stay fully present for financial conversations.

So she took a deep breath and began working with a therapist about her relationship to money and numbers. Just before she left for a week-long retreat last Friday, I got this email from her: 

Sent my taxes off to [the accountant] yesterday, now I do leave with a free heart.

This from a woman who, for as long as I've known her, has practically worked herself into a nervous breakdown every year over doing her annual taxes. But after working with a good therapist for a year, she's got her taxes done and off to the accountant in early February.

I am sooooooo damned proud of her I could burst. She had the guts to face her fears head on and make a difference for herself (and for me). 2013 is going to be a very different kind of year for her and for us and we are both looking forward to it.

Wouldn't you like to be able to say that for yourself too?

I want to share a snippet from a recent post by another massage biz blogger, Steph Lasch LMT. She writes the Thriving Massage Business blog:

All of you that are in business for yourself are entrepreneurs. If you don't know your numbers in your own business, you're not engaged or truly passionate about what you do as a business owner. I'm not saying that you're not passionate about massage, your clients or about the results you can achieve in your work. What I *am* saying is that if you don't know your financial numbers - total sales, total number of massages, total debt, projected sales for future quarters/years, *you are not passionate about your business*.

Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something. I'm going to draw on the enthusiasm aspect here. You can only really be enthusiastic about your job or career as a massage therapy business owner when your business is doing well, right? Passion for your *business* can only come across to others when you take it seriously - when you DO focus on the numbers to improve them, massage them, and make them favorable.

She's right -- you don't really own your business until you know your business. That requires grappling with the numbers. Business owners have to know the full contours of their business like a massage therapist needs to know the full contours of the human body. Numbers show you the contours of your business.

For some of you, this is depressing news. But it doesn't have to be. You were probably once fearful of all you had to learn to be a good massage therapist. But you did it. If you can learn muscles, you can learn numbers.

I have faith in you.

Who's That Hiding In Your Head?

We all have pictures in our heads about the "real" world.

What a real adult looks/acts like.
What a real parent looks/acts like.
What a real massage therapist looks/acts like.

Sometimes those pictures help. If I've got a robust and positive picture in my head of a role, the picture can motivate and guide me forward into something good.

Sometimes, these pictures are an impediment. If my picture is of something I don't actually want to be, I'm going to resist it; I'm going to be in conflict with that role.

I spoke with an MT recently about her understanding of herself as a business person. She said she'd just realized that the "picture" of a business person in her head was of someone she didn't want to be -- aggressive, money-obsessed, cut-throat -- and she realized this was standing in the way of taking herself seriously as a business person.

Do you have a picture in your head of what a "real" business person looks / acts like? Is it moving you forward or holding you back?

The good news is that the pictures in our heads are mutable; we can change them. What if the picture in your head of a "real" business person included:

• active in community service
• generous with their expertise and experience
• provides a valuable service
• sets prices reasonably and raises them in a timely manner
• dedicated to good customer service
• maintains healthy boundaries between business and personal life
• sets financial goals that are good for the customer and good for him/herself
• enjoys her/his work and is an inspiring role model
• continually seeking education to be a wiser business owner
• has earned the respect of the people who work for and with him/her

Are these things feasible? Do these people exist? The answer to both questions is "yes". I can give you examples from my world but I encourage you to find them in your own.

Re-draw the picture in your head. Find real-world examples that help you do that. It's a waste of time and energy working towards a "picture" you loathe.