(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.