Who Can We Trust?

There are a lot of people saying, in effect, "just ask/follow me! I have all the answers to your business questions!" (Possibly even this blog sometimes.) You can't follow them all, unless you're really fond of having a headache. How do you choose?

Last week I learned something important about who not to follow.

I want to offer more business instruction. Webinars, ebooks, live classes, etc. That's a significant re-jiggering of my professional life. I decided it would be wise to do a more formal "market analysis" than I've done so far.

The Small Business Administration has a partner organization that offers free business advice, coaching, and mentoring. These consultations are with retired executives who are volunteering their expertise and experience. I signed up for a consultation.

With just a few cursory questions, the mentor declared that my business idea was hopeless and would never work. He announced this 5 minutes after I sat down and spent the rest of the hour explaining to me why he was so well-equipped to make this decision, how big his former business was (retail furniture sales), how impressive all the other volunteers were (having run multimillion dollar businesses), etc. There were a lot of mistakes in his assumptions about our profession but he wouldn't shut up long enough for me to explain that.

My favorite of his reasoning? Since his organization offered, in effect, the same thing (business classes and mentoring) for free and they had trouble getting people to use their services, my plan couldn't possibly succeed. After all, I couldn't begin to match their qualifications and credibility.

He also chuckled lightly throughout the hour. This may have been sheer nervousness. I'm aware that when I'm really angry, it's almost impossible to keep that emotion off my face.

And I was really really angry. After I got over the urge to cry at being treated so dismissively. I walked out of there utterly determined to make my plans work, just to prove him wrong!

It's not enough to be "smart". When I need help with my business questions, I want someone who:

• listens well,
• asks lots of questions,
• is patient,
• shows compassion for my burning desire to make my business idea work (no matter how unrealistic),
• teaches rather than judges, and
• leads me through the kind of questions and research that will help me realize my idea is unrealistic if that's true.

I didn't get that. A week later, I'm still really really angry.

The quote at the top of this post is from an Australian life coach, Ingrid Arna. She's right. Why shouldn't our business partnerships have a strong (positive) emotional component to them?

It's foolish to think "doing business" is all about what you've got in your head. If you've been a massage therapist for very long, you've learned that every aspect of it, including the business aspects, involves your heart and soul.

When you're contemplating doing business with someone else, listen to the parts of your body below your eyebrows. Does your heart expand when talking to this person? Does your gut relax and trust? Do you get excited about what you and this person can do together?

Is there love present? Love for your work, love for your profession, love for your business?

I will say, this guy helped me get real clear about what my approach to working with all of you is. I will:

• actually listen to you and ask a lot of questions, not presuming I'm so damned smart I already know all I need to know
• give you the education to help you make your own decisions, possibly including the decision to change your mind about what you want to do
• respect the passion that drives you to make your practice work, maybe even get excited about it with you
• use language you can understand
• explain terms and concepts in ways that fit in your world
• presume you're smart and deserve to succeed
• respect that your dream may be a little crazy but it's still worth a try
• NOT MAKE YOU CRY

Now you tell me: what do you want out of someone offering your business advice or coaching?

Did Your School Really Prepare You To Be A Professional?

I think Lauren Muser Cates is one of the blessings to our profession that we can never be thankful enough for. (OK, editor friends, did that sentence parse correctly?)  In addition to her beautiful work with oncology massage, she also writes a blog about massage therapists for massage therapists. She can be funny, wry, and even hilarious. She can also be biting and spot on about some of the issues in our profession.

A recent post had me nodding in agreement from the first paragraph to the last (and not just because she mentions me by name!) She talks earnestly and pointedly about what it means to call yourself a "professional" and what behavior doesn't qualify as professional.

I realized that our strongest lessons about what it means to be a massage professional came first from massage school, from the faculty and the administration.

How did they run the school?

How did they move, talk, and represent themselves? Was it with dignity and compassion, and (yes) professionalism?

Was it clear they were as devoted to the profession as they were to making sure your check cleared? Did they attend conferences and participate in professional associations? Were they independent of any given employer of massage therapists?

Did they actually turn people away that they didn't think were wise to be entering this profession? Did they hold back students (or even "flunk" them) when it was clear the student was not able to meet the academic standards of the school? Did you have classmates that clearly couldn't learn this stuff but were passed through anyways? How many of your classmates came out of school reasonably able to pass either national exam (if required in your state) on the first or second try?

Were the faculty now or ever practicing massage therapists themselves? What was the experience of the administration with massage therapy? Did they even receive regular bodywork??

How did they talk about being a professional?

Did they have a clear idea of what you can and can’t do and still consider yourself a “professional”. Could they explain their reasoning? Could the engage in a back and forth about it?

Did they have these conversations with you in and out of the classroom? More than once? Possibly related to every aspect of what they were teaching you? Did they explain why this or that made you more or less of a professional?

Did they set a high or low bar for what it means to be a professional MT? Did they tell you it took more to be a professional than effectively rubbing oil on naked people?

How did they talk about our profession?

Did they denigrate our profession in any way? Did they -- subtly or overtly -- suggest that MTs who talk about "professionalism" are taking themselves too seriously? Did they -- subtly or overtly -- suggest you set your professional expectations low because, after all, you're just a massage therapist. Did they talk about reasons to be (or not) involved in professional associations, conferences, licensing issues, research, and the future of our profession?

Did they talk about being connected to other massage therapists after graduation? Did they talk about other massage therapists as your colleagues or your competition?

Or was it all about where to go to make the biggest buck and let someone else worry about all that other boring stuff?


I suspect too many schools would not do well if measured against these standards. Why? Because I read the invective and confusion out here in the misty reaches of the internet on too many massage therapists boards. I see the hate. I see the befuddlement. I see the hurt. I feel the hurt because it hurts me!

How did / does your school measure up?

Your Marketing Headspace: What's True For You?

Two weeks ago I talked about general rules for marketing. These are truths that are generally true for all businesses or at least for massage therapists. We need to keep these in mind when thinking about how we market our practices.

There's a second side to this marketing headspace: what's specifically true for you. Some of the marketing decisions and realities you have to deal with are unique to you. When I sit down with MTs to help them jumpstart their marketing efforts, I explain that they need to have a clear picture of three things:

• What they're offering
• Who they're marketing to
• Themselves

What You're Offering

You aren't selling massage therapy. If you were, everyone with the same educational credentials would be the same. They aren't. What we're really offering is (1) an experience and/or (2) a particular outcome.

Are my sessions sports-oriented or am I all about the energetic body? Do I prefer working with athletes or geriatrics? Is my office warm and fuzzy or neat and medical? Am I likely to engage you in an extended intake or will I stay tightly focused, gettin you on and off the table as quickly as possible? Do I tend to form long-term relationships with clients or am I more focused on helping you rehabilitate a problem and move on?

How will you be different after a session with me? Lighter? More graceful? In less pain? Centered? Able to run faster and jump higher? More in touch with your own body? More flexible? Less emotionally "gummed up"?

This is a one-on-one industry. Each of us offers a different kind of experience and are better at helping to produce particular outcomes. What's yours?

Who's The Best Person For You To Market To

I've said this many times before but what the heck, I'll say it again: most of us are functioning with limited time, energy, and money especially for marketing. It makes sense to spend those resources connecting with the kinds of people that are the very best fit for us. It doesn't mean we won't work with someone outside that profile but our energies and resources are focused on the clients that are the best fit for us.

I don't market to athletes. If you're hardcore about your training or competition, there are other local MTs who are a better fit for you and I'll happily give you their name and number. On the other hand, I particularly like working with people who are using massage to endure the slings and arrows of middle age or of long-term conditions. I like ongoing relationships.

I'm going to use language and images to speak to these people. I'm going to put myself in places these people are more likely to be. I can't be everywhere and I can't be everything. I have to choose. We all do.

Who Are You

You are at the epicenter of your practice. Baby, it is all about you! What are you good at? What are you lousy at? What energizes you? What drains you? When are you at your best and your worst? You might as well accept these truths about yourself and take them into consideration when planning your marketing efforts.

I don't do networking events because I'm an introvert and they drain me completely.

I write newsletters and blogs because I'm a professional writer and I enjoy it.

I will build my own website (after finishing my WordPress class) because I've got some rudimentary technical skills. I pay people to provide graphics because I don't have those skills.

I will talk to groups because I'm comfortable doing that (despite being an introvert) but I know I may need extra downtime afterwards.

I will donate chair massage to organizations I am strongly attached to.

I don't offer a lot of discounts because, honestly, I get confused about what I'm offering at any given time!

I don't answer the phone after 9 pm.  :)

It does me no good to try to fit myself into someone else's model of the "perfect marketer" because the odds are very high that I won't fit. If I had the money to hire a professional marketer I would but I don't so I'm stuck with me in all my glory and mess. When you are honest with yourself, what kind of marketing efforts make sense for the person you actually are and what are things you're just not going to be good at?

What are you offering?
Who are you trying to reach?
Who are you?

When you have solid answers to these three questions, you are well on your way to making better marketing decisions.