Have Hands, Will Travel

The Best Teachers

2012-02-29T07:41:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking about teaching a lot lately. I'm still very excited to be teaching Business Plans Deciphered in October at the AMTA national convention (and I'd love to see any of you there!). I'm working on promoting the workshops of The Healing Core and the very first workshop we're offering is Create Quality Continuing Education. I keep coming up with courses and seminars I want to offer next year and I get excited by the possibilities.

Teaching is on my mind.

I am also in a group with a few other MTs who meet monthly to work our way through Twelve Months to Your Ideal Practice. This month's exercises are all about marketing, starting with writing a newsletter for you practice. Well, don't I feel pretty smug about that, what with being a professional writer and having written a newsletter for my practice for 10 years now!

Then my "teaching" brain and my "writing" brain collided. I started contemplating whether I should offer a workshop on writing newsletters for your practice. And I quickly realized I am the wrong person to teach that class. I, literally, do not know how to teach people how to write.

We often assume that the best teachers are the ones who are the most skilled at a certain task. However, some of my worst training experiences were with teachers who were excellent at their craft....and always had been. Therein lies the problem.

When something has always been easy for you, has always come naturally to you, it is very difficult to put yourself in the shoes / mind / heart of someone who has never been adept at a thing, who is struggling, who just doesn't get it. A teacher who teaches from their own personal experience of a subject or task rather than from the student's experience with a subject or task is rarely a good teacher.

The best teaching is less about the data than it is about empathy with the student. It's about the instructors ability to recognize and appreciate where the student is and help the student move from a place of discomfort / ignorance / inexperience to a place of competence, comfort, and knowledge. A great teacher is as much a guide and a mentor as they are the resident expert, especially when a workshop is geared to beginners.

I think this happens a lot with energy work. The teachers are often people who have always been able to feel chakras / see auras / feel energy / etc. and they genuinely want you to have and enjoy that experience too. But they've never had to learn to feel chakras, see auras, or feel energy so it's difficult for them to teach that part of the experience.

I can't teach writing because I've never had to learn how to write. Oh, I've had to learn how to write well and I've had to work at honing my craft but words have always come easily to me. I was a writer in the first grade! I never had to learn to write, I could always write (well, once I learned how to read). I do not know how to put myself in a non-writers shoes, to feel that experience.

Think about your favorite courses and instructors. Think about your least favorite courses and instructors. How often was the difference between them an instructor who genuinely understood where you -- as the student, as the novice -- were coming from?

And if you're thinking about taking up teaching, honestly ask yourself if you can put yourself in the shoes of someone who genuinely does not know how to do the thing you want to teach. (And if you want to ensure you design a great course, sign up for our workshop! You really will be amazed at how much goes into creating a truly great course.)

No Better Teacher

2012-02-29T07:32:00.000-05:00

I had a friend visit this weekend from Lynchburg VA. She loves to come to DC to visit art museums. We spent Saturday in Baltimore and this is a shameless plug for the American Visionary Art Museum. Best four hours I've spent in a museum lately. It just lit up my imagination. Even the gift shop was fun and inspiring!

ANYWAYS (back to the topic at hand), my friend runs a house cleaning service. Like me (and many of us), she's a one-woman self-employed operation. Always working on managing her client base (enough but not too many), finances, marketing, lugging equipment, transportation, working with people from all walks of life, dealing with people who have the wrong idea about her work, even dealing with unwanted advances (yes, it happens to cleaning people too!). It all sounded very familiar.

She's casually contemplating other career options (carrying vacuum cleaners is getting old) and asked me about massage therapy. I talked about the two biggest challenges I find in this profession:

* being a business owner and taking that seriously

* becoming the kind of person who can meet the interpersonal, psychological, and spiritual aspects of our work

She was completely unfazed by the business challenges. They are no different from what she's experienced running a cleaning service. In fact, the best training for running a small service-oriented business is....having run another small service-oriented business.

In our drive to be taken seriously, we compare ourselves to other healthcare providers: doctors, nurses, acupuncturists, chiropractors, etc. How do they earn respect, get paid, set up their practices, etc.?

I suggest that if you want to learn practical business skills you also need to talk to self-employed cleaning ladies, plumbers, car mechanics, dog walkers, home inspectors, and house painters. Talk to them about how they set their rates, advertise their services, maintain a client base, save for retirement, do their bookkeeping, etc. Their challenges are, in many ways, more like ours than a doctor's practice ever will be.

There are teachers everywhere. You just need to learn to recognize them and find opportunities to listen to them.

Looking At Pay-What-You-Can Like A Hippie

2012-02-22T07:14:00.000-05:00

I'm discovering that there's a small but steady drumbeat that business can be done with heart, specifically the heart of healer. Mark Silver is one of those putting some great stuff out. I recommend you check him out.

Mark has come out strongly against "flex pricing" (sliding scales, pay-what-you-can, etc.). What I admire about him, even though I disagree with him, is that when he encountered a cogent argument in favor of pay-what-you-can (PWYC), he listened, he liked what he heard, and he changed his mind! More than that, he put the word out among his considerable network about this new way of thinking.

The PWYC defense was put forth by Tad Hargrave, who does what he calls "Marketing For Hippies". He's all about the alternative economy and he has used PWYC in his workshops and classes. Along the way he's worked out how we communicate with our clients around PWYC to make it work and not be a burden on our clients.

I'm adding a few things to my website in response to what Tad has to say. Mark interviewed him (in 4 segments, for some reason) and posted the interview online. If you're interested in being creative and open in your pricing, I strongly recommend you listen to the interview(s) and read some of what Tad has to say. I know I signed up for his emails (while I'm unsubscribing from almost everything else!).

There's good people out there defining a new better way to do business, a way more in synch with healer values. Have a listen.

There’s Employment and Then There’s Employment

2012-02-14T19:03:00.000-05:00

I’m a word geek. I find words fascinating -- their different meanings, how we use them, how they evolve, how to carefully express an idea or a sentiment with them, the beauty of a well-constructed sentence -- it all speaks to me.

It’s why I can get a bit testy about people using words too carelessly. Masseuse vs. massage therapist. Impact as a verb. Impactful under any circumstances. Employment...

Wait (I hear you saying) that's a good word! Yes it is. The problem is that too many people use "employment" when they should be saying "contracting". The difference matters. A lot.

In the February 2012 issue of Massage Today, columnist Angie Patrick suggested that our two work choices as MTs are entrepreneur or employee. We work for ourselves or we work for others. The problem with this either/or categorization is that there is a third choice (there's almost always a third choice) and it's the one masses of us find ourselves in: independent contractor.

Am I splitting hairs? Absolutely not.

Angie is right that, very broadly speaking, we can work by ourselves or we can work with other people. When we work with other people, however, we aren't necessarily working for other people.

When we work with an organization as an independent contractor we are not an employee. (Approximately 99% of the MTs I know here in DC who work as part of another organization [spa, group practice, chiro, etc.] are independent contractors.) We don't have the privileges of an employee -- paid time off, regular salary, medical benefits, etc. -- but we also don't have the restrictions of an employee -- employer decides when, how, and where you will work using what tools, processes, and procedures, etc.

There is a balance of power inherent in working relationships. When you are an employee, the employer has more control but they also have more responsibility. When you are an independent contractor, you negotiate more of the details of your working relationship and the balance of power is less one-sided.

Here's another sneaky little truth in our industry: even when we are officially employees, we often don't get the goodies we assume come with employment, such as paid time off or medical benefits. I have learned from talking to a number of MTs who are officially employees that even when companies offer these benefits, the rules governing what it takes to actually qualify are usually not written in our favor.

In one case here in DC, an MT could be scheduled to be at work for 40 hours a week but the only hours the company would count towards qualifying for benefits would be the hours the MT was actually in session with a client. If you had 25 one-hour sessions in a week (a completely full schedule for most of us), the company would say you were only "part-time" so you weren't eligible for benefits. Yes, despite the fact that you were scheduled to be on-site for 40 yours and might actually be getting paid for 40 hours. For the purposes of qualifying for benefits, you were only "working" 25 hours, not enough to get benefits.

Is that fair? In an official employment relationship, remember, the employer has more control to go along with their greater responsibility. I don't think it's fair but it's within their rights as an employer.

The IRS is very particular about the difference between contracting and employment. You and your "employer" can get into trouble if your working reality and your contractual arrangement are not in synch with each other.

I get frustrated by how casually writers in our trade pubs use the word "employment" when they really should be saying "contracting". I suspect this happens most often when the writer is not an MT and has never been self-employed. The difference between the two words is enormous for us and using the words incorrectly has led way too many MTs astray.

Your Client Or Mine?

2012-02-10T21:04:00.002-05:00

I read several massage trade pubs but my favorite is probably Massage Today. I find them more honest about conflicts and changes in our industry and their columnists are more likely to be addressing my reality than the columnists in the AMTA Journal often are. I’m also always up for a good rant by Ralph Stevens even when I don’t agree with him!

Cary Bayer has a business coaching column in Massage Today and this month I agree with half of his column but disagree with the other half. Both halves are about referring clients out to other therapists:

Cary's Rule #1: Don’t automatically refer a client out because you can’t book them right away. They may have the flexibility in their schedule to wait a week or 3 for you. Ask them. I think this is good advice.

Cary's Rule #2: Don’t refer out for free. You should always get a cut -- in perpetuity -- for every (potential) client you refer to another MT. In fact, you should establish an ongoing relationship with one other MT who will pay you a percentage of everything they ever make from clients you refer to them.

Yes, that second perspective is the one I have trouble with. His argument, laid out in numerical detail, is that this referred-out client is worth possibly thousands of dollars over the course of several years, and you are losing out every time that referred-to MT touches them. You deserve a piece of that action.

He calls this kind of thinking “prosperity consciousness”. I call it living from a “position of poverty”.

Here’s the problems with Cary’s rules, in my opinion:

1. I can’t lose what I never possessed. This is like asking me if I miss my pony....the one I never had. (This also applies to the "you're losing equity by renting!" argument).

2. I don’t “own” clients, even the ones who see me weekly and never see anyone else. Thinking you “own” them often leads to complacency around service and marketing and that will come back to bite you in the ass, trust me!

3. If my schedule is so full that I can’t take on any new clients, what do I gain by calling “dibs“ on one more? Didn’t Aesop wrote a fable about this, featuring a dog and a bone?

4. Focusing on the money someone else is making (and I’m not making) is living from a “position of poverty” (that is, seeing the situation only through the lens of loss or 'not enough'). Nobody lives well living from a position of poverty. It’s just another way to make yourself anxious.

5. What service am I providing -- in perpetuity -- that I’m being paid for? What effort, work, skill, or talent am I being reimbursed for? I think it is reasonable to expect some goods or service in exchange for a payment. (Yes, I know this is a common practice in some other professions. That doesn't make it relevant to us.)

6. How can I (reasonably) ever confirm that I’m getting paid properly? How can the other MT not come to resent paying me for not doing anything? How can we end up with any relationship other than one of suspicion and resentment?

Cary does make one reasonable argument in defense of his position: most of us have a physical limit to how many sessions we can do in a week and that may not generate as much income as we’d like. I agree with him, especially as I get older! Are there ways to respond to this situation, though, that honors the kind of values many of us hold dear -- cooperation, communication, abundance, etc?

Imagine the following scenario instead: you have a full practice and can’t take on any new clients. But you’re still getting phone calls from potential new clients and this has been going on for a while.

You realize you have a valuable resource. You “adopt” a new therapist, sharing office space with them, mentoring them, teaching them how to build their own client base, while you also refer your overflow to them.

In exchange for the office space, the mentoring, the referrals, and sharing resources (linens, oil, etc.) the therapist pays you a percentage. You are clear that you are acting as an incubator and that this arrangement is time-limited (for, say, 2 years). After 2 years, you expect the “adopted” MT to be able to move out on their own (and maybe one day adopt their own new MT). If you still have overflow, you “adopt” a new MT under the same arrangement.

That’s not the only possible response to the “schedule’s full but the phone keeps ringing” scenario but it is a response based on a “position of abundance”; that is, a position of having enough to share (and experiencing the joy of sharing and helping someone else grow). I bet you could come up with a different response but one still based on a “position of abundance”.

Which way would you rather do business in this world: from a position of poverty or a position of abundance?

Crap Happens

2012-02-08T21:46:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend in LA with my husband, who has to be there several weeks for training. We had a wonderful weekend and I came away with a much more favorable impression of LA than I'd had before (though, admittedly, my primary involvement with LA before this was LAX airport, which probably isn't fair).

When I boarded the flight home early on Monday morning, I realized I was feeling kinda punky. As the plane lifted off, I realized I was genuinely ill and there was a good chance it was the flu. Oh, the joys of being trapped on a plane when all you want to do is throw up (oh, the joy of being the seatmate of the woman who only wants to throw up.....).

I managed to hold everything together till I got home, sleeping 13 ininterrupted hours that night. I dragged myself out of bed Tuesday morning for one purpose only: to cancel my 4 appointments that day.

Four appointments! Oh, how painful to have to cancel the most full day I've had in 6 months! Yikes, that hurt.

Which brings me to the biggest disadvantage of being self-employed: I don't work, I don't get paid and I simply have to take time off sometimes. Continuing education, illness, vacation. How do we plan for that?

Try this.....

Question #1:
How much money do you need to make from your massage practice in a year? Is it your sole support? Do you have income from another source? Let's say....$45,000 for this little exercise.

Question #2: How many weeks will you work this year? This will help you know as you go along whether you're bringing in enough income. So, you'll divide $45,000 by 52 (for your weekly goals) right?

Woops! No. Because you won't work 52 weeks a year. You need to subtract the number of weeks you are likely to be unable to work. This is how I usually work it out:

Vacation: 3 weeks

Sick: 1 week

Training: 1 week

Crap happens: 3 weeks

What is "crap happens"? That's the stuff that you can't plan for but still happens. Snowstorms that shut the city down. Having your car (and travel table!) stolen. Winning an unexpected trip. Having a parent die. I've had all these things happen to me. Hell, I've had all these things (and more) happen to me in one year (2005, if anyone is interested).

Crap happens. You might as well budget for it.

So that’s 8 potential no-income weeks. We're down to 44 income-earning weeks. Divide your annual income goal ($45,000) by your estimated income-earning weeks (44). The answer? $1,023.

To make $45,000 per year, you need to average a little more than $1,000 per week. If you are, on average, bringing in $1,000 per week, you will be able to pay for your vacation, sick leave, continuing education, and the lovely "crap happens".

Just remember to set some of that $1,000 aside every week for the weeks you'll need it.

(By the way, I'm feeling much better today, thankfully.)

Reality TV: Business Primer?

2012-02-01T19:21:00.001-05:00

I'm not much into reality TV. I think I've made it through one whole episode of "American Idol". I've never watched "The Housewives of mumblemumble". I've never even started an episode of "Survivor". I last a little longer with the cooking reality shows but I often don't make it all the way through them either.

I am, however, fascinated by two reality shows: Restaurant: Impossible and Tabitha Takes Over.

In "Restaurant: Impossible" the host is invited to save a failing restaurant. Update the look of the dining room, revise the menu, address management problems, overhaul the kitchen staff (often hiring a new executive chef). In 48 hours and with $10,000.

In "Tabitha Takes Over" the host has a whole week to makeover a community business, often hitting the same issues -- appearance of the physical setting, services, management, staff.

I'm fixated on these shows because they are all about running a small business! Most of the issues are the same from one business to the next and most of them can also apply to a massage therapy practice. Hours, prices, physical environment, customer relations, services, etc.

Also, the problems aren't solved with the injection of magic amounts of cash. The shows often pay to spruce up the workspace but not with hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the restaurant show, they are limited to $10,000 to completely renovate a dining room. In Tabitha's show, I'm not sure what the budget is but a lot of what makes a difference is a new coat of paint!

There are a lot of places to learn important lessons about running a business, not all of them from "official" channels. Pop some popcorn and pull up to business school!

I Wish I Knew What I Was Doing

2012-01-31T22:21:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-24T21:10:00.001-05:00

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

2012-01-24T20:54:00.000-05:00

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

2012-01-19T15:45:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-17T17:42:00.002-05:00

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

2012-01-10T17:54:00.001-05:00

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.

MY kind of happy ending

2011-12-06T09:00:00.001-05:00

Maybe you've heard the buzz, maybe you haven't: Apple's iPhone4s has a nifty little feature called Siri. You ask Siri questions, Siri send you to places with the answers.

For example, if you ask Siri for a "happy ending", Siri sends you to listings of massage therapists!

Sigh. Yes, shit like this is still happening and now it's happening because of a corporate bohemoth called Apple. Disregarding decades of hard work by massage therapists to raise the profile of our profession and link our name to health and wellness, Apple has instead chosen to revert back to the "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" crap.

Wonder what specific "genius" at Apple decided that was a good idea?

But wait! Apple isn't the only one with some power in the online world. You too (yes, you!) can make your opinion / worldview known. In about 40 seconds you can send Apple a message about how stupid that decision was.

Click here to sign a petition strongly suggesting that Apple get its corporate head out of its corporate posterior pelvis and change this feature on Siri.

Do it for me.

Do it for any massage therapist you know and respect.

And do it for those poor sex workers being asked to relieve back pain by people who actually want them to do a massage! Can you imagine their embarassment?

An Extra-Happy Check

2011-11-17T20:30:00.001-05:00

Tonight one of my regular clients who has been taking advantage of my Pay What You Can policy handed me a check for the full amount. Her company went out of business in the spring and she's been keeping things together with temp work and unemployment since then. She recently started a 4-month contract and is getting a regular paycheck.

Hence, a check for the full price of the massage.

That's one of the many reasons I've decided to continue my PWYC policy -- I trust that people really will pay me what they can. I trust that people who are currently paying me a portion of my posted fees will pay me full price when they can.

I know the client was very happy to be able to write a check for the full amount. I was happy too -- yes, it's nice to get the full amount but when I looked at the check what I felt was her fullness. I felt all the security and relief and happiness that full-amount check represented to her and for her and I was even more happy for her than I was for me.

When the contract ends, she may have to start writing smaller checks again. I'm glad I can continue to offer her that option. She's a good woman and a good client and it feels good to be in partnership with her as her massage therapist.

I Don't Have Enough Time....

2011-11-16T18:30:00.001-05:00

I'm a huge proponent of doing your bookkeeping every day. It's much too easy (much too easy) to forget things after a few days, a week, and definitely a month. The biggest reason people give me for not doing their bookkeeping daily is that it takes too much time and they just don't have the time. So I kept a log for last week to see exactly how much time my bookkeeping took.

I've been doing my bookkeeping for 11 years so I don't have to look up or calculate things as often as I did when I got started (though I still need to compute the mileage every time). You'll find that once you do the same entry (or same kind of entry) a few times, it goes by much much quicker.

Here's the tally. The clock starts when I click the Quiken icon on my desktop and stops when I close it.

11/14: 3 entries -- mileage, bus fare, meal. 1 minute 12 seconds

11/16:  5 entries -- client payment, tip, room rental fee, laundry, and mileage. 2 minutes

11/17:  3 entries -- client payment, room rental fee, and mileage (plus automatic backup of Quiken files). 54 seconds

11/18:  3 entries -- webhosting bill, class fee, and mileage. 45 seconds

If I were entering more client payments (sigh) it would take a few seconds more. So double or even triple my times. You are still not talking about a huge time sink.

If you simply don't want to do your bookkeeping daily, that's fine. But I will probably call you on it if you tell me you "don't have time".

Doing and Being

2011-11-08T17:15:00.001-05:00

Here's a simple truth: there's a difference between doing massage and being a massage therapist. If you've been in practice any length of time, you know that.

Doing massage is all about the rubbing -- muscles, strokes, oil. Rub, rub, rub. There are certainly different ways of rubbing but you can learn the basics in just a few months. You may not excel at it but you will have the basics.

Learning to do massage is primarily an activity of the mind.

Being a massage therapist (or maybe it would be more accurate to say becoming a massage therapist) requires you to find a way to be a different kind of person. Some of it you can learn in school but a whole lot of it you learn by, well, doing massage! You have to learn compassion for complete strangers. You have to learn, in a way, to truly love and respect every person who comes into your room whether or not you even like them.

Being (becoming) a massage therapist is primarily an activity of the heart.

So, what's this got to do with business?

The business of massage therapy is also an activity of the mind and the heart. Yesterday I had a long conversation with a colleague and former student about the challenges of being a solo business owner. He spoke of continuing education and managing his finances and keeping his licenses and certifications current (all activities of the mind). He spoke even more passionately about representing his industry and professionalism and reputation. He spoke about the wisdom of healthy business practices and why, at the end of the day, this is just an extension of the care and respect he extends his clients in the treatment room. These are activities of the heart.

He's been in practice six years and every day he is getting better at the doing and better at the being. He represents our profession well and I'm proud of him and proud to have been one of his instructors.

An Advance Screening....

2011-11-03T10:37:00.000-04:00

The Healing Core (I'm co-owner with Kitty Southworth) is putting together its schedule of continuing education for 2012. I'm giving the readers of my blog a sneak-peek at that schedule.

March: Creating Your Own Continuing Education Courses.

2.5 days on the basics of good course development with plenty of chances to hone those skills on your own outline or even an existing course. Will include an overview of the NCBTMB Approved Provider application and process. Taught by Clare Reece-Glore, a training specialist with more than 25 years of experience designing and teaching workshops for working professionals.

May: Taxes & Bookkeeping for the Healing Arts Professional

2 days. Taught by Margo Bowman LMT CPA, a recognized expert in the massage therapy community on taxes, bookkeeping, and the financial responsibilities of a healing arts professional. She will walk us through the Schedule C (the form most of us fill out with our annual tax return that details our practice) and, in the process, help us understand what kind of informaton we need to track throughout the year and how to best manage our books and our taxes.

July: Energy 101 (Oklahoma, Colorado)

Kitty and I are taking our workshop on the road! We will be teaching this 3-day course in/near Oklahoma City and Denver.

September: Energy 101: A Comprehensive Unified Introduction to the Energetic Body (Washington DC)

In this 3-day course we introduce you to the anatomy and physiology of the energetic body, it's pathologies and nutritional needs, and well as the contraindications and the etiquette and ethics of working with it. Along the way we will also be helping you understand your own energetic body and introduce you to ways you can (if you want) incorporate energetic work into a professional life. Lots of exercises and practical information.

October: Ben Risby-Jones

Australian naturopath and healer (and co-author with me of Travel Guide for the Spiritual Journey) will be here offering talks, a workshop, and healing sessions.

We are also hoping to add workshops on marketing and business plans, as well as 2-hour seminars on a variety of practical day-to-day topics for the healing arts professional.

And we promise to spread the word far and wide when we nail down dates so you can register early.

Who Do You Fantasize About?

2011-11-02T16:32:00.002-04:00

So many of us became business owners for the very first time when we became massage therapists. So many of us were employees before now, not the boss, not the owner. When we have to take on a completely new and foreign role in our lives we sometimes look around for role models, for people who are already doing what we're now doing.

I did that when I "retired" from dating in 1992. I needed to completely re-imagine my future without a partner (something I had assumed I'd end up with, somehow, up to that point in my life). I looked around and realized that I actually knew several women who were 1-3 decades older than me and living a happily single life, women I liked and respected. When I found myself stuck I looked at how they had handled the single life and found possible solutions for myself.

It's the same as a small/micro business owner. What businesses do you want to emulate? Who would you like to be like?

* Another massage therapist who seems to have a healthy practice and a well-balanced life?

* Another health care provider (acupuncturist, physical therapist, doctor, etc.) who is respected and seems to have a solid practice?

* A local company that seems to exude energy and enthusiasm and imagination?

* A national or international company that is well-known and is seen as an innovator in their field?

When my business partner, Kitty Southworth, and I sat down to write the business plan for The Healing Core (our continuing education company that will start offering courses in 2012) we asked ourselves who we would want to emulate as a business:

Day-Break Geriatric Institute. This small company teaches several levels of geriatric massage in workshops around the country. They are the leader in geriatric massage education and are friendly, accessible, and generous with their time and wisdom.

Cheers. Remember this TV show? "Where everybody knows your name." We want to create a company where our students and anyone who works with us will feel welcome and recognized as the unique individual they are.

The Lightworkers Cottage. The healing arts center in Brisbane Australia is so incredibly open, warm, and friendly. They have a great consortium of staff and healers and are engaged with life in a vibrant way. They are also moving forward every single day.

Edgar Cayce's ARE (Association for Research and Enlightenment). Based in Virginia Beach VA, the ARE occupies a unique and well-respected spot in the "energy" community. Because of their decades of research and education they can do things most of us only fantasize about. Plus, their continuing education schedule is booked a year in advance!

Oprah. Yes, she's rich and famous. More importantly for us, though, is that everything she does is about helping people find the best in themselves. She's been a major force in lifting people up and helping them find their hearts and re-connect with their souls.

These are our role models. These are the kinds of businesses we fantasize about being. Who are your business role models? What makes them worth emulating? Who's doing cool stuff out there and earning your respect?

It Makes Me Wonder

2011-10-25T17:01:00.002-04:00

I've made the point here before that how you handle the business side of your practice affects how your clients look at you as a massage therapist. I had an experience today that underlined that for me.

I had an appointment with a therapist (licensed clinical social worker-type therapist, not MT) at 3:30. At 3:25 I walked into her waiting area, right behind her and one other woman. Since she's been late for every other appointment I've had with her, I was both delighted she wasn't running late with the previous session but also wondering who the other woman was.

The therapist showed the other woman into her office and I took a seat at the (always unstaffed) desk because I find her chairs uncomfortable. The therapist came back out into the waiting area. She asked me to sit on one of the couches rather than at the desk in the office because her confidential files were stored in the desk. I didn't check to see if the drawers were locked.

And then she walked out.

10 minutes later she hadn't returned. I left her a note. It said:

I have arranged my day to ensure I could be here for our 3:30 appointment. I need you to do the same. We will need to re-schedule.

And I left. 1-1/2 hours later, I still have not received a call from her.

I find myself wondering just how effective her consultations, advice, and perspective will be. Just how professional is she? She appears to be distracted, even in the sessions (she spends a significant amount of time with her back to me while she rummages through drawers for files, throwing questions over her shoulder). Do I truly have her undivided attention and her imagination? Are my confidential files out there in the waiting room for anyone cooling their heels for another late appointment? Is she tired and over-booked? If so, what am I really getting from her?

Technically, all my complaints with her are about the "business" side of her practice so should I presume that she's a good therapist but a poor administrator? Does her inability to keep up with her schedule say anything relevant about the quality of her therapy?

When we operate in a slipshod manner in any part of our practice, it reflects on the whole. Our clients may not separate "treatment" from "business practices" any more than I am with this woman. Your business practices absolutely can affect how your clients see you, even in the treatment room.

No Coupon Love?

2011-10-21T08:38:00.001-04:00

A few days ago I posted a link to an article about using coupons from companies like Groupon and Living Social, most importantly the article talks about how to get ready for the possible deluge and some warnings. I also posted this link on the listserve for the Washington DC chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association (I'm a member).

I didn't realize how many local MTs had already experimented with these coupons. Here's a sampling of their responses and experiences:

I worked for [a yoga studio] last fall. I was hired at end of summer to help with the Groupons. They sold them for 50.00, I got 20.00 per coupon plus tips. It almost ended this lady's business. She did not have enough therapists to cover all the calls, they overbooked, and everyone was stressed out. Then the customers started complaining about not getting sessions. She chose to honor the coupon holders for 3 months past the deadline if they called before it expired. Everyone calls the last week before the coupon expires...looking for an appointment.

On the other hand here is a good example: Other massage therapy places like [a local spa] were smart.She had a groupon for 45.00 which gave you 30 min massage, plus a free product (body scrub), and a 30 dollar discount towards the next massage! Very smart. Separate Groupon booking online and I could tell the staff were not getting abused by the Groupon Coupon. That looks like one way to make the groupon work out.

I also got a response from a former chapter member who's now working in South Carolina. He makes an excellent point about "converting" coupon users to regular users:

I ran two Groupons here in Charleston, and know several Spa/Salon/Massage/Facial/Nails business owners who have done the same. To a person, they all say it's a losing proposition.

1- You're required to discount the service by 50%, and then only get 50% of that (Groupon keeps the other half). Once you account for overhead, product costs, etc. you are making close to nothing, if not nothing.

2- Though it does give you "exposure," the conversion rate to regular clients is very low. In some cases it's as low as 5%. The problem is that the proliferation of online deals (in Charleston there's Groupon, LivingSocial, DealMobs, and Savvy Shopper), means that there is a massage deal available every week (sometimes 2/wk). Consumers have been trained to expect to NEVER pay full price for a service, and most hop from one deal to the next. I know most therapists think that they are good enough to keep those clients, but it just doesn't happen. I've had people sincerely say I gave them the best massage of their life & promise to come back, yet they don't. In this economy, why should they when there's a $30 massage offered the following week? Other business owners complain of exactly the same problem.

3- The only way I would ever do it again is if I could come up with such an expensive service (a luxury massage with lots of add-on's) that I would still make a reasonable profit with my 25% cut.

4- For all of the above reasons, I'm predicting that these companies won't be around in 3 years. Businesses have caught on, and aren't participating as much, if at all.

An example of a place that made some classic mistakes:

Back in the summer I responded to an email from a local health club looking to hire MTs.

The club was small but had advertised with Groupon and sold 1700 massages at $40 per massage. They needed to increase their massage staff (they had 3) to handle all the groupons. When I inquired about what they pay the answer was:

For any non-coupon you keep 100% (they charge $90 per massage). This is supposed to make up for any groupon/coupon they only pay $16 per massage to the therapist - oh and you get to keep whatever "tip" the client gives.

Now - how many full price non-coupon sessions do you think you would get compared to the groupon sessions? I was not interested.

In many ways, these experiences validate the article's initial advice about getting ready for coupons. However, I think we have to think carefully about why we want to offer a coupon. In my years of experience, once someone puts massage in that part of their brain reserved for "free / crazy cheap" it's almost impossible to get them to move massage to the part of their brain reserved for "things I pay full price for".

In my experience, you can offer discounts as long as they are modest. For example, a $10 discount for the first appointment has worked quite well at places I've worked. The client gets a small "reward" for trying a place but doesn't find paying the extra $10 the next time a huge hurdle.

Keep the incentives small but attractive and you're less likely to get into trouble.

Is Pay What You Can a "Healthy Boundaries" Problem?

2011-10-20T07:41:00.000-04:00

Two years ago I radically changed my pricing policy -- while I have “list prices” for my massages my policy is that all my massages are Pay What You Can (PWYC). Now that I’m back in the US I’m re-building my practice, working hard to attract new clients, I’m discovering that my PWYC policy is causing some consternation, oddly enough.

I spoke to a psychotherapist about this recently. She said she’s known a number of psychotherapists who have tried a PWYC approach as well and have abandoned it. She suggested I do the same.

For many people a PWYC policy is too much pressure. It moves the responsibility for deciding the monetary value of my work from me to them. Clients can end up feeling they are walking a tightrope between doing what’s good for them and doing what’s right by me. In that way, I’m making them take care of me instead of me taking care of them.

Of course, I didn’t think of it that way. I thought of it as giving my clients freedom and control over a situation. I thought of it as offering them a gift. But for some segment of the population, I was wrong.

Having well-defined and consistently-observed business practices and rules can be a way of taking care of our clients, of extending the massage room into the front office. When we are clear and up front about how we work – both in and out of the treatment room – our clients know what to expect, know what they have to do and what we will do. They know how things are going to work. There should be few surprises.

Given the intimate nature of the relationship with our clients, that’s a good thing. Solid business policies (including rates) provide clarity, consistency, dependability, and reliability. Those are the kind of words we use for companies we value and respect.

As a culture, Americans are generally uncomfortable with bartering. A lot of Americans are not comfortable in markets in other countries where they have to “haggle”. Having a wide-open pricing policy can feel like the client is going to have to bargain or haggle.

There’s one other wrinkle to having a PWYC policy. I’m looking into new ways to promote my practice. A lot of popular options are based on discounting my prices to entice new customers. I can’t hardly discount “pay what you can”, can I?

So, what do I do if I’m still committed to giving my clients a financial break if they need it? I’m considering a couple of options.

Oklahoma MT Sandi Kissane instituted a min/max policy last year. She’s in Norman OK where the going rate for an hour massage is hovering around $60. She lists a minimum of $30 and a maximum of $50 for an hour session. She says it’s been very very popular with her clients.

The psychotherapist who suggested I drop the PWYC plan suggested I might offer several levels of payment. For example, full price ($80), small discount ($65), and large discount ($50). Maybe I could call them bronze, silver, and gold like the Olympics?? Maybe still offer PWYC days to keep things really flexible?

On the other hand, I had a new client yesterday who is a student, just coming off an extended period of unemployment, and could only afford $40 for her massage. I was delighted that she'd heard of my PWYC policy and was able to take advantage of it.

Money can be such a tricky thing, can’t it? It’s more than numbers and pieces of papers, that’s for certain. It comes to reflect so many things for us – value, standing, worth, respect, etc. I should not be surprised by how complicated this pricing business is yet, after almost 12 years in practice, it can still confound me.

How about you? Have any of you tried any creative pricing policies? How successful were they?

Do You Want To Offer A "Groupon" (or other online discount?)

2011-10-20T07:40:00.000-04:00

I just ran across an article about small businesses offering coupons / deals through online services like Groupon, Living Social, etc. It warns about how this can all go horribly wrong for the business and what you can do to make it go better for you. It's a short article with practical advice.

If you're thinking of going the online discount route, I strong advise your to read THIS first.

It's Never Too Late to Go Back To Basics

2011-10-19T12:34:00.001-04:00

I had two experiences this week that reminded me that after almost 12 years in practice, it's good to get back to basics.

First, I had a new client who has experienced years of physical abuse. She came for massage as part of her efforts to maintain a healthy relationship with her body.

Yes, this scares me. I feel a little blind in these situations because I can't possibly know everything I want to know about how best to work with her. So I went back to basics:

* Work slowly and pay attention throughout the session to everything I'm doing.
* Maintain TWO hands on her at all times so she always knows where my hands are
* Drape with care and precision
* No talking during the session
* Get centered before the session and maintain that centering throughout the session

They are some of the first things I learned in school and they are what I went right back to. The client reported loving the session and asked for another appointment.

Second, my alma mater (Potomac Massage Training Institute) is offering a neat little continuing ed thing -- supervised practical exchanges. That is, once a month you can sign up to get and receive a massage. Instructors from the practical side will watch your work and help you with body mechanics, draping, or whatever else they see you needing help with (just like they did in school).

Now, I've been practicing for more than a decade so I should be just about perfect at this, right? Hah! I noticed during the session that I just wrote about that I was "catching" in my sacrum and really struggling with my alignment and body mechanics. I am looking forward to having someone check me on those again. I know I've picked up bad habits over the years and I'm grateful for someone to help me correct. those.

It's never too late to go back to the basics.

How Quickly It Can Go Bad

2011-10-18T08:56:00.000-04:00

Two weeks ago, I went in to the American Red Cross donation center to donate platelets. I made a New Years resolution back in January to donate as often as I can this year. I was donating plasma every two weeks in Brisbane. I've got my act together (finally) here and was ready to jump on the donation bandwagon again.

The donation did not go well. The needle never felt right in my arm (I've been donating for almost 35 years so I know what "not right" feels like). The machine that was supposed to filter out the platelets and put everything else back in my arm kept beeping during the "put it back" part. After 30 minutes of trying, the tech decided to call it quits.

Two days later, my "donation" arm looked like this:

The bruising got worse and it got painful. A week later my doc diagnosed phlebitis (inflammation and infection of blood vessels), put me on antibiotics, and told me to cancel my clients for the rest of the week.

The good news is that the antibiotics kicked in pretty quickly and less than a week later my arm is much better and the bruising is 75% gone. The other good news is that "clearing my schedule" for the rest of the week only meant cancelling 3 clients and I was able to get back to work by the weekend.

But what if it had been a blood clot and my doc had told me to clear my calendar for several weeks (or months)? I don't consider a blood donation "risky behavior" and, like so many MTs, I don't carry disability insurance, short-term or long-term. How quickly could I have been in deep doo-doo financially?

The answer is: pretty damned quickly.

My husband and I have enough savings to get by without my income for a month or two but it gets tight after that. And what if I didn't have a partner and/or savings? What the heck would I do? Re-tooling for a new not-dependent-on-my-limbs profession takes time and planning!

As MTs, we can be put out of work very very quickly and relatively easily and most of us are not prepared for that, financially. I got lucky this time. But I gotta get much more serious about disability insurance!

Working Without A Net

2011-10-18T08:18:00.001-04:00

You've probably all seen the ads:

Make $90 an hour as a massage therapist!
Join one of the fastest growing profession in America as a massage therapist!
Be your own boss in only 5 months!

If you've been practicing for any length of time, you know these come-ons do not even begin to describe the reality of being a massage therapist. These glossy come-ons (and too many schools) also don't clue you in to the fact that you will most likely be self-employed (even when working in someone else's setting) and that being self-employed is tough (and often not wealth-generating).

There's another....well, I won't call it a lie but I will call it a mis-direct...that our own profession is touting. That everyone can be financially secure strictly through working as a massage therapist. When I look at the "success" stories in the trade pubs I notice something -- while they don't say it outright, they imply that it is perfectly reasonable to make a comfortable living as a massage therapist. Many of us know it's actually much harder than that.

Our dirty little secret is that many of us are "making it" financially because we have partners with better incomes and/or other means of support. I'm one of those that has a partner with a solid steady income that provides us with the all-important health insurance, retirement accounts, savings accounts, etc. There are a lot of co-workers, however, who are doing it "without a net"; that is, entirely on their own. It's a completely different world for them.

Sadly, since so many of us work on our own (and are loathe to tell our financial stories) too many MTs think they're the only one struggling. They think they're making some big mistake because "everyone else" seems to be doing fine. There are people leaving (or not even entering) massage therapy because they can't figure out how to make it on their own.

It's time we started telling each other the truth about how our profession really works. It's time to start telling our financial stories so we know we're not alone. I write a column for the quarterly newsletter of the DC chapter of the American Massage Therapy Association. My next column (January '12, which is closer than you think!) will be all about this. I'll post a link when it's published.

Honoring My Limitations

2011-10-15T17:09:00.001-04:00

I spent four hours this morning working with Eye Street Massage, doing seated massage for parents weekend at George Washington University. I used to work at Eye Street and I know what a big deal this is every year. The university provides free 15-minute massages for the parents and it's enormously popular.

The owner, Pam, has 8 massage stations for 3 days and we are generally full. She's been doing this for a couple of years and every year her organization and management of the setting gets better and better. I was really impressed with how well it went today.

We are all lined up along the wall of a foyer where the parents come in and register for all the different activities of the weekend. There are people passing through the hallway the whole time we're there. There are people on our chairs the whole shift (with appropriate breaks; thank you Pam!). It is a people-rich environment.

I came home from the event, fixed myself a sandwich, and slept in the recliner for 3 hours. I wasn't physically exhausted but psychically / energetically you could stick a fork in me because I was done. See, I'm an introvert. Touching 14 people in 4 hours while surrounded by MTs and strangers will drain me, every single time. I know how to prep myself, I know how to ground, clear, shield, etc. etc. etc. But at the end of the day, I'm still an introvert who gets wiped out by that much people-contact.

It's why I no longer do corporate massage every week. While it's profitable (and a great steady stream of income) it takes too much out of me. Even when I have a lovely private room and have complete control over my schedule, I can only interact that intentionally with a limited number of people in a day. This happens when I teach too.

I learned through trial and error (the best teacher there is) what my limits are. I don't care how much money there is in corporate work, I don't care how much bigger my client base I would be if I saw more clients in a day or a week, how much more money I would make if I turned clients around faster. I am who I am and only a fool ignores that.

We've all got hard limits on what we can do (or at least do well). Maybe we can only see so many people in a day. Maybe we really stink at long-range planning or bookkeeping or writing session notes. Maybe we're a terrible public speaker or just not a good writer. You need to know what your limits are and honor them. Get help doing the things you can't do.

Lots of "success" advice out there in the world is based on some mythical "average" business owner (or, worse, on what the writer is really good at and enjoys). It may be couched in terms of "you have got to [fill in the blank]...". If you're self-employed, you don't have to do much of anything (OK, except pay taxes and you can get help with that!). Your business, your rules.

Yes, there are things that have been proven, over time, to be smart, effective, or useful. You still get to decide what you want to do, what you don't want to do, and where you need to get someone else to do it for you. For example:

When I know I'm going to have intensive people-contact time, I make sure there is at least a 3-hour block of time after that for me to sleep or at least be alone.
I am pretty good at bookkeeping but when something requires absolute precision, especially around numbers, I get help.
Filing is the same. I know how to do it but I don't like doing it so I ask for help when it's time to clear that stuff off my desk.

No one can do everything. Learn how you really work -- your best and your worst -- and honor that. Pretending you can do everything (or pretending that you don't have limits) is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

It Takes a Strong Woman....

2011-09-13T08:58:00.000-04:00

We all have them -- the weeks with the empty schedule, the weeks no one seems to want or need a massage, the weeks when everyone cancels. I think this kind of week throws everyone's confidence into a tailspin.

(Has everyone discovered I'm a fraud? Has everyone decided they don't need me? Has everyone found a better MT? Will I ever have another client? Will my schedule ever be full again?)

It really takes nerves of steel some days to be self employed.

I'm having that kind of week. One appointment for the whole week (and, boy, am I grateful for that one appointment!). When it's happened in the past (and it has, plenty of times) I could always look back at the healthy plump weeks for encouragement. Now, since I'm re-starting my practice, I've got nothing to look back at for encouragement.

So, I'm feeling very discouraged and blue and maybe just the tiniest bit panicky this week. I'm giving myself a "buck up" talking to, falling back on the advice I give other MTs when they have this kind of week:

* One bad week doesn't equal a dead practice. It's just one week. Heck, I've already got two clients schedule for next week!

* I'm working on some plans to market my practice. I realize I haven't done any serious marketing in years because I didn't have to. I'm a little rusty.

* If there's no work, then I might as well play. Museums, rivers, trails, and I've never been up in the Washington Monument. I also have a large address book of people I haven't seen in more than a year.

* As that crazy King Louie sings in the movie "Madagascar" -- I like to move it move it move it...as hard as it is to do, movement can have a powerful effect on the "veins full of sand" blues. Might as well walk over to Fragers Hardware and pick up a few things the house needs. At least it's a day full of sunshine!

I'm choosing not to give up and not to give in. I'm choosing to believe in me and my work. Nerves of steel...

Procrastination -- An Early Warning System?

2011-09-07T21:53:00.003-04:00

I had a great conversation with my friend Jill Foster, owner of Live Your Talk, today. Like me, she is a micro business owner (translation: she works for herself and by herself). She asked me if I'd ever gotten stuck in a procrastination groove and what I did about it.

I told her my #1 response to the procrastination groove was to Step Away. That is, take a day or two off of work and go listen to my heart, go play, go nap, go relax but GO! Why?

When I look back at the times I've really been plagued by procrastination, it's been an (unconscious) act of self-protection. Procrastination often comes to me because I'm depleted. I'm worn out. I'm trying to work out of my reserves rather than my main energy source. I'm drawing from energy I need for other things. Some deep part of me -- Mind? Spirit? Heart? -- recognizes that and takes steps to protect me and care for me. Procrastination is one of the tools that deep part of me chooses.

For us micro-biz types we have only one real asset in our business -- us. As a massage therapist I also have two massage tables, a massage chair, a couple of thousand dollars in reference books, sheets, music and all that other happy stuff that helps me deliver massage therapy. But those things don't actually do the rubbing. That's done by yours truly.

And I can replace all of those things. I absolutely positively cannot replace me. Anything happens to me and BowersHours closes. Permanently.

So I have a strong motivation to take care of me. When something like procrastination strikes, I accept it as a warning that I am running low (sort of like that "time to buy gas" light in my car) and I Step Away From The Massage Table (and laptop and desk and big pile of massage laundry) and start exploring where I'm depleted and focus on re-filling myself.

If you look back at your life you can probably identify the warning signs from your mind/heart/soul that things aren't right, that you're depleted, that you're drawing down your reserves. What are your signs?

Talking Shop Outside The Shop

2011-08-30T09:50:00.002-04:00

I spent the weekend in Durham NC talking about the massage therapy industry with two people who have absolutely nothing to do with the massage therapy industry. It was one of the most professionally productive two days I've had in an age!

Background: Kitty Southworth and I are launching a new company in 2012 called The Healing Core. Our original vision was to offer continuing education, specifically in energy and business, to people in the healing arts. We went to Durham to talk to Clare Reece-Glore about adult education and Adriana DiFranco about marketing.

Clare helped us review the outline for our Energy 101 class. She helped us see what we did well (lots, blessedly!) and what we can do to make it even better (lots, just as blessedly). We also made plans to bring her to DC to teach a class on how to develop a good continuing ed class.

Adriana asked us to describe our business and our industry and then helped us imagine a business so much bigger than we had imagined. She helped us see that we could be even more than we imagined. She led us to see things we never would have been able to see for ourselves.

When you talk to people who are already embedded in the same industry you are, they have the same (frequently unknown) limits to their worldview that you do. When you talk shop with someone outside your industry they ask questions like "couldn't you do....?" and "why don't you....?" Sometimes their suggestions won't work because there are things they don't understand but just as often they will invite you to see things in a whole new light.

I enjoy talking shop with other MTs and I learn much from them. But sometimes I find it's good to get out of the "shop" and see how the world looks on the other side of the office door.

Happy Endings?

2011-08-29T07:26:00.003-04:00

One of my long-term clients was on my table last week. It was the end of the session and I was doing some scalp work (that she loves) to finish up. She mentioned that each MT she's seen has one "special" body part that they are particularly adept with. Another favorite MT of hers does especially good work on the shoulders. I am known for being great with the feet.

"Of course," she said "you also give great head."

I began giggling (quietly!) and pushed back away from the table because I was starting to shake with internal laughter. There was a pause and she said "Wait, that didn't come out right...".

Sometimes we can give our clients happy endings and still stay within our professional ethical boundaries and personal comfort zones. :)

Made The Nut

2011-08-26T08:01:00.002-04:00

When your income is highly variable from week to week, it's common to have a "minimum" you want to reach each week/month to meet your living expenses. I call mine "The Nut" (though I can't remember why I call it The Nut).

Week Two back in business and I made The Nut this week! And got approached by two more clients to schedule appointments. Apparently I'm going to be OK. :)

Getting Too Close

2011-08-25T16:25:00.002-04:00

I'm at the end of my 2nd week back to massage (one more client!). Most things have come back to me with practice but I have one problem that's going to take more practice.

I've often joked that "bodies talk to me". What I mean is that I have the ability to open my senses up to a clients body while they are on my table and "read" their tissue, to a certain extent. I can get a sensation of "tight" or "open" or "weak" or "congested" or even "happy" or "angry". This doesn't usually tell me anything personal about the client but it does help guide me in my work.

But I am remembering how much it takes out of me too. I feel all these things -- tight, open, weak, etc. -- in my own body. That's just how it works for me (it's a form of empathy). Unfortunately, it tends to drain my own energies and after two sessions I can be more run-down than I should be. That kind of fatigue can lead to compromised judgement (as is always true with fatigue) and it can lead to over-eating (in an attempt to re-charge myself).

I think this has always been a challenge for me but I've gotten better at recognizing when things are happening to me, energetically, in the last few years and especially in the last year. So now I recognize it faster but I have to re-learn the practices of energetic self-care! I know what to do but I've gotten far too casual in actually doing the things I need to do.

It's like trying to go for a jog when you haven't run in a year. You certainly remember how to do it but it may take a while to get good at it again!

I suspect this will be my biggest challenge in the months to come.

Fitting In

2011-08-25T16:10:00.002-04:00

I know a good massage therapist who has been trying to connect with local medical offices, particularly those who serve the community of people living with fibromyalgia, with mixed success. She recently re-did her brochure for those offices and is now getting regular calls from people seeking appointments.

What changed? I think she made two important decisions for this brochure:

First, she included information on a new study that shows how effective massage can be for those living with fibromyalgia. Most importantly (because she has a scientific mindset), she asked a friend who doesn't think like a scientist to help her explain the study in non-medical, non-scientific terms. She trusted this friend's advice. She made the information accessible.

Second, she invested in a laser color printer so she could print her brochures in full color and on heavier card stock. It gave them a much professional look and feel. Her brochures now look like they belong in a doctors office, right alongside all the other professionally produced medical literature.

MTs (and other healing professionals) often focus on doing things economically (sometimes, even cheaply). We aren't high-dollar professions so we are cautious about spending money. We often think the content will overshadow the economy of the presentation.

However, our marketing material has to look like it actually belongs in the places we have it. It also has to respect the audience it's trying to attract and use language and images that matter to the people reading the information.

This may mean investing in good printing and good paper (for printed material). It may mean asking other professionals (printers, web developers, graphic designers) to work with us. It may also mean asking someone to review our material and make sure it makes sense, not to us but to the potential reader.

This MT did and it's paying off.

Good Reads: The One-Page Business Plan

2011-08-20T11:33:00.002-04:00

2012 is going to hold some great new things for me as my friend Kitty Southworth and I launch a continuing ed company, The Healing Core. Right now we're working on a business plan for it (of course!).

Quite a few years ago a couple of also-self-employed friends recommended I use "The One Page Business Plan" by Jim Horan to write my first business plan. I did and found it so incredibly user-friendly that I have recommended it to even more people.

His basic theory is that most of us don't need that muscular weighty paper-intensive traditional business plan. In fact, he posits that for most of us, the traditional business plan is a roadblock. So he's crafted a biz plan that is, literally, one page long. His book (now re-issued as The One Page Business Plan for the Creative Entrepreneur) has worksheets and exercises to walk you through creating the one-pager. I used it in 2002 to write my first business plan. Took me 2 days. I've continued to use it every year to update my business plan.

And my business plan really is one page, taped to the wall above my laptop so I can look at it every day if I want to.

That's a useful and practical book! Here are some of my favorite quotes from it:

There is no right, wrong, or perfect business plan. Your business will always be evolving. So will your plan. It will also get better with time. Business plans don't have to be long to be good.

The most important reason to have a business plan is to clarify your thinking, regardless of the size of your company. Is it possible to have too much clarity or focus?

You have everything you need to draft the [business] plan in your head.

Business planning concepts are not difficult. You already understand all of them.

A business plan brings out the best and worst in most business professionals. It facilitates creative and analytical thinking, problem solving, communications, interfunctional sharing, and teamwork. It generates hope and enthusiasm about the future. It also brings out procrastination, frustration, differences of opinions, and possibly anger. It is not a benign process. But when done well, the process is very valuable and has its own sense of satisfaction. Your business will be stronger.

The business plan is, in effect, our modeling tool. It provides the sketch, the vision, the road map for our ideas. In many ways, it's just like the composer's first few chords; the musician gets to hear it and so do others. The business plan works the same way. You get to see your ideas in writing and so do others.

Have you considered that Queen Isabella of Spain was one of the most powerful and important venture capitalists of all time?

Mission statements are also about commitments and promises. Ask yourself, "What is your company committed to providing your customers or constituencies?" Under what circumstances would you refund your customer's money and apologize for not providing what was promised? What would you be willing to do to make amends with a dissatisfied customer? The answers to these questions may help you understand why your business exists.

I've Still Got It (I think)!

2011-08-17T09:36:00.002-04:00

I saw my first client in a year on Monday night. She has been a client for years so I know her body and her background, which helps!

It was lovely to step back into the clinic at PMTI and fall right back into the rhythm of setting up -- sheets on the table, table lowered to my level, adjusting the headrest, plugging in the music, washing my hands....it seems so simple but it was reassuring to have it fall back into place so easily.

The intake....as long as usual. I must do about the longest intakes of anyone I know! It is not unusual for them to last 10 - 15 minutes. I give my clients a chance to really tell me what's going on with them. It's funny the things that come out after 6 or 8 minutes of talking -- their real concerns, the little aches and pains, the insights into what they truly need. It often changes how I structure the session, even if it's just a little bit.

Palpation? Yes, I still can! (phew) Touching, feeling the tissue's response, confirming where things are tight or non-responsive.

Is the pressure good? OK, I need to start lighter. I need to remember "superficial to deep". Got an urge to dive in. Need to soften up just a bit.

Time management? OK, gotta work on that. The clock is moving much too fast! It'll come back.

But I am back.

Words of Wisdom: Sally Healy

2011-07-18T21:20:00.005-04:00

There are a lot of books about business out there in the world. I haven't found many that I can actually use (or, admittedly, understand) for a massage therapy practice.

However, I recently met a book I'm enjoying reading! I've gotten involved in a women's publishing network here (which I am really going to miss!). The leader, Bev Ryan, was the project manager for "Women on Top: Against the Odds" by Terri Cooper and Sally Healy. The book profiles 11 women who have built successful independent businesses and talks about the lessons they have to offer. Most of these businesses started out as small, often home-based, businesses so there are lessons I'm taking away from each of them.

I'd like to share great quotes from the book along the way. Today we start with Sally Healy. She built Jigsaw Consulting Group, "a market leader in delivering professional and personalised recruitment, training, and coaching strategies."

I had a clear picture of what the business looked like although I struggled to put it into words. Rather than get hung up about the lack of a plan I decided to let the business unfold naturally, which may have been naive, however it allowed me to be very client-driven. Friends and professional alike advised me to make a business plan and stick to it. I disagreed with that philosophy and still believe that if you follow the exact path your business plan mapped out you may miss critical opportunities you might otherwise have embraced.

Now, if you've read this blog for long you know that I am a big proponent of the business plan. Yet I found great wisdom in what she has to say.

A business plan helps us get clear with what we're trying to do -- what are we doing, why are we doing it, what it's going to cost, our organization, and what steps to take to move forward -- but a business plan is not Truth In All Its Majesty. The most valuable part of the business plan, the part you should never ignore, is not the financials or the organizational strategy or the competitive analysis. The most important parts of a good business plan are the mission and vision statements.

If you stay true to your mission and your vision, then the specifics (including the financials, competitive analysis, etc.) can be very flexible. You have to be able to adapt as you discover what really works and doesn't work but you do need to stay focused on why you're doing what you're doing and what you hope to accomplish. Both of those truths (Truths?) are contained in well-constructed mission and vision statements.

A few more good quotes from Sally:

On working from home: Client calls sometimes happened in my walk-in-wardrobe [closet for you non-Aussies] to escape the household noise.

On developing a brand: A brand is not just a logo, nor is it an arm of your marketing strategy. It represents your business ethics, personality, values and tone of voice. It creates customer loyalty and market positioning.

On when to get started: Don't wait for things to be right in order to begin. Change is chaotic. Things will never be just right. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, 'Do what you can, with what you have, where you are right now.'

On the role of passion in business: I believe that passion is the competitive advantage that an organisation can't buy. Passion fills us with energy and enables us to perform at our peak and that is infectious. Embrace it, revel in it and use it to stand apart. Follow your heart and not the crowd.

On competition: 'It's a cut-throat world, where serious business means competing for market share to survive. We watch our competitors closely to ensure we have the upper hand.' This competitive outlook is the conventional view of the world of marketing. It's based on the mentality of lack, on the belief that there are a limited number of clients for your services. Of course competition is healthy, but if we are willing to get past the essence of rivalry there is much to be gained from collaboration. The key to success is keeping an open mind and willingness to learn and share knowledge. You are more likely to succeed if you go into a collaboration with that frame of mind.

On growing your practice: 'Grow or die' has been an unquestioned presumption of executives, business schools and journals that I have avidly devoured. I made the mistake of recruiting a bigger team and taking bigger premises without doing what I call a risk audit...Growing too quickly can stress people, processes and quality controls...Growth occurs well when the risks of growth are properly managed. If not, it can be harmful.

On contracts: A signed contract is simply a piece of paper with words on it. What's behind a signed contract is a relationship. If the relationship breaks down, the contract won't save you...Once you are at the stage of resorting to what's written on the contract, the arrangement is already in trouble.

On intuition vs. logic: If you base all your business deals on logic and disregard your intuition, you will most likely regret it.

Biz Plans Demystified

2011-07-13T23:58:00.006-04:00

We all know business plans are "good things", in general. But I'm willing to bet that most of us don't have one. They seem so daunting and that's before we actually look at them! Once we look at what a standard business plan includes, most of us just want to lie down and take a nap. A long nap.

Executive summaries. Sales plans. Supply chains. Competitive analysis. Communication plans. Exit strategies. Inventory management. Accounts receivable. Accounts payable. Break even analyses. Sales projections.

And that's just a sampling!

It's worth it to get a general idea of each section of a standard business plan, even if you're not going to write a standard business plan. If you understand the purpose of each section and get a general idea of what all those terms mean, you can start to customize a standard business plan to suit your own purposes.

This book does a pretty good job of explaining the different parts of a standard business plans: Business Plan In A Day. I know there are others, though there are a lot a lot of references that assume you understand all these terms and references.

Using a reference like that, you can scale down a standard business plan to something you will actually understand.

If you want to go a step further, you can abandon the standard business plan completely! (This only works if you're writing a biz plan for your own purposes and not because you're trying to get financing. If you want financing, you've got to work with some form of a standard business plan.) If you are using a business plan mostly to clear up your own thinking and set some goals for yourself, I recommend you look at alternative business plans.

The one that I use (and I've even customized that) is the One Page Business Plan, explained by Jim Horan in his book of the same name. The first time I wrote a business plan, I used this book. It took me three solid days of work the first time. Since then, I update it every January. It takes me one day now to review the last year, plan for the coming year, and update the biz plan.

Because it is literally one page, I'm not overwhelmed by the process. It's so much more manageable. I can also tack it to the wall above my laptop so I've got a visual reminder of my goals and objectives for the year every day.

One-page may not be the answer for you but don't be afraid to create what you need. The most important aspect of a business plan, like the most important aspect of a business card, is that it exists. The brilliant plan that you're going to write....one of these days.....is worth far less than a goofy irregular plan that you've actually written.

I've got a business plan that I've customized for massage therapists. I intend to start offering a workshop next year walking people through this business plan. If you're interested, keep an eye on my website to see when it's next going to be offered.

How's Business?

2011-07-12T03:35:00.003-04:00

For many of us, the financial health of our practice comes down to “can I pay my bills?” That is an excellent baseline measurement of business health, I admit. Sometimes, though, it’s helpful to have a deeper picture of the financial health of our practices.

Big corporations use a raft of financial reports to do just that. Most of those reports, however, either don't make sense for the kind of businesses we’re running or they’re answering questions we don’t generally ask. There are three common financial reports that I do think are useful to massage therapists and they answer three fundamental questions:

• How much is my practice worth?
• Is my practice actually profitable (how much money am I really making)?
• Do I have enough cash to pay my bills?

How Much Is My Practice Worth?

Are you wondering if you could sell your practice? Do you need to take out a loan for your business? Are you curious if you’re practice is worth more than it was when you started? Then you need a balance sheet.

A balance sheet shows you how your business is doing on any given day. To create a balance sheet, you list all your assets, list all your liabilities, and see what the difference is. The difference is your “net worth”.

Your assets include things you can convert to cash: cash (obviously), the money in your business bank accounts, any money that is owed to your practice, any inventory that you have waiting to be sold, and expenses you’ve pre-paid (rent, for example), reference books, and (probably our biggest category) office and massage equipment (massage table, CDs, linens, laptops, printers, etc.). If you ever added all this up, you may be surprised how many thousands of dollars you have in assets.

Your liabilities are things like the balance on business loans, taxes you will need to pay for this quarter, outstanding bills, and (one that we don’t always think about) outstanding gift certificates and packages. In short, liabilities represent money or services you still owe.

Balance sheets are particularly valuable for comparison. That is, if you generated a balance sheet for the last day of 2010 and another one for the last day of 2011, you could see if your net worth went up over the course of 2011.

Is my practice actually profitable (how much money am I really making)?

We become massage therapists to help people but we also want to make money at it. It’s good to have some cash in our pocket but is our practice actually supporting itself? Are we making more than we’re spending? How much more?

To learn that, you want to create an income statement (it’s also known as a Profit and Loss statement). The income statement lists all the money you made in a period of time (usually a month, quarter, or year) and then lists all your expenses for that same time period. Hopefully, the income is more than the expenses! That’s called your profit.

If you do your bookkeeping through a program like Quicken or Quikbooks, the software can easily create this report for you. If you do your bookkeeping in something like Excel or on paper, it’s just a matter of adding up the columns.

This may sound suspiciously like the Schedule C you fill out for your annual income tax return. It is very close to your schedule C. In fact, I usually create an income statement to help me fill out my schedule C.

Like the balance sheet, it’s especially helpful when you want to compare one time period to another. Did you make more money in the 1st quarter or the 2nd quarter of 2011? Was 2010 or 2009 more profitable for you?

Will I Have Enough Cash to Pay My Bills?

We usually know how much cash we have right now because our clients pay as they go. Cash flow can be a challenge for us, though, if we sell a lot of gift certificates or packages. What happens if most of our clients in one week pay with gift certificates? We don’t end up making much money that week!

A cash flow report helps us anticipate periods of low income or high expenses. There may be software that helps with this but I find it to be mostly a pencil-n-paper exercise (though I keep mine in Excel). List the months of the year and write down the big expenses you know you’ve got coming up. As much as you can, put them in the month you think they’ll occur. Common examples would be:

• License renewals
• Professional society membership renewal
• Conventions and continuing education (and associated travel expenses)
• Vacations
• Quarterly taxes
• New office equipment (laptop, iPod, cell phone)
• New massage equipment (tables or chairs in particular)
• Gift-giving crunches (like Christmas or, in my family, October!)

This list gives you an idea of your cash outflow.

How do you figure out what your normal monthly inflow is; that is, how much money do you usually make in a month? Take a look at your monthly income for the last year if you haven’t been in practice very long. Notice the highs and lows in your income. That will give you a general idea. If you’ve been in practice a couple of years, it’s worth it to run an income statement for several years, broken down by month. Then you can see what your average monthly income is over several years or you can start to notice whether some months are consistently low or high income months.

Sounds like a lot of work? It’s absolutely worth it if you’re the kind of person who is regularly uncertain / uncomfortable about having enough money to pay your upcoming bills. Putting it down in writing at least gives you a more concrete idea of what you’ll need.

When you need to know how you’re really doing as a business, these three reports can provide you a wealth of valuable information.

Let Me Teach You A Thing Or Two...

2011-06-30T01:24:00.003-04:00

I just submitted an application to teach a workshop at the 2012 AMTA convention. "The Business Plan Demystified". I've spent the last month reading a lot about standard business plans and thinking about how to adapt that to the reality of massage therapists.

The application wasn't long but I often find "official" educational applications in the massage industry to be a real headache. Part of the headache is the detail they ask for (did they really expect me to include a copy of my college degree?) and some of it is that I know massage and I understand business (from a massage therapist's point of view) but I'm less knowledgeable about the requirements of education -- learning outcomes, how the classroom set-up relates to learning outcomes, etc.

The AMTA and NCBTMB (the biggies in this field) are upholding high standards, this is true. But they're upholding them against a population that isn't trained to meet those standards. We know massage and we have a wealth of information to share with each other. But if we aren't trained in educational standards and lingo, we're at a loss. It's a huge roadblock to many of us.

The AMTA and NCBTMB aren't offering us that education either. Where are we going to get it? It's in the profession's best interest to teach us how to teach. But it's not being done. I'd love to sponsor that kind of training but first I'd have to find someone who knows how to teach it and is willing to teach it to MTs. Haven't found that person yet.

I belong to a profession that is in a massive period of growth and change. Some days, that feels like a great birthing. Some days it feels like a mighty menstrual cramp (sorry menfolk but that's just the image I'm stuck with!).

The Sweetness of Time

2011-06-20T23:26:00.003-04:00

As Jeff and I approach the end of our time here in Brisbane (41 days left) we've been reflecting on what you can and can't do in the course of a year. We haven't established the friendships we expected to. We didn't get engaged in the community to the level we expected to. We didn't "master" Australian culture and we sure as hell didn't pick up the accent!

Some things just take time, often more time than we expect. Adaptation -- especially at a deep level -- operates less on "mind time" and more on "heart time". When we want to change who we are in some ways, we have to operate on heart time.

I learned this in massage school. Learning to do massage can be pretty quick. A couple of months, maybe even a couple of weeks. To learn to be a massage therapist, though, takes at least a year (and that just starts the process). To learn to approach humanity, vulnerability, responsibility, and healing differently than you probably ever have before simply takes as long as it takes. It takes heart time.

In the last year I have managed to loosen the way I think about myself and my professional life. I have managed to find the room to truly imagine where I need to go next. When I left DC a year ago, I thought I could be an author and an educator. Now I know that I already am both of those things. A year ago I casually wondered whether Kitty Southworth and I might want to work more closely with each other. Now we have concrete plans to form a partnership and pull our professional lives in even closer parallel.

The trick is to respect the flow of time, to respect that some things take as long as they take. Time is a gift available to each of us. We work best with it when we ride with it instead of fighting it, trying to bottle it, control it, or "manage" it. Time is a better partner than a master or a servant.

They Don't Have To Be Scary

2011-06-06T18:17:00.004-04:00

"An MT-Friendly Business Plan"

If you saw that as the title of a workshop, what would you expect from the workshop? What information would it convey? What questions would it answer?

The vast majority of us do not have a business plan for our businesses. From my experience, there's a couple of reasons for that:

* We don't understand the terms and sections of the standard biz plan.
* We're scared silly of them.
* They seem much too complicated for a modest business, like ours often are.
* We don't know what we'd do with it once we had one.
* They look like they take way too much work.

I think these are all valid reasons not to do a business plan and I think they are all correctable.

I've had a business plan for 7 or 8 years now in my practice. I use it to get clear on what my mission and vision are for my practice. Once I had done that, I could figure out how to get where I want to go. It's been very useful.

And mine is a whopping one-page long and only uses language that I understand.

I want to present a workshop on MT-friendly business plans at the 2012 AMTA convention in NC. I'm working on the proposal today and I'm coming up against some writer's block about how to organize this workshop. What would you want to see in a workshop with this title?

An Encouraging Word

2011-06-05T21:57:00.001-04:00

I'm 8 weeks away from returning to the US and 10 weeks away from re-opening my massage practice (back at PMTI, exact schedule still TBD). My clients are starting to contact me to see when I'll be back! How excellent is that?

Apparently I will still have a practice when I get back. (phew)

Another Diagnostic Tool

2011-05-25T20:10:00.003-04:00

A former student, Ginger Ingalls, is undergoing treatment for cancer. She posted a "thumbs up" on Facebook today to the doc that helped find the cancer. In addition to the usual tests -- bloodwork, x-rays, etc. -- he also trusted his intuition that said there was "something" else there.

If he hadn't trusted his intuition, it would have taken much longer for Ginger to learn about the cancer. We all know what happens when a cancer diagnosis is delayed.

The allopathic medical community is deeply indebted to the many sources of data about our bodies that are now available to them -- blood tests, x-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, etc. etc. etc. -- with good reason. These diagnostic tools allow the medical practitioner to "see" into the body in a way the naked eye usually can't.

However, there's another diagnostic tool that has been drummed out of the diagnostic corps -- the intuition of an experienced practitioner. Intuition is not some kind of wispy surreal fakery. It's not make-believe. "Intuition" is the name we use when we're taking in information outside of the normal blunt cognitive processes. It's frequently the result of some very sophisticated integration of experience, observation, and standard data.

Sadly, for medical professionals it also often involves actually touching a patient, which doctors do less and less.

The other truth is that intuition can be taught and learned. It's not limited to the spiritually advanced or restricted to those born with a "gift". We are all born with the capacity. That capacity is often trained out of us during our formative years but it can be trained back in. The primary lesson you need to access your own intuition? Learning to listen to yourself.

But that's not a standard cognitive process. It doesn't come from a book. You can't get an advanced degree in it. It can't be measured with our current stable of measuring devices. (Though it can be tested for efficacy.) Therefore, it can't be "real" or useful.

Pity, that.

Starting At The Beginning

2011-05-24T21:19:00.002-04:00

Back in September I started attending a weekly meditation group on Wednesday mornings. After our main meditation, we usually draw "angel" cards to see what they have to say for us today.

Today, mine mentioned my "divine purpose". The leader asked me what I thought mine was. I said "to educate and mentor". I love to teach and I tend to draw to me people who want to learn from what I've learned.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what kind of teaching I like to do. I've noticed that I most often get excited by helping people get started in something. I like to teach the 101-level classes, the getting started classes, the introduction-to classes. I get jazzed by helping people explore, step into, or accept the challenge of something new. I like giving people the confidence to go somewhere they haven't gone before.

I've wondered, at times, if I'm deficient because I don't help people develop mastery. I do not tend to lead people deep into a subject. I help them start on a path but then I have to hand them off to someone else for the advanced work. Am I a dilettante, ever dabbling in new fields and new experiences but never staying long enough to gain depth?

Maybe. More likely, I think this is my role in life. Others are not good at the "getting started" but they are darned good at the "going deep". I'm the experimenter. I am the explorer. I get buzzed from learning new things and sharing that.

In recognizing and claiming your strengths, you also have to have at least a nodding acquaintance with your weaknesses. That's valuable. It improves the odds that you will not commit to something that depends on your weak side.

The is my learning for today.

How Do You Spell Success?

2011-05-06T19:00:00.000-04:00

I've been engaged in some interesting conversations lately about the concept of success for a writer.

Is it peer respect? That other people in my field think highly of what I write?

Is it selling a lot of books?

Is it making a lot of money from the sales of my books?

Is it gaining name recognition so that people want to come to my workshops and buy my next book?

Is it having a lot of people actually read my book?

These things are not mutually exclusive (I can only have one) but they also aren't mutually inclusive either (they naturally go together).

For example, I could sell a lot of books because I've figured out how to get "buzz" (Oprah? Have you gotten my memo yet??). That doesn't mean it's a good book that will get the respect of my peers or even of the people that have bought the book.

Example? I've been reading (more accurately, slogging through) "The Celestine Prophecy". This book was big in the new age/spirituality market back in the early 90s. The author originally self-published and sold 10,000 copies out of his car trunk before a major publisher picked it up. By 2006, he'd sold more than 20 million copies. It has been translated into 32 languages.

The ideas in it are fascinating but they're wrapped in a fictional story and the fictional writing is, to be kind, weak. In fact, in an informal survey of friends, more than half admitted that they only finished it by focusing on the ideas and ignoring or forcing themselves to finish the fictional story. I also know a lot of people who never finished it and they all cite the bad writing as the reason.

Yet, it sold millions. The author was interviewed endlessly and has gone on to a pretty conventional definition of success.

Another example: there's a writer here in Australia who has produced one of the stupidest cookbooks I've ever seen. But she sold millions of copies because she knew how to market the hell out of that book (actually "books", she's done a 2nd cookbook in the series). She also figured out that (1) people buy plenty of books (especially cookbooks) that they never read and (2) she doesn't necessarily need people to love her books, she just needs them to buy them.

She's got great name recognition and is a sought-after speaker, guest on morning TV, etc. Talk about "brand".

I can't say that's wrong because I would love to have that kind of name recognition and I'd like to sell millions of copies. But do I want to do it by writing crappy books but marketing them brilliantly? If my goal is to support myself with writing (and speaking, etc.), then the answer could legitimately be "yes".

Am I too "professional" for that? Or am I not good enough at marketing? I don't know. Ask me again in a year or two when I'm earnestly trying to sell my books.

More importantly, I need to get clear with myself about what "success" as a writer is going to look like to me. Working on that.....

Uh...where do my hands go?

2011-05-06T05:00:00.001-04:00

Back in December Jeff fell and tore up his knee -- torn ACL, PCL, and lateral co-lateral plus hairline fractures of the tibia. He'll need surgery when we get back to the States but in the meantime he's getting around pretty well with a cane.

However, sometimes his knee still gives out on him. A few weeks ago that happened and he caught himself -- sharply -- with the cane. Phew! Except for the jammed shoulder.

He asked me to do some massage on his shoulder. For a brief moment, I couldn't remember how to massage a shoulder! It's been 9 months since I've done a massage.

It came back but there was a moment when I was wondering if PMTI offered remedial massage education....

Another fantasy...

2011-05-05T05:00:00.001-04:00

Wish I had the wherewithall to do something like this: Bleeding Hearts.

Underwear check...

2011-05-04T05:02:00.002-04:00

Years ago, my massage partner-in-crime Kitty Southworth was sharing her frustration at meeting someone who didn't carry their business cards. She said, completely extemporaneously "I leave home with my underwear before I leave home wthout my business cards!"

It's a great quote and I've shared this story with many other small business owners. I once caught her without her business cards and I made her prove to me she was wearing her underwear.

Well........2 weeks ago I got caught out without business cards (even though I was wearing my underwear). I ran out a month ago and was having trouble getting them printed since we don't have a printer at home and I don't really need 500, which is the minimum at the local print shop.

And God bless my lovely husband, Jeff made sure Kitty knew I'd been caught out without biz cards! Nice job, fuzzbutt.

I now have biz cards in my purse so I've got them with me all the time. All the time! So I can wear my underwear guilt-free again.

Get It In Writing

2011-04-18T21:56:00.002-04:00

My favorite business coach -- my cleaning lady Kelli of Kelli's Cleaning Angels -- is here today and today's nugget of wisdom is about contracts.

Her business is both home cleaning and corporate cleaning. She was telling the tale of a corporate client who didn't actually bother to read her contract (which is one page long) and tried to back out of a $10,000 bill (and ongoing agreement). Kelli had laid out the cost clearly in the contract but they were still shocked by the cost and wanted to terminate the contract.

Sadly, the contract they'd signed was for four years. Ooops!

Now she could have gone all wimpy at this point -- fearful of the power of a "corporation" over a small business like hers -- but she didn't. She stood her ground and pointed to the contract and they paid up.

Why? Because she knows she IS a business owner! (Shout out to all my former students..)

Her contracts are simple. They spell out what she will deliver, how often, and for how much money. They also stipulate what she will do to correct a sub-standard cleaning job. Finally, it spells out how either party can terminate the contract. Kelli says her contract is less than a page long and I'm willing to bet it's written in plain English.

She says she has insisted on contracts with all her corporate clients for a long time now. In a conflict, handshake agreements usually come down to "I said..." and "no you didn't, you said...", which can never be resolved. Though she did say that one corporate client she had a verbal agreement with tried to reneg on payment but backed down when she mentioned she'd talked to her lawyer (she hadn't but they didn't know that!).

As MTs, we are often very uncomfortable with contracts. We don't fully understand them and a lot of MTs I know are overwhelmed and baffled by legal language. We're pretty sure someone is going to use it against us sooner or later.

Contracts are simply the details of an agreement between two parties, usually for the purpose of business dealings. They exist to (1) make sure you both understand what you're agreeing to and (2) give you a point of reference if you're ever in disagreement.

You can also write contracts in plain language (think of them as letters of agreement if that makes you more comfortable). If both parties are comfortable with that, it can work. Even in court. If your agreement shows a clear intent to establish a normal business relationship, a court will take that into consideration.

Are you better off with a lawyer drafting your contracts? I think I would if I was (1) dealing with very large amounts of money or (2) not entirely confident about my working relationship with the other side of the contract but that's simply my opinion. You should never take my word as the final authority on legal matters!

If you are doing business with another business on an on-going basis, I strongly recommend getting the details down in writing. Make sure you both understand what you're agreeing to, in detail, and make sure you both have a neutral point of reference if you're ever in disagreement (and the odds are, if you work together long enough, you will be in disagreement at some point. We're all only human.).

Call it a contract. Call it a letter of understanding. Call it a document of agreement. Call it anything you want but just make sure you get it in writing.

I Am Approved

2011-04-15T23:56:00.006-04:00

Effective April 11, I am an NCBTMB approved continuing education provider (through The Healing Core, with my buddy / Board of Directors / massage therapist / road trip companion / professional conscience / partner in crime / advanced tapotement provider Kitty Southworth).

I feel like I graduated to the Big Girl Panties!

For those of you who have no idea what the *bleep* I'm talking about....

....most MTs are licensed and have to renew those licenses every 2 years or so. As part of the renewal process, they have to prove they took xx hours of continuing education since the last time they renewed their license.

Therefore, when we are considering our continuing ed options, we always check to see if they offer CEUs. There are a lot of MTs who simply won't spend the time or money on a course that doesn't also offer CEUs (since we all are usually short on both time and money).

To grant CEUs, the workshop provider has to be approved by an agency recognized by your state's massage regulatory. NCBTMB is the leading agency for massage therapist. Hence, our application process.

In practical terms, being an "approved provider" means our workshops will attract more attention and, to be honest, we can charge more for our workshops. We are also free to offer them wherever we can find the space (and the students). We aren't restricted by the need to find a co-host who can grant CEUs. This expands our horizons dramatically.

I've been pondering whether my next 10 years should include more workshops -- both those developed by me and those I sponsor/organize for someone else. This makes that so much more reasonable and likely. I think I've found the new direction/aspect of my practice to take me to 2020.

In some ways, it only took me about 2 weeks to complete the application. In other ways, it took 5 years....

2006 - 2008

I kept meeting students and new MTs getting sidelined by the energetic effects of our work. I was becoming more and more frustrated that MTs weren't being taught the energetic body in a simple straightforward way like they were taught the physical body. More importantly, I was frustrated that most MTs weren't taught simple energetic self-care techniques (that's the equivalent of teaching someone how to do massage without teaching them how to avoid injuring themselves).

I began to picture a class that would teach the basics of the energetic body in an organized way, much like the anatomy classes I had in massage school.

As that picture solidified I realized such a class would be best taught by two people, one for the academic portion and one for the practical portion. The most obvious person to teach such a class with me? Kitty Southworth, since she was the one who had dragged me (kicking and screaming) to my first energetic self-care class. I pitched the idea to her in 2008 and she agreed.

While at the 2008 American Massage Therapy Association convention in Phoenix, I picked up the NCBTMB approved provider application package.

2009

April: Kitty and I went away for a weekend to fully develop the course outline.

It helped that I had been a technical writer for 20 years. Documentation and training are cousin disciplines -- we approach a subject the same way but tech writers deliver their information in writing and trainers do it in a workshop setting.

I'd used that same experience in developing my course material for the business practices classes at Potomac Massage Training Institute (PMTI). I taught those classes for several years.

As part of preparing the PMTI business practices material, I had a friend with a background in adult education teach me how to develop learning objectives and give me the basics on developing good courses.

Important aside: just knowing a lot about a subject does not necessarily make you a good instructor. There's a whole different set of skills (and, frankly, personality traits) that make a good instructor. The skills can be learned (the personality traits may have to be genetic, I'm not sure). If you want to develop a workshop, take the time to learn how to develop course content and how to teach adults.

May: Our initial plan was to convince our alma mater, PMTI, to include our material in their professional training program. We pitched the course proposal to PMTI.

They turned us down.

July: We decided we could re-work it as a weekend continuing ed workshop. It took us a few months to make that work.

2010

February: We had a course we could teach: Energy 101. We worked out the where and and when and how much.

April: We started promoting Energy 101.

August: We taught Energy 101 for the first time (a necessary prerequisite to the NCBTMB application process) in August to 11 students. We offered it at about half the cost we will in the future to (1) attract students and (2) in recognition of the lack of CEUs.

We also kept detailed track of how long each segment of the workshop took. We knew that would be required later for the NCBTMB application.

Four days later I moved to Australia.

November: I began reading the NCBTMB application that I'd had for 2 years. The application itself was about 35 pages; 20 of those pages were data entry pages.

I presumed the actual application could be done online. Well, yes and no.

NCBTMB offers the application in PDF form online. But you can't save the form and you can't save anything you enter online and you can't submit the PDF as the application (that has to be done on paper).

Remember that we had 20 pages of data entry? The odds were that I was not going to enter all that data all in one go.

I was so baffled by this, so convined that I was missing something that I called the NCBTMB (from Australia) for clarification. They confirmed that I was right -- I had to enter it all at once or (they suggested) I should print out each page as I completed it since I had to actually make the submission as hardcopy.

Need to make a correction? Re-enter all the data on that page and print it out, again.

I worked on the application pretty steadily for a week in November. I was using the Energy 101 course Kitty and I teach plus 3 other courses taught by Ben Risby-Jones, an Australian naturopath that Kitty works with (and is now my co-author for "Travel Guide for the Spiritual Journey") in the application. I needed some detailed info from both Ben and Kitty but we ran into the holidays....

2011

January: We moved into a new townhouse and Brisbane experienced massive flooding. Didn't get much done.

February: I got back to the application. It took about another week to get all the pages completed to my satisfaction.

I had to do most of this at the library because we don't have a printer at home. That meant making a reservation to get into the Learning Lab at the library for a 2-hour slot (all that's available) and pay to print each page. I'm delighted that the library had the services I needed but it was tedious to make the reservation and troop over to the library every time I needed to complete some more pages. $10 in printing costs.

Once complete, I had to make two copies, get them 3-hole punched, inserted into binders with dividers. I marked where Kitty had to sign (since we were submitting under her company The Healing Core). Another $15.

Interesting side note: 3-hole is not necessarily the default here in Australia. I found 3-ring binders, 2-ring binders, 4-ring binders, and 5-ring binders. The 3-ring binders were the hardest to find!

THEN I had to go to the post office and find something I could fit the binder in. Like Goldilocks, it was either way too big or way too small for most of the packing options available. I got it squeezed in sideways into a box and got it in the mail to Kitty, with delivery confirmation. $60 to mail it to Kitty.

It arrived in Kitty's hands about one week later. She made a copy for her files, signed in all the right places, filled in the payment info ($400 as an organization; $175 if I'd been submitting as an individual), and forwarded it on to NCBTMB at the end of February.

April: I expected to hear back from NCBTMB in about mid-April with a request for correction or clarification. I didn't expect it to go through the first time. When I got up this morning, there was an e-mail from Kitty asking me to call her as soon as I got up and she gave me the good news (she'd wanted to call when she opened the letter on Friday at noon in DC but that was 2 am here in Australia, so she held off -- barely -- until I woke up).

The best part? We couldn't offer CEUs to the students who took our classes last year. But as part of our approval, we can grant retroactive CEUs back 2 years! We'll be sending those out in the next month.

When I get back to the US in August Kitty and I will have to sit down and do some Big Picture and long-range planning for The Healing Core. What classes would we like to offer, develop, and sponsor? It feels today like the future is wide open.

And I'm walking around the house with a silly little smile saying, every so often, "I'm an approved provider!" (much to my husband's amusement).

NCBTMB-approved?

2011-04-05T23:36:00.001-04:00

Kitty Southworth and I have (finally) submitted the application to be NCBTMB-approved providers! (translation: we can offer CEs for our workshops) We figure they'll have to kick the application back to us at least once for clarification / correction / improvement but I see no reason we won't be (eventually) approved. It took us about 3 weeks of work to get it done. It's not quite as horrific as I feared but it's no walk in the park either. You've got to really want it....and we do. :) Trust us, we'll let everyone know when we get it!

Getting Smarter, Together

2011-04-05T23:20:00.003-04:00

In a recent post I mentioned the idea of being a promoter of massage workshops. That idea has so engaged my imagination that I've actually started contacting people to see if I can really make this happen. And it looks like the answer is.....yes. Here's my question to you: what business topics would you like to attend a 1-2 day workshop on? Here's my ideas so far:

Using social media to grow your practice

Taxes & bookkeeping (in MT-friendly language!)

Creating a massage therapist-friendly business plan

Using financial reports to evaluate the health of your practice

Marketing your massage practice to success

Business ethics

Sensible insurance choices for a massage practice

Understanding independent contracting

How to develop your own workshops

Becoming an approved provider with NCBTMB

What else would you like to see?

Your Mission (should you choose to accept it)...

2011-04-05T01:31:00.003-04:00

More biz talk with my cleaning lady, Kelli of Kelli's Cleaning Angels....

We got to talking about business plans today. She's been having a very hard time with her corporate clients after the January floods. They've all been pushing their cleaning services to drop their prices. She's ended up letting go of all her corporate clients because she can only meet their price demands by seriously dropping the quality of the work she's doing.

When she was struggling with that decision, she went back to her mission. Her mission includes doing extraordinary cleaning work. She couldn't drop her quality. She let the clients go.

We talked about how important the mission statement is in a business plan. A good mission statement captures the essence of what keeps us going as businesses. Money is virutally never enough of a motivation to keep you going for the long haul. A good mission statement captures what excites you about the work you do.

She brought up something else I hadn't thought of -- a good mission statement also contains an element of challenge. It should capture a standard that is something of a reach for you, something that's not a cakewalk. Your mission statement needs to inspire you and stretch you. Not impossibly so but reasonably so. I'm not sure I ever told my students that but if I teach business plans again, I will.

Massage Dreaming....

2011-04-01T20:36:00.005-04:00

Today, I fantasize about being a promoter. That is, organzing and sponsoring workshops, particularly on the business of massage.

Margo Bowman on taxes and bookkeeping.

Laura Allen on marketing.

Randall Craig on social media.

Somebody (maybe me?) on business plans.

Ferreting out the people who are offering good business courses that can talk in the language of massage therapists. Creating some workshops of my own. I've already done this once or twice with Margo Bowman, so I know what it takes.

I have a fantasy today of organizing 2 years worth of business workshops, maybe one every quarter. Really promoting the heck out of them in the mid-Atlantic region. Hosting them with PMTI (or on my own since Kitty Southworth and I have submitted the application to be a NCBTMB-approved provider!).

And if I can pull together 8 workshops/offerings over 2 years, then turning that into a bonafide The Business of Massage conference! I already actually have a business plan for just such a thing, which helped me realize I can't do it on my own, so I've laid it aside for the moment.

That's my massage therapy fantasy today.

A whole new woo-woo thing: the Saturn Bubbler

2011-03-31T18:22:00.004-04:00

Right after I arrived in Brisbane I was directed to The Lightworkers Cottage. Originally, I went for the massage (still excellent!) but the are also an energy healing center as well, so it was bonus: a place to get my woo-woo on. :)

They've recently rented a workshop space and are doing "opening" kind of events. Last week, it was the installation of a Saturn Bubbler. The group doing the installation is called the Hermes Far Eastern Shining, based in Australia.

For those of you not in the know (like me), it's a construction of tubes and balls of water that has been invested/aligned/energized to a specific purpose -- providing healing energy to a specific geography. In this case, it's mission is to help heal the state of Queensland (no small feat since Queensland is the size of Alaska). As part of the installation, they actually inserted a map of Queensland into the structure.

The installation ceremony was engaging and audience-participatory. As each ball was added to the structure, one of the attendees was invited to hold the ball before the group as its purpose and design was explained. I was chosen for one.

It's a beautiful structure and it was a powerful experience to be part of a large group sharing such as this (there were 40 or so people present for this). All participants, including small children, were engaged in the energetics of the event and the room had quite the buzz to it. I spoke to one of the organizers and she said they'd had a lead on installing one in DC a year or two ago but it didn't happen. Heaven knows DC could use a little healing energy! :)

Part way through the ceremony, with 3 of the balls installed.

One member of the installation group explaining the structure. They all had names like Clover and Peaches. I didn't ask...

Peaches getting ready to hand one of the balls to an audience member to install.

Nicholas (my massage therapist) holding one of the balls just before he places it in the structure.

You are encouraged to hold a glass of water over the structure to energize the water before you drink it as a way of taking in the energy of the installation.

Show Me The Money

2011-03-28T22:25:00.005-04:00

A former student, Sandi Kissane (of Norman OK), just announced a new fee structure for her massage practice. I'll let her explain it:

I've been considering alternative fee structures with the primary goal of making massage therapy more affordable to more people. Most people recognize the many health benefits of massage therapy but most also acknowledge that the current market value of a one-hour massage (60.00 or more) is cost prohibitive and does not allow them to utilize massage on a regular basis. Massage is often relegated to a luxury item that rarely makes it into the budget.

So here, I am introducing my new fee schedule which I think you'll find very simple and affordable. Fees are based solely on what you decide best fits into your budget. There is no tipping although if you decide you would like to tip, I'd prefer a donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in lieu of (find their link on my Links page).

60 minute massage -- 30$ minimum/50$maximum
90 minute massage -- 45$minimum/50$maximum
Hot Stones may be added for 10$ more

That's it...simple and straightforward pricing!

Sessions are by appointment so call for availability.

Rest assured, you will receive the best massage I offer, each and every time regardless of your fee!

Sandi says she's been getting some flack/teasing from other MTs in her area about this announcement. I did too, when I announced my Pay What You Can pay structure.

Many of us struggle to accept ourselves as business people and to be comfortable asking for what our work is worth. Because we struggle, we often have a very strong connection in our head between what we're paid and how seriously we're taken.

Becoming a business person -- and setting our fee schedules -- turns out to be a very personal journey. What we do reflects the nuances of our professional identity deep within ourselves. When we are working on taking ourselves seriously financially, it's incredibly important to set a market-value price and stand behind it.

Not everyone is in that same place. I've got other challenges in my self-understanding as a business person so I can offer a Pay What You Can fee schedule. Sandi can offer a minimum/maximum fee schedule.

Should we all offer a variable fee schedule? No. Each of our businesses are different, even if they look the same to the outside observer. What is important is that you be honest with yourself about what you need from your business, what your challenges are, and how your business policies and fees can reflect that.

I hope the massage-consuming public in Norman OK understands this and gets a chance to experience Sandi's work and generosity.

The Ultimate Narcissism?

2011-03-22T21:05:00.007-04:00

It occurs to me that writing a book is, at its core, a supreme act of narcissism.

Here I sit, nobody in particular, devoting time and energy to creating something that's all about...me. My ideas, my philosophies, my experiences, my observations.

Then I'm going to put it out there in the world -- in print and electronically -- and tell you that you should give me some money for it. That my ideas, philosophies, experiences, and observations are going to be so valuable to you that you'll be happy to give me money for it.

Doesn't that sound like narcissism?

It's what all writing is, fiction and non-fiction. It's a quest fueled from deep within by a drive to share the stuff that floats around in writers head. Some of it is self-defense (I have got to get this stuff out of my head!) and some of it is supreme self-confidence (and it's so valuable that you'll be glad I did!).

I started writing stories when I was a kid. I got my BA in journalism. I spent 20 years as a technical writer and I still write newsletters and this blog. I can't stop myself!

Apparently my writerly narcissism is too well-established to ever be able to break free. :)

"I was fighting with myself in my head"

2011-03-21T18:04:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned my cleaning lady, Kelli, before. She and I regularly have interesting conversations about running a small service-oriented business.

The last time I saw her, she was pretty agitated. The January floods have done a job on her business. She has both corporate and home clients. A lot of her home clients dropped her as they focused on repairs. The corporate clients have been in transition as well, facing mergers and new management that focuses strictly on the cheapest option, without taking quality of work into account.

She has other women working for her and worries about keeping them employed. She needs to re-coup the lost clients. She wants to move her business "up" a level but that means asking for more money (and being comfortable with that in her gut) and "buffing up" her image. She's thinking of adding a new revenue stream by purchasing a some property management contracts.

Sound familiar? Maybe not literally but if you've been in practice long enough, these are the kinds of questions and worries we often face.

The last time she was here, we talked about the process of making all these decisions. She, like many of us, frequently finds herself in conflict with herself. Her head says one thing and her intuition says another.

My advice? Never ever ignore your intuition. Your brain/mind only knows facts and data. Your intuition, your gut knows you. In the end, as small (micro) business owners, we have to be at peace with our choices. They have to work for us because we're frequently all there really is. We're staff and product!

When you think back on the major decisions you've made in your life, have you ever chosen your "head" over your "gut"? How did it turn out?

I'll find out how it's working for her when I see her later this week.

MT Dreaming (continued)....

2011-03-21T03:04:00.002-04:00

Today, I fantasize about being part of a multi-speciality practice. It would be in a space with 4 or 5 practice rooms plus (my fantasy) room for meetings and workshops.

We'd pool our resources to pay for an office manager who also managed the front desk.

We'd have massage therapists, acupuncturists, maybe an herbalist or wholistic nutritionist, a wholistic psychotherapist, a yoga teacher, maybe a chiropractor.

We'd mentor new grads in each of our specialities, providing 1-year internships.

We'd not only rent the space to people who needed a place for their workshops, we'd actively sponsor speakers and workshops, bringing people in from outside the region, maybe even outside the country.

The practitioners would meet on a regular basis to talk about clients and identify areas for cross-over treatment.

And as long as I'm fantasizing....it would have off-street parking and be metro-accessible!

Being Taken Advantage Of?

2011-03-16T20:26:00.005-04:00

When I moved to Brisbane (returning to the US in August!), I developed a referral list for my clients. Last week, one of my regular clients dropped me a note and told me her company was closing. One of my reactions was "damn! This is why I have the Pay What You Can model! So in times like these, she could continue to receive massage! Now I'm not there to do that for her!".

But then I read further in her e-mail and she mentioned that the MT she's seeing (the one I recommended) had offered to cut her fees for her while she was unemployed. Suprisingly, I felt like that therapist -- Gaynor Bourgeoise, God bless you -- had done me a personal favor. I was so touched that she was doing what I would do and she was taking care of my client so well.

(I still get a little weepy thinking about it.)

People come to us for all of the obvious reasons -- pain relief, stress relief, energetic jam-up relief, etc. -- but underneath every single massage is a simple desire to be taken care of.

All humans sometimes need someone to take care of them. It's one of the sweetest parts of our jobs, taking care of people even if only for an hour.

When someone experiences financial setbacks -- like unemployment -- we are handed an opportunity to respond to their needs specifically. Maybe we offer financial relief, maybe we don't. They're both reasonable choices given the specifics of our practices, our policies, and our relationships with our clients (and with nods to Connie Ridgeway, with ethical repercussions as well).

What I've noticed is that when MTs consider setting discount policies (sliding scale, Pay What You Can, donation, etc.) there is often a fear of being "taken advantage of". That is, someone who doesn't really need to reduced rate will use it or will keep using it long after they really need it. We're often so very very afraid of that happening that we don't offer any leeway.

I've been reflecting on that (in response to Gaynor's generosity) and a few things occur to me.

We may get hurt. Our relationships with our clients are (professionally-well-bounded) intimate. They give themselves to us but we also give ourselves to them. When we offer them financial breaks, we are trusting them. If they take advantage of that inappropriately, we're likely to take it personally.

Of course! And it hurts. And no one likes being hurt. All true. And I can go on to tell you all about how intimacy requires vulnerability and that being vulnerability allows us to grow spiritually, yada yada yada but, yeah, it's gonna hurt.

Can we handle it?

Do we trust our instincts? Some of us seem to be afraid that we won't recognize when someone is taking advantage of us; therefore we will be getting robbed without realizing it.

In my experience, though, if we get in the practice of tuning into our intuition and taking it seriously, we will know when we're being taken advantage of.

Can we recover from it? If we're taken advantage of, we fear it will destroy us financially. We'll lose our homes, our businesses, our lives as we know it (and probably have to live out of a grocery cart under the 14th St. Bridge....). The odds are that even if one person takes advantage of us, we are unlikely to lose our metaphorical shirts. In my practice, the worst case scenario is that I'll lose a few hundred dollars. I will notice losing that much money (and it will hurt) but it won't destroy me.

We can't say "no" / we can't confront / we can't be "not nice". I suspect this is the bigger barrier for most of us. When we suspect someone is taking advantage of us, we have to stand up for ourselves. We have to speak up and we have to be in conflict with someone. A whole lot of us would rather chew off our left foot than "do" confrontation.

Conflict is an unavoidable part of being alive and being in relationship with anyone. Anyone. It's not possible to have a close relationship that is so perfectly harmonious that you'll never have a conflict. Sometimes the other person will be the source of the conflict, sometimes you will.

You can run and hide from conflict, expending absurd amounts of energy avoiding it (and I know lots of people who do) but that's not a grown-up thing to do.

In addition to being loving, caring, compassionate caregivers we are also business owners and adults. It's crucial to learn how to look a client in the eye and say "no". Doing that helps us maintain all our sane ethical boundaries and we also need to be able to do it when we're being taken advantage of.

How many of our clients would be further ahead if, in addition to allowing us to take care of them, they learned to take care of themselves? As massage therapists and business owners, we have to be able to take care of ourselves as well. There are simply going to be days when "taking care of ourselves" means looking a client in the eye and saying "no". Saying "stop". Saying "I can't do that for you any more."

How do we avoid being taken advantage of? Well, literally, we can't. There's always going to be somebody who can get at us. But if we confront our fears, learn to trust ourselves, and get good at standing up for ourselves, we really reduce the the chances of it happening.

What Color Is Your Collar?

2011-02-28T21:22:00.003-05:00

A few years ago I found myself engaged in an interesting conversation with a friend about my socio-economic status as a massage therapist. I used to work in the computer industry, as he still does.

Those are clearly "white collar" jobs. They happen in offices, often require university-level education, are usually paid by salary, and require virtually no manual dexterity. :)

I said something about having moved into the "blue collar" world when I became a massage therapist. He immediately jumped to my defense. My work required additional education and used my brain! Don't think of yourself as blue-collar!

What are the traits we normally associate with blue-collar work? Getting paid by the hour, working with your hands, if post-secondary education is required it's usually acquired through a trade school rather than a university, may require licensing, more likely to be self-employed, etc.

Sounds like massage therapy to me!

The truth is that no matter what we say publically, the blue-collared worker is looked down upon. The irony is that it's the blue-collar/skilled labor jobs that are probably the safest. They can't be outsourced to China, India, Indonesia, etc. You can't outsource your stuck toilet to a cheaper plumber overseas. You can't get a good massage via the internet no matter how good your connection is.

I heard a great interview with on Mike Rose on Public Radio's "On Being", hosted by Krista Tippett, about the meaning of intelligence. He talked about our assumptions and underlying beliefs about work, education, pay, value, and worth. He talked about how it came about, where it's likely to take us, and what changes we should seriously consider. He also talked about how it's shaped us a democracy and culture.

I found the interview fascinating and enlightening, especially in light of my conversation with my "white collar" friend. I am, by virtually all definitions, now a blue-collar worker. I have no shame or discomfort around that. Part of my belief system is that any job, done honestly in support of family and home, is a good job. One of my grandmothers took in washing. Another worked as a school cook. Blue collar is not so far back in my family tree.

Do you care if you're considered blue-collar or white-collar? Does it matter?

The Six Marks of An E-Mail Scam

2011-02-19T20:01:00.004-05:00

I got my first e-mail scam as a massage therapist probably 9 years ago. It wasn't the last. The surprising thing is that I'm still getting variations on the same scam, all these years later! It must be working somewhere because I always thought scammers has more imagination than that.

Recently, the following e-mail was received by an MT in DC. Her Spidey-sense must have been working that day because she posted it on the AMTA DC listserve and asked for feedback. Here's the original e-mail:

To: [your name here]

Hello I am Pastor Jeremiah Williams of Christ Winners Ministry (CWM) after years of pastoring, we are slowly growing. I am focused and sticking to the vision God has given me, and humbly seeking and walking in His will and purpose. My desire is to be able to move in building more Churches soon but I am waiting on the go ahead from our Father. This has definitely been a year of revelation. However, I am appealing I have a member of my church who is suffering from partial stroke and complications of hypertension although she is from a wealthy family. After my careful search of the best and experienced healing Therapist in the U.S who will take care of her for proper massage to get her back to normal condition. Please I would like to know if you can be of help by becoming her Therapist and also to advice her best rehab hospital in the United States for proper medications. we will start travelling arrangements as soon as we hear from you. I shall be pleased to have your private phone number as to enable us discuss in the best way forward to handle her situation. May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always Pastor Jeremiah Williams

Submitter details:
Name: Jeremiah Williams
Email: pastor.jeremiahwilliams@yahoo.com
Phone: +233245003449

Let's use this classic scam e-mail to identify the 6 Tips For Recognizing E-Mail Scams (free to you as a loyal reader of this blog!).

...after years of pastoring, we are slowly growing. I am focused and sticking to the vision God has given me, and humbly seeking and walking in His will and purpose. My desire is to be able to move in building more Churches soon but I am waiting on the go ahead from our Father. This has definitely been a year of revelation.

This is not the way a normal e-mail asking about massage services starts. This scammer is starting with an emotional appeal. They are trying to get a personal sort of "hook" into you, as the reader, by appealing to the goodwill (or guilt) often associated with churches, religion, and pastors.

Think about it.....how many e-mail have you gotten from legitimate potential clients that start with a rambling personal introduction like this? Probably very few.

...I am appealing I have a member of my church who is suffering from partial stroke and complications of hypertension...

Double whammy here: the scammer is playing on an MTs inherent sympathies with the phrases "suffering", "complications", and then mentioning two common ailments.

Think about it though -- how often does someone who's suffered a stroke and hypertension think of massage as the response? That's not ordinary.

...although she is from a wealthy family....

This is the A#1 fer-shur mark of a scam -- the allusion to wealth, directly or indirectly. The scammer is trying to subtly tap into our greed. The scammer wants us to think "ooooooooh, I can make a LOT of money from this person!". If it's not the allusion to the wealth of the client, it's offering to fill your schedule for a week or 3 with an out of town dance troupe/sports team/tour group/conference attendees/etc.

Why? The scammer wants you to have dollar signs floating in your eyes. The chance to make above-average money will make many MTs forego their normal policies, including policies around payments, scheduling, healthy boundaries, etc.

(Side note: Interesting choice of language. "Although"...because wealthy people don't normally suffer from mundane things like strokes and high blood pressure?)

After my careful search of the best and experienced healing Therapist in the U.S who will take care of her for proper massage to get her back to normal condition. Please I would like to know if you can be of help by becoming her Therapist and also to advice her best rehab hospital in the United States for proper medications.

Blatant appeal to your vanity. They want you to let down your guard (as you preen your feathers in response to the flattery.)

Again, think about it...even when a potential client has heard rave reviews about you, do they use this kind of language in an initial e-mail requesting a massage with you? Probably not.

Another "tell" is the uneven-ness of the English (including irregular use of capitalization). Yes, there are many people in the DC area for whom English is a 2nd (or 3rd or 4th) language and who don't write English as smoothly as a native English speaker. But I have yet to receive a scam e-mail that was written in normal English.

...we will start travelling arrangements as soon as we hear from you. I shall be pleased to have your private phone number as to enable us discuss in the best way forward to handle her situation....

A sense of urgency. "...as soon as we hear from you...." The scammer is trying to get you to react to the e-mail before you have time to ponder it, think on it, or talk to anyone about it. Reacting without considering always leaves us vulnerable.

As a sneaky little add-on, there's the test as to whether they've hooked you or not: the request for your private phone number. Not your business number, your private number. This is simply a test to see if you are willing to violate your own policies and procedures, your own boundaries.

Email: pastor.jeremiahwilliams@yahoo.com
Phone: +233245003449

Finally, the contact info. In this case, the scammer is using a normal e-mail. Many of the scams I've gotten have had e-mail addresses that were just a little bit odd or were clearly from outside the US.

The "+" in front of the phone number means this is an international phone number (and remember, the "pastor" never told us where he was writing from). You can look up international dialing codes at any of these sites:

Wikipedia
Wikipedia Travel
Country Code.org

This phone number is for Ghana. Lately, I've been getting more scams from African countries. Of course, the "Nigerian prince" scam is an oldie but goodie in internet scams, so maybe that shouldn't surprise me.

I'm not saying you wouldn't get a legitimate e-mail from someone in Africa. Just know that a lot of scams are originating in Africa. The one I got last week had a phone number in South Africa.

In summary, the more of these "tell-tails" that an e-mail contains, the more cautious you should be. These can also be found in legitimate e-mails but the more of these you have in one e-mail, the more likely you are looking at a scam:

Emotional-trigger phrases (like church, God, pain, abuse, suffering, etc.)
Greed appeal (directly or indirectly) or appeal to the potential for making an unusual amount of money, including any allusions to the wealth of the potential client
Excessive flattery or flattery out of line with what they can actually know about your skills
Urgency. They're coming next week! They're ready to get on a plane now! They need treatment immediately if not sooner!
Boundary/policies violation request. It will usually be something small and otherwise kinda insignificant, so you feel bad for saying "no".
Non-US source, especially if it is from Africa.

The very best piece of advice I can give you is this: listen to that little teeny tiny voice in your head that says "this just doesn't feel right". It's correct 99.5% of the time. (That other .5%? Hey, even our intuition has an off day but I'll put my money on my intuition even at the risk of missing that .5%.)

Subversive Thoughts on Self-Care

2011-02-02T03:07:00.005-05:00

I've learned some things about basic Kelly Self-Care from the last 6 months here:

I really thrive on a couple of long walks (1-3 hours) a week.
I like to take care of administrivia in the morning and creative work in the afternoon.
Ideally, I do the hard-core creative work 3 (no more than 4) days a week.
I love not having to set an alarm clock. I like to go to bed between 10 and 11 pm and wake up on my own between 7 am and 8 am.
I'm done with my work "energies" between 6 pm and 7 pm at night.

Right now, I can mostly organize my days this way. I try to imagine applying these same learned "rules" to my life when I return to DC....and I run into a brick wall of resistance.

"But what about work?!?"
"What about making money?!?"
"You can't make enough money only seeing clients 3 afternoons a week!!"
"What about your clients who need to see you in the morning?!?"

And then I get panicky and/or depressed. It feels like I can choose to be economically viable or I can take care of myself but I can't do both.

While walking to the bus stop yesterday, a thought came un-bidden into my mind:

Can you trust?
Can you choose to believe that it is possible to both take care of yourself and feed yourself?
Can you operate "as if" it is true? Go ahead and set up your schedule and just...let things happen?
Because you know that's usually what it takes to make something new happen.....

And the answer is "hmmmmmm........".

(See what happens when you take a sabbatical? Subversive thoughts start taking over your mind!)

MT Dreaming

2011-01-27T19:57:00.003-05:00

Dreamt last night about being surrounded by MTs that I know and respect -- Missy Cross, Cynthia Shobutte, Lauren Piro, and a host of others. We were all relaxing in a big house together, talking shop and enjoying each others company.

It was a very nice dream. :)

Core Values?

2011-01-24T01:37:00.003-05:00

So, I'm writing a book showing how massage therapists can maintain their healing values while doing business. In fact, my theory is that you can't be successful if your business decisions aren't grounded in your core values as a massage therapist.

So.....what are the core values of our industry? Here's the ones I came up with:

homeostasis (keeping everything in functional balance)
healthy boundaries (being clear about where you stand)
health (maintaining a state of well-being)
service (offering up what we have as a gift)
wholeness & integration (our business goals are one with our massage goals)

It was more of a struggle to come up with this list than I expected. What would you list as the 3-5 core values of your massage practice? Would it look anything like my list?

How To Use It (Social Media) Well

2011-01-13T22:39:00.001-05:00

(Note: I originally posted this on my "personal" blog by accident. I meant to post it here but clicked the wrong blog before I realized it. So, yes, this has been copied from there wholesale, if you've already read it on The Upside Down Yank.)

The buzz in the last year for "new" ways to market has all been about "social media". Specifically, Facebook and Twitter and, to a lesser extent, blogs.

I've seen plenty of practices and businesses go this route, with limited success. Here are a few things I've noticed:

1. It takes more time than you think it does. Figure out how much time you think you'll need to spend on this every week (you need to post at least 2-3 times a week on FB or Twitter and at least 8-10 times a month on a blog to be worth it). Now, triple that time.

Do you have that much free time in your current schedule? If not, what are you willing to drop from your schedule to make room for it? I don't recommend dropping "sleep".

2. You need to come up with something new and interesting each time. And it can't be just new and interesting to you. It has to be new and interesting to your reader. Which means you have to have some idea of who your reader is likely to be and what they find interesting.

3. You have to give something of value through your postings. Just posting "hey, look, I'm here!" is fine....for the first few days. And then you have to have new content. New valuable content. Sit down and make a list of 50 topics you'd like to blog/FB post/tweet about. That will get you through the first 3 months (a number of those topics will not pan out once you actually sit down to write about them). Then you have to come up with more!

4. It helps enormously to have visuals to go with your posts. You can use clipart, sometimes and with limitatations. Do you have visuals -- photos, original art, etc. -- to go with, say, 40% - 60% of your posts? Are you willing to start carrying a camera with you? And to think creatively about how to capture good images?

5. Ideally, you've got a multi-tiered social network thang going on -- website, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and they all point back and forth to each other.

Kinda exhausting, isn't it?

OK, enough with my bitching and moaning. I want to point you to an example of an organization that's using Facebook right now incredibly well: The Queensland Police Service.

During the current flooding crisis in Queensland and, specifically, in Brisbane, everyone has been scrambling to get current information. How far as the water spread? Who's cut off? What roads are open? What roads are closed? When is high tide? What is the peak supposed to be? Who should be evacuating? Where are the evacuation centers? What resources are available? What about this/that/and the other thing rumor that I heard? Where or how can I help? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Several local TV stations have been broadcasting nothing but flood information around the clock for the last several days. But even that isn't fast enough or complete enough. That's where the Queensland Police Service comes in.

So, let's start with the state police's website. If you click over to it, the very first thing you see is a link to their Facebook page. And not kinda over on the side. It's square (and large) in your face.

When you go to their FB page (which I've had up and open full-time for the last few days) notice:

* they post new information 10-20 times an hour. There is somebody typing their fingers off somewhere.

* the information is from multiple sources -- TV stations, their own media department, the premier's (think "governor") office, highway patrol, search and rescue, evacuation centers, the mayor's office, the electric company, everyone. They are clearly wired in to everyone and everything.

That didn't happen overnight. Those connections were well-established before this crisis hit.

* their posts are short, sweet, and to the point. Frequently no more than 1 - 3 sentences. Even their longer notes are very focused, specific, and direct.

* while they can't quite break themselves from the passive voice (they are still a government agency, after all) there is little confusion about what you're to do with the information.

* each post also references their Twitter accounts. They are encouraging you to connect in multiple ways and making it easy to figure out how to do that, without beating you over the head with it.

* they are not using their page to glorify their own efforts. They are honestly using it to keep the public up to date. AND to try to manage their own needs (please quite rubber-necking and get off Coronation Drive!, for example).

* they have a clear idea of what their audience (desperately) wants and needs and they're doing a good job of supplying it.

* they don't only deal with "official" announcements. The address rumors quickly and directly. That's freakin' brilliant!

I can't tell you how grateful I am for this page and whatever nubby-fingered person(s) have been making it happen. It has helped me stay calm during this crisis by helping me stay informed. It's also provded me quite a primer in how to do a public-service Facebook page well.

Covering Your Butt (and your income)

2011-01-13T18:56:00.003-05:00

I just spoke with my favorite small business owner -- Kelli of Kelli's Cleaning Angels. We moved last week and she's hoping to stop by later to give us an estimate on cleaning services for the new place.

As many of you have no doubt heard by now, Brisbane has been devastated by flood this week. The news reports are not exaggerating. This city has been slammed. It will take the better part of the next week to get the river down to normal levels and then there's thousands of acres of devastation (not to mention really smelly mud) to deal with.

Kelli said a good 35 - 45 of her clients are along the river and have had their places ruined. Which means they won't be needing her services for months, as a minimum!

Oh. Shit.

She's still got her high-rise apartment jobs. She's also going to talk to insurance companies today about using her company for some of the flood-related clean-up (gotta be flexible and creative -- and quick! -- when you're a small business).

So while the flood didn't harm her home, person, or equipment (or her employees it sounds like), she's still had her business severely damaged by the flooding.

We think about insuring our persons and our equipment. We think about liability insurance. But what happens if factors waaaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond our control make it difficult, if not impossible, for us to work?

When I was teaching business practices, I ran across a reference to "business interrruption insurance". I knew of no one who had it (or had heard of it) so I didn't really go anywhere with it. I've been thinking about it, though, a lot this week so I did some research.

As defined by Wikipedia (I know, I know, but I do find them helpful!):

Business Interruption Insurance (also known as Business Income Insurance) covers the loss of income that a business suffers after a disaster while its facility is being rebuilt. A property insurance policy only covers the physical damage to the business, while the additional coverage allotted by the business interruption policy covers the profits that would have been earned. This extra policy provision is applicable to all types of businesses, as it is designed to put a business in the same financial position it would have been in if no loss had occurred.

This type of coverage is not sold as a stand-alone policy, but can be added on to the business' property insurance policy or comprehensive package policy. Since business interruption is included as part of the business' primary policy, it only pays out if the cause of the loss is covered by the overarching policy.

The following are typically covered under a business interruption insurance policy:

Profits- Profits that would have been earned (based on prior months' financial statements);
Fixed Costs- Operating expenses and other costs still being incurred by the property (based on historical costs);
Temporary Location- Some policies cover the extra expenses for moving to, and operating from, a temporary location;
Extra Expenses- Reimbursement for reasonable expenses (beyond the fixed costs) that allow the business to continue operation while the property is being repaired.

This coverage extends until the end of the business interruption period, which is determined by the insurance company. Most insurance policies define this period as starting on the date of the covered peril and the damaged property is physically repaired and returned to operations under the same condition that existed prior to the disaster.

It's clearly geared to covering the lost income and additional costs involved if the location where you practice massage is not usable. I wonder if it also covers you if you can't get to your practice space, even if the space is intact.

A flood doesn't damage your place but makes it impossible to get to it.
Something like a 9-11 attack occurs and the city is shut down.
You are a mobile business (like Kelli or outcall services) and a natural disaster wrecks your client base

There's so much to think about when insuring your business. There's so many things you can lose. And when you don't make a huge amount of gross or net income (like so many of us), it's so easy for that income to be screwed up.

I'm not trying to depress you. Just enlighten you about the possibilities.

Why I Do What I Do

2011-01-02T20:31:00.002-05:00

for a friend, on the arrival of illness
John O'Donohue

Now is the time of dark invitation
Beyond a frontier that you did not expect;
Abruptly, your old life seems distant.

You barely noticed how each day opened
A path through fields never questioned,
Yet expected deep down to hold treasure.
Now your time on earth becomes full of threat;
Before your eyes your future shrinks.

You lived absorbed in the day to day,
So continuous with everything around you,
That you could forget you were separate;

Now this dark companion has come between you,
Distances have opened in your eyes,
You feel that against your will
A stranger has married your heart.

Nothing before has made you
Feel so isolated and lost.

When the reverberations of shock subside in you,
May grace come to restore you to balance.
May it shape a new space in your heart
To embrace this illness as a teacher
Who has come to open your life to new worlds.

May you find in yourself
A courageous hospitality
Towards what is difficult,
Painful and unknown.

May you use this illness
As a lantern to illuminate
The new qualities that will emerge in you.

May the fragile harvesting of this slow light
Help you to release whatever has become false in you.
May you trust this light to clear a path
Through all the fog of old unease and anxiety
Until you feel arising within you a tranquility
Profound enough to call the storm to stillness.

May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:
Ask it why it came? Why it chose your friendship?
Where it wants to take you? What it wants you to know?
What quality of space it wants to create in you?
What you need to learn to become more fully yourself
That your presence may shine in the world.

May you keep faith with your body,
Learning to see it as a holy sanctuary
Which can bring this night-wound gradually
Towards the healing and freedom of dawn.

May you be granted the courage and vision
To work through passivity and self-pity,
To see the beauty you can harvest
From the riches of this dark invitation.

May you learn to receive it graciously,
And promise to learn swiftly
That it may leave you newborn,
Willing to dedicate your time to birth

I heard this poem read, by the author, on a podcast of "Being" from Public Radio International (one of my very favorite podcasts). It struck me that this is the best part of what I do as a massage therapist. I bear witness to what my clients are living with and I wish exactly these kind of things for them and try to be part of making this kind of response possible.

While it is very satisfying and gratifying to help relieve pain or discomfort in the physical body through the thoughtful and professional application of massage (i.e., rubbing where it hurts till it don't hurt no more), being present with the client's spirit -- through a thoughtful intake, a careful session design, a pre-session grounding of myself, a full presence massage, and a loving ending -- is by far the most humbling and joyful part of my work.

Guess I Gotta Do It Now

2010-12-16T19:50:00.001-05:00

So, the cleaning lady (Kelli) that I blogged about recently? She says she wants a copy of my business book when it's done. She wants to learn more about business.

I said she's my idea of a great small business owner already. She would be the example I would put forth to my readers!

She said "a day I don't learn something new is a sad day".

THAT, my friends, is a good small business owner!!

So, yeah, I guess I really am going to have to finish this book.....

Oh, dear, what have I gotten myself into?

2010-12-12T23:56:00.000-05:00

I (finally) read a handbook on how to write a book and get it published and promote it. I had a vague idea that "some more stuff" happens after I do the hard/important part of writing the silly thing.

Oh my goodness. There's a lot to do and it is all very time-consuming, especially if I want a book to be remotely "successful" (that is, cover its costs and bring me some profit). I'm more than a little overwhelmed right now.

But the business woman in me says "right, then, pull on your boots and get busy! You know that writing a book is business and business = work. No whingeing!". The business woman in me is apparently adopting an Australian accent...

It may turn out that the writing was the easy part!

Taking it Digital

2010-12-08T06:46:00.004-05:00

I just submitted my application to be a presenter at the two 2011 World Massage Conferences, all of it online.

Eeep!

It's part of (1) starting to promote my business workshops (I proposed doing an hour on "starter" business plans) and (2) getting my name out beyond the DC massage community. Plus, it gives me a chance to start practicing with putting stuff out there through the 'net.

I am a print kinda gal. Degree in journalism. 20 years writing user guides. I still prefer my books on paper in my hand and newspaper websites make me nuts.

BUT my target audience is getting younger and younger as the masssage community gets younger and they tend to go electronic first. So, I gotta learn how to do this too.

Truth be told, I also want to be one of the voices "out there" talking about what is possible as a massage therapist. A lot of the advice and direction new MTs are getting is all about "go to work for someone else". Nothing wrong with that but it's not necessarily the only option either. Some times it feels like the schools are turning out the equivalent of massage cannon fodder -- cheap labor for the larger entities that are gaining strength in our industry.

Somebody needs to be telling new MTs that there is another option and how to get there. And how to stand up for themselves and how to take themselves seriously as business owners and....OK, if you've ever taken one of my classes, you know where I'm going with this. ;)

Gotta put it out there if you want people to find it.

Three Lessons

2010-11-28T19:22:00.004-05:00

The woman who cleans the apartment every week is a whirlwind and a savvy and self-aware businesswoman. We chat if I'm here about business (while she flies around the apartment). Today we talked about insurance and hiring employees and contracts and a host of things.

At one point, she said (from the bathroom) "There are three things I've learned about business from running my own cleaning company." Here's her three things...

Always have a contract

In any professional relationship have a contract and read the contract. She's been on both the winning and the losing end of not reading contracts. The contract is the beginning and end of your business relationship.

AND contracts are negotiated, not just signed.

I've advised students and new massage therapists to take your own contract to a job interview. The fact that the spa/hotel/salon/group practice already has their boilerplate contract doesn't mean you have to accept it as is. If you bring your own, you can use the two of them as the place where you begin your negotiations.

Get everything in writing

No matter how good your relationship is with a businessperson, get everything in writing. Did you agree verbally to a rate change? Get it in writing. Did you agree to change who carries the insurance? Get it in writing. Did you agree to a change in duties? Get it in writing.

Everyone's memory is as susceptible to modification and mis-remembrance. Any conversation that's reduced to "you said..." vs. "no, what I said was..." is a losing conversation.

Remember it's business, not personal

Actually, she said "don't trust your employees", which made the employee working with her today laugh. She corrected herself and explained that she meant never mistake a business relationship for a personal relationship and vice versa. Remember and maintain those good boundaries.

You can have a cordial, even friendly, working relationship but remember it's always about work.

Trust your gut/trust yourself

It turns out, she had lots more lessons learned but I liked this one best. She said that when she first started in business, she wanted to be nice and she wasn't entirely confident in own judgement so she tended to do what others told her to do, even when her gut/intuition told her differently.

And she always regretted not listening to her gut.

A corrollary to this was to develop a strong sense of who you are as a business owner and keep that in your mind as you do business.

She actually had lots of other nuggets of learned wisdom that kept coming once she got started. You may see her and just see "cleaning lady" but she has multiple home and business contracts, has a staff, works hard, and knows that she is a small business owner.

She's very much like us and we could learn a lot from her.

Slogging My Way Through The Words

2010-11-25T20:50:00.002-05:00

Writing. Writing. Writing. Writing. Writing.

I actually went to college for this??

I'm back at the Brisbane Square library today for another 2-hour session in the learning lounge. The lounge gives me access to a PC with Word, fast internet, Publisher, etc. etc. etc. and a printer. I have been coming here to do my writing several days a week because (1) it helps me break the isolation of working alone at home and (2) they've actually got decent office chairs for working on the PC!

It makes a difference.

It's funny that every time I come over to reserve a space, they ask me what I'm working on (directly or subtly). This learning lounge is meant to be for working, not just surfing the web. (They have another busy lounge for that.)

I've been coming here 2-4 days a week for several weeks now and they still ask me every time. I don't know if they're getting more or less suspicious.

The plan for today is:

1. Get a couple more pages of the NCBTMB Approved Provider application finished. It's not a horrendous application but (1) it's long, (2) it's detailed, and worst of all (3) you can't save your work.

Truly. You can enter all the info you want into this 35-page online application but you can not save your work. I found this so incomprehensible I actually called their offices (yes, from Australia) and they confirmed that, yep, that's how that works.

They agreed it's not ideal and suggested I print off each page as I get it complete. Since I don't have a printer in the apartment, I have to work on it here.

2. Whack away some more at chapter 1 of the "Travel Guide for the Spiritual Journey" book (my working title). I've finished a rough draft of the introduction and I'm now working on chapter 1. I've got a detailed outline but it's still a lot of work to turn that outline into readable prose.

Do I sound a bit whingey (translation: whiny)? I feel a bit whingey. I've done a lot of writing this week and my word brain cells are getting a cramp. I remind myself how fortunate I am to have the freedom and support to just write, something I've fantasized about (and, yes, I did go to college for this. I have a degree in journalism and spent 20 years making my living as a writer before switching to MT). But I'm kinda dragging today.

It is work. Struggling for the right word or sentence construction. Making sure I don't over-use phrases (and that is sooooo easy to do!). Analyzing the flow of information through the paragraph, the chapter, the book. Re-arranging and re-arranging and re-arranging. What if I put this sentence there? Does it read better if I swap these paragraphs? Oh but that would mean deleting this sentence and I really like this sentence! Am I using the same phrasing I used in the introduction (because I should be)? Am I still being engaging? Is this sentence too long? Should I expand upon this idea or is it self-explanatory? Do I sound arrogant? Do I sound simple-minded?

Work.

Maybe after my two hours are up here, I'll go grab my togs (translation: bathing suit) and head over to the manmade beach on Southbank and ogle the life guards.

It's a living.

Thinking About Money

2010-11-23T20:23:00.007-05:00

I've been thinking about money lately. Not just about whether I have it or not but about the role it plays in our professional and personal lives.

Insight #1: Money Has No Intrinsic Value

If I hand you a random piece of paper with green ink and a profile on it, is it money? In the US, that's all our money really is (in other countries, they get to use a wider range of ink colors, darn it!).

It works as a medium of trade but only because we all agree to see it that way. Yes, there's that whole "backed by a heap of gold and silver in Ft. Knox" but have you ever actually seen that pile o' gold and silver? Me neither. I'm taking that on faith too. And I don't recommend you walk into a bank and ask to change your dollars for gold and silver.

If we all woke up tomorrow and decided that those pieces of paper didn't look all that valuable any more, our economy would collapse. Money is a mass delusion but a mass delusion we've all agreed to and gotten (more or less) comfortable with.

Insight #2: Money, Like Energy, Has To Move

I may get a little prejudicial with this.

Because money has no intrinsic value, because it is strictly a medium of exchange, I think it has be be, well, exchanged. It makes sense to lay a little aside for things you know you'll need it for in the future -- next month's rent, next year's vacation, your retirement -- but I think money actually....stagnates if you lay too much aside just because.

We've all met people whose whole sense of security comes from the number of zeroes in the bank / retirement / money market / etc. accounts. They can be reluctant to actually spend that money, however. It's existence in a place they can call their own is all that matters.

They often say they might need it for an emergency or "just in case". True enough. But I've met a few people who I think don't ever intend to spend it, not if they can help it. Money's whole value is that their name is attached to it and it's not going anywhere.

I also find these people tend towards a certain stagnation in themselves (yes, this is the prejudicial part). The more energy / attention / moments of your life you spend stacking up dollar bills just to have a stack of dollar bills, the less of that energy / attention / moments of your life are available for, well, living.

Insight #3: Money Picks Up The Energy Of Our Intentions

Yeah, I'm gonna go all woo-woo on you here. You have been warned.

American paper money is made from organic matter -- a blend of cotton and linen (Australian paper money is made from polymers). I teach in Energy 101 that all matter has an energetic signature. So, dollar bills have an energetic signature, even before anyone has done anything with it.

But think about how many hands a dollar bill goes through. Each of those hands has a feeling about the money, has intention for it, assigns some emotional and energetic significance to it. That energy has to end up in the fibers of that dollar bill somehow.

I wonder if money is some of the most energetically charged things we touch on a daily basis? What difference would it make to that cotton and linen if the energy we touched it with was the energy of thanksgiving and pleasure vs. fear and insufficiency? Joy vs. anger? A spirit of plenty vs. a spirit of poverty?

Does money live differently in your pocket -- and affect you differently -- if you accept with an open attitude of thanksgiving? And give it out the same way?

I don't have an answer. I just find myself thinking about this a lot lately.

On the Strength of My Own Determination

2010-11-14T18:01:00.003-05:00

While I was at the AMTA conference in September, I introduced myself to each publisher that was there. I explained my business book and talked to them about whether it was something they would be interested in.

Most of them focus on textbooks and I don't really envision this as a textbook. Lippincott Wilkins and Williams (the biggest publisher in our biz) were at least intrigued. I got a biz card and said I'd follow up when I got back to Brisbane.

Which I did. And heard back on Friday that they are unlikely to be interested in the book. They feel they already have enough "massage business" books.

sigh

I'm glad she responded. She encouraged me to keep writing, if for no other reason than because I clearly believe so strongly in the book. And I will. I do believe in this book and I really want to write it.

I'll focus on self-publishing now (once I figure out how that actually works). I don't know that this book will ever be a best-seller, even in our small industry. But I still believe it has value. I still believe it's unique. And I'll keep writing.

Size Matters

2010-11-14T06:42:00.008-05:00

Since I live in the heart of "downtown" Brisbane (the CBD), there are frequently people on the sidewalks handing me flyers, free newspapers, coupons, that sort of thing. On Fridy night, there were two young women in traditional Japanese costume handing out business cards for a hair salon / fashion boutique.

I was stunned when I finally looked at it to see how much information they had crammed into a 2 inch x 3 inch space!

When I taught business practices at PMTI, we talked about business cards as part of marketing. They are generally inexpensive to produce so there's no good reason not to have one. We spent a good bit of time in class talking about the practical challenges of a business card.

From my perspective, a business card exists to let a person know (1) who you are, (2) what you do, and (3) how to reach you. You can include a few other things but the challenge is normally to resist the urge to put everything about yourself on your card. It's not a resume. It's not an autobiography. It won't sell people on your practice by its lil' ol' self.

There needs to be enough on it to remind someone why they have it in their wallet when they pull it out again in 2, 4, or 15 weeks. Its design conveys, subtly, a general feel for your practice but you can't even take that too seiously. From my perspective, its purpose is to transmit basic data and facilitate contact.

From my perspective, the biggest mistake you can make with a business card is to not have one. (On you, at all times. In the immortal words of Kitty Southworth LMT "I will leave home without my underwear before I leave home without my business cards!")

But, yowsa!, the Ryota salon seems to have not gotten the message that "less is more". And there was more on the back of the card!

In contrast, I've laid their card next to a card I picked up at the recent AMTA conference from a publishers' rep.

When I pull either of these cards out of my wallet, I'll remember why I have them. But I won't get an eyestrain headache trying to contact the publishers' rep!

I think the salon would have been much better served with a 4x6 or 5x7 postcard (or maybe even better served with a simple brochure). Then they wouldn't have had to resort to 2 pt type.

Yet, everything I need to know is on there, including the name of the salon mascot, Lolly the dog. But at what price? This is a full color (though not glossy) card with 9 photographs! Not cheap.

I won't rule out cultural differences either. Perhaps there is a segment of Japanese culture where this kind of card is both common and expected. Except, of course, they're not handing these out in Japan. They're handing them out in Brisbane where business cards tend to look just like they do in the US.

Are they wrong to use this business card? Well, they certainly got my attention and I will remember them. But mostly I will remember it as an irritant and an example of what I wouldn't recommend.

When I Grow Up, I Want To Be....

2010-11-09T00:36:00.003-05:00

Jeff and I have talked about the odds and practicality of extending our time here in Australia. We may have that option but if we do, I will need to find work I suspect.

I could look for massage work in a spa or group practice. Since I don't have a client base (or even my massage table and supplies) it's impractical to try to establish my own practice.

I could go back to my previous life and work as a writer, especially a technical writer. Though the software used to write technical manuals has changed in the last 10 years I'm sure and I haven't kept up.

What I find myself thinking about though is temp or retail work (though God help my sacrum if I have to be on my feet all day!). Something simple. Something without assumption of commitment or long-term relationships.

Something I can walk in and out of without much guilt or personal investment.

I don't feel the need to flex my well-developed professional muscles, either as a writer or an MT. I can be in it just for the paycheck and some co-workers.

I'm enjoying the simple and relatively unattached life here in Brisbane. There's a peacefulness to it that I'm coming to appreciate.

More On Touching Strangers

2010-11-08T01:28:00.001-05:00

Compliments of NPR.

Touching Strangers: A Creepily Wonderful Concept

Touching Professionally and Non-Professionally

2010-11-04T23:39:00.003-04:00

While I'm here in Brisbane, I'm taking the chance to meet some locals through an organization called CouchSurfing that I'm active in at home in DC. This morning I had tea with a beautiful young woman, Erica Field, who's a performance artist.

One of her favorite shows to take part in is called "Six Women In Front Of A White Wall" by the Little Dove Theater (she's on the far left in this pic). The premise is, as the name implies, 6 women stand in front of a white wall on stands, "acting out" somewhat in the Japanese Butoh tradition. The audience is invited to come up and touch the women. The women react honestly to the touch.

Erica talked about the profound nature of putting yourself up to be touched by strangers and the challenge of responding honestly. She talked about the profound things she has seen from audience members when they are invited to touch strangers but knowing that they will respond honestly to how they feel about the touch.

Of course, we talked about the intersection of that performance experience and the massage therapy experience. Vulnerability. Honesty. Touch. The necessity of being totally present to the experience.

I had a flash that it would be fascinating to have that performance performed at, say, an AMTA convention. How different would it be when the audience touches strangers every day (naked strangers to boot!)?

How different would it be for us to touch strangers with intention but not in our official roles as massage therapists? The balance of power shifts. While the audience is the one that decides whether or not to touch, the performers "control" the space by being the ones who initiated the experience and are the ones who will have the freedom to react honestly and immediately (something our clients don't always do). They're the "pros" in this setting, where we're the "pros" when we touch in session.

What happens when someone else is creating and has final control over the touch experience? Can we just....touch? Could we touch without the overwhelming urge to rub, to massage?

I hope I get a chance to see this performance some day. I imagine I will be one of the ones who want to touch but how will the performer respond to my non-professional touch? I hope I get to find out.

My Australian Office

2010-11-02T04:03:00.002-04:00

Behind the couch, tucked between the kitchen and the TV. :)

When I Grow Up, I Want To Be...

2010-11-02T01:27:00.003-04:00

After 10 years in any profession, it's a good idea to step back and give some thought to what you want out of the next 10 years. Otherwise, you are a prime candidate for burnout, even if you love your work. You don't need to switch careers but you do need to shake things up.

(Truth in advertising: I wrote a whole column on this for the DC chapter of the AMTA, so I'm sort of stealing my own lead!)

When Jeff and I decided to come to Australia, we decided I would use this time to write a book (or 3) I've had in my head. I'm also using this time to see what bubbles up for my practice. What new directions do I want to take? What leaps of the imagination might actually be possible?

It changes every week. An idea will just grab my brain with both hands and shake it while saying "we could do XYZ!!!" Last week, I was all caught up in the idea of renting a large-ish space and inviting other bodyworkers and allied professionals to rent space from me. Create the multi-speciality practice I've fantasized working in but do it as a landlord.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the logistics of that last week. Where would I find such a space? Should I rent or (gulp) buy? What would it take to get that kind of financing?? What part of the city? What would I be looking for in practitioners? How would I find them?

This week, that idea doesn't excite my brain as much. Today I find myself focusing on the "service" part of my practice, specifically the "pay what you can" policy I have. Where are the people who need and want massage and really can't afford it? What is a massively under-served community?

In DC, I live on the eastern end of Capitol Hill (over by RFK Stadium). Can I help bring massage and its healing to ward 7 and 8, even with my oh-so-white face? Would I be better off partnering with someone who's already working in ward 7/8? What about my existing, loyal, and loving clients who would find ward 7/8 waaaaaaaay the hell outside their comfort zone?

Next week....who knows? It's all part of my deeper psyche exercising it's imagining and envisioning muscles. Stay tuned. :)

Re-believing

2010-10-19T02:21:00.003-04:00

I have a degree in journalism. I spent 20 years as a professional writer before I became a massage therapist. I continue to write professionally, even as a massage therapist.

Yet, every time I sit down in front of a blank page or screen, I have to go looking for that place inside of me that contains my writer-ness. I have to choose to believe, once again, that I can write and write well enough to justify claiming people's reading time.

After more than 30 years, I still have to do that virtually every time I sit down to write.

I've spent a few hours this afternoon working on the outline for my business book. I have written business columns for 5 years. I taught business practices for 4 years. I still have all that material. Yet, when I opened a blank document called "outline", I had a moment or three of wondering if I had any idea what I was doing! (4 pages of outline later, I'm feeling much better about that.)

It happens with massage sometimes too. I've been rubbing the naked people for 10 years. Yet there are days I would walk into the massage room and think "What the heck am I doing here? What the heck do I know???".

There's a particular place inside of me, apparently, where my professionalism lives (I think it's somewhere near the 3rd chakra). The connection to that place can, apparently, be lost, misplaced, or at least overlooked for a while. The connection, apparently, needs to be re-established from time to time, maybe especially since the "success" of my work is so....subjective. Did you like it or not? That's pretty subjective.

But today I found my way to my Professionalism Place, my 3rd chakra, my whatever. Hope I can find it again tomorrow.

owowowowOW! Was It Good For You?

2010-10-13T22:14:00.012-04:00

I've been getting my bodywork at The Lightworkers Cottage in New Farm, a close-in suburb. Specifically, I've been going to Nicholas Bestevaar, a Pyschosomatic Therapy practitioner.

We all know that the body-language we use around stress -- pain in the neck, monkey on my back, pain in the butt, etc. -- can have literal physical manifiestations. At its simplest, psychosomatic therapy takes that to the next level. Combining professional manual palpation skills with energetic sensitivity, these therapists find places of congestion and tune into the emotional/psychological/spiritual issues that might also be associated.

It hasn't been "counseling" as such. Nick has simply asked me to reflect on the congestion, pain, tightness, restrictions he's encountering. He talks to me about what's been going on with me. He reflects on life issues to may manifest in ways similar to what he's finding. He doesn't inform me that x/y/z is clearly going on and I obviously need to do 1, 2, 3.

He just observes and reflects and encourages me to be open to what might be good for me at that point, all the while using his hands in traditional therapeutic massage kinda ways.

I just got back from a 3-week trip back home to DC. It was a trying visit emotionally and physically. I landed back in Brisbane physically beat (thank you American Airlines!) and emotionally drained. My neck and shoulders have been tight though not painful. My feet were sore and I was experierincing some mild but stubborn jet-lag-related edema in my lower legs

Nick started me prone and began working on my feet and legs. Which turned out to be in worse shape than I even imagined! Holy crap.

Nick worked pretty deeply. His manual techniques were a combo of deep tissue, myofascial release and/or structural alignment, and some stretching. And it hurt. A LOT. A whole lot. I almost kicked him in the chest once -- by accident! I swear! -- in reflexive response to a tender spot he found.

Oh dear GOD it hurt.

While I was experiencing this work (when I had spare brain cells from trying to remember to breathe), I reflected on the role of pain in bodywork. I wondered if I would have been willing to induce this much pain, even if I was convinced it was going to be productive.

I took one of Ben Benjamin's Orthopedic Massage workshops a few years ago. One of the things that hung me up was that the treatment required being willing to do something that the client would experience as painful. My instinct to lighten up, back out, or stop when I got to the point of pain was practically overwhelming.

I always talk to my clients about the difference between "productive" and "non-productive" pain. I have always told the client that they need to let me know if we cross the line from productive to un-productive pain. Even when they give me permission to go deeper into "productive" pain, I find myself very reluctant.

Some of it may be a simple human urge not to hurt someone.

Some of it may be a deeper unwillingness to be the "bad guy" who causes pain, wanting my clients to only have happy associations with me.

Maybe it's a reaction to that over-done 80s mantra "no pain, no gain". How many clients have we all seen who've gone too far in their own body-management efforts, presuming the more it hurts the better it is for them?

Maybe I'm not confident in my ability to know when "enough" becomes "too much".

Of course, I've also met too many people who presume that I'm not doing enough if they aren't hurting. They only know effectiveness through pain. And there are MTs out there who really don't know you can be effective short of pain.

So, was Nicholas being insensitive to me? Was he being clumsy or ham-fisted? My instinct says "no". He was moving slowly and attentively. He approached congestion with a variety of approaches and paid a lot of attention to when congestion finally opened up.

Could he have done all of this with less pain? I don't know, honestly. The fascia of my legs was clearly very gummed up. We had only (!) 90 minutes. It worked, though my legs and feet were sore all day (but much better today). It had been a very trying 4 weeks prior to this and 3 weeks since I'd had any bodywork.

It does have me re-visiting my ideas about the place of pain in professional, compassionate, effective bodywork.

One Last Reason To Go To Conventions

2010-09-27T12:28:00.003-04:00

I roomed in Minneapolis with fellow PMTI alum Pauline Lockard. It was her first AMTA convention and it was interesting to see everything -- the AMTA, the convention, massage therapists -- through her eyes.

But maybe the best part happened on Saturday. She had the morning free so she decided to walk through downtown Minneapolis to the Mississippi River. Along the way, she discovered the glory that is the Mississippi River, a farmers market, an Oktoberfest (with an oompah band, natch), and a nice walking trail along the banks of the river.

She came back with a look of wonder and delight on her face. She could not stop talking about how delightful it all was. How surprised she was by how simply pleasant it was.

I took a walk that same morning, though I never made it to the river. First, I stopped in at the Jean Stephen Galleries because they had a special exhibit of Dr. Seuss prints. I had a long chat with the owner about the Dr. Seuss work as well as about several other artists presented there. Some entrancing and engaging work in many different media. I'm very glad I stopped in. I really wish I was in a position to buy art.

I also stopped for brunch at one of the few food options open on a Saturday morning downtown -- Ike's Food & Cocktail. Wow. When you sit down, they place a sticky bun on your table the same way another restaurant would place bread sticks. They call it the "big as your head sticky bun" and, well, they're right. It's as large around as my face and about 2 inches high.

And it's a freebie. I just kept staring at it with my jaw dropped. The waitress said, in effect, "yeah, we get that alot". You can supplement that with an all-you-can-eat breakfast for $18.

Seriously? Because you imagine I haven't eaten in a week?

I ordered a chicken sandwich. While I waited for it, I managed to nibble my way half-way through that sticky bun despite my earnest intention not to touch it. What could I do? It was just sitting there!

The chicken sandwich arrived. Like far too many chicken breast offerings at American restaurants, it was overcooked and dry. I nibbled the two slices of bacon off it. Discovered the cheddar cheese was excellent and ate that off too.

When the waitress came back to inquire after my satisfaction, I mentioned I wasn't going to eat the sandwich because it was overcooked. She quickly offered to have the kitchen make me another one. Whereupon I had to admit that I had, uh, also kinda sorta ruined my appetite with the sticky bun so I wasn't actually hungry any more.

And she took the chicken sandwich off my bill anyways. So I got a sticky bun, bacon, and cheese for breakfast for the price of a soda.

That, my friends, is genuine Minnesota. These people are as nice as Garrison Keillor keeps telling us they are.

I burped my way back to the hotel and convention center.

When a lot of my friends in DC heard where the convention was this year, their general reaction was "Minneapolis?? Why would I want to go there??????" I was quick to defend Minneapolis but I think part of the low turnout this year was that people didn't think there was anything interesting to see/do/eat in Minneapolis.

They were wrong.

This is a sweet little city and a sweet not-so-little state. I don't want to live here because it's also the upper midwest and I know from experience that I can't take the winters. But I was grateful for the chance to visit a city I think is an under-appreciated gem of a city and call it a business expense.

The AMTA convention, or any other business trip, gives you an opportunity to see a new place with a new set of eyes. I discovered Powell's World of Books through an AMTA convention. I took the time to explore Sedona as a side-trip from the Phoenix AMTA convention. I have a new appreciation for Cincinnati thanks to the AMTA convention.

Get up, get out, go. Or at least give it some serious consideration. You might just discover the next Sticky Bun Of Death.

Social Media'ing

2010-09-25T09:41:00.002-04:00

For quite a while, my husband and other friends have been after me to write a blog, especially for my practice. I’ve been very very resistant to this. Even though I am (also) a writer and I enjoy writing, I’ve had a strong sense that a blog would be a lot of work if I was going to do it well (and why do it any other way?) and would be a lot more time-consuming than these well-meaning friends and husbands realize (none of whom, I’d like to point out, is running a business or writing a blog themselves!).

I’ve written travel blogs for years and they are well-received by friends and family. So I have a very good idea of what it takes to do the writing. It is, just trust me, a lot more time- and energy-consuming than it appears to the reader. I enjoy it but writing a travel blog is related to a single event that I know will end. Writing for my business will not end or at least not any time soon.

This blog has confirmed my expectations somewhat. It is work and I do have to think about it all the time but it’s not as time- and energy-consuming as I feared.

Now those same people are telling me I need to be “doing” social media. Everyone is doing it! It’s critical to business success! You have to do it! They, of course, are still not running businesses themselves or doing social media for these non-existent businesses either but that doesn’t stop them from providing their useful opinions.

The session on social media on Thursday validated my expectations and observations. The presenter was very clear that one of the things everyone has to think about first is how much time you’re willing and able to devote to this sorta thing. He was very cognizant of the fact that we don’t make money doing social media. We make money when we rub people.

It’s nice to see someone admit that, that social media is time-consuming and it’s OK to not want to do it or not want to do it all the time. There are a lot of messages -- even beyond well-meaning friends and relatives -- that as small business owners we’ve just got to be all over whatever the latest thing is.

I am rarely an early adopter for new technologies. I’m not technophobic -- I was a technical writer in my previous profession -- but I am techno-cautious. I’m also very time-aware and I know how quickly my time evaporates, especially when I get on-line. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and mostly just remember a glowing screen!

So when I get back to Australia, I will re-visit my notes from the Social Media session, make some decisions that fit into my time and reality, and use it but I’ll use it to my benefit and in a way that fits my life.

Now I think I’m going to actually get off this screen and go for a walk in the real world…..

Where's The Buzz?

2010-09-25T09:35:00.002-04:00

I gotta say, this convention does not have the buzz of previous conventions. It’s smaller, it’s quieter, it’s definitely more subdued. The energy just isn’t here. Maybe it’s me but I think it’s mostly the convention itself.

The vendor hall is missing the level of noise that it normally has.

Very few people are hanging around the Minnesota chapter host booth even though they are thoroughly lovely and helpful people full of very practical and useful assistance.

There aren’t the swarms of people in the hallways between session creating the hum of excitement (or disappointment) from their most recent session and in anticipation of the next session.

There aren’t little knots of people sitting on the floor or camping on empty tables perusing the schedule for the next place they want to be/see/shop.

It’s real easy to pick up tickets to sessions at the last minute.

I can move through the marketplace / vendor hall without trouble.

Tables are easy to find in the coffee shop and the snack bar. All day.

I’m not saying these things are bad, just that they aren’t my normal experience at an AMTA convention. Next year we’re in Portland OR (Powell’s World of Books!!!) October 19-22. Hope to see some of you there.

Who Am I?

2010-09-25T09:26:00.005-04:00

It’s been an odd week for me. I’m surrounded by massage therapists but I don’t feel like I belong here. I’m not currently a practicing MT and I feel disjointed, disconnected, possibly even discombobulated. I’m interested in sessions that are more about thinking about massage than doing massage (so I may be skipping the morning session today on forearm and arm pain. Useful but I just can’t seem to get excited about it.)

When I became a massage therapist, I left a career that had also defined me for almost 20 years and I found that disorienting for a while too. I get a lot of satisfaction out of my professional life. I worked hard in both professions to improve my skills and my professionalism. In both cases I was active in professional societies. I took (and take) pride in the fact that people appreciated my work. So maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised by how disjointed I feel when I’m not living the MT life, especially when surrounded by massage therapists.

I still am an MT, technically, but I’m not practicing. I gave my sister a foot rub last Saturday but that’s the first person I’ve rubbed since the end of July. What does it mean to be a massage therapist who isn’t massaging?

I have a friend in Texas who, like me, studied journalism in college. Like me, she started a writing job upon graduation. Unlike me, she stepped away from it a few years later to accommodate her husband’s job and then the arrival of her children.

I remember her saying she was no longer a writer. And I corrected her. The skill, the background, the relationship to words, and the very attitude necessary to be a writer still lived within her. No one was paying her to write but she still is a writer in my mind, even 20+ years later.

I know by the same standard, I still am a massage therapist. I still think like an MT. I still care like an MT. The knowledge, the experience, the attitude still live inside me. So by the standards outlined above, I’m still an MT.

But can I tell you a little secret? I don’t actually have an urge to rub someone. I was sure I would. I was sure by this point -- 6 weeks after my last massage -- I’d have twitchy hands, anxious to rub any one or any thing! I don’t and I don’t quite understand that.

I love and respect the life of an MT but I will also admit that it can be hard, draining, and frustrating sometimes. It’s not a lavender-scented float through life, riding the love waves from my satisfied customers. (darn it) It’s…….work. And some part of me is, frankly, happy to be able to walk away from it for 6 months.

But I still feel like I lost a point on my internal compass by stepping away. I lost a filter, a lens through which I knew myself.

I’m a little embarrassed by all this. I feel like my internal self-ness should be centered and grounded in something more enduring and essential than my job. But that job engages huge swaths of my mental energies. I suppose if my husband passes before I do I’ll experience something similar because my marriage engages huge swaths of my emotional energies.

So, this is normal. Right? Right?

Fewer People but Still A Good Time

2010-09-24T14:01:00.005-04:00

So, yesterday was my first official full day at the convention. And.....?
Marketplace

The vendor hall / marketplace is dramatically smaller than it's been in years past. The word on the carpet is that the AMTA had a lot of trouble attracting vendors this year. It's close to half the size it was in Phoenix or Cleveland. There are still lots of equipment manufacturers and lotion purveyors. But virtually no new small/start-up companies.

The one new one that I think is kinda funny is a guy selling t-shirts and bumper stickers. His products are all screamingly left-wing, feminist, vegetarian, new age, and hippie. Which means I love it! But I haven't seen a collection like that in probably 20 years and that was at a women's music festival back in about 1990.

But he's doing a brisk business! :)

Massage Therapy Foundation Posters

They have bulletin boards with big displays on research projects sponsored by their foundation. I don't usually read them because we're still at the stage as an industry where we have to do research to "prove" that massage can be relaxing and help alleviate pain. (No, the medical community won't just take our word for it.) sigh

There's a display, though, about a program in Boston that provides free hand massage to homeless people in a city program in conjunction with a PT training program. I really liked what I read. I know there are MTs at the women's facility at Luther Place over in Logan Circle but I'm feeling myself drawn to Ward 6 and 7 in NE DC and I'm wondering....casually, lightly.....if my practice (whenever I start practicing again) might be able to do something like this there.

Hmmmmmmm.......

Old Familiar Faces

I ran into former PMTI Executive Director Demara Stamler! She's here with the organization she's currently with (an alternative accredidation for cosmetology, aesthetician, and massage schools, I think). She looks wonderful and seems very happy.

Learning, I'm Always Learning

One of the big attractions to the convention is the workshops. If you take a full slate over three days, you've earned 12 CEUs for the year. You can fulfill all your NCBTMB requirements simply by attending the AMTA convention each year and taking your courses here.

But of course, not every workshop is going to excite and inspire you. Some are well-presented. Some....not exactly. I've taken two so far (I'm blowing off the ethics course I signed up for this afternoon because I'd rather blog).

Building A Successful Massage Practice: I'm going to give it a grade of "C-". My biggest complaint is that I don't think the presenter did a good audience analysis first. She was a solo practitioner in PA for about 18 months (many years ago). She was the only MT in her town and was quickly swamped, so she started hiring other MTs and spent 10+ years running a massage-specific "spa" before she sold it.

Unfortunately, about half the room identified themselves as solo practitioners who had no desire to run a multi-therapist practice. And her whole presentationwas based on the assumption that we all are or want to be running a multi-therapist practice.

Woops.

Plus, her defintion of success boils down to "make heaps of money by following general business best practices".

Eh. It wasn't bad so much as not terribly useful.

Using Social Media: OK, I'm giving this guy an A+. Loved it! He's not an MT (and a Canadian to boot! Oh my!) ;) but he really did "get" that we tend to be small operations, tend to be behind the curve on technology, and don't have a lot of time for social media.

He was very clear, very organized, and very practical. I took tons of notes and now feel like I can actually make an intelligent decision about how to (and whether to) use Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn and other social media to support my practice.

It was exactly what it was billed to be and exactly what I needed.

Today I was supposed to take an Ethics class, which I'm blowing off. Tomorrow is an intensive session on arm and forearm pain (whose anatomy still confuses me) and emotional intelligence.

MT Body of Knowledge: Beth Carey (PMTI Director of Education) attended that. Biggest complaint was that she wasn't sure what we're all supposed to do with this thing.

MT Best Practices: Again, Beth Carey, and she gave it a big thumbs up.

Geriatric Massage: good reports from both Pauline Lockard and Robert Weidemeyer, both PMTI alum.

Hospital-Based Massage Therapy: Beth was disappointed that they weren't more specific about how to make a hospital-based program work.

The AMTA, in general

I'm going to differentiate between the AMTA membership and the AMTA official organization.

The membership is full of diverse, interesting, occasionally obstreperous, often goofy people doing the best they can. The conversations I overhear (or, OK, eavesdrop on) tend to be about "how do I do the best possible work for my client?".

The official organization still frustrates me. The whole message bulletin board thing continues to be a problem (see yesterday's post for the low-down on the blossoming Bulletin Board Fiasco).

It turns out there are several more PMTI grads here and it would have been wonderful to invite them to the happy hour last night but we didn't know they were here and we had no good way to communicate with them.

The DC, VA, and MD AMTA chapters had their own impromptu happy hour last night that we probably would have folded ourselves intobut there was no good way to put that info out.

The organization has decided not to put room numbers on the tickets you get at registration for each of your workshops. Since they have always done that in the past, most attendees are discovering about 5 minutes before their first session that they have no idea where it is.

THAT information is in the daily "newspaper" that the organization is putting out and it's only available at the registration desk which most of us are not going back to after we've finished registering on the first day.

Unless they are making room assignments at the very last minute (and I don't get the impression that they are), what's the point? It can't be to save paper because it doesn't it. Maybe it's to "force" people to read the daily newspaper??

I would ask but I don't honestly expect a straight answer.

Massage! More Massage!

The bulk of the convention is planned, designed, and run by the national office. However, the local chapter (Minnesota in this case) always has a booth, arranges one evening outing, and hosts/staffs a massage room.

Because MTs are, on the whole, kinda crappy at making sure they're getting regular massage. :)

I always get a massage at the convention (even though I'm quite good at getting regular massages!!). The prices are reasonable and it's always nice to experience a different MTs work.

The space this year is laid out very nicely. It's in a big ballroom with cloth curtains (as always) but the practice rooms are huge (I measured; they're 12' x 12'. Our master bedrooom at home isn't that big!). They are nicely appointed (and you can buy all the appointments at a bundled price!), though they lack bolster (major oversight from my perspective).

And how was the massage? Not bad. It wasn't an Oh My God! kinda massage but she got the job done.

We were joking at the happy hour last night that it's impossible to just "get a massage" once you become an MT. We become kinda particular about the massage we get. We know what a good massage, a bad massage, and a great massage is. It's hard to be satisfied with even just a "good" massage if you've have access to great massages.

One of the things I've noticed in the last few years is that some MTs have a ... presence to them that makes a big difference in the session. From the moment they first put their hands on me, my body at some deep level says "ah, they know what they're doing, they will take care of me, and I can relax into this". Just by that first touch of their hands.

It's a special talent. I first noticed it at a seated massage kiosk (believe it or not) in the Glasgow Scotland airport. Ako Shigihara in DC has that special touch. I know I do too, though not all the time.

Today's MT didn't have it. And there were times I thought "she's going through the motions to fill out the time and it's kind of....boring" though the work was still ultimately effective.

Still glad I did it. My back and neck and feet are much happier than they were when I got up this morning. Even if it can't be a GREAT massage, I'll still be glad I got a good massage.

OK, time for lunch. More tomorrow!

AMTA as alien life form

2010-09-23T16:28:00.004-04:00

The AMTA seems like a foreign entity to me more and more.

Alien Observation #1

There used to be a bulletin board at the convention. You posted "hey, meet me at McDs for lunch!" and "anyone found a blue umbrella?" and "can I catch a ride to the airport Sunday morning?" and those kind of notes on it.

I intended to put a note on it about my book and asking for certain kind of MTs to contact me if they were willing to let me interview them.

But there's no bulletin board. It's been "cancelled" because there were too many "inappropriate" postings.

Join me now in a big "huh?".

I asked for clarification. They hemmed and hawed but finally said people were posting "for a good time call...." notes and (drumroll please) poetry. Really, it just couldn't be tolerated any more. So, rather than removing the offensive posts, they just cancelled the bulletin board.

Care to join me in another "huh?".

Alien Observation #2

The FAQ on the AMTA website about the convention included questions about recommendations more affordable lodging suggestions since the lodging deal is with the Hilton. The answer was, in effect, no we won't provide that. But we will help you find a roommate!

Because everyone loves sharing a room with a stranger.

Does the national office not understand their own statistics that say the average MT in America working full-time makes less than 35K? That makes the Hilton, even with a discount, not so attractive to many people.

And do they appreciate that the vast majority of us are self-employed? We don't have an employer willing to pay for our travel and lodging? (Actually, I've been to the national offices and talked to them about just that question and I can tell you the answer: a very loud "no". They actually believe the majority of us are somebody's employees!)

But to be honest, I don't generally find that the AMTA national office "gets" massage therapists all that well. Kinda disappointing for a membership-based organization.

Mobs and Mobs of MTs!

2010-09-21T10:20:00.002-04:00

Sitting in Milwaukee, waiting for my connecting flight to Minneapolis and the American Massage Therapy Association annual convention! Hundreds of massage therapists wandering loose in one space!

Chaos and mayhem may well ensue. Actually, I think we can count on it, at least a little bit. :)

I really look forward to these conventions every year. I know a lot of MTs don't see the point of spending the time, money, and energy but I always find it worth it. I meet cool people who give me a whole new perspective on what it means to be an MT. I take interesting courses. I get the buzz that comes from being surrounded by people dedicated to their professional lives. I get to see a new city (OK, I travel to Minneapolis regularly so it's not as new to me) and....

.....I get to shop!

Honestly, I'm not normally a big shopping kinda gal (OK, admittedly, except for books). But it's just so nice to have all these massage-centric vendors in one place. I've never really found a massage "store" anywhere in the real world (not online) where I can cruise and peruse. But the vendor hall at these conventions is just so fun and interesting. At least half of it is stuff I am never ever going to buy for any reason whatsoever. But there's always stuff that's just interesting to check out and there's always something I end up buying.

(Plus, yes, they have lots and lots of books!) :)

This year, I have a couple of concrete goals for the convention, apart from the continuing ed and the PMTI happy hour.

- Talk to Lippincott, Wilkins, and Williams (the Big Name publisher in our biz) about the business book I'm writing and what it would take to get them to publish it.

- Meet and interview MTs who are running multi-therapist practices about their experiences as "the boss" for aforementioned business book.

- See if there are any other published authors there who can give me a realistic set of expectations about publishing in the massage industry (do I need an agent? Where does one find that particular creature?)

- Talk to the education chairs for a couple of state chapters to see if they would be interested in sponsoring Kitty and I to teach Energy 101 for their chapter. (Damn, that's the promo material I was supposed to pull together before I left. Oh well!) (sigh, I probably should have brought more professional-grade clothing with me.)

- Blog the experience for your viewing pleasure. :)

Now that I see those goals in writing, um, that's a lot ot accomplish in 3 days.....I have been accused of over-scheduling before and it looks like Australia hasn't cured me of that habit just yet.

But I'm jazzed and this is the perfect environment for me to do some important things so I'll just do what I can and see what happens. Kind of like the rest of my life.

Stay tuned....

More On Foot Detoxing

2010-09-10T08:37:00.002-04:00

I got this from friend and fellow PMTI alum Sandi Kissane:

I was introduced to the foot bath when I worked at a health club for a short period of time. Frankly, I felt a little like a snake oil salesman. The so-called "research" that the company who developed the foot bath has, in my humble opinion, a poor research design and is more largely based on testimonials and anecdotal evidence rather than being based in good science.

At the crux of my skepticism is something that took place during my training for using the foot bath. The gentleman that was conducting the training, on a real life client, examined the nasty water and concluded that the woman was having difficulty with her gall bladder. She laughed hysterically because she had her gall bladder removed 5 years previous.

One of my first clients for the foot bath later called me and said that if I looked up these foot baths on YouTube I would find videos showing that the water will change similarly if you put something else (like a carrot as I later found) in the water. There was a plethora of videos inserting various other objects in the water and consistently getting the same results.

I'm not sure what to make of this and so without better science, I ultimately left the health club because the owner and I could not come to some sort of understanding regarding my conscience relative to marketing something I don't fully understand.

I admit that I wondered the same thing about the foot detox. I wonder about detoxes in general. I was thinking to myself "I wonder if she's ever tested this without feet in it, just to see what it does on its own".

I had a similar experience with ear candling. Everyone likes to cut the candles open afterwards and point to the junk inside and say "see, that's the junk/wax that was in your ear".

I did a lot of testing of ear candles on my own and discovered a few things:

1. The "ear junk" is a by-product of the candle burning. Even if the candle burns while I'm just holding it in my hand, it gets junk inside. That's not ear wax.

2. The type of candle really makes a difference. The more expensive ones really do burn cleaner and have less clogging.

3. Ear candling will not clean your ears out. It can help relieve sinus pressure. That's where I got my most consistent benefits.

But I learned all that from my own experiments done over the course of a couple of weeks. (Ask Pam Moyer at I Street Massage. I was setting things on fire all the time!) Most people don't do that.

We so want there to be some ..... magic. We want there to be old-timey simple remedies. We want easy access to the ways of the body. And we are, rightly, skeptical that the way to be "healthy" lies exclusively in the hands of modern Western medicine.

We are open to other answers. And that's cool. But it's not enough if we're putting ourselves out there as professionals. It's just not enough. We owe it to our clients to do our own explorations and often our own experiments.

Nasty Feet

2010-09-08T23:03:00.002-04:00

I tried a new modality yesterday -- Foot Detox. I tried it at my new favorite haunt, The Lightworkers Cottage.

It started with about 25 minutes with the Trinfinity8 machine ("where technology meets consciousness"). This is meant to tune you up through vibrational frequencies. You listen to a chanted melody while watching fractals on a screen and holding two quartz crystal rods that are wired back into the computer system.

In the course of 25 minutes, it cycles through different levels of de-toxing -- lymphatic system, chakras, integumentary system, etc. -- while offering you a soothing visual and auditory experience.

Then she put my feet in a warm foot bath with some salts of some kind. She also inserted a paddle that was hooked into another machine. I was hooked up to this for 10 minutes or so? I was reading a book so I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on at my feet till she came in to tell me it was done. Then I looked down.

Ick. Ick. Ick. The water was full of a brown/green material that was just kind of disgusting. She provided me with a chart to match the color of the water with whatever organ was most affected by the detox experience.

Apparently my gall bladder needs some love!

She then did a 10-minute or so foot scrub of my feet that left them as smooth and soft as the proverbial baby's butt. I looooooove having my feet worked on!

I was already coming down with a cold when I went in there and it has progressed in the expected fashion (in fact, I'm hanging out in the apartment today doing major damage to a box of tissues). On the other hand, I haven't had any heart burn since then.

Hmmmmm.........

Intention! It's everywhere!

2010-09-08T21:55:00.003-04:00

I remember a student asking me how to approach a task a few years ago. I said something about "setting your intention.." and he got all exasperated. Apparently 18 months of hearing about "intentions" was just, finally, too damned much for him.

He picked up a box fan and said "so, if I want to interact with this fan, I first have to set my intention??".

I thought about it for a minute and then, ruefully, said "yes".

Intention is seemingly small, quick, and possibly inconsequential. Except it isn't.

When we therapists use the word "intention" we're talking about something critical -- the mindset with which we approach a person or activity. Your mindset absolutely affects how you engage with that person or activity.

Yesterday, I had a brief chat with Barbara George, co-owner of the Lightworkers Cottage, a group practice combining traditional (western) bodywork and esoteric/energetic/metaphysical treatment. We were talking about what it takes to run a business like that.

Barbara used to be a hairdresser and ran a salon. After a divorce in 2007, she underwent some significant changes in her life that led her to owning this practice, along with her friend Ken Warren.

She talks freely about the way things came together, seemingly randomly (but we all know nothing is ever entirely random, don't we?) to lead her to this place. I asked her about what it takes to be a business owner in this kind of environment.

And she quickly told me it was all about (you guessed it) intention.

She said that when she managed a hair salon, she was more focused on income / money / profits. Profits are good but a profits-only focus has some unexpected disadvantages -- it's hard to build anything that's more than just an income generator when you're primary intention is income generation.

I think it makes it much more difficult to be in partnership with the people working in your shop too.

She said that now her intention is to create and manage a space so that others can bring their healing gifts into it. That is her primary intention. She still has to pay attention to all the nuts-and-bolts of running a practice, including the financial responsiblities, but she's got a different focus.

She said that it makes a difference in who works there. When she is approached by someone who wants to be part of the space, she "interviews" them to see if their intention fits with her intentions. If, after working there a while, there isn't a match-up in intentions, the practitioner ends up choosing to leave of their own accord. I don't think she's had to "fire" anyone in two years.

I enjoy visiting with her and talking to her because she just seems....happy. The Lightworkers Cottage is growing. It is attracting more and more clients and classes and workshops. Beyond a website and some print ads in Insight Magazine ("Australia's Number 1 Spiritual Lifestyle Magazine"), she does little conventional marketing.

Setting your intention is not some airy-fairy excuse for not doing anything and just "trusting the universe" to take care of you. Years before I became an MT, I met an MT who was frustrated about the lack of growth in his practice. He said "I don't understand! I put it out to the Universe!". Sadly, I think that was the only thing he did.

Setting your intentions, especially for the business side of your practice, is actually a little bit of work. You actually have to calm your mind, get centered in your heart, and get clear -- and specific -- about your true purpose in the coming day / event / activity / life / whatever.

That means slowing down, quieting down, and tuning in. You may only need 5-10 seconds to that before you walk into a massage session, especially if you make a habit of it. You may need 15 or 20 minutes at the beginning or end of your day. But I've learned that it's something you really do need to do regularly.

It's part of why I do my business retreat every January. I'm doing a lot of things that weekend but one of the things I'm doing, by updating my business plan, is setting my intention for the year.

I gotta tell you, the years I set all kinds of goals about making money and numbers, nothing worked out that way. I think there's just something about being in a healing profession that isn't going to respond, primarily, to numbers.

Barbara says her biggest challenge is probably one lots of us face -- getting out of her head and into her heart and spirit. While I'm a big fan of brainpower, I have also learned over these last 10 years as an MT that "thinking" can only take you so far. If you want a practice (and life) that means more than just moving from one day to the next, you've got to connect to the Universe and that isn't going to happen through your head. That happens through your heart.

Barbara learned that when she jumped out of bed in the morning and ran right into her day, she was living in her head. She has since developed the habit of spending 15-30 minutes first thing in the morning settling into her heart and spirit.

It's sooooooo easy when we're trying to deal with the business aspects of our practice to default to "brain". Isn't that where savvy business people live? Isn't getting ahead in business a function of being really smart?

It helps. But I agree wholeheartedly with Barbara that it's not the primary vehicle to get where most of us really want to go. We've got to operate from our soul / heart / Spirit.

Which means (with apologies to my former student) we've got to set our intentions.

Now, for something completely different...

2010-08-29T21:07:00.005-04:00

OK, so I know this isn't exactly a professional observation or anything but....look at my nails, look at my nails!! I'm incredibly impressed by how long my nails have grown after about 6 weeks of not having to cut them.

I might even break down and put nail polish on them. Ohhh la la!

When I started massage school back in '98, I had punky nails that chipped and broke all the time. I could never grow them out so I always kept them short.

One of my instructors said that it's ironic that being a massage therapist can give you great strong nails (maybe it's the daily application of oil) and...you'll have to keep them cut short all the time because of your work.

It's true. I now have the strongest nails of my life and....I don't have to cut them! Well, not until I start scratching myself (which could happen soon). They click on the keyboard and I find I am forever tapping them on desktops and other hard surfaces just because I can!

I feel so.....girly. :)

I am a business owner....

2010-08-29T20:30:00.005-04:00

If you've ever taken Business Practices from me at PMTI, you've learned to say that phrase: I am a business owner. I'm re-learning what that means here in Australia.

I am on sabbatical from bodywork. I did not bring a table and I am seeing/touching no clients. So....am I still a business?

Yes, I am.

I came with a different business intent: to write a book on the business of massage and to work with Ben Risby-Jones to write a book on a spiritual/metaphysical understanding of "healing".

When I am a bodyworker/massage therapist, it's pretty clear what qualifies as a "business expense" -- rent, mileage, oil, linens, my AMTA membership, office supplies at Staples, subscriptions to massage journals, marketing, etc.

So, what are my business expenses here?

I still have some obvious expenses: office supplies (post-it notes, envelopes, notebooks, pens, to get myself set up here in the apartment); transportation (going to and from Ben's place). But I have to think more broadly about what my business is and what qualifies as a deduction.

If I get a massage at the Dome spa at the Marriott with the intention of experiencing "remedial" massage, Australian-style" to broaden my understanding of massage......that's a business expense.

If I take a taxi to the Queensland State Library with the intention of exploring their writers center to see what support is available to me as a writer while I'm here in Australia....that's a business expense.

If I take the owner of the Lightworkers Cottage out for lunch with the intention of talking about how her business arrangement works with her practitioners (especially if I hope to write about it), that's a business expense.

The new type of business deduction I'm learning about here is the per diem. Margo Bowman, queen of massage therapy taxes, has taught me about this one.

The idea is this: when you are aware from your home/office, you can either:

take a deduction for specific travel-related expenses (food, for example) or
take a flat per diem deduction

The sweet part is you can choose to take which ever one is more beneficial for you. The IRS publishes a list of per diem rates based on your location in the US or overseas.

For Brisbane in the 2nd half of 2010, my per diem is $98. Since I'm not spending more than $98 a day on travel-related expenses , I'm generally taking the per diem!

What do I have to do to qualify for the per diem? I have to do something here that:

is related to my business and
I couldn't reasonably do in the US.

For example, today I had a good conversation with a woman who owns a cleaning company (she cleans our apartment). We talked about how taxes are viewed differently in both countries, the differences in tipping policies, the pros and cons of having big companies as clients, what it takes as a small business to raise rates, and a few other things. I gained some interesting insights into how being a small business owner is different from and yet very much like it is in the US.

I think of conversations like this is on-the-ground research for my book on the business of massage.

Since it would be hard to have this kind of conversation with this kind of person back in DC and this was a legitimate business conversation and it informed my view of being a small business and I intend to use the material in my book....it's a business deduction!

Ergo, today I'm taking the per diem deduction of $98. It's already entered in my Quiken books (aren't you proud of me Margo!).

I am a business owner.
I am a business owner.
I am a business owner.

Hope Springs Eternal

2010-08-24T06:48:00.006-04:00

Today I had a chance to visit a "boutique" spa for a massage at Genesis Bodywork.

As I mentioned before, it seems like most MTs work either in spas/salons/hotels or privately out of their home and the ones that practice privately don't have websites. I found a place in a near-by suburb (think Rosslyn or Bethesda) that had DC-level pricing ($80 / hour) and booked an hour session for today.

I asked the owner over the phone what "boutique spa" meant. He admitted that it simply meant they were smaller than the bigger name spas. They were set up in a house and primarily offered massage and a few bodycare options like waxing.

They seem to still feel that they have to make you think "fancy". But the house was a simple house and the decor was lovely and not overdone. In fact, they used a similar color scheme to that used at Eye Street Massage in downtown DC -- tans, browns, greens, etc. Asian-ish.

Rather than covering with sheets, they use towels here. Couple problems with that.

They aren't extra-big towels. So, if you've seen me, you know I kinda stick out on the two sides. Not horribly but it makes me feel a little exposed.

It's really tough to secure the draping when working high on the leg. I'd asked for hip flexor work, which made for a challenge for my MT.

A towel won't cover you shoulders-to-feet so I ended up with a second towel over my feet/lower legs but there was still a bit of gap.

Since you need multiple towels (and they are nice thick towels) for a session, you aren't saving anything on laundry with towels. One or two under you. One or two on top of you. A smaller one as a facerest cover. Per session. It's gotta add up.

So.....not a fan of the towel approach.

After the session, I had a chat with the owner about one aspect of the local massage scene I've been curious about. Prostitution is legal in Queensland. I explained about how DC legislators (and others) often try to get "at" the prostitution trade through the massage therapy regulations and asked if, with legal prostitution, they had any problems with "happy ending" kinda clients.

He said he rarely gets those kind of calls. When he does, it's usually someone with a foreign accent asking for something like "body to body" massage. He wondered why men still do that.

I gave him my standard answer: hope springs eternal! :)

He also said they encounter what he called a "Mr. Creepy" from time to time, but again pretty rare. I guess they are, truly, unavoidable.

I feel like I'm beginning to get a clearer picture of the massage therapy world here in Queensland Australia. The more I learn, the more I'll write.

You need a website. You really do.

2010-08-19T18:00:00.003-04:00

I have told new massage therapists and MT students that there are two things you should do right away when getting started to market your practice -- business cards and a website.

Business cards are super easy to get. A basic website is not a whole lot more difficult.

In both cases, I've found that the #1 reason MTs don't have them is that they get stuck on the design. It is less important that it be "perfect" and more important that it "exist".

I'm so frustrated here in Brisbane that I can only find spas on the web when searching for massage therapy. I've found one whose prices are similar to DC but the rest are "spa-priced".

It's not that I don't think spas should exist. However, they put sooooo much effort into creating a certain kind of space and ambience that they have to have higher prices to maintain the that. I care less about the ambience than I do about what happens on the table. So paying extra for the space is pointless for me.

Just give me a good massage in a private room with a non-wobbly table. I'll deal with the rest of it.

But if individual MTs don't advertise their existence, how can a person who is new to town (or new to massage) find you???

What does a business card need to contain, at a minimum?

- Your name
- Your profession (so they know why they have your card when they pull it out of their wallet in 3 months)
- At least one way to contact you

If you've got that on your business card, you're good to go.

What does a website need to contain, at a minimum?

- Your name
- Your profession
- How to contact you
- Where you're located
- Your price(s)

You can, of course, get much more involved than that. At some point, I would encourage you to get more fancy than that. But to get started, at least get that up. You can easily change / modify / expand your website (and your business cards) down the road but at least give me, the poor clue-less would-be client, something to start with!

(grumble)(grumble)(grumble)

Off to continue my search for an (affordable) MT in Brisbane.

Don't underestimate "intuition"

2010-08-19T05:47:00.002-04:00

I finally got a massage today. I ended up at the Marriott spa, so I paid way too much -- $135 -- but it was a fantastic massage, so I'm not as annoyed at the price as I might be.

I even tipped $20, which shocked the heck out of the receptionist and the therapist. I finally got them to accept the tip by saying "I'm a massage therapist and I know good work when I receive it.". (Tipping is not common in Australia.)

The MT has only been in practice a year but she's got very well-honed palpation skills. She found all my tender spots, even ones I wasn't aware of. She also did a great job of listening to me and getting feedback at the appropriate time.

We talked a bit about how she works and she admitted she goes on "intuition" a lot. She sounded a little embarassed about that and said she wasn't always sure it wasn't just her imagination.

I hear that a lot from MTs. It's a shame. The more I've learned to trust my intuition in these last few years, the better my work has gotten.

Intuition doesn't get the respect it deserves. "Intuition" is just the name we assign to data we gather by other-than-overt-obvious means. It's still valid data, it's just coming in on some subtle channels.

I found myself reflecting on how much better the massage was because she was using her intuition. It made for a different kind of partnership between she and I. She wasn't just following a set protocol but actively responding to the tissue and to the clues that were coming in on those subtle channels.

And she was talking to me about it. It made me reflect on / connect to my body at a different level. It asked me to pay attention to more subtle things and anything that gets a client to really hone in on their body and connect with it runs a good chance of improving your session.

In the end, despite the price, I felt like I'd really lucked out by getting assigned to this therapist. PLUS she gave me a lead on some "woo-woo" practices in a nearby suburb. :)

All in all, a good day for intuition.

Maybe those first aid classes are a good idea.

2010-08-18T05:07:00.002-04:00

Jeff just saved my life. Literally.

I was eating a meatball. It was large. I started swallowing before I'd really gotten in chewed up in little bits and it jammed half-way down. Just got jammed and all of a sudden I was choking.

In the heat of the moment, will you remember your first aid classes? Jeff did.

I stood up. Jeff asked if I was OK. I shook my head "no" and made the 'hands at the throat' sign for choking. He quickly came behind me, puts his arms around me, and started the quick squeezes to dislodge the stuck food.

It took two tries but he he got it out. Everyone sitting around us was very very impressed. So was I.

He said afterwards that one of his challenges is that I'm not built like the dummies they use in first aid classes. I'm taller than him and...ah....rounder than the test dummies. Finding my xiphoid process from behind? Good luck with that!

Please award that man 10,000 Husband Points. And sign us both up for the First Aid Course at PMTI next time we're in town.