It Ain't Necessarily So

I overheard two MTs talking recently. One mentioned that business was down for her, so she was going to "take some continuing ed" later this year.

My guess is that by "continuing ed" she meant something modality-oriented:  pregnancy massage, craniosacral therapy, lymph drainage, oncology massage, that sort of thing. I've heard some variation on this conversation many times before. The implication always seems to be that by broadening our table-oriented skill set, we can grow our practice.

It ain't necessarily so.

If I break my ulna, I need a cast on my arm. If I cut my hand on broken glass, I need stitches. The cast won't help my cut. The stitches won't help my broken arm. Both are valid medical responses and very effective when used in the right situation but only when used in the right situation.

If you can't get group practices or chiropractors to consider you because you aren't skilled in trigger point therapy, then you should take continuing ed in trigger point therapy.

If you are turning away pregnant clients because you aren't certified in pregnancy massage, then you should take continuing ed in pregnancy massage.

If you're regularly encountering issues on the table that you can't adequately respond to (and your clients are leaving dissatisfied), get training so you can.

If, however, "business is down" because you don't have a website (and everyone else does) or because your marketing is insufficient or you need to reach out to a new population or you need to define your unique value in the face of new competition, then continuing ed in a modality isn't going to help much.

(Because even after you take the modality-based continuing ed, you've still got to find a way to let people know about your hot new skills!)

When business is down, we  are tempted to go with what makes us feel stronger and more competent as massage therapists -- hands-on skills. What we may need, however, is what makes us stronger and more competent as business owners -- business skills.

• Effective use of social media
• A compelling website
• Referrals relationships
• Visibility in the local community
• Outreach to special populations
• Marketing savvy
• Etc. etc. etc.

What are you really short on? Hands-on skills or biz skills? Why, really, are people not filling up your schedule? (If you don't know, the odds are that it's a business skills problem, not a modality problem.)

The AMTA conference in October in Raleigh NC has business courses. As does the World Massage Festival in August in Las Vegas. So do many chapter meetings and regional conferences. My company, The Healing Core, specializes in business courses. (And all of these come with CEUs!)

Get out there and get the training you really need and grow the practice you really want!

p.s.  If marketing is your challenge, seriously consider taking a one-day marketing class with Laura Allen, one of the leading lights in the massage community on business. She'll be in DC in August. You can take the class on Saturday or Sunday. The early-bird discount ends this Friday, JULY 1.

Can You Really Sell A Private Practice? Maybe...

You can spend decades building a thriving practice, with a full schedule and a fat juicy client base. But you can't massage forever and one day you may decide it's time to sell your practice and move on to another career or even into retirement. Why not? It's a very valuable practice.

To you.

As many MTs have discovered, it's incredibly difficult to sell a private practice. Partially that's because other MTs may not have the money to pay what you think your practice is worth. More importantly, there's a lot of disagreement in our profession about (1) the value of a client list and (2) whether it's even ethical to "sell" your clients.

I recently read an explanation of how to sell a private practice. It puts all these concerns in perspective.

The explanation is in "Twelve Months to Your Ideal Practice" by Lynn Grodzki. I'm working through this workbook over the course of a year with a study group being run by local therapist Connie Ridgeway. Here's a summary of Lynn's explanation.

In order for your therapy business to be attractive to buyers, it needs to have multiple transferable assets.

Too often, a therapy business has only one asset, and it's a nontransferable one -- the therapist's relationship to his or her clients...Can your clients be transferred to a buyer? That depends on whether your clients perceive that their main attachment is to you, the practice, or both.

In short, if your clients feel their primary connection is to you (and it so often is) you're going to have a very difficult time selling your practice. There's only one you and your clients know that.

But how does a one-person practice create a client experience that can be transferred to another therapist to our client's satisfaction?

Create tangible value that is transferable. Turn your ideas into programs, document those programs, and establish your methods of therapy into writing and on video. Create as much product as possible. Write, research, and publish to validate your methods. Begin to train others in your methods, so that you have a pool of potential buyers when you are ready to retire.

I think that last idea -- train others in your methods -- is probably the way for most of us. I don't know many MTs who have created truly unique methods. What we do have is the whole combination of:

• the way we approach massage,
• the things we like to focus on,
• how we think about our work,
• the combination of all the methods we've actually mastered, and
• our temperament.

If you could find MTs who are or would like to be like you and formed a partnership, I could see working out a mentor-to-ownership (sorta like rent-to-own) arrangement.

Lynn gets more specific about how to make this sort of thing work:

Here's a list of six tangible assets that can add to the selling price of your practice and how to accomplish each one:

1.  Brand name. If you can name your type of services in a recognizable way as separate from your identity, you have a salable asset...

2.  Direct-mail list. Build a large direct-mail list for your practice of clients and referral sources...

3.  Promotional materials. Develop brand-name recognition via your promotional materials now, with brochures that highlight the method or the program name more than your name...

4.  Measures. Have a system to track your effectiveness over time...

5.  Ancillary products. If your state sanctions selling products to clients under your licensure (some do and some don't; ask your licensing board), you can develop a product line of material to sell--pamphlets, audio- or videotapes, training tapes, books (your own or others), nutritional supplements...

6.  Practice management. If you have created a thriving practice with easy-to-understand administrative systems in place, you have an additional asset...

Lynn goes on to spell out exactly how to do this (it reminds me a bit of what I've heard about the E-Myth). She also says...

What price can you expect to get for your business? While a manufacturing company might be sold for five times its annual earnings because it has a product, plant, staff, and systems in place, a therapy business without these elements in place might sell at one to two times its annual earnings. You can add to this ratio by having as many tangible assets [see above] as possible.

So, yes, you can sell a private practice but if you really want to make a profit, you need to invest a couple of years to create the kind of practice that has something to offer besides a list of names who may or may not want to work with your buyer.


AND A REMINDER....The Healing Core is offering One Year To A Successful Massage Therapy Practice (the secret? marketing) in August here in Washington DC.  The "early bird" discount expires in 10 days (June 30).

You can attend on Saturday, August 11 or Sunday, August 12. Register now to save money on learning how to attract more clients and make more money!

8 CEs for you massage therapist types.

The Conversation No One Wants To Have

If you're a massage therapist, sooner or later you're going to get THAT client -- the one who has misguided ideas about what massage is and what kind of "services" they can get from you. It's usually not grotesque or dramatically overt (though it can be). It's often just a series of comments or body positions that lets you know your client is thinking entirely Wrong Thoughts.

I got that client 2 weeks ago. Twice.

The first time I thought "hmmmmm......his requests and actions are just shy of being inappropriate, I won't say anything." When he did and said the exact same thing during his second appointment I thought "oh, crap, I'm going to have to deal with this."

Step 1:  Describe the session to another female therapist who works there. Get her feedback on it as a peer. About 20 seconds into my description she says "I think I know who you're talking about. He did exactly the same thing with me." OK, it's not just me!

Step 2: Talk to the manager about the situation, documenting the experience, my conversation with the other MT, and my intended response. Ask if the manager has any insights, objections, or suggestions. She says "always trust your gut! If your gut says he's having Wrong Thoughts, then you're right, he is." That's a good manager.

She volunteers to talk to the client for me but, really, this is my job. (Plus, I don't want it to dissolve into he said / she said).

Step 3: is not "call the client". It's "plan what I'm going to say to the client" because there are so many things I could say, need to say, need to avoid saying, need to make sure I'm clear on, etc. I also need to decide exactly what will happen in future sessions and what will happen if he does any of this again. And figure out how to say it calmly and professionally.

Step 4a:  Stare at the phone for a loooooooong time, wishing I didn't have to make this call.

Step 4b:  Sigh deeply and call the client. Follow script. Be very pleasantly surprised when he doesn't argue, protest, break down in tears (admittedly, a long shot), fling counter-accusations, or call me nasty names. He sounds surprised by my objections but agrees to abide by the rules.

Step 5: Drop head on desk in pure relief that it's over. Go home and accept back rubs and snuggles from sympathetic husband.

It sucks but it's something most of us are going to have to do sooner or later if we stay in the biz long enough. Thank you PMTI for an education (and continuing education) that made it possible for me to recognize trouble when it happened and to be able to deal with it as a professional.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn, good night

I've had probably 6-10 corporate massage clients over the course of the last 12 years. The most recent was a govenment agency that I started at in January.

Last week I ended it. There just wasn't enough life in the contract to make it worth showing up every day. I've made a whopping $510 in 5 months of work. I was averaging 1-3 clients a month (and they were 30-minute sessions).

I was at the client every Tuesday for 6 hours. I had 6 massage slots available every Tuesday. I had the capacity for 25 clients a month.

I showed up even when no one was on the schedule and stayed all the way through the end of my shift (it's where most of these blog posts have been written in the last 5 months because I had to do something with my time!).

Why didn't it work? Based on my experience with other corporate contracts, there were two key reasons:

It was in a very low-traffic area. It was in the health unit, which was in a little side hallway. I put signs up outside the office but no one was going to see them unless they were coming to the health unit. And on any given Tuesday, no more than 3-4 people came into the health unit while I was there.

There was no one on the inside who "owned" the contract. This government agency has had massage therapy onsite for years. Each time an MT had to leave, they found their own replacement. Over time, it meant that whoever (in the agency) had been motivated to make massage happen there had either left or lost that feeling of responsibility for the massage work.

That second piece -- ownership on the inside -- is the thing that I've seen kill corporate contracts most often. If there isn't someone on the inside who feels a sense of ownership and personally wants to see it succeed, it won't succeed. I don't care how much of your heart, soul, and time you, the MT, pour into the work. If there's not someone carrying the flame when you aren't there, it won't last.

Your inside person doesn't have to be prowling the halls every day drumming up business for you. They do, however, have to have massage in their consciousness -- even if it's off to the side -- to notice opportunities to tell people that massage is available onsite.

Your inside person can be the receptionist (and that's always a great person to have on your side!), someone in HR, or just someone who wants massage for themselves. If there isn't some energy around massage even when you're not there, you may have a tough time keeping your schedule full.

The other thing I've seen is places where someone in management is worried about "pushing" massage on people. They're OK with you coming in but they don't want to remind people weekly that you're coming (too pushy) or they don't want to send messages out about massage except to people who've explicitly expressed an interest in massage (too pushy) or they don't want to let you put signs up that "the MT is IN" on the days you're there (too pushy).

Those contracts struggle as well.

It made me sad to say good-bye to this contract. I was excited about it in January. I was motivated to help it grow. I brought in things to make the massage room (yes, I had a dedicated massage room!) more attractive and friendly. I did special things to reach out to the employees of the agency.

None of it worked. When I gave my notice, no one blinked. They could barely rouse themselves to say good-bye when I walked out the door for the last time. That contract was dead.

I was tempted to try just a little harder....just one more thing....maybe offer a summer discount.....but the numbers told the story. It was dead.

It's tough to let these kind of relationships go. We want to believe that by dint of our own efforts or force of our personality we can Make. It. Work!  That's a trap you don't want to fall into. It's like dating -- if the other person isn't interested enough in you to show up, why are you still in the relationship?

So I left. It was time.

Woops!

This past weekend I attended the "Taxes & Bookkeeping for the Healing Arts Professional" workshop. For the 4th time. I should have this stuff down cold by now, right?
 

Wrong. It's taxes. It's bookkeeping. It's constantly changing. I haven't mastered it. Not by a long shot.

 

IN FACT, some of the things I've told you about in this blog I've been wrong about. Yowza, that stings! But let's see if I can't set the record straight on a few things.

 

Per diems: yes, they are still a fully legal way to take a deduction for business travel. The per diem rates still have two primary parts: meals and lodging. Everyone has the option of taking the per diem for food. However, only those therapists who are incorporated as an S Corp or a C Corp can use the lodging per diem. That means if you are a sole practitioner or an LLC (and those two probably account for 98% of the MTs I know), you can't take advantage of the per diem for lodging; you have to use the actual costs.

Serious bummer for me!

 

Cell Phone: if you assign percentages for use (personal vs. business) and apply that to your bill, you can deduct your cell phone (at the percentage you've decided is business). You don't need to account for every call but you also can't deduct it at 100%.

 

Home Office / Home Use: you can take a deduction whether you rent or own. As long as you can show the area you are calling your "home office" is used exclusively for business, it's a home office. You do not have to practice massage there. It can be as small as a corner of your living room.

 

1099s:  if you pay more than $600 in a year to a person or organization for business purposes and you plan to take that expense as a deduction, you need to provide that person / organization a 1099. If the person/organization is a corporation (other than LLC) or a non-profit, you don't have to send them one. Use the W9 form to collect the information you need for the 1099. You have to mail out 1099s by the end of January for the previous year.

Gift Certificates: cannot have expiration dates, though you are allowed to collect additional money if you have raised your rates since they GC was purchased. You need to keep track of GCs separately in your books in case you sell your practice (they are considered outstanding obligations and the purchaser needs to know about them).

I Quit!!

How hard do you have to work to make it work?

Since I moved back to DC from Australia in August, I have been re-building my practice. Creating a new website. Re-connecting with my client base. Arranging a location to practice. This blog. New business cards. New bank account. Re-connecting with referral sources. New marketing material.

It's all takes time and energy. And then some more time. And then some more energy. And some more and some more and some more.....so much, in fact, that I wonder sometimes what my job actually is -- massaging people or managing a practice of massaging people!

I have to admit that after 9 months of trying to build a thriving practice I'm tired of the time and the energy. When you're building a thing you're carrying it on your shoulders. When the practice becomes regular it will help carry me. Till then....

But I'm also wondering if there's such a thing as trying too hard.

Most of us in the healing arts have heard (and talked about) putting "it" out to the Universe. "It" is often our highest desire -- a healthy practice, new clients, a solid income stream, etc. As I've told many students: that's fine as long as it's not the only thing you do to build a healthy massage practice (and, yes, I've known someone who honestly thought he should only have to "put it out to the Universe" and clients would come streaming to him).

I've decided it may be time to give myself a break. For the next month, I'm just going to do the massages and not worry so much about the attracting-people-to-be-massaged part. If there is wisdom to "putting it out to the Universe" I wonder if I've left enough time and energy to respond if the Universe does want to send something my way.

30 days of less "doing" of marketing etc. and 30 days of just "doing" massage. Heaven knows I need the break! What about you? Is the "doing" of building a practice robbing you of the joy of "doing" massage?

Vacation as Business Deduction?

I just got back from a week in Amsterdam. Believe it or not, it was a business trip and I was able to take almost $4,000 in deductions though I actually spent less than that on the trip.

Legal? Yes.

Ethical? Yes.

Sensible? Yes.

Did I get to have any fun, see the sights, ogle the tulips, enjoy the cafes? Yes.

 

I once joked with my-sister-the-accountant that every time I take a dollar out of my wallet I pause and ask myself "is there any way this can be a business deduction?". She laughed and said "now you're thinking like a business person!" As self-employed people who tend not to make a lot of money, we need to be conscious of ways to keep as much of that money in our pockets as we can. Since taxes are a major expense, we need to be conscious of keeping that expense within reason.

Before I go any further, let me be clear about something: I do not resent paying taxes. It does not make me angry. I don't rail at the government for "taking" my money. I consider my taxes a totally appropriate way to contribute to the running of this country and I consider paying them honestly to be a very patriotic act, regardless of the party in power.

Having said that, I still don't want to pay more than I have to!

So, when and how can a vacation also be a business trip? The key is a word I've heard often as a massage therapist -- intent.

Believe it or not, the IRS does take into account what your primary intent was when you planned your trip. Was your primary or initial intent business or pleasure? And how do you prove that to them if they ask?

In my case:

• I initially planned this trip to be able to meet up with my Australian co-author Ben Risby-Jones. He was going to Amsterdam to teach a class. Amsterdam is easier to get to than Australia.
• In addition, several of the reviewers of our book were going to be in Amsterdam for that class and I wanted to meet them in person.
• Finally, I provide editorial support to Kitty Southworth, who is the US representative for a product Ben sells. Our European counterparts were also going to be at this class and we both wanted to meet them.

Did I also want to see tulips and windmills and eat cheese and see the Dutch Masters? You bet! But first I took care of the parts of the trip related to business.

• I emailed Ben to confirm the date and location of the class (and the emails are my "documentation" if I'm ever audited).
• I also confirmed his travel plans and made arrangements to meet and talk about our book while I was in Amsterdam (again, emails as documentation).

And only then did I plan the "fun" part of the trip: researching sites to visit and train schedules for day trips, etc. etc.  Because, yes, the IRS can check to see what I did first -- make arrangements for a day trip to see the tulips or make arrangements to work with Ben.
 

But $4,000? And that's more than I actually spent??

When you travel, you have two options for how you account for your expenses:

• you can take the actual expenses (lodging, airfare, meals, etc.) or
• you can take a per diem.

Per diem rates are set by either the IRS (for domestic travel) or by the State Department (for international travel). A per diem is a flat rate you can claim for each day of business if you'd rather do that than take actual expenses. And yes, it is legal to choose the higher of the two! You just have to use a single method for a single trip (you can't take the per diem one day and the actual expenses the next day).

I looked the rates up online and the per diem for Amsterdam is currently $424 per day. And that is much more than I actually spent so I opted for the per diem.

I couldn't take per diems for every day of the trip. But I could take it for the days that I travelled (since the primary purpose of the trip was business) and for each day I engaged in business, which in my case meant each day I met with Ben or my reviewers or my European counterparts and talked about business. That was every day but one on this trip.

• Sunday:  flew out of DC ($424)
• Monday: arrived in Amsterdam ($424)
• Tuesday: met with Ben to discuss book ($424)
• Wednesday: went to Keukenhof to view the tulips ($0)
• Thursday: met with whole group and discussed business plans and webinars ($424)
• Friday: formal planning meeting with whole group ($424)
• Saturday: dinner meeting with whole group, discussed future goals for organization ($424)
• Sunday: another dinner meeting to discuss future plans ($424)
• Monday: met with executive committee (which includes me now) to finalize what we're doing in the next 6 months ($424)
• Tuesday: flew home ($424)

 Total per diems for this trip:  $3,816

 

Now, before I did my happy dance about this, I confirmed with my accountant that I was doing this correctly. I wanted to be sure I was reading the per diem charts correctly and applying them correctly. Never take my word as the last word on accounting issues! Never.

 

In 2002 I decided to go to the AMTA conference in Portland Oregon. I've often fantasized about driving across the US and back. Since we had a relatively new car, I decided this was my chance. I worked out that I could afford to spend a month driving out to Portland and back (which, it turns out, was not a luxury -- it's a big damned country and I was driving by myself. I needed the whole month!). Given that my intent  was to attend a professional conference and that my route to and from was within reason (even when I managed to squeeze in some visits with friends along the way), I was able to take a months' worth of travel expenses as a business deduction, even though the conference was only 4 days long.

If I had known about per diems then I would have had an even bigger deduction!

 

There are so many decisions we make every day that affect our business and our tax responsibility.  We need to be thinking about it every day, not just April 15. You weren't born knowing all of this and the odds are good you didn't get a solid grounding in it in school. It's worth your time and effort (not to mention your money) to educate yourself as a business owner (because your accountant is only as good as the information you give them!).

If you want to be a smarter business owner (and keep more money in your pocket), I recommend you attend the Taxes & Bookkeeping forthe Healing Arts Professional workshop in two weeks in Rockville MD. I promise you will come out of that workshop with something that will save you money and aggravation.

 

And next time you're pondering a vacation, first ponder whether there's a way to also make it a business trip. Visit a local massage school. Take a massage course. Get a massage in a setting or modality that is new to you. (And remember to schedule those first.) You may not be able to take the whole trip as a deduction but you may be able to save yourself at least a little money along the way.