4 minutes to a less painful tax time

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

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

It's A Sign!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have faith in you.

Who's That Hiding In Your Head?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Australia Really Cost

I went on my annual business retreat this weekend. I've been doing this for 10 years now and it's always an excellent use of a weekend.

One of the things I do is close out my books for the year so I'm ready for tax time. While I've got all those numbers in front of me, I also play around with analyzing different aspects of my business. Has it paid off to start working at a gym? What percentage of my money comes from the gym vs. my home practice? Is my practice growing? How much?

In light of those last 2 questions, I looked at the growth trend of my practice for the last 6 years (ah, the power of online bookkeeping!). What I learned is that my practice was on a steady path of growth and health....until I took a year off to move to Australia. And now I really am re-building from (virtually) scratch.

Specifically, between 2003 and 2010, just my private practice (I often also did outcalls, corporate massage, and teaching) had grown anywhere from 4% to 43% every year save one!

I hadn't completely realized that before and I did not truly grasp that truth when I agreed to close my practice and go to Australia. It was a painful truth to see in black and white in front of me. It hurt to contemplate where I'd be financially today if I hadn't closed my practice for a year.

On the other hand, I'm still glad we went to Brisbane for a year. It was a wonderful year and I would have regretted saying "no" more than I regret having to re-grow my practice.

But....yowza!

There Is No Crying In Massage! (oh, wait, yes there is)

I haven't posted much this month. I have some good reasons.

I was still recoving from surgery in December and my energy levels have only, in the last few days, really gotten back to something approaching "normal" for me.

Harder than that is that my sisters and I are having to find a new assisted living facility for our mom, some place that has speciality care for people with dementia. My mother's dementia has taken a significant downturn in the last year. If you have loved someone with dementia, you know how it empties you emotionally and spiritually.

I spent most of Thursday looking at facilities and talking with my sisters about the options (and the confusing financial picture). I got home just 30 minutes before a client. I was emotionally wrecked. During the intake, the client (who has seen me for years) asked how my mom was.

I started crying and I couldn't stop.

I'm am so profoundly grateful that this client knows me well and is a very compassionate person. She held me while I cried and then we talked about what was going on with my mom. She talked about coming up on the 2nd anniversary of her mother's death and how difficult that is for her.

In short, a lot of the "intake" had nothing to do with the massage session (which did eventually happen) but a whole lot to do with where we both were as adult women in our relationships to our moms.

If you're anything like me, you were taught in school to maintain a healthy professional boundary between your professional life and your personal life. You were taught that you should not be bringing your "stuff" to the table because that hour exists for the client. You may have even been cautioned about the challenges and potential pitfalls of becoming friends with your clients.

It's all true and it's all good advice and it's not exactly how it works in the real world. The simple fact is that the longer you work with someone, the more you will get to know them and the more they will get to know you. The simple fact is that there are clients you connect with at a more personal / deeper level than the rest of your clients. The simple fact is that some of your clients are the kinds of people you would absolutely be friends with if you met them outside your practice.

Our work is unusual. The relationships we form are not ordinary. Our ethical guidelines are built on years of experience of MTs who went before us doing things right and also making big whompin' mistakes. They make sense.

And sometimes we are going to go right past those ethical guidelines. You will be able to handle it better if you are well-grounded in those ethical guidelines. Even in the midst of my sobbing, a portion of my brain was noting the boundaries I was violating and conscious of the possible effects.

Why am I telling you all of this? Honestly, I'm not sure. But it feels important to say "this happens too and it's OK".

2013: Get More Massage!

Do you already receive massage at least once a month? Then you can ignore this post. Otherwise, here's the New Years Resolution I'm assigning to you (to save you the time of figuring it out for yourself; aren't I kind??):

Receive massage regularly in 2013.

There are so many compelling reasons for an MT to receive massage:

·       Never trust someone who won’t use their own product. If you aren’t getting massage regularly, your credibility as a proponent of massage is weak.

·       You need to have the visceral experience of being the vulnerable person on the table. It will make you more sympathetic to your client’s vulnerability.

·       You need to experience the way other MTs work. It keeps you fresh.

·       Your job is physically demanding and your body deserves the kind of care it gets with a good massage.

·       It’s a great way to meet the other MTs that work in your area.

·       It’s a great way to try different modalities (and when that is your motivation, it’s a business expense).

·       It’s a great way to check out the “competition”. If you bitch and moan about Massage Envy (or any other chain), go get a session there and see what works and what doesn’t so you can talk about it intelligently. And, again, if this is your intent, it’s a business deduction.

And here’s the kicker: you can not use any excuses for not getting massage that you hate to hear coming out of a (potential) client’s mouth.
 

·       “I can’t afford it (1).” Are the benefits of massage not worth the price MTs are asking? Then why are you asking people to pay for it?

·       “I can’t afford it (2).” Find a student clinic or someone offering reduced payment options or someone angling to be the “cheap” MT in town. Experience what it feels like to go that route.

·       “I can’t afford it (3).” What would you tell a client (what would you like to tell a client) who said this? Say those things to yourself.

·       “I can’t find anyone to exchange with.” Pay for it. Have the visceral experience of laying out your hard-earned money with a stranger (or even an acquaintance) in the hopes that you’ll receive something worthwhile in return. Your sympathy for you clients will skyrocket. Sometimes, you’ll have the visceral experience of not getting your money’s worth. That will make you much more conscious of giving your clients their money’s worth. It will also put you in the position of trying to figure out how to communicate that both during and after the session; since we all say we want feedback from our clients it’s good to experience how hard that is to do.

·       “I don’t have time.” Then take a hard hard look at your time obligations and move one at least once a month. If you don’t have time because you have such a busy client load, then you especially need to take 2 hours at least once a month to go get a massage. It’s called “self-care”.

·       “I’m really not comfortable receiving work.” Yes, I’ve known MTs like this. Far too often, they’ve been people who need other people to need them or are completely unwilling to accept the vulnerability of being a client. I don’t want you to need me to be vulnerable to feed your psyche. That’s creepy. And if you aren’t willing to also be vulnerable sometimes, then don’t ask me to be either. That’s a power imbalance thing and I don’t want to play.

Now, having said all these things, I realize that there are a few – very few – people who really really really cannot receive massage on a regular basis. Most of you reading this are not that person.

If, after careful consideration, you realize that you are legitimately one of those people, I’m very sorry. I don’t mean to be someone piling on your difficulties. May 2013 offer you the chance to receive massage. You deserve it most of all.

True confessions: I only received massage every 2 or 3 months last year. I need to step up my own game as well.

Now, get to your phone / email and book that massage!