How to Make A Beautiful Massage Room Not So Beautiful

I've spent months buying all my supplies and outfitting a beautiful treatment space! I throw open the doors next week! I just need someone to tell me how to get clients....

It's fun to create a beautiful massage rooms. Lighting, colors, furniture, maybe a towel warmer, etc. A lot of fun. Such a personal expression of our passion and personality.

It's not, however, where you start.

First, you need to figure out how you are going to attract clients to that beautiful massage room. Hint: they don't show up just because you've opened for business. Even if you've already spent a lot of time and money on supplies and your work space.

What if you bought your wedding outfit, booked the ceremony space, booked the reception space, chose the caterer, hired the DJ, worked out the invitation list, created your gift registry, planned your honeymoon, and designed the invitation and THEN started looking for a spouse?

Right.

FIRST. Find your clients.

FIRST.

Which means first, figure out your business.

• What is your mission and vision?
• Who are your ideal clients?
• Where do you find them?
• What, specifically, are you offering them (hint: it needs to be more specific and nuanced than "massage therapy").
• What are your policies and procedures?
• How much do you need to make?
• What discounts will you offer (strategically!)?
• And more. So much more.

The odds are you don't really know the answers to these questions. That's OK, a lot of us don't, especially when we're getting started. So you need to do your research, read, and learn. Maybe you need to spend money on a business coach rather than on that towel warmer. If it's builds your practice quickly, you'll be able to afford that towel warmer in no time!

But if you don't know the answers to these questions, you are not ready to spend money / incur debt buying your supplies and getting your beautiful room ready. You just aren't.

You are not ready to open your business until you know (1) who your customers are, (2) how to reach them, and (3) what they want. And you have to be very very specific in how you answer these questions. The more vague your answers, the more vague your growth will be.

If you don't have at least a marketing plan -- and have already started to implement it -- you aren't ready to open your doors. Because you haven't laid the groundwork to get clients.

You can plan your massage room while you are building your marketing plans but you can't put the room before the clients (cart before horse, etc.)

We don't want to think about that. We'd rather think about lighting and color schemes and what we'll put on the walls. But a beautiful room that is empty becomes a not-so-beautiful room quickly.

p.s. yes, it would be wonderful if we learned this in school. But most of us didn't because, frankly, our instructors didn't necessarily know this either. Which is why people like me (and Allissa Haines and Jodi Scholes and all the rest of us massage-business-warriors) exist and keep banging our drums.

Death To Tips!

I worked so hard and they only tipped me xxx! I will never book them again!

I did such great work and they only tipped me xxx! What does that mean?

They didn't tip! What did I do wrong??

I only got a 10% tip! How cheap are they??

I work in a chiropractor's office and I hardly ever get tips! What can I do to get people to tip me??

Is it OK to put up a sign telling people they should tip? Is there a way to do that tastefully? [hint: no and no]

These are the kind of comments that come up all the time on massage therapy boards on the internet.

We need to quit obsessing about tips. In fact, we need to quit thinking about them altogether if we can. Being part of the "tipping culture" isn't doing us any favors.

I lived in Australia for a year. They don't tip. The price you see on a menu is what you actually pay (it already includes the tax as well).

You know what that means? No one sucking up to you for a better tip. No phony smiles for better tips. No false flattery. No one not-so-subtly trying to get you to finish up your dinner and leave so they can get another customer because they really make their money on tips.

I loved it.

We think of tips as "free money". We also think of them as validation. And we often think of them as mandatory. They are none of these things.

I've had so many clients ask me to explain how tipping "works" for massage therapists. They "know" they don't tip the owner but since I'm working out of my home, am I the owner? When I work in someone else's organization, they want to know if I'm a contractor or employee because they think that factors into tips. Should it be more like a hairdresser or more like a restaurant??

They genuinely care and are genuinely deeply concerned that they'll do it "wrong".

Why should they have to know any of this? I don't want to have these conversations!

Tips, sadly, have become a way for employers to throw the responsibility for part of your salary on the customer. It's not enough that customers pay for the service, they have to pay part of your salary on top of that! This has polluted a simple economic exchange -- I give you an hour of professional massage, you give me money -- and made it complicated.

If you must have tips to make ends meet, I have some thoughts:

*  You aren't charging enough.
*  You're not being paid enough.
*  You are charging enough but you can't support yourself on a massage therapist's income

You know what happens in a culture where tipping is not the norm? Service providers and customers can approach each other as equals. There's no "bowing and scraping" (or painfully inauthentic grinning) to make sure you get a tip.

Do I accept tips? Yes, but I don't expect them. In fact, here's how I explain tipping in my newsletter:

I accept tips but I don't expect them. For therapists who also accept tips, there are times when tipping is well-received.

In salons and spas.  In these settings, tips are common. Your massage therapist is only getting a portion of the fee you pay for the massage - sometimes as little as 25-40% -- and your tip is enormously appreciated.

When the massage therapist has gone out of his/her way for you. Did someone work hard to squeeze you into a tight schedule?  Did they open early or stay open late? Did they climb four flights of steps -- with a massage table -- to get to your apartment? Did they go longer than the scheduled time to help you with a particular area? A tip is a good way to acknowledge their extra effort.

When your massage therapist has done stellar work. Did he/she help you get a muscle un-knotted that no one else could get un-knotted? Did their work get you to relax deeper than you've ever relaxed before? When the massage you received is just so much better than you had reason to expect, a tip is not necessary but it is an option.

How much should you tip? There's a lot of disagreement to this but I would suggest using restaurants as a guideline. Tip 10-15% for good service, 20% or more for really amazing service.

I don't expect tips.I don't turn them down either. In the end, the best "tip" you can give a massage therapist is repeat business and a good recommendation to your friends and family.

My advice to you is this: quit thinking about tips. They usually mean nothing beyond "I've been trained to give a tip". You can't really know what they "mean". You are wise not to count on them.

And, oh yeah, the IRS knows that tipping is common enough in our profession that they'll be looking for them on your tax return so you better be declaring them as income! (Yet another reason to say Death To Tipping!)

 

RIP John

Last Tuesday found me in an ICU in central Louisiana, sitting next to a friend as he breathed his last. In 3-1/2 weeks he had gone from "what do you mean I'm riddled with cancer?" to the end of this earthly existence.

As you can imagine, it took everyone in his life by shock and was a whirlwind of grief, panic, and confusion. I am grateful I was able to be by his side when he died.

John was more than a friend -- and he was a great friend of almost 30 years -- he was also a key member of my informal "board of directors". I can't possibly know everything I need to know to run my business but when I look around at my friends and colleagues, I realize I have access to a great depth of professional experience.

John for business and financial advice
Adriana for marketing advice
Margo for taxes, taxes, taxes!
My husband Jeff for a reality-check
Kitty for imagination (and also reality check)
Rich and Lizzie for editorial help
Clare for building quality adult education

There are more.

John, a retired accountant and investment manager 14 years my senior, was particularly important for helping me develop my business, bite-sized courses. A primary focus of those is "translating" business concepts to language that makes them more accessible (and useful) to massage therapists.  I often ran things past John just to make sure that in the process of "translation" I hadn't left solid business truths behind.

When I first talked to him about my very different approach to business plans, he huffed and puffed a bit ("that's not the way one talks about business plans!") (he was also English so saying "the way one talks" just sounded so much cuter coming from him).

But then he stopped, really thought about what I was saying, critically examined whether I was saying anything wrong and, God bless him, asked me good questions about massage therapists so he could understand why I felt the need to re-cast the traditional business plan.

And then gave me invaluable feedback on what worked, where I could get more info, and where I was perfectly right to present things in a non-traditional way. And a lot of encouragement to keep doing what I do.

We all need people to advise us on the things we aren't so knowledgeable about. It's OK (possibly even wise) to admit -- out loud -- what you don't know and ask for help. Sometimes, you need to pay a professional. Sometimes you can find support among your existing circle of friends and family (as long as you don't abuse it!).

I will miss John keenly for a long time as a great friend and fellow trouble-maker in the 4th pew on Sunday morning. I will also miss the wise advisor who encouraged me and supported me in ways I needed.

RIP John. I hope the angels sang you home.

Did We Bring This On Ourselves?

I was working with a new massage therapist recently. She wants to work for someone else while she gets her legs under her and can build a private practice. Gyms, spas, and chiropractors would not be great fits for her but a group practice would be.

When I started to list group practices that were geographically convenient and well-run, it ended up being a surprisingly short list. That's depressing.

Here's a hard but true fact: franchises like Massage Envy are successful in part because they fulfill a need we have and we aren't filling for ourselves as well as we could. In short, they give MTs a place to work who just need a place to work. They give those MTs a full schedule and an organized environment.

Yes, it comes with some significant disadvantages and they aren't always run in our best interest but I could say that about gyms, chiropractors, spas, cruise ships, and every other place we work as well. As long as most of the places we can work are run by non-massage-therapists, we will always be at a disadvantage.

Yes, there are MT-led group practices but (1) there's not enough of them and (2) some of them are run as poorly as places that aren't massage-centric. Too many of these businesses are being run haphazardly and by the seat of the owner's yoga pants.

I will be the first to say that many of us are not cut out to manage a multi-therapist practice and it would be a mistake to try. But there are those who could and who aren't. Why not?

Probably because they recognize how much work it is and they don't have the training or support to set such a practice up well. Or they have done it and they're doing it poorly because (again) they don't have the training or support to run it well.

Where is that knowledge, training, and experience in our profession?

There are coaches who can walk you through that one on one if you're willing to spend the time and money (and it would be time and money well-spent with the right coach). I don't think there are enough of them either, though.

What about the people already running successful well-respected group practices? Are they sharing their wisdom? What would happen if each person running a successful multi-therapist practice set up an apprenticeship or internship with the conscious intent to teach another MT how to run their own multi-therapist practice? How powerful a transformation would that create?

I would love, love, LOVE to see us leading us. I would love to see us employing us. I would love to see us owning franchises (and, believe it or not, there are massage therapists who own Massage Envy franchises!). I would love to see us grabbing the reins of our own profession and riding it boldly into the future.

Do you have the temperament, interest, and/or ability to run a multi-therapist practice? If the answer is yes and ...

... you're not doing it, why not?

... you are doing it, where did you learn how to do it?

Who Can We Trust?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did Your School Really Prepare You To Be A Professional?

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

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

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

How did they run the school?

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

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

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

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

How did they talk about being a professional?

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

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

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

How did they talk about our profession?

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

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

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


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

How did / does your school measure up?

Your Marketing Headspace: What's True For You?

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

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

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

What You're Offering

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

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

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

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

Who's The Best Person For You To Market To

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

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

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

Who Are You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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