Massage Mastermind Group Forming

I am inviting professional massage therapists or massage students to join me in my exclusive online massage mastermind group.  The words master mind comes from the Napoleon Hill concept of Mastermind groups.

In a Mastermind Group, the agenda belongs to the group, and each person’s participation is key. Your peers give you feedback, help you brainstorm new possibilities, and set up accountability structures that keep you focused and on track. You will create a community of supportive colleagues who will brainstorm together to move the group to new heights.

You’ll gain tremendous insights, which can improve your business and personal life. Your Mastermind Group is like having a objective board of directors.

This group will be a combination of mastermind and peer supervision and anything else that each participant needs it to be.  I will be facilitating the group and personally answering all questions from participants but I also want others to give their feedback and perspectives in order to make it an effective group.  There is a small monthly fee of $25 for the first 25 people and after that it will be $50 a month for people who join.

If there is interest we can also start having live discussions through a network like Skype.

You can read more about it on the website at www.thebodyworker.com

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World Massage Conference

Be part of the largest event in the history of massage and learn from the foremost massage experts from around the globe - The World Massage Conference.  All of it is taking place online and if you miss a lecture you can listen to it later.

There are two levels of access:

Basic Access gives you audio access to all six days of regularly scheduled broadcasts, presenter notes and replays of all calls.($59.00)

Full Access gives you basic access PLUS the ability to interact with presenters and other participants, certificates of completion for CEU purposes, downloadable presentation recordings, written transcripts, the chance to win valuable prizes, as well as bonus presentations and gifts. (Highly recommended)($199.00)

This ground-breaking virtual massage conference will use the power of the web to bring together over 50 of the world’s top massage experts to speak over a six day period from November 17th to 22nd, 2008. Thousands of massage therapists, bodyworkers and spa professionals from around the world will be listening to and interacting with these industry leaders through live online audio or telephone.

Six days of presentations on every thing from techniques, business, technology, research, caring and treatment with Leon Chaitow, John Upledger, Diana Thompson, Steve Capellini, Tom Myers and many more.

Massage is the original healing art and today’s experts push the boundaries of how massage can be used to help not just with musculoskeletal problems, but a host of other pathologies from fibromyalgia to dyslexia. Follow along as they discuss cutting edge approaches to helping people feel and function at the highest possible level.

Click on this link to access more than 50 of the top thinkers in the massage industry:

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Pregnancy Massage

Pregnancy massage is a great way to ease the discomfort and help ease the body through the changes of pregnancy.  More research and information is now available on pregnancy massage and the various stages of pregnancy and the needs of a pregnant woman.

Massage has been used throughout history to ease the pains of pregnancy and labor.  Robert Calvert in his book ‘The History of Massage’ outlines some significant points in the history of midwifery which included massage.  I also remember taking a class with Robert and he mentioned that there was some culture that used to train their sons how to do massage so they could be prepared to guide their wives through labor! (Whatever happened to that!  Are we actually going backwards by incorporating pregnancy massage into a massage business?)

The Touch Research Institute finds that:

Massage for Labor Pain
Massage therapy during the first 15 minutes of every hour of labor decreased anxiety and pain and the need for pain medication. In addition, the massaged mothers had shorter labor, shorter hospital stay and less depressed mood.
Field, T., Hernandez-Reif, M., Taylor, S., & Quintino, 0., & Burman, I. (1997). Labor pain is reduced by massage therapy. Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology, 18, 286-291.

Massage during pregnancy can help alleviate back pain associated with the postural changes due to the exess weight gain.  It can help alleviate symptoms of nausea.   It can help reduce the amount of stress and anxiety that a mother often experiences.  Sciatica is often a part of pregnancy because of the increased weight and the changes in the hips that occur to make room for the baby and the birth process.

Massage during labor can help with easing back labor pains as well as just making the mother as comfortable as possible.

I just updated the pregnancy massage section on www.thebodyworker.com:

Pregnancy Massage Articles : Links to many online articles on Pregnancy Massage

You can read the many articles and research pregnancy massage and create an informative section on your website to promote your pregnancy massage practice.

Posted in Types of Massage | 4 Comments »

Multiple streams of income for massage therapists

One of the things I keep talking about is how it is necessary (no matter what field or career you are in ) to have multiple streams of income.  Last weeks problems on Wall St is the perfect example.  No job or business is secure.

One of the ways I have been making extra money is through my websites.  All I do is write about the massage profession and put Google Ads on the pages.  The way this works is that when someone clicks on the ads I get paid.  How much?  Well enough that I can keep my practice at a reasonable 12 massages a week so I don’t have to over do it physically and emotionally.

Well this week my websites gave me quite a surprise.  One of my sites - www.massagetherapycareers.com caught the eye of an website developer and they offered to buy it from me.  I had never thought about that possibility at all.  The offer was quite worth it- enough for me to beef up my savings, pay some bills and do a few nice things like maybe a trip to HI or FL if the hurricanes settle down.  The thing is that I can just go and do it all over again.  There wasn’t any non-compete clause.  The new owners will be turning the site into a massage school directory which I was slowly headed towards but I wasn’t getting the traffic I needed for the keywords “massage schools”.   I was already on the first page of Google for the keywords “massage therapy” and “massage therapist”.   I think the problem is that the school listings were not the Tier 1 pages or first pages from the home page.   My plans are to create a few sites - one on massage schools specifically and the  other on massage careers again.   The only reason I sold it was because I know I can recreate the same thing using Site Build it! ( the all in one hosting and business development system) and hopefully in a shorter timeframe from all that I have learned from doing the first site.   You can still take a look at it for a few weeks or so until the new owners start redoing it - www.massagetherapycareers.com

The thing is that anyone can do this -take something that you love and know a lot about and turn it into a website.  It just takes a little brainstorming.  What do you like to do or talk about?  What do you know a lot about that you can write at least 50 page on or more is even better?   Take a look at the SiteBuild it! Action Guide that you can read for free and use some of the free tools to start brainstorming a topic.

I haven’t had as much time to write with all of the excitement and now new planning, but I will be getting on track hopefully by next week.  Until then there is plenty of material on www.thebodyworker.com and this blog for reading and ideas on how to start and build your massage practice.

Posted in Building Your Practice, The Wealthy Massage Therapist, Websites for Massage therapists | 1 Comment »

The Art of Getting New Massage Clients

A successful massage business depends on the steady flow of new clients or getting repeat clients (regular clients who come every week, 2x a week, every other week or once a month.)  It involves creating relationships with potential clients and getting them to trust you enough so that they will make the call for the appointment.

Finding new clients who will become repeat clients requires that you build trust with people you talk to or with people who read your website.

Approaching doctors, companies or individuals with a sale pitch or offer is like getting an annoying phone call from a company offering home owners insurance when you are a renter or like getting a flier in the mail for childcare services when you don’t have any kids.  It is just annoying and a waste of money on the advertisers part.  Approaching people blindly - not knowing if they even like massage or believe in it can waste a lot of money.

Having people calling you because they know you are the expert at what you do is another story.

To do that you need to let people know what you know about massage and health.  The best way to do that is with a website that is filled with information about what you do and what massage can do.

If your website only is a basic calling card website with only information on your rates, locations and a list of your services, it doesn’t create much of an interest in readers.  If it is just a sales site to offer your services without really taking the time and effort to understand your readers, you are missing out on many opportunities to make readers into regular clients.

Learning to build relationships with people involves providing information to people about what you do,  what your philosophy on healing is and what your beliefs about health and massage are allows you to share your expertise, knowledge and experience with others.   In sharing you develop a relationship that “Pre-sells” the potential client.

I know most massage therapists hate that word “Sell” even if it is preceded with the word ‘pre’.   Sell brings up this fear of having to be a sales person.   All you are really doing is telling people what you do so that they can decide if you would be a match to help them solve their problem.

“Preselling” is a term that was coined by Ken Evoy of Sitesell.com.  Preselling is really just about building relationships and trust between two parties.   When you learn to presell- you won’t have to do any selling.  People will be coming directly to you for the services that you offer.   They will be calling you.  You won’t have to do a thing but be there to take the call and make the appointment.

Online people are looking for information- they aren’t looking for you. They just want to find a trustworthy someone to fill their need.  People are usually in pain, under stress, or both and are looking for help with whatever it is that is a problem for them.

Use your knowledge and experience to give them what they want by writing about what you do.  You don’t have to worry about the writing part.  What you do is just write down what you would say to people if about massage, health and healing if you already had them on your table or if you were talking to your best friend.  Use information to meet their needs.   It creates an open to buy mindset for the reader.

If you don’t have a content rich site - the other option is to advertise and for the most part advertising for massage doesn’t work since massage is such a personal experience.  Unless you have a very large advertising budget like spa’s or massage franchises do, advertising for the small massage business takes a substantial amount of money.

Most people resist sales efforts.  Preselling on the other hand creates relationships and builds credibility.

One of the first steps to preselling is getting inside your potential clients head and shoes.  Who is your ideal client?  What problem do they have that they are looking for a solution for?

Creating a website around that idea takes a little bit of time to research and develop but when you get a regular weekly client who comes for 10+ years like most of my clients do …well you can figure out the value of that kind of regular client ($price of massage x 48 weeks a year x 10 years).

You can learn more about preselling and learning to attract clients by building trust and avoiding sales you can read this free Ebook by Ken Evoy called “Make Your Content Pre-sell”

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