December 10th, 2006 Julie Onofrio
I read the book the E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber awhile ago and wrote a page on my website about it. The whole idea of how we are technicians making our work into a business really describes the massage profession to a T. His theory is that we need to work on the business not in the business. Just because one understands the technical part of our work, doesn’t mean one is qualified to run a business. Our businesses are a reflection of ourselves and running a business can help us to see ourselves more clearly.
Many massage therapists came to the massage profession seeking to get away from bosses only to find themselves being on in their massage business.
But most of us come to the massage profession to do massage ourselves.
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
I find that the concept of the e-myth really applies to massage therapy businesses.
â€Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that
the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on
your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is necessary for you to
do so. Go to work on your business as if it were the pre-production prototype of a massprodueable
product. Think of your business as something apart from yourself, as a
product of your efforts, as a machine designed to fulfill a very specific need, as a
mechanism for giving you more life, as a system of interconnecting parts…as a solution to
somebody else’s problem. Think of your business as anything but a job!
The technician does the massage, the manager makes the business plans and the entrepreneur has the vision.
In the book he says that “It is easy to spot a business in Infancy - the owner and the business are one and the same thing.”
If you are the one doing the massage - what happens to your business when you are sick or you go on vacation? Gerber claims that if your business depends on you then you don’t own a business - you have a job. He says the reason for being in business is to create something and then sell it to make money.
While it is possible to sell a massage business that has employees or sub-contractors it is more difficult to sell a sole-proprietor business because your clients are coming for regular massage because of you.
In some ways we are doomed for failure because of the nature of massage. People come to you because of you. Selling a massage business requires that you teach your clients to go to not depend on “You” alone. We take pride in providing massage therapy services to our clients - working in the business.
But where does that leave us?
When I first started out in massage, I saw it as more of an art form, a place of freedom. Today it is becoming big business and that connectedness is being lost in places like Massage Envy franchises that make the massage therapist work for beans. Are they better off working at a place like that?
How can we balance the roles of being the technician with being the manager and the entrepreneur?
Posted in Massage Schools/Students, Peer Supervision, Starting Your Practice, The Code of the Caretaker | No Comments »
December 9th, 2006 Julie Onofrio
I first started looking into this idea that your beliefs and thoughts create your reality after reading a series of books by Don Miguel Ruiz. The first one was the “Four Agreements” in which he talks about living life by 4 guiding principles or agreements. The book is a really easy read, but actually living by the Four Agreements is the key to discovering just what it is that you do believe.
Your beliefs and thoughts are reflected in your life around you in your relationships, in what you have or don’t have.
Do you have a successful and rewarding massage practice?
Many massage therapists in my experience, struggle along with less than flourishing practices always trying to make ends meet. What must one believe if you are always struggling and suffering. Something like “life is hard” is my guess.
Where did that belief come from? From seeing parents struggle to raise you? From school and always having to work hard to get good grades?
Learning more about what you believe and learning to change them can be a difficult and painful process. As you learn more about yourself and the patterns of behaving that keep you from having what you want you will often discover that other side of you that fears abandonment and rejection, that is fearful and struggling with self confidence and that fear of being able to surrender and trust the process.
The Four Agreements are:
Be impeccable with your word. What you say is a reflection of your beliefs. Whatever you say will become a reality. So if you keep talking about how you don’t have any clients and want more you may actually be creating the whole situation of not having the clients you need. The example in the book is if you say something to someone like ” I can see by the color of your face that you are going to get cancer” the chances are that they will believe it and get cancer.
Have you ever had any massage therapist say something to you like ” oh those are the tightest muscles I have ever seen” what do you think it makes someone think about? Their tight muscles of course. So what we say with clients can be very influential in creating a relationship for healing.
“Your opinion is nothing more than your point of view. It is not necessarily true. Your opinion comes from your beliefs, your own ego and your own dream. We create all this poison and spread it to others just so we can feel right about our point of view.”
Don’t Take Anything Personally.
“Taking things personally is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about me”. Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.
This is a really difficult one to comprehend and practice because we are all so wounded and hurt from things in our past that we think that everything happened to us was our fault. If a client doesn’t come back for whatever reason, it is not about you even though it may feel painful to be rejected. It isn’t that you didn’t do your best massage it is because it wasn’t what the person needed at that time in their life.
Even when they are telling you how wonderful you are. It still isn’t really about you. Your presence and the massage you did had nothing to do with their experience. Each person will have their own experience of your touch. One may think it feels soothing like the touch of their mother, others will be reminded of the pain of abuse. It is so easy to fall into the trap of feeling like it was you who “healed” this person. It is really more about that person and their willingness to heal.
Don’t Make Assumptions: This is closely related to the last one of not taking things personally. We are making assumptions about what ever someone said or did when we take things personally. Assumptions only set us up for pain and suffering. When you can stop making assumptions you can be impeccable with your word.
The way to avoid making assumptions about clients is to ask questions. Asking questions in a way that helps draw people out like using open ended questions can help create awareness. For example - asking “Does that muscle feel tight?” You already put the idea out there that it is tight but what is more important is how it feels to the client. You could ask “How does that feel” and get clients to draw their attention to that area.
Always Do Your Best. Following the first three agreements will bring out your humanness. We all struggle with the agreements we have unconsciously made a long time ago without questioning them. Learning to live by the four agreements is the biggest challenge you will ever undertake. No one is perfect and even with practice they become easier to be aware of but circumstances will always challenge your awareness. Just do the best you can and don’t beat yourself up over it. The ability to be successful is more about how many times you can get back up on the horse and try again.
Posted in Peer Supervision, Recommended Reading, The Code of the Caretaker | 1 Comment »
December 8th, 2006 Julie Onofrio
Everyday I get more and more excited about Sitebuildit! and the endless possibilities. It has really allowed me to make my dreams come true.
Today I started watching some of the Videos that Sitebuildit! Owners are creating for a video contest and now I can’t wait to start working. It is so inspiring to see what others are doing.
You can watch some of them on Youtube.com.
If you are interested in learning how to make your dreams a reality…watch the Video tour of Sitebuildit!
Posted in Websites for Massage therapists | No Comments »
December 4th, 2006 Julie Onofrio
I have been redoing the pathology section on my website www.thebodyworker.com to reflect some of the research and other articles that are being written on various ways to work with different conditions.
If you come across any that are of interest please let me know so I can add them to the pathology section. My pathology section comes up in the number one page of results with google for almost every condition. This could be a big plus for the massage profession as I talk about whether or not massage can be helpful for these various things or not. For example search using google for “carpal tunnel” or “pregnancy trimester information” and my site comes up.
There is a new Yahoo Group online called journalclubonline that was just started by Ted Nissen from anatomyfacts.com
“The latest massage and related research delivered directly to you for discussion, analysis, and review. Want to quote research studies like a pro and learn how to understand scientific literature while cross talking with other massage therapists online? Learn what massage techniques are scientifically effective and take these good ideas from the research lab to your massage client. We welcome massage therapists, aromatherapists, reflexologists, Energy Workers (Reiki ect), and other touch therapists. It’s a hassle free, no cost, way to keep informed.”
Background Papers by Ted Nissen - Anatomyfacts.com
Posted in Massage Research, News | No Comments »
December 4th, 2006 Julie Onofrio
If you haven’t already, it is time to get selling your Christmas Gift Certificates.
There are many different ways to advertise your gift certificates:
- to your current clients through flyers, signs in your office
- online through pay per click advertising programs such as google adwords (you will need to have a website for that)
- you can offer different package deals - buy one get one half price or get a half hour free or something like that.
You can make your own massage gift certificate easily using any word processing program or you can download this one from the Massage Business Center that you can print out yourself.
You can also put links on your website to sell the gift certificates. You can do it by using pay pal. Just get a pay pal account and go to the merchants section and click on make buy buttons and follow the steps. You can add different options so that you can get the persons shipping address so you know where to send the gift certificates or even make a download page on your website that people can print them out for themselves. Then you just have to keep track of the sales through your paypal invoices.
I think the one overlooked thing about giving gifts of massage is that it is usually the buyer who really needs one!
Posted in Building Your Practice, Starting Your Practice | No Comments »
