Educating Clients

Educating Clients is one of the easiest and most effective ways of marketing your massage therapy business.

But what does it really mean to educate clients?

The biggest thing you can do is to learn to talk about anatomy and physiology as if you were talking to a kid. So often I hear massage therapist talking to clients and saying the names of the muscles or talking in very technical terms with clients. Some people may know general names of muscles but people know very little about how muscles really work. Some of the most common questions I get from people is “Is that a knot?” or “Is that a bone?” or “how does that feel to you - is that really tight?”

When you are talking to people and trying to get them to become a client one of the best things you can do is to put the benefits of massage into their perspective - what will it do for them specifically.

For instance; I started in a health club a long time ago and would constantly talk to a guy who was a runner about getting massage. He always said he would someday but never did. I finally asked him about his running goals and saw how important running was to him and said something like “massage can help your running” and he signed up right then and there for a massage and became a regular client.

When educating clients about the benefits of massage you have to talk from the aspect of “What solution you will provide for them”. This comes directly from the Service Sellers Masters Course from Sitebuildit!

Some other simple things you can do to educate clients;

• when creating your website include as much information as you can about the way the body works and how massage works - yes all the details but in easy to understand language. It is really just writing about the things you talk about with clients everyday.
• Create handouts on specific conditions that you work with like fibromyalgia, stress, headaches, sports massage.
• Create or buy stretching handouts
• Get clients involved in the process of figuring out what they need to do for themselves. Read ‘Interviewing for Solutions‘ by Peter De Jong and Insoo Kim which is a book about Solutions focused Brief Therapy. As the name suggests,, it is about being brief and focusing on solutions rather than on the problem
• Solve problems as a team and get the client involved.
• Engage clients in the massage rather than just having massage be something that you do to them

Resources:

How to talk about what you do.

Client Education - Improve Client communication with specific activities based on multiple intelligences - Cherie Sohnen-Moe

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Massage Better than Psychotherapy?

Interesting Study on the effects of massage.
A Meta-Analysis of Massage Therapy Research
Christopher A. Moyer, James Rounds, and James W. Hannum

Originally published in Massage and Bodywork magazine, June/July 2004. Massage Today New Study Reviews Effectiveness of Massage Therapy: Researchers Draw Interesting Parallels Between Massage and Psychotherapy
By Michael Devitt, senior associate editor

Massage Magazine - Overall, Massage Is Effective

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Marketing you massage practice

Marketing a Massage Practice or any other business for that matter is a ongoing learning process. Many massage therapists are always looking for a new marketing tip or new idea when what they really need to be doing is taking action. There are many ways to market your practice, but the key is to find a way that is compatible with who you are and one that reaches out to who your ideal client is.

The best form of marketing is word of mouth. Every client that you do work on can be sending in all of their friends and family. That is why it is important to always be doing the best massage of your life on each and every client. When you are tired or distracted with something or even worrying about whether or not the client will be coming back, you are taking away from the session and giving less than your best. People will feel that is some way or another.

How can you give every client the massage of a lifetime where they get up off the table and say “WOW!! what did you do to me?!”

Some things to think about to get them to come back are:

• Talking about the benefits of regular treatment
• Talk about how often you recommend getting a massage (which should be once a week)
• Talk about how much you get a massage (which should be once a week)
• Talk to them about what massage can do specifically for them and their life by asking about what they do - what their stress level is, what physical activity they engage in, and find out what they need.
• Tell them how often most of your clients come. I have 2 clients that come 2x a week and when I tell that to people they are jealous in a way and sometimes more motivated to come more often. It gives them permission to get a massage more regularly when they might think that it is too indulgent
• When the person is leaving do you ask them when they want to come back? Tell them what times you have available next week and write them down on a card.
• You can also use your voice mail or website to tell people what appointments you have available each day so when they call they can choose one of those times and plan for it.

Many massage therapists are always looking for a new marketing tip or new idea when what they really need to be doing is taking action. There are as many ideas as there are people in the world. No one idea will work for everyone or be right for everyone. Sharing ideas and looking for ideas may really be more about procrastination- avoiding what you really need to be doing to market your practice.

In order to be able to take the action that is needed requires having confidence and self esteem. It requires you to start becoming aware of the thoughts you have that keep you from taking action and creating fear. They are not true. They are usually unconscious thoughts that we are not even really aware of. You can find out what these thoughts are by noticing what you are feeling. Your feelings will tell you you need to start thinking something different.

I have some marketing information on my websites at

www.massagepracticebuilder.com

www.thebodyworker.com

See also:
massagenerd.com - marketing

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Attracting Perfect Customers

The book “Attracting Perfect Customers: The Power of Strategic Synchronicity” by Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez talks about the “Law of Attraction” and how creating a profile of your “perfect customer” can help you in building your business.

The idea is that the clearer you get about who you want to be working with, the easier it is to attract that person to your practice. Once you know who you want to work with, you can focus on attracting that person and the more you stick to your picture of a perfect customer (which also is just a statement about what you need), the greater your chance of being successful. You will be working with clients who are a perfect fit for your business which usually means someone who respects you, is loyal and refers all of their friends.

Their program begins with creating a mission statement that reflects your values and intent and your reason for creating such a business.

Many of us as massage therapists have this idea that everyone is our perfect customer and we think we have to work on everyone that calls or comes in the door or else they will go to our competition. I know this is difficult to comprehend when you have to pay the bills.

The book describes a perfect customer:

• Is this person the perfect customer because he or she shows you respect and values your time?
• Does this person come to you with realistic expectations?
• Do they appreciate your efforts happily paying for your services and referring others to your company?
• Does working with this person make you feel needed, appreciated, respected and understood?
• Do they reconnect you with the passion and purpose that puts joy in your work-the very reason why you began doing massage in the first place?

The Science of Getting Rich Practical Geniuses course talks about the same thing calling it a clear mental image. Getting to a clear mental image requires that you start becoming aware of what you want which may include learning about what you don’t want. It involves becoming aware of the thoughts you are having that create the bad feelings you get when your business is slower than what you want or when you think that to be successful you must be always struggling. Working through these thoughts and habits is not an easy process. The Practical Geniuses course is a great way to learn about those thoughts that are keeping you stuck and limiting your success and turning away or not even attracting your perfect customer. (The thing I really like about this is that it is a short 30 day process that you can take at your own pace. You can choose what you pay for the course and there is also a great support system in the forums.)

I aso have some information on the website about this topic. I wrote it a few years ago and called it “Truth Marketing“. It is bascially saying the same thing- build a business based on your values and stick to them and your chances of success increase greatly.

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History of Massage

It is important for the future of the massage profession to study the history of massage. Most of what we learn and know about the history of massage is inaccurate and misguided. When I first started my website in 1999, I collected from various textbooks information on the history of massage and created a massage time line.

I was informed by the late Robert Calvert who I would call the master of the history of massage (and founder of Massage Magazine), that most of the information there was inaccurate - especially the information about Per Ling being the founder of Swedish Massage!

After I heard Robert Calvert speak a few times on the history of massage, I realized we were really missing out on many things. Historically, massage has been part of cultures and traditions. He talked of early peoples who taught massage to the young boys of the community so that they could do massage on their wives during labor. He talked of blind massage therapist in Japan who would walk the streets selling their services. What impressed me the most is the idea that massage has been done for a very long time with the community and family at the center of focus and how we are making it into a service where we are paid to touch strangers. I often wonder what we have done with touch as a method of healing and what we can do to preserve more of the art of massage. Massage was never regulated as far as I could see until more recently.
Part of the politics of massage is creating a definition of massage which will take us into the future.

For more on the history of massage:

Massage Magazines Pages from History

The History of Massage by Robert Calvert

Massage in cultures from massagenerd.com

Another timeline variation by massagenerd.com

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