February 25th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
The idea of working at home and having a massage business there is usually quite appealing, but it isn’t always as straight forward as you might think.
Some of the things you will need to consider are:
- Is there any local zoning laws or legislation that need to be followed or that will restrict you from working out of your house? Will you be able to bill insurance companies? (some don’t allow home offices)
- Have a separate room specifically set up for doing massage so it will be more professional. Ideally a separate entrance or section in your house or property with a separate bathroom would be best (but not always possible).
- Keep your house clean especially the bathroom which clients will be needing to use.
- Having strangers come into your house can be a problem. Consider only taking referrals from people you know. (this will limit your potential in the long run, but will help create safety.
- For your safety, have a system set up that someone knows you are working out of your home and let them know when you are doing massages and call them after each session or at the end of the day to let them know you are all right.
- Set up times to do massage that won’t interfere with your family’s coming and goings. Keep pets out of the treatment room until you know the client thinks they are acceptable and they aren’t allergic to them.
- Do you need additional home owner’s insurance or other liability insurance? What if someone slips and falls on the ice or wet floor?
See also:
The Successful Home office by Cherie Sohnen Moe
In Home office at www.massagenerd.com
Posted in Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice | No Comments »
February 25th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
When is the work and advice we give to clients enabling them and when are we being of service and really working with them to help them find a solution to their issues?
There is such a fine line between the two.
For the most part, clients seek us out to find a solution to their problem - their back pain, their neck pain, their headaches, stress, injuries and to improve their health. In massage school we are taught so many great things about the body that we can get so caught up in sharing them with clients it is easy to lose track of what clients really need and what they are there for.
When we give our advice to clients in pain and seeking solutions are we doing them a service or are we enabling them? They come in regularly seeking relief and then go back out there doing the same things they have always been doing - beating their bodies up with sports or weekend activities, eating poorly, working long hours and they end up right back on our tables with the same old things over and over again.
Enabling is a part of co-dependence. We enable others or rescue them from taking responsibility for their health. They don’t have to take care of themselves because they come to us and we can do it for them. We enable them to continue on with this behavior.
When we give them our advice - stretch more, drink more water, sit at the computer differently and they don’t take it what does that really mean for us? When we give advice that isn’t being adhered to it is really more about us getting our need to be needed and respected met through our client interactions. We can sit there and tell someone what “WE” think they should do but the real power lies in helping them find a solution that they want to do and can do - otherwise we are enabling them to continue on with their self destructive ways.
Enabling is taking responsibility for someone else’s problems. It is doing something for someone that they should be doing themselves. It is making excuses for them when they need to be taking responsibility for themselves.
Enabling is usually a result of low self esteem. We can’t say no -we won’t work on clients because we want to be accepted and needed or we need the money. The whole process of massage school can leave massage therapist feeling like they can do everything and anything -that massage is the end all answer to the world health problem. When we work with people and they don’t seem to improve as much as we would like or as much as we have seen in other people, we start feeling like a failure. We work long hours, work through our lunch hours, work weekends or do other things for clients such as these hoping that we can help them. They come into us and they leave feeling better for the day and go and do it all over again the next day and come in with the same issues. We keep clients from accepting responsibility for their actions and accept the consequences of their actions.
We work with clients and keep thinking there must be something we can do to change this- to help this person. If we had only known more we would be able to help this person more. We think we are being compassionate and only wanting to help when in reality our helping is hurting more.
Helping is doing something for someone that they are not capable of doing themselves. Enabling is doing for someone things that they could, and should be doing themselves.
The solution to the issue of enabling is learning to say no and learning to take more responsibility for ourselves and our thoughts/actions. That is the only thing we can do. When we try to take responsibility for others pain and actions we are enabling.
How can we work more effectively with people who continue to be self destructive?
How can we be more of service to others and get our needs for approval and to be needed met outside of our practices?
What does being of service really mean and look like?
Resources:
The need to fix-www.thebodyworker.com
See Rachel Remen MD’s - In the Service of LifeÂ
The Code of the Caretaker
Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst.said, “Humility begins when we see our
clients not for where they could be, but for where they are.
Posted in Building Your Practice, Ethics, Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice, The Code of the Caretaker, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | No Comments »
February 24th, 2007 Julie Onofrio
The easiest and most efficient way to market your massage business is with a Sitebuildit! (SBI) Website.
I know I have been talking about this for awhile. It takes awhile to really understand what the process of creating a website that works is all about. The first is just that- it is a process. The SBI process is one that takes you from just the thought of having a website to being able to say “I am sorry. I am not taking new clients right now. I am booked for 3 months.”
What the whole process is about is that it really makes you start thinking about just what it is that you are doing and who is your ideal client. So many massage therapists enter the business thinking that they just want everyone as their client. While this may seem like the best answer - you won’t really know who to market to since you can’t market to everyone.
Creating a SBI website is a process that will take about 1-3 months to start getting traffic and within the year you should be getting more clients.
A massage business is a service business and it is one of the many specialties of SBI. They teach you how to come up with your most valuable selling proposition, how to choose a domain name that reflects what solution you provide and helps you to get the traffic you need to get all the clients you will ever need.
With a website you are able to write about yourself and what you do which is what most massage therapists need to learn about. Many don’t want to step out of their comfort zone and market themselves. A website makes it easy to inform your readers just what it is that you do. It helps build trust so that you get the appointment from that repeat client - your ideal client.
The key is in building content. It is nothing more than just writing about everything you already talk to clients about on an everyday basis! If you follow the SBI process that you can find in the action guide you will soon be saying.
“I am sorry. I am not taking new clients. I am booked for 3 months.”
and then when you tell them they will have to wait until then - most of them will because they will perceive you as being the expert in massage!
If you have any questions or are hesitating about this just let me know.
I also am available to be your SBI coach.
Posted in Building Your Practice, Massage Marketing, Starting Your Practice, Websites for Massage therapists | 1 Comment »
February 21st, 2007 Julie Onofrio
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE FOR SENATE BILL NO. 1035 in the Oklahoma State Legislature for 2007.
The Oklahoma Massage Coalition is working to define massage for Oklahoma.
The Oklahoma Health Freedom Action Network whose mission statement is:
“The mission of the Oklahoma Health Freedom Network is to honor and protect the principles upon which the state
of Oklahoma was founded.
These principles have endured for a hundred years because they are based on common sense and the belief that the common
man does have the wisdom to run his own life as well as interact with elected public servants in the management of the functions
of government. However, with the ever-growing complexities of both federal and international laws and policies, often in conflict
with the simple rights and freedoms Oklahomans have always enjoyed, The Oklahoma Health Freedom Network was formed
to speak in a unified voice to defend these rights and freedoms.
Our specific focus of concern is the ability for individual Oklahomans to continue to practice natural healing arts without
monopoly limitations, for ordinary Oklahomans to be able to continue to seek services from these practitioners, for Oklahomans
to be able to continue to grow and/or manufacture for public consumption food and other health products to meet the needs of
their customers without politically-driven, pro-global corporation public policies and laws designed to block access to these
products and services, and other governmental encroachments on the day-to-day lives of Oklahomans that impact their health
unheard of in earlier times.”
Where is Oklahoma headed? Is licensing necessary? Who is it really protecting?
See also the blog post on www.massagepracticebuilder.com
Posted in Licensing and Legislation | No Comments »
February 21st, 2007 Julie Onofrio
I have been interested in the licensing and legislation issues that are always going on in the massage profession and just recently started thinking from the point of view of the “Law of Attraction” or the movie “The Secret”.
The main issues are around protecting the public from harm and from separating our work from prostitution. Massage therapists use the massage front for bringing in illegal activities.
While I am not sure what the answer is - more licensing requirements or more freedom of health laws, what I finally started realizing is that we are all creating this by focusing on it!
What could we focus on to make things better for the profession and the public?
The only thing I see is to focus on defining ourselves as a profession. What is massage and what does it entail? Is there a difference between massage and bodywork? What is medical massage? Is medical massage just being able to bill insurance companies or does it require a certain level of training and education above and beyond basic massage school?
I wonder what we can do to protect the public from harm and help massage therapists create successful practices and have more opportunities for jobs and work?
When we get so caught up in making people right and wrong it only creates more right and wrong - more stress, more anger, more separation.
We seem to forget what our basic message is to the world and what massage does - it is really the basis for learning how to feel which is the key to living.
What do we fear when we get into these political arguments over how much education is needed and what exactly the schools need to teach and what does a massage therapist really need to know to be competent and safe.
If the premise of what we think becomes our reality (which I believe in and think is true),
How has are thinking and worrying about prostitution and harming the public actually created it even more?
I don’t really know the answer to this, but know what we are doing is not working.
Posted in Licensing and Legislation, Massage Schools/Students, News | 2 Comments »
