Your Ideal Massage Client

So many massage therapists seem to be going about getting clients in the wrong way - by advertising and trying to ‘find’ clients who want them. This is like searching for a needle in the haystack.

Figuring out who your ideal client is will help you narrow down your focus and start attracting clients that you want.

Ken Evoy in his Ebook “Service Seller’s Masters Course” talks about how to do this more effectively.

“People are searching for information and solutions so success begins with quality, relevant content. Start where your visitors are and then everything falls into place. The process boils down to these essential steps: 1. Consider your service business from your client’s point of view. What niche do you occupy? What problems do you solve?:….Download the Ebook to get the rest if you are interested

You can create a general profile including things like: age, location, athletes, pregnant women, corporate chair massage, events, gender or include other demographics and narrow down a niche.

Just saying that you want to work on everyone, while it may seem like it gives you more opportunities, it also makes it harder to find someone because it is a much wider pool of people to try to market to.

Get inside your potential clients shoes (and head)?

How do people find a massage therapist? Actually go out and try this yourself! It is a great way to get in touch with what your clients have to go through to find someone who is good and that they can trust. First they may ask their friends or family for a referral. They may ask their doctor or other health care provider for a reference. They might look in the phone book, but I would surmise that most look online. People search for ‘massage, your city’ or search blindly ‘find a massage therapist’. People who are looking for you are the best and easiest clients to get.

Trying blindly to find people by sending out mailings or doing other advertising may work but if people don’t need a massage - they won’t really care. Find people who need the massage and the other part of this which I read in a book by Lynn Grodzki called “Build Your Ideal Private Practice” (which is written for psychotherapists) takes it even a step further.

Identify your Ideal Client (exercise). Create a profile of your ideal client and share it conversationally with new clients. It will help them understand your approach and your expectations, and show them how to “get their money’s worth” or increase the value they receive from their time in therapy. This one step can help you think in a more focused way about the direction of your practice. Fill in these sentence stems:

My Ideal Client appreciates

My Ideal Client Values

My ideal client understands

My ideal client agrees to

Creating a vision of your ideal client will help you to focus your marketing and will also help you find people who are nourishing to work on. That way you have a better chance of being successful as well as having a rewarding practice that will last as long as you need it to.

Sometimes just starting out, you don’t know who you really want to work on as far as what group of people. You learn by trying different things and working on different people and noticing how you feel when you work on each one. Notice the contrast in how you feel. Do you feel drained working on that client who all they do is complain about their boss or all they do is complain about their spouse? How do you feel after working on someone in chronic pain who has tried every doctor with no results? Your feelings will tell you if you are working on a client who will help further your career or will working on them take too much of your energy away and leave you feeling drained.

While it isn’t always as easily done as it it said, it is a process of learning to listen to your internal guidance system - your feelings. If you ignore your feelings they will get repressed and will usually turn into emotions that usually are negative or destructive.

This is exactly what building a website using Site Build it! (SBI!)will do for you- By clarifying who your ideal client is, you can convey it in a website and show clients your expertise in massage. People will understand who you are and will be able to make a more informed decision about their healthcare. The SBI! process will take you step by step through the process of identifying your ideal client and will also help you learn about what clients are wanting by what keywords they are finding you through. When you create a SBI! site you are using the law of attraction and helping people who are looking for massage in your area to find someone who can help resolve their problem- pain, stress, injury or whatever. And that person will just happen to be you. When people find a website by searching for the one online by whatever keywords they use and they find your site, they are already impressed and think they have found you and don’t have to worry about people giving a sales pitch. The come in feeling good about themselves by finding you. You then can use the website to create enough content and information that will let them know that you are an expert in what you do. You can set up an email newsletter and blog to keep potential readers interested by giving them more information. You can write some free informational reports on using massage with various diseases and conditions and collect the email address of those who are interested so you can contact them with more information and keep educating them. Since they found you online they must have some interest in health and massage. You have a greater chance of getting this reader to become a regular client - one who comes once or twice a week for years (figure out what that is really worth!)
You won’t have to sell anyone on your massage. They will be calling you and wanting only you. And when you can put this all together into a website, it will also be come clearer in all of your communications with clients. If you are doing yellow pages ads, newspaper ads, brochures, teaching workshops, speaking to special populations, talking with other health care providers - all of these methods of advertising/marketing will be so much more effective when you can follow up with these people and get them to go to your website. Any advertising/marketing done without a website is wasted money!

Got it? or what are your questions still?

Posted in Building Your Practice, Peer Supervision, Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice, Websites for Massage therapists | No Comments »

Selling MLM products with Site Built It!

Through the many years of being a massage therapist (18 currently) I have been approached by almost every network marketing company through a friend, client or even people I don’t even know. At first I thought the idea of network marketing seemed like it would really work and be a great way to get extra income or even make a living. Through the years I joined a few at various times always thinking that this would be the one. The products were great, the compensation plans confusing but lucrative and the opportunity to further share my interest in health. Well I gave up on network marketing a long time ago but seem to come back to it every once in awhile - the last being a few years ago when I was thinking of reselling an alkaline water filter system. I was fairly excited about the prospect and had tons of ideas - mainly a website that would take the lead over others in selling this product. I later found out that there was some discrepancy over whether or not I could even have a website of my own for that business. There was no system in place to help people build the business and the woman who was the best in world happened to be part of my upline and all she wanted to do was have people go to a demonstration and deal with her staff who could hardly speak english. I had heard enough and got out before I even got started.

Now with the theories of Site Build It! constantly being spun around in my head - I set up a few pages on my site www.thebodyworker.com and got a domain name through SBI! that allows me to set up a system to redirect that domain to another website - www.about-water.com. For about the last year and a half I have been making about $70 a month on just about 10 pages of content on the concepts and ideas around this product. I actually had a bad taste in my mouth from the whole MLM experience and started telling people it was really too expensive a product and that there were other products out there. I started a comparison chart that I never finished and had other ideas. I almost forgot about it until the other day I realized it making me about $70-100 a month in Google Adsense income! All this for doing nothing and not even selling the product. I was also reading the SBI! forums which are a great network of people who are using the SBI! system of building websites and came across a thread on Network marketing and the theory that you can get clients coming to you and interested in your product all without ever even mentioning the product name. What you do give them is all of the information about the product - what it does, how it enhances health, scientific info, testimonials…everything and anything. You create an interest. You share your passion for the product and it becomes contagious. Before long people are contacting you and wanting the product. This takes care of the biggest challenge of network marketing - the problem of trying to sell to people who are really not interested. This way you are finding people who are interested and you don’t have to sell ( just like most MLM companies try to tell you that network marketing is not selling- it’s sharing - but then you’ve lost all your friends and family members because of your so called sharing.)

Site Build It! is so convinced that you can be successful ’selling’ your MLM product using their system that they are actually offering a contest where the winner can win $10,000 first prize for the most income and by also being the most helpful (to be chosen by Ken the owner of SBI! through his carefully outlined process that he is creating.) I am so interested in the whole concept that I am considering going into some MLM business just to see if it could work, but I actually don’t want to sell anything! So if you are still reading this and have a MLM business that you just haven’t been successful at or you are already successful at but would like even more and are ready to take your business to the next level - I am offering my services for FREE to help coach you in making a website and all I ask is that if you win the contest - you give me a 10% of the winnings!! (Does that sound reasonable??)

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

Tipping Massage Therapists

After a very interesting discussion on tipping on my Yahoo Group for www.massagepracticebuilder.com I have gathered some of the information to share it here on the blog.
Is it appropriate to tip a massage therapist?

Is it appropriate for a massage therapist to encourage tipping?

Is it appropriate for massage therapists to accept tips? Should you even mention tipping on your website, policies or anywhere in your office?
Massage Therapists for the most part are licensed health care professionals. Some states still do not recognize us for that.

Tipping comes from the

“Are tips required?” and then answer
with: “No. Although greatly appreciated, tips are not
required.”

‘Clinical clients may not
tip, wellness clients may tip is so inclined, Thank you.’
In our office we have discreet signs which simply
state “Gratuities graciously accepted” along with envelopes that
clients can use and write a note on if they wish at the reception
counter

“Massage is generally a tipping industry and supports the
therapist’s income”, or “general gratuities are 15-20% and should
always simply be a reflection of your customer satisfaction”, etc

Tipping a massage therapist varies widely mainly because of the wide variety of fees that massage therapists charge and how they view their practice.  A massage therapist that views their practice as being a ‘medical or clinical’ massage practice will probably be charging more and may also be licensed as a health care provider which would make tipping the massage therapist inappropriate.

Most spas expect the client to tip the massage therapist and don’t pay the massage therapist much  based on this assumption.  Tipping is usually much appreciated by the massage therapist.

Do you tip your massage therapist?

Posted in Money issues | 1 Comment »

From Massagenerd.com - RE: NCBTMB

From NCBTMB
Posted in Massage, NCBTMB by Massage Nerd on the August 16th, 2007

Dear Colleagues, Do You Recognize this Document? Can this document be improved? In an effort to improve the NCBTMB Candidate Handbook and application process, we are asking for feedback from school personnel who are familiar with this document. To participate, download Version 7.1 of this handbook which is located on the NCBTMB website (www.ncbtmb.com). Once you have located the areas in the Candidate Handbook that you wish to comment on, click on the link below. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=1UIaFf1QuP3Od7MmDmiwUg_3d_3d This link will take you to the “Call for Comments Survey” where you can navigate the handbook page by page inputting comments as you go. You may also leave and return to the survey as needed. When you are finished, the survey results will be automatically sent back to us. Your comments will help us to revise the handbook and facilitate the application process. Your students will appreciate the changes you help us make. Thank you in advance for your participation. If you have any questions, please contact Elaine Calenda, School Outreach Advisory Panel chair at ecalenda@bcmt.org or call: 800-442-5131. Thanks! School Outreach National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork 1901 S. Meyers Road, Suite 240 Oakbrook Terrace, IL 60181-5243 Email: schooloutreach@ncbtmb.com

Posted in Massage Schools/Students, News | No Comments »

Think and Grow Rich for Massage Therapists

“Think and Grow Rich” is the timeless classic by Napoleon Hill written in 1937. I hadn’t read it until a few weeks ago and now am writing the “Think and Grow Rich for massage therapists” based on this book. As I was reading and researching I did come across some interesting findings one of which is that there are various versions of the original classic. I found this out from reading the first part of a new book by Ester and Jerry Hicks called “The Astonishing Power of Emotions”. They mentioned that they were being interviewed for the movie “The Secret” and somehow or another got cut out in the end. They think they got cut out because they focus on the concept of vibrations and how your thoughts and feelings carry different vibrations. They talked about how “Think and Grow Rich” original version got the word vibration taken out of it too. The movie “The Secret” doesn’t tell you what the secret is just like the edited versions of “Think and Grow Rich” didn’t focus on the actual ’secret’.

The Secret is the vibration of the feelings and emotions that you have that tell you what you are thinking. I’ll get into that in another post.

One of the first things that “Think and Grow Rich” talks about is having a passionate determination. In the first chapter he says:

Thoughts are things and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence and a BURNING DESIRE for their translation into riches, or other material objects.”

He talks about how having this ‘burning desire’ and a definite purpose will drive you to success. He gave a few examples such as a ship taking soldiers into battle and dropping them off somewhere and the ships being burned so they couldn’t leave, leading the men to be more determined to succeed.

After reading about being determined and having a purpose, I realized that the massage profession itself is keeping massage therapists from believing that they can be successful in this business. Most massage schools will tell students to not quit your day job when just starting out. This is telling people that they won’t be successful!!!!
I am sure they rationalize it by saying you have to be realistic - but what is that really. Nothing more than their own beliefs. So massage schools don’t even believe in what they are doing to prepare a student enough that they can jump right into creating a full time practice. Sure it takes time to build a practice, but you have to be prepared to go the distance. You have to be willing to do what it takes. You have to believe in yourself enough to not go back and take the giant leap.

That’s the way I did it 18 years ago. I actually quit my job before I even graduated from massage school as I couldn’t stand it anymore. (Actually I was so miserable they laid me off so I could collect unemployment!) I finished massage school and went right to work setting up my practice in a health club with a friend of mine right out of massage school. I never looked back. It was sink or swim…and since I am such a good swimmer - I dove head first into it all not knowing what I was really getting into - but I knew I loved the whole concept of being healthy and working with people.

So the massage profession itself is showing how it doesn’t believe in itself. How else does the profession actually hurt us and hold us back? By not standing up to the plate and defining the profession? By not setting standards of education? More blog posts to come!

Posted in Building Your Practice, Massage Schools/Students, Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice, The Wealthy Massage Therapist | 1 Comment »