What other profession hires employees and pays them minimum wage when they don’t have a (massage) client?
I was just thinking about that as I was writing my Ebook “Finding a Job in Massage” and talking to my massage therapist who works at a spa.
People who want jobs in massage just want to do massage and don’t want to be involved in marketing or running the business but there isn’t any way around it really. The massage they give and the service they provide as a massage employee can make or break the business. They are an essential part of the business yet they are only paid minimum wage or slightly higher when they aren’t giving a massage.
What other professions do that? Lawyers? Plumbers? Nurses? Physical Therapists? The closest comparison as far as job description would probably be Physical Therapists. But they can work on a few people an hour.
Massage is unique in that you can only see one person at a time? What is that worth?
Why do massage therapists put up with allowing an employer to pay them two different rates of pay? The only other profession I could think of was for hair salons or nail salons maybe.
The massage employer is thinking that they have to pay the massage employee less because they don’t have the money coming in without a client there - so that is the bottom line - who should bear the financial responsibility for that massage therapist not having a client? The massage therapist or the massage employee?
I personally think it should be the massage employers responsibility. If they can’t afford to pay the massage therapist the same rate of pay for down time they just need to make sure that there isn’t any down time. But why do massage therapists bear the responsibility? Does it increase the massage therapists interest in getting and keeping clients because they can make more if they have clients obviously? While I am sure everyone responds differently -do people who take jobs in massage really want to be doing those client building projects? I really doubt it unless they are just working until they can set up their own business.
And yes it does cost money to have an employee and get them clients which needs to be reflected in the price of the massage. How do you put value on what a massage therapist really does since they are physically limited in the number of massages that they can do in one week/month/year?
No wonder it is hard for massage therapists to get respect from the public and other healthcare providers!
As Dr Phil says “We teach people how to treat us”.
When you learn about self care in massage school or read current articles on self care for massage professionals they teach proper body mechanics, proper posture, eat right, exercise, meditate or do some type of movement and of course getting regular massage to help stay grounded. While these things can help, they are really just the tip of the iceberg - the external components of self care. But knowing what things to do for self care and doing them are usually two different things. What leads you to take action or not take action is the underlying unconscious beliefs about whether you are worthy or need self care.
The best thing you can do to take care of yourself is to become more conscious of your unmet needs and repressed/suppressed feelings so that you can be more present in your massage sessions for your clients. That is what they pay you for really. Your unmet needs and old emotions are what get projected onto others and onto clients in the form of counter-transference. I have written about countertransference before here.
Your unmet needs and old emotions are projected into your practice, your money issues and your personal relationships. Self care that addresses these issues and helps you to become more aware of these issues can often reduce the physical stress of doing massage. The more you take care of yourself in that way, the more confident you become in asking for what you need and creating boundaries to take care of yourself in the client/massage therapist relationship.
Being financially responsible is one such method of self care which usually is not mentioned in self care classes/articles. Having the money that you need to live and run your business is the highest form of self care possible. The other way to take care of yourself is taking care of your personal needs for appreciation, love and nurturing. When you combine the two things you won’t have to worry about body mechanics or how hard you work on clients or working more than the agreed upon time.
Helping has a way of bringing up our unmet needs. It shows up in counter-transference. The reasons why massage therapists want to help others is usually filled with unconscious unmet needs and old feelings. Countertransference influences the client interactions and the healing process sometimes hindering it. When you are in a state of countertransference , projecting your old issues and feelings onto a client it can cause you to lose the objectivity you need to see the client clearly and hear the client clearly.
In simple terms, projection happens when you are not aware of your feelings or needs so you ‘project’ them onto someone else. Projections can cause reactions such as always giving advice to a client. To become more present means to be able to feel the feeling that is causing the projection (are you following this? It is hard to understand since it is unconscious.)
Remember - this is an unconscious process. Everyone is unconscious most of the time. Since it is unconscious you are not aware of what you are really doing. Becoming more conscious is a very complex process. We live our lives with many blind spots. Some people won’t even believe they are doing something unconsciously because it seems so real. It is real.
The way to track your thoughts and beliefs is through your feelings and becoming more aware of them.
Supervision is one such way of interaction that helps you to become more self aware. Supervision is not someone telling you what to do in the regular definition of supervision in the workplace. Supervision is the process of working with a more experienced massage therapist in order to understand your practice issues more and help you become more aware of yourself. You can learn more about the process of supervision on the website.
Working with a skilled psychologist can also take you deeper into your old patterns of behaving onto can do wonders for your massage practice and personal life. Since all relationships start in transference and the therapeutic relationship has a way of intensifying that transference it is important to find out more about your unmet needs. For the most part all we can do is grieve the loss of never having had them met as it is too late to get them met. Then it is a matter of taking personal responsibility for yourself and actions. The more you take care of yourself, your unmet needs and deal with the emotions, the more present you are able to be in your sessions and be there for clients. The more you take care of your internal self the easier it is to do those external self care things like setting boundaries around your time and financial needs.
Having a nice expensive website is nice but it doesn’t do you any good if Google and the other search engines are not able to find your site. To get the best results you need to have you site on the first page of Google and other search engines as most people don’t go beyond the first few pages of results.
There are many things you need to do to make that happen. You or your website hosting company or designer can do some of these things:
First choose your domain name based on the keywords that people will be searching for you through. You domain name should be some combination of your unique selling proposition - what you do or what benefit sets you aside from other massage therapists out there. Usually some combination of the keywords -massage, your city are what will work best.
Create about 30 pages or more using other keywords that people may be interested in or searching for.
Write pages on each technique or method you use such as deep tissue, cranial sacral therapy or other therapies. Most people don’t have a clue what the difference is and may not even care for the most part as long as you can get the job done.
Write articles on the various diseases and conditions that you work with like fibromyalgia, stress, sports injuries or whatever. Site resources and research to validate what you are saying. Use the pathology section or the medical massage guides I am developing on www.thebodyworker.com
Create an xml sitemap for your site. You can just do a search for create xml google sitemap and use the software you find. I have used this http://gsitecrawler.com/ .
Submit that xml sitemap to the search engines as I have explained here.
Create your pages using file names, keywords and descriptions that match your keywords. Here is more information on how to do that.
If you are in a competitive area and still aren’t at the top of the search engines, you can work to get backlinks to your site using one of these methods I outline at www.workless-playmore.com
Once you get your site to the top of the search engines getting people to click on it and make the call to become a client or get more information is a whole other story. That is where the writing of content comes into play. The content you write about will show that you are an expert in massage. Don’t worry if you are not a writer. Just start writing down all of the things you would say to people on the phone or in sessions.
Use Make Your Words sell as I mentioned the other day to help you learn to write sales copy.
It does take a fair amount of work to set up your website and to write an article or two a week, but once it is set up all you need to do is to send out a email newsletter once in awhile (as often as you can) and write a few short articles a month. It is the best form of targeted marketing because people are looking for massage already. When they find your site on their own they also are more open because you haven’t done any advertising to get them there. People come into advertising knowing that there is a catch and are skeptical. When they find you themselves on the top results of Google they have more reason to believe that you are a trustworthy and reliable massage therapist as you have taken the time and made the investment in creating a website that gets found!
These people are already interested in massage and the chances of them calling increase signficantly compared to just sending out mailers blindly to people who have never had a massage or are even interested in it.
All of these things I am talking about I learned from using Site Build it! to build my website. They also have more tools and software that work behind the scenes to get your website found. They have an action guide that teaches you every step of the way how to take your massage business online and even teach you how to make money from the website itself.
There are other hosting companies and package websites that you can use and do the same things that I mentioned here, but unless you already are a programmer or have lots of website creating experience, I would surmise that it will take you longer to succeed. To learn more about Site Build it! and what it can do for you you can read more at their page on Selling your Services online. Or if you have any questions please contact me or one of the people at Sitebuildit! (you can email them or call them).
Learning how to write and talk about your massage practice is one of the biggest challenges for massage therapists. Most just want to do massage and don’t want to or think that they can create websites and marketing materials for their massage practice. The thing is that without doing some of these things to promote your massage practice, you won’t have any people to give those massages too! Marketing is just a very simple matter of telling people what you do and what massage can do so they can decide if it is for them.
One of the best things I have ever read on the whole topic of marketing is “Make Your Words Sell”. It is a free Ebook put out by Ken Evoy of Site build it! It is quite a long ebook but well worth the read. Every section I read I couldn’t wait to implement some of the things on my websites.
The biggest revelation I got from the ebook is about using the benefits of massage and learning to create a sales message from those benefits. OK you are cringing with the word sales in there… You don’t want to be a pushy sales person. You don’t have to be. Sales is just learning to get what you want and what you wand most likely is a massage practice that is booked solid for a few months in advance.
Here is a standard list of the benefits of massage taken from massagetherapy.com.
Alleviate low-back pain and improve range of motion.
Assist with shorter, easier labor for expectant mothers and shorten maternity hospital stays.
Ease medication dependence.
Enhance immunity by stimulating lymph flow—the body’s natural defense system.
Exercise and stretch weak, tight, or atrophied muscles.
Help athletes of any level prepare for, and recover from, strenuous workouts.
Improve the condition of the body’s largest organ—the skin.
Increase joint flexibility.
Lessen depression and anxiety.
Promote tissue regeneration, reducing scar tissue and stretch marks.
Pump oxygen and nutrients into tissues and vital organs, improving circulation.
Reduce postsurgery adhesions and swelling.
Reduce spasms and cramping.
Relax and soften injured, tired, and overused muscles.
Release endorphins—amino acids that work as the body’s natural painkiller.
Relieve migraine pain.
Well their list of the benefits of massage is a little better than most but they still are not really getting to what the real benefits of massage are.
Let’s take them one by one:
“Alleviate low-back pain and improve range of motion”…… So What? Who cares? Why would anyone want to improve range of motion?
Only someone with low back pain would care about relieving it. Actually most people in pain use the reasoning…it will go away soon - or I am just getting old so I have to live with it. Not many people know anything about how the range of motion can influence back pain or even know why they need their rom improved. I would guess that many don’t even know that their rom is limited.
Why do people want to be out of pain? To be more productive. To be happier. To enjoy their families more.
That is the true benefit of reducing back pain and increasing the range of motion.
So when you get down to the real benefit of massage you can talk about that in your writing for your website, brochures and other marketing materials.
“Exercise and stretch weak, tight, or atrophied muscles.” So What???
What would it mean for them? Why would they want their muscles stretched or exercised?
The thing is you have to find out what the benefits of YOUR massage services are - not just these standard benefits. What makes your massage stand out from everyone elses? Why do people come to you in the first place.
You can read more about how to Make your words sell and to turn the benefits of massage into selling points for your massage practice.
One of the first steps in creating your marketing plan for your massage business is figuring out why you do massage? For what purpose?
In the book “The Answer” by John Assaraf and Murray Smith they ask the following questions:
What does success look like to me?
What is it I love to do that lies at the heart of my dream business/job?
What feelings do I want to experience as a result of my dream business? Because of my dream business I get to feel _____________________
Because of my dream business, I arrive at the end of the day feeling________________________
Why did you become a massage therapist? Some come into the field wanting to help others because massage has helped them in some way. Or people want to help others because it feels good to help others. Some may be drawn to massage because it is a much more meaningful type of work. Whatever your reasons for becoming a massage therapist - there are always deeper reasons for becoming a massage therapist that you may or may not be conscious of. Some may come to the field just for the prospect of making a lot of money.
Helping in particular is one of those things that usually has a much deeper reason for wanting to help others. Knowing your motivations and needs can be helpful in creating your marketing plan as well as helping you to be a more effective massage therapist.
In “Becoming a Helper” by Gerald Corey there is a long list of possible reasons why people may think they want to help. Some of those are:
the need to make an impact- wanting to make the world a better place, may want to know that they are important.
the need to care for others - When people are busy caring for others they don’t have anyone attending to their needs and they never learn to ask for what they do need.
the need to be needed - it becomes rewarding to have clients say they feel better because of the help you have given them. It isn’t wrong to be needed but when you must feel needed by your clients it can influence your work negatively.
the need to provide answers - to be looked up to as an expert and know the answers to people’s problems
While having these needs is normal and a part of being human, knowing more about what feeling you are wanting to create to fulfill these needs can help you make business decisions and personal life decisions based on those needs.
So back to the question asked in the book “The Answer” - What feelings do you want to experience as a result of being in business or working as a massage therapist?
What meaning does doing massage have for you? What do you want to get out of it? What will it provide for you?
What most people want is of course some form of love, attention and appreciation.
Another of the things is of course a nice living. We do need money to live on. It can provide security and money for you to pursue your dreams.
When you know that and honor that need the relief you can get from knowing that can free up more energy to help you create that exact thing for yourself. It can also help to show you just what your limited beliefs are that keep you from having what you do want.
Why are you in business? Why are you doing what you are doing?
