www.thebodyworker.com

One of my latest projects has been creating a local CE calendar at www.wa-massage-therapy.com.   It will tie into my new site www.massageceguide.com.

I am looking for about 10 people who want to learn how to create their own local massage ce calendar and work with me in connecting them all together.  I know there are many online ce calendars already but none of them use the concept of using information and content to get traffic and convert visitors into paying students.  They are all mostly just a boring listing.    I am using what I have learned in my 10 years of creating websites and the basic theory of Site Build it! that content, traffic, pre-selling (building trust) will lead to making money!

Here is what you need to create a CE Calendar:

1. A WordPress blog – recommended hosting at www.ez-webhosting.com (the one I use other than Site Build it! for hosting because they do daily backups!)($7.95 a month or 77.40 a year paid in advance.)  Plus domain.
2. Wishlist membership license to automate the process of taking listings.  ($100 per license)
3. I recommend Studio Press themes but you can use any Free or bought WordPress theme.
4. Aweber.com account for collecting names and emails to send out a monthly list of classes.

I can set it all up for you for a $200.

Then the work will be to get massage teachers to sign up and list their classes and write articles for you and pay you to get a listing.   There are also a few other ways you can make money by promoting affiliate programs like I do.   A few of the ones I use is www.worldmassageconference.com and www.healthpositive.com  .

Once it is up and running it pretty much will take care of itself.  You will have to moderate comments and help people with creating their listings and profile.

You can learn to use WordPress as you go.  It is pretty straight forward and works like a wordprocessor in general.

This is a great supplement for your income and a great way to promote the massage profession.  Continuing education is really a big part of the future of the profession.

Let me know if you have any questions or want me to set up a blog for you!

I just had to take a minute and drop you a quick note to let you know about a free upcoming broadcast with the World Massage Conference.

Whitney Lowe is going to do a presentation on the Value of Orthopedic Assessment to Enhance Your Practice.  Whitney will also be broadcasting video from his latest Orthopedic Assessment DVD right after the broadcast.

There’s no cost and you can get a certificate of completion for CE purposes (NCBTMB certificants get 1.5 CE credits).

It’s free, but you need to register now to save your place by going to this page:  www.worldmassageconference.com

Mark the time out on your calendars now.
When: Wednesday, March 24th at 9PM EST
Where: Simulcast on the web and by phone (you’ll get details sent to you after you reserve your spot)
Cost: FREE

If you’ve attended a workshop by Whitney before, you’re in for a treat. The live online broadcasts are quite incredible too.
You can submit questions for Whitney at anytime before or during the broadcast and he’ll answer as many as possible. In addition, you’ll be able to chat with Whitney personally via their online chat immediately following the presentation.

Reserve your place now by clicking this link…

If you can’t attend the live broadcast with Whitney Lowe, reserve a place anyway and you’ll get access to a recorded replay for a short while following the live event.

You can also still listen to all of the recordings from last years conference

I love reading about the history of massage. One of my most popular pages on my website is on the history of massage.  The definitive author and expert on massage is of course the late Robert Calvert.   His book The History of Massage: An Illustrated Survey from around the World
puts our profession into perspective.   I also had the chance to talk with him a few times and take a few of his lectures at conventions on the history of massage.  He graciously pointed out to me that the page on the history of massage that I have on my website (linked above) is very inaccurate.  It is a timeline history of massage that I put together from reading various sources such as massage school textbooks and other books.  Fact is that most of it is wrong!

Whenever I read that book or start thinking about the history of massage, I wonder how we have gotten so off track and so caught up in licensing and legislation and how touch has gotten to be something we pay for rather than get within our family and social circles.

One of my favorite stories of his was about Australia Aborigines who used to teach their sons massage so that they could massage their wife during labor!  Why didn’t that catch on in other countries?

Now we need licenses to touch and training and more training.

Touch is how we first learn about ourselves as newborns and even in utero.  When we are touched we feel.  When we touch we are also touched.  It is a two way sense.  We learn more about who we are through touch – where you begin and end and where another begins and ends.  It is the basis for attunement with mother as an infant which is a big part of your self esteem that you will carry with you though life.

Touch has been a part of religious rituals, healing rituals, midwifery, nursing, exercise and sensuality.  It is the most fundamental way of showing and giving care to one another.  Touch through history has a rich cultural aspect as well as the medical aspect.

My thoughts always seem to go towards the loss of cultural touch and how that may be influencing our current societies.  Everyone is rushed, stressed, texting more than talking, working on computers more than talking with others and we are losing touch with touch!

I often wonder if the massage profession would not be so large if there was more touch in families/communities.   I do think there is still a place for therapeutic massage for injuries and diseases and such but wonder if there would be less of those if children were taught massage at an early age.

How can we preserve and teach massage to women in communities and bring touch back to were it once was – in the hands of everyone.

We could use more programs like

Touch to Teach

Touch is Great

Massage for Peace

How to start a massage group at your church.

It was of course quite a year!

This website has been up since 1999 making it the oldest blog about massage I would guess.

Last year I wasn’t able to write about the new year and such with the many storms we had keeping me offline. The summer was beautiful here and I had plenty of posts to make up for my lost time.

My Yahoo Group Massage Practice Builder will be 10 years old this year. I used it at first to send out my newsletter and found my first newsletter which was sent out through my Yahoo! Group discussion group (which used to be egroups many years ago.) With over 2000 members we discuss just about anything and everything on the topic of massage business and careers.

In Feb 2009, I was writing about whether or not to start a massage business in ‘this’ economy.  The question seems to be the same for many still.  Fear is such an interesting thing.  If people wait until a better economy it won’t make much of a difference on how successful they will be.  If you are letting the economy put you in the ‘victim’ mode, then maybe a career in massage isn’t for you.  I am not saying it won’t be difficult.  Many massage therapists end up going out of business even in a good economy.

Megan Holub’s – Magic Touch : How to make $100,000 a year as a massage therapist caused quite a stir online and off.

The indeed.com forums brought out the worst of the massage profession.

The Federation of Massage State Boards keeps growing and expanding the list of states accepting the exam as licensing forcing the NCBTMB to rethink its role and offer discounts for pizza.

The Conspiracy of the Rich brought some new ways of thinking.  Creating residual income in any economy can help you to lessen the effects of any economy changes and keep your economy separate from the nations economy.  Robert Kiyosaki thinks the economy is going to get worse.  If it is true we are in for quite a ride!

The Massage Body of Knowledge Group was formed to start helping in defining the massage profession.

Sometime in the summer I released my first edition of my Ebook ‘The Massage Job Guide:  How to create or find your ideal massage job”  (or I should have called it how to find higher paying jobs)

More people are finally getting what Site Build it! is about and how to use a website to effectively market your massage business AND create residual income from your website.

What will next year bring???