As a massage therapist you have the choice of going to work for someplace like a day spa, chiropractic clinic or other facility or starting your own massage business.
Both have their pluses and minuses. What is right for you depends on your own needs and abilities and belief in yourself.
Massage therapists are being hired by so many different massage employers – dentists, hospitals, chiropractors, physical therapists, doctors, chair or corporate massage centers, franchises like Massage Envy and the 13,757 spas in the United States (as reported by ABMP).
Jobs in the massage therapy profession tend to be entry level positions that require long hours, low pay, poor or no benefits. Massage employees may be required to do other things like cleaning, inventory or other things and often have an even lower rate of pay when doing these tasks. Massage employees may be required to work evenings and weekends. They are also required to do back to back massages without a break in between sessions.
The benefit of being an employee is that you do not have the risk of being in business or the overhead expenses of running a massage business.
Starting a massage business does have some risks and challenges like having to pay the monthly rent and other office expenses along with just the expenses of setting up a massage office. Massage businesses can actually be set up with a very limited budget and office space is usually reasonably priced. You also have other options like sharing an office with other massage therapists to reduce share your expenses.
The ongoing concern is of a massage business owner is that of getting clients and keeping clients which also would be a concern of a good massage employee working for someone.
There are some basic costs of getting clients such as having a website, business cards and business support materials. From what I have seen advertising is really a waste of money as it really requires that you constantly advertise. Just putting one in ad in a local newspaper once really does little. What is required to build a massage business is the ability to communicate what it is that you do. The idea that is takes a long time to build a massage practice is really just a belief that seems to be handed down by the profession itself. If you think that is true, than it will take a long time to build a practice.
Starting out as an employee is also a good way to learn the business aspects of the profession and also get lots of hands on experience. It is possible to find good ($35-$50 an hour) massage jobs. The problem is the as I said before there are many low paying ones too and many people are flocking to these places and accepting jobs at lower rates. This really is teaching the massage employers how to treat us. They will continue to pay low hourly wages as long as there are massage therapists out there who will take those jobs. When people who take those jobs find out that they are not being paid what they are worth or being recognized for what they do, some massage therapists will start thinking that the massage profession needs a union to speak up for them. Unions have been talked about at various times in many online discussion groups but no one really seems to do anything about it. What I think needs to be done it to just teach massage therapists how to stand up for themselves more and help them develop the self-confidence they need to create their own higher paying jobs – in other words start taking responsibility for yourself. This is can be done through the process of peer supervision and mentoring.
So is it better to work for someone else or start your own business? It depends on what you currently need, what you are willing to put up with, your perspective on working for others and your commitment to whatever choice you make.
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There are lots of effective advertising methods other than traditional (newspaper ads etc) that bring in clients at low cost…especially if you have a website.
Many of the so-called spa’s are nothing, but a spa in name. Many use that title to try to make the experience something more..
Many spa’s don’t have to charge more for one reason. there is a new crop of freshly minted massage therapists ready to replace those who ask for more money. It should be a goal of all massage therapists in private practice to educate clients of the benefits they get from receiving massage from someone who is skilled and has been doing massage for several years or in my case 20+ years as a male massage therapist.
I found for myself that unless you write your Yellow Page Ad speaking about specific benefits of your massage, instead of trying to impress people with your techniques, the only calls you get is from other therapists wanting to know your rates.. Never ever compete on price or you will be just another Kmart in a sea of Wal-Marts
For the most part, traditional advertising is a waste, except for maybe an ad in a very focused health/fitness publication for the local area. Even that will provide a fair or bleak return.
Yellow page ads are by far the most productive, but cost a good deal of money, and once your contracted with the yellow pages, you are going to pay the monthly fee for the year! Even with the high productivity of Yellow Pages ads, be prepared for some really strange phone calls, not too mention plenty of people who’ll call just to check on price. Not my definition of my ideal client.
Word of mouth and websites have produced my best ideal clients. Plus with websites, you can monetize it to make additional income on the side so you don’t have to make it all by massage.
Advertising is a good thing- Ive worked in spas hotels and and a hospital- and started a private practice in two cities as well. Ive gone long periods without advertising and advertise now when the season or week slows down. Its not whether to advertise- its having a strategy about it and being able to write effective ad copy.
A good ad strategy with net over 100% ROI- (and thats not neccesarily counting repeat business generated from an ad). I dont need to advertise now- but I still do- its free money so why not? And dont forget – ads arent just classified newspapers- youre only limited by your creativity.
Insofar as salaries are concerned. Ive seen a lot of variety as well. A Therapist is either very young or desperate or shortsighted who takes a job for less than 45 gross (in a city) or 30 gross (small town) You have to net enough to account for down time and rest time.
Im currently renting space in a private practice- my money didnt go up when I left the dayspas- my work got cut in half and the money is roughly the same- but I have more hours for other types of employment.
25-45 a year is my guestimation for a therapists salary if all you are doing is table work and no retail/teaching.
I don’t think advertising is worth the money. If you want to advertise it takes putting an ad in every week for a few years to have it really be productive.
There are much better ways of promoting yourself and networking to build a massage business.
The rates of pay do have a lot to do with the self esteem of the massage therapist that accepts those wages and then complains that they have to work so hard for such little pay. That’s the whole thing – the whole perception that there aren’t any jobs out there that will pay more. You have to create them and stop complaining that there aren’t any out there. They are out there if you are willing to put the effort into doing whatever it takes to get there and that may or may not include working for 2 years at $12-15 an hour at a Massage Envy to learn how to be a better therapist.
I also write for people who are considering a career in massage and don’t know what to expect.
Please do share any other things that you feel are more important to talk about…
Julie
I don’t know how you expect to be taken seriously when you tell people not to advertise. I thought you were some big massage business guru.
The actual average wage of a massage therapist is $14-16 an hour or so. This has nothing to do with the self-esteem of massage therapists; there is a lot of overhead involved with running a business with employees (such as the admin staff, who don’t generate any income from services.) There are not that many jobs at there at all that pay $35-50 an hour, and the ones I’ve seen that are $25-35 (I’ve never seen over $40) tend to require at least two years of experience.
Also, this article has no new points to the self-employment/employee decision. It would help massage therapists more to talk about things that haven’t been beaten to death already.