5 Steps to Recession Proof Your Massage Business.
Just like everyone else these days, massage therapists are finding themselves with economic challenges in creating and maintaining a financially stable and lucrative massage business. Many are wondering if it is a good time to start or even be in business for themselves.
The time is better than ever to be starting and building a business based on values that take people into consideration first as well as the idea of making money. The basic foundation of businesses that find themselves failing has been greed and fear. While a business does need to remain financially stable to survive, having money and greed as the driving force is different from needing money to make a decent living for yourself.
After working with and watching massage therapists start and build their massage practices and being in business for over 20 years myself, I have narrowed it down to 5 things that helps keep massage therapists on track in creating a successful and rewarding massage business.
1) Create a vision for yourself. What exactly do you want to get out of your massage business? Create a vision for how many clients you work on each week, what you make each week after you create a spending plan for yourself. How much do you need to make each month/year? After you get the derails down then you can start asking yourself for what reason do you want those things. While the first answer is usually the obvious – “I need the money” – the underlying reasons are often filled with needs such as the need to be recognized, appreciated and the need to help others so that you feel good about yourself. When you can begin to understand the deeper reasons underneath why you are even doing massage, you can then learn how to get those needs met in your personal life taking the pressure off clients having to fulfill those needs. When that happens massage therapists often find that they become more effective massage therapists and building a business comes more easily.
2) Create a vision of your “Ideal Client”. You can start with any specific demographics like they live or work in the neighborhood. You can also choose a specialty if you have one – pregnancy massage, sports massage, injury massage or whatever it may be or some combination of a few specialties. When you specialize you can then create a marketing plan that is directed towards that specific population. You can also take it a step further and ask ‘What does my ideal client value and understand?”. They value their health and well being and are willing to pay for massage. They understand that they are responsible for their health and well being and are committed to doing whatever it takes to do so.
When you have a vision of your “Ideal Client” you can then create a marketing and networking plan to support your vision for your massage business. Marketing is nothing more than just telling people what it is that you do. It is letting your “Ideal Client” know what you have to offer matches their needs and wants. When you know who your ideal massage client is, marketing becomes less scary and more of just a way to let people know what you do.
3) Have a website that works. A website that works is one that gets you to the top of the search engines for your keywords ‘massage, your city’ or ‘massage, ballard’ or whatever keywords most people would use to find you. When you have a website that can do that, potential clients can find you. They are already looking for a massage therapist so you don’t have to do much selling. What you do have to do is provide enough information that they begin to trust you enough to make the call for an appointment. A website is one of the best ways to educate people as to what exactly massage can do and what you can do for them.
A website that works also provides you with additional income. You can make extra money by selling products through affiliate programs such as amazon.com. That way you don’t have to carry and products or jeopardize the therapeutic relationship by trying to sell products to clients. You can also create a niche website on a topic that you are an expert on that may or may not be related to doing massage.
4) Self Care. Massage is 10% technique and 90% about you. How you care for yourself in every way – financially, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually will influence the level of success that you will be able to achieve. Your beliefs about success and money are what create your reality. When you find yourself struggling to get by begin to wonder what must a person believe about themselves that would create that reality. Our beliefs are mostly unconscious. What tells you what your beliefs are is your feelings. Whenever you are feeling angry, sad, depressed you can know that you are buying into a false belief or an old belief that is trying to tell you that you are not good enough. Your beliefs about money are reflected in your thoughts you have when you see someone driving down the street in a Bentley or see someone living in a mansion. They are reflected in what you charge for your massage and how you create and enforce your cancellation policies. They are reflected in how you run your business.
When was the last time you had a massage and paid for it (and didn’t have to give one in return)? How you take care of your physical body is another way to show people how to take care of theirs. You can’t expect to have clients that come every week when you don’t get massage every week. Setting an example is the best form of marketing. Engaging in other activities for your physical well being such as Yoga, exercise, mediation or other things also then become emotional, mental and spiritual self care.
Massage therapists come into the massage profession for many reasons. One of the main reasons is to ‘help others’. They find themselves saying that it isn’t about the money but about helping and being rewarded for helping. While that is all well and good, helping doesn’t pay the bills or build a retirement account or put the kids through college. Looking into the deeper reasons that one becomes a massage therapist can free yourself from ‘caretaking’. (“When we caretake, we assume responsibility for our clients’ healing. When we caregive, we support clients in assuming responsibility for their own healing.” -Jack Blackburn of presencingsource.com)
Part of a good self care package also includes creating a set of policies and procedures that support your massage business. This includes setting your fees and how you follow up when you don’t get paid. It includes your cancellation and no show policies and how you enforce them. It includes how you create a therapeutic relationship with clients and create a healing container for them to support their process.
Setting and keeping your boundaries around money is just also just good self care. It is OK to charge for what you do. It is OK to raise your rates every year too. Taking the stance of “Noble Poverty” – the idea that you don’t need any money or much money when you sacrifice your time for others will leave you burned out before long. Mikelann Valterra author of “Why Women Earn Less” (could be called Why Massage Therapists Earn less !) explains noble poverty as part of the unconscious beliefs that people have about money. “They often assume that anyone who has made a lot of money must be unscrupulous, or the way in which the wealthy made their money must be unethical, or rich people in general cannot be “nice” people.”
5) Get the support that you need in the form of individual and/or group supervision, peer supervision or find a mentor that you can work with. Supervision is a fairly new concept for the massage profession. When you first hear the word supervision, your first thought is probably “I don’t want someone telling me what to do”. Supervision is actually just the opposite. It isn’t anyone telling you what to do. It is about getting the support and appreciation that you long for in your practice. It is about finding out that you are not the only one who has feelings that come up around dealing with clients who are late or don’t show up. It is finding out that others also struggle with raising their rates and running a successful massage business. It is about getting whatever support that YOU specifically need to run a successful business or be successful in a job.
When I first made the commitment to engage in regular supervision, I felt a sense of relief that I no longer had to struggle and go it alone. This sense of relief has carried over into all areas of my life.
Supervision can be helpful for whatever stage of a massage career you are in – whether you are just starting out and struggling to get clients or you are a seasoned massage therapist wanting to take your massage practice deeper or to find higher levels of success. Some reasons that massage therapists seek out supervision are:
• Feeling stressed out, burned out or frustrated with the struggles of building a practice.
• Feeling like you are always giving and giving – of your time, energy and skills- and not being fairly rewarded for doing so.
• Feeling resentful of clients or employers.
• Always struggling to make ends meet and wondering where your next client will come from and when.
• Feeling like you are the only one who can help your massage client?
• You find yourself working longer on clients thinking that will make them want to come back or tip more?
• Feeling that your work is meaningless or invaluable or ineffective.
• Not having a cancellation policy or having one but it is difficult for you to enforce.
• Find it hard to charge people who are older, really injured or in the lower income bracket your usual rates. Is it hard to charge anyone for something like massage that is so wonderful and caring?
• Do you set your rates by figuring out what you need to make each month or by what you think people would pay you?
• Just thinking that you need to take every client who calls rather than working towards having a practice full of your ideal massage client – one who values your time and efforts and respects and values their bodies enough to take care of it by getting regular massage.
• Finding you are behind in bookkeeping, billing and other important paperwork that is needed
• Do you find it exhausting to keep saying yes and feel guilty when you say no?
When you have the support that you need, you will be able to take the steps you need to get the clients and income that you need to also survive the uncertain times that are coming towards us. You will feel better about charging what you need to make to make a Great Living and upholding your policies and procedures that support a successful practice.
The more support you have, the more you are able to reach out and do what marketing and networking you need to do to run a sustainable business or one that can even flourish in a challenging economy. Professional support groups can provide the nurturing that you are looking for in your massage practice. Because we work with people who are in a vulnerable state and the current economic challenges are creating more stress and vulnerability, we owe it to our clients to get the support we need to be able to support them in their process. These stressful times seem like they were created just for the massage profession to show them our stuff!
For those massage therapists who are looking for jobs or are in massage jobs the same steps can be applied. When looking for a job it is important to create a vision of your ideal massage job and go out and find an employer that you want to work for and show them what you will do for them rather than having your job hunt be focused on what a job can do for you. So whatever your stage in starting or building a business or finding/creating a job these 5 things can help you to stay on track to creating a successful and rewarding career.
Julie Onofrio has been a massage therapist for over 20 years and is the author/creator of two websites for the massage profession: www.thebodyworker.com and www.massage-career-guides.com. She also leads supervision groups in the Seattle area, provides business consultations and is an expert at creating websites. Her massage office website is www.massageseattle.net.