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The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life is the latest book on the topic of the Law of Attraction by John Assaraf one of the authors/presenters in the Book/movie “The Secret”.

At first glance I thought this book wasn’t going to be much different from some of the things I already know and have written about for massage therapists as far as learning to build their massage practice that I have in the massage practice builder section at www.massage-career-guides.com, but as I sat down and read the whole thing in about 2 sessions I came away with some really great insights into the business world.

The first part of the book explains how our brains work and how beliefs are created in our brain that just keep replaying themselves throughout our lives. We look out into the world and make meaning about what we see through these blinders or beliefs. They create our perceptions of the world. The book says:

What we see is not based on what the eye can see but on the neurological patterning in your brain. When your perception is different from somebody else’s, the temptation is to dismiss their version as ‘wrong’. Instead ask them to show you how they see what they see…When you learn how to take somebody else’s perception and add it to yours, you significantly increase your own intelligence.

The book further points out how our we think we are so in charge of our lives with our conscious thoughts but in reality our conscious brains are really very limited in their functioning. We really only have very short term control over anything. They say that a person loses focus every 6-10 seconds. It is your unconscious brain that is much more powerful and directs most of your life. It is your unconscious mind that runs the show in every way – your habits, your accomplishments and achievements and this is where your beliefs are stored and run over and over again.

The book says:

The biggest obstacle to most people’s goals has nothing to do with any external conditions or factors. It is this: They don’t believe that it will happen or that it can be done.

Beliefs trump desires every time.

Setting goals is a function of the conscious mind. Reaching them is a function of the non-conscious mind. Setting goals is a conscious exercise; achieving goals is a spiritual and nonconscious exercise.

The book goes on to explain more about our nonconscious brain and how to change the engrained beliefs that are running the show and create your dream business.

They also say there is a ‘difference between being committed to your success and being interested in your success. If you are interested, you will do what’s convenient. If you are committed, you will do whatever it takes.”

The first thing is to find something that you are passionate about- like massage is for most. Although many are massage therapists and don’t have that driving passion. Massage school and trying to start a business or find a job also has a way of making us forget just why we wanted to become a massage therapist. Taking time to remember or figure out why you are in business and what success means to you will help you in creating your business. It is not only about why you want to be a massage therapist or have your own massage business – it is what feeling do you want to experience as a result of doing so?

When you can figure that basic piece of information out you will have your purpose for being in business which will be the foundation for you to build your business and make successful business decisions. You can set goals for your business that are in tune with your needs. Setting goals such as how much do you want to make and how many clients you want to work with each week/month can help give you the motivation you need to take action to get what you need. What amount of money do you need to make each month? One of the best things that the book mentions is about creating financial goals like this stating that ‘Trying to grow your business without a concrete number as a target is like saying you’ll meet a friend but neglecting to set a time or place for the meeting. How will either of you know where to go or when?”

I think that one of the issues for massage therapists is that many get caught up in the idea of wanting things especially money as being something they don’t want to focus on. They have some idea that money is bad or that wanting to make money for doing something so meaningful as massage somehow cheapens the massage itself. The thing is if you don’t have the money that you need to stay in business and support your self and family what good is it to anyone – your clients or your self or family.

In setting a monetary goal it is also necessary to include a picture of what that money means to you – what will it provide for you, your business and your family?

In setting your vision for your massage business you will come face to face with your beliefs about yourself and success. Whatever you have currently in your life as far as money, relationships, health, lifestyle, what you do everyday is a reflection of your beliefs or else you wouldn’t have it.

To change your beliefs you just need to track your results and be able to analyze your results in a way that you can stop living out the false beliefs. It is a matter of challenging your thoughts so that you can start providing evidence that disproves your beliefs that say that you are not worthy, you are not good enough, you are not deserving. So often when things happen in our lives we just automatically add it to the list of ‘well that proves that we are not good enough’ list rather than seeing things for what they really are.

Another part of the book goes on to develop the concept of ‘your ideal customer’ which I use and have written about in the process of building websites and a massage business. It is not only important to figure out your ideal client demographically – location, age, sex, income level, marital status, education level, status but you also need to figure out what your clients want and what you want.

Many massage therapists also make the mistake of thinking that they need to take every client that calls and every make every potential client into a client. The truth is that you can not and do not need to serve them all. In the book they say this: ” if you try to be everything to everybody, you end up being nothing to anybody.”

It is more important to serve the right customers. They will become your best way of building your massage practice. You will find that the right customers value massage and your service and more importantly your time. They will be more respectful of that and show it by showing up on time for their appointments and paying you whatever you charge. They will be the first ones to always refer new clients to you.

The rest of the book goes on to talk more about finding out the difference between what your clients needs vs what they want. People’s wants drive them to make decisions more than what they need. They may need to get regular massage to help deal with stress but what they want may be quite different.

What you charge for your massage services doesn’t matter as long as you have the value to match.  Value is all relative to what people want and need.  People are willing to pay for something that they want and/or need no matter what state the economy is in.  The best section of the book is on this topic.

When your marketing looks like everyone else’s and when people can’t really determine the true value you provide your service becomes just another massage done by another massage therapist.

In the absence of information about value, potential clients will default to the lowest price as a differentiator.  If you don’t find a way to differentiate yourself, then the only way left is to compete is price.  And if your business has gotten to a place where it can compete only on price, it is time for you to get out of business.  It has become a no-win situation for you, because there will always be someone willing to undercut your price.

OK and as I just typed that quote from the book “The Answer”, it suddenly dawned on me that this is why places like Massage Envy and other massage franchises are doing so well – because most massage therapists don’t differentiate their practice or inform clients as to how their massage practice is different from a Massage Envy massage.

Of course my favorite way and now even more important way is to write articles for your website doing just that – making you the expert massage therapist and informing people that you have the experience to deal with whatever condition or problem that they are looking to solve.

Could this be the demise of low paying and cheap massage place?