The Massage Marketing Connection

An easy way to add thousands to your monthly income and serve your clients more fully!

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Adding health coaching to your massage practice is a simple and fun way to increase revenues and serve your clients more fully.

Coaching your patients is something you are probably already doing…talking to them about their health, teaching them specific things they can/should do to live healthier lives, offering advice on supplements and exercises.

Do you find there are some patients that would like to spend more time with you than you have? Are there some patients that could use more guidance but don’t know how to get it? Adding coaching to the services you offer is just another way you can help them in a more personal, in-depth way.

How difficult is it to add coaching to your portfolio of services?

Adding coaching is easy. There’s a good chance you are already coaching clients and just aren’t calling it that. Rather than offering the service without charging for it, you need to name it and charge a price for it. For example, say a patient comes in repeatedly for a sports injury – do you not help them by offering techniques to avoid the injury? You may even find yourself recommending vitamins or even shoes that can help them do their sport more safely or efficiently.

This is simply coaching – you are just not calling it that nor charging for it.

Ideas for types of coaching

Are there questions your patients consistently ask about? Opportunities for learning you see that aren’t being met? Using coaching to meet these needs is a great opportunity for you to expand your practice, make more money, and more fully meet the needs of your patients.

Let’s look at an example of how a massage therapist could add coaching to their practice:

• Offer health coaching packages individually and coach clients with specific issues: For example coaching for stress endurance. Coaching for insomnia.
• Offer weight loss coaching or physical fitness coaching.
• Rotate offering specific coaching on different topics that complement your practice such as meditation, increasing energy, relaxation.

Coaches traditionally charge anywhere from $100 up to $1,000 an hour or more. Depending on your practice and niche, I recommend starting off on the lower end and raising your rates as your coaching time fills.

Integrating coaching into your massage packages will allow you to set a price that doesn’t necessarily spell out an hourly rate. Many practitioners package their coaching with existing services to increase the value.

For example, a massage therapist could put together a package of 10 massages that normally costs $100 each. A $1000 value. For the package, they may discount the services because the patient is purchasing in bulk. Rather than discounting the price, the LMT could offer 30 minutes of one-on-one coaching, or free access to workshops or classes you do. You want to offer services that are easy to do, but add value for the patient and ultimately help them achieve their health goals.

Here’s what it ultimately looks like:

Ultimate massage therapy health package:

• 10 massages
• Five 30 minute one-on-one coaching sessions
• Develop personal health plan
• Free admittance to monthly health seminar held in office for 6 months
  Total cost: $2800

Coming up with several different packages with different price points for clients can quickly, and easily, add several thousands of dollars to your revenues and strengthen your relationship with patients.

Do you offer coaching services with in your business? Tells us about it!

About the author

Founder of A Marketing Connection and The Copywriting Institute, Kelly Robbins, MA, is a marketing coaching, award winning author, copywriter and intuitive consultant. Kelly is a blogger for both Chiropractic Economics and Massage Magazine and is the author of Marketing 101: Why Successful Alternative Healthcare Practitioners Specialize as well as co-author of The Practice Evolution Success Kit. She also publishes The Healthcare Marketing Connection, a free e-zine on healthcare marketing tips. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, “5 Critical Mistakes Healthcare Marketers Make that Lose Sales and Plummet Profits” at www.AMarketingConnection.com or 303-460-0285.

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You are creating packages and pricing for your massage therapy practice. You have services and products to sell in several prices ranges and you aren’t sure where to start.

Should you present the least expensive service first, the mid-priced product second ending with the most expensive? Or start with the mid-priced product? It seems like starting with the least expensive service first makes sense, because you don’t scare the prospect away with a high-ticket item.

But that’s NOT what you should do.

What you should do may go against what seems like common sense, but is proven to not only sell more products, but in the long-run results in clients spending more money overall.

The key to making more money overall and selling more massage therapy products and services is to sell the most expensive item first. Robert Cialdini gives an example in his book The Psychology of Persuasion of men’s clothing salesmen. If a man walks in and asks to look at suits, sweaters and other accessories you should always present him with the suit first. After deciding on a $500 suit, a $200 sweater or a $150 belt seems inexpensive and he is more likely to buy all of them.

And because he just decided on a nice suit he realizes he should have high quality accessories to go with it and is more likely to spend more.

Another example Cialdini gives is a strategy used by car salespeople. They first sell you on the price and style of the car. They make the car easy and affordable to buy. After you’ve agreed on the price and type of car, they then offer you smaller items to add on. Upgraded seats, a nice stereo system, etc. What’s a couple hundred more dollars to the $25,000 you are spending on your new car? All those accessories add to a nice chunk of profits in the end.

Offering the most expensive product first is called “the contrast principle” and automatically triggers certain responses in humans. It’s psychology.

Failing to use the contrast principle and selling the inexpensive items first will not only make the more expensive items seem and feeeeeel more expensive, but it actually causes the contrast principle to work against you – it causes the more expensive item to seem even more expensive that it actually is.

This principle works so effectively because of the mood or atmosphere created in the beginning. When used effectively the mood you create is leveraged on the secondary sales items.

Let’s take a closer look at why this principle really works so well. You can try this experiment yourself. Get three buckets and fill them with water. Fill one with hot water, one with very cold water and one with lukewarm water. Put your left hand in the hot water and your right in the cold water. After a minute or so take both hands out and place both hands in the lukewarm water at the same time.

When you feel is truly amazing! Logically you know the lukewarm water is one temperature, but both hands are experiencing something very different. The hand in the hot water feels like the water is very cold, while the other hand is feeling warmth.  Because of what they experienced before they were merged into the cold water.

What’s important to take away for your sales copy is to know what impression you want to make with your reader. Whether you want your product to seem expensive or inexpensive – the perception is influenced by what you present first.

About the author

Founder of A Marketing Connection and The Copywriting Institute, Kelly Robbins, MA, is an award winning author, copywriter and healthcare marketing coach/consultant. Kelly is a blogger for both ChiroEco and MassageMagazine and is the author of Marketing 101: Why Successful Alternative Healthcare Practitioners Specialize as well as co-author of The Practice Evolution Success Kit. She also publishes The Healthcare Marketing Connection, a free e-zine on healthcare marketing tips. Contact Kelly to receive her free report, “5 Critical Mistakes Healthcare Marketers Make that Lose Sales and Plummet Profits” at www.AMarketingConnection.com or 303-460-0285.