Massage Practice Builder

An important part of being successful in the massage profession is your perception of the money that you pay out for various services - are they a expense or an investment in your massage business?  So many massage therapists seem to want to skimp on paying for things that are essential in building a business.  Something as simple as your own phone line instead of using your personal cell phone can go a long way in creating an image for yourself.  They don’t want to spend money on classes or their website and try to get away with just getting whatever is the cheapest.  I can understand not wanting to spend money when you don’t have it and that brings up a whole other can of worms in why don’t you have the money that you need to invest in and create your ideal massage business but just changing your thinking from one of the money going out as being an expense to the idea that the money going out is an investment in yourself and your business can go a long way in creating your massage business.  The idea that money going out is just an expense is also a great reflection of your beliefs about money.

Each year about this time I start creating my spending plan for the next year.  I create a plan rather than a budget.  I plan on what I am going to need and then figure out how to get what I need.  If you just start out without knowing how much you need to make, how will you know what it is you need to do to make that happen?  I allow for a massage each week, two vacations away somewhere, a class or two, my website for my massage business and a few new ones to develop new ideas with and the usual costs of doing business - phone, rent, business cards, any other marketing things, taxes, savings and retirement savings.  Even these things are an investment in your massage business.

When you invest in your massage business, you are saying that your business has value and meaning to you.  You are willing to put money and time into it and know that the returns will make it worth it.  Having faith in these challenging times is challenging in itself.  Often when you are starting out it is important to just take little steps and make little investments in your business and see how they work out so that you can build faith in yourself.  And if they don’t work out that doesn’t mean that they don’t work as in just creating a one page website without doing any optimizations or reading about creating websites.  This is where the faith comes in that will help you stay with the process of creating a website that works for your business or doing whatever it takes to get the clients you need in the door.  ( I always just talk about websites because they are what saved me from having to go out there and market myself and do those ’sales related’ things that I hate to do and I also make most of my living now just from my two websites - www.massage-career-guides.com and www.thebodyworker.com alone.)

Here is my list of essential investments in your massage business:

1. A website that works- one that gets you a steady flow of new clients and makes you money as you do massage
2. Business cards that are printed professionally that have the necessary information on them to contact you.
3. A separate phone line to keep your business and personal life separate.
4. A financial counselor to help you create and manage a spending plan for your business.
5. A class each year to inspire and support you
6. Regular supervision sessions with a more experienced massage therapist or counselor to help you create professional boundaries and enforce them in difficult situations
7. Regular in depth counseling to help you become more aware and do your own personal growth work.

Investing in your massage business is just part of good self care. What do you invest in for your massage business?  What would you like to invest in to add to your massage business?

Building Your Ideal Massage Practice starts with first creating a vision for yourself and your massage business.  Since massage is such a personal business it also helps to have your vision be compatible with your personal vision for yourself and your life.  A fun way to create and develop your vision is to create a “Mind Movie” for yourself.

Your vision will of course evolve as you do.  Start with thinking big!  What do you want for yourself from your business?   How many clients a week do you want to be seeing?  What kind of office do you want?  Do you want to share space or even rent space out to others?  Do you want to work alone or have others who can be a support network?  Do you want to be close to home or in a busy or quiet section of town?  What types of clients do you want to work with?  Start with describing the type of work - like working with pregnant women, elderly, athletes or some specific population.  If you can’t narrow it down - don’t worry.  You can develop that as you go when you start working with some so that you can learn more about what you like and don’t like.  Most importantly though your ideal massage practice will include clients who value their health and their well being and are willing to pay for services that support that personal value.  (more on this later!)

Learning everything you can about marketing and business is also necessary to build your ideal massage practice.  Most massage schools have a few hours or maybe even a weekend on this.  I usually tell people right out of high school to get a degree in business or marketing before going to massage school!   It is a constant learning process - something that you can do everyday.  There are many resources and support groups out there to help you along the way.

Another thing you can do is take the time to plan for your business and create a business plan and marketing guide.  This also includes creating a website for your massage practice.  I am sort of a website junkie as you may be able to tell.  In today’s world with all of the economic challenges having a website can help you get a regular stream of new clients.  People are looking for information online.  With a website you can give them more information than they ever dreamed of and become the expert in your area.  When people find your site by searching for “massage, your city” they start out without having to be ’sold’ on the idea of massage.  They are already looking for it - but not necessarily you!  With a website you can tell them why YOU! are what they are looking for.  There is a lot to creating a website like this but I have it all outlined on my website www.thebodyworker.com 

The process of doing all of the things and learning all of the things that you need to know to create a successful practice can be very overwhelming.  To make the journey lighter one of the best things you can do is to get support for yourself.  When you work on yourself and get the support you need to uncover your unconscious beliefs about yourself that are holding you back you increase your chances of success.  Participate in online discussion groups.   Start or join your own peer supervision group. (Peer Supervision is a fairly new concept for the massage profession but a much needed one!)

I’ll be writing more about it here.  When I started my own peer supervision group about 6 years ago, it is then when all of my websites and writings and massage practice started to really come together.

So what is your biggest challenge in creating your ideal massage practice?  Posting questions on blogs like this can also help with getting traffic to your website - not that potential clients will find you from this link - but search engines love to see links to your website.  It makes them think that you are popular so they give you better page rankings.)