Make the Most of Massage

Author: Mark Liskey

  • Stalking Bernie (for Referrals)

    If you feel trapped in your massage job, you need to build a trapdoor. Start by creating an independent referral base.

    What is an Independent Referral Base?

    An independent referral base is person (persons, group) who refers massage clients directly to you. This means that you have the option to schedule and collect payment from the referrals yourself.

    Sometimes you may think that you have an independent referral base, when you actually don’t.

    Early on in my massage career I worked for a chiropractor. At first, my client base grew only because the chiro was feeding me his patients. But then some of those clients started to refer their family and friends to me.

    This was not an independent referral base because the referrals were doing business through the chiropractor, not me. And if I wanted to continue to work for the chiropractor it needed to stay that way.

    I Got the Itch

    As time went on, I got the itch to venture out on my own, but I had reservations. For one, not only would I lose my source of introductory clients if I left the chiropractor’s practice, I would also lose potential referral sources (the intro clients who continued with me and referred clients to me).

    And though I knew some of my clients (his patients) would follow me to my own practice, I wasn’t guaranteed that any of them would be referral sources.

    Because of my referral situation, I felt trapped.

    Building the Trapdoor

    Fortunately, the chiropractor’s office was in a fitness center. And since I liked working with pain and injury cases, I started to get know the personal trainers. One trainer, John, became a good referral source because he valued massage.

    One day when John was tired of hearing me gripe about my work situation, he said: “Dude, I’ll send ‘em to your apartment to get a massage.”

    It was an aha moment! I had a trapdoor.

    Target Someone

    The quickest way to create an independent referral source is to target someone. (In a good way.)

    First, identify a potential referral source that might like the type of massage you do. By the way, you don’t need to specialize in a modality to establish an independent referral base.

    Next start to build a relationship. For example, my massage fits well with chiropractic. And for 15 years, Heather, a chiro and my friend, referred her patients to me. But recently she retired.

    So I started to search the area for a chiro that didn’t have massage tied into his business. And
    I found one. Bernie.

    I have to admit that I needed to stalk…I mean be persistent with Bernie to get a return call. But after we talked, we scheduled a time where I would do demo massages on his patients. One demo lead to more demos. And soon the referral spigot was on again.

    Don’t Wait Until You Have a Place

    What if you don’t have a place to work on the referrals? Have them go to where you work until you have something set up.

    That hurts a little, I know. It feels like you’re giving your money away to your employer. But here’s what you get in return: a client.

    If you decide to go out on your own, it’s likely that the referral client will follow you. And if you decide to stay the course at work, you can have peace of mind knowing your independent referral source spigot is turned on if/whenever you are ready to see some clients on the side.

    My Crude But Effective Trapdoor

    After my aha moment with John, I started seeing the clients he referred to me in my apartment while I continued to work at the chiropractor’s office. (Jack, my cat at the time, only jumped on the table once.)

    My trapdoor was crude, but it worked. Shortly after that I opened my first office in a new fitness center where John had set up home.

    Your Trap Door

    If you’re feeling trapped, build a trapdoor. Target a potential independent referral source. Connect. Then get your hands on her/him or her/his customers/patients/clients. Show ‘em what you got. Then decide how you want to handle the referrals.

    As you’re developing your referrals source, plug it into an overall marketing plan, like this one: Massage Therapist How to Get Clients – My 6 Step Plan.

    Need More Help? Here’s a Free Course.

    If you’re just starting a massage business and aren’t making 30K a year working for yourself take this free course: Jumpstart.

    If you’re trying to take a meh massage business and make it a dream massage business, go here: Accelerator.

  • Massage Business Success Story: Fear Works

    Massage Business Success Story: Fear Works

    You’re not good at all the things needed to sustain and grow your massage business.

    Okay, that was a little rude…but it’s true, right?

    When I opened my practice I stunk at marketing and a whole lot more.

    We’re not talking character flaws here. We’re talking too many hats to wear as a business owner.

    And if you’re like me, you’re going to find ways to avoid the things you’re not good at until something really bad happens.

    Massage Business Options

    The easy fix to all of this is to hire people to do the jobs you’re under-qualified to do. But that comes with a price. Literally. Great if you can pay it. But for most, subbing out all the jobs except for actually doing the massage itself is not an option.

    But I have another solution for you. Just a warning: It’s more Judge Judy than Judge Joe Brown.

    Ready?

    Here it is:

    I’m going to scare the crap out of you.

    That way you’ll stay on track and get better at the jobs you’ve been avoiding.

    If you’re more of a carrot person than a stick person, check out this post by Michael Hyatt. It will help to keep that carrot in front of your face. (Then come back here and get a shot of fear for good measure:-)

    Let’s start with some light scaring.

    Contracting Massage Business

    The problem with being your own boss is that the consequences of your actions or inactions are not always seen right away.

    For example, imagine your massage business has slowly been contracting for the past six months. You know you should do something, but you’re not sure what to do.

    Instead of taking action you’re able to push the situation out of your mind because it’s not an emergency.

    A few more months go by and things have drastically changed for the worse. Your best client has lost his job and isn’t coming in. Now you have an emergency.

    Finally, you work on bringing more clients in, but a month of hard work only nets a handful of new massages. Yikes! You’re stuck in the precarious position of hanging on by your fingernails, hoping your marketing efforts pay off in time.

    Another Solution

    Now imagine that when you see your massage business shrinking you hire Deana to be your boss. Deana gives you instructions to build an email list with existing and new clients.

    One month goes by and Deana asks you how the email list is going.

    Well, Deana, I haven’t started it yet.

    At month 2 you give her the I had a lot of massages to do this month.

    Okay, we can all see where this headed. But before month 3 rolls around, you know you have to do something right now or you’ll be looking for another job, and that’s precisely when you jump into action.

    Think of fear as Deanna, the boss who is going ride your ass and/or fire your ass.

    The trick is to find the fear that will motivate you.

    I’ll do my best to help.

    Let the Sh**ing Begin

    The Sign Marathon

    When my wife, Lisa, and I, opened up PressurePerfect Massage, I didn’t want to put out the money for signage because we had already spent a lot on other start-up costs. Months went by before I contacted sign companies. When I finally settled on a sign company, it took them months to get our banner done and another month to get it from them.

    Since they were the worst sign company ever, I decided to make our road sign myself. You guessed it, more months for me to get that done.

    By the time all signs were up, a year plus had gone by and by my estimates we had lost over $3000 in revenue.

    The Website Debacle

    During our early years, I had avoided doing a massage business website myself because the DIY options were limited and you pretty much needed a programmer to build your website.

    Eventually, we made a massage for website barter-arrangement with our friend who was a computer programmer but who had never built a website.

    The project moved at glacial speed. We missed holiday advertising, gift certificate sales and any Internet presence for six months. We couldn’t fire our friend because we hadn’t hired her. And we couldn’t nag her to death because we might lose a friend.

    I estimate that we had lost about $2000 in revenue and 82 of my hairs (pulled out) because Lisa and I gave up control over our website construction by not hiring someone.

    By the way, do you think Deana would have fired Wifey and me? Uh-yeah.

    A SEO Seizure

    If you have trouble falling asleep, say this word Search Engine Optimiza—zzzzzzz…oh, sorry…Optimization, also known as SEO. Yeah, what a yawn.

    Years back we were ranking low in Google Places and organic searches and needed SEO big time.

    Of course, I decided to do it myself. Me actually doing it wasn’t the problem. Me starting to do it was. I dragged my feet for months because I was intimidated by the process. By the time I actually got it done, months and months had gone by where we didn’t even rank in a local search.

    There’s more…

    Remember PressurePerfect Massage with no outside signs? Well, in 2014 we had rolled Mark Liskey Massage into PressurePerfect Massage, but I didn’t redo some of the SEO to reflect the change, not out of laziness—out of ignorance. I just hadn’t dug deep enough in SEO.

    No outside sign and no web presence because the SEO wasn’t right. Can you say: trying to go out of business.

    Scared?

    Just in case you need a little more:

    Source: Frances Proctor

    Seriously, not having persistent and adequate motivation to do something you don’t want to do is a problem when you’re your own boss. Don’t let yourself get in a hole that you can’t get out of.

    This is what you can do right now:

    1. Admit that you’re not good at all the jobs you have to do in your massage business.
    2. Hire someone to do them or do them yourself.
    3. If you decide to do them yourself, do them!!!!!!

    Sit down and take the time and learn what you need to know

    1. When you detect avoidance behavior, refer back to my list to scare the poop out of yourself.

    This article can also help keep you accountable: A Business Lesson that Hurt: How Not to Fool Yourself.

    It Works

    Now, I constantly use “healthy” fear to keep me on track to getting better at the jobs that I’m not good at but need to do until I can sub those jobs out.

    If you need healthy fear, advice or more information about a challenge you have with massage, jump in my email group. Once you join, you can tell me what you need and I’ll get the right information in front of your eyeballs.

    It’s free.

    You can unsubscribe whenever you want.

    And I promise not scare you anymore.

    Sign up below:-)

  • How to Achieve Massage Business Goals

    How to Achieve Massage Business Goals

    How do you achieve your massage business goals for the year?

    Here’s a simple strategy that has worked for me: (1) Identify the one massage business goal that outweighs all other goals AND then (2) put your focus on accomplishing that goal for the year.

    Nothing like setting that bar at your ankles, Mark.

    Haha. I’d agree with you IF success was measured by simply adding up the number of goals achieved at the end of the year.

    But I think success, more specifically the feeling of being successful, is more complex than that.

    Each goal you set has a distinct emotional and psychological payoff associated with it. Some payoffs are small. Others are big.

    Get a big emotional and psychological payoff and it’s almost impossible not to feel successful.

    I was not always a one-goal proponent.

    In fact, I was a multiple goal setter for most of my 25+ year career as a massage therapist.

    And the result I’d typically get would be that I’d accomplish 3 or so dinky goals from a 10+ goal list.

    It was only in the past couple of years that I’ve gone for the mother-lode goal. And the results have been great.

    Let me explain:

    Massage Business Goals Deconstructed

    Here’s what my massage business goals list in the past years would look like:

    1. Get 2 new clients per week.
    2. Invest in 3 low cost ways to advertise, like more signage.
    3. Send a monthly email to clients.
    4. Post on my Facebook business page once a week.

    And the list would go on.

    I’d start out fine with goal #1, but as month 2 and 3 rolled around,  I’d begin to freak out because I hadn’t started the other goals.

    So, I’d pull my attention away from goal #1 to work on goals #2 and #3.

    About half way through the year I wouldn’t know what needed my attention the most because all my massage business goals seemed equally important.

    As January approached, I’d cut my losses, and go after one goal, but by that time it would be too late. And I’d have accomplished a handful of massage business goals that didn’t lead to a feeling of success.

    So, a while back I said enough.

    Pick one goal and go for it.

    But which goal?

    Hmm…they all seemed important.

    Ranking them didn’t help.

    So I asked myself this: What was the motive behind all my massage business goals?

    Answer for last year was that I wanted to make more money than the year before.

    So, “make more money than the year before” became my massage business goal in 2018.

    How I Accomplished This Goal

    The tricky but potentially liberating thing about this one goal approach is “how I’m going to  accomplish this goal” is not spelled out.

    So, for example, when I made the switch to going after one big business goal (make more money), I could’ve put more effort into low cost advertising, but I wasn’t obligated to do so because doing low cost advertising wasn’t a goal.

    This meant I had freedom to experiment.

    And checking off boxes (as in task accomplished) took a backseat to figuring out which tasks actually resulted in making more money.

    Here are the tasks that helped me make more money that year:

    1. Make myself available to do more massage.
    2. Figure out how to handle longer massage days.
    3. Answer the business phone before it goes to voicemail.
    4. Respond to new customers customers and clients quickly.
    5. Deepen relationships with referral sources.
    6. Take workers’ compensation.
    7. Focus on one office, not all three of our offices.

    You can guess by now that this is a dynamic process. Some things that I thought I needed to do, like giving equal time to all referral sources, had to be amended or deleted entirely.

    And at the end of the day, my weekly income tally told me if what I was doing was working or not.

    Making The Massage Business Goals Not Approach

    So the “make more money” goal worked for you, Mark. But will it work for me?

    Why not?

    Trust me, I’m not special.

    And here are some tips that I think could help you out with that goal:

    1. Pick a number.

    How much money do you want to make above what you made the year before?

    Be specific.

    Is it $5,000 more than last year? 10K?

    That number will help you determine how many additional massages you need to do to meet your goal.

    Or, if you have multiple streams of income through your massage business, it will help you figure out how much each income source needs to produce.

    For example, if you sell essential oils you may reach a 5K goal by adding 25 new clients and selling 20 essential oil kits to clients.

    When you have a number to shoot for you can start doing tasks to achieve that goal which leads to tip #2.

    2. Is the task you’re doing leading to more money?

    If posting weekly on your Facebook business page is not leading to more money, then try something else.

    If it is, double-down on it.

    Figuring out which task is working and which one isn’t takes time. If you want to make things go faster do this:

    3. Take shortcuts.

    I’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting already when it comes to shortcuts by creating a process for figuring out which tasks bring in more money.

    Here’s the process: Massage Marketing Tips: How to Pick the Winners.

    But what if “making more money” is not your mother-lode, massage business goal?

    Maybe having more time off from work is your biggest goal.

    My Friend’s Mother-Lode Goal

    I have a massage therapist friend who goes away (and leaves her clients behind) for 3 to 4 months of the year.

    Guess what?

    When she comes back she still has a business because she’s figured out how to keep her clients happy.

    Here’s how that works:

    1. First, she’s a good massage therapist and her clients love her.
    2. Before she goes away she refers each client to a specific massage therapist that she’s vetted and thinks would be a good fit. (I’m a beneficiary of that:-)
    3. Before she comes back, she sends each client a letter with a one-time, massage package deal, like $30 off for a massage 3-pack.

    That’s it.

    Her mother-lode goal of wanting to do her own thing for 1/3 of the year drove her to figuring  out what needed to be done.

    Getting goose bumps?

    I am.

    So much so that I have to tell you my massage business goal for 2022.

    My Goal for the New Year

    Actually, it’s not “to make more money than the year before.”

    It’s to be bolder than I was in 2021.

    In 2021, we added another wonderful massage therapist and office assistant to our PressurePerfect Massage business. We moved the business to an awesome location and grew it. That was great, but it took and continues to take a lot of time to run the business.

    This year I don’t want to be tied to the daily operations as much as I am. But here’s the thing, I’m a little bit of a control freak. Being bolder than I was in 2021 would be for me to hire people to replace me at the jobs that are not the best use of my time.

    Also in 2021, I grew my teaching reach by publishing a book, The Pain-Free Massage Therapist, and writing 8 articles. I was also interviewed on 3 podcasts and 1 YouTube channel, and I laid the groundwork (with Krista Dicks from The Radical RMT) for a Take Care of You for Massage Therapists event in 2022.

    That was bold for me (an introvert).

    But if I really want to positively impact the lives of massage therapists through my teaching, I need to be bolder and put myself out there even more.

    What does bolder in the teaching world in 2022 look life for me? I’m not sure, but the goal “to be bolder” gives me room to explore, make mistakes and then adjust.

    Okay, enough about me. Let’s get back to you.

    Think about trying this formula for success in the new year.

    Massage Business Goals NOT Formula

    1. Pick one massage business goal that motivates you.
    2. Define it and start doing tasks to accomplish it.
    3. Jettison the tasks that aren’t leading you to accomplishing your goal; double-down on the ones that are.
    4. Take advantage of shortcuts when you can.

    I’m confident that you can get that mother-lode goal for 2022.

    If you need help growing your massage business, check this out: Accelerator.

    And if you’re not in my email group, jump on in.

    I’ll send you all my latest info on making more money, building a massage practice and staying out of pain.

    It’s free and you can unsubscribe anytime.

    Sign up below:-)

  • How to Follow A Dream: Massage Bridge Business

    How to Follow A Dream: Massage Bridge Business

    Ever heard of a bridge business? (Not selling bridges; think something spanning between two things.) How about massage bridge business?

    No? I’ll explain everything in a minute. But before I do, I want to ask you another question: Is massage your dream job?

    Don’t worry no clients are looking over your shoulder. Be honest.

    If you don’t see massage as your ultimate dream job but as something that works for you now until you can become a musician, writer, artist, educator, consultant, software developer, chef, entrepreneur or whatever it is that ignites your passion, there’s something that you need to know.

    You’re more likely to get what you want if you implement a massage bridge business.

    Okay, no more suspense.

    A bridge business can be boiled down to this: a way to replace your current source of income by acquiring a money-making skill that is applicable to the industry where your dream profession/business resides.

    Forget Luck

    Hmm…that sounds like a lot of work…maybe I’ll just NOT to do that and hope that I get lucky…

    About getting luck, my plan was to use the famous novelist Kurt Vonnegut as a “luck” example and then show you how unlikely that would be now, but my plan took a twist right from the get-go.

    I thought Vonnegut was lucky because many, many years ago, I remember reading a preface to one of his books (or an interview with him, I can’t remember) where he stated that if he hadn’t met so-and-so, he’d still be selling Saabs.

    So I went to search for that information. However, I couldn’t really find any “luck” in the Vonnegut archives. Instead I found a person who worked his butt off, took advice when it came from the right person, and persisted.

    Wow, so, if Vonnegut didn’t rely on luck between 1950 and 2000 to make it, could you imagine a writer today relying on luck?

    Hardly.

    The Internet giveth writers opportunities, but the competition on the Internet taketh those opportunities away.

    In fact, the Internet makes all markets highly competitive–probably even the market your dream profession/business is in.

    Wait! There’s hope.

    The hope is you.

    And massage can help.

    The Perfectness of a Massage Bridge Business

    In a lot ways, massage is a perfect bridge business.

    For one, massage gives us schedule flexibility. Personally, I used this flexibility to become a writer, teacher, coach, business consultant, personal trainer, and business owner.

    AND massage can teach us vital business skills that we can use to go after most any dream.

    For example, Rick, an MT who comes to see me for massage, wants to be a professional musician. He puts many hours into practicing his guitar, teaching guitar and playing live whenever he can.

    But recently Rick’s dream took a hit. The band he was playing in broke up and his guitar students disappeared.

    Rick is severely bummed. And it looks like to me that he’s now just clinging onto that idea of the lucky break.

    Here’s where massage can help.

    Rick works for a massage spa chain and has only casually thought about seeing clients on his own.

    When I bring up the clients-on-the-side thing to him, he squirms. I’d bet a grand that I know one of the thoughts that’s making Rick squirm. It’s “I want to be a musician, not an MT”.

    Okay, I get that. But what if he could use massage to acquire a skill that could make him money in the music industry? Then he’s one step closer to his dream.

    Here’s what I mean. First, being able to massage a person is not a skill that transfers so well into the music industry.

    “Hey, I’ll rub your back if you produce my album…0kay, okay, how about 5 back rubs?”

    However, marketing, writing copy for ads, designing websites, promoting events, and mastering a niche social media are massage business skills that could lead to being a member of a professional band.

    I hear an objection. It’s an objection that I would’ve voiced when I was trying to break into the writing market.

    “But I need all that time to work on my craft.”

    Here’s my answer now to me then: Sorry, you’re just going to have to do both. It’ll be a little rough for a while, but there’s an endgame.

    Here’s what it could all look like:

    6 Steps to a Massage Bridge Business

    1. See (some) clients on your own.

    Rick starts to see clients on the side. He sublets a room at a chiropractor’s office on a per massage basis. So there’s no money to be paid upfront. He just pays a fee for each massage that he does.

    1. Pick one massage business skill to master.

    Rick picks one social media platform to understand. One is important because Rick is going to want to drill down and master this platform. Let’s say it’s Facebook.

    1. Learn that skill online and apply it to your business.

    Rick creates a Facebook page for his part-time massage practice and learns how to build and grow a community. By the way, there are tons of free classes on the Internet that Rick could take to help himself out.

    1. Get really good at that skill.

    As Rick starts to increase his traffic and gets people to come in for a massage via his Facebook page, he experiments with Facebook ads.

    It’s about time for another objection.

    “Wait, wait, wait, but I’m not really passionate about Facebook.”

    My answer: Good. If you half like it or don’t really like it all, then you won’t get stuck there. It’s a means to an end. It’ll make more sense with this next step.

    1. Shop that skill around within your dream job industry.

    Rick has massage clients coming in because he understands how to market with Facebook. And he now has a skill that is very valuable to bands.

    He can take that social-media marketing skill and shop it around with bands and recording studios while he’s still making money doing massage.

    Now, think of all the people in the music industry, like musicians, producers, and technicians, he’ll start to get to know. This is where stuff happens.

    1. Make connections in your dream industry.

    Rick gets paid to do Facebook marketing for a recording studio and local bands, and is able to replace his massage income. He’s also has a network of peeps in the local music industry and is in a position to form a band.

    See the dream coming together?

    Massage Bridge Business Is No Walk in the Park

    If you’re over 4o, you get that what I’m advocating is going to be hard—but I think that you’d also agree that what’s harder is waiting and hoping because that will most certainly result in a dream deferred (Langston Hughes).

    And by the way, I’m absolutely 1000% (not a typo) NOT saying that this strategy is only for MTs 40 and under.

    The massage bridge business is for my MT friend in her 60s who wants to start a massage-teacher consulting business. It’s for my MT friend in his 40s who wants to create and sell massage tools. It’s for anyone, any age, who wants to actualize a dream.

    Use Massage to Launch You

    So, if massage isn’t your dream job or if it’s only one of your dream jobs or was your dream job but not anymore, use massage to move forward. Make massage a massage bridge business.

    First, pick a massage business skill that you can get good at and then get good at it by applying it to your massage practice.

    Next, take that skill and make money using it in your dream industry.

    While you’re doing that make connections.

    If you’re bridge business or dream needs a website or a blog, I can help you with that for free.

    For a website: How to Build a Website Fast and Cheap.

    For a blog: How to Start a Blog.

    Also, if you want my latest everything, subscribe to my email group.

    No cost.

    No commitment.

    You can stop anytime. (Unlike some massage spas’ agreements. Sorry, couldn’t resist.)