Make the Most of Massage

Category: Accelerate Massage Business (30K – 60K+)

  • How to Cure Best Massage Therapist Syndrome

    How to Cure Best Massage Therapist Syndrome

    Guess what? I’m not the best massage therapist out there.

    And I’m not greatest massage therapist that ever lived.

    Now your turn.

    Say it with me: “I’m not the best massage therapist out there. And I’m not greatest massage therapist that ever lived.”

    How do you feel?

    Like a loser?

    Or do you feel a little lighter? A little liberated?

    I’m in the liberated camp.

    In my experience, “greatest” and “best” are ideas that can stop you from taking the next business step or stop you from starting a business at all.

    Many years ago I decided I wanted to create and teach massage CE courses. It didn’t take me long to develop a course and get it accredited.

    But ask me how long it took me to start teaching it?

    Years.

    Why?

    Because I had no real teaching experience besides coaching the MTs who worked for us.

    Well, I guess a better wait until I’m a great teacher…

    Yeah, I know, not so logical. You can’t get better at something by not doing it.

    Bye-bye personal growth, time and money.

    Twenty years ago, I did the same thing with my massage business—I waited a couple of extra years to go out on my own because I had Best Massage Therapist Syndrome.

    Here’s how I handle that now.

    Best Massage Therapist Syndrome Treatment

    I remind myself that…

    1. Being the best is an imaginary state of being.

    You’re one of a bazillion massage therapists. How could you possibly know who is the best?

    And even if there was a World Massage-Off, how would you decide who won when the experience of massage itself is subjective?

    You can’t know.

    The best MT doesn’t exist. Don’t fall for the trap.

    2. “Being the best” is probably “fear of failure”.

    Did this ever happen to you? You’re jacked about finishing your website. You do a Google search and find a MT, Maggie, who has 20 years experience and is doing massage a street down from you.

    Hmm…maybe I should get a part-time job in a daycare center?

    Wait, how do you know Maggie is a good MT? Twenty years of experience doesn’t mean she’s the best MT around.

    If you fall for “the best” trap, you’ll always find someone “better” than you each and every time you’re about to put yourself out there.

    Why finish my website because Maggie’s going to get all the business?

    Why advertise as an orthopedic massage therapist because Darby’s brochure sure looks like she knows more than I do about orthopedic massage?

    And the list goes on…

    One more thing about Best Massage Therapist Syndrome:

    3. Clients don’t pick according to “the best”. They pick according to getting their needs met.

    If you don’t believe me, think about your auto mechanic. How did you pick that person?

    You probably did a Google search or got some recommendations. You may even have tried a few out before you settled on one.

    But was your goal to pick the best auto mechanic?

    No.

    You picked the mechanic who met your needs (like proximity, turn-around time, workmanship, and price).

    And once you found the mechanic that was a good fit, did you have any desire to find a better one, possibly the best one?

    Probably not.

    You’re happy with your current one. Why put the time in looking for one who might be a little better?

    The same is true with massage clients.

    Clients want a good fit. They’re not on a search for the best massage therapist in the county, country or world.

    Work to be Your Best

    So, if you reject “being the best” thinking, what should you be?

    Somewhere between subpar and mediocre.

    Joking.

    You should be the best you can be.

    And you can only be that by getting reps in.

    I got teaching reps in by having my wife, Lisa, assist me with larger classes the first year.

    They’re falling asleep. Do something different.

    As time went on, with Lisa’s help, I got better.

    Best Massage Therapist Quick-Fix

    So, do you think you have a case of Best Massage Therapist Syndrome?

    If so, remember that “the best” is an imaginary state of being.

    It could also be an excuse because you’re afraid to fail.

    And definitely don’t forget that clients pick MTs based on needs being met, not greatness.

    To move forward with your massage business, you only have to be your best.

    You do that by getting reps in.

    If you need help, get a Lisa for feedback and guidance.

    If you don’t have anyone, I’ll be happy to be your Lisa.

    Shoot me an email and let me know what’s going on.

    I’d also recommend joining my email group. It’s free and I’ll send you my latest everything to keep you moving in the right direction.

    Sign up below:-)

  • Where Do You Get Your Clients?

    Do you know how you’re getting your clients?

    It’s a simple but important question.

    I wasn’t quite sure where to put our marketing efforts because I didn’t know how our new clients heard about us. So I asked our lead therapist/manager to track that information.

    She tracked it by looking at the new client intakes to see if they filled out how they heard about us. For those that responded, she would record and report the tally to me at the end of the month.

    And boy was it an important thing to do.

    We found out that most of our new clients were coming from two sources: Google and the pharmacy where our office is in.

    Now we know where to spend our time and money, and it has paid off because I stopped spending money on the advertising that wasn’t producing for us, like Nextdoor, and I focused on the advertising that was working.

    Currently we are adding new ways to be seen in the pharmacy, like having small signs at the checkout counters and more signage throughout the store in general. We are also continuing to build our relationship with the pharmacy by doing special things for them like free chair massage events for customers and employees.

    It’s paying off. The pharmacy employees are talking us up and providing us with even more referrals. The other day, a pharmacy employee went out of her way to bring a potential customer into our office and sat with the person until I had a minute to talk to him.

    Next we expand our marketing effort with Google.

    By the way, if you don’t have enough new clients coming in to get decent tally, survey your old clients. Incentivize them by offering to put their name into a raffle for a free massage if they answer the survey. Survey Monkey has a free, online survey-template that you can use.

    Easy-peasy.

    I’ll keep you posted about our Google push.

    Have a question? Email me: mark@makethemostofmassage.com

     

  • Send Your Massage Clients Away and Make More Money

    Send Your Massage Clients Away and Make More Money

    When I first opened my massage practice, I was a strict neuromuscular massage therapy (NMT) practitioner. I believed that NMT could get any client out of pain. Period.

    Twenty years later, things have changed for one reason: I get better results for certain clients when I collaborate with and/or refer to other health professionals and experts. An added bonus to collaboration is that my massage practice grows.

    Why I Became a NMT Purist

    One of the things that drew me to neuromuscular therapy is the idea that I could resolve clients’ pain and soft tissue conditions using a “scientific” framework. (I use the quotes because NMT is actually based in theory, not hard science.)

    If a client didn’t get better, I’d go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate my course of action.

    Hmm…maybe I should I work the right longus colli 3X more than the left longus colli…

    Why I Became a Multi-Disciplinary Guy

    But often after re-evaluating, I’d find myself deeper in the rabbit hole because the new thing I had tried on the client also didn’t work.

    I wish I could say that I got out of the rabbit quickly. But it didn’t happen like that.

    The move towards the light of day was gradual and promulgated by failure, like a hammy that didn’t resolve or a neck that got worse. Eventually the failures added up to where I had to admit that my purist approach to massage wasn’t working. And, finally, I started looking for answers elsewhere.

    Losing Money in my Massage Practice—NOT

    I began to connect and collaborate with chiropractors, PTs, personal trainers, exercise physiologists, functional exercise therapists, orthopedists, podiatrists, acupuncturists, and sports coaches.

    On a whole, my more challenging clients improved when I took a multi-disciplinary approach and collaborated or referred out to other health professionals and experts.

    From a business standpoint, this sometimes meant I lost clients because they started to go to someone who could help them better than I could.

    But, interestingly, this didn’t mean I lost money.

    Why?

    Some of those practitioners who I referred clients to, referred clients back to me. In addition, those practitioners indirectly or directly connected me to other health practitioners and my referral network grew.

    And there’s more…

    The more I collaborated with other health practitioners in my referral network, the more they connected “massage” as a component of care for their own patients/clients/athletes and “Mark” as the person who should be doing the job.

    The Long and Short Roads

    If you want to start or expand your referral network there’s a long and short way to do this.

    The long way is to let the system grow naturally without a plan.

    The shortcut is to narrow your focus and build connections within a niche market.

    A niche market can be defined as a group of potential customers who have specific characteristics and a common need.

    Anyone who goes to the gym and works out is a general market. Crossfit is niche market.

    A niche market makes the world smaller. That means your name will spreader faster than if you were trying to make connections in a big market.

    Referral Network Shortcut for Your Massage Practice

    Here’s my referral network shortcut recipe:

    1. Develop a niche market.

    Here’s how you do that: A Niche Market = More Clients.

    1. From that niche, connect with other health practitioners who will collaborate with you to help your clients in that niche.

    Here’s what I did: Start a Massage Business: Connect with the Right Physical Therapist

    1. Promote yourself by being accessible and demonstrating value.

    I’m a big fan of demonstrating value through demo massages: How to Grow Your Massage Business With $0.

    Not a Huge, Hairy Deal

    If this is starting to feel like a big, hairy deal, let’s back up.

    When I couldn’t help certain clients, I reached out to other health practitioners and experts. They started to refer back to me. And my network of health practitioners and experts grew.

    Then I focused on helping clients in a niche market and in-coming referrals really took off.

    This showed me that if I focused on a niche market, I could really increase the number of referrals coming my way.

    Here’s what you need to do to grow your massage practice with a referral network:

    1. Pick a niche market,
    2. Connect with other experts servicing that niche market,
    3. Promote yourself by being accessible and demonstrating your value.

    P.S. It works. If you follow these steps you’ll serve your clients better and your massage practice will grow. And if you need more guidance, sign up for my email group. I’ll let you know when new articles, tutorials, downloads and videos are out. The subscription is free and you can unsubscribe anytime.

  • The Boss Trap

    Recently my wife, Lisa, and I helped organize vegan restaurant week in our town. We had to talk to a lot of restaurant owners and in the process we became more familiar with their business operations. One restaurant owner, Billy, was struggling to get everything together for us. Like many small business owners, he was operating short-staffed and he was wearing many hats.

    Billy hadn’t thought through the payment/reservation process for the event. He wanted people to make reservations and pay for his special dinner on his Facebook page, but there were a lot of variables that had to be factored in. For example, the special dinner was running on multiple days and for long periods of time that weren’t necessarily the same time length on each day.

    I had suggested just taking the reservations and credit card payment over the phone, but he didn’t want to do that.  So, Billy, with very limited experience on Facebook, went ahead with setting up payment and scheduling on Facebook. When he finished, his Facebook page looked like a car with way too many bumper stickers on it, and his checkout wouldn’t allow someone to make more than one seat reservation.

    Okay, now would he be willing to take reservations over the phone?

    Yes, but his business answering machine didn’t work anymore. Customers had told him that before, but he never fixed it.

    Okay, could he fix the answering machine?

    Actually, no, he was on vacation and wouldn’t be able to address that issue for a couple of days.

    His solution: It will wait until I get back.

    Wait ‘til the boss hears about that!

    Yeah, about that boss….

    Welcome to the boss trap. When you work for you yourself, you are the final decision maker and you’re not accountable to anyone else except yourself.

    From a “how you want to live your life” standpoint, that’s great. You don’t have anyone breathing done your neck. You can live life on your terms and mitigate your stress. On the flipside, if you’re only listening to yourself, don’t complain if your business is not all you want it to be or you feel stuck.

    By the way, I am the poster child for the boss trap.

    A small explosion goes off in my head every time I’m involved in a group project and I have to listen to other peoples’ opinions. To be honest, I don’t think it’s about me wanting to boss other people around. In fact, I want them to go away. It’s more about me not having the final say and not wanting to be told what to do.

    “I am the boss of me” is my boss trap.

    Regardless, the boss trap has hampered my business progress throughout my life. Here’s a simple example: The scheduling system that we were using was glitch-y and wouldn’t let us adjust the time in between clients for each massage therapist.

    We needed to look for a new system. So, initially, boss Mark…

    (a) started a spreadsheet where he compared scheduling systems

    (b) called scheduling systems when he had questions about their features

    (c) Both a and b.

    (d) avoided the decision by finding something else to do.

    Yep, it was “d”. As soon as I saw that the process of picking a new scheduling system was going to be a big, hairy deal, I was out. And who was going to stop me or say anything. That would be nobody since I was the boss.

    Here are other times in my massage career where I got caught in the boss trap:

    • It took me over a year to put up our marquee sign at our one office. I was afraid I was going to mess it up and have to pay for a new one, so I avoided putting it up. The sign brought in about one client per week. That’s a $3000 to $5000 missed opportunity.
    • I had a friend do our business website in exchange for massage. That took about a year to get done because she was busy and I didn’t want to bother her. Not sure how to measure that lost revenue.
    • Before that I had a client build my neuromuscular massage website in exchange for massage. That was a two year project that never got done because I avoided confrontation. I measure that one not in terms of financial loss but in terms of hair pulled out.

    But things changed for me when we hired a great massage therapist, Sarah. Sarah had worked in the corporate world for 10 years, and it quickly became apparent that she had business skills that could be utilized in our business. So it was a no-brainer to get Sarah involved with the operations of the business. When she did, we started to get more traction.

    Why did we get more traction?

    Let’s circle back to the scheduler. I had brought Sarah in on the scheduler project. So, initially with the scheduler, I did my typical boss trap behavior and avoided rolling up my sleeves to reach a decision. But it didn’t take me too long to realize that I would soon have to explain to Sarah why I’m not moving forward on a decision. Both Sarah and I were invested in this process. Now I had some accountability.

    F***.

    So, the next thing I did was to…

    (a) avoid Sarah

    (b) take a vacation

    (c) bitch and moan

    (d) put on my big boy pants and work towards a decision

    Okay, so it was “c” and “d”, but the point is that I knew it needed to be done and that I was the hold up. Sarah was testing out the systems I was asking her to test out, but I wasn’t putting everything together and narrowing the field.

    I jumped back in and we now have a scheduling system that meets the business’s needs.

    It’s really hard to get out of the boss trap because it’s complicated. You’re a boss of yourself for a lot of reasons. And in Billy’s case, it’s mainly about creating a business that is basically about him. I don’t think he wants to get out of the boss trap—and that’s fine—but when shit blows up in his face, he shouldn’t look surprised. And since we now know that we’re dealing with someone in the boss trap, at next year’s event, we will limit Billy’s involvement to what we know he can manage.

    So are you in the boss trap?

    You can get out.

    Start by leaving a comment below or shooting me an email:-)