Category: COVID-19 Massage Safety/Making Money

Do you need a waiting room for your massage clients now?

Nope.

Will you need one post-Covid-19?

I don’t think so.

However, my wife wants waiting rooms when things clear out with Covid. So we’ll have to fight that one out. Hmm…I wonder who’ll win?

If you’re still guessing, I’ll give you a clue: Not me (haha).

Anti-Waiting Room Mark

Why am I anti-waiting room now?

Well, I got to experience firsthand the pluses after we closed our waiting rooms down when we returned back to work.

Positive number one: I know who is in my office at all times.

Along with that I can control when a client comes in by having her wait in her car until I text her that it’s safe to come in. Psychologically that does wonders for me. I feel less rushed not having someone sitting and waiting for me.

Another benefit of not having a waiting room is that it makes the process of client check-in and check-out go faster because all of that is now done in the massage room instead of the comfy waiting room where the client is tempted to hang out.

And here’s the new bonus of not being able to use a waiting room: I can potentially recoup shutdown/reopening losses and higher operating expenses due to Covid.

In other words, I can move OR renegotiate my rent.

Yes, moving requires a lot of work and renegotiating your current rent agreement requires you putting yourself out there.

But here’s the thing, if you’re doing the same strategies you did pre-pandemic, like paying for a waiting room, you’re not going to go from surviving to thriving fast enough. In fact, you’re in for a long haul.

How do I know this?

Because my business limped through two crisises: 911 and the 2008 market crash.

Working Through a Crisis

Yes, eventually, my businesses did come back full-force after both events, but it happened at a snail’s pace because I didn’t adapt quickly enough to the new massage order.

After the crash in 2008 my massage clients who weren’t wealthy stopped coming in, leaving me with about a 30% income deficit.

You know what my response was? It was to hang in there until things got better.

And, sure enough, as the economy got better, so did my business. Bubble clients, people who could afford my massage when the economy was good, started coming in again.

But that business plan is like purchasing bonds when you’re young and can afford to be more aggressive. Low risk and low yield is what retired people do.

Survive to thrive growth is stocks. It’s what working people do.

Yes, I’m saying run your massage business as if you’re buying stocks, not bonds, but the analogy breaks down here because you don’t have to risk any money to accelerate your business growth during this Covid-19 time. You just have to invest some of your time and adjust how you think.

Ask yourself right now: Where are the opportunities in this new massage landscape?

I’ll tell you one. Back to 2008, like I had said, the crash knocked out a chunk of potential massage clients BUT it also knocked out a chunk of massage therapists. Less competition and people looking for a massage therapist because a lot of massage therapist dropped out of the game meant I had an opportunity to actually pick up clients.

Back then I got that bubble clients couldn’t afford massage. I also understood recession-proof clients still could afford massage. What I didn’t get was that there were still recession-proof clients looking for massage therapists.

By the way, if I had gone after recession-proof clients I wouldn’t have needed to spend any money on advertising.

I would have just needed to focus my energy on nurturing my current referrals sources and adding a couple of new referral sources whose clients/patients/customers were recession-proof.

During this pandemic, thinking differently than pre-pandemic is the key for not only bringing in clients, but is also the key for surviving the higher operating costs you’re incurring, and you know exactly what I’m talking about—masks, wipes, air purifiers, more sheets, more blankets and the list goes on, which brings us back to waiting rooms.

Waiting Room Bargaining Chip

We haven’t used our waiting rooms since reopening. In fact, in one office we took all the chairs out so that no one is tempted to sit down.

No one blinks an eye or objects when I say please wait in your car when you arrive until I text you to come in.

Why?

Because takeout is delivered to car windows.

Groceries are put in car trunks.

Patients sit in driver’s seats until they are texted that it’s okay to come in.

Cars are safe and guess what?

They are the new waiting rooms.

If you have a waiting room in your office space and aren’t going to use it in the foreseeable future, why are you paying for it?

Okay, you may have signed a contract pre-Covid, but here’s the thing, the world has changed. Commercial real estate is available—lots of it—and there’s wiggle room for renegotiating.

So, if you’re paying for waiting room space that you don’t use, approach your landlord about a new deal. I’m fairly sure that she doesn’t want to have another non-rented space.

If you’re on a month-to-month you have even more leverage because there’s a lot of office space on the market now.

I’m not saying Montgomery Burns this rent situation. I’m saying if you want to go from survive to thrive faster, look at every place where you can save money and accelerate your business.

Rent is one of them.

Strike a new deal.

How to Strike a New Deal

“Kisha, since re-opening my operating expenses have gone up, some clients aren’t coming in until it’s safer to do so, I can’t see my more normal client-load because of the extra time I need to put in between clients, and, frankly, I’m not sure if I’m going to be shut down again.

I’m looking to cut costs anywhere I can until we get out of the throes of this pandemic. And I’m asking for $200/month reduction through the rest of the year so that I can sustain my business?”

What if Kisha says no.

Well, you can always go back and ask for a smaller reduction in rent, AND you can always start looking for cheaper rent.

At this point, unless you already have a super-great deal, you’ll probably find something cheaper now.

Is it worth it to relocate during a pandemic?

To me, the answer depends on how much money you need to recoup. Reducing your rent by $500 a year may not be worth it. But reducing your rent by $5000 a year might be.

What if you’re just starting out or are restarting and looking for space?

Remember: It’s a renter’s market in commercial real estate.

I’m not claiming the area that I operate my business in is a microcosm of office space for massage therapists globally, but my poking around has found landlords willing to make deals. And I’ve come across very competitive square footage pricing from the get-go.

Speaking of square footage, no waiting room means less square footage to pay for.

Yes, your office could be a 10 x 10 room.

Your waiting room—the client’s car.

The bathroom—a shared bathroom between offices.

And guess what the cost of your office space is? Not much.

You can always upgrade later when the economy gets better.

Don’t Buy Bonds

So, don’t miss the opportunities that come with bad times.

It’s a renter’s market.

Think about renegotiating your current rent or relocating your office because survive-to-thrive is an active process. You need to recoup losses and build at the same time.

Recouping means you may shrink your business in some areas, like the size of your office, but absolutely does NOT mean that you’re shrinking your client list. In fact, you’re client list should be growing.

If you take a passive approach and wait for the economy to recover you’re going to really struggle. Don’t. I did in 2001 and 2008. Not this time.

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Who the hell is stupid enough to raise massage prices during the middle of a pandemic?

Yep, that would be me.

Why am I raising my rate?

The obvious answer is that operating costs have gone up. There’s PPE, HEPA air systems, more laundry, more electricity, and more time to disinfect in between clients.

The less obvious answer is that we don’t know how long we’re going to be carrying on with higher operating costs. It may even be the new norm.

But you know all that already. The part you’re concerned about is what happens when I do raise my price?

In other words, will clients start walking?

Here’s my guess: If you’re raising your rate by $5/hour, your clients are not going to walk—even during the middle of a pandemic.

How Not To Fear the Price Raise

By the way, a $5 increase doesn’t have to apply to everyone. If some of your clients are struggling now because of a work stoppage or work loss, you can always make an exception to the rule and keep those clients at your pre-pandemic rate.

And if there is someone who is completely outraged that you’re raising the price of your massage to cover increased operating costs, he can always go somewhere else, which brings me to another good reason to raise your price now: Who are they going to go to?

There’s less competition. Not only is there less competition, but from what I’ve observed there’s less availability of massage therapists in general.

Many massage therapists that I’ve talked to are not carrying a full load because they’re trying to figure out their new work rhythm.

To me, that means it’s NOT a buyer’s market in massage. It’s a seller’s market, specifically for the massage therapist who owns her own business.

But what if you’re just starting out, should you raise your price now?

Raise Your Price Advice For New Therapists

Well, do you have confidence in your work?

If not, then no. Instead of raising your price you should gain confidence by getting really consistent with nailing the appropriate pressure with each massage.

Once you do, your clients will love your massage and your confidence will soar.

If you’re just starting out and have confidence in your work, go ahead and raise your price, but you may want to offer a discount intro massage just to get the person through the door.

Here’s the strange thing about raising prices, in some ways I think it’s easier for new massage therapists to raise prices than it is for seasoned massage therapists.

How’s that?

Well, if you’ve only been with Helen for a year, she may have never told you how she scrapes together every extra penny she has to be able to afford one massage a month.

But if you’ve been with Helen for ten years, you know exactly what she does. She uses her tax refund money, cuts coupons and never goes out to eat so that she can see you for 60 minutes of feel good every first Tuesday of the month at 5 pm.

And that’s why you haven’t raised your price on Helen in ten years, right seasoned MTs?

But again, you don’t have to raise the price on Helen if you don’t want to. You make the price rule and you decide on the exceptions to rule.

Raising your price can also be cathartic if you use it to prune out your less than ideal clients.

But there’s a caveat here: If part of your objective is to prune your current base with a price raise, you need new clients coming in—the clients who are willing to pay your price.

You Must Have New Clients Coming In

Always having new clients coming in is the key to schedule control and client security.

Three weeks ago when we re-opened, I didn’t book my week solid with all the people banging at my door to get in. Like many other massage therapists I wanted to see how I was going to manage flow and operations with all the extra stuff that now needed to be done.

So, I had the instant problem of too many clients and not enough spaces open. Besides my regulars I had several new clients waiting in line to come in.

Normally, I would keep the new clients waiting, but this time I didn’t. I booked my A-list regulars (consistent repeats paying full price who I really like working with) and I put my B-list regulars (clients who change appointment times, are not fun to work with and/or pay a discounted rate) on the backburner. I then inserted new clients in the schedule gaps.

And guess what, just like before the pandemic some of the new clients are becoming regulars; however, these new clients are now at my new rate ($5/hour higher).

This gives me a good problem—less space for my B-list regulars. And when I hit the B-list regulars with the price increase, I won’t be worried if some of them walk because the new clients who I want to work with will be taking their place.

By the way, if you don’t have enough clients because you’re starting your business or have gotten used to a massage practice that is barely making it, I have a thought experiment that can help you move in the right direction to bringing in more clients.

Thought Experiment: What If I Had To Move…

Imagine that you suddenly had to move and you had no choice where you were going to move to. At this new location, you have a massage room that you rent for cheap. You are not allowed to work for anyone else as a massage therapist and you have one month to figure out how to pay rent and pay your bills doing massage in your massage room.

What would you do to bring in clients?

Here’s what I do.

I’d run a special, like a Groupon, to get fast income.

If the space came with an opportunity to put up outside signage, I would have that sign up immediately.

I’d aggressively target 2 to 3 health professionals to be primary referral sources.

I’d put up a website.

I’d claim my business on Google and build out my Google My Business page.

I’d claim my business on Yelp and build out my Yelp page.

What I like about this thought experiment is that it has built-in uncertainty, just like our current situation of working during a pandemic. And the point of it is not to cause you more stress. It’s to give you a sense of how prepared you are at bringing in new clients right now during Covid-19.

If you don’t have a punch list like I do, then you’re probably not prepared to bring in more clients now.

If you need to start thinking in a bringing-in-clients way, so that raising your price is a secure move, check out Covid -19 Massage Reopening: Rebuild with Online Reviews.

Here’s the last thing I want to say about raising your price: It won’t be psychologically uncomfortable for long.

The psychological discomfort of raising your price happens when you imagine telling your clients that you’re going from $60 to $65 OR $65 to $70 OR $75 to $80 OR $85 to $90.  

But what happens when you play out that thought?

Thought Experiment: Raise Your Price By $5/hr

See yourself doing a $5-more-an-hour-massage. Are you doing a worse job than when you were at a cheaper price?

No.

In fact, you’re probably unconsciously upping your game because you’re, well, making more money and feeling more valued. I’m not saying that you were underserving your client before the price hike. I’m saying that, in general, happier massage therapists produce better work than unhappy massage therapists who feel undervalued.

Now, let’s take this a step further.

Take that extra $5/hour and multiple that out for the week. If you do 20 massages a week that’s an extra $100 a year. If you work 50 weeks a year that’s an extra $5,000 a year.

Do you see your quality of work going down in your head?

Or is your focus on your client getting even sharper because your hourly rate is an exchange, and you’re making sure that you’re holding up your end of that exchange?

Thought Experiment: Raise Your Price Even More

For fun, imagine increasing your rate by $15/hour.

What happens in your brain now?

Sit with it.

Is your mind automatically figuring out ways to balance out the exchange. For instance, currently you may balance out the exchange by never shorting clients’ table time but as you raise your price by $15 an hour you may now see yourself responding faster to appointment requests.

There’s no right reaction to this thought experiment. It’s just a way to get you beyond the negative kneejerk reaction of raising your price so that you can potentially see how you might balance the exchange equation in your mind.

Oh, I lied. I said that I only had one more thing to say, but I have something else to say and it has to do with raising your price and attracting the client who can afford that price before something bad happens.

When we, humans, have control over the Covid-19 situation what are national economies going to look like?

If you’re in the US with me, I think it’s prudent to plan for a worst-case-scenario, like a market crash.

Who can afford massage during a crash?

Not people who can barely afford your massage now.

Again, they can be your charity cases during tough times.

Now is the time to line your schedule book with Recession/Depression proof clients. Raising your price will help you find them.

Okay, now I’m done…for now.

If you want to raise your price with me during the Covid-19 pandemic, here’s my recipe.

Raising Your Price In a Nutshell

1. Don’t focus on all current clients.

2. Prioritize your A-list clients and new clients coming in.

3. Have mechanisms in place that bring in new clients so that you can feel secure about pruning B-List clients.

Here’s my experience with raising my price:

4. If you’re not in my email group to get my weekly information that is currently focusing on “how to not die or kill anyone and make more money during Covid-19”, then join. It’s free:-) and  you can unsubscribe anytime.

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I’m just going to say this about our reopening day: Holy f***!

First, will my ears go back to normal or are Dumbo-mask-ears now part of the badge of honor for doing massage in the Covid-19 era?

Second, did I actually lose 15 pounds of water weight between my eyes and chin?

Third, clients touch a lot of sh**.  

And this one is specifically directed to my client Doug: Dude, you coughed directly on my freakin’ arm. Seriously?!

I know, I was talking big a couple of posts ago. In fact, I was sort of taking a victory lap around the track before our reopening day even happened. After all, I’ve been doing this massage thing for nearly 30 years.  

But, yeah, Mr. Veteran Massage Mark was a little shell-shocked on Reopening Day.

And it wasn’t like I hadn’t prepared myself for reopening.  

As soon as the first client arrived in the parking lot I went through my checklist.

Mask?

Check.

HEPA air filtration system on?

Check.

Windows open?

Check.

Text the client to come in.

Check.

Send client straight into the room.

Check.

Take the client’s temperature.

Check.

Client on the table with mask on.

Check.

Get less than 6 feet away from away the client, no, actually get as close as you need to get to the client’s Covid holes—all three of them!—to do your job even though you’ve stayed 6 feet apart from everyone in your life except your wife for nearly 4 months.

…

I repeat get less than 6 feet away from away the client, no, actually get as close as you need to get to the client’s Covid holes—all three of them!—to do your job even though you’ve stayed 6 feet apart from everyone in your life except your wife for nearly 4 months.

…

Hello?

Oh f***, okay, check.

This is the tough one, right?

There are solutions for Dumbo ears, like stop shrinking your cloth masks by putting them in the dryer.

Even raisin face can be addressed by putting more time in between clients so that you can walk around outside with your mask off.

But addressing prolonged potential exposure to the virus when our jobs require us to be in a massage room for 60 minutes or more is not something we can change.

Which bring us to this question: Does increased exposure to the virus increase the chances of you getting it?

According to Dr. Ananya Mandal, M.D., the answer is yes.

However, it should be pointed out that she is referring to frontline medical workers who are working with patients who are infected with Covid-19.

In theory, a massage client who may have Covid-19 will be presymptomatic (has Covid-19 and is not exhibiting symptoms yet) or is asymptomatic (has Covid-19 but symptoms never develop).

In other words, Jamal is not walking through your door and getting on your table with a fever and a dry cough.

So, from the get-go we are going to see way less people walking into our massage room infected with Covid-19 than medical workers will see.

But here’s the thing, research suggests that asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 could account for 30% to 45% of Covid-19 cases.

It’s really hard to find the asymptomatic cases if you’re doing everything right, like “screening, case investigation, contact tracing and isolation of infected persons during periods of community transmission.” (Source)

And when you’re not doing such a good job, like in the US, then we, massage therapists, have to accept the risk that the person who gets on the table could have Covid-19 and be asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic.

So, let’s play that out. An asymptomatic or presymptomatic Covid-19 walks in your door for a 60 minute massage.

Is there a greater chance of you getting Covid-19 from being in the room with that person for 60 minutes as opposed to 60 seconds?

Yes.

“A higher viral infective dose or more viruses a person comes in contact with can result in a higher risk of infection, and in some cases, the infection may be more severe compared to others,” says Dr. Mandal when talking about viral transmission.

The more severe infection part could be that more cells get infected when there’s more viruses present to infect cells.

The higher risk of infection is about probability.  

An asymptomatic client gets on your table for 60 seconds and there are 12 to 20 breaths of his viral aerosols in the air.

If that same asymptomatic client stays on your table for 60 minutes, then there are now 720 to 1200 breaths of his viral aerosols in the air.

Which air do you want to be in?

It makes sense that your chances of getting Covid-19 are higher in the 720-breath air.

The ultimate defense against exposure and transmission of Covid-19 through pre-sypmtomatic and asymptomatic people has been 100% removed because we can’t do our jobs 6 feet away from the client.

So, we need our next best line of defense: masks.

A while back two hair stylists in Sprinfield, Missouri tested positive for Covid-19 after interacting with 140 clients and 6 coworkers.

Here’s the important thing: No one they interacted with was known to get Covid-19.

How did that happen?

Most experts think it was because both the hair stylists, fellow employees and customers wore masks.

Studies seem to be supporting this conclusion.

That’s worth repeating: In the hair stylists’ impromptu experiment experts think the reason why customers and workers alike didn’t spread Covid-19 was because they were wearing masks.

There’s no other way around this: Clients must wear masks.

Admittedly, the first day I made an exception to the client mask rule because a particular client was having a hard time breathing in his cloth mask when he was face down. But that was easily remedied the next day with another client who had the same issue by providing him with a disposable mask.

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Having disposable masks assures that no one will be turned away for forgetting to bring a mask.

That said, it doesn’t necessarily help with the client who wants what he wants.

If you’re not a fan of saying no to clients, especially long-term clients who think that not wearing a mask is part of their special privilege package then you’re going to want to do this: Put up a sign in your office that states masks are manditory.

A “Masks Are Required” sign reinforces masks as the norm, not the exception. It sets the stage for compliance.

By the way, do you know what reinforces masks as the norm better than a sign?

More signs.

Put the “Masks Are Required” signs on the building’s front door, in the bathroom, down the hallway, in your waiting room, in your massage room, on your client…you get the point.

• 

Speaking of establishing new norms, we now have Covid-19 Policy Notifications form for the client to sign.

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It has a dual purpose. The client is made aware of the risks and the requirements for getting a massage now. It’s also a potential way to help protect ourselves and our business should someone accuse us of negligence.

We get this out to the client (email or text) before the client comes in to give the client time to digest the rules. If the client doesn’t want to comply, he can then contact us and cancel his appointment.

One more thing about signs—they’re cheap to do.

Ours are done with our printer on regular copy paper.

It’s probably the cheapest intervention that you can do with potentially the biggest safety bang for your buck.

So, you got the signs, you got the waiver, and you can call me to yell at (or fire) your client who refuses to wear a mask—but what about the type of mask you’re going to wear?

Here are three tips when picking a mask.

(1) Multiple layers are better than one.

(2) How well the mask seals around your face is important.

(3) Mask with valves for exhalation are not good.

This NPR article provides a comprehensive analysis for choosing a mask.

Personally, I double mask.

My first layer is a disposable mask and my second layer is a cloth mask. You might think that this would be too hot, but surprisingly it’s not AND the disposable mask feels better around my nose (makes the skin less itchy) than a cloth mask alone.

Why do I double mask?

I consider my wife, Lisa, to be high-risk because she’s a Covid-19 long hauler (someone who had Covid-19 and is still dealing with Covid issues weeks/months later).

We’re not sure if she has antibodies yet (and if she does, no one knows if antibodies equal immunity).

I’m going to do everything I can NOT to bring Covid back home.

So, yes, I will continue to keep a window open in the massage room.

I will continue to crack open the massage room door if the client is comfortable with the door being open.

I’ll continue to run the portable HEPA air purifier by the client’s head.

But most importantly, I will wear a mask and my clients will wear masks, too.

If you want to my latest info about doing massage in the Covid-19 era, sign up for my email list below.

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