Make the Most of Massage

Category: Start/Grow Massage Business (0 – 30K)

  • How to Make Pressure Work For You

    How to Make Pressure Work For You

    I’m 100% on my own when it comes to making money in my massage practice or any other business that I have.

    That means I have to sell, produce and deliver to eat.

    No one gives me sick days or vacation days.

    No one pays for my insurance.

    Without me it all falls down.

    And, yes, I wear Depends.

    Okay, so I don’t where Depends, but the pressure of working for myself sometimes makes me feel like I need them.

    But there’s a good side to pressure, too.

    Pressure forces me to figure things out.

    Here’s what I mean.

    Pressure and Having a Massage Practice

    Say you take the leap and go out on your own.

    Okay, now you have the cost of rent, equipment and supplies.

    Someone (you) just lit a Bunsen burner under your butt.

    And there’s a good side here to pressure, Mark?

    Maybe not at first, but as you start to figure things out, the bad pressure stops feeling bad.

    “Figuring things out” is not a metaphor.

    It’s the constructive things you do to help you accomplish a goal or succeed.

    “Figuring things out” is not magic.

    It’s accomplished through trial and error.

    And I’ve done my share of error.

    The business my wife, Lisa, and I started a few years ago, PressurePerfect, had a rough start.

    I had completely miscalculated how I was going to bring in new clients. And we weren’t making enough money.

    You could say my butt was getting well-done and I was about to turn off the gas to the Bunsen burner (close shop) until I finally threw myself into something I hated—marketing.

    Eventually, I discovered a way to market that was cheap and fit my personality.

    The Bunsen burner was not on high anymore.

    And the pressure was good (manageable).

    Pressure = Massage Practice Success

    Was the stress from the pressure of a failing business worth it?

    Yep.

    Here’s why. That pressure drove me to grow PressurePerfect at that one location.

    Now, the pressure of having to do all the administrative, facilities and marketing jobs myself is now driving me to grow PressurePerfect in a different way where Mark has less to do.

    Bad and Good Pressure Come Together

    I wish I could just kick bad pressure to the curb.

    But it doesn’t work like that for me.

    Let’s say I want something.

    Like more money.

    So, then I do something to get more money, like demo massages.

    Demo massages trash my schedule and create bad pressure.

    I run around like crazy for a few months—and fight with our cats.

    But I know how to use demo massage as a marketing tool and in a few months, my weekly income bumps up.

    And the pressure feels less sucky.

    But being over-committed is still excessive pressure. So then I figure out how to put my demo massages on maintenance mode without losing any referrals.

    Bad pressure is now good.

    So to me, getting to good is a process.

    Without the sucky pressure part, I wouldn’t be motivated to figure things out.

    Make Pressure Work for Starting Your Massage Practice

    If you’re thinking about starting a massage practice and have done your homework (like you have a plan to get clients), don’t let pressure scare you away.

    Let the Bunsen burner do it’s job and embrace the bad feeling of pressure.

    But know it will turn to good pressure once you make adjustments to lessen the intensity of the pressure as you achieve or after you achieve your goal.

    Need help with paying that rent? Here’s how I bring in more clients: Massage Marketing Tips: How to Pick the Winners.

    P.S. I have an email group.

    It’s free and I send you my latest info about making more money, building a massage practice and staying out of pain.

    Sign up below:-)

  • Hit Your Massage Number

    This post was going to be called How to Hit Your Massage Number.

    But I didn’t go with that title because before the how there needs to be a why.

    And that why needs to be compelling for one simple reason: If you stay connected with the why (the need to hit your number) then, more than likely, you’re going to hit your number.

    Let me explain.

    Hitting Your Massage Number

    First, by hitting your number I mean that you achieve the weekly number of massages you set as a goal.

    If you were in sales hitting your number would be straightforward.

    Your sales goal number would be put on a board or entered in a spreadsheet and you’d work to accomplish that goal.

    Pressure’s on.

    But you’re not a salesperson.

    There’s no sales board.

    There’s no spreadsheet.

    There’s no one there telling you to hit your number besides you—which makes it easy to lose sight of the need to hit your number.

    I get that.

    For a chunk of my massage career I wasn’t hitting my number.

    And I addressed the problem by lowering my number.

    That’s one way to hit your number, right?

    But not a good way because as I adjusted my number down, my income went down, too. And I struggled to make it as a massage therapist.

    Eventually, I became determined to hit my original number.

    And I did.

    Then I raised my number

    And I hit that number, too.

    Motivation Behind Determination

    So, just get determined and everything will work out, Mark?

    No.

    You have to be determined, but we all know determination is not as simple as flipping on a switch.

    Here’s what made me persistent in working towards hitting my number: Utter desperation.

    At the lowest point in my massage career I either needed to hit my number and climb out of a financial hole or find another career.

    That was a significant fire under my butt.

    What’s your fire?

    If you’ve been at massage for a few years and are barely making it, I’m going to give you some preemptive desperation (motivation) by telling you what’s ahead: More floundering until you quit.

    I’m such a nice guy…

    Seriously, I’m not trying to upset you.

    I’m just trying to light a controlled burn under your butt so that you don’t end up as desperate as I was.

    My How to Hit Your Massage Number Formula

    So, embrace the reality that you have to hit your number.

    Then define that number.

    How much do you need to make each work week this year? The following year?

    Next, implement basic marketing strategies, like the ones you can find in my free Jumpstart course.

    Stick with the plan for 6 months.

    Tweak it if you need to.

    Hit your number.

    Enjoy the success:-)

    P.S. Want my latest info? (It’s free.) Sign up here:

  • You Have to Sell (Sorry…)

    You Have to Sell (Sorry…)

    You have to sell—especially if you’re going to work for yourself.  But, if you’re like me, selling is a gigantic mountain to climb. For one, I hate, hate, hate sales scripts, strategies and formulas.

    Sales, to me, is not a game where the customer is prey. A customer is a human being who deserves honesty and respect. That said, I finally found a way to sell where I don’t feel like I need to take a shower afterwards.

    To Sell Is Human

    I don’t think selling is simple. Throughout my life, I’ve failed a bazillion-ish or so times to be comfortable with selling.

    Then, after reading To Sell is Human, I finally got that practically everything we do in life has some sales in it. We sell, even if we don’t think we’re sales people.

    When I want my wife, Lisa, to go to out dinner with me, I start off by telling her about the lousy meal I’m planning to make because I’m tired and not willing to put a lot of (any) effort into it.

    That’s pretty persuasive.

    A problem arises when persuasion moves into manipulation or outward lying. Far too many sales scripts and marketing tactics fall into these categories.

    The good news is that you don’t have to trick, wear down, or lie to somebody to make a sale. Instead, you can use gentle persuasion. Some people call this soft selling.

    Here are 3 musts (for me) to soft sell effectively:

    1. Believe in what you’re selling.

    I can’t sell something that I don’t believe in. Period. Oh, I’ve tried and it’s always been a huge disaster. For instance, in my twenties a naturopath wanted me to sell an herbal drink that he sold. Worse, he wanted me to sell it to my family and friends.

    One day in his office, he was going to “help” me sell. He asked me to pick up the phone and call someone that I thought could benefit from using the product. I literally stared at the phone for 5 minutes—and then never made a call.

    Here’s why I stared at the phone: Though the naturopath was convinced the product worked, I wasn’t. The evidence was purely anecdotal, and the supplement was expensive.

    Here’s another example. Once I worked as a director at a massage spa. The job was actually about sales, not management. The owner wanted me to memorize their product line so that I could sell the products. This one particular pain relief ointment had zero science behind it and she wanted me to sell it as if it were proven to be effective.

    I never memorized the sales script, never sold the product and soon after tendered my resignation.

    Do yourself a favor, if you’re have a soft-sell personality, don’t try to talk yourself into selling something you question, don’t believe in, or don’t use. For example, don’t sell essential oils to clients if you don’t use them yourself. It’s a waste of time and will cause you a lot of anxiety.

    2. Show them why they want to buy from you.

    Selling doesn’t have to be direct, like: “Would you like to come back for a massage?” In fact, some of the most powerful persuasion comes from action, not words.

    With massage, you can take action by showing that you care.

    Doing a wrap-up after the massage demonstrates care. Grab an anatomy text book or pull up pics of muscles on your cell and let the client know which muscles you’ve worked and how you worked them. Tell her what you plan on working next time and then touch base with her in a couple of days to see how she’s doing.

    Also, if you’re treating your client for a particular condition and she is seeing another health practitioner, like a chiropractor, physical therapist or acupuncturist, for the same condition, ask the client if you can coordinate care with the other health practitioner. Not only will this enhance your treatment plan it will further demonstrate to the client that you care. By the way, coordinating can lead to referrals—a lot of them.

    That’s a whole lot of persuasion that you’re providing without every saying “When would you like me to schedule your next appointment?”

    3. Give yourself a break.

    You’re not going to love your work all the time. That’s just the way life is so don’t beat yourself up if on a bad day you feel disingenuous because you’ve depleted your reserve of empathy.

    Remember, your sales system is built around care. And that is 100% congruent with who you are. So plug into that system even if you feel like you’re going through the motions. Do the post-massage wrap-up or whatever it is that shows that you care about your client.

    In other words, FAKE IT! The love will come back at some point and in your heart you know that you do care, just not right now so much.

    Soft Sell Your Way to a Dream Business

    If you hate hard selling, soft selling is a legitimate and effective way to sell. Start by only selling what you can get behind. Then show the customer why they want to buy from you.

    Providing above-and-beyond care is a great way to show the client you’re going the extra mile. And demonstrating care is a natural for a lot of MTs.

    Make care a process in your practice. One way to make it a process is to have wrap-up time after the massage. Let the care flow. Report findings. Talk about what you did and what you think might be helpful in the future (massage or not-massage related). Follow up in a few days.

    Don’t forget to coordinate care with other health practitioners whenever possible. It’s good for your client and good for your business to connect with other health practitioners who could turn into referral sources.

    If you’re not feeling the passion for the job, give yourself a break. You’ll feel it again soon, especially if you’ve built your practice (and your sales system) around the concept of caring for your client.

    I Can Help You Build Your Massage Business

    Creating the massage business that you want is less complicated when you understand who you are and how “who you are” fits into how you sell.

    If you’re a soft-seller, like me, and are just starting out or are not making 30K on your own, I have a free program for you: Jumpstart.

    If you are ready to take your business to the next level (60K+) and click here Accelerator.

    You can also email me at mark@makethemostofmassage.com if you would like to talk about coaching.

     

  • How to NOT Discount Your Massage Rate

    How to NOT Discount Your Massage Rate

    Early in my massage career some customers worked me over, and I dropped my massage rate for them.

    My guess is that a big part of me discounting my massage rate came from a lack of confidence.

    You may feel the same way if you’re a compulsive massage rate discounter, too.

    But I’m going to sidestep the lack of confidence thing right now.

    Why?

    Well, for one you’ll get the bends taking that deep of a dive into the recesses of your psychology without some professional help.

    And we’ve only got another 1,000 words or so to get you to toughen up on your price.

    So, here’s how I’m going to sidestep self-confidence: We’re going to look at confidence as a situational phenomenon.

    Sometimes you have it and sometimes you don’t.

    You have a great day at work. You rock as an MT, right?

    Have a bad day and you’re thinking about a career change.

    You can’t count on confidence to get you through being firm with your price.

    So let’s attach our thinking to something more permanent, like a plan you refer to when you start to feel yourself giving in.

    My plan has these layers:

    1. Truth
    2. Lies
    3. More lies

    First, before I get into the truth layer, I’m not saying don’t ever slide on your price.

    Little old men and ladies, people who you feel compassion for because they’re in pain and you want to help them, family and business connections—these are ones you may want to slide on.

    I’m saying create a strong, firm-price habit so that your default position is “firm price” which will allow you to fight off the bargain shoppers and pushy people.

    Believe me, it’s waaay harder (if not impossible) to start with a wishy washy price-mindset and move to a firm price-mindset during the course of a conversation.

    Onto the truth layer of sticking to your massage rate.

    Layer #1: Truth

    Start creating a firm price habit by making sure that viewers can see your prices on your website.

    No writing prices in 8pt font at the bottom of your Services page.

    By making your price very visible on your website, you’re doing all the firm-price work upfront. If a customer has been to your website, he should know exactly what he’s going to pay before he walks into your office.

    If a customer calls to book, make sure she knows your massage rate before you end the phone conversation.

    We have an intro rate. I let the customer know our intro price and then I let her know what she’d pay for her next visit.

    So being clear about your prices on your website and when booking will silence the person who is not an overly aggressive discount shopper.

    But what about the let’s-make-a-deal person who simply thinks he can work you over?

    Layer #2: Lies

    Joe owned his own company and had 30-ish employees. After the massage he asked me: “Hey, Mark, do you offer package deals?”

    I knew that Joe had read our website thoroughly because my wife had a conversation with him where he had said to her that the content on our website was what drew him in.

    He straight up knew that we didn’t offer a package deal. And that our discount was already built into our pricing because we had a no tipping policy.

    Joe was trying to work me, and didn’t want to hear about what we were already doing for him.

    My first response was a truth: “We can’t afford to offer another discount”.

    That didn’t throw Joe off stride for one second.

    It was time to unpack the lies.

    Here are some of my go-to lies:

    1. My ____ (fill in with wife, husband, spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé…) would kill me if I ______ (offered a discount, gave a package deal…).

    By the way, Joe used this one on me to start the conversation. He said that his wife wouldn’t let him get a massage every week if he had to pay $X.

    1. Our expenses have really shot up.
    2. Our business is on a super-tight budget.

    Truthfully, I forget what I told Joe. But whatever I said was good enough to make Joe regroup and work a different angle.

    He then said, “I’d like to send my employees to you maybe as a reward kind of thing or have you come out to my office.”

    Okay, so that kind of nebulous promise of employee gifts and special events rarely works out.

    Show me the money, Joe.

    I said something like, “We do things like that with a lot of companies in the areas.” (And they don’t ask for discounts.)

    Joe wasn’t done with me.

    “We have a great website team. I’m sure one of my guys could make yours really look like a big business,” he said.

    “But, Joe, you said our website content drew you in.”

    “It did.”

    “Well, then it’s sorta working without being super fancy…”

    Confused dog look, then he said: “Yeah, but we could get you good, professional pictures…[wheels turning as he thought]…and we could get it so that you rank high and get more traffic.”

    “But we’re first in the organic search already and rank in the top 5 in the local search.”

    Crickets.

    It was apparent that Joe had no idea what the difference was between local and organic searches.

    Joe backed off (and is now a bi-weekly client).

    But I was ready for more “working me down” with more lies.

    Layer#3: More Lies

    He could have said: “I have a lot of people I’d like to refer to you.”

    Response: “I appreciate that, but we’re really swamped.” (We don’t need clients.)

    Which brings me to the ultimate answer to staying firm on your price: You need to have new clients coming in all the time.

    When that happens you won’t fear losing the customer who is trying to work you because you know that another client will be ringing your phone soon.

    If you don’t have new customers coming in check out my Build a Massage Business Mini Crash Course.

    And if you need a website so that you can create your first layer of  Firm Price Defense this is my Webiste DIY guide.

    Sticking to Your Massage Rate

    My bottom line with customers who want me to lower my massage rate is this: Some are true bargain shoppers.

    And if I’m not the cheapest, they’ll go elsewhere.

    Fine.

    I don’t want them. Let them find someone else.

    But for the ones like Joe whose DNA says “get the best deal possible all the time”, you just need to back them off.

    Try the truth first.

    If that doesn’t work: Lie.

    Then more lies.

    Practice that a few times and I’m pretty sure that you won’t crack.

    Need more help?

    This is a free course that will lift your massage business off the ground: Jumpstart.

    While you’re at it, join my email group.

    I’ll send you my latest everything weekly.

    It’s free:-)

    Sign up below.