Podcast

Weekly Roundup

• Our reviews 

Discussion Topic

• A Massage Business Pep Talk in Listicle Form

Quick Tips

• Ignore influencers who tell you how to be.

Sponsors

• ABMP 
• The Original Jojoba Company 
• How to Get New Clients 

Transcript: 

Allissa Haines:

This episode is sponsored by us and our free ebook, How to Get New Massage Clients. That's right. You can go to massagebusinessblueprint.com/clients. And is it clients or new clients?

Michael Reynolds:

It is clients.

Allissa Haines:

Darn it. Michael. Michael, check that out.

Michael Reynolds:

You're right, it's clients.

Allissa Haines:

It's clients?

Michael Reynolds:

Mm-hmm.

Allissa Haines:

Okay, great. Good way to start the episode, but what I want to tell you is that we have a beautiful 14 page guide that will help you refocus and determine exactly what activities you need to do to get yourself some new clients into your massage practice.

There is no one thing that's going to get you tons of new and long-term clients, there's no shiny answer here. But there are clear and effective steps that you can take to bring new clients into your office. And you can fill your schedule and your bank account. And we're big fans of that. Again, massagebusinessblueprint.com/clients.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. I guess, I'll do it.

Allissa Haines:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Massage Business Blueprint podcast, where we help you attract more clients, make more money, and improve your quality of life. And I forgot that I was going to be the primary host today. My name's Allissa Haines.

Michael Reynolds:

I'm Michael Reynolds. I was thinking through it. I was like, "Is she?" We didn't talk about it. Usually, she does the intro if I'm doing the episode. We'll see what happens. So we saw what happened.

Allissa Haines:

And I was reading our notes while Michael was gesticulating wildly. So we're off to our great start today.

Michael Reynolds:

Fantastic.

Allissa Haines:

The news is that I am properly coffeed and Michael has a fantastic topic for you. But first, let's talk about what we're reading. Michael, tell us what we're reading.

Michael Reynolds:

We are reading our reviews as we are prone to do sometimes. Every now and then we'd like to peek into our reviews, see who's writing about us. And we have a lovely review today to share. Do you want to read it or would you like me to?

Allissa Haines:

You read it.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. This is from... Hang on, I got to zoom in a bit because it's a little tiny. Whoops. Wrong screen I'm zooming in.

Allissa Haines:

It's from CC Racist is the...

Michael Reynolds:

Thank you, CC Racist.

Allissa Haines:

The username in the Apple Podcast.

Michael Reynolds:

And CC Racist says, "I'm writing this on May 28th after listening to this week's podcast. I've been listening since episode 200 or thereabouts. As a practitioner of 10 years., I find your topics invaluable and often very timely. But I've never loved your rational approach and response to situations more than today's topic. I don't write reviews for podcasts I enjoy as much as I should, but I couldn't not write one today." Oh my goodness. That warms my heart.

Allissa Haines:

It really does. And I went back to our podcast schedule to see what episode they were talking about. So on the 27th of May, we did a Digital Spring Cleaning episode. But I feel like that can't be the episode that incited this kind of vibrant and passionate response.

So I don't know if they're talking about the, Do I Have to Take My Clients Back episode or the Digital Spring Cleaning or Marketing a COVID Aware Massage Business. I'm guessing it could be any of those. And... oh no, if they're listening on the 28th then it couldn't be the Marketing a COVID Aware Business because that came after that. Okay, so clearly my prep was inadequate.

I'm guessing it was the, Do I Have to Take My Clients Back episode, but I could be wrong. Anyhow, I think it just speaks to the fact that we have many good episodes and that even though we're at episode 442, I'm going to make lots of logistical errors, but this podcast is still pretty helpful.

Michael Reynolds:

I think by episode 500 we'll have this thing down.

Allissa Haines:

I don't think we will.

Michael Reynolds:

You don't think so? Okay.

Allissa Haines:

No.

Michael Reynolds:

It might take a little longer. All right.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah. So anyhow, if you have found us to be useful or helpful or you just hate our guts, feel free to share that with the World on Apple Podcast. You have to select our podcast and scroll down a little bit to get to little box that where you can add a review and read the reviews.

If you have a moment, go for it. It helps other people find us. And I'm pretty sure we are the longest running and most consistent massage business and I think massage in general podcast out there. So share your love. Give us some props. We like the little credibility on the internets.

Michael Reynolds:

Pretty sure you're right about that. Yeah.

Allissa Haines:

Who's our next host, Michael? Oh no, I'm your host. Who's our sponsor?

Michael Reynolds:

Is there something I don't know? Is our next host coming out? Our next sponsor is Jojoba. Going to old school Jojoba shout there.

Allissa Haines:

Yay, thanks Jojoba. They're pretty great. This episode is indeed sponsored by the original Jojoba company. You know how I feel about it. We should be using really high quality products because we're slapping it on our clients' bodies and it's soaking into ours as well.

Jojoba doesn't go rancid. It doesn't contain triglycerides like a lot of massage products do. So it's not going to go bad. This makes Jojoba a fantastic carrier for essential oils as well. It doesn't stain your a hundred percent cotton sheets. So yeah, your sheets are going to last longer. You're going to save a ton of money, like buying new sheets over and over again.

They're not going to be gross and rancid and they're not going to be stained. So just those reasons are enough. And that's what I'm going to start and end with today. You can get a 20% off discount when you shop through our link, massagebusinessblueprint.com/Jojoba.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. I have to go to the comments before we move on. So this is from Facebook. We have some people on Facebook joining us this morning. Amanda says, "Good morning." Good morning, Amanda. Glad you're here. Andrew also giving us a good morning. We appreciate that, Andrew. We've got a Facebook user who we suspect is probably Marcy because that happened last time. Good morning, MBB fam. And then Amanda said, "Just smeared some Jojoba on my face." Amanda's having a good morning.

Allissa Haines:

I actually put it on my hands this morning, so yay. Thanks, everybody. We appreciate that. Thanks for sticking with...

Michael Reynolds:

Jojoba goes everywhere.

Allissa Haines:

Jojobas everywhere and so are my fumbles. So thank you for listening through it. We have a great topic today, and this is what happens when Michael's in charge. He comes up with something totally not even on our list of potential ideas, but it ends up being so much better than anything we had previously thought of. So Michael, just take us in.

Michael Reynolds:

Well, now the bar is really high, so I'm here to disappoint you. All right. So I'm going to do something that Allissa inspired me to do actually, because she's done this in the past. Kind of a roundup of different, I guess, bits of advice or nuggets. I thought I would do one as well. I'm going to do kind of an old school Buzzfeed style, listicle format, pep talk for massage business owners today.

And the reason I wanted to do this is over the past year or so we've observed in our community lots and lots of questions. In fact, for since 2015 when we launched this thing, we've seen lots and lots of massage practices kind of go through evolutions and work with them and help them and come to office hours and see conversation our community. And it's really great.

And really, I think we're honored to be able to have a front row seat to see so many massage practices grow and thrive and share information with each other and support. And so I just love the fact that we get to see all this. And so for the past year, I think we've seen a few trends and concerns kind of rise to the top consistently.

And I've kind of turned this into what I'm calling a massage business pep talk in listicle form. Because I want to take some of the things we've seen and some of the advice we've given and kind of crystallize this into a simple kind of list of items that I think are going to be really relevant for people that might feel stuck in different areas.

So it's not very long, but I'm going to just kind of go through the list here. Things that we've observed, things I want to share with our listeners to hopefully help. Because it's the end of the year, we're basically at holiday season, we're basically end of the year. We're going to be thinking about our businesses, we're going to be reflecting, we're going to be planning for the next year.

It's a good time to kind of think about this stuff. So let's start with this. First of all, I want to say this. Number one on the list, building a massage practice is hard work. If it seems hard, it's not because you're doing anything wrong, it's because it's hard. We've seen so many people say, "Should it be this hard? I'm confused.

What am I doing wrong?" You're not doing anything wrong, building any business, but building a massage business especially is hard. So if it seems hard, it's because it is. You're not doing something wrong necessarily. Next, give stuff time to work. This can be in a lot of areas. For example, don't give up on your BNI chapter after three months.

Don't stop your email newsletter because you don't see results in a few weeks. Don't think your SEO isn't working, which is your search engine optimization isn't working because the three changes you made in our website don't result in a bunch of traffic in three weeks. This stuff takes time. Consistency and patience pays off. Next, you don't have to be the most unique or skilled or hyper niched massage therapist in the world to get clients.

If you provide consistently high quality care and act like a professional, you can build a great practice. Next, there is no $5,000 business coaching program out there that will help you if you aren't ready to put in the time and effort. You know what you need to do. That crying was actually one of our kids running in the office. Opened my door, ran the office right next to me. So he's now back in his play area, so.

Allissa Haines:

This is a family show and that's okay.

Michael Reynolds:

Yes. Next, if you're at capacity and you're still getting clients, raise your rates and don't make a big deal about it or over-explain it. Just send a message saying, "My new rates are as follows." And leave it at that. We've seen so many people fall in the trap of over-explaining price changes and price increases.

All you have to say is, "Here's my new prices effective this date." That's it. Don't overdo it. Next, get to know how much money you're making and decide if you're happy with it. If so, great. If not, make a plan for getting the compensation you want. Pay attention to your income.

We've seen this time and time again, massage therapists don't know how much money they're making and therefore they're not able to be intentional about how much money they're making. So get control of how much money you're making, get visibility into that and decide what you want it to be.

Allissa Haines:

I want to jump in here because we got a fantastic email from a listener the other day who was using your spreadsheet to kind of figure out how much... I forget exactly the name of the episode, but it was a couple episodes ago, and we were kind of making sure people had a way to figure out exactly how much money they're taking home without getting confused by that.

Very clearly be like, "This is how much I'm taking home for this many hours a week or a month." And she was like, "Yeah, I'm not making a living wage, so I got to work on that." And I think there's a lot of us who for a long time didn't or still haven't figured out really what we're taking home on a weekly or monthly basis and how much effort we're putting into that. And I think once you know, can improve it, knowledge is power. Once you name it, you can tame it. And this is a huge point. If you get nothing else from this episode, I think that's probably the thing you can get.

Yeah. And I want to just pop in to note that Marcy noted that Jojoba is life. Andrew noted that his holiday packs have arrived. And Amanda popped in to say, "Yeah, Kentucky therapists are required to start charging taxes in 2023." Which if you're not prepared for that and you don't set it up properly, is absolutely going to cut into your profits.

Michael Reynolds:

Right on.

Allissa Haines:

Okay, carry on, Michael. Thank you.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. Let's carry on. So next, be frugal but not cheap. There's a difference. Don't spend lots of money on things you don't need, but don't skimp on things that truly enhance your practice. So get better at thoughtfully discerning the difference. I've seen so many people be cheap and missing out on stuff when they could be being frugal and actually invest in things that are good for their business.

Next, set boundaries. You don't have to reply to client texts at 8:00 PM at night or at all if you don't want to use text. Decide how you want to be contacted in your business and stick to it. You're in charge of your boundaries. If clients abuse those boundaries, ignore it or deal with it.

But if you only want to be contacted through your online scheduling or through email or whatever it is, set those boundaries. You're in charge. Next, do online scheduling. Aside from a few reasonable edge cases, really every massage therapist should have online scheduling. Again, acknowledge their edge cases.

Not everyone needs online scheduling. There are various situations we've seen in the past where massage therapists have explained to us, "Hey, here's why I don't have online scheduling." We're like, "Yeah, I get that. That makes sense." So we know there are exceptions. But in general, the vast majority of massage therapists should have online scheduling. If you don't, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage. So get on that.

Allissa Haines:

Why don't you tell the story of what... Oh no, you can't tell the story of what you went through...

Michael Reynolds:

Oh, I can.

Allissa Haines:

Recently for a couple of weeks yet. Can you?

Michael Reynolds:

It's not a surprise. Yeah.

Allissa Haines:

I didn't want you to ruin a surprise or anything.

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah. No, not a surprise. Yeah.

Allissa Haines:

So tell the story.

Michael Reynolds:

So my wife's birthday is coming up and like all of us, especially her, she could use a break. I'm getting her a massage, kind of a day of different things to kind of help her take a day off. But I'm getting her a massage in the morning on her birthday.

And I was looking around and my massage therapist that I go to doesn't work that day. So I was looking for other massage therapists. And I could not find a massage therapist that A, actually had a website, B, could be found online. I had to dig super deep to find some of them on the back pages of Google.

And even then, the website was not super informative or had online scheduling. It was very hard to find this combination of things. A website that I could read about what they do, I could find them and I could book online. It was so difficult. The bar is so low to getting found and making it easy for people to book a massage. So get online scheduling.

Allissa Haines:

Segue into your next tip and then I'm going to make note of Marcy's comment.

Michael Reynolds:

Okay. Your website is the most important marketing tool you have. Get that right before you mess with social media. I've seen so many people say, "Well, what should I be doing on Facebook? What should I be doing on Twitter? What should I be doing on TikTok or whatever?" Get your website right first, then move on to other stuff. You said you had a segue.

Allissa Haines:

And Marcy.

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah. Well, I wanted to, I'm saving Marcy's comment for your tip. Marcy noticed that it took my redesign, highly SEO search engine optimization centric website close to a year to start delivering my niche clients. My practice is now 75% niche clients and I love it.

So yeah, a good website, well done with all the information people properly need and online scheduling integrated it is going to take a little while for the Google and all the other places to recognize that you exist. But when it does, massive benefits and good traffic.

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah, thanks Marcy.

Allissa Haines:

That's what I have to say about that.

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah. Yeah. That, and it goes back to give stuff time to work. Marcy could have given up on month number seven and said, "Well, this isn't working. I'm going to go, I'm going to give up on my niche or give up on my website or give up on SEO or whatever." But she didn't. She stuck with it. Close to a year. It's how long it took for these results to pay off.

So stick with stuff. Give stuff time to work. Work on your website. The last thing I have is this, the world needs what you do. You provide a valuable, wonderful, life enhancing service, own it, be proud of it, and charge accordingly. And I want to pin down the last few words, which is charge accordingly.

It's okay to charge money for what you do and to charge what you feel you're worth and to charge what market rates or above market rates are in your area or what you need to charge to make money to fit your lifestyle. What you do is super, super valuable. You enhance people's lives, you help them feel better. It's okay to charge money for it and make a living from it. That's my list.

Allissa Haines:

It's a really good list.

Michael Reynolds:

Thanks.

Allissa Haines:

Thank you, Michael. Yeah. Take a nugget or two, take what works for you and roll with it. And if you have tips you think we should share with your colleagues in our profession, if you have disagreements with anything we've noted, please feel free to let us know. podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com and we'll listen. We'll hear it. We'll read it. We'll respond.

Michael Reynolds:

We do indeed.

Allissa Haines:

All right. We ready to launch into our next sponsor?

Michael Reynolds:

We ready.

Allissa Haines:

All right. Our final sponsor today, and we are so appreciative for them, is ABMP. One of the many, many benefits of ABMP membership is the ABMP education Center. You can learn more at ABMP.com/learn. More than 600 hours of CE courses included with ABMP membership are available for purchase at a ridiculously affordable price for non-members.

Topics are hands on ethics, self-care, cultural competency, and courses for massage educators. And I will note that the ABMP podcast this week, they had ABMP founder, I think Bob Benson on talking about why they created these courses for massage educators.

It's a really good episode. I'm three quarters of the way through. And it's really, really good. So you can check that out. But also, I just want to remind you that online CE is a great way to meet requirements, to try out new presenters and to see what you want to do for your in-person CE.

Make sure you like a presenter's style, make sure you love the topic before you spend big bucks traveling and spending five days in a course. Again, you can learn more at ABMP.com/learn. And Andrew just noted that he listened to the, I'm guessing he is referring to the ABMP podcast episode that came out yesterday.

He said it was an awesome episode. I can agree 75%. I haven't listened to the rest yet. Not only because my commute ended and I had stuff to do. So there's that. Let me flip back to my podcast now. Let's... I'm juggling a lot right now. Feeling a little better about my earlier flub, because I'm doing good now. Okay, we're at quick tips.

Michael Reynolds:

Go for it.

Allissa Haines:

My quick tip is going to play back to the very first pep talk item that Michael brought in, which is, building a massage business is hard work. If it seems hard, it's not because you're doing anything wrong, it's because it's hard. So my quick tip is ignore the influencers who tell you how to be. Now listen, we are real big on boundaries around here.

We are real big of making sure that you are building a sustainable business. And by sustainable I mean financially, mentally, emotionally. That allows time for you to do what you need to do in your personal life, allows time for you to regroup and to walk into your office feeling good about how you can help clients that day because you are personally refreshed as well.

And there's a lot of stuff out there, a lot of resources for people who have tended to overwork, encouraging rest, encouraging boundaries, encouraging something less than a strict 40 hour work week. And I agree with all of these resources. However, when you're at the stage of building a business, it's going to be harder and more time intensive and more emotion and mental and whatever intensive than the next stage of maintaining a sustainable business.

There is going to be a time where you have to hustle a little. You can still do that with boundaries. You can still do that while keeping your home life sustainable. But there's going to be a time, especially when you're self-employed, where it's a lot. And if you are building a business for the first time, that can seem overwhelming and like you're doing it wrong, like Michael said.

If you are changing something in your business, if you're expanding or rebranding, all of a sudden there's all of this work on the front end again. A lot of these things you're only building once, we're only doing once. You're only going for your permits one time. You're only having to wait for the inspection one time.

You're only building your website one time and figuring out your website copy one time. But it's a lot of work on the front end. So if you are doing this for the first time or doing it for the second time and being like, "Oh my gosh, I forgot how much work this is. Am I doing it wrong?" You're not. It's just work.

It is. Sometimes you do have to hustle and we encourage you to do that thoughtfully so that your personal life doesn't crash and burn. But if you see all these influencers with beautiful pictures of them lounging in a white linen arm chair with a beautiful cup of tea and some flowers in the background, and you're like, "I can't even get out of my pajamas or find clean socks today," that's okay, man.

Because these people are just putting up... you know? Don't compare your inside life to someone else's outside life, which is usually fake. And that's my pro tip for the day. That's my quick tip. And if you're concerned and you think that you doing something wrong or it's too much or it's not enough, again, email us podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com. I love emails from listeners. Love it, love it, love it, love it. And it makes me feel less alone in my own business. So that's all that I have to say. Michael, anything else we need to talk about today?

Michael Reynolds:

No, I had fun today. Good stuff. Thank you.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah, I like it. This was rocking and moving and fast paced and I liked it even though I screwed up twice at the beginning. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for the people who joined us live. Because if you haven't grasped yet, we get comments live because we broadcast on Wednesday mornings at 9:00 AM Eastern time through November.

We're taken December off from live episodes. But you can listen to us on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, I think. And you can comment as we're going through and you can always just listen to us at your leisure, at any of the major podcast places. But you know that, because you're listening to me right now. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.

Michael Reynolds:

I [inaudible 00:22:24] late today, so I'm going to say massagebusinessblueprint.com is our website. That's where you can find us. Bye, everyone. Later. Bye-bye.

Allissa Haines:

See ya.