Podcast

Weekly Roundup

• The Love Story of Missy Carmichael By Beth Morrey

Discussion Topic

• Communicate Like a Pro: Tips for Massage Students

Quick Tips

• Try to reduce the use of violent phrasing

Sponsors

• ABMP 
• The Original Jojoba Company 
• Jane enter MBB1MO at signup for a 1-month grace period on your new Jane account.

Transcript: 

Sponsor message: 

Speaker 1:

This episode is sponsored by Jane. Jane is a complete practice management software designed to help practitioners grow and manage their practices. They do this with helpful features like online booking, scheduling, billing, and charting. Whether you're working solo or in a large multidisciplinary practice, no-shows and late cancellations are something every practitioner faces. Jane offers several tools to help you prevent and manage those no-shows, including the ability to save a credit card on file, and send out unlimited text and email reminders. Learn more about Jane's helpful features at jane.app. Listeners can also mention the podcast at the time of signup for a one month grace period applied to their new Jane account. Check it out at jane.app.

Michael Reynolds:

Hey everyone, welcome to the "Massage Business Blueprint" podcast, where we help you attract more clients, make more money, and improve your quality of life. I'm Michael Reynolds.

Allissa Haines:

I'm Allissa Haines.

Michael Reynolds:

We're your hosts today. Welcome to today's show, episode 454. Allissa, what are you reading?

Allissa Haines:

I'm reading some fiction. Last night, I finished a delightful, no, it wasn't delightful, it was beautiful, a little brutal sometimes, book called "The Love Story of Missy Carmichael," by Beth Morrey. Fiction about this older woman, a senior citizen, and it's a little retrospective on her life, but it's also about current events, and her finding a group of friends in her loneliness. It's funny, because the last quarter of the book is all of these surprise twists, that you're like, "Okay, that makes sense." It's enough to keep you going, but not so much that you're like, "What does she keep talking about," when books foreshadow some big secret. It was just really good. I read it over four or five nights, a half an hour of reading before bed. I stayed up way too late on Sunday night reading, until I finally fell asleep with the Kindle falling on my face. It was just a really good book, and I want people to know that. "The Love Story of Missy Carmichael," by Beth Morrey.

Michael Reynolds:

I have got to get back into reading fun, fiction books. I've gotten into the habit of reading stories. I read so much nonfiction, and dry, businessy stuff. Thanks for continuing to remind me that I need to add some excitement to my reading schedule, some more fun things.

Allissa Haines:

I's tough, because I have a little bit of an addiction problem with it. When I start reading something, if I'm under a lot of stress in general, I can find that I get a little obsessive about reading fiction, and it starts to interrupt my daily routine. I use it to disassociate, which is not particularly healthy. My rule nowadays is that I can't read fiction until after dark, second half of the day. Nowadays, it gets dark at 3:30, so that's not too much of a boundary, but that is working for me. I do have a lot of things, non-fiction, that I read for business. I talked about this, I'm in the middle of "Everybody Writes," by Anne Handley, which is just a book about how to write better. I've been reading a bunch of online stuff about how to write better, and at some point, I'll take a darn class. Fiction after dark, my friend.

Michael Reynolds:

I see. I'm like that with video games. If I let myself get into a certain video game too much, it just consumes me. I think May is when "Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" comes out. You might want to check on me over the summer, and make sure I'm still getting things done that I need to get done.

Allissa Haines:

That, for me, is a hard boundary. I don't play video games, because it will take over my entire life. I to cannot do it. I cannot moderate myself in not all video games, but certain ones, so I just simply don't play them. My grandson, who's four, was over to the house last week, and he was like, "Ma Ma, where are your video games?"

I was like, "Ma Ma doesn't have video games," and he was completely astounded that I had no game system at all, and that my phone didn't have games on it. "Ma Ma, what do you do for fun?" We played out in the backyard. I can't do it at all.

Michael Reynolds:

Nice, I feel you. Before we move on, we should probably give a shout-out to our next sponsor, our friends at The Original Jojoba Company.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah, and I've got to say, I was actually almost late coming to this airing/recording because I was on the Jojoba website. We just found out a neighbor down the street is having a baby next month, or this month, and she wasn't even showing, because we haven't seen her in six months without a winter coat on. I was like, "What am I going to put in this new mama basket?" I'm going to get her an eight ounce of the Hobacare jojoba, from the original Jojoba company. It's a good gift.

I love Jojoba. I use it because it doesn't go rancid, and also because it's non-allergenic. I can use it on every client without worrying about an allergic reaction. That means my senior citizens with really sensitive and fragile skin, it means my pregnancy massage clients, it means my oncology massage clients who might have compromised skin from radiation. I can use it on everyone, and it doesn't stain my 100% cotton sheets. That's why I use Jojoba, and it makes a great gift for new moms. You can get 20% off the price of the product when you shop through our link, massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba.

Michael Reynolds:

Today's going to be fun, because you're speaking to students, I believe.

Allissa Haines:

Yes.

Michael Reynolds:

Which is always great.

Allissa Haines:

This is some stuff I originally put together for students, when there was a massage instructor who was like, "I need two things, and one of them is about communication skills and professionalism." I say this is for massage students, but frankly, we could all use at least one of these tips as a refresher, because it's things that we all do. When you get out of massage school, you become a spokesperson for massage therapy, whether you like it or not. You incidentally become a spokesperson for all kinds of massage therapy, and all kinds of massage therapists. This is true even if you don't want to be such a spokesperson. You become an ambassador for massage, like it or not. Anytime you tell somebody that you are a massage therapist, whatever you do next is representative of the profession in a lot of ways.

This is a big responsibility, how you conduct yourselves and talk about massage with your family, your friends, potential referral partners, and health professionals. It matters. Here are some tips for keeping yourself in check, so you can be a really good positive, healthy ambassador for massage. One: remember your manners. Anytime that you are communicating about massage, keep in mind that phone calls and emails to other massage therapists, health and wellness professionals, and clients and referral partners are not the same as texts with your friends. You want to use full words, and not funny abbreviations. Emojis are fine, GIFs are fine, but use them in moderation, and with an air of professionalism.

In those communication styles, make sure that you sound like a grownup who is trustworthy enough to touch someone's body. Also remember, when you're communicating with other people about massage, that location and privacy are really important. You don't want to take a business call in the middle of the grocery store, and have the entire aisle hear about you doing intake for a client who's coming to see you for sciatica. You want to be real mindful of privacy, and the words you choose, and the verbiage that you use. You want to use full words, and not sound like a 12 year old who is just starting to text.

Resist the excitement of thinking that massage can fix everything, and anything. This is exciting. You get into massage school, and you're like, "Massage can help with headaches? Oh my gosh. Massage can help with hamstring pain? Oh my gosh. Massage can help improve an athlete's performance? Yay." A lot of this stuff is stuff people say that may not have a lot of credible backup. Yes, I know that massage can help my client's X, Y, Z, but if I can't back that up, and if I don't have the knowledge to evaluate information to decide if I can credibly back that up, be thoughtful about what you say. If someone's like, "Can massage help my indigestion?" The best go-to answers are "Maybe, sometimes, in some cases," then you continue on.

You want to answer in a way that welcomes a lot of context to the conversation, because the reality is that the answer to most of these questions are, "It depends." An example, if someone says, "Is massage good for my rotator cuff injury?" You can say something like, "Massage can be helpful in managing pain when you're recovering from a rotator cuff injury, but it's not always a total solution if there are tears, or problems in the joint. Have you seen your doctor or physical therapist about it? What did they say?" You've got to be honest and pragmatic, you don't want to promise that massage can do anything. You want to bring in that context, so you're setting realistic expectations about what massage can actually do. You don't want to be like, "Yeah, I can help," and have someone come to see you and then feel swindled, because you can't help them. You don't want them to think that massage is useless altogether for everything, just because you were incorrect about it being able to help them. There's that.

The next one is probably the biggest one. Don't pretend to know what you don't know. We will get a lot more respect from colleagues and clients when we are honest about our knowledge. If a client brings up a health issue, or a medication that you are not familiar with, don't just nod along and pretend, and as soon as you get them on the table, you run into the next room and you try to look it up real fast. Don't do that. Just say what you don't know, and the client, or the practitioner, or whoever you're dealing with can help educate you. If you ask great questions, that will garner you so much more respect and trust than pretending you know something that you don't.

Some examples of this, and these examples are pulled from me actually doing this, and learning how to do this, versus pretending I know something, and then trying to look it up real quick, and having the client have to wait 10 minutes on the table for me, when I could have just said, "I see that you're taking a medication called Moxifloxacin. I don't know what that is, I have not heard that before. What are you taking it for?"

Then, they're going to tell you it's an antibiotic, and you're going to be like, "Okay, what are you taking the antibiotic for?" Then, you're going to know how to adjust the massage to be safe. It's okay to say things like, "I have never treated a client with MS. Can I do a little bit of research and then call you the day before your appointment, so I can ask you some informed questions?" That's great, people are going to appreciate that. You're going to take the time to look that up, and you're going to give them a call, and you're going to ask them questions like, "How is your mobility? Are you concerned about getting on or off the table? Is there anything regarding heat or cold that you are especially sensitive to?" They are going to love that you took the time to educate yourself so that you can give them the best massage and the safest massage. That is huge. That is amazing customer service.

If you are presented with something that, even after talking to them, you need to look something up, that's okay too. You give them all the instructions, and you say, "Take your time getting cozy on the massage table. I might be another minute, because I want to look this up after I wash my hands," then come back in for the massage. They appreciate that honesty, and it'll garner you a lot of trust. All right, I don't want to beat that one too hard.

Keep it clear. If you need to communicate with another provider, be clear and succinct, be ready with your questions. This is probably a really good time to mention that we have a whole ebook that is how to communicate with other healthcare providers, and very specifically, how to teach your clients how to talk to their healthcare providers, to get you the information you need to get safe massage, and that's at massagebusinessblueprint.com/hcp I think, for healthcare providers. It is important, when you are talking to a provider or teaching a client how to, you don't assume that the provider knows what massage is, because they've never had your massage, and there's a lot of different kinds of massage. You want to say something like, "I know that my client is being treated for peripheral neuropathy. If I massage his legs and feet with light pressure about the weight of my hand, do you feel like that's safe for this condition?"

"I know that my client is mostly sedentary. Do you have any concerns about his body's ability to tolerate massage, or about his cardiovascular system being challenged by a massage?" You don't need to know the in-depth physiology and pathology of every single issue your client's going to walk in with. You need to know how your massage needs to be adapted to be safe. You need to know how their body's going to be challenged in other ways. When you phrase questions that way, you'll get better answers from providers, or better answers through clients that their providers have given them. That was a mixed up sentence, but we're going to roll with it.

Finally, stay in your scope of practice, and it doesn't matter who you're talking to. If you're talking to a client or anyone, instead of saying something like, "Yeah, that sounds like a rotator cuff tear" when a client's like, "I can't move my arm this way," you say, "If that's bothering you, you can probably talk to your GP about that, and they can get you to the right physical therapist or orthopedist for a good evaluation." There are times when you will find that clients are not getting great answers from their practitioners, and you may give them information to help them advocate for themselves. You could say something like "Those symptoms sound consistent with a few different rotator cuff issues. Ask your GP straight out if you can be evaluated for X, Y, Z."

You can do that in a way that teaches the client to advocate without stepping out of your scope of practice. Instead of saying something like, "This freckle is changing," you say something like, "Have you noticed that this is a really dark freckle? Do you have someone keeping an eye on it for you? I'd probably ask your doctor at your next visit." This is really hard, and it can be easy to accidentally give advice outside of your scope, especially when you develop a rapport with clients, and you've known them a long time, and you've seen them through various health issues. You're going to slip. I slip left and right on this, and it's okay to backtrack and say, "I really should not have suggested that you have a rotator cuff injury. That's not my scope, and I'm not qualified to assess that, but here's what I would ask your GP."

Clients and providers are going to appreciate your caution and your humility with this. Again, it makes you more trustworthy, because they know that you're not going to overstep your boundaries, and end up hurting them. This gets a lot easier with more practice. You'll get better at it, and you'll become a really good communicator with your clients. That's what I have to say, relevant to students and to all of us.

Michael Reynolds:

Excellent advice. I love it when you talk to students, you're so good at it.

Allissa Haines:

I love talking to students. It is just my favorite thing to work with people who are just getting out of massage school and figuring out what they want to do, and jumping into it. It's great.

Michael Reynolds:

I agree. Our last sponsor of the day is our friends at ABMP.

Allissa Haines:

ABMP has so many resources for all massage therapists, but for students and very new massage therapists as well. What do we want to talk about? Let's talk about the apps, because they're relevant to our topic today. When you need to find information super quick, or refresh your brain on something before a client comes in with a particular issue, they've got the apps for that. There is the five minute muscle app, and the pocket pathology app, quick reference apps designed to help you quickly find information that you need to make decisions for safe session planning. Five minute muscles includes muscle specific techniques and palpation videos, I used these last week, for 83 muscles most often addressed by professional MTs.

The pathology app is super helpful. You can plug in "MS," and get some help with that. Progressive web app technology that will take up less space on your phone or device, which is super helpful. These are available free with ABMP membership, and if you want to test it out, you can go to abmp.com/apps, apps, and do a little demo, to see if it's worth your time. It absolutely is.

Michael Reynolds:

Right on. Thanks ABMP. Do you have any quick tips today?

Allissa Haines:

I've got nothing.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, I've got a thing. This is more of a thing I've just been noodling on, take what you will with it. I'm trying to reduce the use of violent phrasing a little more, and there's some nuance here. I saw this on Twitter, and I linked in the show notes to the Twitter post that has an image, and it was interesting. There are a bunch of phrases in the left that are examples of violent phrasing, or violent language, and on the right, alternatives that are less violent, or more neutral. Now, because Twitter lacks nuance or context, you're going to also see a whole bunch of comments on it, making fun of it, saying it's ridiculous, blah, blah. You'll see all that too, because again, there's no real nuance or context on Twitter, and it's just fun to make fun of things.

I thought it was interesting because, in the context of the work we do as massage therapists, I think some of this does apply. Some examples: on the violent column, it says things like, "We're going to pull the trigger." That's an example of violent language. Or, "I'll take a stab at it," those types of things. There are some other, less overt ones there, but that's a couple examples. The alternative that is less violent might be something like, "We're going to launch," or, "I'll take the first pass at it," things like that. I thought it was interesting to think about.

If you're out at a restaurant with friends, and just chatting, I don't think this really applies very much, but if you're working with a client, you don't really know what that client's history might be. They might have experience with gun violence, they might be a victim in some sort of context that involves violence in the past. They may have anxiety around certain phrasing and language that can bring up those sorts of feelings, and it could just be an issue for certain clients, I think. I figure, why not make an effort to use less violent language, in an effort to make sure that you create a safe, comfortable space for clients that may have things in their past that we're not aware of, that they're related to experiencing violence?

I think it's worth a look, worth considering. Again, I would approach it with context and nuance, and just rational common sense. I think it's worth looking at language we use, and how can we make it less violent in the right context. I linked to the image there.

Allissa Haines:

I have something to add here.

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah.

Allissa Haines:

Two things. One, this is great. I'm looking at the list, because some of these things are phrases that people might not understand. "Did we jump the gun?" If you've never watched the beginning of a sporting event, a race, you have no idea what they're talking about. This is one that I also did not know. I learned, but when I was a kid, I remember being like, "I have no idea what that means." Then I saw a race, the Olympics, a swimming thing, and I was like, "That's what they mean. They fire a gun." There's that. Saying, "Did we start too soon" is so much more clear.

Also, and probably more importantly, in my daily life, I'm surrounded by people who are autistic, or have varying neurodivergent issues, and there's a lot of literal thinking. To say, "I'll take a stab at it," that's weird to someone who is very literal. To say, "I'll take the first pass at it. I'll try this first" is so much more clear. Why would you beat a dead horse? What does that even mean to someone with literal thinking? To say, "Let's not focus on that anymore, let's move on" is so much more clear. I use a lot of cliche, metaphor, and analogy in my speech, and I have learned to not do that quite so much. This is a really good list, not just to take aggressive and violent words out of our language, but also, if you're dealing with a lot of literal thinkers, or even kids, four year olds are very literal, this is great. My favorite one on this list, can I say what my favorite one is?

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah, of course.

Allissa Haines:

Replacing, "That'll kill two birds with one stone" with "That'll feed two birds with one scone."

Michael Reynolds:

That's funny you mentioned that one, because someone else shared this, and their example when they shared it, they said, they heard a speaker who was giving a presentation for the Audubon Society, and used the phrase, "Kill two birds with one stone." Talk about tone deaf, that's an example of context.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah, that's my favorite. Walt uses that one. I hadn't heard that until I met Walt, and he uses that one, and I just absolutely love it.

Michael Reynolds:

It's funny.

Allissa Haines:

I'm so glad you brought this up. I'm going to save this little PDF, because I think it's really good.

Michael Reynolds:

It's interesting.

Allissa Haines:

Thank you.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, I think that brings us home. Anything you would add?

Allissa Haines:

No man, I'm done.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, let's do it. Thanks everyone for joining us today. As always, if you're a newer listener, I'll tell you where to find us; if you're a longtime listener, you already know this, it's massagebusinessblueprint.com. That is our website. If you're not a member yet of our Blueprint Mastermind community, you can learn all about it there. You can join free for 30 days, we reference that a lot, tons of great benefits in there you can read about. If you want to email us, the email address is podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com.

With that, as always, we welcome your feedback. You can email us, we do receive those and respond to them. We do see everything you send to us, we love feedback. As always, thanks for joining us today. Have a great day. We will see you next time.

Allissa Haines:

Bye.