We therapists aren’t always marketing geniuses. Be that as it may, one of the major questions you have to ask yourself as a massage practitioner or center is: what do we specialize in? It is only then that you can find the right place—and the right customer—to market to.

To help you with this, here are a couple of things to consider as you think about your specialty. Is your strategy to create a spa-like atmosphere? A way to get away from it all? Or, are you partnering with physical therapists or doctors? Maybe you have an acupuncturist who refers clients to you?

At Dreamclinic in Seattle, the clinics that I founded and helped to  build, when we first started, our sweet spot was sports injuries and medical massage and we blended techniques such as deep tissue and sports massage. We knew that about ourselves, so we literally struck the word ‘relaxation’ from our marketing materials.  Some marketers thought that was a little radical, maybe even a tad drastic. Yes, that’s true, they told us  we were losing valuable clientele because we were not spa-ish. But we stuck to our guns and instead grew a great following of busy working professionals with an active lifestyle that appreciated our focus on the fundamentals.

Maybe you are concerned that, as a small business, you can’t afford to lose any clients. From my experience, focusing on our strengths has had the opposite effect: It has allowed the right clients to find us, and it has allowed us to provide the best service to our clients. What’s better than that?

So what is your niche? How can you find the perfect fit in the market for what you offer? Someone out there is looking for just that. Now go find them.

One of the biggest obstacles that comes up when you’re trying to build a client base—whether working for someone else, or in your own private practice—is building the habit of simply asking clients to come back to see you. Just about every therapist knows that it is supposed to be good business practice, but the average therapist isn’t comfortable even asking a client to reschedule. They state that doing so feels “pushy” or “salesy.”

Let’s take a moment to talk about this dichotomy. What is really happening? Are we really being pushy? Are we really being salesy? Or are we, instead, being considerate and doing the client a favor? Think back to your last dental appointment. When you were asked: “Can we follow up with you for your next appointment?” you likely happily agreed.

You see, there are many situations when you, as a consumer, actually appreciate a reminder—especially if you know you tend to get overly busy, or, like me, forget to put things on your schedule. What about your hairstylist? Or your personal trainer? Most service providers will offer to call or email with a reminder about your appointment. By and large, those are welcome—as long as we have a relationship with the provider.

Remember that when we don’t offer to make it easy to rebook a service, not only do we not get credit for being considerate, but it can actually come across as uncaring or even negligent. I realize it’s difficult to break the mental mindset that you are “making a sale,” as opposed to offering a genuine service.

It is a necessity for massage therapists to break this false association with being “salesy” and realize that once clients have actually tried and love your massage, they know that it’s beneficial for their health and will welcome your invitation to be a return customer.

When I finished massage school, back in the early 2000’s, my classmates and I shared a lot of enthusiasm to graduate, start working, and build a successful practice. Similarly, today, a lot of people graduate hoping to build a private practice—for many obvious reasons. Let’s compare the realities of the pros and cons of private practice. On the plus side:

• Individuality: Private practice allows you to create a space that’s a perfect reflection of who you are. You can decorate in your style, or use your favorite essential oils.
• Control: You can control your schedule, your appointments, even whom you do or do not take on as a client.
• Finances: Simply put, you get to keep all the money, without having to share a cut of it with an employer.

These are all tempting reasons to start your own private practice. What people tend to forget about are the more difficult aspects of building your own private practice—the reasons why about 80% of therapists eventually end up working for someone else:

• Extra work: When you’re working in private practice, typically you need to add an average of one hour of other work for every hour of massage in order to take care of accounting, maintenance, and other aspects of managing your business. This means that your twenty clients add an additional twenty hours of work per week. Instead of earning that $60, $80 or $100 per hour, you are likely earning half of that.
• Isolation: Private practice can be lonely. When a wonderfully skilled, experienced therapist applies at Dreamclinic, they frequently say they want to be a part of a larger community. They want to exchange skills and interact with peers. “It’s amazing how the solitude can eat away at you,” they say.
• Marketing: Promoting a business is not easy. If it were, everybody would start their own business. Initially, many practitioners expect every friend and family member to become a client of theirs. Six months later, they realize that that’s translated into approximately three appointments and that they need to turn to advertising and other forms of marketing to build their clientele, which can be tough between the competition and the additional skills needed to do it well.

While you should follow your bliss and listen to your heart, make sure you head into your private practice with your eyes wide open. Also, realize that if you find it challenging to be on your own, whether that’s from not getting enough clients or struggling to find enough free time outside of your private practice, don’t feel bad. This is a common challenge that others deal with as well, some of whom find ways around it and some of whom end up choosing to work for a good employer.

As a massage therapist, one of the most important considerations is to keep your client comfortable and relaxed. An integral part of that is the temperature of the room. In the Pacific Northwest, I would venture to say that the majority of temperature issues are not that your client is too warm, but rather that they’d like to be warmer. Being warm, of course, has the additional benefit of relaxing your client, which in turn helps to relax their muscles.

If your client expresses that they would like to be warmer, don’t take that as an affront. Everyone’s body temperature has a different thermostat. Here are some simple solutions to make sure your client is comfortable and the temperature is to their liking:

• Blankets: The easiest one is to keep some blankets on hand, ones you can place over your client as needed.
• Table warmer: Another good idea is to have a table warmer beneath the sheets that you can turn on for them.
• Grain packs: Pillows stuffed with rice, buckwheat, or another grain can be microwaved and applied to your client’s body give a soothing, warm heat.
• Space heater: In general, you want make sure that the actual air temperature in the room is at least at 70 degrees. A space heater can be perfect for that, especially in older or larger buildings where you can’t adjust the thermostat easily. Turn it on before your first client is there. Today there are many makes and models that work quietly and are energy efficient.

If your client is cold during the massage, simply turn to one of these options during the session for additional heat. I promise they’ll thank you later, and the reward will likely be a repeat customer and a referral.

Our field of massage lives between two worlds. Historically, or at least over the last hundred years, massage was supposedly something that affluent people, primarily of the female gender, would allow themselves as a way of destressing and ‘getting away from it all. But massage is also increasingly recommended by doctors in situations where there is muscle injury, perhaps after a car accident or if there’s been surgery. So, luxury or legitimate treatment: which is it?

Sometimes, because I live in the world of massage and have embraced it so fully, I forget what the general perception is. When I am reminded, I’m always surprised how little the medical applications of massage are understood generally. So, for that reason I’m going to share them here—not because you don’t know them, but just as a reminder to continue to educate your clients.

Massage is, in addition to anything else, directly impactful to the musculoskeletal tissues of the body which include the muscles, ligaments, tendons, as well as the fascia that surrounds the muscle groups.

• In the case of a micro-trauma, where part of the muscle, tendon, or ligament is torn, commonly called a sprain or a strain, the muscles surrounding the area might be very tense, compensating for the injured tissue. You could use some friction to help elongate the compensating muscles back into shape.
• If there is a knot, you may find that trigger point work is super-useful.
• Chronic adhesions that are tough and feel ropey benefit from cross-fiber friction techniques. While those aren’t gentle or relaxing, they are effective. If there’s anything that’ll get your muscle restored to full action, good old cross-fiber friction will.
• Sometimes we use heat and ice, or hydrotherapy, and sometimes we’ll do stretches, either active or passive, and all of that is part of the work we do when we’re applying massage as a medical technique.

If I could, I’d like to make a clone of myself and go visit every surgeon in the country and ask them: “Did you operate on this person? Did your work create some scar tissue? Do you know that scar tissue can possibly be preventing full range of motion? Given how well it can improve outcomes, why haven’t you recommended massage to all your post-operative patients?” I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what I’d do. Why? Because massage is one of the absolute best methods for removing scar tissue and allowing patients a full recovery.

Telling clients that they should drink more water is almost so universal and ubiquitous that it feels like it shouldn’t even need to be said anymore, and yet it should—over and over again.

When we have sufficient water in our body this will help all the toxins that have been released during the massage to get comfortably flushed out rather than reabsorbed into the tissues.

Even though water is one of our most basic needs in life, a lot of clients are chronically dehydrated.   A client may walk in and you notice their lips are chapped and their skin is dry & flakey, or there are more or deeper wrinkles than normal.  Plus, you can feel it when they’re on the table, when you notice that their upper layers of fascia feel particularly tight or sticky.

Dehydration affects so much more than just their muscle soreness or stiffness. It can be the reason behind chronic headaches, irritability, or even poor posture. Should we remind our clients to hydrate? Absolutely. Dehydration in their bodies can limit the effectiveness of our work. So, keep bringing them water, and keep reminding them to drink it—even when they’re not in your massage room.

There are some really great therapists who are super-effective at resolving the most complicated muscle conditions, and yet, they have trouble making a living. They struggle to keep their private practice going, or they end up going to work for an employer—possibly one who doesn’t pay them very well. So, how come that happens when their technique is so good?

In my experience, most massage therapists are focused on developing, honing, and refining their massage technique—which is not a bad thing. But, by having such exclusive focus on that, they end up overlooking the fact that almost 50% of the client’s experience comes from factors beyond their actual touch and technique. So, it’s important to step way out and look at the bigger picture remembering that Remembering that your client’s experience starts before they even enter your practice,

If you are struggling or it’s just not as busy as you’d like, do an audit of all those other things that go beyond your massage:

•  Observe your practice’s outside experience
  • What’s nearby?
  • Is there graffiti?
  • Any smelly garbage?
  • Was it hard to find parking?
  • Is there a really loud noise next door?
  • Should you be looking for a different place to practice?

• What does your client see upon entry into your practice?
  • How welcoming is your lobby?
  • Is there dog hair all over the couch?
  • What’s the temperature like?
  • Do you need some curtains because the view out the window is unpleasant?
  • Are they greeted with a friendly welcome?

• In the Massage Room
  • Are you doing a thorough intake and discussing a massage plan?
  • Is the massage room clean?
  • How about your personal appearance?
  • Are there any unusual odors in the room?
  • Any odor issues from your body or breath?
  • What about your dialogue—are you communicating pleasantly and effectively?
  • Are you talking too much, or too little during the massage?
  • Have you been forgetting to let the client know at the end of a massage that you enjoyed working with them and would love to see them back and welcome any feedback?

There’s a myriad of things that could be working against you—or for you. How do you figure out what they are? Ask for feedback. Find a friend or long-time client and just ask them point-blank, “Is there anything that you think I could be doing better during our intake, during the massage, or afterward?” You may find a couple of things you could tweak that would begin to help you flourish.

It never hurts to look with fresh eyes.  You could even call in a Feng Shui expert. The fact is, when you focus on holding the intention of creating the most positive and welcoming environment, it pays.

One of the best pieces of advice that I’ve heard many times over the years is that if you want to excel at something, you need to find someone who’s already succeeding at it, connect with them, and try to learn from them. In other words, you need to find a mentor—someone who can help you see what in your practice or technique you might not know, notice, or even think to look out for, in order to help you improve.

Sometimes therapists can be reluctant to give (or receive) feedback because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings (or get their own hurt). But if you look at it in perspective, you’ll see there’s nobody better-qualified to give you honest, actionable feedback, tips, and new techniques than someone who is already busy with a thriving practice.

How do you find a mentor when you are a massage therapist? Well, contact the most successful massage therapist that you already know and offer to give them massage in exchange for feedback. If you don’t happen to know someone like that already, then you could shop around at local spas or massage clinics until you find someone fabulous. You could also comb through online reviews on sites like Yelp, as well as your local newspapers’ annual “best of” lists to see who has built a strong following.

Once you get together with your mentor, put away your ego, mercilessly invite their honest feedback, and really open yourself up to it. Don’t worry; we all have blind spots. Asking to see yourself through their eyes only helps you to see more. Plus, when you go ahead and put yourself on the line to receive that feedback from a true pro, it gives you the chance to elevate your own practice and take it to the next level.

So, here’s an interesting conundrum: we all know to keep our conversation with clients to a minimum so they can have the most relaxing session, and yet, reports from those on the table abound of overly talkative therapists. No one wants to be a “Chatty Kathy,” but it happens.

Years ago, before I even went to massage school, I had a pretty good massage therapist who happened to decide that she liked me. Over the course of four or five sessions, I ended up learning everything there was to know about her boyfriend, her living arrangements, the health condition she had experienced, and her personal opinion about many politicians. When I showed up the next time, she literally said, “oh, good! You’re my favorite client!” And she started talking at me just like in the previous sessions. I said nothing. I kept my end of the dialogue as best I could while trying to relax, but I made a mental note to make this my last appointment with this therapist.

Why does this happen?

Clients do sometimes ask us questions like: “Where are you from?” or “How long have you been practicing?” or “Where did you go to massage school?” Social norms dictate that the polite thing is to answer them. And hence, we are drawn into a dialogue, but it doesn’t need to get out of hand.

In order to know when to stop talking, try thinking of that dialogue as a dance. One person leads, and the other follows. The person with the lead shows interest and asks the questions. Always let the client be in the lead position. If they ask how long you have been practicing, you can answer politely that you’ve been practicing for two years—without going into the details of where and how and that one funny thing that happened that one time with that first coworker who drove you so crazy…

While in general conversation it’s polite to reciprocate with interest and questions of you own, it’s vital, with a client on the table, to take care to avoid taking the lead. If you find that you’ve been talking for several minutes, chances are you’re shifting into the “Chatty Kathy” mode, which can be a real risk. The average client is too polite to tell you to shut up. They might even acknowledge your comments. They’ll never tell you point-blank that you talked too much for their taste; they’ll simply opt to see another therapist.

If you’re lucky, the therapist will be one of your colleagues, but if you are in private practice, you’ll likely never see that client again.

Like so many of my peers, I used to regard chair massage as nothing but an “introductory” technique that would allow clients to experience a bit of massage, after which they’d want to come to a spa or clinic where they’d get a longer “real” session.  That was, until one day when I joined a group providing massage on-site at a large retail chain for both customers and floor staff.

The response from the staff was so profoundly grateful, that it opened my eyes and changed my whole perception of chair massage. The women who came up were shocked at how much better they felt. They asked, “Is there any way that you could do this on a regular basis? Could you get our management to set this up?” They could tell that they were receiving true healing benefit from even those short 10-minute sessions.

So, why is chair massage viewed as less-valuable than other modalities like sports massage, clinical massage, Thai, shiatsu, etc.? Well, for one thing, sessions tend to be shorter: instead of an hour, they run just 10-30 minutes. Secondly, clients are clothed, so you can’t access their skin. You have to modify your technique, and you can’t use many techniques, like effleurage. Plus, certain body areas, like the front of the legs, abdominal area, and the chest, are not exposed without special arrangement.

However, there are a lot of things that you can do in a chair massage session. You still get great access to people’s neck, back, head, shoulders, arms, and hands. But the most interesting thing that I learned that day is that for some of those clients, this would be the only version of massage that they would ever receive or consider receiving, and, while it might be less-effective than a full session on the table, we all know that all massage has benefits simply because healing touch is healing touch.

I’ve come to realize that clothed chair massage is a wonderful and valuable modality unto itself that serves a portion of the population for whom it’s the perfect fit:

• People who are not comfortable taking off their clothing—those who are shy or maybe have religious conventions that prevent them from getting undressed
• Those who may not have the funds to go for a $70-90 session but will gladly spend $25 for 15-20 minutes of massage
• All those hard-working, busy people, who are so busy that taking an hour or two out of their day is just not feasible. For them, access to a shorter session nearby or even potentially right in their neighborhood or where they work is a godsend.

Don’t underestimate the role that chair massage, particularly on-site, can play in your practice.