Category Archives: Building Your Practice

Good Fences Make Good Massages…

The other day, whilst talking to massage therapist friends about the best and worst places to do massage, we came up with lots of candidates for best, but the worst won hands down: beauty salons.

Yes, it has happened to many massage therapists. It may have been a fill-in job during massage school or a way to circumvent crazy local regulations, or just a desperate attempt to pay the rent. We had all, at one time, worked in a beauty salon.

Going in, we all agreed it looked like a great opportunity. A room in the back of the place, a built-in foot traffic that might be interested in massage, and a few people hanging out there to talk to when it was slow.

My friend said: My first day I got a lecture about why I had to wear make-up. I don’t know a lot of massage therapists that wear make-up because it slides off in the first 10 minutes of a session. I actually had to tell the salon owner that we sweat.

My other colleague stopped mid-sip in her Starbucks. She said: I got to wear a Minnie Mouse uniform with cap sleeves and a skirt. I felt like I was about to parade down Main Street. Our salon owner thought all the spa people should wear dresses so we looked cute. Meanwhile, everyone in the rest of the salon wore black jeans and T-shirts.

This brought back my own memories. It was a part-time job during massage school. The salon was a seething cauldron of drama. The stylists liked to unload about their unhappiness in the area where they mixed color – right outside the door of my massage room.

Asking people to hold it down or take their conversations elsewhere led to chaos. After more than a few jabs about being too quiet for a salon, I fled shortly after graduation from massage school. Much to my surprise, a few clients found me. One told me she just put up with the salon because she liked the massage.

I left salon world, happily, for better-designed spas and medical offices. My spa kept the hair stylists corralled in a separate room with a real door. No drama.

Much to my horror a client confessed to me one day that he was a salon owner and wanted to develop a spa-salon combination. Would I be interested?

Been there, done that I said. But a salon needs separation from a spa environment. How about a real door and a real wall across the back half of the salon? That way the sanctuary could be established.

He asked me to visit the place when it was remodeled. Yup, a real wall and a real door. It was very successful.

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Plans, Practice and Control

It is a new world for the massage therapist, just as it is for many other personal services industries.

App companies are going whole hog into personal service. Rides, house-cleaning, errands, baby-sitters, pet-sitters, and yes, massage therapists. Where is it heading? For a big thumping collision as we struggle to define ourselves, our employers and our clients….

Oh yes, big questions. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Hang on.

Are app companies employers? Are service providers employees or clients? Are clients users or beneficiaries? Who cares? Massage therapists care because the answers to those questions will determine how much money we make, how much we pay in taxes and how free we are to make decisions in our professional lives.

Here’s how it shakes out: Google is an advertising service that provides therapists with a way for people seeking their services to find a provider – and leaves the rest of the transaction up to the therapists and clients.

The app services are vetting providers, setting prices, presentation, times and even setting tips. The amount of control they have means they appear to be employers, not middlemen. If a therapist wants to provide more or charge more, they are not able to.

A therapist is not an independent provider of service when someone else sets the price and pay. If a therapist is not independent, then basic labor laws about employees apply.

The bottom line for therapists is that it is all about control. Control of prices, providers and policies such as tipping makes apps employers. That means the app gets to pay a lot more money in taxes for Social Security, payroll, disability, etc. that would otherwise be paid by the therapists.

There’s been some talk that the new services may yield a new classification of worker – the dependent contractor. That’s where the therapist would be a service provider who would pay less in taxes in exchange for less control. But will the apps pay the taxes? And pay for the benefits? Stay tuned.

In the interim, the people who may be the biggest targets are small businesses who have called their employees independent contractors to avoid higher costs. If the apps can’t have independent contractors, then spas and clinics can’t either. That will make major changes in the way multiple-therapist businesses operate.

Meanwhile, a massage therapist’s best bet remains Google or the other online search providers. People looking for a massage can find you in an efficient way. If they do not want your services, or don’t want to pay your price, they will find someone else who better matches their needs.

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Heavy Hearts, Light Touch

A massage therapist’s toolbox is crowd with all kinds of fancy techniques to address troubles in the body.

Yet one of the most effective techniques one can use to release tension is to say something. Just a little something to put the client at ease.

A small joke is letting clients know your empathy for their stress. Yes, the inmates are running the asylum. The Red Queen has lost her head. Welcome to the “e.r. for p.r.” Some people drive like they think –not. It is part of life to acknowledge the crazy and nonsensical.

Life teaches us that the way to release tension is to laugh, and sometimes it is the best solution to release thoracic tension during a massage.

For people who have recently been through the wringer, and back again, it is good to remind ourselves that we can laugh at the strange things in life.

It gets clients ready to relax. It says you understand, that you have been there, and no matter what else transpires in the next hour, you have met a friend who gets it.

Not a bad way to start? It will not work for everyone, but it often is a great opening to healing energy. If the body can laugh, it can raise and lower the rib cage, it can expand and contract the diaphragm. It can liberate itself from the heavy weights of life.

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Have you tried giving a massage using silk instead of oil?

We massage therapists love our helpers, be they oils, warm stones or essential oils. Lately I’ve come to totally enjoy something I at first thought would be a bust.

Massage on silk is a method of gliding the hands across skin or clothes without the use of oil. Silks provide glide, like oil, but without the drag or irritation.

My first acquaintance was with an educational video on chair massage by Boris Prilutsky a Massage Hall of Fame member and long-time instructor and therapist.

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Prilutsky notes that silks have been used in ancient Chinese massage not only for glide but also for positive energetic properties. Interested now?

My own experience was highlighted when I began looking at how to make workplace chair massage easier on the therapist and recipient. A silk square tossed over the back gave me not only additional leverage but also the ability to effluerage as if using oil.

Since then I have introduced a few therapists to silks as a means of chair massage, much to their delight. Instead of using only rolling compressions or static pressure, the silks provide the glide that clients crave and that we love to provide.

Here’s a quick primer on using silk: Buy a yard at the fabric store. It can be cut and hemmed into at least two back-sized squares. I went to the alterations shop to have my silks done.

There is also a commercial product on several of the massage supply websites that is already for use.

But I like finding my own nice massage color: healing green, warm blue, healthy pink, patterns, whatever strikes my energy and disposition. If you have a favorite silk shirt that has snagged or is somehow on its way out, you can cut out the back and use it as a massage silk.

Silks don’t have to be washed much especially when used over clothes. Cleanse in warm, not hot, water and hang dry. I like to keep a couple of silks handy, especially when I know I may be faced with an area that needs its facile touch. Enjoy!

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Massage with Attention and Distraction

Massage therapists know that many clients need to be listened to – really listened to – when they come in for therapy. But during the session there is something else that clients crave – the ability to be distracted away from their focus and relax.

I often use distraction in massage sessions, oddly enough in an attempt to help the client create mindfulness. A paradox? Yes, but it works.

In the anatomical sense, distraction means pulling one bone away from another to reduce contact – without injury to the joint.

In the massage practice sense, sometimes people are getting a massage to stop running ideas through their minds – to stop ruminating on a problem, pain or injury.

This is where as therapists, we can help clients by allowing them some time to put aside their problem or problems. It gives clients some time to divert attention, for example, by focusing on diaphragm breath, or feeling their shoulder as part of their bodies instead of a source of pain.

Surely the switch between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems is in the driver’s seat during this process, but the touch of hands consoles and fosters the release of vigilance.

Giving the brain up to its basic self – respiration, registering the feel of nerves, bones and muscles, these are gifts for clients who have much stress. My biggest compliment can be a sleeping client at the end of a session.

A wise massage therapist can say: Sometimes the act of forgetting can be just as important as remembering.

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Finding Your Best Massage Venue

A massage therapist starting to practice has quite a few challenges, not the least of which is finding the right place to practice.

Options are multiple: gyms, tennis clubs, spas, medical offices, chiropractic, acupuncture or p.t. clinics, clients’ homes, business conference rooms, hotels, chains, etc. Each has its advantages and drawbacks.

Sometimes the best option for newbie massage persons is to try as many locations as possible to determine where they would like to practice.

The important factor in these experiences is to truly work in each venue – give it your all to see if the dynamics of a happy practice are there.

When I speak with others about their sense of success or commitment to massage as a career, opinions often track back to their personal investment in making a venue work.

The conflicts often come in when the venue requires a therapist to work out of their personal comfort zone. When I hear statements like “I didn’t get into massage to become a salesperson.” Or “I don’t think telling someone to come in once a week is ethical.”

These statements are comforting to some because they allow therapists reasons to not expand their skills. Choices like this should point therapists to seek a different venue.

I encourage therapists to put their objections aside just in case they are missing an opportunity – maybe the venue would work for them if they were more adaptable or had other skills in the mix.

Ultimately the choices we make, much in life and in work, are based on what we are willing to try and how hard we are willing to work.

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Helping your clients set goals for their massage sessions

I always like to check in with new clients on their goals for massage. Do they want to improve sleep, performance, reduce aches, release stress, etc.

I like to give people a few choices on my intake, plus the opportunity to mark “all of the above.” Lots of “aota’s” later, I have come to see what it truly means to some clients. One such new client put it so well:

“I would like to do what I want to do, when I want to do it.”

His statement made us both laugh, because it often sums up what we all want in life: freedom. We want freedom to enjoy activities without thinking about consequences.

I have to admit that massage cannot deliver that goal.

“When I get to that place myself, I’ll let you know,” I said.

Meanwhile, it made me think about what am I really selling as a massage therapist. When I find, treat and track dysfunction I am perhaps vending exactly the opposite: Allowing people the opportunity to choose after careful consideration of their abilities and consequences.

We all have choices, and we make them sometimes a bit too quickly. Choosing to stay at a job that is no longer fair or fun is a choice: people make those decisions for other kinds of rewards. When they come in for massages, I try to help them survive and feel better about that choice.

Massage can’t fix a lot but it can set the mood for people to adapt and make better choices when it comes to stretching, exercise, foods or sleep.

If I think back to my sandbox days, it was all about trying to have things my way – and I was guided to make a better choice for myself and for the future. Human nature, in deed.

Perhaps I would suggest this goal instead:

I would like to be able to do what is good for me, I would like to enjoy doing good for me, and I would like to do it when it is best for me to do it.

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Starting Choices, Massage Therapists

As they graduate from education programs, massage therapists have many choices for employment. Yet finding that perfect job can be elusive.

The venues have expanded in the past few years but the economics remain the same: work a lot for less pay, work a lot less for more pay.

For recent graduates looking to pay their bills – and their student loans – the pressure is quite high. How do newbies balance reliable income with recognition of their skills? start

As an experienced massage therapist, I don’t have all the answers. But let me suggest some strategies that can help graduates maneuver through the first years of their massage careers.

Use your Advantages – Most massage therapists are women, and often female therapists who are attractive can build a book of clients more quickly. So put that picture on your resume, business card, website, whatever, and prepare to get busy.

Better yet, Use Your Disadvantages – Male, muscular and big? Men who do massage face discrimination from clients both male and female. The reasons, trust me, are very unfair. But why not make it an advantage? A male can be a strong, resilient chair massage therapist. Chair massages are done fully dressed, often in public places such as conventions. That eliminates a lot of objections clients have to male therapists. Those practices bloom.

Gender politics can be an advantage in other situations. I also know a female therapist who looks and acts non-feminine. Is that a problem? Heck, no, she told me. “No trophy wife ever has to worry about me making a play for her husband.”

Have more than one source of income – My friend’s career strategy was simple – her income was secondary to the family breadwinner. Her husband handled the bills and worked the long hours of a tax accountant. That left her time to groom and select her clientele without a lot of money pressure. She also had time to volunteer and market herself. She worked at high-end spas and targeted her favored client type – professional athletes. It took years to build a clientele, but she got there. She has a great elevator speech, and the more she practiced it, the more it became her practice.

Do more than massage alone – Another of my friends runs her own day spa and has a cosmetology license. along with a massage license. She can wax; do facials and other cosmetic treatments to fill her book. A slow massage day can be a busy wax day, etc. She didn’t like cutting and coloring hair, but she loves doing facials, massage and waxing.

Some therapists can increase incomes by doing administrative and billing work at their chiropractor’s offices. Another friend also works as a personal assistant, running errands for people who are too busy or too old to do errands.

Work in Multiple Massage Venues – A doctor, a chiropractor, a spa, a chain, a physical therapy clinic, a hotel, a mall chair-massage store. You may surprise yourself to discover your best fit. And if one venue becomes slow, another may be busy.

Be Productive No Matter Where You Work – I call this the “Joseph” strategy. Like Joseph in the Bible, maybe your brothers don’t like you and you get sold into slavery but you work hard and do so well you end up running your master’s house and businesses.

Where you start does not have to be where you end up. Use your venue as a learning laboratory. Does your chain want you to sign up members? Practice so you can figure out how to do that. Sell products? You can learn how to do that, too. What about upgrades? Some of the more corporate places have quotas for therapists. Instead of stressing about meeting those quotas, can you figure out how to fill them? boybaseball

I met sales quotas at a spa by asking someone who could sell how to do it. I sucked at it, but kept practicing and asking questions until I go it. You can also read up on sales techniques, and you can observe those who are successful at it. The key is practice. Being a productive massage employee is all about trying multiple times. Kind of like baseball, hitting three out of 10 times makes you a superstar.

Tips for Bringing Muscles Back to Life

As mysterious as the workings of the human body is, we massage therapists have learned a few tricks to bring errant, dysfunctional muscles back to working order.

I continue to be impressed by the methods of active release, also known as myofascial release, in reviving elements of structure and function to certain muscles.

I recently had the fun of trying to extricate a “burning” sensation in the left lumbar area over the area we associate with discs L-5 and S-1. This is a frequent complaint of people coming in for massage, and sometimes restoring circulation and tone don’t quite fix this problem.

Active release involves allowing the therapist to palpate the errant muscle and drawing it through a complete range of motion. What people sometimes forget in this venue is that complete range of motion must be done by the client, not the therapist, to truly meet the definition of active release.

This took a good trusting relationship between me, the therapist, and my client. It helped that it was not the first time I have seen this client. It also helped that the client was suffering enough to be gung-ho about trying the step.

First, I demonstrated the full motion range to the client, then I asked the client to go through the motion with my verbal prompts. The actions of the suspected muscle, the multifidus, are varied between spinal stabilization in standing and bending, especially while holding a weight in front of the spine. I usually re-discover the aaaargh-factor of the multifidus muscle when I am trying to lift boxes onto a shelf in the garage. Or take them out.

Clients will come in and report such activity as garage-cleaning, house-cleaning, tub-cleaning, etc., followed by pain in the area later in the evening. If it has been a bad lift, the pain is immediate.

Once in a while a client will report trauma, such as falling off a ladder, or a fall during gymnastics, that will make me believe the mutlifidus is now stabilizing a spinous process or transverse process fracture. Off to the doctor they go. I can do active release for the multifidus after the fracture has healed.

This client was sitting on the massage table, back to me, while I palpated the area of the multifidus, just lateral to the spine and about a half-inch into the myofascial bundle. I kept constant pressure on the multifidus as the client bent forward, bent back and then rotated to the opposite side and bent forward. When the multifidus is particularly out of sync, I may do this with the client on their side and asking them to arch the back in this wobble-toy motion.

Give this technique a try with your massage-trading partner to see how it works for you. It’s another trick to hang onto when the clients present with a big pain in a very small area. Do you have your own version of this technique? I would love to hear some more….

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Massaging with Partners

Most successful massage therapists come to a time in their careers when they think about going out on their own. They have worked in spas, medical offices or chain clinics and they have an itch to move out and become independent.

Then the question comes up. Why risk all in business? Why not seek out another therapist to partner with? partners

It’s a natural question and the list of advantages sounds enticing. Half the workload, shared space, some extra hands to help.

I posed the question to my business advisers – a successful small businesswoman, an accountant, a private practice acupuncturist and an attorney: Would a partnership be a good idea?

Here’s what they said:

Businesswoman: It sounds good at first, but partners often don’t do half of the work. They don’t want to clean, or they don’t want to do books or pay for bookkeeping, or they want to take lots of time away from the business. Then when it comes to splitting profits, if there are any, they want half for less work. You will spend more time fighting about issues than just making decisions and implementing them.

Accountant: Partners are great if they have the same work ethic you have. I have never met someone with the same work ethic as me. I have seen people who blow things off if it is inconvenient, or worse, blow off the customers. I work alone.

Acupuncturist: I took on a partner in a real estate investment because I could not afford it on my own. The partner has been extremely difficult to work with. He was supposed to be a silent partner, with me managing the investment. He’ll decide he needs to check on things and comes in and meddles. As soon as he causes problems with the employees, he disappears and leaves me to fix the problems he creates.

I have tried two times to buy him out. Even though it is a good deal for him, as he would get his investment back plus some appreciation, he has backed out at the last minute because he thinks he might be missing out on some money. I just want him out for my peace of mind.

Attorney: If more than half the people with all the best intentions in the world – who know each other intimately – cannot make marriages work, why would you think partnering with someone else would work?

I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for a trip to the dark side of partnerships when I asked my experts. First, I was very glad I asked the question. Second, I took the partnership idea and sent it sailing into the circular file of doom.

Partners? It’s a great idea. Has any massage therapist out there managed to make it work?

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