A common problem is smoothing out the peaks and troughs where one week is very busy followed by a very quiet week. What do you suggest for achieving a more consistent workflow?

Great question.

My answer is going to be a bit controversial.

What is your work?

The way you asked that question makes one big assumption: Your work is treating patients.

I do not believe that is the whole truth. Other important parts of your work are

• Marketing
• Networking
• Following up with your clients
• Bookkeeping and paying invoices
• Ordering products
• Keeping up with new developments in your field

So in a way, you should be thankful for the times with fewer clients, because it allows you to focus on all these other things.

I write down every idea I have for exactly that reason: Whenever I have some spare time, I look at my list and do some of these things.

Market when you are busy

I have written about post about marketing your practice when you have clients. In it I talk about how much easier it is to market yourself when you are busy and excited by your success.

So in an ideal case, set some hours aside each week for your work other than treating clients. If clients want an appointment, make them wait (until the next week that is not busy yet). That helps to smooth things out, it might also show how wanted you are and make clients book in earlier (or for a regular treatment time each week or each fortnight).

A Practical Massage Marketing Tip

Let’s say that you have completed all your “non-treatment work”, you’ve got time left and you need some more income this week.

Send out a special via email or text message. Tell you best clients: “I’ve got a few spots left this week and would like to fill them. The first five people to call for an appointment pay for a 1 hour massage, but get 1.5 hours.”

If you do that make sure

1. the offer is enticing (not just 10% off, in fact stay clear of discounting, instead add value)
2. that there is some urgency to it (you could also send it out in the morning for appointments the same afternoon)
3. that you do not do that too often!

One last Thought

Get clients on ongoing massage plans. That way you have them booked in each week, fortnight or month and know what income you can rely on. Again make that enticing. You can afford to earn less per treatment, because you do not have to spend the time and money to sell over and over again.

If you have not yet received my free report: The 7 Biggest Business Mistakes Health Practitioners Make, just enter your name and email and I'll send it to you. Name: E-Mail: I respect your privacy and will never sell, share or pass on your details.

If you have been following this blog for a while, you know that my wife Caroline is currently promoting her new service: Postnatal Exercise Classes.

One of the things she did was sent out a media release. Ever since, she has been running outside every day a paper was delivered and looked through every page to find herself.

At a rough guess it has been 3 weeks since she first sent it out (to about 8 newspapers and magazines). So far only one article. And a call back from a journalist who is preparing another article.

And that even though she had called every paper after sending it out, she had even sent it to different people within the same paper.

Persistence

Again, as so many other things, this is a question of persistence, keeping at it, continuously delivering new great stories (maybe about some community project your are doing) and building a relationship with the journalists or editors.

Patience

Once the article is in, does the phone ring non-stop?

No it does not, but what I do know from earlier editorials is that people cut it out, put it in their drawer and ring back later. Sometimes massage clients of mine received calls half a year after the editorial, referring to the newspaper article someone had read.

So even though it is work, it pays out, especially when you keep doing it and people get used to reading about you in the paper.

Final note

As I am about to publish this post, I notice that Jack Humphrey just published a blog post about public relations as well. His main point is to create some newsworthy action.

In the last few weeks, a Yoga DVD for pregnant mothers was launched in our city. They offered a free Yoga class in the park to celebrate the launch. That got publicity so much more easily. They said that they had just sent the media release in and got calls from every newspaper. And they even got a press photographer to the launch.

So media releases need to be newsworthy. Think about some ways that you can make them so, even if that means more work.

I am out of questions. What else is bugging you?

I guess, if no more questions are coming, we’ll close early and select who receives the Passionate Training as a gift.

Let’s give it two more days (until the end of January). If more questions come in I’ll keep going with the answers, if not, then the Passionate Training will be awarded.

Alexander

I just found a great post at www.allfreelance.com. They list 60 ideas of how to promote your business.

Even though the site is written for freelancers rather than massage practitioners, they are great massage marketing tips. Naturally they will not all apply to your circumstances, but just pick up some ideas of what else you could do.

Remember, consistent action brings results. Better doing something tiny each day, than waiting for a large chunk of time to do a big thing.

I am also ready for more questions. What else would you like to know about massage marketing? I’ll answer each question posted.

The first step - before thinking about advertising or even a website - is to get clarity on what problem you solve and for who.

The more clarity you have on that, the better you will be able to communicate in a way that attracts the right clients. The key is to find your special niche, where you become the expert in your town. That way, word of mouth will spread much more rapidly.

I know that it seems to go against common sense. Many natural health practitioners I have worked with wanted to offer many different things to get more clients. But that way any message that you get out, be it in advertising or on your website is diluted and does not grab anyone.

If you serve one specific target market with a solutions to a single problem (or some related problems), your message hits home with the people that have that problem.

Building a practice is an investment. There is no way around it. That investment can either be made in money or time. If you do not want to spend money, but have time, it is the best thing you can invest (and usually more effective than investing money) because it allows you to build personal relationships.

Special offers are an excellent way to invest your time. Rather than discounting, offer something like a free checkup (that relates to your specific target market). By given value beyond what people expect, you will start to build a trusting relationship. And with the right nurturing, your happy clients will become your best marketing tool: they just spread how great you are through word of mouth.

The Passionate Training takes you through each step.

What exactly do you mean by credibility? Is it in relation to people believing that you can help them?

If you are just starting out the only way to get that fast is to give people a taste of what you do: giving something away for free. Depending on your modality that could be a check-up or a short demonstration of your modality. When you do that, it is best to put a $ value on it to show what you are worth. And then you can use that meeting to start building a relationship.

Give to Get

You have heard it many times: clients are built on relationships of trust. That
is the way to new clients as well. This is so important, because treatments
are services that differ from products in that potential clients cannot touch
them or look at them before buying.

The best way to earn their trust is to give them a taste of what they can gain
from a treatment. This means you need to give something without the
security that you will get anything back.

I have heard many practitioners saying that they are not willing to give
something away, that they have spent too much money for their education
and now is the time to earn it back.

The fact is, if you are not having enough paying clients to fill your day, you
are wasting your valuable time. Each hour that you are not producing
income, you are losing money. Let’s assume that you charge $50 per hour. If
you have 10 empty spots a week that is $500, which is around $25,000 a
year. Talk about giving something away!

So now you need to be focussed on filling these spots. Using any spare nonproductive
time is the cheapest thing you can give away, because it only
costs your time, not time and money.

Without knowing where you are at in building your practice, my answer will be a bit broad.

But it is true all the same: Focus on creating value for your clients. By having in mind what you are giving – what your contribution is – you will make the best decisions.

What Is Your Contribution?

Being a health practitioner is about serving other people. It is about
contributing something to the world, making it a better place, helping others
to become healthier and more aware about themselves.

It usually involves some or all of the four levels of experiencing life: the
physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level.

Why are You a Health Practitioner?

What made you decide to be a health practitioner before you started out?
Has that changed since being in practice? Honestly ask yourself how much
time you spend worrying about having enough money and how much time
you spend contributing to the wellbeing of your clients?

If money outweighs contributing, you might need to reassess your
approach. Are you really ready to be a full-time health practitioner? If you are
just starting out, have you got the funds or the backing to keep you going
without much of an income for 6-12 months? That is a normal time-frame to
build up a reliable client base, when you really work on it.

If this concerns you, think about ways you can generate financial stability:
get a part-time job, reduce your expenses, use your savings, or even borrow
money (be sure that this reduces your stress).

Once you have created financial stability, start concentrating on what it is
that you actually contribute to your clients’ wellbeing.

Thank you all so much for your great questions. I hope that my answers shed some light on your massage business (or other therapy practice).

I am ready for more questions. What do you want to know? What is on your mind? Let me know and I’ll share what I know.

Today I received a beautiful email from one of the Passionate Training students. Here is a small part of it:

Thanks for putting together such a great program – I have had a look at others and some are just loaded with information to read – and most of it is something I have read before. I like this approach of small daily assignments that will bring results. 

It is so great to get that feedback. Thank you.

Even though the Internet is great to reach a lot of people, it just is not the same as being together and talking face to face. So any digital communication is greatly appreciated. Be it questions or any other thoughts.

Alexander

From you email address I take it that you are a Physiotherapist. My wife is a physio as well, so I had a talk to her.

She always had troubles with overrunning allocated session times as well. She wanted to use as many beneficial techniques as possible.

And then she realised that focusing on finding one technique is all it takes to have happy clients. So her advice was to focus on quality, rather than quantity.

She also has a clock on the wall of each treatment room, so that she always knows how long there is to go.

Whether someone is good in selling or not usually comes from the mindset of what you are trying to achieve.

As long as you are stuck in the: “I have to convince someone to give me money.” it is very unlikely that you will have much success. But when you return to what you really want to achieve, what made you become a health practitioner in the first place, your focus will shift to providing value for your clients. Then the “selling” turns into providing value to others in need and they start asking you for more.

A clear vision helps to reconnect with that original reason why you do what you do.