By Amy Roberts, LMT.

Many therapists that set up a stall at trade shows, such as the Mind, Body & Spirit Festival, soon understand that it’s not a simple and straight forward process. Apart from the raging competition that is also there, as a Massage Therapist, you will want to stand out from the rest of the therapists that are there. Here are five tips to “being seen” by your prospective clients. After all, the sole purpose of doing a trade show is so that potential clients can see you and then do business with you.

So, how can you break through the crowd and have your trade show exhibit stand out in a way that draws the interest of your potential clients?

A Professional Image

It’s a good idea to have your colours worked out before you go. In fact choosing two or three colours to have as your professional colours will enhance a strong sense of professionalism with your prospective clients. Get your colours and designs all matching. Chose some relaxing colours such as blue or green.

Have a Professional, Functional Website

Along with your professional image, have a professional website. (And use the same colours as you’ve used on the day of your trade show.) You can have someone create one for you which might cost a lot, or you can buy a website with an already made up template. Round the Bend Wizards and My Arts Desire have some templates you may be interested in using.

Add Music

Having an interactive element to your stall will gather some professional momentum. You can have gentle music playing in the background to attract people to you, or have music with headphones you can give to them to block out the background noise and focus on relaxation.

A Water Feature

For added affect you may also have a water feature in the corner. A gentle fountain in a massage clinic is always lovely to listen to. Like music, the sound of gentle falling water, will induce feelings of relaxation- all aspects of your massage you want people to experience even before you’ve touched them.

Lighting

It’s a good idea to create mood with your lighting. You can have some soft globes in standing lamps in your stall then creates a feeling of relaxation. Some globes with a more yellowish tinge to them is a much better alternative than hard white fluorescent shades that some globes give off.

Smile and the world smiles with you

When people first see you they make a conscious or subconscious judgment about how effective your massage treatments will be just by what you wear, your stall layout, your colours and the way you approach people. Don’t sit down reading a book waiting for people to come to you. If you do that you could be missing so much potential business.

If you are doing chair massage then have a friend in the chair and gently massage them so it gives the impression of being busy. And if you are not massaging your friend then be smiling and energetic to attract your potential clients.

Get Ready for new clients

Have your appointment book with you on the day so that if people want to book in after the show they already have their appointment with you. Don’t wait for them to call you, offer to book them in for an hour massage in your clinic with you that week.

Create a special “show offer”

As an incentive for people to come and have massage with you after the show, create special offer for them when they book their first appointment with you. I’m not talking about ten percent off, that won’t rock anyone’s boat. Perhaps you can make up a blend of massage and essential oil and bottle it, then give it to them on their first appointment. You can also put this in a little basket with some dried lavender and some soap as a small gift. You can display it on your table to show them what they get when they have their first appointment with you. You might also be able to create a small booklet with stretching ideas for a variety of problems. You can have a “lower back”, “neck and shoulder” booklets and display them on your table too.

You could give the booklets away on the day to take with them. Print them in all your professional colours, with your website and contact details clearly displayed on the booklets. If people do suffer with these things I can almost bet money that they will in deed read them. It’s another way of problem solving for your client.

Test and measure

It’s a good idea to test out certain things in your efforts. For example try one of these suggestions at a time. See which works best. Then combine them all and see how that goes too. Keep a diary of these changes so you become versed in marketing your massage business. Soon you’ll be able to attract a whole new block of clients just from the day.

I recommend using trade shows but only if you are well prepared. A good image is just as powerful as a poorly prepared image. A poorly prepared image can do as much damage to your reputation as a good image can boost it. So make sure you are prepared and don’t hold back. Try new things but above all present yourself well and give people excellent massages.

Best wishes,
Amy Roberts
www.massagetherapysuccess.com

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I got such a great email, I just have to share it with you:

“Sorry for the delay in replying, I have had a flood of patients….really!! 8 new patients in the last 3 weeks and now I am so behind on the Passionate Training because I haven’t had time to commit to it!!

I will though for sure, I think it’s fabulous!!

For me the flood gates opened when I reminded myself, through your prompting via the course, why I actually set out to be an alternative health practitioner in the first place. I realized it was as a consequence of a trip to Sierra Leone, when I returned I knew I needed to make a difference in the world, no matter how small… and so I trained to become a Homeopath. A course that quite literally transformed my life.

The passion returned, and I became less worried about the money and more enthusiastic about the difference I could make and hey presto, 8 new patients!! May I add, after months of having no new clients whatsoever. Your course is a little miracle worker!!

So, please do I still get access to the stuff on your site or does it run out after a certain time? Only I’m behind, but for all the right reasons!!”

Thank you so much for that email Paulla. It makes my heart sing and I hope that you continue to attract many more people who benefit from your help.

In answer to the questions: There is no time limit whatsoever for doing the Passionate Training. It is a self paced course, so you set the time. I suggest doing it in 5 weeks to gain momentum and get into the habit of doing something each day. But you make the decision of how to actually do it.

Have you ever felt like you have one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake? You know what I mean – you are passionate about what you do, but when it comes to promoting yourself you freeze!

We probably all have from time to time, but I’ve found it a really common phenomenon amongst the health practitioners that I work with. They can dutifully attend all my ‘how to’ workshops and courses, read marketing articles and sign-up for the wonderful online resources available, but then find themselves getting in their own way with a scarcity mindset or a fear of failure or fear of success.

Is what you thinking holding you back? Could you manage without negative self talk and give yourself a pep talk instead? Here are some common thought patterns and the perfect replacement for them:

The funny thing is, these new thoughts aren’t just positive thinking – they are real and achievable.

The key is simple. Recognize that your difference is the difference.

Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, carefully select your target market based on two things:

• who you like working with and
• who already benefits from what you do.

When someone asks you what you do, let them know who you work with and what benefit they receive from seeing you. Don’t just say: I’m a massage therapist. Instead you might say: I work with golf enthusiasts who want to improve their swing. Or whatever audience you have chosen and what the benefits are they receive.

This is not big noting yourself or boasting. It is simply stating who you are passionate about working with and what is in it for them. You will grow to love promoting yourself when you do it in this manner - because it is not about you, it is about your clients.

So stop thinking thoughts that stop you in your tracks, start to think from your clients point of view – and harness opportunities that present themselves daily to let others know about you and your services. Remember it’s not what you know, but who knows what you know that counts!

Krishna Everson works with massage therapists and health practitioners to help them attract new clients and retain the ones they’ve got through an inspiring series of workshops and courses on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. For details of upcoming training visit her website at www.marketyourmassage.com

Krishna has contributed great comments in the past. To my delight, she has agreed now to blog as well.

And if you are on the Sunshine Coast, you can benefit from her massage mastermind group. It kicks off this week and will help massage practitioners to stay on the path to running a successful practice.

Her business background in marketing and advertising give s a great basis for it, but the real experience she is going to share from is coaching her husband. He has built himself a florishing massage practice with Krishna’s support.

So welcome Krishna and all the best with the new service you are offering.

Normally you may feel that your massage therapy business is doing well and has a good number of clients. Even so there are frequent times in our massage therapy business life when client numbers could be better and we get that familiar sense that our wonderfully fulfilling massage therapy business could work a lot better.

You’ve heard me talking about how your thinking can change your massage therapy experience, and business. But how is this done? How can you turn around a massage therapy business from ok to doing well?

For most massage therapists it simply isn’t that easy. The fact of the matter is that we all have times when clients don’t come as we’d like them to and there is room for improvement. When examine our massage therapy businesses, we can really see that our client numbers are not as high and even getting our most regular clients to refer friends can feel like a battle. In this case, what is needed is some techniques to combat this and cut of falling client numbers. And all massage therapy businesses need this; not just the starting up ones.

In this case what we need to do to bring client numbers up for our massage therapy business is to examine where the clients you do have, have come from. Go over your client records again and do a quick search on what sources you have got them from.

Look at your records and you will find that perhaps out of 100 people that 10 have come from the dance club up the road, 15 have come from the office block in the city, and that the rest have come from signs and advertising. What you are trying to do is establish a pattern and find where the flow is coming from.

What will happen then is that you realise that not all client numbers have to drop in your massage business just because of unforeseen circumstances, sometimes the reason client numbers drop is because you have not followed up on marketing for a while, not contacted people in the community who have referred you business or created new, positive contacts who could be possible candidates for giving you business.

In any massage therapy business, writing down a basic graph or report for yourself will help you keep on top of any potential falling client numbers and hopefully put a stop to it before it happens.

Amy Roberts
www.massagetherapysuccess.com

Benefits

Newsletters are a great way to keep in touch with your clients. Sending a regular newsletter reminds people about your existence, and encourages them to call up for that long overdue treatment. Even better, a newsletter can also educate people about what conditions you treat. You’ll be amazed at how few of your clients know and understand the full scope of your work. As well as repeat bookings, a piece in your newsletter might result in a client booking for relief from headaches (as well as their usual relaxation massage); or they might recommend you to a friend with sciatica.

Planning your newsletter

So you’re convinced - a newsletter sounds like a great idea! Let’s take a few minutes to think about what you hope to achieve, and how you might do it.

• What are you hoping to achieve by sending a newsletter? Are you looking for repeat business, new clients, more referrals, or something else? The content of your newsletter will be guided by your aims. If you start out with clear goals then you can measure how well it is performing, and take steps to improve performance later if you need to.
• How often can you commit to creating and sending your newsletter? Monthly is probably ideal, but quarterly is more realistic for many of us.
• Do you have the time and writing ability to create educational pieces in each newsletter? (If not, there are other options - I’ll be covering these in my next post.)
• Do you want to include special offers and news of upcoming events etc?
• What format will you use? Do most of your clients have email, or would a traditional paper based newsletter be more appropriate? Do you have time to address and mail a traditional newsletter?
• Do you want to use photos, graphics or fancy formatting? For paper formats, you need to consider whether your word processing software can handle it, or will you need to buy a desktop publishing package? With an email newsletter, you’ll need to send what’s known as HTML format if you want to include anything other than just plain text.
• How much money do you want to spend? For a paper newsletter you need to consider the paper itself, ink (plus a printer of course!), envelopes and postage. Email newsletters are usually cheaper than paper formats depending on how many people you have subscribing. It’s also possible to send email newsletters for free using your own email program if you don’t mind a bare bones solution.

Summary

A newsletter can be a great marketing tool for your practice, as long as you have the time and money to invest in it. If you can’t commit to writing and sending a newsletter regularly, then a newsletter is probably not for you, but if you do have the time to put into it, then a newsletter is well worth the effort.

In future posts, I’ll discuss who to send to, working out what to write, as well as how to set up an email newsletter.

You might also want to check out the sample massage newsletter that Alexander discussed before.

Catherine Doyle

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Founder, Soothed - web design & online marketing for natural therapists
Editor, natural bloom - sharing the inside story on holistic health

If you have just graduated as a Massage Therapist and want to start up your practice from home here are some ways you get started.

First of all, let me say that starting from home is an excellent way to keep overhead costs down, build up a solid client base in the control of your own environment and there are no traveling times to and from work.

Before I give you these important directions to follow lets look at this first, otherwise you won’t be able to do anything: The hardest thing about getting starting is developing momentum. This factor is so underestimated. It’s very easy to sit back and say “it’s all too hard” and rely on clients to come to you without any effort. It can be hard because you have to be very self motivated and be willing to put the time in to start this momentum.

So what are some ways to make this “gaining momentum” easier?

Write down in a special book (blank) that every day you will commit to a minimum of at least one hour dedicated to the pursuit of getting clients. If you work better with routine, then say to yourself “okay everyday, Monday to Friday, between 10 am and 11am I am going to work actively at getting clients.”

See how that feels already? Already you have formed a picture in your mind of yourself actually doing that. That picture can grow into reality and form into your life. That mental image is the basis of getting what you want. It’s very important.

The next thing to do is to have a very clear picture in your mind of what you want to be experiencing. In your special book (I call this my “inspiration book” its really a business planning book, but you can call it whatever name works to get you going) you can then ask yourself a question:

What are some of the ways I can start getting clients today?

Your response might be “contact the local Physical Therapy Center and introduce myself, and leave a brochure or flyer there.” It’s a small gesture but it might lead to something else later.

Make sure though, that the clients you want to treat actually go to the Physical Therapy Center. No point marketing yourself where your potential clients have no intention of going. I want to make that point as clear as the palm of your hand.

Follow-Up

The next thing to do is to make sure you follow up and follow up with these people or places you contact. It’s SO important to keep tabs on what your results are from your contact so that you know what’s getting you clients and what is not.

There is no point contacting a swimming center over and over again over a 4 month time frame, and leaving brochures there if you get absolutely no clients from that. There’s no sense “flogging a dead horse” as the saying goes.

This is why you must keep tabs. All you have to do for this is to write in your special book how many times you have contacted them over what period of time and whether you got any response from the swim center or not. If you did special offers and incentives to the swim center over a 6 month period, and gave your “all” and got absolutely nothing back, move on.

If you contacted the Physical Therapist a few times and had two clients from them and those clients came back and referred you other clients over a six month period, to compare, then you know that source is a good source to work on. Perhaps then you can contact the Therapist with a thank you card and some incentive for them to keep referring you their clients. It might be free massage, it might be something else. Whatever it is, make sure you do it and give them something they will like. There is no point rewarding them for the business they have given you with a nice bottle of white wine if they dislike alcohol! Just find out from their receptionist or colleague first. It’s just a bit of sneaky detective work that will go along way.

When do you stop your daily hour commitment to getting clients?

You never actually stop working on your massage business to get clients, you’ll always be doing it. That’s just business and if you’ve been in it for as long as I have (since 1994) or for twenty minutes you must realise that the act of marketing is just as important as the massage itself.

The more you build up the busier you will be and that time you spend may go from one hour a day to three hours a week, but whatever time it is, make should you do it and commit to it.

Don’t worry if you take a bit of time to actually gain this momentum, just make sure you commit to it and follow through. Because the thing about starting to take action like this is actually making a promise to yourself and, on a personal level, enhancing your self esteem as well.

My best wishes to you,

Amy Roberts
www.massagetherapymarketingsuccess.com

Hello to you. I’d like to extend a warm hello to you. I would like to provide you with some great articles about how you can get more clients in your massage business.

My best wishes to you,

Amy Roberts
www.massagetherapymarketingsuccess.com

Amy Roberts is a Massage Therapist and International Business Consultant for Massage Therapists. Amy has helped over 10,000 Massage Therapists world wide grow their massage businesses, and is also an international speaker on many issues that therapists face in their businesses. Travelling overseas to the UK, Amy was a guest speaker at the Bowen Therapy Association UK and then a guest speaker at the Therapeutic Massage Association of New Zealand.

Amy has a regular column with the American Massage Therapy Association. She also has been accredited by the AMTA’s continuing education program on stress management issues in a Massage practice. Amy has 6 eBooks that she sells online and coaches therapists in person and in groups. Amy’s website is www.massagetherapysuccess.com . She answers all emails personally.

Recently I’ve been reading quite a lot about some highly regarded websites being penalised by Google. I can see why they want to keep the spammy sites out of their search results, but in many cases it seems like innocent businesses are being hit by this as well as the unscrupulous operators.

In fact my husband noticed a couple of weeks ago that one of his websites had been penalised and his visitor numbers from Google had dropped right off as a consequence. When we checked his site, we found that some of the sites he’d been linking to for years were now horrid spammy sites (rather than the reputable sites they were when he’d first linked to them). He’s now removed these and asked Google to reconsider, but you can see why you’d want to avoid getting on Google’s bad side in the first place!

If you’re doing any promotion of your web site yourself, it’s well worth reading and complying wit h Google’s quality guidelines on linking to other websites. If you’re linking to other sites, make sure the other sites are:

• relevant - e.g. they are on a similar subject
• provide quality content that you’re happy to recommend

A good rule of thumb is to link to a site only if you feel it’s genuinely useful to your visitors. Don’t be persuaded to exchange links just for the sake of a link back, and don’t buy links to enhance your rankings. Lastly, check your links occasionally - good sites can go bad, so make sure the sites that you’re linking to are still relevant and high quality sites.

Happy Marketing,
Catherine
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Founder, Soothed - web design & online marketing for natural therapists
Editor, natural bloom - sharing the inside story on holistic health

“There’s no easy way to bring it up.
It’s easy to bring up, “hey, where’d you get that ring tone?” because the ring tone just interrupted everyone. It’s a lot harder to bring up the fact that you just got a massage.”

That quote comes from Seth Godin’s Blog. It is one of the reasons he sees why word of mouth does not happen.

Does it mean, massage cannot generate word of mouth? No way, on the contrary, there are so many ways it can. What is one of the most talked about topics among friends? Health (or actually the lack of it).

People talk about how tired they are, how stressed they are, how their backs hurt. These things come up a lot more than cool ring tones. So, all you need to do to be talked about is change your identity from “I am a massage practitioner.” to “I give backs their strength back.” or “eliminating stress in 30 minutes”.

Hold that last statement in your head for a minute, I’ll come back to it.

The important thing is that people have you as someone in mind who does a really specific thing, a specialist. The specialist who can help beyond anything that others might hope for. And the better that specialty relates to what people are talking about, the more you will get word of mouth.

The Irresistible Offer

There are very few books, I read more than once. But if I do, I usually read them 5 or 10 times. One of my re-reads is called “The Irresistible Offer” by Mark Joyner. It teaches “how to sell your service in 3 seconds or less”.

How? By developing a “touchstone” that answers the four biggest questions people have when they evaluate a service (or product). After reading it, you will know why “I just got a massage” can never lead to successful word of mouth referrals and - more importantly - how you can develop an identity that will lead to lots of successful word of mouth.

Just imagine what “Eliminating stress in 30 minutes or less or it’s free” would do for you.

If you want to understand this example, you need to read the book.

You can get it at Amazon or you can download it here: The Irresistible Offer for free.