Sunday, October 19, 2008

Killer Introductions for Massage Therapists pt3

This is the final entry in the “Killer Introductions for Massage Therapists” series. See parts 1 and 2 here (1 & 2)

Putting It Together

Once you know what you deliver and who you deliver it to, you are ready to design your killer introduction. Now you are equipped to frame what you do for your potential client instead of letting them put you in a box. Try these introductions on for size:

“Hi, my name is Mike Wolnick and I’m a Massage Therapist.”

“Hi, my name is Mike Wolnick and I use massage therapy to help athletes overcome chronic pain and injury to maximize their performance.”

Which introduction do you think is better? This kind of introduction is very powerful. Let’s look at why:

  1. It describes your work specifically. It’s hard for anyone to frame #2 as a sex worker or a spa therapist.
  2. It appeals to your niche. If you are really good at dealing with certain client issues, or just really enjoy working with some types of clients, why try to appeal to everybody? This introduction is going to appeal to athletes.
  3. It plants a seed. If you just introduce yourself as an MT, if they personally don’t need massage right then, they’ll forget about you. But if you frame it right, you’ve made a connection in their mind. In this case, if the client experiences an athletic injury, that is tied in their mind to you now. Even better, if they have a friend in a month complaining of some nagging sports injury, you’ve made that connection for them too! Otherwise they might never have associated massage with their friend’s pain.
  4. Sounds more professional. Which introduction would you take more seriously?
  5. Changes Your Competition. Do you think introduction #2 is competing with the spa down the street? Of course not, now your competition is other things that help with athletic injury. You even set yourself up in a better position to work with other professionals in that new area – sports medicine, orthopedic surgeons… Now it’s a matter of the client thinking about what very different method they can use to deal with their injury. Would you rather have surgery or get a massage…?

I’m just using sports massage as an example here, so adapt the idea to your own work. One other thing to note is the tone of the introduction. Use action words (overcome, maximize) and address the partnership involved in massage (help). And finally, make sure you don’t promise on anything you aren’t positive that you can deliver!

Using this process will help you to better build your business with the kinds of clients you want to work with. I guess you could say my introduction is:

“Hi, my name is Mike Wolnick and I help people change their lives and develop exciting, successful careers in massage therapy!”

Let me know how it works for you!

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