Stacking Services with Massage Therapy

Would you like to be able to earn more money for your work?

The real question is who wouldn’t? There are several ways you can earn more money by increasing the value of your work – making it more convenient, offering better results with advanced techniques, et cetera. Today I’ll talk about stacking you services.

What does “Stacking Services” Mean?

Stacking services means performing more services that you can charge money for within the same amount of time. An example from my spa days was to have a base rate for a one-hour massage and then charge more for add-ons. For instance, you could charge an extra $10 for deep tissue or aromatherapy, or $15 for both together. The key here is that you are increasing revenue without increasing time.

Stacking services is a way to become more efficient with your time. Let’s step into the shoes of a spa manager for a moment. You’d know that you have a certain number of treatment rooms and that you are open for a certain number of hours per day and per week. That means that there is a certain dollar-value in revenue for each room. What stacking services does is to increase the revenue that each room would make every hour.

Doing More with the Same

The same thing applies to large spas or private, individual practices – you have a certain amount of work that can be performed and it is limited. For an individual therapist, that limit would be the number of massages one could do in a week. For a simple example, if a MT can do 20 massages a week and makes $50 per massage then they are limited to a maximum of $1000 per week. In a perfect world, this MT would earn that much, but in the real world we know that they would seldom be fully booked and would be lucky to make 75% of that.

Now if this same MT stacked some services and raised the average profit per massage to $60, then the weekly income would go up by 20% without working any extra hours. Nice improvement!

For a real-world example, at my old spa, we charged an even $100 for our base one-hour service, a one hour Solace Massage (more on branding later), but our average billed service ran $128 for an hour. All due to stacking. Needless to say, this improved our profitability by 28% without any more hours.

What Can I Stack?

The key to stacking is to do more things in the same time frame. It is fairly common for massage establishments to charge more for specialized massage treatments that require additional training – clinical deep tissue, pregnancy massage, manual lymph drainage, hot stone therapy, and so on. This reflects the fact that fewer people know how to do it. Do you have skills that you could charge a premium for? If you are looking to acquire some skills, find a good balance between what you want to do and what your clients are looking for. If you don’t know what your clients really value about your work – find out! Here are some examples of things you can stack easily:

1. Hot Stone Massage
2. Aromatherapy
3. Deep Tissue work
4. Sports Massage
5. Reflexology
6. Body Treatments – Exfoliations & Body Wraps
7. Eye Zone treatments
8. Signature treatments (i.e. your specialty scalp massage)
9. Postural Evalutations

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Do some brainstorming and think about what you can do to add value for your clients. Will they all jump to take advantage of your add-ons? No, but if you really take into account what they want and look to you to deliver, these add-on services can tailor their treatment to even more perfectly fit their needs.

Adding Time

Another relatively easy way to increase the efficiency of your time is to increase the length of your service. I found that when I was doing outcall massage to the hotels in San Francisco that maybe half of the time if the client had booked a one-hour massage and I asked if they would like to go for a 90-minute session they would say yes.

Now this is different than stacking because it actually does take more time, but especially for outcall massage it is more efficient because it maximizes your travel time.

You see, it would take about 30 minutes to get to and from each appointment for me. That meant every appointment actually took me 2 hours for a one-hour massage. However, with the upsell to 90-minutes, I got paid for 90-minutes of 2.5 hours instead of one-hour out of two. That’s 10% better. You’re already there, so why not make more while you’re at it?

The only problem with this one is when you’re already working close to your limits. Adding time isn’t the best option in that case.

Wrapping It Up

Make sure that when you think of these things that you are looking at it from your clients’ perspective. What do they value about your work and how can these add-ons make it better? If an add-on isn’t a win-win for both you and your clients, don’t do it. They’ll resent it and feel you are trying to gouge them if it only works for you. And you’ll resent having to do it if it only works for the client. If you own a massage business, it has to be win-win-win: for you, the client, and for the massage therapist doing the labor.

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Repeat Clients Are Golden

Have you ever noticed how cell phone companies always seem to offer the best deals to new customers? To customers that switch from other carriers? How you, as a loyal customer only get ho-hum deals on upgrading a phone or changing your plan?

Another one I love is when you’ve been a customer of a company for a while, you call to cancel and they transfer you to “customer retention” where they offer you a deal at half the rate you’ve been paying. Why didn’t you offer me a better rate before?

How does this make you feel as a customer?

In many business and marketing classes, you are taught how to find new customers – a necessary and worthy endeavor. The trick is to balance the quest for new blood in your practice with honoring those who have been with you all the while.

The Cost of a New Client

What many people don’t realize is that gaining new customers costs money. If not money, it costs time; but as the old saying goes, time is money. So just how much money does gaining a client cost you?

Well first you have to determine how much money you are spending on your marketing efforts. Tally up what you spend on business cards, mailers, maintaining your website, open houses, charity functions, etc… so you have a dollar amount. The next part is a little harder – figuring out the intangible costs.

To figure out the intangibles, ask yourself, “Are any of my promotional efforts costing me money in time or potential lost business”? If your time is plentiful, this may not really be a cost. But if it isn’t, you might be “spending” money that way. Also factor in things like transportation, refreshments and any other costs direct or indirect.

Let’s take an example (numbers entirely fabricated) by evaluating all you spend on marketing broken up by category. Then, you have to keep track of how many clients you get from each source. And finally you divide to see how much each new client costs you…

Biz Cards	$25	5 clients	$5 each
Paper Ad	$150	3 clients	$50 each
Online	$50	2 clients	$25 each
Health Fair	$400	8 clients	$50 each
Mailer	$100	5 clients	$20 each
Totals	$725	23 new clients	$31.52 average

What this does is allow you to see how effective each effort is. In this example, our imaginary MT spent $31.52 to gain each new client. New clients are expensive! But wait, there’s more! If you give an introductory discount, it can be even more.

Say your normal rate is $70 per hour. If you give a $20 new client discount on top of that then those clients from the newspaper ad and the health fair were given a free massage. You’d better make sure they come back! The business cards were more efficient, but during this time frame their appointment was still given for:

$70-31.52-20 = $13.48

New clients are vital to any business, growing or established, but don’t lose sight of the big picture and focus all of your efforts here. Not many of us can afford to do all of our work for $13 an hour. It can be an eye opening experience to find out exactly how much we can spend to get those clients in the door. The added bonus to this strategy is that it can really help us focus on our most successful and efficient marketing efforts.

Repeat Clients Are Golden

Now that we’ve seen the sticker shock of how much new clients can cost, how much do returning clients cost?

Nada.

Quite often a client will come back with a simple “would you like to book your next session now?”? Don’t miss this opportunity to ask the client to come back. Show your appreciation for their business and to let them know how much you genuinely value them. Gratitude can go a long way.

Going back to the cell phone company example from the start of this post, why don’t you go a step further and offer a VIP program, a “frequent flier” type program, or a discount for booking a massage at least once a month?

If you look back to working with new clients, you have to look at your conversion rate – how many of those new clients come back for another massage? And another? Personally, unless there is a major clash of personalities, I consider it a problem with my service if a client wouldn’t come back for another session. I use that as an opportunity to evaluate if I could do something better. Of course there could be any number of reasons why a client doesn’t return, so find out what those reasons are! You can’t do anything about it if you don’t know!

Invite those clients back, entice them for more, and as they say in show business, always leave them wanting more (but not wanting what they came for in the first place).

The 80/20 Principle tells us that 20% of your clients will provide 80% of your bookings and income. Make sure you know who they are and you treat those 20% the way they deserve. (More on the 80/20 Principle to come)

I had a client once that turned to me as he handed me the check with a bemused grin on his face and said “wow, with all this money I’ve spent on massage I could have bought a car!”. He followed that statement up by saying that he had enough cars anyway (much to my relief) but it also made me realize that he had spent thousands of dollars with me. When I looked at the books, it turned out that this one client had provided almost 10% of my income for the year!

Follow Up

If you haven’t heard from one of your regulars in a while, make a point of calling them to see how they are doing. Although many new massage therapists blanch at the idea because they are afraid it seems pushy, it has always been a good thing for my practice. In fact, I usually get a booking out of it and I have had quite a few clients thank me for calling – genuinely grateful because I was concerned for their well-being. You’d be surprised how many of your clients think about coming to see you but life gets in the way and they don’t get around to it. Make it easy for them.

There are any number of strategies out there to maintain contact with your clients, so look them up and use them! Ask your colleagues what they do. Ask your old teachers. But above all…

Don’t neglect your repeat clients!

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Building Your Personal Network To Build Your Massage Business

This is a very simple, yet powerful technique to kickstart the best way to build your business – word of mouth. I’ve taught this method in my business classes for years, and the students who apply it meet with great success.

Building Word of Mouth

This is far and away the most effective long-term strategy for a healthy business. It involves building a reputation and confidence in your customers that if they send their friends to you that they will be well taken care of. It starts with exemplary service to your customers. Provide top-notch customer service to every client and potential client. They won’t recommend you if they did not have a good experience.

But how do you take the next step, getting them to refer their friends and family to you? With some clients, you don’t have to do anything – they will sing your praises to anyone within earshot. It’s the others that you should focus on (without forgetting these wonderful people of course!)

What Do You Want Them To Say?

One thing that I’ve seen very few people pause to think about is what people are saying about you. Remember that everybody has their own view about what massage is and what it means to them. People will talk about what massage does for them, not necessarily what it can do for their friend.

To tailor this message a little more, first you need to understand what it is that you deliver. That involves several pieces…

1. What do you do? (Frame it in terms of what the client gets out of your work) and what do you enjoy doing? What are the challenges that you like to face in your practice?
2. Who do you work with? This ties in to what challenges you like to face, but what kinds of clients do you work with? Athletes? Pregnant women?
3. What environment do you practice in? Clinical? Spa? Outcall to clients’ homes? This is tied heavily to the clients you work with. It can also include the kind of “functional” environment that you create. You can create a spa feeling within a clinic and vice versa.

The final step in this process is to create a mission statement that includes these pieces. Try to make it clear and concise – preferably something that is easy to say aloud. Why? Because you will be saying this to your clients in so many words and more importantly, this is what you want your clients to be saying to other people.

Get The Word Out

Once you have refined a mission statement, you need to get it out there. Let all of your current clients know about it and use it in your marketing and in conversation with potential clients. You don’t have to say it word for word every time, but it should be clear enough that every person hearing or reading your message will be able to describe fairly accurately what you are all about.

It is not limited to only potential clients though, and here is the magic. When you make a simple, clear statement about what you do (that really communicates your mission) then that is what sticks in the person’s mind. You’ve created an association in their mind, you’ve created a special category for you, your brand of massage therapy, who you work with, what environment you work in, and what problems you deal with. From that point on, any time one of those topics comes up, they have a much better chance of recalling you.

Recruiting Your Army

Finally we get to the simple, yet powerful, technique I mentioned at the start of this post. The Friends & Family Letter (FFL). To understand how this works, think about what you do when you need something you don’t know about. Where do you turn to first? Simple, you turn to the people you know to ask about their experiences. Then you rely on other people’s testimonials and personal familiarity (like you drive by the business every day but have never been in it). Then, and only then, do most people turn to marketing. Of course that doesn’t mean that you should neglect your marketing, but that shouldn’t be your first effort.

The FFL is designed to recruit the people you already have a relationship with to be your sales & marketing force. The good news is that because these people know you they will hear you out. They care about you and they want you to succeed. You can sound like a dork in the letter and they won’t care because they already like you!

To write it, discuss the following:

1. What you’re up to: Are you just graduating or still in school? Are you starting a private practice? Are you job-hunting? Give them an update
2. What you do: Here is where the personal mission statement kicks in. Make sure you frame it in terms of how you can benefit them (your friends & family). Make sure it is in terms of how they should talk about it to their friends and family. It is very important to be clear here, because what you say here heavily influences what they say about you – which is exactly what you want.
3. What you want them to do. ASK! Make sure you come out directly and ask them to help you. They like you already so it isn’t a great imposition. Do you want them to come in and get a massage? Do you want them to tell all of their friends and family about you? Do you want them to ask their friends and family if they have heard about any massage jobs for you? All of these? Make sure you ask them directly – don’t just hope that they understand what it is that you are looking for.
4. Thank them and let them know what they get out of it. You might have a referral program or you might offer your undying gratitude. Make sure you show your appreciation.

You can tell your friends & family that they can forward it on. Send it as a letter or as an email.

Effective?

So does this work? I had a student who sent out a FFL by email the night of this class lecture. Over the next 2 days she got over 20 new appointment bookings from people she knew, booked herself out for that weekend, and ended up getting established with a successful weekend BBQ massage business – all by referral. In fact it was so successful that she turned it into a monthly newsletter that continued to help grow her business.

These people know you, so they are likely talking about you already. But are they saying the right things? Do they know what you’d like them to say? Do they know you’d like their help? Do they know what they can do to help? This FFL helps to answer all of these questions.

Good luck! And let me know how it works for you!

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Massage Therapy in a Down Economy

Given the fact that there is an update in the news every single day about the steps the government is taking to address the current financial meltdown, I thought it was appropriate to talk about how the general economy affects massage therapy.

It’s not as simple as saying business hurts during a recession. There is a letter from a massage therapist in the current issue of Massage & Bodywork that says their practice is thriving in spite of the economy. So what gives? Why are some MTs continuing to see success ad others going bust when the economy takes a downturn?

So What Happens?

There is some good news these days. Massage isn’t seen as solely a luxury anymore. The MTs and massage businesses that cater to clientele in this category can experience some belt tightening, but this isn’t the only market segment. Many more people see massage as therapy and health care these days than in the past. Before you get out of the massage-for-luxury market though, there are still people out there spending money on these things, so it isn’t as if the jobs are going to vanish. Hiring may slow down, MTs may not see as many clients these days, but the world isn’t going to end.

The simple fact is that when times are hard economically, people cut down on their spending and some of that spending may be massage. Usually people cut out what they see as dispensable first. So whether your massage business suffers greatly depends on how your clients value our work.

Building Value

Value is a perception. It is a perception of how much something is worth. Yes, there are some universal qualities to value, but it is mostly subjective. When you go to the ballpark and get charged $4 for a soda, you may feel like it is overpriced, but it is worth more to you there at the time than leaving the park to go somewhere else to get it more cheaply. So really the value is in the convenience.

If you sell your services as relaxation, people associate a certain value with that. People will associate a different value with pain-reduction; with athletic performance; with restored function, etc… You need to know what it is that you provide to your clients. Find out what makes you indispensible.

So What Can You Do When The Economy Isn’t Working In Your Favor?

1. Diversify
2. Refine (or Learn) Your Mission
3. Target Your Market
4. Be Proactive
5. Roll With the Punches

Diversify

Branch out a little. Don’t be afraid to explore new markets, new niches, for some extra income. Be creative in some of the ways you can do massage. You aren’t necessarily tied to your office. Do some chair massage, supplement your private practice with a job at a chiropractor or some independent contracting. Find some local sports events and call up the coordinators to see if you can come down to work on the athletes. Work a charity event and split the proceeds with the charity. Use your imagination.

Another option is to take a look at your books and your schedule and figure out when your down time is. At our spa, we found that M-Th before 3:00pm was our dead time. Then figure out what you want to do with that time, you can offer a discounted rate to book during that time, we closed our doors during that time without prior appointment, or you could even use that time to hold down another job.

Refine (or Learn) Your Mission

When things become challenging, it is a good time to make sure that your message is on target. What are you trying to accomplish with your work? Of course for you, but more importantly to your clients, what does it do for them? Really home in on that benefit and make sure that is the message you’re sending. If you have never really sat down and thought about it, start. And keep reading this blog because I’ll keep building on this topic.

Target Your Market

Once you have a really good message you have to make sure it is getting to the right people. Who benefits from what you do? And don’t say everybody. A mission that is too broad has little appeal to most people. Try to hone your message so that it really appeals to precisely the people you want to come into your practice. A jack of all trades is a master of none they say, so try to become a master of your chosen niche. Since I’m speaking in clichés – you can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, and some people none of the time. You don’t want to try to appeal to everybody all of the time – focus on the some people you can please most of the time.

Be Proactive

When in doubt about what to do, do something. One thing is for sure, sitting around and whining about how things aren’t going well isn’t going to make them better. Massage is a business that little just falls in your lap. You may be the best MT in the world, but if nobody knows about you, you’ll have no business. The only way they’ll know is if you tell them.

Being proactive isn’t about just doing anything though, it’s about working smart. Take the time to identify the things that are in your control, that you can control, and focus on them. Try to break it down into small, actionable steps, preferably into steps that you can do in a short period of time, like an afternoon or a couple of days. That way you don’t have to wait too long until there is some kind of payoff. Set some attainable goals that allow you to taste some success and keep you moving in the right direction.

If you aren’t already, call up those clients who haven’t been in for a while and check up on them. You’ll find that a good number of them will be happy that you care about them and you’ll get some appointments out of it. Send a letter or email to all of your friends and family and ask for their help (more on this technique in another post). Nothing beats referrals.

Roll With the Punches

It can be hard on your attitude when times are tough, but you have to maintain your outlook. Don’t waste your time dwelling on the obstacles, but look for the silver lining and the paths around those obstacles. I know it sounds trite, but there really is an opportunity in every problem, so try to look for the bright spot and how this can benefit you in the long run.

Conclusion

Above all, realize that things will turn out alright. I speak from experience. When we opened our spa in the Westin in Silicon Valley, we did our very first appointment the night before the 9/11 attack and the bottom fell out of the travel to our region. We rolled with it although it certainly changed our business plan. Do what you can do, try to minimize your risks, and don’t worry about the things you can’t control.

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More Thoughts on Muscle Energy Technique

In the latest (Nov/Dec 2008) issue of Massage & Bodywork Magazine, there is an article entitled “Sports Injuries: Breakthrough Methods in Treatment” by Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa. There is a lot of great information in this article, but something strikingly lacking is the use of MET (Muscle Energy Technique) in treating these injuries. I can see great value in the manual techniques that Mr. Khalsa describes, but have to argue that those should come after MET has been employed.

As my work has grown, I have moved away from a purely manual approach – in the sense that I used to do it all myself. Teamwork is key, and in this case your teammate is your client; more specifically, their brain. If their brain is holding tension or inhibiting a muscle, it can take quite a bit of work to get it to normalize, and often the effects are short-lived. You can be much more successful when you engage the client from within, instead of simply inflicting
a fix upon them.

In addition, MET reduces the irritability of the tissue so that the subsequent work is less uncomfortable. And it creates conditions in which I don’t have to work so hard. I prefer to work from the inside out on a client instead of the outside in.

There is no “I” in TEAM, but there is “A MET”!

This also helps to start the process of rebalancing the joint. Sherrington’s Law of the Reciprocal Inhibition of Muscles…

“When one set of muscles is stimulated (our agonist, or target muscle), muscles opposing the action of the first (antagonists) are simultaneously inhibited.”

…is important to understand. Many novice therapists make the mistake of only working the sore muscles. Often the soreness is caused by excess eccentric load caused by hypertonic muscles on the other side of the joint. In simple terms, they are sore because they are exhausted from resisting the tension of the opposing muscles. They are also weak (inhibited) because of the hypertonicity of their antagonists. Relax that tension and the load on the sore muscles is decreased. MET is great because that is exactly how it works – by balancing the muscles on both sides of the joint.

Incidentally, MET improves the communication between the brain and the muscles and clears dysfunctions such as the negative feedback loop created by a trigger point (TrP). I always use MET to reduce TrP activity prior to more aggressive and painful techniques such as cross-fiber friction or sustained (ischemic) compression. Sometimes MET alone is enough all by itself, but even when it isn’t, almost every time the irritability is reduced so that the other techniques cause much less discomfort to the client.

Yet another effect is that MET retrains the brain as to what the state of the tissue is and how it should be. It allows the brain to do a reset of the proprioceptors. Ultimately, it will be the new and healthier movement patterns that allow the work to endure.

So I will close with the immortal words of Snoopy.

“Get MET, it pays!”

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Muscle Memory

We’ve all heard somewhere along the line that muscles have memory. So do they? Yes and no. What does that really mean?

The Muscles Themselves

Muscles themselves only have a little “memory”. Myofascia is designed for movement, and it molds itself to the stress that it experiences. In that capacity, if the myofascia has been shaped by habitual movement, the muscles will only be used to, or even able, to move within that range. So in that sense, muscles do have a memory.

The Bigger Picture

More to the point, it has more to do with the nervous system’s relation to the muscles. When the nervous system generates an impulse, neurons talk to each other – a line of communication is opened, potentially where none existed before. But once that line of communication is established, every time those neurons speak to each other it reinforces the connection. Of course this is why practice makes perfect – every time we do a particular action, our brain gets better and better at coordinating the muscles to do it. incidentally, when we start resistance training, the initial gains in strength are more due to improved communication between the brain and the muscle than any physical increases in the muscle itself.

This is what we’re really talking about when we say muscle memory – these habitual patterns of movement. When we learn how to do something a particular way, it can become very hard to undo it. For instance, you know how you can identify many people by the sound of their footsteps? This is because when we learn to walk we develop a unique gait. It takes over a hundred muscles working in coordination to walk and we all learn how to do it in a slightly different way. These patterns become ingrained and the connected neurons prefer the familiar. This is also why we massage instructors harp on our students to use proper body mechanics all the time – if you start by learning it the wrong way, it will be much harder for you to learn it the right way.

These connections, once learned, go on autopilot. And a good thing too. Who would want to have to constantly think about putting one foot in front of the other, or the position of your tongue while you are speaking? But once they become unconscious, we also lose some awareness about what we are doing. This is fine if things are working the way that they should, but when things are off we need to bring the awareness back.

When we get injured, we can develop bad habits, maybe habits that were necessary while we were hurt (limping), but no longer serve a purpose once we’re better (continuing to limp after healing). Our bodies adapt wonderfully to remain functional in response to these things. But once your body has found a way it likes to do things it can be hard to get it to go back to do it the right way, the optimal way.

Can it be done? Of course, but it may not be easy. Stroke victims can relearn to do things that they lost because of the neurons that knew how to do it dying. It is a matter of re-patterning.

So What Does This Mean?

For our clients, this means we need to understand how these patterns affect them. What factors were in place when developing these movement patterns? Did they break their leg as a child, or have something disrupt their development? Was there an injury? Athletic training? How long has it been there? The old saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks is somewhat valid – It’s a lot harder to break a habit that has been there a long time because to break a habit, you are really creating a new one to replace it.

Progress will be slow with long-term patterns. I have found that often, clients will feel some relief after massage, but it is short lived. This is because although massage is great, once they leave my office their old patterns begin to dominate again. I always tell my students that even if they come and see me once a week, there are 168 hours in a week – leaving 167 hours for them to undo everything that we worked on in that session. It is vital to educate your clients about what they need to change and think about in between sessions to let the work take hold.

Another implication is that as much as we work on the soft-tissue, it will have little to no long-term effect if we don’t address the neurological functions that maintain the pattern. It’s akin to eating one healthy, nutritious meal (your massage) amidst a sea of junk food (their bad habits). It won’t have much of a lasting effect. It is a process, and one that the client must be on board for. They won’t change until they are willing and ready to.

Reboot

I love Muscle Energy Techniques (MET), PNF (Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation), and Neuromuscular Therapy (NMT). I will focus on MET here, but use a variety of NMT techniques. They are all techniques that reboot the system by resetting the lines of communication. MET uses the higher thinking of the conscious brain to reprogram the lower order unconscious functions.

In every case you come across, resetting the interface between the brain and the muscles will make your job easier. You recruit the most powerful force in your client’s body, their brain, as an ally. If you neglect to address the neurological dysfunction, those old habits will be actively working against you. Most often this also clears the way to reveal the problems as well. MET will reduce hypertonicity (excess tension in the muscles) so the knots really stand out in the tissue.

Re-educate

Once you’ve done your part as a massage therapist, then you have to recruit the client to do their part. Do your best every session to give them something to go home with that they can do to take some ownership of their healing. An exercise, a stretch, a new movement pattern, a breathing exercise, or just some homework to take note of their posture once or twice a day. These things will help to begin the process of creating new movement patterns. Awareness is key.

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The Challenges of Being a Male Massage Therapist 4

In part 4 here, we will conclude our look at these challenges with the idea that women are more nurturing and better healers than men. You can look at the original three posts here (1,2,3).

Are women more nurturing than men?

The answer to this one is hard to pin down. Certainly there is a lot of variation depending on a persons personality. I’m not a psychologist, so I won’t delve into the inner workings of the gender-based mind. What I can say is that a most people, male or female, must have some kind of nurturing bent to enter this profession. Sure, I have seen some that just don’t seem to get it, but they don’t last long. Ideally someone should have clued them in before they spent a lot of money in education for a career that won’t work for them. However, opening oneself can be a process, so we can’t just write people off.

I would venture to generalize that the men who enter the field of massage therapy really do have a desire to help. Men have a different kind of energy about them. It is easy to think that males tend to have a more yang healing energy about them, but I have known incredibly nurturing male therapists before. I also know plenty of clients that once they have experienced a truly good male therapist don’t want to go back because they prefer the uniquely male energy.

Culture can have a huge impact on this as well. Traditional gender roles paint women with the nurturing, motherly brush, which certainly works in their favor in this profession. It isn’t to say that men can’t be nurturing in Western culture, they just aren’t seen that way most of the time. Ironically, there is still a lingering perception that men are better than women in the more power-healer roles such as doctors. These attitudes are changing, but the impression can seem like women are making more headway in the medical professions than men are in the nurturing ones.

Since the public perception persists that women are better healers, what can men do about it in a profession like massage therapy?

Diligent attention to professionalism is a must. I know I’ve belabored this point in this series, but it is so important. Often, people are really looking for any excuse not to buy your services, so why give them a reason on a platter? Professionalism is a skilled way of being welcoming, caring, and appearing competent in what you do. Make sure this is always on. Communicate and present that you do care and you are a healer. Walk the walk and talk the talk.

Recognize that not everyone has to like you. Not everyone will warm up to you as a male massage therapist, but they don’t have to. All massage therapy is a construct of trust, respect, and safety – a framework in which the healing happens. Some people just don’t click. As much as we are working to create standards so that a person can go to any therapist and receive the same level of care, it’s the relationships that make it work. Do your best to make everybody comfortable with you. Ask for the honest opinions of those closest to you. “Do I inspire trust?” “Do you feel safe around me?” Et cetera…

Put yourself out there. Realize that the business won’t just come to you. You need to take the first (and sometimes second and third) step in building relationships with your clients. A good first step is to get out there and get your hands on your clients. It’s harder to say a guy isn’t a good healer when you’ve felt the healing power of his hands.

Cultivate references and testimonials. Develop a body of evidence that you are a healer. Don’t be afraid to ask your clients for their opinion.

In Conclusion

So yes, male massage therapists do face challenges, but not insurmountable ones. With a little thought, a little preparation, professional skills, and the right attitude men can find the success they desire in this field.

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