How To Transition From Employee To Massage Business Owner

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How To Transition From Employee To Massage Business Owner Webinar Transcription

Hello! Welcome in, everyone. Welcome, welcome. Thank you so much for being here today. We'd
love to know where you're tuning in from using the chat. How long have you been practicing
massage therapy or body work? Connecticut, welcome. Awesome. Nice to meet you. Kind of
get started. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Massage Magazine Insurance Plus webinar
series in session. You might also recognize us as Massage Magazine or MIP for short. I'm
Shannon, and I'm excited to be your co-host today. If you're new to MIP, we're an all-inclusive
liability insurance provider for massage therapists, body work professionals, Ricky practitioners,
and much more across the U.S. Our mission is to support you with quality coverage that
gives you peace of mind in your practice. But we don't stop our insurance. We also offer
a wide range of exclusive member benefits, including discounts on industry products, up
to 50 free CE hours with our partner, Neal Asher, other amazing continuing education opportunities,
and a wide range of valuable resources tailored with the massage and body work community in
mind. To learn more, I will drop our website link in the chat for easy access. Just some
quick housekeeping tips. Today's webinar will run for one hour, and it is being recorded.
The recording will be emailed to everyone by tomorrow. We encourage you to ask questions,
so feel free to use the chat or question feature, and we'll be monitoring both throughout. We'll
also reserve the last 10 minutes for a quick Q&A session. With that said, let's dive in.
The topic of today's webinar is how to transition from employee to massage business owner. Please
join me in welcoming our host, Irene Diamond, renowned expert advisor and true source of
inspiration in the wellness and therapy space. With over 30 years of experience, Irene is known
for her unconventional, results-driven approach that helps clinic owners maximize revenue, delight
their clients, and avoid burnout. She's a true solutionist, dedicated to improving both physical
and visual wellness. Irene's career began with leading fitness programs on international cruise
ships, and she went on to found San Francisco's very first pain relief and wellness center. She's
also the creator of the Diamond Method, active modulation therapy, and Diamond active massage,
and is widely recognized for her innovative week-of-back marketing approach that attracts ideal clients
and builds thriving practices. We're thrilled to have her here today to share her insights and
expertise. Welcome Irene, and thank you so much for tuning in to MIPS in session webinar series.
Hey everybody, thanks for having me here, Shannon. I'm excited to really dive right in. I've got a
lot to pack in. We're going to go fast. You can always go back to the replay and pick up the golden
nuggets here. So thank you, and for those of you who are new to me, welcome to my world,
and for those of you. I see some of you in the chat, your names, and things, so it's exciting to see
people who I've been working with over the years, and from people from a long time ago,
so it's really fun. I am going to jump into my slides, so I'm going to share screen right now,
and away we go. So transitioning from an employee to a massage business owner.
You ready? Hang on to your hat. So this training could be the turning point in your career.
It really can. I want you to, even though it's free, we're providing this as a service. Good
will gesture for those of you who are part of our world, but I don't want you to take it lightly.
This information literally has turned people's careers from being an employee to going out and
thriving, enjoying the life that they really want to enjoy, and so sit tight, and away we go.
So you are here because you're either thinking about it, or you've already decided it's time.
You're ready. So whatever brought you here, let's figure out if you're ready to work for yourself.
Now we all love massage, of course we do, but being a massage therapist, working for others,
has its challenges. Now, like I said, we're going to be doing some brainstorming here, so do you
agree that it has some challenges? What are the big things, and we're going to use the chat,
what are the big things that you dislike about being an employee? Don't mention names,
don't mention people, don't mention organizations, but what are the aspects? What are the things
that are not working for you now? Maybe when you first started, it was great because you got a lot
of experience, you got to meet a lot of people, you got to work with a lot of clients. What are the
things that, let me just see if I can get my chat going, what are the things that you dislike about
being an employee in the massage industry?
So working on a tight schedule, the hours they make you work, not setting your own hours,
your time not being your own, feeling like a big fish in a small pond, oh these are going fast,
that's great, not doing the services you want to do, limiting pay, them telling you what needs to be
done, these start to sound familiar, not being able to take a break when it's needed, enough time
with clients and not your ideal clients, not building up, promises made and not kept.
So these are all things that are challenges for you as an employee, right? These are things
because you're not the boss, not your show. So we are working for another business,
we are under their direction, we use their tools of the trade. These are all things that the IRS
looks at when they determine who's an employee and who's not. So again, you're going into another
business and you're following their rules, you're following their direction, you're working, like you
said, the hours that they're making you work, the clients that you may not choose if you were on your
own, doing services that you may not like to do, not being able to take things, not being able to
take care of yourself, if you're feeling tired, you need to either show up or call in sick.
Same thing when we're working for ourselves, but it's a little different, right? So these are
things that are so common and we're going to talk about why now it might be a good chance for you to
make a change. So just like you said, long hours, physically hard on your body, schedules you
don't like, low wages, lots of competition, missing time and events with family or friends.
So when you, you know, it's Memorial Day's coming up, right, holidays, you have to work
sometimes on holidays and times when your kid might be in Little League and you're, you know,
somebody's got a birthday party, but you're, you're working. So these are challenges that make
absolute sense. And when you're working for yourself, obviously, you get to call the shots.
So would you like to explore a new massage adventure, one that's physically easier on your body?
Why? Because you're calling the shots, you're deciding what type of work you want to do,
how you want to do it, how many clients in a day, in a week and a month. When you work for yourself,
you can set yourself apart so clients come searching for you. You get to position yourself
so clients see you as the expert you are and are happy to pay more. This will give you
scheduling freedom and provide autonomy so you can win bid.
So how do you know? This is a really tricky piece. How do you know if you're ready to become
an entrepreneur? Some of you know, some of you just know this is it, this is for you. You've had
other businesses before, maybe you've worked in other industries, maybe you're already working
for yourself and you know that you like it. Entrepreneur, I call, I call you all
therapists because we're therapists and we're entrepreneurs together. But first, why are you
even listening to me? Let's chat real quick about who I am. I am the creator, the founder of this
blurry picture here, San Francisco's very first wellness center. Diamond pain relief and wellness
is the name that it is called now. But if you look at the big sign there, which is still up,
26 years later, diamond massage and wellness. So we started with that name,
massage and wellness because why? When I started, people didn't even know the word wellness.
So like I said, we were the first wellness center. People said, what is that? I said, well,
you know, with massage and things. So then I had to use the word massage in our name.
So people knew what the heck we were. And we transitioned from massage to pain relief because
now we do a variety, well, we always did a variety of modalities. And here's a little tip when you're
naming your business. If you put massage there, yes, people recognize it. However, it may limit
what you do because we do exercise and fitness and ergonomics. And I do corporate training and
things like that, active modulation therapy. So it's not only massage. So just be aware of that name.
Also, what I found out, massage is a modality wellness is a movement is a philosophy. So we
were combining two odd things. So now we do pain relief and wellness. Those are the same two
approaches that we use. So that's where I started when I was started my practice. And since then,
I've been, I've created over the last 30 years active modulation therapy, which is a rehabilitation
approach, including manual and movement. So the client is doing self-care exercises at home,
home care program, as well as movements and exercises to strengthen, stabilize, work on balance,
biomechanics, all of that. And diamond active massage is more of the spa version, so not rehabilitative
focused, but pain and stress and improving mobility, diamond active massage. And those two are the
clinical piece down at the bottom precise activation coaching. So I do work with clinics and practice
owners, ethical fee increase program. We run every month. It's fabulous. If you're looking to raise
your fees, you have to get gold. We get back marketing. That is the only marketing you'll ever really
know, new, really neat. And it's one practice per city. So it is geographically limited,
because that way it doesn't get over saturated. And then you see on the right, I've got my book,
my dream practice, design your dream practice that bestseller last year, which I'm really proud of.
And in April of 2020, I was on the cover of Massage Magazine. So hopefully,
what I have to share today with you is going to be really able to knock your socks off if you
stayed at the very end. I will share with you a way to access a free class, how to attract
excellent appreciative clients. All right. So not everybody is cut out to run your own practice.
You know that. What are your fears? Let's use the chat again. I thought we were going to use
cameras, but put in the chat, please. What are your fears? What are you afraid of if you're thinking
about? Is this the right next step for you? Let's chat about that, because fears are scary. When I
first opened that wellness center, I signed a five year lease. That meant if it didn't work,
I was still on the hook for rent. Physical burnout, if you chose the right location,
financial responsibility, failing huge, not having enough clients, not having enough clients.
What else? Am I doing enough to attract clients? Lack of income. Financing. Well, in my two sense,
you can start without financing. You don't need that. Making money, physical exhaustion,
being injured, then what? That's what insurance is for. Being injured, if you're the sole fulfillment
practitioner, it is definitely a real thing. Going it alone, yes. Those are those are some things
that are really valid concerns. Like I said, when I started the practice, I started out of my home
and my apartment really. Three store walk three story walk up in San Francisco. I started seeing
clients there because I was doing massage, not as a practice in and of itself. I became
a massage therapist because I wanted to make a whole lot of money in a short amount of time
to fund an international travel company that I was actually, that was my main business was I
moved to San Francisco from Honolulu because the cruise lines were based out of San Francisco,
and LA. I didn't want to live in Miami. I didn't want to live in LA. I had a sister in San Francisco,
an old boyfriend. I was like, I love that. So they lived there. So I moved to San Francisco to start
C-Fit tours, which was, again, at the time, 30 plus years ago, the only fitness cruise company
in the world. Well, I had no funding. I didn't have financing. This is before GoFundMe accounts
and all that stuff. So I had to figure out how I was going to make a lot of money
without burning out because I needed the time to be able to invest in the travel business.
And then a friend, I used to just massage unofficially. I didn't know what I did. It was doing,
but I had a degree in rehab therapy from college, a four-year bachelor's. And so I would
unofficially massage people. And this old boyfriend, Bill, said, I can go to massage. We'll learn
what to do with your hands. So you can charge 50 bucks an hour, see one or two clients a day,
and make enough money that you can spend your time doing the travel business.
Well, that was the best advice anybody could have given me because it allowed me to make,
you know, to charge $50 at the time for an hour, whereas normally at the time it would have been,
what? $10 an hour. So I got to condense time and make good money. However,
I knew that when I was out on the cruise ship, my clients were not happy. So I had to start having
therapists see my clients as I was traveling. And then I come back and I'd pick up the practice.
And that's how I went for a few years. As my practice grew, I needed more therapists to come on
to see my overflow and see clients when I was out on the ships. So I went to diamond pain,
relief and wellness. And I looked for a location in San Francisco, as you probably can imagine,
is quite expensive for the rent. And you saw, or maybe you didn't notice, but I'm on the second
floor. So for those of you who are looking for locations, I'm on the second floor. That means
people have to walk up the stairs. There's no elevator. So yes, ground floor is optimal,
but there's a premium for that rent. So I was, I didn't have the funds to be able to afford a
ground floor in San Francisco, a storefront. So I went into this location, knowing that some people
would not be able to come see me. Anybody who can't walk up a flight of stairs, which is one of the
requests we are requirements they have, we asked that question, can you walk a flight of stairs?
If they say, yes, great. Now, when we first started, we actually got a letter from an attorney
saying that we were not accessible. We were not handicapped accessible. Okay, great. I passed
that letter over to the landlord. Luckily, they took care of it because it turned out it was somebody
who was just going around with new businesses and looking for easy money to sue the business owner.
So again, right off the bat, I get a letter. I'm like, dang, what did I sign up for? But five years,
was I scared? Of course, I was scared. Because what if it didn't work? All the same things,
you're saying, what if it didn't work? What if I get injured? It has three treatment rooms plus
an exercise room. It's a big space. It's a lot of overhead, not only the rent, insurance,
utilities. I had a front desk person. This was a huge undertaking. But as we go along,
you'll see how did I make that decision? These are the same things I want you to be thinking.
How do you make the decision of where you should open and how big a space to open?
Annie says, I've heard of that guy. Yeah, they go around and they just look at businesses that
are not compliant and throw at a lawsuit. When you're an employee, you don't have to deal with any of
that. Again, are you cut out for these types of challenges?
All right, let me go back to my slide. It's scary. What could happen?
Pop in the chat. What could happen? Let's say you find a space and you sign a lease,
one year, two years, five years. What's the advantage of a longer lease? The longer
lease is you have more control. They can't boot you out unless you're breaking the contract.
You know what your rent's going to be because in the lease, it says it'll go up X or Y. My lease
stipulated that it will go up at the cost of the CPI consumer price index. It'll continue at
that rate. In other words, my rent, I knew it was going to be every year. I knew that I had five
years, meaning she could not decide that I couldn't be there. When you sign a lease,
whether if you sign one year or month-to-month, you have less control. That's a decision that needs
to be determined. Again, what could happen if you sign a lease? My room not being big enough.
Yes, you're already on. When I first rented a space outside of my house,
I was in a tiny room. I used it. Oh, you guys would have seen this. It would have been crazy.
It was a tiny bedroom because it was in a house like my office is the house. I rented from a chiropractor.
I had my treatment table. I had an armoire to put my linens and supplies. I had a computer desk
and a computer. This is when these computers, Apple computers, were those big bubble computers
that were like three feet by three feet. It was so cramped in there. I could use the wall for
leverage, though. That was pretty cool. That's what Tom says. What else? Type into the chat. What
could happen? What's the worst that could happen? Noisy neighbors, nail salons with smells,
traffic, construction noise, parking issues. All right, noisy neighbors. You can't do anything about
nail salons with smells. I had that in my contract because I am on the second floor. The downstairs
was open. I literally said they cannot rent to a business that has smells because exactly that
nail salons or I thought like a motorcycle repair spot place where they're rubbing the motor,
like it was ridiculous. I said none of that. Cannot be downstairs. So you put that in your contract.
Can't do much about the noisy neighbors. When I rented a space, they put in a generator.
Couldn't do anything about that. So there are challenges. Fear of getting sued. Yes,
that's what insurance is for. Professional liability insurance as well as your
health insurance. Make sure you have those covered. Personal injury, same thing. You can have personal
injury insurance. It's a smart idea. The famous pianist who ensure their hands, things like that.
This is your livelihood. So all of those risks need to be taken into consideration.
Suzanne says not enough clients. Not enough clients is easily fixed because it all comes down to
marketing and being excellent. Not enough clients often happens when therapists are mediocre
practitioners. I don't mean just your skills in the clinic. I mean your overall skills. So we'll
talk about that in a little bit. Tom says getting the right business and well hello. Hello, we're
on that. Annie says not pricing appropriately. Pricing is a big piece. Your fees will talk about
in a moment. But thank you for sharing all of those. So what could happen? What is the worst that could
happen? So real quick, this isn't as you can already tell, start a business, get a business license,
choose a name, blah, blah, blah. No. Let's jump into why you want to start your own practice.
Why now? Type in the chat. Why do you want to start your own practice and why now? Some of you want
to start your own practice like I did because you wanted to run the show. You knew you were capable
and you wanted to make a lot of money. Tom says freedom. Margaret says more freedom. Yeah, be your
own boss. Flexibility, your body's going, getting old. I've been it too long. I want to do what I know
and I'm good at absolutely. When do you know your skilled? When you know clients love you? When you
know you're capable? When you know you can handle being sued or the people putting in a generator
that makes noise and all of this stuff that goes into adulting and being a business owner, you want
your own autonomy and that's where this comes in. You reap the greatest rewards and you have the
greatest challenges. I'm a control freak. Nothing wrong with that. Jacob, I could never work for
somebody else right now and there's no reason to just kidding. Here's one of the questions I
asked when a new therapist comes to me and wants to work out my business. I literally say to them,
are you a good therapist? Are you a skilled therapist? Here's the truth. The ones that are like,
well, I think I am. Well, my clients tell me I am. I want confidence. I want certainty. I want
conviction because you know you're capable. We don't want to work with a knee surgeon who's
going, well, I think I'm going to be able to do your knee surgery. We want someone who wants
to take control. We want that certainty in our own health care as clients. Our clients want
that same thing from us. Set and keep standards. Thank you, Annie. Great. Why do you want to start
your own practice and why now? Is there something that changed in your life? Is there a time element
that makes it so this is an important moment? Again, for me, I wanted to because I was starting this
other travel business. So the time was now. What about for you? Are you transitioning? Like you
said, your body is getting a little bit older. What are the reasons? Now, there is a concept
again of find your why. When we have a bigger why than just oh, I want to make a lot of money or oh,
I'm tired of working for other people. When we know there's a bigger reason, when we have a bigger
reason, those are the people who will really succeed because when they're tired, they get out
of bed. When they don't feel like it, they do it. When they're having a bad day or something bad
happened or they're under stress or there's a tragedy or trauma, they still go for it. The show
let's go on. That's what it is. So we can't be sort of lackadaisical about it. When you have a bigger
vision, a bigger reason why, maybe you want to make money so you can donate services. Every business,
I believe, should have a philanthropic arm. You should have a way once you get settled to figure out
how to give back to your community. Right now, I have one client. At all times,
I choose one person for whatever reason I choose to support. I either give them free services
or dramatically reduce service fees. That's my giving back. We also, every single month,
as a Wellness Center, over $2,500 worth of services to different people in the community.
That's part of our We Give Back program. Again, once you get settled in your new practice,
I encourage you all to do that. It's a way of giving to the community. It's a bigger reason for
being in business. It helps your business stand out from everybody else and it's a bigger why.
So you have to make money. A business is in business to make money. There's nothing wrong
with that. It's not a hobby. So you have to make money. So not only are you living the life you want
able to pay your bills easily, but you have enough to be able to get back. So if that is really hitting
something in you, then you're going to love this. Jacob, the reason why moving to Europe in two
years makes it easier to transition. That's right. Easier to move when you work for yourself.
Marisela says her family and kids are going to school. Got it. Yes. So now you've got the time.
You're getting too old to tolerate younger ideas. Margaret says, perfect, perfect. And Brenda Lee
says, where to go? I'm working part time for a hotel. I want to work smarter, not harder.
Retiring in five years. I want to be able to get this running and get the income going without
being tired all the time, absolutely. And Suzanne is transitioning from accounting. So
great. You've got the money piece hopefully wrapped up. All right. So if you're not clear on this,
dig deeper, take some time, do some homework. It's a big step. Like I said, this could be the
turning point of your career. All right. But if you know it's time, let's do it.
So inner work, identity shift, you have to recognize you are going from a practitioner
to a practice owner. Totally different.
You're going from a service provider, right? You're doing the fulfillment of the service
when you are an employee for somebody else. Now you're marketing your sales, your fulfillment,
your administration, and your maintenance. Maintenance of everything. I was up on a six foot ladder
the other day, changing a light bulb on our 15 foot ceilings with a fixture that haven't been
opened for like 50 years. That's part of the maintenance, but also the maintenance.
Making sure the garbage is taken out when it needs to be taken out. Doing the cleaning,
if you do the cleaning, we hire a team to come and clean. I have somebody who washes our linens
and things. But you have to oversee it all. These are the aspects. These five aspects,
marketing, sales, fulfillment, administration, and maintenance. If you can handle them all at
the beginning solo provider, solo practice owner, do it. And as soon as you can afford
to hire people, hire people. But these are the areas that you either need to
develop your own skills or bring in other people. They don't have to be employees.
Fulfillment has to be employees. But marketing, sales, administration, maintenance, all of that,
you can bring in other people. First thing that I want to encourage you to bring in
is somebody at your front desk. Somebody answering the phones. Why? Because it's a human to human
business. When you are in the treatment room working with a client, when you have somebody
who is sitting at the front desk saying hello, meeting and greeting, of course you can do it
yourself. And I do it myself even to this day sometimes if, you know, Zoe is out of the office
or we don't have a staff. But to have that separation of boundaries is really powerful.
And when you're in the treatment room, if your phone's not being picked up,
you're losing business. And I know that it's all about automation now. And yes, you can have
answering services. And yes, you can have online booking. And that's a much bigger conversation
than we have time to talk about now. However, recognize, please, as a business owner, these are
the five areas that you need to become competent in or hire for help. So ABCs of the business,
I have a lot of triangles in my business coaching. You have to be proficient in all three of these
to have your dream practiced. You have to have the ability, the ability to do it all
or hire. You have to have business knowledge and you have to be able to be consistent
and communicate. And any of these you can take screenshots, of course.
We've got three partners. Who are the three partners? If it's just you yourself and I,
those are the three partners. And then all of you have to have the same vision. Some of you are
very creative and you want to do the graphics and the logos and the pictures and you want to
set up your office and have it be beautiful. Amazing. Others of you are the bookkeepers, the
accountants, the people who are more analytical and are going to be able to create your systems
and your processes and your policies and all of that. Amazing. And then you have the engineer,
the people, pardon me, the people who have to make sure everything's organized, make sure the doors
are unlocked on time, all of that. And this is all what comes together when you're your own business.
All right. So taking the risk but being smart, keep income from current job. If you have a job
right now and you're employed, are you going to start your practice on the side while you're keeping
your full time job? Are you going to go down to part time or adjust your hours a little bit?
I recommend that you don't quit and jump totally unless you've got a list of clients already signed
up and you know that you've got money in the bank. So let's be smart about this.
So what we're going to do is define what you want. First, define it. Many of us jump into a business
without really thinking about it all the way. But I'd like you to take some time, do your homework
and define what exactly do you want? You're going to design it. You're going to design it to be what
you want. And then we're going to tweak as we go. This is an ongoing process. It's never one and done.
It's never one and done. Uncontinuously designing and tweaking. To this day, 30 plus years in practice
and deliver. Again, delivering it to appreciative clients so you can live your dream. You have to be
excellent in your ability to speak with clients, to assess and analyze and evaluate what their goals
are. And then deliver that. That's how you have a sustainable business with clients who
rave about you. If you're unable to deliver, then that's where you may need to take more clinical
classes. I hope this is making sense. So here's my son, Jacob. He serves. This is a small wave for
him. Like I said, I grew up in Hawaii. I used to be a surfer. My waves were two to three feet. His are
like 10 to 20 feet. It comes with challenges and rewards. You have to trust yourself.
And here's the thing. Literally running your own business is like being a surfer. I love this
analogy. Again, growing up in Hawaii, I want you to think about yourself as a surfer. Now imagine.
What do you do? A lot of people say, well, there's two minutes to unknown. There's too much,
you know, it's too rough to be your own business. Well, when you're a surfer, you're looking for
waves. You're looking for the challenges. You're looking for some fun and adventure. You're not,
you don't want to sit on your board out there on a glassy ocean. If any of you are in the water,
you know what I'm talking about. So it's a different mindset. We're not looking for calm and peace.
Although, of course, that's nice. However, we thrive on the challenges. We thrive on the rise.
We thrive on the fast speeds. And when you are taking the challenges, because you trust yourself,
right, if it is slow, who's at fault? If you're not making enough money, who's at fault?
But you are the ability, you have the ability to learn how to do all this stuff.
Yes, with some fall. Yes, you're going to wipe out. Yes, you're going to get water up your nose.
Yes, you're going to get tumbled around. But that's okay, because that's because we're going into
it with our eyes wide open. My mom was a child psychologist, this last sentence, what's the worst
that could happen? What's the worst that could happen? I want you to ask yourself that if you're
making this decision. Any decision that you're making in your business, once you've decided
to run your own practice, will always come down to what's the worst that can happen.
As well as what's the best that could happen? Because it's the fear that keeps us stuck.
We create the vision, we design our dream practice, and then the other side of us is going,
yeah, but what happens if? Okay, what happens if? When I signed my five-year lease and I had no
therapist to work with me, I had never done this before. What source can happen? I'm stuck with a
five-year lease. I have to pay that money. Okay, but I'm not going to die.
So, okay, it's terrible. I'll waste a lot of money. I'll be embarrassed. I'll have to walk by that
business or whatever and come in every day and think, oh my gosh, I'm losing money.
But that was a risk I was willing to take because of the upside, because I trusted myself.
And that's the same I'm asking of you. Type in the chat. Give me a yes if this is making sense
and resonating with you. Or, no, if it's not, I really want to make sure I'm delivering what you need.
Margaret, thank you. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, perfect. Good, good, good. Excited.
All right, I understand. Well, thank you. Perfect. I love that. Okay, I am really open book.
I will tell you the good stuff. I'll tell you the bad stuff. I'll tell you the challenges. I'll
tell you the wins. Trust yourself. Surf through it. Take those challenges. Look for the big waves.
That's where the big wins are. So, here's what I've learned over the years. When I first started,
I was open to the public. I came up with these names. Open to the public. Here's what I thought.
The more clients, the more money. The more volume, the more money. At the time, I was doing one-hour
massages, maybe 30-minute massages. I wasn't really a fan of 90 minutes because I got bored.
But I, of course, was trying to pack my schedule. So eight hours in a day was great. I loved it.
Eight hours in a day. I was making money. And I was making money. Back then, I was making like
$8,000, $10,000 a month. Back then. That's like a lot of money. But I was tired. I was exhausted.
But it was a volume business, a volume play. Then I had other therapists. So, we had three
treatment rooms. So, the goal was pack as many appointments in each of these treatment rooms as
possible. So, our goal was at least six hours per room, if not more. And we started just a few
days a week. I had Mike, who is one of my therapists, shout out to Mike if you're on here. He's now
practicing in Maui. He was one of my first therapists, my second hire. And he said,
hey, I mean, I'll work on the weekends if you want to be open. I was like, but I don't want to be at
the front desk. No, I'll do it. So, he started on the weekends. So, every single day, seven days
a week, we were open. We were seeing clients. We were packed. We were how many can we get in.
We were offering discounts to get more clients. We had new client specials, all of this stuff.
And it was powerful. And it was great. And it was a lot. And that's open to the public. If you're a
newer therapist, newer, that's what I encourage you to do. Just get a feel for it. But if you've
been in practice for a long time, at least a year or two, and you feel competent in your skills,
you're competent in who, what kind of clients you want to work with, what conditions and treatments
and things like that you want to do, go for precise private practice. You can use that word.
You can say you're a precise private practice. You position yourself as a precise private practice.
That means you choose the precise clients you want. You offer only the precise services you want.
You charge the precise fees. They're in your show. It's your show. You're running it. That's
what a precise private practice is. And that's what I encourage you to do if you're a competent
experienced provider. My son is going surfing. How do you choose your clients? We're jumping
right into the nitty-gritty. I'm going to start speaking a little bit faster so we pack more in.
When you have a new person reach out to you, this is the filter you put them through.
Do you like them? Do you like them? Are they a nice person? We have people who call and sometimes
they're just really snotty. They're not a precise private practice client. We don't want them. We
don't have to accept them. That's the difference, right? When you were working as an employee, you had
to work with people even if you didn't jive with them. So do you like them? Do you want to spend time
with them? That's a filter. If the answer is yes, great. Can they afford your services? Now you
don't know how much money they make. You don't know what they have in the bank. Of course you don't.
But if they're coming in straight off the bat wanting to nickel and dime you or look for bargains
or what kind of package do you have, they may not be a precise private practice client for you.
And then the corner on the left. Can you help them relieve their concern or achieve their outcome?
So, sorry, switch back. One thing I think is so important is that you only accept clients.
Hear this. Only accept clients you know for sure you can support. That takes pre-booking questions.
That takes client screening. If you have a client on your calendar and you don't even know why they're
coming in, what they hope to achieve or relieve, I think you're doing them a disservice.
I don't like the online bookings for that very reason. Unless you have a screening questionnaire
and things like that. But if they just book and you go, okay, I've got an hour at three o'clock
for deep tissue, well, great. But what's the goal? And some of my sales trainings, you'll hear me
asking these questions. They'll tell me all their stuff, but I have to keep coming back to
what's the goal? So you have to have these three things that you can say, yes, yes, and yes.
That way you know they're a dream client for you.
When you're in practice for yourself, you get to decide your time. I call it the time triangle.
So first things first, look at your calendar. Block off the times that you want to go to the gym.
Block off the times. I like to sleep late. I woke up early. I don't take clients until 12
o'clock. Why? Because that's my time. I like that. I'll go later, but I am not an early bird,
and so therefore my practice, my rules, right? So block off the times. You want holidays,
you block up those holidays. Your kid has sports at three o'clock on Thursdays, block that off.
That way you are in control, and those are your me time. Now the difference between on and in,
when you're working on your business, when you're working on your bookkeeping, when you're working
on your marketing, when you're working on your computer, that's the business administration
and the maintenance and all of that. That's important time that has to be scheduled in,
and working in is when you're in the treatment room, in with a client, in the therapy room,
in with a client. So those three areas of your of your calendar should be blocked off. Let's say
you want to work five hours of clients, client clinical hours a day, but only three days a week.
I take appointments Monday, Wednesday, Friday. That's when I see clients Monday,
Wednesday, Friday. Why? Because I'm working on my business and doing the coaching and the administration
and everything else on the other days. So you blocked off the time in your calendar when you
set business hours. One of the mistakes I made when I first started was I was open. I was working
all the time. And that's true at the beginning. Yes, you can open your hours, but you have business
hours. So let's say you start at 12 o'clock, and you finish at eight, and a client wants to see you
at 10 a.m. You can totally take them at 10 a.m. Totally. And you say, I take appointments starting
at 12. However, I'm happy to see you at 10 a.m. before my usual hours. So you just you just help
them. You're now the, you know, they're looking at you going, wow, she's so amazing. He's so amazing.
He was able to get me in before he opens. So now you're the good guy, but you set your hours so
they know what your hours are. You have to be clear on your boundaries. Suzanne says, what about
about 10 to 15 minutes? I'm not sure if that's a question or not. How do you? There you go. Okay.
Fees. We're going to talk about fees a few times, but define your fees and type of practice. So I have
this continuum that I developed as far as the types of businesses. When we started, we were a
mainstream business with a leaning towards the bargain because I thought the way we could get
more clients was by offering bargains. We even had a sign that said, you know, a banner hanging
out to the front that said something like $10 off new clients. Well, I realized that that was attracting
bargain seekers. Everybody wants a good value, but we don't necessarily need to be perceived as a
bargain. So Amazon, Walmart, those are bargain stores. There's a place for them. They're perfect.
People love them. And it works for practice owners as well. Mainstream is where you're not
leaning so heavily on bargains and your pricing is comparable. And people know it's going to be a
mainstream business. So that might be a target store for looking at an example in stores.
Premium, we are now premium. We're not luxury, but we're premium. In other words, people expect
to pay premium fees and they expect premium and they get premium experiences. Premium service
level of customer service amenities. When I started, literally, I was, you know, I mean,
you guys would laugh. Well, many of you did the same thing. I also had a practice in a gym.
I had milk crates with a piece of plywood on top and a sheet, you know, thumbtacked to
hide the milk crates. Like that was bargain as you can go. That's not premium. That's not luxury.
It worked. Now it's different. You get to choose which one you are. It's so fun because then
everything falls into place. Once you identify which of these four you are,
you have to choose. You can change, but choose right now to get started.
And let's define your specialty. Too many people are generalists. Generalists are fine,
but like they say, there's riches and niches and I didn't make that up, but it's true. So you
can choose a niche. I specialize personally when I work with my active modulation clients
in migraine, fibromyalgia, neck and back. That's my thing. That's it. Choose your niche.
It's easier for you in your marketing. It's easier for you because you only have to stay
a breast of the science of who your niche population is. You don't need to be
whiz at every condition, every symptom, every treatment, every everything. So choosing your
specialty will allow you to stand out from the crowd. Get known as the specialist, the go-to
person for that. And you can choose that hobby, sports, conditions, symptoms, demographics,
psychographics. What do you want to be known for? You can work with just pregnant women and that's it.
Right? You got a nice long eight months. If you're doing pre and post, you keep on going.
So choose your specialty. Go ahead and type in the chat if you already have a specialty or if
you're leaning towards one. Your services then fall perfectly. So for example, I mentioned
diamond active massage. Oh, good. So you do migraines too, excellent. Diamond active massage. So for
example, this therapist that I coached with knew she was loving active massage because the clients
got faster relief. It was easy for her to learn, easy for her to apply and helped her stand out from
the crowd. That is her niche, her niche. For those of you who are listing in the chat,
the techniques that you're using, again, that's fine. That's a good way to decide your niche.
However, I'm going to say focus on the outcome because we can do, see all of you who are putting
down, again, the modalities. Let's talk about how is the client going to get an outcome? What
are they coming for? They have migraines. They want migraine relief. They don't care really
if you're doing trigger point or Grastin or AMT. They want the outcome. So as far as
niching, think about the actual demographics that you're going to be working with. You get to
decide like my sessions now are between 30 and 60 minutes ish. I don't even sell time. I sell the
outcome. Based on your clinical approach, what length do you like? Some of you love the longer
sessions. You don't have to offer 30 minutes. You get to choose. It's really fun. All right,
now here's the thing where I get so much pushback. Guarantee. Offer a guarantee.
Yes, best way to compete, not on fees, is to offer a guarantee because who else does that?
Only people who worked with me. So think about a guarantee. I give you permission to be so
confident in your ability to support your clients that you can define an outcome.
And for a lot of you, if this is going over your head, don't even worry about it. We'll come,
we can get to it a year from now. But for those of you who know because of your clinical
experience, your expertise, your training, your client feedback, you know that you can deliver
solid results in a defined, quantified time frame offering a guarantee. Now again, I
have offered a guarantee forever. And people in other clinics, we have fertility clinics offering
guarantees. We have LASIKI surgeons doing guarantees that you can. It's legal and it's ethical. I
think it's the most ethical thing you can do. But how? Well, here's an example. Here's an example.
There's so many ways to define your guarantee. But I promise your pain on the left side of your
neck will drop from a six out of 10, which you told me it is now, down to a four or lower
after a single session. You can offer a simple guarantee like that. When you're offering a guarantee
and everybody else in your community is not, and if your sessions are $300 and everybody else is
whatever, $100, $150, even $300. But if a person gets a guarantee when they work with you,
do you think it's going to be an easier? Yes, of course it is.
All right, let's talk about fees real fast. And I know we're running out of time. This is what
people pay for. Everybody thinks they pay for just your time. Nope. They pay for effectiveness,
efficiency. They want the result in an extraordinary experience. So it doesn't have to be, you know,
all white and beautiful, but the experience has to be there from the moment they communicate
with your office all the way through the follow up and the ongoing communication. So the four E's
in everything you do, efficiency, effectiveness, and an extraordinary experience.
This is not the old way of setting fees. Stop thinking, how much do you need to make? Like,
stop that. Instead, how much do you want to make? And again, ever since I started coaching 30
years ago, the number has not changed. People want to make 100k in a year. They want to make 10k
in a month. Great. Okay, that same number 30 years later, but whatever. If that's what you want
to make, remember, what you're generating is different in your profit. Profit is what's left
after your expenses and your expenses are your overhead and what's considered costs, costs of goods
and services. So you have your expenses. You have that, that's your nut that you have to fill.
And then you have how much you're bringing in and you want to have that profit and that profit
can either be paid to you as a salary or adjusted back in the business.
Okay, so get it out of your head of how much do I need to make? That's minimal thinking. I want
abundance thinking. So there you have it. We covered a lot. Today's presentation comes
right out of my book. If you liked what we were talking about, you can go on Amazon. You can find
design your dream practice. My husband's over there going, my is my biggest fan. Thank you.
It's so funny. I have this if you want to scan this, this is a free class on how to attract
affluent, appreciative clients. It's super easy. It's three trainings. It's so sure.
And you're going to watch it and you're going to be like, well, I already know this. Okay, then apply
it because you may know it, but I'm going to gift you this class because I want it to sink in.
Affluent people, people who don't nickel and dime you, people who have the money.
They're out there, even in your teeny tiny little town that people say, oh, there's nobody
has money. People have money if they see the value, if you can help them achieve a goal or
relieve a problem, they will pay for it. So scan this, jump into my world. It's been really fun. I'm
going to stop sharing my screen. I see Shannon's back on. That was a lot. That was amazing.
Really engaged chat. I want to say thank you to everyone for being here today. Thank you so much,
Irene. We do have a few minutes for a Q&A session. So if you'd like to start by
using the chat or the question and answer feature, we would love to hear from you.
Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome, everybody. I'm glad that it was landing for you.
Perfect. Brenda Lynn said purchased already. Thank you. Thank you.
Margaret, I'll come back and you said 60 minutes plus plus. I always go over session time while
working on specific issues. So if it's okay with you, I'm going to throw in some coaching here.
If you go over, here's this, this is this concept. I'm putting in air quotes. If you go
over 60 minutes when working on specific issues, why not have that be the length of the session?
So let's say you do end up doing 75 minutes ish. Then now you sell, you design and you sell
a 75 minute session for specific conditions. So that way you're not giving away your time for free.
And also the client understands they're getting a more comprehensive session.
There's more care they're getting. There's more outcome that's probably delivered
because you're extending that session. So I hope that makes sense.
We did have a question come up from Suzanne. What do you consider a premium service slash practice?
Well, in my case, premium is you actually get a person on the telephone.
Old-fashioned. Not everybody likes to talk on the telephone, but when we're dealing with pain,
which we are in my practice, when we're dealing with people who've tried everything,
just that warm voice on the phone elevates the level of service. And already, and this has been
proven already starts to establish a therapeutic alliance, meaning they're already starting
their healing process by being heard, by being scheduled accordingly. So it's an appropriate
booking, not just, oh, well, I only have $100. So I guess I'll book the 30 minute session.
No, I want you to be the advisor. We didn't even cover this, but as a business owner and a skilled
practitioner, our clients come to us for advice. So in a premium practice, we are a fiduciary. We're
taking them under our arm and helping them choose the best service to get their outcome.
That's a premium level practice. That's one teeny little element of it. Open to the public is,
okay, what time did you want? Three o'clock, great. Let's do it.
Awesome. We had a question. How long of a period of time should I expect to go from having a decent
client flow to breaking even? That's a good question, and that depends on how skilled you are.
Again, there's skill level in assessing what a client needs, assessing in their ability,
their physical ability, if you're, again, if you're helping somebody with range of motion in their
neck, for example, your ability to assess where they're at right now and determine how to get them
there will also help you establish a frequency of appointments, right? You're developing a treatment
plan for that client. So once you have a treatment plan, you could literally be breaking even
within a month when you have a few clients, depending on your expenses and depending on your fees.
So that's two, there's too many variables that I can't really advise you on, but I always say
start smaller, like you could jump into a huge facility, build it all out, spend a lot of money,
you totally could do that. Much more risky. I like starting small and testing, and then once
we know we have proof of concept, then we can start going bigger. And again, that's because
you have to look at what your level of risk is, right? Some people do a full build out and spend
hundreds of thousands of dollars, so that'll take longer to break even than if you're buying a
therapy table and some sheets. Perfect. We didn't have a couple more questions.
This question, it relates to our previous question about calling. Tom asks, can you set office hours
to call the back, or if it's not right away, did you already lose that client? Tom, excellent question.
So, you know, too many of us don't follow up. Follow up is going to be one of the best things
you can ever do. Follow up with phone calls. Follow up after the client has come in, especially a
brand new client. Literally, we send an old-fashioned letter in the mail. We print it out on our computer,
so it does have their name and everything populated already, but we write a handwritten note. Thank
you for coming in. I'm glad James was able to help you feel great. We fold it. We put a stamp on the
damn thing, and we mail it. Why? Because that's premium level service. That's hand tailored.
That's personalization. So, I don't ever think you lose a client. I'm going to say follow up with
them at least three times. If they reached out by phone or text or email, follow up, hey, I don't
want to bug you, but I want to make sure that I'm able to reach you if you, in fact, still want.
Here's the question. If you, not if you want to book a service, no. You don't say, hey, you called,
did you want to book an appointment? No. It's like, hey, I'm calling you back because you reached out.
Would you like to have a conversation to see if or how I might be able to help you?
We don't have a crystal ball. Take them through that triangle first, the client selection triangle
once you get them on the phone. So, I'll never say you lost a client. They may call them back and
they may go, oh, I found another provider. Okay. Well, I'm here in case it doesn't work out for you,
or in case you need any other care. So, you're never going to worry about losing clients because
there's going to be always an abundance of clients coming in, because there's always an
abundance of the people who have a goal that you can help them achieve, or a problem that you can
help them relieve once you identify what those are. Love it. We have time for just one more question,
and then in the post webinar, follow up email, we will be providing Irene's contact, all of her
socials. So, you feel free to reach out to her directly with any questions. Our last question is from
Annie. How often did you end up increasing your costs and starting your business and realize need
to increase to cover overhead slash cogs, slash self-salary, et cetera?
Okay. Let me clarify. Increasing my costs or increasing my fees.
How often do you do the increase?
I'm going to answer the question because I think I know it. I think I know what you're going for.
Yeah. Our fees go up all the time. Now, that's, again, I jump into my
ethical fee increase program. It's the best program you can do. We rent it on the person every month.
My fees have jumped. I'm probably the most expensive person in San Francisco.
I have a bachelor's degree. I'm a rehab therapist, but I'm not a doctor, and I'm charging doctor fees.
And I'll put it out here for now. Today's date, if somebody comes to me, my evaluation,
my assessment is $800, no insurance, cash based, $800. My typical sessions run from 300 to 600.
It's not time-based. It's results based. Now, I wasn't always there. I started at, I don't remember,
$95 or something once I started at this wellness center. And then it went up, and then it went up,
and then it went up. So you have to be able to have your clients walk away and say,
oh my gosh, that was so worth it. They may also say, oh my gosh, that's expensive,
but it was so worth it. Because what are their alternatives? Live in pain.
Keep the swelling, not able to turn their neck like all the stuff that we helped them with.
So they have a choice to make. They can live with it. They can try surgery. They can try
other modalities. They can go to other massage therapists. But if you're the one who can really
help them because you guarantee it, because you've gone through the selection and you know you can
help them, there's no risk to them. That's why I can charge what I charge because there is no risk.
They may waste their time, but they will never waste their money. And to this day, I've never had,
let me take that back. I've had one person who paid for a program. I think at the time it was like
$3,000. I worked with him for two sessions. This was a bunch of years ago for his neck pain,
and it was not improving the way I expected it to improve. It just wasn't. And I literally said
to him, you're not responding as I thought you would. And I encouraged him to go see his physician.
Well, it turns out he had a tumor on his spinal cord. I gave him his money back. But nobody else
have I ever had to refund because I screened them well enough and my experience led me to understand
what the outcome is that I could promise them. So I'll never say for you to promise 100% change,
100% reduced pain, 100% function. That would be silly because you don't have a crystal ball.
But you can quantify what it is that you guarantee and your fee should match that. So the person
coming in is going to say, yes, it's worth $100. Yes, it's worth $300. Yes, it's worth $600,
whatever your fee is. So again, this is where you have to trust yourself and you have to be
confident in your ability. And you're not doing smoke and mirrors. This is not magic. This is you
delivering an outcome because you know they're going to walk out that door and tell somebody
whether it's good or bad, right? So that's how your fees will always go up. It's not about the
economy. It's not about what it's about the results you provide. And I will stick my stake in the ground
and tell you to focus on the outcome. Don't look around and wonder what other people are charging
because it really doesn't matter. Sorry, I go off on these tangents because I'm so passionate about
it because too many of you are undercharging. And some of you are overcharging and the client
walks away and goes, well, that wasn't early to worry about that. And they never come back.
So get your skills up there. Get your assessment up there. Create a better experience for them.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Irene. And thank you so much to our audience for attending today.
Again, we will be following up with the post-webinar email that will include the full recording
and all of Irene's links as well. Thank you, everybody. It was fun. I hope to see you in my
additional program. Everyone.