Massage & Bodywork

NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2015

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F r e e S O A P n o t e s w i t h M a s s a g e B o o k f o r A B M P m e m b e r s : a b m p . u s / M a s s a g e b o o k 81 Be Competitive and Creative With Your Pricing While I would never suggest that any massage therapist attempt to define a practice by consistently undercutting other practitioners' prices, competitive pricing can be used strategically to convince new clients to give you a try. One of the ways in which Shane and I cultivated our fledgling practice was by partnering with Groupon. We decided that taking a temporary pay cut was worth the hefty influx of new clients Groupon was able to provide. Through Groupon, we saw nearly 500 new clients over the course of a year, and enjoyed a nearly 70-percent return rate among those clients. In fact, we still have many weekly clients who have been coming to see us since they first found us via Groupon nearly six years ago! Having been approached by so many other MTs regarding our Groupon experience, we later went on to produce an audio book about the entire process. Another way to be creative with your pricing is to offer prepaid discounted packages of massage sessions. By paying upfront, clients enjoy significant savings on each session, and the lump sum that you receive can go a long way toward bolstering your bank account. We have also had some success with offering a "send three, get one free" offer, wherein a client who sends in three referrals is rewarded with a free session. Doing this can motivate existing clients to spread the word about your services and provide them with a nice reward for having done so. Mark McKenney, a.k.a. Mark the Spa Man, of McKenney Spa & Wellness Consulting in Dallas, Texas, suggests bootstrappers make the referral process as fluid as possible: "Make it easy for others to recommend you via word of mouth, but make it seamless and get it into a digital format. Ask peeps to help you out!" As Tony Robbins puts it, "Success is not about your resources. It's about how resourceful you are with what you have." As you embark on building your own private massage practice, you will quickly realize that you can, in fact, cultivate the career of your dreams without large sums of startup capital. Resourcefulness, gumption, scrappiness, and determination are all assets that may actually be worth much more than a sky-high credit card limit or the help of an angel investor. After all, in addition to supporting your first step toward private practice, these characteristics will sustain you throughout the duration of your entrepreneurial journey. While credit and cash flow may come and go, the ability to bootstrap one's way through tough times is an enduring quality that will always be an invaluable asset. Susan Epperly works with her MT husband, Shane, in their East Austin clinical massage therapy practice, Tiger Lily Studios, LLC. In addition to contributing her massage comic, A Touch of Humor, to Massage & Bodywork magazine, Susan and Shane create a variety of educational products in both digital and physical formats (ebooks, audio books, videos, and more) for their fellow wellness practitioners. Their products are available for purchase on their website, www.tigerlilystudios.com. #8 BOOTSTRAP BASICS

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