Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/1060121
Yo u r M & B i s w o r t h 2 C E s ! G o t o w w w. a b m p . c o m / c e t o l e a r n m o r e . 85 A is for ACTIVE What type of business owner are you? Active or passive? Proactive or reactive? Active business owners plan, change, and adapt, while passive business owners sit back and let things happen. Can certain aspects of your practice develop organically without you putting too much time and attention into them? Sure. But will they develop in the way that you enjoy most or that sets you up for sustainable success? Probably not. Use the tips in this guide to step more fully into your role as an active business owner. B IS FOR BRAND. Chances are you designed your business card one year, created your website during a different year, and your social media platforms in yet another. Are all of your marketing materials speaking the same language, using the same design, and coming together to create a cohesive brand? Clients and potential clients should be able to easily pick your materials and messages out from the crowd. C IS FOR CRUST. Kids often request that we trim the crust from their sandwiches. They know what they like and don't like, and they're not afraid to ask for change. Take some inspiration from them and ask yourself: What's your business's crust? What isn't working for you anymore? Identify specific things you'd like to change—a modality or old marketing strategy—and take steps to trim the outdated items from your practice. D IS FOR DUAL. Take a dual approach to marketing your practice and think of it in terms of these two general categories: "hello" and "welcome back." Ideally, you'd have strategies in place to attract new clients (hello!), as well as strategies to keep current clients returning for additional sessions (welcome back!). Practitioners often focus more on efforts to gain new clients and don't put enough attention into improving their client retention. It's worth the time and resources to create strategies like acknowledging birthdays, frequent visit rewards, and package plans to keep clients coming back. E IS FOR EXPERIMENT. Your practice can start to feel stale if you're doing pretty much the same thing day after day and session after session. Reenergize by experimenting with change. Go to a coffee shop to do your business management work instead of your home office. Buy a small new item for your massage room or bring something in from home. Enliven your hands-on work by adding a new stroke to every session you do this week. Experiment with little, nonpermanent changes to see what works and what doesn't. It'll help shake things up a bit for you and your clients and bring fresh energy to your practice. F IS FOR FLOP. It would be absolutely wonderful if everything in our lives and practices was perfect at all times. But, as we've all experienced time and time again, it isn't. Things go wrong. We have a slow week, a new marketing strategy doesn't work, or the babysitter calls in sick on a fully booked day. Successful business owners work to develop a mind-set to cope when something's a flop instead of a hit. They maintain perspective, evaluate what happened, learn what they can from it, and make a plan to move forward. Work to develop your own strategy for picking up and moving on when things don't go as planned. G is for GIFT How would you describe your gift certificate program? Do you have specific marketing strategies to promote gift certificate sales? Have you made it easy for them to be purchased by adding an online gift card in addition to the traditional paper certificate? Are you using them as a marketing tool to bring new clients into your practice by giving them to current clients to share with friends and family? Rethink your strategies to ensure you're promoting them effectively to increase sales, minimizing the challenge for people to purchase them, and maximizing their role as a marketing tool. H IS FOR HORN. Bodyworkers often resist the idea of marketing because they believe it means having to be overly salesy and pushy to the extent that it becomes off-putting. Not true! Marketing simply means letting people know who you are and what you have to offer. Yes, you need to toot your own horn a bit to let people know what makes you special and why they should choose you over the competition, but you get to do so in your own words. Choose language and a style that is true to who you are, and you'll be marketing your practice in an authentic and genuine way.