Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/588318
Know Where—and Where Not—To Allocate Funds One of the trickiest parts of bootstrapping is deciding how to spend the little money we do have. It's important to save where you can, but you shouldn't be afraid to spend where you need to. As for Shane and me, nearly everything that went into our first practice space had been acquired for free or next to nothing. Thrift store finds, Craigslist buys, and neighbors' castoffs were the foundations of our décor. But, while we had determined that the physical objects in our office need not be an area of significant investment, there were other areas we deemed to be more worthy of funding. For us, those areas that deserved a prominent place in our shoestring budget included the following. Legal Fees Our most important investments included expenses such as our state licenses, liability insurance policies, occupancy permits, and other legal obligations. Even continuing-education costs could fall under this category, because, of course, continuing education is necessary for maintaining our licenses. Without these licenses and permits, we couldn't even have gotten out of the starting gate. Rent We had decided to embrace the old real estate mantra "location, location, location." For our first clinic location, we chose an area slightly more expensive than others, but which boasted centrality and a wealthy neighborhood demographic. But we were also careful to not bite off more than we could chew too soon. We started out sharing one treatment room and were later able to increase our spending by each renting our own room. Andrea Fleming, LMT and owner of Green Lotus Bodyworks in Austin, Texas, substantiates the necessity to avoid taking on more rent costs than are absolutely necessary: "My advice to someone just starting out would be to not overextend yourself in renting an office space full time by yourself. If you don't have any clients, start small by renting a day or two in someone else's clinic, splitting the rent with colleagues, or doing outcalls to build your revenue up first. Then, you can obtain a full- time clinic space when your clientele base can support it. It's always easier to expand because you have so much business, rather than being overwhelmed by rent payments on a space you aren't using consistently." BOOTSTRAP BASICS #3 Communications Shane and I knew we needed a reliable and professional way to facilitate communication with our growing clientele. We chose to budget for an account with Constant Contact, which allowed us the ability to send out email newsletters and other correspondence announcing special offers, events, and other relevant happenings. We also signed up for an online scheduling service, which facilitated the booking process for our clients and ensured that, even if neither of us was available to answer the phone, our clients could still book themselves quickly and conveniently online. We chose BookFresh, but there are many options available; for instance, ABMP has a red carpet relationship with MassageBook. We opted to use a cell phone as our main business line, so our cell phone bill was something that had to be accommodated in our miniscule budget. This allowed us to answer the phone at all hours and wherever we were. Especially back then, we couldn't afford to miss a single call from a prospective client! Of course, we also needed access to the Internet in order to use our email service and our online booking system, to correspond with clients via email, and to process credit card payments. So, Internet access was yet another bill that we made room for in our meager ledger of expenses.