4 Quick Tips to Rebook Clients

1. Offer a complimentary add-on such as hot stones, hot towels, aromatherapy, foot or
back scrub, etc.

2. Email with openings for the week sent out on Sunday or Monday. 
Be sure to include a link to your online scheduler to make it as easy as possible for clients to schedule.

3. Offer tiered rates. 
For example: Monthly rate $65, biweekly rate $55, and weekly rate $45.

4. Ask them at the end of their appointment when they would like to schedule their next one!
This seems too simple, but many times all it takes is asking. Remember that clients are relaxed after their massage and may not be thinking about their calendar - likely to float right out of your office without remembering to schedule their next appointment.

Add Your "Schedule Online" Button To Your Email Signature

Adding your schedule button to your email signature can make it even easier for clients corresponding with you to schedule online.

How to add your "schedule online" button to your signature in your emails (this example shown for gmail).

From your dashboard in Bodywork Buddy, hover over Account > click Micro Site Info.

Left-click your mouse and scroll over the button image. (located under "extra stuff" at the bottom of the Microsite Info page).

Hold the "control" and "C" keys on a pc, or the "command" and "C" keys on a mac to copy the button and link.

Go to your email > click on the settings gear in the upper right corner of gmail > click on Settings.

From within settings > General > scroll down to Signature. Click within the text box, and then right-click your mouse. Click "paste". (Or click "control" and "v" on pc, or "command" and "v" on a mac.)

Click on the schedule button, and your microsite URL will pop up. 

Teacher Appreciation and Nurses Week

This week has two great marketing opportunities for your massage business. Teacher Appreciation and Nurses week are both this week in May.

While it's Tuesday and this week has already gotten started, it's not too late to send out an email to your clients to remind them that you have gift certificates available for purchase. Massage is a great gift to honor our teachers and nurses!















Haven't gotten started with email marketing yet? Check out these past blog posts for some ideas:
http://blog.bodyworkbuddy.com/2013/12/3-easy-tips-for-starting-your-email.html
http://blog.bodyworkbuddy.com/2013/08/the-7-deadly-sins-of-email-etiquette.html

Relationships

"Sometimes, the reason some things get done is because there's a relationship there."

This is something a friend of mine recently said in a discussion we were having about some big changes coming to the company she works for. The company just announced they are moving hundreds of jobs from their current location to another city 80 miles away. She was speculating on how things will change in their day-to-day operations when those jobs are not only in a new city, but are filled with people her department has never met. Starting over with no background, new people, to try and pick up where they left off with coworkers with a history of working together, a team... because of that relationship.

Her comment made me realize that all businesses are really about relationships. While it might seem obvious to some that a massage business is about building relationships with our clients, it actually wasn't that obvious to me when I was first starting out. I can remember being so stuck in a scarcity mindset and struggling on how to get clients that day that I didn't think much past that appointment and creating a long-term relationship with that client. I remember feeling scared to ask clients to schedule their next appointment because I didn't want to seem "pushy".

Now when I look at my massage practice and that some of my clients have been with me since the beginning, it's amazing. 15 years working with these people's tissues. Marriages, divorces, births, deaths... relationships. We've gone through all of these things together in our working relationship of massage therapist and client.

Clearly, there's a big difference between a working relationship in a corporate setting and the relationship that goes on between massage therapists and their clients. "Things get done" might seem a bit off topic... but the important take away from that is "there's a relationship there". Reaching out to clients in between their appointments or if you haven't seen them in a while, asking after their session when they would like to schedule their next appointment, remembering important dates or life events by keeping organized records/notes of your sessions... these things can make a difference in building that trusted relationship with your clients.

Cindy Iwlew is cofounder of Bodywork Buddy Massage Software, a complete online management solution for independent massage therapists that includes online scheduling. She continues to operate her own private massage practice of 15 years. www.BodyworkBuddy.com  

Important Changes for Yahoo Users

Last week, Yahoo quietly made a change to their email services that has affected most emails being sent from a third party on behalf of a Yahoo address. (For example: email reminders to your clients from your online scheduler).

Bodywork Buddy immediately emailed our members who use a Yahoo address to notify them of this change. Since this affects all third party services sending emails on your behalf, we wanted to let others in the massage industry know in case this affects you and your massage business.

To quote Yahoo:

Yahoo made a simple change to its DMARC policy from “report” to “reject”. In other words, we requested that all other mail services reject emails claiming to come from a Yahoo user, but not signed by Yahoo.

So what does this mean? If you're using a Yahoo account for your massage business, any emails from a third party online scheduling system will likely bounce and not be delivered. This affects all third party systems sending emails on behalf of your massage business, not just Bodywork Buddy. 

What's the solution? For now, the only real solution is to use a non-Yahoo address. Although there is speculation that this may start to be incorporated by other free email services as well. Your best bet? Use an email address from a private domain.

Here at Bodywork Buddy, we are encouraging our members with Yahoo addresses to change their account to a non-Yahoo address for the time being for clients to receive their reminders still shown as coming "from" their massage therapist. We will keep you in the loop on any changes regarding this issue with Yahoo. 

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact our team. We're here to help!




Sincerely,
Cindy Iwlew

How to Raise Your Rates

Are your rates too low but you're afraid to raise them? Worried you'll lose clients? Fearful you won't be able to compete with the massage chain down the street?

Check out this video with Mareo Forleo and Ramit Sethi on how to raise your prices.  I love the challenge Ramit gives at the end: write out 3-4 sentences of how you add value to your client's life. (Not to be confused with explaining or justifying your price increase!)

I asked on our Facebook page what helpful tips our fellow massage therapists have for raising rates, and Tracy Illchuk suggested advertising an increase a few months beforehand and offering a package bundle (3 massages) at the old price. (Thanks for the tip, Tracy!) I definitely think it's a great idea to let your clients know the increase is coming.

What would be your write-up of the value you add to your client's life?

Cindy Iwlew is co-founder of Bodywork Buddy Massage Software, a complete online management solution for independent massage therapists that includes online scheduling. 

She continues to operate her own private massage practice of 15 years.  www.BodyworkBuddy.com

Our Story & A Gift For You

https://www.facebook.com/NCBTMB

Over the weekend, the NCBTMB Facebook page posted a graphic about National Mom & Pop Business Owners day. It reminded me that while most massage therapist's businesses are "Mom & Pop shops", we are here at Bodywork Buddy, too! So I thought I'd tell you a little more about how Berin and I got started with Bodywork Buddy and why it's a labor of love for us.

I'm not a naturally organized person. I started my massage practice with my very unorganized ways... and it was fine, for a while. (Until I got busy.) And believe me, I really struggled in the beginning.

A lot of my blog posts here are drawn from what I have learned in my own massage business. I experienced for myself what works and what doesn't when trying to build a clientele. Once I did things like offer a unique service and online scheduling, I started to get really busy. I soon realized that it was going to quickly become a big mess if I didn't get organized and have set systems and processes in place. I was using about 4 different programs to run my business at that time. One for online scheduling, one for my website, one for client management, one for bookkeeping... half of those being desktop software that I could only access while at my office.

I know you're wondering...
It's pronounced "Eye-Loo".

Embarrassing confession: I would wait until the end of the year and then go through my whole appointment book and record the income into my bookkeeping system for taxes. (and by bookkeeping "system" I mostly mean paper.) What a mess! I wanted something that would make it easy for me to track my income, and make it effortless to stay on top of it and be organized. (This is why Bodywork Buddy will show you past due appointments that haven't been completed with payment information yet. Bodywork Buddy tells you that it still needs to be done! So you can't forget or wait until the end of the year to stay on top of it... not that you would do that, right? I just know that I would!!)

I wanted to make my life easier with more automated practices for my massage business. And to have all of these services in one easy program, accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.

on the left: my bookkeeper, Oscar.

So while all of this was going on with my massage business, my husband Berin was laid off from his development job. He'd been working remotely for a company in Los Angeles. They were acquired by another company, and brought in a couple of "Bob's" to make big cuts. (By big cuts, I mean pretty much everyone.) The only jobs available for his industry were in California or Texas at the time, and most were as independent contractors with not much security anyway. We didn't want to move since I had my massage practice here (and family, of course - Michigan is our home!). But we also didn't start Bodywork Buddy thinking "hey, if Berin can't find a job in his field then we'll just create one!".
It honestly started as him having the time on his hands, and my need for a solution. He was still doing some freelance work and looking for more permanent work while starting to build the system.
It was after he started building it that we thought "If I need this solution, maybe there are other massage therapists out there looking for the same thing!". And hence, Bodywork Buddy was born.

Bodywork Buddy has evolved since then from the features that I felt I needed and now includes many other features that our members have requested since our inception.


When massage therapists ask me what sets Bodywork Buddy apart from other online schedulers, I honestly think the biggest thing is that we're focused on the massage industry because we're in it. We're not some huge corporation or software company that has been started by serial entrepreneurs and investors. We didn't set out with the intent of being entrepreneurs. We're invested in this in a different way, with the love that we have for massage therapy (and Berin's love for coding). Also, unlike many software companies, self-taught cofounder Berin is also the software architect and has built the entire foundation of the system himself. It's hard to explain just how beneficial this is if you're not familiar with outsourcing software development. Let's just say: our developers aren't going to all of the sudden "not care" about updates or upgrades needed to the system. Our developers are the owners, we care with our blood, sweat, and tears... similar to the way that you care about your massage practice.

I love that not only has Bodywork Buddy helped me to organize my business, but I love even more that now we're helping other massage therapists get more organized and thereby become more successful in their massage business!

I can't express how awesome it is to hear things like this from our members:

"I am really enjoying Bodywork Buddy. It will be such a great resource for my massage practice. I am dyslexic and having everything in one place is such a gift. Everything from soap notes to being able to mark massages as trades. I have been bouncing around between booking sights for about a year. One of the biggest things that has not kept my business is that I just can't read them. This is NOT the case with Bodywork Buddy. I feel so grateful to have found this resource." [sic]       -Tisha R.  

It's been quite an adventure. And we're really glad you're part of it! As a thank you for being here, here's a free facebook timeline image. (many thanks to Ryan Hoyme of Hoyme Consulting for the massage images!) Just right click, and save image to download for your use.
















Thank you. I hope you didn't find this post too personal or boring. Or cheesy. It's very new for me to write from such a personal perspective. I just want you to know that I get how hard it is to build your massage practice from scratch. I've been there... and I'd love to help you build your business in any way I can.

Cindy Iwlew is co-founder of Bodywork Buddy Massage Software, a complete online management solution for independent massage therapists that includes online scheduling. 

She continues to operate her own private massage practice of 15 years.  www.BodyworkBuddy.com

My other bookkeeper, Raven.