Stuck in a Rut?

I recently added an electric fireplace to my massage studio (it's cozy!) and to make space for it I moved my table and rearranged a few other key pieces in my space. I've been at this current studio for a little over a year and this was the first time I moved my table and furniture. It got me thinking that it's a great thing to do whenever we start to feel stuck in a rut with our work.

I found myself a bit out of my element that first week massaging with the new setup. (In a good way!)

Here's some other small changes that I think can help shake things up when we find ourselves getting bored:

• Add products to your sessions.
  Essential oils, foot creams, heated Mother Earth Pillows for just a few ideas.
  
• Learn a new modality.
  Ok, so I'm totally biased when it comes to Ashiatsu DeepFeet Bar Therapy, but it's only because it made me fall in love with massage again at a time when I was feeling really burned out in this field. Learning a new way to work can get you out of a rut and also keep your clients amazed that you're always adding new techniques to your practice.
  
• Change your music!
  Man this one is huge for me. I get bored with my music quickly, so it's really important for me to keep it fresh and try new things. It can be like an instant pick-me-up to have some new music playing where I don't know what is coming next.
  
• Change your routine.
  Even if you don't learn a new modality or add in new products, you can easily shake things up by making changes to your routine. Usually start with the client supine? Try starting prone. Always end with the face? Try ending with the feet. It's simple but gets you out of your comfort zone just enough to make it interesting.

What ways do you find helpful to re-inspire your work when you've gotten bored?

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 since 1999.  www.BodyworkBuddy.com

Bodywork Buddy Member Spotlight: Mary-Claire Fredette

Today's member spotlight is Mary-Claire Fredette of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mary-Claire owns Affinity Massage Studio. 





Q: What inspired you to be a massage therapist?

A: The 1st massage I ever got was way too deep, and it felt horrible. I only went back to the therapist because I had a gift certificate. She had a poster hanging on the wall about craniosacral, so I asked her about it and if she could do that on me instead. It was amazing—I felt so relaxed and calm afterwards. I had been looking to get my Master’s degree in something at the time, but I didn’t know what I wanted to go to school for—just that I wanted to help people.  She told me all about where she went to school and what was involved, so I went to the library and checked out some books about massage careers. (The internet wasn’t so helpful back then). I just thought that if I could make people feel so much better after an hour or so, how beneficial it would be for them physically as well as possibly emotionally.

Q: How long have you been doing massage?

A: I graduated from school in 1998 and got my LLC in early 1999. 

Q: What is your favorite thing about being a massage therapist?

A: I think my favorite thing about being an LMT is knowing how much I can make a difference in people’s lives—not just physically, but in creating ongoing relationships with them. Sometimes, our clients need someone to talk with, and that can help them as well too. Plus, I always feel better after I’ve given a massage.

Q: What do you feel is the most challenging issue for massage therapists?

A: Probably the most challenging issue that I see is how massage therapists can differentiate them from all the others with a specialty and to garner clients for that. 

Q: What advice would you give to other MT’s to help build their business?

A: Without a doubt, I tell them that if they’re looking to increase business, that having a website with online scheduling is a must. While word of mouth referrals are a great way to increase business, that can take a long time. Using the web, which almost everyone uses now daily, is the best way to educate the public about your business and what you specialize in. My clients love having the ability to use BWB online booking 27/4, and it saves me a ton of time.

How To Use Bodywork Buddy As Your Website (With or Without Online Scheduling)

Do you want to use Bodywork Buddy to keep track of your income, expenses, client files, gift certificates, etc. but don't want to offer your clients online scheduling? You can choose to not enable your microsite, so it will never be live online... but another option is to still have your microsite and use it as your business website but without the scheduling aspect.

To do this, you can set all of your services to private instead of public from Dashboard > services > main > click on each service under service code > select private from visibility dropdown box > save.

When all of your services are set to private, your microsite will look similar to this:

Want to use the microsite for your regular website and have your own domain name direct to it? You can purchase your own domain name and then contact us to help you point it to your Bodywork Buddy microsite. 

Of course you can also always offer online scheduling by having your services set to public, and still using your microsite as your main website that includes online scheduling.

Try Bodywork Buddy free for 15 days and see for yourself how it can make your life easier at tax time and year round!

How Can Optimized Scheduling Help You?

I recently wrote a blog post titled "It's Time To Kill These 4 Online Scheduling Myths" in which I talked about therapists who are afraid they will lose control over their schedule if they make the switch from paper.

A fellow MT commented that she likes to cluster her appointments together so that she doesn't have large gaps in her day and she didn't think there was any online scheduler that could offer her that option.

This is actually exactly what Bodywork Buddy's "optimized scheduling" does!

Optimized scheduling is an optional feature you can turn on or off at any time within Bodywork Buddy. When it's selected, it will cluster your appointments together so that only openings before or after an existing appointment will be shown to clients booking online.

Some benefits to this are:

• eliminates large gaps in your day
• makes you appear busier than you are / more in demand
• gives you more control over your schedule

Let's take a look at just how this works. On this day, my entire schedule is open except for a noon appointment:

When I have optimized scheduling selected in my settings, this is what my clients will see when scheduling online. Only a 1:15pm appointment available because it is immediately after my 12:00 appointment with my buffer time of 15 minutes built in:

If I don't have optimized scheduling selected, my clients will see all of my open appointment times that day, starting with 1:15 and going all the way until the end of the day with the last appointment opening:

Pretty cool, right? This is just one of the ways Bodywork Buddy can help you maintain control over your schedule and make your life easier.

Want to try it out yourself? Signup for a free 15 day trial (no credit card required).

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 since 1999. www.BodyworkBuddy.com

Is Your Lack of Company Policies Leading To More No-Shows and Last-Minute Cancels?

Check out what Marie Forleo has to say on setting boundaries for your business:

*Disclaimer: Before someone accuses me of calling clients fat and body shaming them, just because I'm sharing this video doesn't mean I tell my clients being late makes them fat. I'm just making a point about boundaries using Marie's help with her video.

How do you enforce policies in your massage business? 

Bodywork Buddy can help with online intake forms where clients have to agree to your policies, plus your policies are included in every email reminder. (You can update or change these anytime from Dashboard > account > account settings > company policies.) They're also linked to your microsite. :)

Want to give it a try? We have a free 15 day trial (no credit card required). Check it out!

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 since 1999.  www.BodyworkBuddy.com

Member Spotlight: Jenny Methot

Today's Bodywork Buddy member spotlight is Jenny Methot from Amherst, New Hampshire.

Q: What inspired you to be a massage therapist?

A: A friend of mine went to massage school after she got her Associates Degree in Nursing. She paid for my first massage and I enjoyed it. Years later, after completing a Bachelor's Degree in Hotel Management and working in the field for two years and hating it, I decided I needed to do something different. Funny enough, something in the movie, 'Sweet Home Alabama', spoke to me about finding my passion. A friend and I went into a bookstore after seeing the movie and I bought a book on Reiki. Around that same time, another friend mentioned that a local college was starting a massage therapy program. I went to an information session and decided to enroll. I really wanted to have a career where I was still working with the public and felt like I was truly helping people.

Q: How long have you been doing massage?

A: I graduated from school in December 2003 and started actively practicing in October of 2005. I've been practicing for over 10 years.

Q: What is your favorite thing about being an MT?

A: I think my favorite thing about being an LMT is the 'love' for my clients. I feel very blessed to have a thriving practice. I consider my clients to be an extended family. Many of my clients have been with me for several years (at least three of them since I came back to New Hampshire in 2007). We've celebrated weddings and births & mourned deaths and illnesses and so much more. And I love feeling like I am making even a small difference in their lives with their health and wellness.

Q: What do you feel is the most challenging issue for massage therapists?

A: As far as challenges, I personally struggle with the balance of setting boundaries, as far as hours go and wanting to help those in pain. I know what my body can handle and am working on keeping set days and need to respect that so that my clients respect that, too. I hate knowing that I may be able to help someone but cannot be at their beck and call.

Also, I think at first, we all want to practice all the modalities that we can and help EVERYONE. Reality is, I personally think, we should find a few that we really love to practice and learn as much as we can about those. And then have other MTs in your circle who you can refer to for other modalities. Better to be a jack of all trades than a master of none. AND be ok with not knowing everything/asking questions. Better to be honest.

Q: What advice would you give to other MT’s to help build their business?

A: The best advice that I can give is to learn and practice as much as you can and to get out there as soon as possible. I had some circumstances (and mental blocks) that kept me from practicing for almost two years. I'm thankful to have a thriving business now, but I can only imagine where I would be if I had the confidence to start sooner. Also, get out there and market yourself. When I worked as an office manager at a chiropractic office while building my business, I would tell all of the other practitioners that the BEST way they could build their business was to meet the patients. People like to match names with faces. They want to feel your energy. That is how I built my business. Many of my current regular clients, I met as patients. And know that not every client will be a good match. Some will come and go. Let them go to open yourself up to the ones who really need you.

It's Time To Kill These 4 Online Scheduling Myths

1. "I won't have control over my schedule."

A lot of therapists have this fear that they will lose control of their schedule, clients will suddenly dictate their life with too much access to their book, there will be too many appointments, too close together, and chaos will ensue!

Mary-Claire Fredette of Affinity Massage Studio in Cincinnati, Ohio says before she started using Bodywork Buddy, she was afraid that she would be at the grocery store buying ice cream when someone would schedule a massage. Her life would be ruined as the ice cream would melt info puddles as she massaged someone. It makes me laugh, but as a therapist myself, I can understand this concern!

Luckily Bodywork Buddy has some key features that would prevent this from being an issue.

• Your clients request an appointment online from the openings shown, and you can then accept or decline the appointment request. (So it's not an automatic confirmed appointment until you accept it.) You're sent an email to notify you of the request, and it will also show within your BWB account on the dashboard and the calendar.
• Stacked time slots versus interval time slots: BWB lets you choose how your openings are shown to clients. Do you want to show intervals of 10 minutes like 10:00, 10:10, 10:20 giving the client the most flexible options? (Interval options vary from 10-60 minutes.) Or only show them blocks of times like 10:00, 11:30, 1:00 giving YOU more control? It's up to you.
• In your settings, you can choose to show openings to clients online ranging from immediately to 4 days out. So if today is Monday and you have 4 days set in your settings, clients will not see any openings in your calendar until Friday.
• BWB's "optimized scheduling" feature is an optional setting to only allow clients to schedule appointments before or after an existing appointment, which helps to eliminate large gaps in your day. So if you have this setting selected, and you only have 1 client today at 5pm with the rest of the day open, any other clients looking to schedule online will only be able to select today at 3:30pm or 6:30pm (times may vary depending on your settings).  So at 10am you can buy your ice cream with no worries of it melting :)

2. "It will become a double-booking nightmare."

Do you worry that a client will schedule online at the same time that you're scheduling a client in the office?

Once a client requests an appointment online, it will show in your calendar in orange so you know it's been requested. That time slot will not show as open to other clients unless you decline that request.

When you're manually scheduling a client who is in your office or on the phone with you, it will instantly no longer be shown as an opening online.

Tristin Resinger of Akua Esthetics and Bodywork in Ann Arbor, Michigan says the owner at her previous job refused to get online scheduling out of fear of these kinds of mistakes happening, but Tristin points out that those mistakes seemed to happen a lot with a paper book. Having an electronic trail of each appointment can actually cut down on misunderstandings and human error. Within BWB, you can see a log of all emails sent to clients and 

even see if/when they've opened them.

3. "The online scheduler won't work."
Erin Howk of Therapeutic & Stress Reduction Massage in Fairmont, Minnesota says she had a fear that online scheduling wouldn't work and she'd have clients showing up that she didn't know were supposed to be there.

There's a few things within BWB that prevent this from happening. When a client requests an appointment online and you accept it, it turns into a confirmed appointment (in green) in the calendar and the client gets an email letting them know the appointment has been confirmed / accepted. 

The client will then get an email reminder shortly before their appointment (you can customize the how many hours before their appointment this is sent out in your settings.) If you have SMS services enabled and the client has opted in, they will also receive a text reminder.

If they don't have an appointment in the calendar, they will not get these confirmations and reminders.

4. "Nobody will use online scheduling and I'll still have to answer the phone and pay for a useless service."

While some clients might take some time getting used to scheduling online, the majority of clients today want the convenience of online scheduling. Not only scheduling online, but from their phones and tablets! Studies have shown that mobile use has skyrocketed in recent years. Offering online scheduling that is mobile friendly will cut down on phone tag and make scheduling an appointment with you a breeze.

I can't promise that you'll never have to answer the phone again, but it can make your life easier and save you time.

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 since 1999.  www.BodyworkBuddy.com