Planning for Your Practice When Everything is Crazy|

Business and Marketing for Massage and Bodywork Therapists

Episode 32.

MINDY TOTTEN: Hey. Hey there. Welcome back to the Do It With Intention podcast. I am your host Mindy Totten. How are you all doing? How are you hanging in there? Yeah, it's been a lot the last couple of weeks and I've decided that the next few podcasts, you're going to be a little shorter than what I usually do. I've heard from several of you that you're feeling overwhelmed with.

[00:00:21] Hashtag all the things right now, and the last thing that I want to do is to add to that sense of anxiety. So for the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be delivering quick episodes, much shorter than usual, quick pops of motivation and inspiration and hope that you can begin to implement right now.

[00:00:42] Things continue to be crazy and no one is really sure what's going to happen or when the dust is going to settle. So I want to give you quick ways that you can continue to be intentional even when so much is out of our control. One way to be intentional right now is in your planning. It's even more crucial now when you may be uncertain about what the future holds to continue or for some of you, some of us to start making a plan for your business moving forward.

[00:01:12] You may have heard the old adage that the business that you have today is a result of the work that you did three months ago, and that continues to be true with so many things that are out of your control planning gives you agency. Think about that. It requires you to use the executive functions of your brain so that you can go deep into higher level thinking and out of the fight, flight, or freeze of survival mode that we're all experiencing right now.

[00:01:40] And planning, of course, is critical for your business. You may not have the gift of revenue right now. But you've got the gift of time and I encourage you to use this time as an opportunity to make a plan for your business moving forward. But how do you plan? I hear you asking me that. How do you plan Monday when so much is up in the air?

[00:02:02] We talked about this a little bit in the heal your practice masterclass, the importance of planning, even when it seems like an impossible task, and here's the thing. Here's something that you can do right now. You can look back in order to look ahead. With my students inside the bodywork project, I recommend planning in 90 day increments.

[00:02:22] 13 weeks is a great amount of time. It gives you enough time to see how things are working in your business so you can tweak or change what you need to. And with 90 day planning, you don't have to look too far out into the future, which is important for all of us right now. And research shows that most people overestimate what they can get done in a year and then they underestimate what they can accomplish in three months.

[00:02:46] I invite you to try to incorporate a 90 day planning schedule into your practice too. So look back at how your business has been doing these past three months. January, February, March. Of course you're going to look at your revenue and expenses, but I invite you to go even deeper. Too many therapists never do the work of looking back to look forward.

[00:03:09] I want you to look back to see how you actually showed up for your business, and I'm not talking about showing up therapeutically. I'm not talking about how many clients you saw, but how did you show up for the business. Side of your practice. If you're discouraged by what you see, don't beat yourself up over it.

[00:03:27] Instead, think about what baby steps that you could take today to show up for your business. For example, you could reach out to other therapists in your area and set up virtual chats with them to get to know about them and their work. This is a great time to shore up that referral network so that when you do open your doors again.

[00:03:46] Whenever that is, you've got some solid referral partnerships in place, and I'm going to talk about referral partnerships again in a couple episodes, but for right now, just think about how can I reach out to some other therapists in my area. This is all that I'm encouraging you to do right now. Just think about this this week.

[00:04:05] How were you showing up for your practice to build that solid business foundation in the past three months? And what tiny steps can you take this week to show up for your business now, even when you're not seeing clients. You're planning right now is just looking back for those three months and then planning what you can do.

[00:04:25] Baby steps. Take those baby steps this week to shore up your business foundation. You might reach out to other practitioners. Like I said, you might clean out your client files. You might even listen to past episodes of the do it with intention podcast to get even more ideas for making your business foundation even stronger.

[00:04:45] Okay. That's it for today. This might not seem like much these tiny baby steps in planning, but making the time to consistently plan for your business will serve you well, not only now, but it will build your planning muscles so that in the future it will come easily to you and you'll be able to show up 100% for your clients and for your business.

[00:05:07] Next week I'll share some ideas for setting goals during crazy times. Until then, keep your head up, commit to your business and keep doing it with intention.