Getting Over Your Fears About Marketing Yourself | Business and Marketing for Massage and Bodywork Therapists

Episode 4.

MINDY TOTTEN: If you're putting yourself out there trying to create a successful and sustainable bodywork business where you serve other people and you're able to make a great living doing it, make no mistake about it. Creating your own massage or bodywork practice is some of the deepest and most profound personal growth work you will ever do.

Welcome to Do It With Intention, the podcast for massage and bodywork therapists. I'm your host, Mindy Totten, a mentor and coach for bodyworkers who want to turn their passion for the work they do into successful businesses that they love -- all without burning out or selling.

For the last 15 plus years, I've created a successful six-figure Craniosacral Therapy practice in a small city in coastal North Carolina. Over those years, I've met so many skilled, big-hearted therapists who are struggling to make their bodywork businesses work for them. Not because they weren't terrific therapists, but because they didn't know how to make the business side of their practices work.

It became my mission to help other massage and bodywork therapists build practices that support not only their soul, but also their bottom line.

On the Do It With Intention podcast, we'll dive deep into what it takes to build and to sustain a profitable massage or bodywork business. We'll have honest conversations about what really works and what doesn't as you create the ideal practice for you.

After all, you do great work in the world and you deserve to make a great living doing it. But you've got to be intentional about it not only in your modality but in your business too. That's how body workers Do It With Intention.

Welcome to Episode 4 of the Do It With Intention podcast. Today we're going to talk about something that is so critical to building a successful massage or bodywork practice.

That is -- getting over your fears about marketing yourself. I'm going to start and end this episode with the same thing and I want you to actually write this down because marketing can be so scary.

Sales can feel so gross and pushy and blah. I want you to write this down: The people who you can serve are just waiting for you to get over your fears around marketing yourself. I want you to remember that as we talk today about what you can do to get over those fears.

The people who you can serve are waiting for you. They need the work that you do. They need the help that you can give them to reach their health and wellness goals.

So they are waiting for you to get over your fears around sales, around marketing, around putting yourself out there.

Because we are more than just skilled practitioners. We're artists. When an artist creates something, they put their creation out into the world and that's a really vulnerable place to come from.

As a bodywork therapist you’re like an artist. You've created this thing, this practice. You have the skills, and you’re developing your knowledge or developing the wisdom in your hands.

When you put that out into the world as an offering, you might hear nothing back.

That's a really scary, vulnerable place to be. And so it's important that you recognize, that hey, I’m really good at this.

You might think, “If I build it, they will come.” It doesn't always happen that way, and you have to recognize that it is scary to put it out there. Sometimes people will say yes, and sometimes they’ll say no.

And many people will just ignore you. Remember Brene Brown? She talks about daring greatly. The people who really make something of their lives -- really make a contribution to the world -- are those people who are willing to get into the arena.

And even though you know it can be scary and you can be knocked down and you can lose, perhaps you are actually in the arena doing the thing. And that's what I want you to encourage you to do.

No matter how scary it is, get into the arena, do the thing, put your business together, put your offerings out to people.

And even though it's scary and vulnerable, you can then create a wonderful business.

Nobody is going to come to you for the wonderful work that you do if nobody knows about you, if nobody has any idea that you even exist.

So take a tip from Brene Brown. It's not about the naysayers. You are the person who is going into the arena daring greatly and getting over those fears about marketing yourself.

I say this to people I work with -- both in The Bodywork Project and in one-on-one Private Mentoring -- that having your own business, your own massage or bodywork business -- is some of the most profound and deep personal growth work that you will ever do because it's basically like a mirror.

You put the thing that you're creating out into the world and it's like a mirror back to you. All of a sudden all of your insecurities, fears, dread, and under-confidence rear their ugly heads.

If you're like me, you might end up saying, “OMG, I suck.”

Of course you don't suck, right? You just need some help and support on the business side of your practice.

It is some of the most profound professional, personal work that you will ever do.

We're getting ready to start early enrollment for The Bodywork Project here. And so I've been talking to a lot of people interested in the program. How can it help me? Can it help me?

And I've been getting to talk with so many wonderful, skilled practitioners, and here are some things that I'm hearing from them:

When I asked them why they're struggling with their marketing and their self-promotion, the first thing they say is that they’re not bad at marketing or selling things for other people. They just can't do it for themselves.

And this one can be tricky because you didn't get into this business to be a marketing powerhouse. You got into it to help people.

And guess what? You're going to need to pull up your Big Girl Pants, step into your power and be the Pro and CEO of your practice that we've been talking about on these last few episodes.

You're not helping anyone if you go out of business. And sometimes we expect things to happen too quickly.

Let’s talk about the know, like, and trust factor.

You need to give people a chance to get to know you, and the work that you do.

And the chance to get to like you. That doesn't mean everybody has to like you. It's more like: Does this person resonate with me? Do I feel a connection with this person?

And then the trust factor: Give people a chance to trust that you're going to do what you say you're going to do, that you're going to be there for them, that you're going to show up for them, that you're going to be consistent.

And that takes some time.

We bodywork therapists read stuff online that say we should do XYZ and then all these people will come into our practice and boom, two weeks in you've got this full practice. Sorry, it just doesn't work that way.

I’d like to share with you a story that makes me cringe when I think about it today, At the time the common wisdom was all about the law of attraction -- that you can just magically manifest all of this stuff if you just have the right mindset.

I had just moved to Wilmington and about the only person I knew was my realtor, the woman who sold us our home.

A few months after we got here and I had opened my practice, she had a customer appreciation holiday party, and I was all into that mindset thing.

I figured if I just do the law of attraction and believe that it will happen, then everything will be peachy keen.

So there’s going to be a bunch of people at this party. I'm going to believe that they're all going to be interested in me and want to come for a massage. I had donated a free hour session as part of a charity raffle.

I thought everyone's going to hear about that and then they're going to come and talk with me.

I'm embarrassed to even say this, but I thought they'd all come over and talk to me. And I wanted to be ready.

I wanted to be open to the universe and be ready for all of the goodwill and abundance that would be coming my way.

Long story short: I brought my credit card machine to this Christmas party, and this was before the days of easy payment via Square, Stripe, or PayPal.

No, I brought along one of those giant clunky credit card machines where you put the little carbon paper form in and do the back and forth motion to run the credit card.

I had this giant dinosaur with me, and I brought along a whole bunch of those carbon forms.

I come bopping into this Christmas party where I know nobody. And at the end of the night I was crushed. So disappointed.

I felt like such a rotten businessperson, a terrible person, because of course nobody had come up and talked to me about my massages. Nobody was handing over their credit card to buy gift certificates or to set up sessions with me.

Why? Because they didn’t have the time that's required to get to know me, to like me, or to trust me to set up an appointment.

I share that story not to embarrass myself but to illustrate how important it is to put yourself out there … give the universe time to percolate.

Don't expect immediate results because they aren’t going to happen. But if you don't start today, those results are going to be put off even longer.

Let’s talk about conversion rates. We could fill an entire episode on this but for now let’s say two people who come to see you or hear about you, and one of them is going to become a client.

That's a really, really high conversion rate -- 50%. It also means that the other 50% are not going to become clients.

Say you give out 10 freebies, and 10 people come in to see you. That’s not going to happen, and if it does, you’re a genius.

The reality is you need to give people a chance to get to know you, to like you, and to trust you. And it’ll take a bit of time. It’s also important to be realistic about what your expectations are.

You can see more on conversion rates at a link on a blog that I wrote about it so you can go back and get a sense of what a strong conversion rate is, and the techniques and the tactics I use to get the best possible conversion rates for my business.

The second thing I have been hearing from therapists is that they don't want to feel like a slimy salesperson, a used car salesman. And I get it.

But what ends up happening is that you do a disservice to your clients. So they don't have a plan. They don't know what to do when they come to see you.

We’re not talking about getting new people in to see. We're talking about once a client has had their session with you, what do they do?

Here it’s time to be the boss, because they’re looking to you to be the expert.

I once went to get some support around some issues that I was working one, and I went for an EMDR -- Eye Movement Sesensitization and Reprocessing.

We had the first session. I talked with this therapist, I liked her, and at the end of the session I asked her how many more would I need to start seeing some changes, to start seeing some results.

Too many bodyworkers fall back on this (and I was guilty of it too): “Oh, just trust your body. You know, trust the process. You'll know when to come back in.”

If my EMDR practitioner had said this, I would have been really irritated. I don't know when to come back in. That's why I'm asking you. You're the professional. I want a timeline. I want an idea of how long this is going to take to see to the results that I want.

And she was great. Instead, she said that I’d need between four and six sessions to start to see if this is therapy will be good for you. I was truly relieved.

Of course, I ended up going back to her for more than two years. And this happens to bodyworkers all the time too.

People come in and say, “My neck hurts.” You work with their neck, but you realize there are underlying symptoms that'll take a little bit longer to work out.

So what I suggest for you the bodywork practitioner is not to be afraid of giving first-time clients a program, some kind of a timeline they’ll need to get some results. It doesn't have to be exact. And you're not being pushy.

You're not saying, “I'm not going to work with you unless you make an appointment every week for the next year.” Nothing like that.

It’s your professional opinion, because you have the expertise, the skills, and the  experience to make a recommendation.

That's not pushy. That's not slimy used car salesman. That’s being of service to the people who come in to see you. They will get better results if they follow that timeline that you give them. We all know that one time is not enough to get to the root of most problems.

Okay. The last thing that I hear from people -- and this is really kind of a mindset thing --  therapists say the work they do and the skills they have are a gift, and they feel guilty charging for this gift.

Sorry, I'm going to push back on that a little bit. This isn't a particularly popular stance that I take, but I don't believe that it's a gift.

I believe that we can be gifted in anything that we do, but it's not a gift that's handed down from above and we had no part in it.

Let me offer another illustration to explain what I mean. Think about an artist, somebody like Picasso.

He obviously was a gifted painter, but he also went to school and developed his skills with practice, practice, practice. He created over and over again. He took that gift and made something of it, made something that he could contribute to the world.

If he said you don't have to pay me for these paintings because it's just a gift, he wouldn't have been able to take care of himself to continue to create and serve the world in the way that he was meant to serve our world.

And it's the same way with bodyworkers. We may have certain intuitive skills that can make us better therapists than the person next door. But those skills must be developed.

We've gone to school, we continued our education so that we get better and better so that our skills improve so that we become better therapists.

And if we say this is a gift I have, so I won’t charge over $30 for it, then we're not taking care of ourselves so that we can continue to develop our skills and expertise to serve more people and create a better life -- not only for others that we serve, but also for ourselves.

So think about that as you're heading into this holiday season. As I said, we're talking about gifts a lot.

It's not that you’re a bad person for charging for your services, or you're wrong for charging a living wage. That is part of the energy exchange that is part of serving other people.

If you are taking care of yourself, you're healthy, you're strong, you've got a solid foundation, and you're not constantly worrying about paying your bills, then you’re going to be a better therapist, you're going to be more present for your people and they are going to get better results.

I want to leave you today with some action steps that you can take to get past these fears so you can help the people that you most need to help who most need the work that you have to share.

The next step: Creating a successful massage or bodywork business.

If you're just starting out in your business, your next steps are going to be quite different than someone who's ready to hire another therapist.

It can be confusing knowing what steps to take, but don't worry. I’ve got you covered.

I've created The Bodyworker Clarity Quiz and there's a link to it in the show notes.

Just answer a couple of questions and it will tell you where you are on this journey.

I've divided it up into just starting out, passionate bodyworker, savvy bodyworker, and Pro and CEO.

Depending on where you are on that timeline, I've created a downloadable guide for each one of those that will tell you the next best steps to take on your journey to creating a sustainable business.

So look for that in the show notes and remember, as I said at the beginning, and I'll say over and over and over again, I want you to really take this into your hearts: The people who you can serve, who need the work that you have to offer, are just waiting for you to get over your fears.

Thanks for coming on this journey with me today. I know what it takes to make time for something like this in your busy day and I so appreciate that you tuned in and listened all the way to the end.

We've got all the links from today's episode in the show notes that you can find over at MindyTotten.com/podcast.

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Okay, that's it for today. It's my pleasure and my privilege to be with you on this journey. I'll see you next week, same place, same time. Until then, get out there and Do It With Intention.