Your Questions Answered. Coaching with Mindy |

Business and Marketing for Massage and Bodywork Therapists

Episode 47.

MINDY TOTTEN: Hey hey there. Welcome back to the Do It With Intention podcast!

I’m Mindy Totten, and today's episode is kind of special. I've been wanting to do something like this for quite a while. And I put out in my email newsletters and on the podcast, I put out a call for questions. Like, what do you really want to hear about on the podcast?

And what questions can I answer for you? And my idea was that people would respond to me. And then we could tape ourselves on the podcast, you know, sort of having a mini coaching session where you would ask the question and I would coach you through it a little bit. And that would be great for everybody to hear.

Well, that didn't go so well because several people who sent in questions, when I got back to them and said, Hey, do you want to come on the podcast with me and do this coaching? The resounding answer was. Oh, hail to the, no people were like, I am too embarrassed to come on the podcast. I'm too shy. I like sound stupid.

I'll all of these things. And so I finally was like, okay, I respect that. I certainly get that. I feel like a dork sometimes myself when I'm, Hear myself being recorded or when I listen back to recording. So I decided, instead of having people come onto the show, I would use their questions and answer questions that many of you are having.

So I got several questions that were very specific to people's businesses. And while I have to reserve that time for. People who are my students inside the bodywork project and also private mentoring students. I did get some questions that were appropriate for everyone that everybody would benefit from hearing.

So I'm going to answer some of those questions today, and I hope that it will help you. And when we do that yes, in the future, I hope that perhaps, maybe some of you will have the courage to come onto the show and we can coach you through some of the difficulties that you're having in your practices.

Fingers crossed. That's my hope for the future. So the first question that came in that I thought that would be interesting for everybody to hear. And because I do get this question a lot. Is how do we offer a program? Like when I say a program, meaning a program for your clients, you know, suggestions for moving forward, how do we offer a program for our clients?

When my work is focused on meeting the client, Where he or she is. And that, it's such a great question. I know in my own work, in craniosacral therapy, we are taught like so many of the subtle touch therapies. We are taught that you are to meet the client exactly where he or she is. I go into the treatment room with an agenda.

You don't go in trying to fix somebody. You don't go in with your ego, trying to make something right. Better. You respect the clients. Unique situation, their unique inner wisdom. Ideally you're tuning into the client's inner wisdom and acting as a facilitator for their healing. So if that's the place that you're coming, yeah.

From an obliger craniosacral therapy, we call it neutral coming from a place of neutral. If you're coming from neutral, then how do you, after the session, make a recommendation for a plan for going forward. So that's a really good question. So the first thing that I have to say about that is you are not telling the client what they're feeling.

You're simply sharing with the client, your own observations, your own professional observations. So you can say something like based on what I've started today during our session and with my experience with. I dunno, we'll say migraine headaches with my experience with migraine headaches. I think it's going to take whatever your professional opinion is, maybe four to six sessions.

So we can get to those underlying issues that we were talking about, the suboccipital muscles or whatever it is, explain what your professional opinion is. And then you ask the person, would you like to go ahead and set up those appointments now? The key is that you are detaching from the outcome. So you don't say you have to come in four to six times, or you're not going to see any results.

That's not what you say at all. Again, you're coming from a place of neutral detaching from the outcome. If the person says, yes, let's set those up. Or if the person says, no, I want to wait and see it doesn't matter to you one way or the other, because you are detached, you're neutral from those outcomes, but you are making your professional opinion known.

So the. The mistake that I used to make so often. So all these years, 16 plus years I used to make, when I was starting out was to say something like, well, just listen to your body. Your body will know when it's time to come in again. Okay. The problem with that is though, that is a beautiful intention. The problem with that is so many people are not connected to their bodies.

They're in fact disconnected and they don't know, they don't know when it's time to come in. Again, often people wait until their bodies are screaming in pain before they get any help. So you can offer a program or guidance. Think of it that you can, as that you can offer guidance for people. Without being attached to the outcome.

So again, you say here's my professional recommendation from what I've seen in my experience, it'll take this many times, you know, and then we'll reevaluate. It might not take that many times, but this is what I've seen in my experience. Would you like to go ahead and set those appointments up now? You don't say you have to come in eight times or you don't have to say something like, I have a package and you're really not going to see any results at all.

If you don't get my package, it's not about you, right? The things that you have, it's about the person who's coming in to see you. So think about that. Number one, coming from a place of neutral number two, it's your professional recommendations for moving forward. And then number two, three, detaching from the outcome detaching from.

Your disappointment or your hopes or whatever that they are going to come in or not, but you do present them with your professional opinion. Okay. That's the first great question. Another question that I got, yeah. Is, should I sell products right now to make up for lost income? So many of us are in various States of uncertainty with our practices, depending on your city, depending on your County and your state, you might be back at work full time.

You might be back at work at half capacity. You might not be back to work yet. You might not feel comfortable going back to work yet. I honor, every one of those decisions, I know how difficult those decisions are to make. And if you're listening to this podcast, I know that you're making those decisions with your head and with your heart.

So beyond that, the question is, should I sell products to make up for any lost income and my answer? You might not like very much my answer is it depends. Do you truly want to sell products? Are, is there a product that you believe in with all your heart that could help your clients with the results that they're looking for?

Then they're selling products may be a good way forward. The flip side to that is don't feel like you have to sell products just because you're not seeing as many people. Right now, if you go into anything in your practice with this feeling of this energy of grasping minus this feeling of I have to do this, or everything's going to fall apart, that's not where you want to come from.

That is, is a dead end for your practice. Anything that you decide to offer in addition to hands on work, whether it be selling products, whether it is offering remote sessions, whether it's offering workshops or video programs, whatever it is, it has to come from a place of wanting to be of service. If you think you're going to sell products to make a quick buck.

In my experience that is not going to happen. I have myself have never sold products. because I, it didn't feel like it wasn't alignment for what I wanted to do, but I certainly don't judge other people who sell products. What the key is, is coming from your heart is what you're going to sell, actually going to be of service to the people who you see, or are you trying to do it to make a quick buck?

I see people get into a pickle when they buy into some marketing that this is going to be easy to sell products. They're just going to sell themselves. You're going to get other people to sell the same products for you. And you're going zillionaire. I have not seen that work very well for massage and bodywork therapists.

So if you're considering selling products as an additional way to bring in some revenue, look carefully, you know, use your brain, of course, but also tune into your heart. See if this resonates for you, see if does this product help, the people who I am trying to serve, will it help them? Will it be of service to them and then make your decision based on that?

So it's not a yes or no answer. It's really tuning in to see what resonates with your heart. All right. Question number three. Do I have to be on social media to have a full practice? The answer to that is an unequivocal. No, you do not have to be on social media. I have, you know, lots of really strong opinions and feelings about social media and I've got other podcasts about those that you can check out.

What I will say is in my 16 plus years of having a craniosacral therapy practice, I have never, not even one single time gotten even one client from social media. Not ever. So I recommend, and for the people inside the bodywork project and students who I work with, if you are comfortable with social media, if you feel like you can use that as a positive marketing tactic.

Go ahead and use it. What else ends up happening? I see a lot of times though, is that people say they're on social media for the marketing and they're actually just scrolling. They're actually just going down that black hole of time and energy and nothing is coming of it except maybe. what did I call that FOMO fear of missing out or, feeling badly about yourself because you're not as great as whatever else you're looking at.

So you do not have to be on social media to get a full practice. Number one, every single time, the number one best way to get. New people into your practice is referrals hands down without a question. And in the body work project. As a matter of fact, we go into what are called conversion rates. A conversion rate is how effective is a marketing tactic in general.

So if I put a bunch of flyers on a car, how effective is that compared to if somebody refers me, you know, From a doctor or from another healthcare practitioner or, from a family member or friend, how do those two compare? And we have a calculator where you plug in how many new clients you want, and then you can see how many of the different things you have to do.

How many flyers you have to put out how many ads you have to take out on Facebook and. Facebook Instagram. they are not particularly strong for getting new people into your practice. You might, it might work for you. You might have people who know people who know people, but in general, and this is important to remember Facebook and Instagram there in general are what we call, pay to play.

So if you have a business. Page on Facebook and you, you know, you're putting in your workshops that you're going to run. Are you having a new program? You put it on your business page. If you have a thousand people who are following that page, probably 20 to 30 of them are going to see that post. Maybe a little bit more if you're on there all the time, but think about that.

So not everyone who even likes your page or has followed you, is going to necessarily see those posts. So a much better use of your time is to create meaningful, authentic relationships with people face to face. I say, face to face. Doesn't have to be person where we all are. Now. It can be a, you know, a virtual chat on zoom or something, but individual one at a time connection with people.

And by far again, hands down, the number one way to get new clients in is to have your current clients who love you so much. Talk to their friends about you talk to their friends and family. So you do not have to be on social media to get a full practice. If you are interested in doing online marketing, if you are offering the thing that people around the world can participate in, that's a little bit different.

Online marketing is different than a local following. So full of things there to consider when you're moving forward. Okay, I'm going to end the podcast by answering just a couple of questions that have come up around the bodywork project. We are enrolling right now for the fall 2020 round. And our deadline for enrollment is this Friday, August 14th at midnight Eastern.

So if it's something that you've been playing around with. You looked at the program, it resonates with you. You're thinking about doing it. Remember Friday is the deadline, and if you haven't heard about it or anything, you can go to www dot bodywork, project.com/enroll, and you can find out all about it there.

But one of the questions that I have gotten is what is the curriculum? I'll go through very quickly, the different modules so that you have an idea of what the program is all about. So in module one, we talk about business clarity, getting very clear, clear on where you are right now and what your vision for your practice is.

So that you can start taking steps to get toward that ideal vision, rather than just flailing around. Like you may have been module two is designing a boutique business. And I do this a little bit differently than the other coaches that I've seen out there. Most people talk about. Different marketing tips and tricks and tactics to get more people in the door.

I first want people want my students to create a premium, outstanding service for the people who are already in there practice and people who they might be reaching out to so that when people, people do come in through the door, they're like, this is fantastic. This is amazing. I want everybody I know to come in and see.

Whomever, because they have such a great experience with you. So that's what the second module is about. Then in the third module marketing from the heart, we talk about marketing techniques and how to do marketing that doesn't. Make you want to barf exactly. Like I'm talking about social media. If you don't like social media, you don't have to do social media.

There are other things that you can do and you come up with a unique marketing plan for you. And then module four is all about creating connection.

How

Mindy: do I connect with people who are potential clients and who are already clients? How do I keep in contact that might be through a website that might be through an email newsletter.

There are a variety of ways and we help you get that going in module four. Then module five is called building momentum. And that's, once you get your practice full or fuller, you may want to start branching out. And instead of working one on one, you may want to work one to many, whether that is writing a book or creating a workshop or some other type of program building momentum is all about how to do that.

And then the last module is called managing your success. So once you get going, avoiding that feast or famine cycle where you've got all these clients, everything's going great. And then something happens. You don't know what you can't figure it out, and nobody's coming in anymore. Managing your success is all about routines.

It's all about processes. It's about getting your business on track so that it takes care of itself. And you can do what you need to do to create a sustainable business. The access for the bodywork project, you get lifetime. Yeah. Access for lifetime access to all of the materials. I was about to say lifetime access for an entire year.

I was like, wait, that's not right. You get lifetime access to all of the materials in, so you can go back to them anytime you want. And then you get a one year access to me and to the other people inside of the bodywork project, through an online community that we have through weekly. Office hours calls where we go through the material together.

And then between sessions, when we have live rounds, like the one that's coming up, there's also monthly office hours calls so that you can get your questions answered. You can get feedback and support and accountability from other people in

the

Mindy: group. So, again, enrollment ends on Friday, this Friday, the 14th at midnight Eastern.

So if you have any questions, you can pop them, pop me an email@helloatmindytotten.com and I'll be happy to answer them. So finishing up with this coaching episode, I want to thank people who have written in and sent questions. And I really encourage, I want to do more of these episodes, so I encourage anyone.

Who's got questions. To send them to me. And if you might be willing to come onto the podcast and get some complimentary coaching, that would be great fun too. So until I see you or hear you, or you hear me again, I hope that you have a wonderful day. Keep doing your beautiful work and keep doing it with intention.