Category Archives: Massage Business

BodyworkBiz Update: Free Chair Massage Business e-Course and Other Happenings

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Free Chair Massage e-Course

There are lots of little gems at BodyworkBiz.com that go unnoticed. One of these is the free Chair Massage Marketing Min-e-Class. It’s delivered to your inbox over five days. It is a meaty little course for anyone wanting to get started in chair massage or wanting to be more successful with chair massage.

Sign up for free here:

http://bodyworkbiz.com/eclasses.php#chair

Many people don’t know this, but I pioneered chair massage in Canada starting in the early 90s. I’ve had some of the biggest companies in the country as clients including IBM, Dell, Ernst & Young, American Express, AT&T, Chapters, the Gap, Levi Strauss, and Kelloggs, just to name a few. I’ve had contracts at every major bank, financial institution, and law firm, as well as almost every hospital in my area. And I’ve been featured on national TV, national press, and have received lots of regional PR in every medium. Without tooting my horn, I’d have to say there are not many people in the world that know as much about chair massage as I do and I love to share my knowledge. Get the free marketing course here:

http://bodyworkbiz.com/eclasses.php#chair

Eric Brown Featured at the American Massage Conference in Atlanta

I’m going to be a featured speaker at the American Massage Conference, which is happening in Atlanta, May 17th to 19th and I’d love for you to join me.

I’ll be doing a short presentation on the unique “Fainting Phenomenon” that often happens with chair massage. People sometimes faint while getting chair massage and most practitioners are unaware of this risk. I’ll outline the mechanisms by which this occurs and will teach you how to make sure it never happens to you.

I’ll also be doing a one-day chair massage techniques course for massage professionals on Saturday, May 18th. The cost is $310 and that fee includes an NRG Massage Chair that you can take home with you! If you have purchased the OneConcept Pass, the cost of the workshop is only $150.

The American Massage Conference is one of the largest conferences in the USA and offers exceptional value. The caliber of presenters is top-notch and the scheduled social activities are a ton of fun.

For more information or to register, go to:

https://oneconcept.com/conference/amcc

I’m also doing chair massage for participants in the OneConcept Community Room at the American Massage Conference on Sunday morning. I’m doing massage for donations and 100% of the money collected will go to the Massage Therapy Foundation. If you want a massage from the Grand Massage Poobah, this is your chance. If you want a business consultation, book a time slot for massage and we can talk instead. Or you can talk while getting your massage. It’s your time and you can use it however you like. You can schedule your appointment online. I don’t see my name up there yet, but I think they may place me under the “celebrity massage” category. I’m not sure if I would consider myself a celebrity, but my mom is a fan.

I hope to see you in Atlanta at the conference. If you see me wandering around, stop me and say hello. And enjoy the free min-e-class.

Take care,

Eric Brown
www.bodyworkbiz.com

 

What Have You Done to Make Yourself Uncomfortable Today

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The secret to success is really no secret: You have to push yourself.

If you want to get stronger you can’t do it by sitting on the couch watching TV. You actually have to get into the gym and lift large amounts of weight. You have to push yourself. It’s not pleasant. It’s hard work. It’s more than uncomfortable; it’s painful. You are essentially pushing your muscles to the point where they are micro-tearing and becoming inflamed.

But something magical happens, you’re muscles respond by becoming bigger and stronger. They adapt and learn to attenuate the stresses. And soon the weight you started working with weeks before becomes easy to lift. And in retrospect you wonder why you struggled so hard in the first place.

The same thing is true for any area of your life. If you want a better social life, better relationships, a better career, more money, a new car, a nicer home… you have to work for it.

So if your practice isn’t giving you the results you want, what do you do? You can’t keep doing the same things you’ve been doing and hope to improve. You have to push yourself. You have to challenge yourself. You have to make yourself uncomfortable. Do things you’ve never done. And don’t do it just a little. Push yourself in a big way. It should feel effortful. If it’s not, you’re simply not working hard enough. You are not pushing the bounds of what you are capable of.

So the next time you start to complain about the success of your practice ask yourself:

“What have I done to make myself uncomfortable today?”

PS Yes, that’s me being uncomfortable on a rock wall in the picture above.

Please share with your friends…

Troubles with Hiring Therapists for Your Clinic?

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For most clinic owners I talk to, one of the biggest issues they deal with on a regular basis is finding good therapists who stick around. These owners pay extremely well, which in a sense is part of the problem because you can’t buy loyalty.

“A raise is only a raise for thirty days; after that, it’s just your salary.”  – David Russo, VP of Human Resources at SAS Institute

While adequate compensation is important, it can’t be the foundation of your therapist retention program. As James Treybig, CEO of Tandem Computers says, “If people come for money, they will leave for money.” More important is the culture you create within the clinic where each therapist is valued, challenged and supported.

I had an extremely loyal group of therapists working at my clinics and my thinking was this: Create an environment that therapists would love and pay adequately. In the interview I would outline the culture of the clinic: A culture that emphasized teamwork, co-operation, lifelong learning, and above all putting the client’s needs above any financial considerations. Then they had to convince me that this was in fact the match for them and that they were a perfect fit. Only then would I talk about remuneration.

I’m not motivated by money and I don’t want to be surrounded by people who value money more than having a fun, stimulating, supportive environment. I want to be surrounded by therapists that do their best not just for clients, but for their colleagues they work with as well.

Simple Tips You Can Use Now for Getting the Most Out of Social Media

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You may be the kind of person that uses social media in a very quiet way. You’re content to use one or two networks to keep in contact with your friends and family.

However, it’s important to establish a professional presence on social networks as well. People live on these networks. Not only do they socialize, but they use these networks to research products and services, to solicit opinions and reviews and to buy stuff.

If you’re not using social media for your massage business then you are missing out on a terrific opportunity to connect with people and get more clients under your hands.

I don’t believe you have to spend a lot of time on social media sites like Facebook to be effective and over the next couple weeks I’ll share some simple, quick, easy to implement social media tips with you in this blog, on the BodyworkBiz Facebook Page and in the BodyworkBiz newsletter.

Let’s get started with tip number one…

Tip 1: Create Profiles on Major Social Media Sites

Even if you are not active on social media sites, it’s extremely valuable to have a complete profile set up. Why? Because people will be looking for you and your business on these sites and they expect to find you. If they can’t find you easily, then they’ll look for someone else.

I would suggest at the very minimum setting up complete profiles on each of the following social media sites:

Through the month of April I’ll be providing BodyworkBiz fans a range of simple tips that are easy to implement and that take very little time to do. Be sure to Like BodyworkBiz on Facebook and subscribe to the Marketing Tips Newsletter to get these tips.

Facebook Changes News Feed

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Today Facebook unveiled more changes to the site. This time it’s the News Feed. That’s the page you land on when you first log in that contains Posts from your Friends and Pages you follow.

Facebook doesn’t say exactly how the changes are going to impact business Pages, but at first glance it’s not good. Users will have the ability to choose more specifically what they want to see in their News Feed and will be able to filter any Page Posts out of their feed.

It seems as though businesses will have to be more engaging, use more visually interesting content and post more frequently to be seen. Once again, Facebook is forcing business users to move to paid advertising to get seen on the site.

For screenshots and a comprehensive look at some of the changes see this article: http://bit.ly/16ck5q0

If you’ve been following this blog you know I’ve never been a big fan of Facebook. Maintaining some presence on Facebook is important, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify and significant investment of your time on Facebook. Paid advertising options have become the most cost-effective way of leveraging this social media giant.

Facebook sending your visitors to competitors?

In related news I recently stumbled across another change on a Friend’s business Page. This seems to have received little attention, but could be devastating to your Facebook Page. Facebook may just be testing this in a limited way at this point because it does not appear on all Pages.

If this rolls out, when someone visits your Page they will be shown a strip of suggested Pages that are related to yours. It looks like this:

So essentially you as a business owner work your petutie off or pay for advertising to get your Page found and Facebook invites your visitor to check out other Pages of possible interest. Some of these could even be Pages of competing businesses as you can see from the screen shot above! You do the work to get the visitor on your Page so they can visit your competitors Page. I can only shake my head in disbelief.

Canadian Business Can Now List in Bing Local

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One of easiest things any massage business can do to get listed in the search engine results is to claim their listing in the big local directories like Google+ Local (formerly Google Places), Yahoo Local and Yelp.

Until recently, Canadian businesses could not get listed in Bing. That’s recently changed. So if you are a Canadian business read through this tutorial on getting listed in Bing Local:

http://www.stepforth.com/blog/2013/get-listed-on-bing-local-canada/

Does Your Facebook Cover Comply with the New Terms

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The terms related to your Cover image and advertising images came into effect January 15th. Are you in compliance with these new conditions. In short, you cannot have more than 20% text on your Cover image, including your logo. This visual guide from ShortStack shows you what 20% looks like.

If you need a professional Cover designed to comply with the new terms you can have one  custom designed here: http://bodyworkbiz.com/facebook_cover_photo

Here are some examples of some recently designed Covers…

 

If you need a professional Cover designed to comply with the new terms you can have one  custom designed here: http://bodyworkbiz.com/facebook_cover_photo

Monday Marketing Madness on Facebook

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Here’s an interesting marketing idea to help solidify your place as a hub in your community, to develop relationships with local business owners and to drive visitors to your Facebook Page.

I’ve called this campaign “Monday Marketing Madness”. It’s simple and it’s best understood if you look at how I’ve executed this on my Facebook Page and the type of response I got (click the image to see it on Facebook):

I did this last Friday and called it “FanFare Friday” and that particular Facebook post has received the most likes, shares and comments of any of my posts in the past two months and it brought more visitors to my Facebook Page.

Give this a try for your practice. I’d be very curious how this works for you. When you do the post, upload an image for a higher response. Click here if you want to use the image I’ve used. I’ve sized it to fit the post dimensions exactly.

You may have to be proactive and contact a few local business owners directly to get the ball rolling,but I think once it’s established, it should pretty much run itself if you do it consistently.

I am crediting this idea to Amy Porterfield. Get her FBIncluence course here. It’s well worth the small investment.

Facebook’s New Terms and Conditions for Facebook Cover Images

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A Cover image is the big image that sits at the top of your Page. Effective January 15th Facebook’s terms and conditions around Cover images will be updated to the following:

Covers may not include:

i. images with more than 20% text;

ii. price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it on socialmusic.com”;

iii. contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section;

iv. references to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features; or

v. calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

This applies to Cover images on business Pages only and does not apply to personal Profile Pages. The only real change is that text has to be limited to 20% of the area of the graphic.

Facebook does clearly not want you communicating anything on the cover that is going to take visitors off the Facebook site or that is going to increase your number of fans without advertising. Having said that you can still create an engaging Cover image that communicates professionalism and that helps visitors make the visual transition comfortably back and forth from Facebook to your site and smooth one.

You do have more control over what you put on the Profile image on your Page and the Cover image on your personal Profile and both of these can be used to advantage as well.

If you need a great Cover image or Profile image, check out this very limited special offer at BodyworkBiz:

Click here to have your Facebook Cover image custom designed 

And be sure to join the “31 Day Challenge” on Facebook to make your Facebook Page work for you and get you clients. It’s a book club of sorts for the FBIfluence course by Amy Porterfield and you are welcome to play along.

 

How much should you pay to have a ____ designed?

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Here’s a question that I often get asked and that I often ask myself: How much should I pay to have a ________ designed? You fill in the blank: business card, logo, website, graphic, etc.

I have someone that does design for me on staff full time now, but in the past I would go online when I need something done like a logo and look around for prices and would find just a crazy range to choose from. I would be paralyzed wondering what options to choose and wondering what I would get for my money… because it’s like a haircut: you don’t really know until the damage is done.

Just recently however I came across a great blog post on Graphic Design: What’s a Good Designer Worth These Days?.

There are no definitive answers, but the author, a designer, gives some good practical advice and some general price ranges so at least you know you are in the ballpark.

The average hourly fee for a graphic designer according to a national Canadian survey is $73/hr for general graphic design  $83/hr for brand strategy (logos, identity pieces), and  $76/hr for web design.

What’s that translate to in terms of various types of design jobs? Here’s a summary from the author:

Logo design
Good range:$900 to $3,000
Bare minimum: $300 to $800

Business card design
Good range: $350 to $1500
Bare Minimum: $100

Brochure design
Good range: $400 to $1800
Bare Minimum: $200

Book cover design
Good range: $500 to $2500
Bare Minimum: $200

Website design
Good range: $1000 to $10,000+
Bare Minimum: $400