New Year’s Resolutions?!

With the New Year literally hours away, I’m sure you’re working on some New Year’s resolutions. (aren’t you?) Writing down some resolutions/goals for next year will help you get a handle on your success. If you’re serious about your success, why not check out a web portal that’s ranked the #1 self improvement site on the ‘net: http://www.selfgrowth.com .

Create a Memorable Experience For Your Customers and Clients Everytime!

Lets face it, whether you’re in business for youself, or you work for someone else, customers are your lifeblood. Remember, service is the name of the game. Build customer loyality, by personalizing your service. Every time they do business with you, create a wonderful memory for them. If you make your customer feel special everytime, they’ll want to do business with you. They’ll even tell their friends. So how do you create that special memory for them? It’s easy. Click on the link & watch free the 3 minute video from Simple Truths. http://www.simpletruths.com  Apply this simple lesson to all your dealings with your customers/clients & watch where it takes you.

Remember, your customer/client comes first. Greet them with a smile & pleasantness. You’re there to help them make their day better. Make it a habit to give a little something extra to everyone who crosses your path. Give with love & ye shall receive.

Stuck For A Christmas Gift? Try This!

White Envelopes

It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas. Oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it, overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma, the gifts given in desperation because you couldn’t think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son, Kevin, who was 12 that year was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended, and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church.

These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in the spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler’s ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn’t acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, “I wish one of them could have won,” he said. “They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.” Mike loved kids, all kids, and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse.

That’s when the idea of his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition, one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents. As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn’t end there.

You see we lost Mike last year due to dreaded cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more.

Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike’s spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. – Nancy W. Gavin

This post is courtesy of http://www.insightoftheday.com  For more info visit http://www.WhiteEnvelopeProject.org   Better yet, why not start your own white envelope project. Ther is someone,  somewhere who would really appreciate a gift of sports gear, books, food or even just your time.  Blessings on you & yours this holiday season. Cheers, Irene

Marketing Massage 101 – 10 Tips to Getting Started

If you don’t already have it, make sure you have liability insurance. It will help cover you in the event of any claims.

It should have been covered in whichever course you took, but always remember to pre-screen the person receiving the massage. You need to check for any pre-existing conditions that you could inadvertently aggravate. Let the person know you are only providing relaxation massage and not therapy. In other words you’re not going to ‘fix’ any pre-existing condition.

#1 Perhaps most important is to realize that you’re running a business now, so you need to think like a business person, not just a massage practitioner. Hence the term massage professional.

#2 Choose a professional business name. As this should also be your domain name, you need one that’s short & to the point. Example in Darin’s case: Nashville Chair Massage or Nashville On Site Massage. People usually Google their city/town & either on site or chair massage. So choosing one of those combinations, helps ensure page 1 rankings. Second choice: focus on the ‘relaxation’ factor. Something that enforces ‘back pain relief’ & ‘instant comfort’. 

#3 Register your business & domain names.  

#4 Start sharing the news about your business with friends & colleagues. You can treat them to 1 free massage but afterwards they need to pay either money or barter a service. Average rate in NA is $1.00 per minute.

#5 You need a UPS (Unique Selling Point) to set yourself apart from the competition. You can use it when you meet someone, when you’re chatting up your business & in all your marketing material. Remember, when you’re in business, you’re always marketing, so you need to get good at selling yourself. My UPS is We Relax Knotty Backs. That’s for my corporate business, http://www.inmyhands.ca .

#6 You need business cards with your company name, your USP & your contact info. All your marketing material needs your contact info.

#7 Get yourself at least a 1 page website. It’s your electronic signpost to the world.

#8 Get out there & start massaging. Your local chamber of commerce,  charity fundraisers, & radio stations are good places to start. It’s ok to donate your services to gain exposure. Have people take photos of you in action & collect testimonials from folks about how your service has benefited them.

#9 Always look professional. It goes a long way towards establishing credibility. White shirt/white t-shirt & black pants looks professional.

#10 Take action! You are your business. So if you don’t do anything, you won’t go anywhere fast. Remember just start at the beginning & take it one step at a time the way you did when you learned to walk.

If you’re ready to get into direct response marketing, check out: http://www.makepeacetotalpackage.com/cmd.php?af=642428  You can start off by signing up for their free daily insightful newsletter & take it from there.

 As always please feel free to post your comments & questions on the main blog page. Cheers, Irene

p.s. Don’t go into debt to get your business up & running. More then one practitoner has gone bankrupt doing so.

Your Questions

Hi Irene,

greetings from your college ( in the same business as you are), but on the different side of the world- Croatia!
I would appreciate some advice from your side as the chair massage is very new here)
Warmest regards,
vesna@acron.hr

Hi Irene,

My name is Darin Penner, I live in Nashville, TN, USA. I am a licensed massage therapist in Tennessee and I have been doing corporate massage for businesses on a part-time basis. I want to take it to the next level and advertise to more, larger businesses as part of their wellness programs. I have been taking some small business courses but I still do not feel like I know what I’m doing as far as getting the business started/off the ground.

Can you point me in the right direction as to where to start? I know I need a website, business cards, a way to advertise (which I’m still not sure how except maybe direct mail to the businesses) and general contracts between me (I am the only therapist at this point but I would like to eventually expand to more) and the company but I don’t know where to turn to really get it going. Prior to being a massage therapist I was in the corporate world for many years. I am an entrepreneur at heart and I would like to turn this into my own business, to be able to make my own schedule and make people in the corporate world less stressed in their environment.

Any advice you can give will be greatly, greatly appreciated.

P.S. I accidentally found you by doing a lot of searches on how to market chair massage and ended up on your site (http://chairmassagebiz.wordpress.com/). You seem to have a very positive and upbeat personality!

Give Yourself a Christmas Present

If you’re an entrepreneur like myself, you’ll have figured out pretty quickly that you need to learn how to write powerful copy. (or hire someone to do it for you.) I know when I started out, my website was invisible & my DM marketing got a 0% response. Almost enough to make one give it up as a lost cause.

About a year ago I found a terrific free daily e-newsletter about copywriting, direct marketing and all that jazz.  It’s the Total Package ( http://www.freetotalpackage.com) anchored by Clayton Makepeace. I haven’t met Clayton yet, but the man makes a very good living as a direct response copywriter. So why am I recommending it, (other then to give the Team an early Christmas gift & to share the love)?

The Total Package is probably one of the best resources on the ‘net when it comes teaching you how ratchet up your marketing response rates. If it can help a novice business owner like myself with an esoteric service (corporate on-demand on-site massage – http://www.inmyhands.ca) enjoy page 1 ranking not to mention a 4% response rate for my DM; you owe it to yourself & your prosperity to give it read. Best of all it’s FREE! That link again http://www.freetotalpackage.com Thanks to Clayton and the Total Package team for an e-newsletter that’s so informative & insightful that even a newbie can grasp the principles of effective direct response marketing. Here’s wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.