Podcast

No, you don’t have to complete a vision board and overhaul your whole business. In this episode Allissa gives 3 easy ideas to get you thinking about a successful 2019.

Sponsored by The Jojoba Company & Acuity

Transcript:

Sponsor message This episode is sponsored by The Jojoba Company. I firmly believe that massage therapists should only be using the highest quality products, because our clients deserve it, and our own bodies deserve it. I’ve been using jojoba for years. Here’s why: Jojoba is nonallergenic; I can use it on any client and every client without fear of an allergic reaction. Jojoba is noncomedogenic, which means it won’t clog pores; so if you have a client that’s prone to acne or breakouts, jojoba is a great choice for them. It also won’t go rancid; it doesn’t contain triglycerides like many products; so it won’t go bad. This makes jojoba a great carrier for essential oils, too. And finally, jojoba won’t stain your 100% cotton sheets; so your linens will look better for longer. And since jojoba won’t go rancid, they’ll always smell fresh and clean. For more information and to get some jojoba, go to massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba. That’s massagebusinessblueprint.com/J-O-J-O-B-A.

Allissa Haines Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, where we discuss the business side of massage therapy. I am Allissa Haines, and I am flying solo this week with a quickie short stack of advice to help prepare you for next year. And I promise it’s not the super boring stodgy stuff. You do not have to sit and reflect or journal. You may have to run a few reports, but we’ll get there in a second.

So no banter because it’s just me. I just want to tell you this little story. So the past couple of weeks, I have been mildly stymied with a weird shoulder thing that, thankfully, does not affect my massage. I feel phenomenal when I’m up and I’m moving and I’m doing things and I’m massaging. But my shoulder gets super angry if I’m sitting at a computer or sitting and reading and doing anything that is not motion. So thankfully I can still sleep. Nonetheless, and at the same time, I have also been stymied by some computer issues. So I’ve had to use a second backup computer that I am really fortunate to have available to me. But it stinks, like, its screen isn’t really good so I’ve been squinting at things. So because of this combination of it’s painful for me to sit at the computer and also it’s annoying because the computer’s not set up right and it’s a lousy screen quality, I have been avoiding doing much of my normal sitting and writing and think-y work.

But because of that, I was really propelled to clean some stuff out at my office, specifically my massage office. I’ve been cleaning up a little bit at home as well. But at my office, I was concurrently prompted to do some cleaning and rearranging because we’re making some changes in my office come the beginning of the year, things are getting moved around a little bit, and it just seemed wise to clear out some storage space that I was going to inevitably need in January. So I started to clean some closets in my office and clean some drawers in my massage room and just, in general, clean stuff out that I haven’t done in about two years since the last big change in the office. And oh, my gosh, like five trips to the dumpster, like an old area rug, like, just tons of stuff, lots of trips to the dumpster. And it only — it took me half the amount of time I thought it was going to because I’m feeling really cool and brutal about just trashing stuff that I haven’t touched since I put it in that drawer in that cabinet two years ago. I’ve kind of gotten over my “I need to keep everything for every little contingency”. I really don’t need three snow shovels at the office; I need two. We have two walkways; I need two shovels, that is all.

So I felt really good about cleaning stuff out and it resulted in this inner calm. I had this conversation with my office mate yesterday where I told her all the stuff I’d cleaned out the day before when she wasn’t in. And she’s like, you know, even if stuff is closed away in a drawer or closed away in a cabinet, unconsciously and subconsciously you know that it’s there, and you go for a towel and three other towels fall out at you. And cleaning these things out is so refreshing. And I do subscribe to this “outer order, inner calm” thing where if I walk into my home or walk into my office and things are messy and cluttered, I feel messy and cluttered and it makes me agitated. When things are generally neat, not necessarily pristine, but generally neat, I feel much better. I’m able to concentrate and focus on the things I want to do, and I’m just able to relax a little bit better and even if that means relaxing into my work versus just relaxing into some terrible fiction. So we talked about this concept of outer order, inner calm, and really noting that even if something isn’t actively bothering you, it could be kind of in the back of your head bugging you and you’re going to feel better taking care of it.

So my number one suggestion to getting things ready for a fresh palate, a new year: clean something. Specifically in your business, specifically in your massage room, don’t take hours and hours and hours. Don’t pick the biggest project you have, but pick something: a drawer, a drawer that you can clean out so that it’s easier for you to find a pen or find your clipboard, or one cabinet so that’s it’s easier for you to find your bottles and refill your oil bottles, whatever it takes. One thing that you can finish in an hour or so that will give you a good feeling of accomplishment and a great palate cleaner to kind of clear the way for the next couple of things you want to do in your business.

This is a quickie episode so we’re already jumping into our halftime spot.

Sponsor message And I’m so excited to note that today’s podcast sponsor is Acuity. And Acuity scheduling is the scheduling system that I use, and it is our Massage Business Blueprint 2018 software of choice. It is your online assistant working 24/7 to fill your schedule. You don’t need to play phone tag. Clients can really quickly view your real-time availability, book their own appointments, you can handle forms before the appointment, you can send automatic confirmation emails at various intervals to make sure that people actually show up and are also reminded of your cancellation policy; so if they do no-show — which happens way less when they get confirmations — but if they do, you can feel good about charging them your cancellation fee. And their customer support is a delight. Acuity’s style will help you chill and have fun running your business. Youc an get a special 45-day free offer when you sign up. And you can check it out at massagebusinessblueprint.com/acuity.

AH So now let’s jump into the second part, the — flipping over here to my notes for this. The other two things you can do to kind of fresh start for your new year. Now this one could be a minor task, but I want you to make it as simple and rough as possible. You don’t have to be specific; estimates are fine. It’s the middle of December. Run your numbers. See how much money you have made this year so far. If you’ve got numbers from last year, compare it and see where you’re at and start thinking, just start thinking. You don’t have to make plans, you don’t have to sit down and spend hours on this. Just start thinking now about your income goals for next year. How did I do this year? How did I feel? Did I feel like I was constantly scrimping and saving pennies? Did I feel like I was in control of my money or did I feel like my money was not well organized and controlling me and having impact on my mood and my happiness? General things, think about this so that you can set some goals in a couple weeks as 2019 begins. Just run those numbers. Don’t do anything more. Don’t go crazy with it. See how much money you have taken in in your massage practice so far in 2018. And if you have the numbers, compare it to 2017; and if you don’t, then don’t worry about that. Just see what you made and decide if that was good for you. Think about if that was good for you.

My last thing that I think you could do to prepare for next year that would put you in a really good place is to think about your work-life balance in the past 12 months. Specifically, what are the personal things that you missed because you were working? Are there things you wish you could have done with your family, with your friends? If you work Friday nights, were you thinking that man, I wouldn’t mind a Friday night off on occasion so that I could meet up with my girlfriends since that’s the only night they can get together. What are the personal things that you feel that you missed or that you want more of next year? Think about that. See if you can put a little bit of a framework around that like I missed a bunch of things, huh. These are all thins that happen on Thursday nights. Or I missed coffee with my friends and it seems more like they do that more on Monday morning more than any other time, but I was always working. What are the things that you missed personally because you were working.

And think about what are the work opportunities that you missed because of other factors, maybe personal stuff in your life. Did you have to say no to a job that you really wanted to go to because your daycare schedule didn’t quite work out because you had to meet some commitment for a family member. What are the work opportunities that you wish you could have embraced but couldn’t because of outside factors? So thinking on that, what kind of changes — we’re setting the stage so that in a couple of weeks when you’re looking at your 2019 schedule, you can say, you know what, I want to take one Friday night off a month, or you know what, I want to take one Monday morning a month off and make a breakfast arrangement with my friends. I have not nurtured my friendships enough. Or maybe you want to say, you know what, I am all done with spending two hours every Saturday morning cleaning my house, what can I do to put some money together and hire a house cleaner so that’s two hours a week I don’t have to think about. Or what could I do to get childcare for two hours a certain block of time once a week so I could spend more time making networking meetings or having some personal time to really brainstorm what I want to do with my business. Or who can I ask for help? Can I set up a babysitting trade? Can I set up something else with another parent or another colleague or whatever in order to open up more opportunities. You can say yes to more things in your business if you choose to.

And that’s it. Those are my three bits of advice. I told you this was going to be a quickie. Clean something because this give you a great sense of accomplishment and relief when something is clean and clear and ready for something new. Run your numbers so that you can think about what your income goals might be for 2019, and think about your work/life balance so that you can maybe adjust your personal life to suit your work life better and/or adjust your work life better so it can suit your personal life better. I don’t really believe in a lot of work/life balance. Well, I don’t believe in the term of balance entirely. I think that’s something that maybe happens over the course of a month or a year or a lifetime versus something that can necessarily happen every single day. But you got to figure out what works for you and I wanted to lay the foundation for you to think about that.

So thank you for listening to this quick-tip episode. I hope it gives you an idea — if you just use one of these ideas, I think it’s a win. If you have things you would like us to cover in an upcoming podcast episode, you can email it to us at podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com or just find us on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook and leave us some comments and questions there. We love to hear from you. Have a wonderful, successful, crazy reflective and fun day.