Podcast

We’re half way through the year! And it’s a good time assess your financial status. We’ve got a few ideas to measure and update your financial progress in 2019.

Sponsored by: The Jojoba Company & Yomassage.

Transcript:

Sponsor message This episode is sponsored by The Jojoba Company. I 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 and here’s why. Jojoba is nonallergenic; I can use it on any client and every client safely without a fear of allergic reaction. It won’t clog pores, so I can use it on all my clients who are prone to acne breakouts. Jojoba does not go rancid; it makes jojoba a great carrier for essential oils. And it won’t stain your 100% cotton sheets. The Jojoba Company is the only company in the world that carries 100% pure, first-pressed quality jojoba. And you, our listeners, can get 10% off orders of $35 or more when you shop through our link massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba, that’s J-O-J-O-B-A. massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba.

Michael Reynolds Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, where we discuss the business side of massage therapy. I am Michael Reynolds.

Allissa Haines And I’m Allissa Haines.

MR And we’re your hosts. Welcome, welcome. We’re glad you’ve joined us today.

AH Yes. Yes, we are glad you’ve joined us today.

MR Yes.

AH We’re delighted.

MR [Laughing]

AH Michael and I are running super efficient this morning. Like, we are in it to win it, and I feel good about our skills, and we’ve only messed up a couple things so far today. And I feel good about it. How do you feel Michael?

MR All right. I feel pretty good about it. Let’s do it. What’s on tap today?

AH All right, so it’s July, people. It’s July. And — which means that we are beginning the third quarter, right? Yeah. So we are into — we are halfway through 2019, which is a little scary. And if you haven’t yet, now is a good time — like, this second week in July — you can run all your reports for the first half of the year and check in. We are talking about a mid-year money, and other, check-in for your massage business. So let’s — I’m just going to — why don’t you fill in for a second, Michael, so that I can mute and cough.

MR [Laughing] Okay. Well, we’re going to talk about money which excites me already. So you kind of sprung this surprise topic on me, and I’m really excited about it.

AH Yeah, and I usually like to let you do money topics, but not today because today’s all about compensating for your own failures the first half of the year.

MR Love it. Love it.

AH So the first thing is you need to know what’s going on. Money and knowing your numbers, knowing what’s going on with the money in your business. That, my friends, is control. And ultimately, that can be peace of mind. So what’s happening? What are your numbers? What do you need to know? I am going to suggest that you need to know the number of appointments that you are taking. Weekly or monthly doesn’t matter. However you want. Figure it out. Look at January through June and see how many appointments have you had weekly and/or monthly. Look it up; write it down.

And then consider — and this might be hard if you haven’t considered this yet — the number of hours you are actually performing massage, which you should be able to find out by looking at the number of appointments and what kind of appointments they are — 30, 60, 90, or whatever you do. The number of hours you’ve done — performed actively — massage, and if you can, look at the number of hours you’ve done all the other administrative work to make that massage happen. So maybe you can consider the time between your appointments if you book back to back — what’s the amount of time in between and you’re spending the bulk of that time changing your massage table over and writing your client notes. But do you have other chunks of time outside of between those clients that you are doing admin tasks, that you are sending emails to clients, that you’re working on your marketing, that you’re doing whatever — talking to networking and referral partners? What are the other things that you’re doing and how much time is that taking up because you are going to want to assess that — that’s kind of part two of this episode. But you want to know how much time are you spending performing massage, and how much time are you spending doing the other work in your massage business? And you might have to guesstimate some of that, but that’s okay.

Next, you want to know about your money. What is the number of dollars? How much dollar is coming into your massage business weekly or monthly? I tend to run these reports monthly. It’s a little easier for me to deal with that. So of all the massage that you’re doing, what is your gross, the total amount of money — dollars, cents — coming in that you have deposited into your business checking account? What is the total number of money — number of dollars you have taken in for performing massage and/or selling retail services and/or doing other kinds of consultation or whatever it is — whatever the services are and the products are that you provide, how much money have you taken in doing that and selling that?

And next and finally — well, not quite finally — penultimate, what is the amount of money that you have going out for expenses? So if you’ve taken in, whatever, $30,000 in the first half of this year doing massage, how much of that has gone to expenses? How much have you paid out to keep your massage business going? For your rent, your linens, your lubricants, all of these things, chamber of commerce dues, anything, coffee with colleagues. What is — how much had gone out for expenses?

And then the final number I want you to look at is what have you actually taken home? What have you paid yourself? How much money is in your pocket — from January through June of this year, how much money have you put in your pocket, like, in your personal account, how much have you paid yourself to actually live on so far in the first six months of this year? And write these numbers down. Run your reports and write them down on a separate sheet of paper or highlight them on your report because we’re doing to do some gentle assessing.

You’re going to do some gentle assessing. If you have taken in $30,000 for massage so far this year, but you’ve spent 28 on expense, and you’ve only taken $2,000 home, that’s a problem. So if you’ve taken in $30,000 and you’ve only spent $8,000 on expenses, that’s fantastic. Great. You’re probably somewhere in between there. But we want to know how much you have made, how much you have paid out, how much you have taken home because this is going to help you figure out what you should do and make decisions for the second half of your year. And before we hit the second half — or actually — sorry, I’m switching the content around a little bit here.

So the final thing I want you to do before you start making decisions about what to do for the second half of the year is to revisit your goals. And if you didn’t make any goals, that’s okay, but if you made some, assess them. So for me, at the end of last year I set a couple of goals for myself. I said I wanted to be averaging 62 clients a month, and I wanted to be taking in $4,600 a month just doing massage. And I ran some reports, and I am delighted to say that I have met my goals. And I am trying to show that report right now so I can actually relay that to you, but I hit the wrong button.

MR Well, congratulations, in the meantime while you’re doing that.

AH Thank you. I think I’m doing pretty good. So yeah, I have done well. I had 56 clients in January, and then 64 in February, 70 in March, 66 in April, 58 in May — but I took a week off to go to the Word Massage Festival. And then I’ve done — June was a little bit down, but we’re not done. We’re recording this on the — at the end of June, and I still have two full workdays left, so I think I will be up to 61. And we’re looking good for July. And even though I’m taking like a week and a half off in July, I’m still, right now, already booked at 50 for July. So I got plenty of time. And I found that the last week of any particular month, the last few days, the rest of the next month books up pretty well. And things are going to fall a little bit, so I’m feeling really good that I had 70 in March because that kind of — helped my average a little bit.

And then I am going to flip over to my Square reporting where I report every penny that comes into my massage business. I record all my cash and checks and stuff into Square, as well, not just my credit card transactions. And I am scrolling through, and I am happy to report that I have exceeded my $4,600 goal every single month. So — and I had — nope, that’s a lie. One month I had 4,500, but the month before I had 59, so we’re good. So I am totally hitting my goals, which makes me feel good. And at the same time, it makes me look at that month that had just a hint less, and a couple that came right to it and maybe only 100 bucks over, and I’m going to look at those and be like, okay, what was going on there? Did I just have a lot of packages redeemed, or were my numbers low, and kind of compare that to my schedule and think what could I have done? You know what? That week didn’t have enough clients, I probably could have sent an email to fill up that schedule.

And I actually did some of this roughly a couple of days ago, and it nudged me to send an mail to fill up next week, which is that July 4th holiday week, and I actually got two bookings of 90 minutes each, so that filled up the couple of days I’m working next week quite well. So just looking loosely at these reports the other day nudged me, which is why I really want to encourage you to start running these kinds of reports to help you plan the second half of the year.

And let’s do our halftime spot, and I’ve got a few more thoughts about things you can do in the second half of this year to improve your numbers, your income, and/or your happiness in your business.

Michael, who’s our halftime sponsor today?

MR Our halftime sponsor is our friends at Yomassage.

AH Yay, Yomassage, our newest sponsor.

Sponsor message Yomassage is all about making therapeutic touch accessible. To make this happen, they created this really cool modality that combines restorative stretch and mindfulness and therapeutic touch in a small group setting. In addition to offering massage at an accessible rate, Yomassage classes appeal to more clients because they are fully clothed and offered in a safe environment — that’s a big obstacle for a lot of people. Yomassage practitioner trainings are taking place all over the United States. You can learn more and find a training near you at massagebusinessblueprint.com/yomassage. And our Blueprint listeners, you can get $50 off any trainings in July and August of 2019. Use the code BLUEPRINT to get that $50 off at registration. Again, you can go to massagebusinessblueprint.com/yomassage, Y-O-M-A-S-S-A-G-E. Yomassage. Massagebusinessblueprint.com/yomassage.

AH I really just like saying “yomassage.”

MR It’s just fun to say. It’s like me and jojoba, isn’t it?

AH It really is.

MR Yeah.

AH It really is. Who is our other sponsor for this episode; you heard their ad already.

MR [Laughing]

AH [Laughing] So let me flip back to my notes here. And let’s talk a little bit — and we’ve talked about numbers, the numbers I think you need to visit and revisit at this point in the year. We’re going to talk a little bit more about some feelings along with your numbers. So I want you to ask yourself a couple of questions. How is your savings? How is your emergency savings? How is your vacation pay savings? How is your sick pay savings? For you, that might be all one big savings, and that’s okay. But do you have enough in there to make you feel comfortable if you take a week off or you have a weird slow week or you get sick or whatever or if your electric massage table breaks. Do you feel cozy about your savings, or are you losing sleep at night? If you’re losing sleep, if you’re uncomfortable, if you’re afraid, maybe you need to make a plan to bump up your savings a little bit. And that’s kind of — that’s it for the money talk.

But as part of your mid-year check-in, I want you to think how are you feeling about your massage business? Are you feeling burnt out? Are you feeling like you’re ready to learn a class? Are you feeling like you need to stop offering a service because it just annoys you ever time someone schedules that service? Are you feeling like there’s a couple clients you’ve got to fire? Or you don’t want to work that many nights, so you want to pick up a morning and get rid of a night? Think about how you’re feeling. Make some notes on that so you can check in again and make some changes. Or you can just make the changes now if you need to.

And how are you preparing for growth or goals or change? So if you’re in a good place with your business, but you know that two years from now you’re going to want to be in a different place or you’re starting to think about those changes, are you preparing for that? Are you preparing to get smaller? Do you know that your child care situation’s going to change when the school year starts and you need to make some adjustments to your schedule? How are you preparing for growth if you know that you’re going to want to hire an employee soon? Do you have space in your massage office already, or do you need to start thinking about construction or moving? Just making some notes, writing it down about how these things are going and what you think you might want to happen next, writing it down to plant that seed is really helpful.

How are you preparing for ease? And by that, I mean are you doing things that are consistently are making your massage business easier to run? Are you automating some reports? Are you automating your intake forms? Are you — is there anything you can automate or delegate to make running your massage business easier? And it’s funny because we always use these examples of we’ll, hire someone to clean your office or blah blah blah blah blah blah, but I have found — actually I’ve had someone cleaning my office, but actually trying to schedule it around when people aren’t here has become more of an obstacle than just cleaning the office myself. So now I’m getting the office cleaned every three or four week, and I’m doing more tidy-up in between, and it’s going really well. And it takes the pressure off of me of trying to check in with people about when they are and aren’t here so that the cleaning person, if they’re free at that time, can come in. So are you making your business easier or harder for yourself, and what are things you can do to make it easier so you can coast a little bit, so that your business is, as much as possible, running itself.

What are you falling behind on task-wise that you can delegate out? And can you delegate it out, or if you’re like me, perhaps you’ve let a little bit of bookkeeping and accounting stuff pile up, and maybe you just need to schedule a time with a friend who has to do the same kind of work or schedule a time in front of a brainless movie where you can sit and fix up all your accounting. What do you need to do to get that done? Make the plan. Or delegate it out; find a way.

And I know that’s like a really general thing and it might not be specific enough to be helpful, but if you have things that you are putting off and you need help figuring out how to either delegate them or conquer them, by all means email us as podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com, and I can give you more specific ideas.

And that is it, Michael. That’s my mid-year check-in. Oh, oh, you know what I forgot to day? I’m so sorry. When you’re asking yourself about your savings and your vacation pay and your sick pay, how’s your retirement savings, people? And if you’re not on top of that, you need to talk to Michael. Okay, that’s my —

MR Well, thank you.

AH Sorry, I was — it was in my notes, and I accidentally delete when I was trying to fix the formatting. And I missed it. So what else have I forgotten, Michael?

MR I don’t think you’ve forgotten anything. There’s something very satisfying about taking a step back and hacking away at expenses and optimizing things and cleaning things out, and that’s kind of a happy place for me. So I’m on board. I love it.

AH Cool. All right, then. I’m done, people. You’ve got to do a little bit of work on this one. I’m sorry, but I’m not that sorry.

MR [Laughing] I love the shout out about don’t forget your retirement investing.

AH Yeah, really don’t. And email Michael if you need help with that. Michael, what’s the email address?

MR Which email? The —

AH I don’t know, whatever one you want people to email you at if you — if they need retirement help. And not for nothing, people, I just set up a solo 401(k) with Michael, and I am so excited because it has a Roth and a traditional contribution option. I have, like, awesome — I have — I’m about to set up my bank about and make my first fat deposit to it, and I feel so good about it. So if you want to feel this good, email Michael at —

MR [Laughing] Yeah, just go to my financial planning firm site, which is elevationfinancial.com.

AH All right, and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes.

MR Find me there.

AH And I am not going to feel bad about re-plugging that constantly because it is such a sense of peace when you get that set up, and you kind of feel super cool.

MR Well, thank you for the shout out. I appreciate it.

AH You bet.

MR All right, well let’s wrap up there, then. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We appreciate you being a listener. You can find us online at massagebusinessblueprint.com. And as Allissa mentioned, the email address to find us is podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com. We’d love to hear feedback, comments, questions, topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes, and anything you would like to tell us. So thanks again for joining us today. Have a great day, and we’ll see you next time.

AH Bye.