Episode 361
Jun 25, 2021
Allissa and Michael discuss how to handle the uncomfortableness of growth.
Listen to "E361: Growth is Uncomfortable" on Spreaker.
EPISODE 361
Weekly Roundup
Discussion Topic
- Growth is uncomfortable
Quick Tips
Sponsors
Transcript:
Sponsor message:
ABMP is proud to sponsor the Massage Business Blueprint Podcast, and we are delighted to have them. One of the many, many benefits of ABMP membership is ABMP Five-Minute Muscles and ABMP Pocket Pathology. These are quick reference apps designed to help you quickly find information that you need to make a decision about your massage session planning. The Five-Minute Muscles includes muscle-specific technique and palpation videos for the 83 muscles most commonly addressed by professional massage therapists, and ABMP Pocket Pathology can help you sort out contraindications before any treatment. These apps are included with ABMP membership and you can go to abmp.com/apps to access them, and non-members can sample demos as well. Again, that's abmp.com/apps.
Michael Reynolds:
Hey everyone and welcome to the Massage Business Blueprint Podcast where we help you attract more clients, make more money, and improve your quality of life. I'm Michael Reynolds.
Allissa Haines:
I'm Alissa Haines.
Michael Reynolds:
And we're your hosts. Welcome. We're happy you're here.
Allissa Haines:
We are delighted that you're here.
Michael Reynolds:
We are delighted.
Allissa Haines:
What's going on, Michael?
Michael Reynolds:
What's going on? So as always, let's share a review. I shouldn't say as always because we just kind of recently started this thing, but I kind of like it. Do you like the review thing?
Allissa Haines:
I love it.
Michael Reynolds:
Yeah, I'm a big fan. So, let's share another review. And actually I need to vamp for a moment because I totally forgot to open the review up. So, I'm going to ask you while I'm doing that, how would you pronounce this username? I was having trouble deciding how to pronounce it.
Allissa Haines:
So, it's T-H-E-X-E-I-L-A-N-D. I would say Thexeiland, Thexeiland. I don't know. It could be The Xeiland. I don't know.
Michael Reynolds:
Yeah. I kind of read it as The X Island.
Allissa Haines:
Yeah. Okay.
Michael Reynolds:
Yeah.
Allissa Haines:
All right.
Michael Reynolds:
So, now that we have gone through a few variations, all of which are probably wrong, so I'm going to go with The Xeiland has left us a lovely review this month and we are going to share that. So, this person said, "Valuable podcast. I genuinely love this podcast. Michael and Allissa have chosen valuable topics again and again. And I love hearing from the guests they bring on, although I could just listen to them talk business." Aw, shucks. "I have been getting..." Excuse me. "... my massage business ready and legit over the past month and a half, and listening to this podcast daily, it encourages a positive productivity and saves me from mistakes. My business is legit and I'm ready to launch in the next week. I'm excited. Thanks MBB." And there are some heart emojis at the end. So, a little extra there.
Allissa Haines:
Remember reviewer whose name we cannot pronounce, but I think you expect that when you choose a username with an X in the middle, which we can roll with that, you can email us at podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com and I will shoot you some times we will schedule a complimentary half an hour business consult where the three of us just hang out and chat about your business. Yeah. And we've been really enjoying doing them. They're super fun. I think that they're helpful. I know that they're fun. So, I hope they're also helpful.
Michael Reynolds:
That's a win. Yeah.
Allissa Haines:
We'll take that.
Michael Reynolds:
They seem to be helpful as well. We've been getting feedback that they seem to be helpful.
Allissa Haines:
Right.
Michael Reynolds:
All good.
Allissa Haines:
Okay. So, let me share. I had heard this a couple of weeks ago, and then it hit me again this morning in my Twitter feed that there is a massive blood shortage right now. Because of the pandemic, donations dropped off, obviously, but as the world begins again, we are having more car accidents and incidents and surgeries and elective surgeries are back, and there is a blood shortage because blood donation has not ramped up in the same way that procedures and emergencies have. It's a problem. There are many regions of the country where hospitals are having to put off elective procedures because of the blood shortage. And when I say elective, I don't mean just someone's cosmetic nose job. That also includes knee repair and rotator cuff repair and people who are in pain and waiting for surgery.
Allissa Haines:
So, if you can donate blood, please do. And I will say that it is a thing I have never done. I'm super terrified about it. I don't have a problem with needles, but the idea of it taking five to 10 minutes with a needle in me, creeps me out. I am doing it anyway. I have signed up for next Tuesday and you should consider donating blood as well.
Allissa Haines:
You might have a local hospital that has their own blood donation program, or you can go to redcrossblood.org. I will put the specific donating link in the podcast notes, but it's super easy to Google and find. And you can usually find the blood drive near you. I actually found one that's three minutes up the street and I'm going to do that next week. So, there's that.
Michael Reynolds:
Thanks for the tip. I did not know that.
Allissa Haines:
Yeah, it's a big deal. So, I'm going-
Michael Reynolds:
Makes sense.
Allissa Haines:
... to be kind of loud about it. So...
Michael Reynolds:
All right.
Allissa Haines:
Who's our first sponsor?
Michael Reynolds:
Our first sponsor is [inaudible 00:05:09] Retail Starter Kit.
Allissa Haines:
It was really... That was classy right there.
Michael Reynolds:
[crosstalk 00:05:14] but what the heck?
Allissa Haines:
So, yeah. The Jojoba HobaCare Retail Starter Kit for people who use Jojoba and also tend to share it with their clients. You can now do so in a legit way. The Jojoba HobaCare Retail Starter Kits because they've just had so many customers who are massage therapists who say their clients rave about it and they're all like, "What do you use on my skin? It feels amazing. It's not greasy." You, my friends can purchase the starter kit. massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojobakit. That's J-O-J-O-B-A-K-I-T, I'm sorry. And it comes with a little one ounce sampler and it comes with some four ounce and eight ounce bottles, I think. And you get it all as a kit with a beautiful signage and all of the things to help you start to retail this.
Allissa Haines:
So, you can share the product you love and do so ethically because you love the product and also make a few bucks on it, which is a nice little, extra little income stream of retail. I loved retailing. I retailed a handful of different things, including jojoba and it was pretty effective and my clients loved it.
Michael Reynolds:
And this kid looks beautiful. I'm looking at the photos and it's this really beautiful little signage and the bottles are just... This is really well designed. Let me just-
Allissa Haines:
It's really nice. Again, massage-
Michael Reynolds:
[crosstalk 00:06:36].
Allissa Haines:
massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojobakit.
Allissa Haines:
Okay.
Michael Reynolds:
All right.
Allissa Haines:
Our topic today...
Michael Reynolds:
Growth is uncomfortable. Ooh, tell me more.
Allissa Haines:
Okay. So, this is one of the more cheerleader-ish topics versus a very specific question and answer topic, but it comes up a lot, especially part of our Massage Business Blueprint premium community is regular office hours, and that's when Michael or I, or both of us are in a Zoom meeting and our premium members can pop in and pop out and ask questions and talk to each other and brainstorm.
Allissa Haines:
And sometimes it happens where someone, and I have been this person, will come in and ask the same few questions over and over again, over a period of several months. What do I do to X, Y, Z? How do I handle X, Y, Z? And you can tell... The answers are usually fairly clear, right? There's normally a handful of people in office hours who can brainstorm and find a couple of great solutions to handle whatever the situation is.
Allissa Haines:
And then a few months later, the same person will ask the same question. And a few months later, this same... Typically the same group of answers that will solve the problem. But it's really hard to do because a lot of times the solutions are things that we are uncomfortable with or things that we have never done before, and that creates a block and we cannot move forward.
Allissa Haines:
I'm going to give some examples of this, but the baseline of this topic today is that growth is uncomfortable. It should be uncomfortable. And there's all these motivational sayings, like success is at the outside of your comfort zone or something like that, and it's annoyingly true. In order to progress in your personal life and your business life and anything in particular, you will likely... If you want to get somewhere that you haven't been before, you're going to have to change your behaviors and create a wider breadth of things that you can do.
Allissa Haines:
And this is hard. To build a business... You may never have done negotiating a lease. That can be uncomfortable. Advocating for yourself in a financial way and in a contractual way can be very uncomfortable. You might have to do things that you don't like, at least at the beginning, like learning how to manage your money and handle basic bookkeeping or cleaning your office before and or at the end of every day in a very thorough way.
Allissa Haines:
If you're someone who was forced to clean a lot as a kid, or if it was a punishment or you were made to feel that you're forced to do certain chores or whatever, you might have a real aversion to cleaning. If you are neuro-divergent in one way or another, you might find that the structure of having to clean in a particular way to meet certain hygiene standards can be almost unattainable. If you can't don't have the attention span for that or the executive functioning skills for that... There are lots of things that you will have to do that you don't like at first.
Allissa Haines:
The good news is when you grow, typically you can hire the bulk of those things out. You might hate laundry, which I actually really liked doing my own laundry, but I'm a weirdo. You might not enjoy hauling that laundry back and forth to wherever you have washing machines and folding it and all of that stuff, but you don't have to do those things you don't like forever. You just have to be uncomfortable for a while until you hit certain financial goals and you're able to hire those things out. You're going to have to do things that are hard mentally, like learning a new software.
Allissa Haines:
So, everybody's got different learning curves on these kinds of things. It takes me a long time to learn a new user interface. I get frustrated really easily. You have to do things that could be physically hard. Actually setting up a new space or logistically complicated.
Allissa Haines:
I had the bulk of my office in storage for several months, and it was a total pain in the rear to figure out how I was going to get my hydraulic massage table from my office into the storage, and then from storage into the new office, and the logistics of it, hard stopped me for a couple of weeks. I was really struggling. Or the logistics of knowing I needed to paint the massage room, which is kind of fun. The end result is fun, but I detest painting and also struggle to make sure I have everything I need in one place at the right time to paint.
Allissa Haines:
And it's also certain tasks like that, I find very lonely. So, if I can't get someone to come hang out with me or help me, I really dread them and I tend to put them off. So physically challenging, logistically challenging or intellectually challenging when you have to learn new things.
Allissa Haines:
Things that are scary... Boundary things and just topics that have been uncomfortable to talk about in our real lives that we need to be comfortable talking about in our business lives with our clients. Scripts for talking to clients. Scripts for telling clients how to undress, how to enforce your cancellation policy. Boundaries are hard. And also, for some of us... I talk about this a lot. I know because it's my thing, but networking, it's really scary. I have a hard time meeting new people and being anything remotely comfortable in those kinds of networking situations and anything that's got a social aspect to it.
Allissa Haines:
But this is life and this is business building, and if you want to grow, you have to grow. So, some ideas here. Get support, trusted advisors, people... Other small business owners or community leaders or instructors or someone who can mentor you, not just in hands-on rubbing massage, but mentors who are specialists in other areas. People you know. Friends who are very supportive without letting you off the hook. And a lot of times that can't be a romantic partner. It needs to be someone you don't have such a deep, emotional relationship with. Someone who really holds you accountable and nag you in a supportive way. If that's what you need. Community support, other massage therapists, insert plug here. Massage Business Blueprint, it's kind of what we do.
Allissa Haines:
Training. Actual classes or training. You can check your local community college. They probably have a QuickBooks class. You can also take the QuickBooks class online, if that's what you're into. Or for me, I use wave accounting because it's free and they have decent tutorials, decent videos. Structured online learning like Coursera or... There's a million other online learning platforms now for tech things. I think there's one called Alice, or Get Alice or Ask Alice, or I don't know, something like that. A software developer, I used to date had a membership and I used it a few times to learn how to handle spreadsheets and just to get better at certain skills I wanted to have.
Allissa Haines:
And finally, get therapy or a business coach, or just some consulting sessions with us, if that's a thing that you need. If there's a real emotional block, I cannot recommend mental health therapy enough. It is fantastic to help you get out of your own way. And if you have personal life issues that are preventing you growing in your business, especially then, mental health help can be super, super useful.
Allissa Haines:
Some people have good luck with business coaches. I know I detest the term business coach because there aren't a lot of real good standards for them. I hear a lot of stories where people feel like they've spent thousands and haven't gotten anywhere. However, there are good business coaches out there. I'm sure. Ask your friends, ask your colleagues and yeah. Get help. So that's it. This is not a super intensive episode, but I hope people find it applicable and practical. Michael, what do you think?
Michael Reynolds:
Yeah, I love it. I want to land back for a second on the business coach thing again, and just say, if you would like a third party opinion, if you're thinking of a business coach, feel free to email us. As Allissa said, we've seen too many stories of people spending thousands of dollars on a business coach and regretting it and not getting anywhere. Again, there are great business coaches, like Allissa said, but be really, really careful, and then let us know if you'd like us to weigh in with a third-party opinion as you're evaluating coaches. But yeah, this is great stuff. I love everything you have said.
Allissa Haines:
Sweet.
Michael Reynolds:
It's fantastic.
Allissa Haines:
All right. Let's move along.
Michael Reynolds:
Okay. Well, let's move along then. All right. Before we move on to quick tips, let's show some love to our sponsor, PocketSuite.
Allissa Haines:
PocketSuite is a new sponsor and PocketSuite is an all-in-one app that makes it super easy to run your business. You can schedule and get booked online by clients and PocketSuite offers instant cash deposits into your bank account. It keeps you organized with automated scheduling payments, contracts, and more. Super customizable. All works off of an app on your smartphone.
Allissa Haines:
It is HIPAA compliant people. You can actually... I'm going off script here. So, you can actually go... You can take your business phone number and port it into the PocketSuite app that works on your phone so that you can have a personal number on your smartphone and then your business number within the pocket suite app. And you can port that number in and out if you, whatever changed systems or whatever. It's awesome.
Allissa Haines:
It's very easy to get set up on it. You can visit pocketsuite.io and yeah. That's kind of the high points. I'm going to talk more about different aspects of Pocket Suite as we move along to different episodes. You can customize the contracts. You can customize your intake forms. You can have everything... And everything's really built into the app. Cancellation policies, packages, booking reminders, text reminders, all that kind of stuff. And it's really, really interesting, and I like the app and it's pocketsuite.io.
Michael Reynolds:
Awesome. Thanks, PocketSuite. Glad to have you on board.
Allissa Haines:
We sure are. Quick tips. I think you've got one. I don't.
Michael Reynolds:
I do have a quick tip. So, in the spirit of a retail, which you talked about earlier with the Jojoba, here's a fun retail thing that's happening. Venmo has business account... Whoa, sorry. When Allissa edits the document, it jumps around. So, I got a little jarred for a minute there.
Allissa Haines:
Sorry.
Michael Reynolds:
It's okay. So Venmo is a payment system, as you may know, that is typically for our personal stuff, but they have a business account, which some people may or may not know, and they're running a special right now. I guess it's a special or it's a promotion or something, but you can get a free QR kit with a business account. And what it is, is basically it kind of sets up your business profile on Venmo for payments and taking payments in your massage business. But then they also will send you this little QR kit where you can have little QR codes, which are those square barcodes you see sometimes and allows for contact-less payments so that people can scan your barcodes at your massage studio and pay right from their phone without any contact. It's all just very seamless and frictionless.
Michael Reynolds:
So, it's a cool little thing they're doing. They look really nice. They're nice little nicely designed QR codes you can put out on your counter or in little badges with things. So, I recommend checking it out if you want to see what they're offering. It's venmo.com/business/profiles, and we'll have a link to it in the show notes because it's kind of long. So, look in the show notes for episode 361 and we'll link out to that little promotion they're having.
Allissa Haines:
Sweet. Thanks Michael. I don't have a quick tip. I'm tip less.
Michael Reynolds:
That's cool. We can call it a day.
Allissa Haines:
Call it a day, man.
Michael Reynolds:
All right.
Allissa Haines:
It's summertime. People need short episodes. They've got things to do. Go to the beach people.
Michael Reynolds:
We've delivered. So, thanks everyone for joining us today. We appreciate you being a listener as always. And a reminder, if you miss anything that we've talked about in any of these episodes, go to the episode number, which this one was 361, and we linked to all this stuff in the show notes. So, you can always go there and find stuff. And if you'd like to leave us a review, you may be featured. You'll probably be featured actually on our most recent reviews that we read on the air and you can get a complimentary consulting session with us when we do that.
Michael Reynolds:
So, email that to us at podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com. Let us know your username and the review you left, once we read it. And you can also find us on our website at massagebusinessblueprint.com and our community is there with all sorts of information about joining.
Michael Reynolds:
Thanks everyone. Have a great day. We'll see you next time.
Allissa Haines:
Bye.