Podcast

Weekly Roundup

• You can now ask Google to take your personal data out of its search results

Discussion Topic

• A Tune-up For Your Massage Business Website
• Accessibility
• Website speed

Quick Tips

• Brevity. M-f'ing Brevity (When asking for help, lead with what you need)
• “I need help deciding on which office space to choose.”
• “I need someone to talk me through setting up Facebook Ads.”
• “I am doing X for marketing and it doesn’t seem to be working. I need feedback on what I might be doing wrong.”

Sponsors

• ABMP 
• The Original Jojoba Company 
• Happyface

Transcript: 

Sponsor message:

This episode is sponsored by ABMP. ABMP is proud to sponsor the Massage Business Blueprint Podcast, and we believe them. One of the many, many benefits of ABMP membership is Massage and Bodywork Magazine. This award winning magazine is included in print for ABMP members and available for free to the profession at MassageandBodyworkDigital.com. The Blueprint for Success column from Alyssa and Michael, that's us, is featured in every issue in the best practices section. It's a professional journal that includes techniques, in-depth features and video times to cover the issues that matter to professional body workers. Learn more at ABMP.com and subscribe online to the digital version at MassageandBodyworkDigital.com.

Michael Reynolds:

Hey everyone, 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 and I'm flying solo today, it's just me. Alyssa is out this week, she is doing some continuing education. She promised she would be taking time off for that, but I've seen her popping in the community and on Facebook all week. So Alyssa, if you're listening, this is your shout out to take some time off, it's okay. Take a break. I'm sure she'll be popping up throughout the week. But again, I am flying solo today. Sorry you're stuck with just me today, but I will try to keep it interesting. I'm going to get a little nerdy with some website talk today, so hope you enjoy it.

Michael Reynolds:

So let's get started first with our weekly round-up of stuff that I am reading today. And I am reading about how Google is allowing us to remove personal data from its search results. This is a new feature of Google, a new benefit or a functionality or thing you can do with Google. And this was reported by NPR, at least where I found it was NPR. And it says, "You can now ask Google to take your personal data out of its search results." So it's interesting. So some of the data they allow you to remove are things like contact information, like address, phone number or email address if someone has publicly posted your private contact information online, you can ask for that to be removed. Things like government IDs or pictures of IDs, bank account or credit card numbers, if people have put that online for whatever reason, hopefully that hasn't happened, but I'm sure it does. Handwritten signatures or images of any kind of personal identifying information, medical documents, confidential login credentials, basically anything that shouldn't be out there of yours, Google is allowing us to request those things to be removed.

Michael Reynolds:

So there is a form Google has set up to do this, I kind of started going through the process, I didn't have any specific things to remove, so I couldn't finish it out. But I did kind of get a sense of how it works. We're going to link this in the show notes and the link goes to the article that has a link to the form. And the form lets you, again, go online, you basically tell Google specifically what information is out there, what sites are hosting it. And Google will, in theory, take that information and remove those things from its search results. I think it's a good policy for Google to have this available. There's stuff out there that some of us probably don't want out there online, or at least index by Google. You can't really control what people put on their websites, but this is something Google will do to de-index that information to make it harder to find.

Michael Reynolds:

So check it out. The articles from NPR, it will tell you how to do that, it will link to the Google form to make those requests, if that applies to you. And found that interesting, so it's kind of a nice thing that's available from Google.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. Keeping it short today, because again, it's just me and that's what I've been reading. So before we move on, let's give a shout out to our next sponsor, which is Happy Face. Happy Face makes amazing face cradles shaped like a heart, they're really cool. They're super comfortable for our clients, they eliminate sinus pressure, eye pressure. There's no need to adjust mid-massage, no wrinkles or makeup smearing. And actually, I've had occasion to recently experience Happy Face. My massage therapist that I go to here locally has a Happy Face, face cradle. And I got a massage last week and it was super comfortable, it was great. No sinus pressure, just like I said, I was comfortable throughout, not a lot of face pressure or stuffiness or congestion. So I really enjoyed the Happy Face experience. It was a really comfortable face cradle, definitely highly recommended.

Michael Reynolds:

Happy Face is made in the USA. It's seamless, easy to clean surface and about the same dimensions as other massage face cradles. So face cradle covers will fit just fine. It's designed to fit on massage tables and massage chairs with Velcro on the entire back surface, so your Happy Face will stay where you put it. And you can get 20% off your entire purchase at MassageBusinessBlueprint.com/HappyFace. And you'll use the code Massage BB at checkout, but that code is listed on the landing page. So all you need to remember is go to MassageBusinessBlueprint.com/HappyFace, and you can get 20% off using our special link. Thanks, Happy Face. We appreciate it.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, so let's move on today with our topic, a tuneup for your massage business website. So today we're going to talk about kind of touching up your massage business website, going through a few elements that I see pop up a lot. And these should be fairly, I don't want to say always easy, but simple things you can do or tweak or update on your website to give you a little bit of better performance, maybe a little bit of boost in search rankings, better user experience, all sorts of things. So we're going to go through kind of a list here of some things that I see pop up all the time when I'm evaluating people's websites.

Michael Reynolds:

Like in our private community, for example, people come along and say, "Hey, can you take a look at my website?" Or in office hours in the Blueprint Mastermind community, people will ask for kind of an opinion or review on their website. And these are things that pop up all the time. So I'm going to walk you through the stuff that we talk about so that you can maybe as you listen along, maybe go back to this episode when you have a chance to pull up your website and look through it, maybe make some notes. I'm guessing at least one or two things will jump out as things that you can potentially update on your own website. So let's get started.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. So tune up for your massage business website. Let's start with the first thing I would look at is clear messaging. So one of the first things I notice with a lot of massage practice websites is messaging is very ... I shouldn't say very because that kind of implies super bad, but somewhat vague, somewhat non-specific. So what you want to look for on your website is clear messaging that tells people what you do and who you serve. It seems very simple and obvious, but so many websites use vague statements or things that aren't really specific to what they do and who they serve. So clear messaging is going to be really helpful for people to find your website. So again, what do you do, who you serve? Do you provide sports massage for golfers, then say, "Sports massage for golfers." Or if you're a little more generalized, you're not very niche focused, a therapeutic massage. And then if possible, a specific audience, for people looking for pain relief or for people with anxiety.

Michael Reynolds:

Or something that at least give people a sense of kind of what your work is, who you best serve. And that clear messaging will help people really understand that better. So that should be front and center on your homepage. At the top of the page, usually people have some sort of image or photograph at the top of the website. The text that goes over that should be your simple, clear value statement. What you do, who you serve. Don't try to get cute or vague or clever about it. Just be really clear and really simple.

Michael Reynolds:

Next, more of a technical thing, check the titles on your pages and especially your homepage. Now, when I say titles, I mean the title bar of those pages. It's kind of hard to see unless you're looking in search results or sharing on Facebook or something. But these are the words that appear in that title bar on your browser. So if you want to see what yours says, open up your website, and if you hover your pointer, don't click. But if you hover your pointer over the tab that has your website in it, after a second or two, you should see a little tiny box pop up that gives you the text that's in that title bar. And usually, what I find is often massage practice websites will just say either homepage or it will say the name of your business and that's it. So if your business is, Lotus Massage Therapy, it'll just say Lotus Massage Therapy and that's it, nothing else.

Michael Reynolds:

The reason this is important to check is because Google indexes that as a signal of what your site is about. So if it just says Lotus Massage Therapy, okay, fine, it's massage. But what I like to see is something like Lotus Massage Therapy, a pipe symbol, and then Therapeutic Massage in Wichita, Kansas, or whatever, just whatever city you're in. That way you're tying your website to a specific location very clearly. Also it's really useful because if in search results, people are searching for a massage therapist in Wichita, Kansas, they're going to see that pop up, they're immediately going to see the locations relevant to them. That's going to improve clickthrough rate as well. Also when sharing on Facebook and social media, it's really clear, people can see exactly where you're located. So it's a good user experience, which typically translates to better search ranking. So Google will index that as a location based signal.

Michael Reynolds:

So again, what I usually do is the name of your massage practice, a pipe symbol, which on my keyboard is going to be shift and back slash, the little pipe symbol is above the back slash so when you hold down shift and press the back slash key, you'll see that pipe symbol, it's like a straight up and down vertical bar. And then, massage therapy in Wichita, Kansas, or a therapeutic massage, Wichita, Kansas, something like that. The location is important.

Michael Reynolds:

Also in interior pages, you want to be very clear about what you're doing. So, services and pricing should be labeled very clearly, your business name, pipe symbol, services and pricing, frequently asked questions, schedule online. All those should be very clearly stated in those titles of the interior pages, as well.

Michael Reynolds:

Next, you want clear calls to action. You want to have calls to action that tell people exactly what to do. Generally, this is going to be schedule online. Again, it may vary depending on how you run your practice, but in general, a lot of times I see that the thing people want other people to do is to schedule online. So if you're a massage therapist with your website out there, you want people to click a button to schedule online. Sometimes you might say, fill out a form or a call or schedule an appointment via email or something.

Michael Reynolds:

But in general, we see a lot of people using online scheduling. So make sure that button is super clear and on every single page. Some of the best calls to action I see are in the header right next to the navigation bar. You've got your general website navigation and then right there is a big button that says schedule online or a book online. That way, wherever they are on the site, they can very easily say, "Okay, great. I'm ready." Boom book online. It tells me I can do it in a few minutes. Like I have a signal that is very convenient. I know exactly what to do. That schedule online button should be extremely prominent. Again, if your call to action is not schedule online, make it something else, but usually it's going to be schedule online.

Michael Reynolds:

Simplicity. I also like to evaluate how complex my website is. So if you're a massage therapist with a website that has 20 pages on it, take a look, do you really need 20 pages? Less is more. Especially when someone is trying to figure out, learn a bit more about you the first time they come to your website. Who you are, credentials, what do you do, are you near me? That kind of stuff. Keep it simple. So you want to make sure that your website is about four to six pages typically. And this is not counting things like a blog or a podcast. So if you have a section that has lots of articles on it, that doesn't count, you can go deep and have as many as you want there.

Michael Reynolds:

But as far as the overall navigation, things like about, services and pricing, frequently asked questions, contact, schedule online, boom, that's pretty much it. That's pretty much all you need. So about four to six pages is about the sweet spot I've seen. So if you have more than that, maybe take a look and see why, is there a reason to really have more than that? You probably don't need more than four to six pages.

Michael Reynolds:

Clear and simple service and pricing. This is a big pet peeve of mine. Services and pricing pages that have 17 different options. You've got a 30 minute therapeutic massage, a 60 minute therapeutic massage, a 90 minute therapeutic massage, a 30 minute aroma therapy massage, a 60 minute ... and then all these different add-ons and things, kind of categorize as different services. This is less about the website and more about your service lineup, but it still applies to how you present it on the web. So it's kind of both.

Michael Reynolds:

I mean, I love the Chipotle model. At Chipotle, you go to there ... I love Chipotle personally for the food, but I've talked about this before on the podcast. You go to Chipotle, you can get like three things, you can get tacos, burritos, or a bowl, like that's it. And there's like five ingredients to pick from, and you're done. The line moves super quickly, there's no stress for ordering. Like I know what to do. I think our massage practice website should be very similar. I think we should have very clear, simple things to choose from, maybe a 30, 60, 90 minute therapeutic massage. And that's it. That would be fine. That would be just fine. Maybe you've got other specific modalities, maybe you've got a sports massage package or a specific type. Maybe you add a couple more, but keep it as simple as possible.

Michael Reynolds:

Especially for new clients who've never been to you before, if I am brand new and I don't know what these terms mean, I don't know what aromatherapy really means. I don't know what lymphatic drainage means, I don't know what all this stuff means. No, that's a bad example because people that do search for that, I'm sure. So maybe it's something that's very unique to ... our jargon, but perspective clients don't really know what that means. Try to keep it simple for them. They might not understand what to pick and they might get really overwhelmed to just not pick anything. And they're going to book with a massage therapist over here on the other site that says, "Hey, I've got three options, 30, 60, 90, it's all therapeutic massage." Boom. Like, "Okay, great. I can pick one." So keep your services and pricing really simple and clear and easy to choose from.

Michael Reynolds:

Also high quality photography. This is a big one. High quality photography really makes a website sometimes, like how it looks and how it feels. So if your photography is out of date or it's maybe low quality or it's like cheesy stock photos you picked in a hurry and didn't update for five years. This is your chance maybe to go through and pick some better stock photos. I think it's worth spending hours sometimes looking through stock photos sites and choosing really great photos for your website and including those and updating those. If you have professional photos, that's even better. So professional head shots of you, maybe professional photos of your office. This is sometimes cost prohibitive and time prohibitive, but if you can do it, really professional photography of your office and environment can go a long way toward making your website look gorgeous. So, take a look at your photos, see if they can be upgraded and get them looking better. And that can do wonders for making your website look great.

Michael Reynolds:

NAP in the footer on every page. What is NAP? NAP is name, address, and phone. This is kind of a shorthand way that search engine experts and Google kind of talks about in terms of labeling your site with location information. So does your site have your business name, your address and your phone number in the footer of every single page of your site? If not, it really should. This is a signal that Google uses to, again, tie your website to a specific location to reinforce that geographic anchor. And that's something that has been proven to be an important factor in Google indexing. So take a look at your website, look at every page, look at the footer. You want to make sure your business name, address, and phone number are listed there.

Michael Reynolds:

Even if you don't want people to call you, if you prefer people to schedule online, the presence of a phone number is still important to search engines. You want to still have that there as a signal of trust and of credibility. So it can just go to your business line that the voicemail says, "Hey, I checked this one today, please schedule online at blah, blah, blah.com." Is fine to do that, just have a phone number listed.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, accessibility. Let's take a look at accessibility. It's kind of a mini topic that expands into more, but we'll try and keep it brief. So accessibility means ensuring your website is accessible to people of varying abilities. So things like people with visual impairments, hearing impairments, cognitive processing impairments, dexterity issues. So all sorts of different levels of abilities. We want to make sure your website is as accessible as possible to all people. So one thing you can do to kind of get a checkup on this and get a scan is to use a tool to scan your website and see where some of these issues pop up. The one I like best, it's called the functional accessibility evaluator from the University of Illinois. And it is free. There's a link in the show notes to this if you want to find it directly, it's fae.disability.illinois.edu. But again, that's kind of a long URL, so look for the show notes. This is episode 414. You'll find the link there.

Michael Reynolds:

You have to create a free account, but then you can plug in your website and run a scan. And in a few minutes, it'll come back with a report and it'll give you all sorts of little errors and flags and cautions and things on your website to give you what to look for to improve your accessibility. Now, the report can be a little technical, so if you're unfamiliar with how websites work, it may be overwhelming. Like, "Ah, what does all this mean?" Send it to your web developer, send the report to whoever's helping you with your website, they will understand it. They will be able to give you feedback on what to change and update and how to implement this stuff. So keep that in mind. Don't get overwhelmed. If it's a report that looks very technical, send it to someone technical in your life who helps you with your website.

Michael Reynolds:

So beyond that, it's going to look for things like alt tags and images for screen reader accessibility. It's going to look for kind of basic structural things. But you also want to review your site with human eyes, the software can't do it all for you. So you want to look for things like clear formatting. Do you have headers and subheaders? Are your paragraphs broken up into logical chunks? Do you have big overwhelming walls of text or is it broken up into nicely formatted blocks? So you want to have that formatting, those broken up blocks, make sure it's really easy to scan. Good contrast. So you don't want dark gray text and a light gray background. That's poor contrast. That's difficult for many people to read. So make sure it's dark text and a light background, for example.

Michael Reynolds:

Captions on audio and video. If you have audio content like in a video format or a podcast format, make sure you've got captions or transcripts to go with it. We do this on Massage Business Blueprint. Every podcast episode we have, usually within a week or two, we had the transcript online and you'll see in a complete transcript for every episode. That way people with hearing impairments can read the transcript of the episode. If you have videos on there, make sure you've got captions in the videos. Again, that allows people with hearing impairments to watch the video and read the content of the video while they're watching it and get the same information as someone who has full hearing abilities.

Michael Reynolds:

You want to use clear and plain spoken language on your website. A lot of people don't think about this as being an accessibility issue, but it is. Some people have different levels of cognitive ability when processing information. And so you want to make sure the language in your website is very clear, plain spoken, very simple language, not a lot of jargon or thick academic language. Make sure it's really simple and plain spoken. Also, easy to use navigation is really important. If you have 20 pages on your site and drop down menus that have sub menus under those. And you have to kind of hover just in the right spot to get the navigation to work, that's going to be really problematic for people with limited dexterity. So make sure your navigation is really simple, really easy to use, very clear and doesn't have a lot of weird tricks or kind of stuff you have to finagle to make it work.

Michael Reynolds:

Those are a few examples. But again, the accessibility is important, not just for obviously the people we want to serve, but Google also looks at this too. The more accessible your website is for humans, the more the robots at Google will like that, as well. So it helps everybody.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, a few more things to wrap up here. Security, make sure your website has an SSL certificate installed. You can check this by looking at the browser bar when you're viewing your website, the little lock icon should be closed. You can click on the lock icon, make sure it's kind of confirmed with a green mark or whatever, it's fully confirmed there. The prefix of your website should start with httpss. If all that's in place, then you have SSL installed. Should be pretty normal for most website hosts, but be aware of that.

Michael Reynolds:

Also, two factor authentication. This is really important for security. No matter where your website is hosted, you want to make sure that two factor authentication is turned on. That means that if you're logging in from a new location, that it will text your phone or require some sort of app to give you a code that you plug in before you can log in. So it requires more than just an username and a password, it also requires some sort of authentication code from your phone to verify that you're the person supposed to be logging in. So enable that. Every major service really has this, WordPress has an option, Wix, Weebly and Squarespace, I believe, all have options. Plenty of most website platforms have the option to turn on two factor authentication. It's kind of a pain, but it's more of a pain for your site to get hacked.

Michael Reynolds:

Speed. How fast is your website? It's a good time to evaluate your website speed. There's a tool I like called GTmetrix. It's at GTmetrix.com and metrix is spelled with an X at the end. So, GTmetrix.com. That'll be in the show notes, as well. You can plug in your website address and it will give you a report on how fast your website is. Usually if your website's pretty fast, you'll have a green and you'll have like 90 and above. If it's a little slower, maybe you get a B or a C grade, again, it'll give you some technical reports, you probably won't know exactly what to do with it unless you're very technical. So take that report and again, give it to whoever built your website or whoever handles your website. And they can talk you through how to handle some of those speed issues and possibly make your site faster.

Michael Reynolds:

Site speed's really important. It's important for the people that use your site because they'll get frustrated if the site's too slow. And also for Google, Google takes site speed into consideration. So the faster your site, the more you have favorable weight from Google in search rankings. So site speed is very important and there's a lot of slow sites out there, so there's ways you can speed it up. So check into that.

Michael Reynolds:

Side note, one of the things I see that slows down a site the most is big images and big videos. So if you're hosting your video somewhere else, like on YouTube, that's fine. It usually doesn't affect it too much. But if you're hosting your video on the site itself, that can slow it down. Also, if you are embedding large images in the site, not every website platform handles image compression well, so if you have an image that is like 6,000 pixels wide, and you're uploading that on your homepage, then it might size it down, but it still might have to load that huge image in. So you got to make sure your images are compressed and sized appropriately, and that might be a way to speed up your site. So that report on GTmetrix will give you some good insight on some things that might be causing problems.

Michael Reynolds:

A couple of things to wrap up. Google analytics installed. Is Google analytics installed? We did a webcast a few weeks ago on Google analytics. This is not really performance related, but it's a good idea to have it installed because you can kind of track what's happening on your website. So Google analytics is free, it gives you information about your website traffic, where people are coming from, how people are behaving on your site. And if it's not installed, I would advise getting that set up so you can start to get good information and good data on what's happening on your website.

Michael Reynolds:

And then finally, this is not necessarily on your website, but is tied to your website, Google business profile. Is it set up and is it linked? Every massage therapist, unless you are traveling ... even this case. But generally if you're traveling around the world doing mobile massage on cruise ships and things like maybe this will be an edge case where you don't need it. But in general, every massage therapist should have a Google business profile. With your location information all filled out completely, a link to your website, your services and hours, collect reviews on it, put images and photos of your office, link to your business profile from your website. And post something once a week on it, keep it up to date, treat it like a social property. That Google business profile is hyper important to local businesses like ours, like a massage therapy practice. So go to google.com/business to set that up if you haven't already. And maintain that and make sure you nurture that Google business profile. And that can play a big part in helping with your search rankings and help people find you when they're searching.

Michael Reynolds:

So again, I hope this is a helpful and not too overwhelming checklist to go through. Go back and maybe play this episode again while you're looking at your website. And make some notes, maybe go through and maybe identify some areas where you can see improvement. And if you do even a couple things, maybe two or three things from this list, you're likely to see some sort of benefit. It may be intangible at first, or it may be slow to recognize. But at some point you're going to see some benefit, whether it's in search rankings or people using your site more easily, it's going to give you some benefits. So go through and as much of this as you can evaluate and review and update, it's going to help your website.

Michael Reynolds:

Also, if you have other questions or things we haven't covered here, I'm keeping it kind of short today, but feel free to email podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com, that goes to me and Alyssa. And if you have follow up questions or you're looking at your website and things are not clear, or you've got a question as you go, definitely email and we'll help you out.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. So with that, before we move on to quick tips, let's talk about our sponsor for the last part of the show, which is Jojoba. This episode is sponsored by The Original Jojoba Company. And we firmly believe that massage therapists should only be using the highest quality of products because our clients deserve it, as do our bodies. Alyssa's been using Jojoba for years, I've got a Jojoba myself at home, as well. It's great for crack skin and really helps skin smooth. Jojoba's just great all around. But Alyssa's a big fan of Jojoba, has been using it for years.

Michael Reynolds:

The Jojoba Company is the only company in the world that carries 100% pure first press quality Jojoba. And we're thrilled to be partnering with them. Jojoba does not go rancid, it does not contain any triglycerides like many products do, so it won't go bad. This makes Jojoba a great carrier for essential oils, as well. Jojoba is non-allergenic, you can use it on any client and every client without fear of an allergic reaction. Jojoba is non-comedogenic, it does not clog pores. If you have a client that is prone to acne breakout, Jojoba will not cause this reaction. In fact, Jojoba can help clean out and clear the pore. Jojoba does not stain a hundred percent cotton sheets between this and the last point.

Michael Reynolds:

Sorry, I'm so distracted because I saw somebody pop in and say that Maggie just made her first order of Jojoba. Thanks, Maggie. I was so excited, I got distracted, I wanted to make sure your comment was out there. By the way, it's on Facebook Live for those who don't know. We do this via Facebook Live every Wednesday at 9:00 AM Eastern. And so those who are on Facebook Live can pop in with comments and questions. So appreciate Maggie being here. So let's get back to Jojoba, sorry about that.

Michael Reynolds:

So massage therapists will spend less money on supplies because their sheets will not develop a rancid odor, which necessitates purchasing new sheets. Jojoba is just awesome all around, great in so many ways. And you can get a 20% discount off the price of the product when you shop through our special link. So our listeners get a special link and that is MassageBusinessBlueprint.com/Jojoba. Again, that's MassageBusinessBlueprint.com/Jojoba. All right, thanks, Jojoba.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. So let's move on to the last part of our show today, which is quick tips. I do have a quick tip for you today. So my quick tip is when asking for help lead with what you need. This comes up a lot in what we do, Alyssa and I both help a lot of people with different aspects of their business. We do a lot of coaching formally and informally in our Blueprint Mastermind community. We have office hours and we have a lot of conversation around challenges. And this comes up a lot, people ask for help all the time, which is what we're here for.

Michael Reynolds:

But often we find that it's very difficult for some to get to the point and to kind of just get to what they need. They lead first with all kind of the backstory and the thought process behind it and everything. And five or 10 minutes later, they finally say, "Well, here's kind of what I need." And it's all just a lot of backstory in advance. So flip that, my advice is flip that and lead with what you need. So for example, here's some phrases that might come up if you're leading with what specifically you need. "I need help deciding in which office space to choose." Or, "I need someone to talk me through setting up Facebook ads." Or, "I am doing X for marketing, and it doesn't seem to be working. I need feedback on what I might be doing wrong." Those are all phrases that very clearly and immediately lead with what you need at the moment.

Michael Reynolds:

So, sometimes people will say, "Well, I've got this issue. I'm thinking about this. What if I did this?" And like, they just kind of go through a little bit of meandering thoughts. But when you're asking for help, start with specifically what it is you need, and then it can be unpacked from there. So let's take the first example. I need help deciding on which office space to choose. If you come to an office hours or you're asking someone who's a mentor or something that specific question, that immediately frames exactly what you need, it frames the conversation, helps someone focus on how to help you. Okay, great. If I am asked that question or someone says that to me, the first thing I'm saying is, "Great. Tell me about both spaces." Okay, great. They're going to tell me both spaces.

Michael Reynolds:

I'm going to ask further questions, "Okay, great. What do you like about this?" Or, "What's the factor over here you're thinking of?" And the person helping can then unpack the details on a pace that makes sense for their thought process, as they're trying to help you. So lead with what you need, lead with the very specific thing you want as an outcome. And then unpack it from there. It's a much more efficient way to get help and a much more efficient way to talk through issues and keep people's attention. People that are busy and want to help you, they want to help you, but they want to get to the point first so they can figure it out. So be very clear, get to the point first, lead with what you need first. That is my quick tip for today.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, this was kind of fun doing it solo, but I definitely miss Alyssa. So I'm happy she'll be back next week. I'm sure you miss Alyssa, as well. So we'll be back next week as a team again. And again, thanks to Maggie who stopped by and thanks again, Maggie for ordering Jojoba, we appreciate that, and Jojoba appreciates that, as well. We know you're going to love it.

Michael Reynolds:

So with that, just a reminder, we have amazing resources through our Blueprint Mastermind community. If you're not a member yet, consider checking it out at MassageBusinessBlueprint.com. I believe it's slash mastermind. Anyway, just go to the website and on the homepage, you'll see a box that says community, you can click on that and you can read all about it. It is extremely affordable and extremely low risk. You can join free for 30 days and if you want to stick around and you like us, then stick around. If not, it's okay, no pressure either way.

Michael Reynolds:

But after that is $20 a month, unless you're an ABMP member. And if you're an ABMP member, go through ABMP's portal and look for our member benefit there, and it's $5 off. So it's $15 a month through ABMP. So if you're not a member of ABMP, good time to join and get a discount on our community. So we have a ton of resources there, we help people all the time through office hours, we answer questions in the community. It's an amazing resource for super smart massage therapists who want to grow their practices and get a judgment free space for the help they need. So check it out.

Michael Reynolds:

So with that, as always, we appreciate you being here. And you can find us on the web, again, at MassageBusinessBlueprint.com and you can email us any questions or comments or topics at podcast@MassageBusinessBlueprint.com. As always, thanks for being here. Have a great day. We'll see you next time.