Podcast

Weekly Roundup

• So Money with Farnoosh Torabi: 1381: What Death Teaches Us About the Secrets to Financial Freedom

Discussion Topic

• There are no perfect business-building programs or resources. But there are ways to get the most out of any particular resource you choose.
• You have to
• Want it. More than you want to do other stuff.
• Lay the foundation to support your success
• Be flexible with the obstacles that come up
• Be willing to be vulnerable
• Know what you want and need. What are you willing to do for it?
• *Side note: we created How to Get New Massage Clients for this ‘overwhelm’ situation 

Quick Tips

• Find your “one number”
• Donate & tell the world

Sponsors

• ABMP 
• The Original Jojoba Company 
• Happyface

Transcript: 

Sponsor message:

This episode is sponsored by ABMP. Thanks so much ABMP. I want to talk about the ABMP education center today. You can learn more at abmp.com/learn. And what you're going to learn is that there's 600 hours plus of continuing education courses included with ABMP membership or available for purchase for non-members at a crazy low price. Topics include hands on techniques, ethics, self care, cultural competency, and courses for massage educators, ABMP members get free CE for all courses included with their level of membership. It is a great way to meet CE requirements. Try out new presenters and save your CE budget for other courses. And I personally will tell you can feel good about utilizing ABMP courses because they pay their educators very well. It is a highly ethical operation over there. You again, can learn more at abmp.com/learn.

Michael Reynolds:

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Massage Business Blueprint podcast, where we help you attract more clients, make more money and just maybe improve your quality of life. I'm Michael Reynolds.

Allissa Haines:

I'm Allissa Haines.

Michael Reynolds:

We're your hosts. Welcome to our show today. We are glad you are here, Allissa, you got some coffee, nice bright red shirt looking snappy this morning. Those that aren't on video describing it.

Allissa Haines:

I bought this coffee mug at a Farmer's Market last year, around this time, Walt went away and I like had a whole weekend to myself and I went to like three different Farmer's Markets and spent a ton of money on things like fancy handmade mugs instead of getting fruit and vegetables.

Michael Reynolds:

I love that mug.

Allissa Haines:

I love it too. And it's like supposed to be like ergonomic, but I just it's pink and it's pretty. And folks, if you're like, "Why is she showing off her mug? And also what does it look like?" You can check the video of this podcast episode out, because we mix our media up like crazy. We record live on Wednesday mornings at 9:00 AM Eastern and I believe it airs on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. I don't know if we ever got that LinkedIn connection, but nobody goes to LinkedIn.

Michael Reynolds:

I don't think we did. No.

Allissa Haines:

Anyhow, if you want to check out the video, you can certainly do that. You can also just look for a Massage Business Blueprint on Instagram. And I always post random pictures from our podcast recording like the deers that I see outside my window and things like that.

Michael Reynolds:

And Andrew is joining us on Facebook already saying, "Good morning, Michael and Allissa." Good morning, Andrew. We're glad you're here.

Allissa Haines:

Good morning, Andrew. It's nice to see you.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. What are you reading?

Allissa Haines:

Nothing. Well, okay. I'm reading/listening to an episode of So Money with Farnoosh Torabi, about what death teaches us about secrets to financial freedom in which the guest is a money guy who also is a practicing physician specifically in hospice care. And I listened to it and sent it to you to listen to. And you remember to put it in the notes. Tell us a little more about the episode.

Michael Reynolds:

Sure. Yeah. The episode was, was Jordan Grammat who like you said is a hospice physician and it was... I'm going to get the title here just right. So what death teaches us about the secrets to financial freedom and I really enjoyed it. Allissa knows that I used to listen to so many quite a bit. I don't so much anymore, but she's very thoughtful and knows that. And so sent me this particular episode because she knew I would really enjoy it. And I did because it's a really good view into our perceptions about money and regrets we have in life and what we do with our money. And a lot of the stuff I think we've heard before. When people are in their deathbed, they never regret not working more, but they do regret not spending time with family, et cetera, but it was kind of more impactful hearing it from a hospice physician, working with patients directly and just hearing that intimate storytelling happening.

Michael Reynolds:

I really enjoyed it. And a couple things jumped out at me. One is he describes that a lot of us are afraid of death, but he says for the most part, death is actually a very comfortable, peaceful experience. We don't... Most people don't have these horrible painful deaths. They have these very peaceful... oh, I don't want to say pleasant, but just peaceful experience when transitioning into death. And so that was somewhat comforting, I think maybe to a lot of us and also the perspective on regrets. And so a lot of times in as many listeners may know in my other career, I'm an independent financial advisor and I work with people on money and a lot of times I think our world around us encourages people to invest more or save more or work more, make more money and just like, go, go, go. And that's, what's important.

Michael Reynolds:

And if you enjoy your money, that's somehow a bad decision or something. And I think it's really good to revisit reminders to us that we need to understand what's really important. We understand what wealth means and what having enough really means. And I don't think that means that you have to give up and have zero desire to earn more money or further your business. But I do think it's important to remember that it's not, when we get to the end of our life, are we going to look back and be super happy that we just worked all the time and made a bunch of money or are we going to be happier that we enjoyed our money and enjoyed experiences and enjoyed helping others with our money and enjoyed being with the people we love. And so I think that's a really great perspective to integrate with our pursuit of financial wellness. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for sending it my way, Allissa

Allissa Haines:

And we actually... Walton actually talked about, I was telling him about the episode a little bit this morning at breakfast. And I feel really good about actually well being actionable on it because we had a conversation about it. And we were talking about our retirement accounts and I was like, we're kind of limited for travel right now because pandemic and we're limited for travel because we have kids that don't really travel well, but I really wanted us to do more. And we right then sat down, looked at the calendar and choose just a day and a half in a couple of weeks before the kids go back to school so they'll still be at their moms for like 48 hours in a row. And we don't get that during the school year so I was like, "The last week that we can, the kids are at their moms. I'm going to come meet you in Boston. Because he works in Boston. We're going to stay over at a hotel and then do something fun the next day. If it's nice out, we'll do something outdoors. If it's not nice, we'll do a museum."

Allissa Haines:

And we like put it in the calendar right then. And I was like, "I got a couple 100 bucks in our like grown up vacation fund, which we never use." I don't really fill it very much. I was like, "You'll get the hotel, I'll get the rest of the expenses and we're doing it." I felt really good about like having that conversation about how we want to do more living our lives now, and still being financially responsible. And then we did it. I'm going to encourage you folks, if you're able and it's something that's important to you maybe schedule something right now.

Michael Reynolds:

Right on. I love it. Marcy has stopped by also on Facebook to say good morning or happy Wednesday y'all. Love the word of... You use word y'all. Thanks Marcy.

Allissa Haines:

Sorry. And Marcy's in Texas. She's allowed to do that. And another reason to visit our Instagram is that I have declared Marcy's new puppy, Canello our massage business blueprint, pet mascot.

Michael Reynolds:

Oh.

Allissa Haines:

And have just shared an adorable video of him on our Instagram stories because he's just so sweet.

Michael Reynolds:

Well now I have to go look.

Allissa Haines:

You may or may not have heard the story, but Marcy discovered the dog in her office parking lot. Who's kind of stranded. And, but that happened like just before Marcy was joining us in a Zoom for one of our classes in the member community. And so I've just decided that Canello's going to be my dog too. Welcome Marcy and Canello to this Forex podcast. And I guess we need to hit a sponsor before we move forward. Is that right?

Michael Reynolds:

I'm already in Instagram looking for the puppy. I don't see the puppy.

Allissa Haines:

It's in the... It's in our stories.

Michael Reynolds:

Oh, stories. I never look at stories. There we go.

Allissa Haines:

Michael's a little new with Instagram, but he is doing a good job.

Michael Reynolds:

Well, it's not that I'm new. It's just that I'm very basic. I don't look at stories because I don't know something about them, but I'm going to look at this one of course. Because there's a puppy there.

Allissa Haines:

Well be mindful if you start watching like stories and reels and stuff, because I have accidentally gotten hooked into watching cake decorating reels. I don't know if you... Like, there's this weird real thing where you know the algorithm and I watched like one cake decorating reel and now it's all I get. It can be a problem. I actually need to take Instagram off of my phone sometimes so that I stop scrolling.

Michael Reynolds:

Well that's okay. Eli, my seven year old loves cake shows. He likes, Is It Cake? With the guy from Sunday Night Live Mikey Day. He hosts it. Basically they have like these contestants and you have to guess if it's cake or not, they have a literal object like a shoe or something. And then they have a cake that's made in the shape of a shoe and these designers are so good. You can't tell and they get it wrong like half the time. It's like, "Oh that's the cake." "Nope, that's a shoe." He loves that show. It's fun to see what kind the designs they come up with.

Allissa Haines:

All right. We have a big episode today, so we have to stop doing-

Michael Reynolds:

All right. All right. We're so far off topic. I'm sorry. All right.

Allissa Haines:

Meg's going to have to fast forward through so much. Who's our next sponsor?

Michael Reynolds:

It is Jojoba go.

Allissa Haines:

Yay. The sponsor... This episode is indeed sponsored and supported by The Original Jojoba Company. You know how I feel like we should be using really good products. It's just a good idea. Jojoba doesn't go rancid. It does not contain triglycerides like a lot of products do so it's not going to go bad. This also makes Jojoba a really good carrier for essential oils. Because you can put that expensive essential oil into your eight ounce bottle of Jojoba. And even if it takes you a long time to use it's not going to get gross non-allergenic so I can use it on any client and every client without fear of an allergic reaction, you should really, really, really go to massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba to get 20% off the price of the product and also sign up for their email list because they have a new loyalty program and I've been getting some emails about that and they just in general have a really good email thing and they're not like over zealous about it.

Allissa Haines:

And also because I just did a couple interviews for them that will be on their blog and go out in their emails in the near future. And I'm kind of proud of some of my answers for the interview questions. I spent a lot of time on it. It was really interesting. And I got to think about my business in some different ways. There you go. massagebusinessblueprint.com/jojoba 20% off my friends. Go do it.

Michael Reynolds:

Thanks Jojoba.

Allissa Haines:

And I gesticulate so much that my camera went out focus. I'm going to turn my camera off for a minute.

Michael Reynolds:

Happens at least three or four times an episode.

Allissa Haines:

It does. It's because... It's my fault because I... Michael recommended a camera. It's still messed up. Michael recommended a camera to me and I got like the same brand, but one down like one grade quality grade down so it's my fault.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, hit us. What do you got?

Allissa Haines:

What we're going to talk about today is this very common problem that we have in massage education and in every education and in our community and outside of our community. And with me, for my own things. When I buy courses online problem, it's a really common pattern in small businesses with both new massage therapists and long timers where we know we need to do things, maybe get a little overwhelmed with what to do and then do nothing. Let me jump into the specifics here. I don't even know if I actually created a title for this episode or not because I was like, "This is a little intangible."

Michael Reynolds:

Taking the first and next steps in business is what you said.

Allissa Haines:

Okay, good. I probably should have written it here.

Michael Reynolds:

Business building. Sorry.

Allissa Haines:

I still wanted to be like really organized and professional this morning. It's the thing that happens when we're not sure where to start to increase our client numbers. We have like an opening question in our massage community. Oh man. See I'm-

Michael Reynolds:

Let's just give up on the camera. Just-

Allissa Haines:

Fix my camera so I got really stressed. I finally... I was getting really stressed out. Okay. We see it asked a lot in community groups, online, Facebook and whatever kind of gathering massage therapists have in person or otherwise. How do I get new clients? People get overwhelmed with responses and a lot of contradictions in those conversations don't know where to start and there's inaction. Brinson repeat that every six months until the business owner happens upon a good referral source so they do start building a new client's flow or they close the business and give up.

Allissa Haines:

And we see this happen all the time and side note. It is like exactly the reason that we created a resource called how to get new massage clients to help deal with this overwhelm situation and put the information in a linear format so it's very much like one, two, three, four, and then there's a variety of things you can pick after that once you have those phone foundational steps set up, you can get that free resource at massagebusinessblueprint.com/getnewclients. Let me just go back here. That overwhelm happens and you either happen upon a good referral source or finally just get enough word of mouth going without ever taking specific action, which is great and lucky or you struggle for months and months and months, and months and years until you decide your massage practice is not sustainable. It sucks you dry, you quit. We see a lot of this.

Allissa Haines:

We saw a lot of people who had been struggling for a long time pause when this pandemic started, then just never come back. And that was really sad too. The shape that this takes in our private community is when we ask... When a new member joins, we ask, "What are you hoping to learn here?" And like 50% or more of new members write, "Marketing and networking." Or, "How to get new clients." Or, "How to increase my income." And then I'd say about 25% of members, maybe even a hint more, maybe we never see or hear from them again, like people get... They know what they have to do, but taking that to do it for a variety of reasons and for a variety of obstacles, never happens. Now we've done a lot of work within our community to welcome people and make sure they know what we have to give them and what we have to teach them and how they can learn it and apply it.

Allissa Haines:

And we're doing great with that and I am having such a blast meeting new members, because now when you become a member of Massage Business Blueprint of our mastermind community, you can do a 15 minute one-to-one meeting with Michael and I, and we'll give you a tour of all our resources and we've found that's really helping and that members are getting a little more involved. We're kind of figuring this out. But people, all of us in the mastermind community and otherwise still hit these roadblocks. And I thought about this because I'm doing it myself. I signed up for an investing course and it's like 12 video modules, this very beginning of like, here's what you need to know about money and grows into like investing and then walks you through actually investing in some mutual funds or whatever.

Allissa Haines:

And it has taken me a lot longer to work through it than I thought than I thought it would. And I've been nudged along by a few of these tricks that I've put into place that have forced me and helped me to actually utilize the resources that I paid for. And this is a huge thing. I have a whole file on my desktop of like eBooks and courses and things like that, that I have paid for and then never completed. It's just a thing. Michael, have you done that? Have you like paid for courses and stuff and then not completed them, but you're a little more motivated than I am.

Michael Reynolds:

I don't know about that. Yes. In fact, there's one right now, it's a LinkedIn course that I'm halfway through and just kind of stopped going through it and it's on my desktop actually, so I can click on it and finish it, but I haven't finished it so happens to me all the time.

Allissa Haines:

Yep. Okay. There's a lot of reasons why people seek resources and then find the resource and then never use the said resources. There's overwhelm, decision fatigue. There is prioritizing issues. And part of that is like not just knowing what to prioritize in your business, but knowing what to prioritize in your whole life as a whole, competing commitments. It's hard to set aside time to learn something when you have many pressing things at home or in family or with another business or with your employee job, we get it. There's also like the straight up fear of being very bad at something. You have to be willing to really stink at something in order to get good at it. And it's definitely easier to just not try than it is to try and fail. That is very real. And we see it a lot in kids, but we kind of forget that turns into the same thing as adults.

Allissa Haines:

There's a lot of that. There is no shortage of business building resources for anyone. And especially for massage therapists, there are plenty of free resources. There are plenty of paid resources. We know that I, Michael probably as well are rather partial to Massage Business Blueprint to this here podcast, to the free resources we have on the website to our mastermind community. But these tips and techniques that I want to share with you are similar regardless of the education that you choose and they could be really helpful. And I think actually now is a great time to bring up Leslie's comment that says, "The overwhelm of how to start happens everywhere. I'm contemplating a professional organizer for clutter in my house because I'm frozen." I hear that like, and I think that committing to paying someone to help you do this or do this for you is huge and really, really helpful.

Allissa Haines:

Because just the act of paying for it in that situation can... Is like the force that causes accountability. For me, I don't need an organizer, but I started paying someone to come and clean just portions of my house once a month. And having that person come in, forces me and everyone in my household to do a really solid pickup the night before because they can't clean a counter if it's cluttered with junk. Having that on the schedule gives me the accountability that I need. And also I don't like cleaning like my floor around the bottom cabinets in the kitchen. And now I have somebody who does that for me. Michael, read this comment from Andrew.

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah. Andrew popped in on Facebook to say, "This podcast is one of the best resources." Thank you Andrew. We agree. We think so too.

Allissa Haines:

Thanks Andrew. That's really kind and I really like your profile picture. Okay. Techniques to be successful regardless of the resource that we're talking about even if it's not us. Michael, you want to read that comment?

Michael Reynolds:

Sure. Is it distracting if I keep... There's so many good comments coming in, I just can't help, but put them on screen.

Allissa Haines:

Well read this one and then we need to pause until we come to a natural stopping point.

Michael Reynolds:

All right. Fair enough.

Allissa Haines:

I'll never start.

Michael Reynolds:

Marcy is replying to Andrew saying, "Agree, my business would never have been so successful without MBB, Allissa and Michael." Thanks, Marcy. Appreciate it.

Allissa Haines:

All right. Okay. We're going to stop complimenting ourselves now. And we are going to get to the actual content of the episode. Okay. Commit, easier said than done. And it is a mindset flip to treat business building with the same attention and respect as a client on the table. And you cannot just decide something is important and do it. Some people can, most of us do not have the resources and the personality to and character traits to make that happen. There are a whole bunch of things that have to be in place to get the support that you need to be able to commit. Failure to commit to a learning resource is not a moral failing. There is... It is morally neutral because we don't always have what we need in place to make these things happen. Take the guilt off of yourself for never completing a course or never finishing any kind of resource, decide that you are going to commit in a new way.

Allissa Haines:

And you are going to give yourself the support that you need to make it happen and then let's move forward for this. Okay, so getting the support that you need to be able to commit, we're going to give some examples of this and making sure that plan plays to your strengths. So support you need to commit. What does this mean? It means time in your schedule. And to put that time in your schedule, you might need childcare, you might need help with meal prep, you might need to adjust the schedule of your extra job, you might need to find the transportation to a place like a library where nobody can bother you. You might need scheduling freedom. This kind of all comes down to scheduling freedom. You need that support. If it's not something you can give to yourself because you have family and life that is dependent on you.

Allissa Haines:

Who can you ask for help? How can you trade for help? What can you do to put that support network in place? So you can have two hours a week or a half an hour a day. And I do want to say, I read all the time, like in these parenting things like the best way to get your work done is to get up an hour before everybody else in the house. And that's great for people who are morning people or I hear people are like, "Oh, I put the kids down and then I work for two hours." And that's great for night people. But if you're a morning person and everyone else in your house also gets up kind of early. Now you're playing this game of like losing lots and lots more sleep because you have to get up at 4:00 AM, because your kids get up at 5:30.

Allissa Haines:

I read these things and I kind of detest them in some ways. And I also appreciate them because what it means is find the chunk of time that you can, where you can have that silence where you can have that alone time. You get what I'm saying. But make sure it plays to your strengths. The whole thing that you're putting together here. That means the time of day dedicated to learning or the time that the live classes are at. If that's part of what you're doing, the time that the coaching meetings or whatever, make sure that they fit with your learning style. Because if the classes are always at 8:00 PM Eastern, I'm not going to go to most of the classes because my brain shuts down around 6:30. I know that's not a good match for me. Is there a recording?

Allissa Haines:

Will I actually schedule time to watch that recording? Can I put support networks in place so I have the time to watch that recording. See, you see how this kind of all flows together, make sure that the resources match your learning style. It's great if everything's all video, but if it doesn't have closed captions or a corresponding ebook that I can actually read words, it's not going to work for me. I need to read. I don't do well with just video or just audio so make sure, and there are some people who do well only if there's video. You need to know that content, if it's written is available in video form or at least available in audio form, however you can take in information and obtain it, think about that and make sure whatever resource you're using has what you need it to be. Built in accountability. For me, that's something I need.

Allissa Haines:

I need a set meeting time to discuss things with somebody who's going to hold me accountable for finishing my tasks or studying or doing the homework or in some way, reporting back to. Some of you do not need that. Some of us do. Figure out what you need. And then it's got to match whatever quirks and lifestyle demands that you have. If you need something to be really strict in order to stick to it, you got to find a resource that's really strict or accountability that is really strict. And if you need something that's crazy flexible, but then you can do it. You got to find a program that's crazy flexible. You get all that. Supports in place. Great. Go all in. If you join a community or buy a class, go all into it, be willing to be vulnerable, be willing to be seen by the instructor or by the community and be willing to be imperfect.

Allissa Haines:

That means completing your profile. We see people do this kind of like even just on Facebook or wherever where like you don't... You can't know anything about someone from the bit of information that you give. And I can tell like when a new member joins our community and they upload a picture and they use their name and they put a link to their business website and they fill out their profile. I'm like, "This is someone who's going to be involved." And I can see, and this is okay to do. I'm not saying that one shouldn't do it. I can see who's dipping their toe in really nervously because maybe they don't want to use their business name instead of their name, which usually we get that fixed pretty quick and they don't put a profile picture in and they don't even put a picture of their dog.

Allissa Haines:

I understand some people don't like pictures of themselves. That's totally cool. It's not required. Anywhere in the world is fine, except on your license and your passport. Great. Put a picture of your dog up, but people will leave it generic so they'll just be like the auto-populated graphic image that the platform allows and they won't put their business website in. They won't fill out any of their profiles so we don't even know what kind of massage they do. And I respect dipping the toe in, but I want to suggest that jumping in and being willing to be seen will result in you getting more from whatever resource that you're using. And I say this as someone who's kind of shy about. I mean, it doesn't sound like it now because I'm doing this, but like in the real world, I don't like talking to people.

Allissa Haines:

I don't like making myself seen. I don't like taking up space. I'm really, whoa, this is very different for me, I'm in a different role, but in a community, a massage therapist, I'm hiding in the corner being a wallflower. You have to be willing to be seen. You don't have to, but I think it's going to improve your experience. Reading and watching the introductory materials. And this is something like my attention span is limited. Sometimes I will join. And this is such a huge thing. You join a course, you join a resource, join a community and you don't read or watch the intro stuff. And then you never have any idea where anything is or how to interact. And then you are like, "Oh, this resource isn't very good." And you leave. I am a perpetrator of this extremely. And I think we even have an episode from way back when called read the FN manual, like read the FN manual of big appliances that you buy.

Allissa Haines:

And also things that you join and resources that you paid for. Watch the intro materials, schedule your intro meeting with the instructor, email the instructor just to say, "Hi, thanks for letting me join your community. I'm really excited about this." Make yourself seen and known and jump in and you'll get a lot more. If the resource includes live classes or events and you can't get to them, schedule time to watch the recording or get really good at noting and actually reading your email alerts so that when an event is scheduled, you can put it in your calendar. If you have to schedule times to watch recordings, try really hard to commit to it as if it's live. Maybe you need a buddy for this. Maybe you need someone to meet you at the library, meet you at the coffee shop. Meet you in a virtual meeting and do their thing for an hour or watch this class with you. It can be really nice to take an online class with a buddy. Who's also taking the class at the same time and commit to watching it together and doing this stuff together.

Allissa Haines:

Even if you cannot be together in the same space, do the homework, follow the damn program. Even if you half asset, man, do the homework. It's okay to skim, but do some portion of it. If you're not a do everything by the book kind of person. Sure. But at least skim so you know what's being covered and you know what you should have done so that you can have that in the back of your head. Should your accountability partner ask, reach out to the instructor, reach out to other colleagues and students, if you need help, or if you need adjustments to the program, if you buy some resource and the video does not have subtitles, captions, and you need them. Ask for them, "I've noticed that your video doesn't have captions. It really helps me learn, if I can read at the same time that I'm listening, could you make that happen?"

Allissa Haines:

And if you're taking a course and paying for it and they do not have that as the most minimal accessibility feature, that's an issue. If you're talking to somebody who doesn't know how to do that, you send it to me. I'll show them the free program to be able to do that. Okay. Finally, quit. If you don't like the resource, if you have found out that it's not a good fit, if you're in the first part of learning or even in the middle and you're like, "This isn't going to work for me, I don't like it. It's not teaching me what I want to learn." Quit. What most of us do is just stop using the resource and then let it sit. And then we maybe want to take another course, but then we're like, "I can't until I finish that course."

Allissa Haines:

And we're never going to finish that course. You have completely created this whole fake obstacle. Maybe not throwing any more good money after bad, but you're throwing good time after bad. You're you're spending time and energy feeling weird about this thing you didn't finish instead of just actively severing the cord and moving on. If you can get a refunder, a partial refund, if that's applicable, quit sooner rather than later so you can move on and find something that works for you. Finally, there's no perfect business building programs or resources, but there are ways to get the most out of any particular resource you choose so hopefully even if you've just found one nugget in this whole list, that can be helpful.

Allissa Haines:

I'm going to summarize this now. You got to want it. You got to want to learn this material more than you want to do other stuff like unload the dishwasher in a timely manner, or take a nap. You need to lay the foundation to support your success. You need to be flexible with the obstacles that come up and be willing to be vulnerable and ask for what you want and need. What are you willing to do for it? If you want to have 10 new clients by the end of 10 weeks, what are you willing to do for it? And you decide that and there you go. I'm done. We got a lot of comments, so I'm going to be quiet now.

Michael Reynolds:

Cool. Love it. We got a couple more.

Allissa Haines:

Oh, just a couple. Okay.

Michael Reynolds:

Just a couple. Leslie on Facebook says, "LOL. On the before COVID times, I used to schedule dinner parties to get myself motivated for cleaning." Great idea.

Allissa Haines:

I used to do that when I would move, we would always schedule some kind of gathering for a month after we moved so that we had to unpack by then.

Michael Reynolds:

Then Leslie also follow up saying the time the podcasts are being recorded, I believe that's in reference to the time that works for her to get our material.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah.

Michael Reynolds:

That's why we-

Allissa Haines:

Gets her up and moving by 9:00 AM on a Wednesday to be thinking about their business.

Michael Reynolds:

And Andrew says, "I find that using YouTube to be time efficient. Users can turn on closed captions without the video creator having to add them originally, which is a great feature." Yeah. Thanks Andrew.

Allissa Haines:

Yes.

Michael Reynolds:

That is a great feature.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah. I've run into a couple educators who are using other platforms and stuff to host the videos and they don't have the automatic captions and that makes me angry, but yeah.

Michael Reynolds:

Awesome. Well, thanks for the comments and Allissa, thanks for that great information. Good stuff.

Allissa Haines:

And as a reminder, if you're not sure where to get started, you can check out massagebusinessblueprint.com/getnewclients. And we got a little user guide on that.

Michael Reynolds:

And read it. It's not very long. It's actually fairly low friction to consume. If you want to start somewhere, start there.

Allissa Haines:

It's distinct.

Michael Reynolds:

Good description. All right. Before we move on to quick tips, let's give a shout out to our sponsor, Happyface.

Allissa Haines:

Yay. Real life story. My client, the other night, who has these beautiful fake lashes said, "Again, I so appreciate that my lashes don't get all smooshed here like they used to back when I had that inferior face cradle. Now I have a happy face, Happyface face cradles are awesome." We know that the old style yucky face cradles can be so uncomfortable for a client and that pressure on the face and the stuffiness can ruin the whole massage experience. Happyface is the most comfy face cradle. So you can give the most relaxing massage of your client's life. Innovative heart shaped design. I always have trouble saying that. No sinus pressure, no eye pressure, no need to adjust mid-massage, no wrinkles or makeup smearing, because it kind of holds the head around the top of the forehead.

Allissa Haines:

And doesn't swoosh all in the face. Made in the USA, super easy to clean because it is seamless. It is about the same dimensions as all the other massage face cradles so your face cradle covers are going to fit and it's got a full Velcro back so it's going to stay on your face cradle frame, which whatever model you have, it's going to stay right where you put it. You can get 20% off the price of the product at massagebusinessblueprint.com/happyface. You're going to use massage... Pardon me. You're going to use code massageBB at checkout, but that's all written on the page at massagebusinessblueprint.com/happyface.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, quick tips. You want to go first or you want me to?

Allissa Haines:

My quick tip is to donate to a cause that's important to you and tell the world about it. At the end of June, I had been spending a lot of time thinking about pride month and then a lot of time thinking about abortion rights in this country and feeling a little defeated and tired and thinking about what I could do. I didn't do a lot of pride stuff in my business. I kind of all year round have some approaches to being welcoming to all communities. And I decided at the end of June that I wanted to donate 10% of my massage profits to two different charitable causes. I chose the Trevor Project and National Abortion Funds and put up a couple posts saying, "Here's why I think these topics are important and relevant to my business. Here's how I'm going to donate. If you have the resources, I hope you consider donating too."

Allissa Haines:

Put the links in there, did that and then made my donations the first week in July, once I had all my June numbers together. And then again, posted saying that I had done that and the links for people who might choose to contribute as well. I felt really good about it. I want to make... I want to be really clear. I don't think this is the only action one should take. And these causes that feel very important to us, but it was a good way for me to feel good about my business being part of something and sharing that with my clients and also sharing like why I think the Trevor Project is important and how that relates to my hands on care. Did all that for abortion rights. So donate. Tell the world about it.

Michael Reynolds:

Love it. Thank you.

Allissa Haines:

What's your tip?

Michael Reynolds:

Before I get to my tip, I do want to jump back. Leslie made a great comment that I think is really actionable based on your topic today. Leslie said, "I so appreciate Massage Business Blueprint and sending me an email alerting me that the monthly charge is coming up. This is for the community, she's referencing. That I get a chance to buy it all over again and I do or buy in all over again. And I do. I think it's a really good point, Leslie, because if you're in a membership community like ours or another one where you're getting charged every month for something, maybe treat that email notification as excitement as if you're buying it for the first time again and kind of recommit to utilizing the resource. I love that, Leslie, that's a great tip. Thank you.

Allissa Haines:

I also love that our platform does that because, like I get that. I have a few subscriptions to things like goods that I buy for the home and some other subscriptions like that. And I love getting that reminder email and like, so that if I don't need it quite yet, I can push it off or if I need more than I normally need, I can do it. But I also think that we've had a handful of members end their subscriptions lately because they're so busy and so good they don't need the resources anymore. And there's some who stay on just for the community aspects so that if they ever have any questions. We deal with, like a lot of client communication.

Allissa Haines:

Won't deal with pathology stuff, but a lot of other ongoing business related stuff. But I like that it's easy to cancel so that if you're so successful, you don't need us anymore. You're not going to feel like you get extra charged because you can decide to cancel and it's easy. And you even get reminded before each charge so I do love when we get an email from somebody that's like, "Hey, just wanted to let you know, I am going to end my membership because I'm so busy. I don't need any resources and I'm just going to focus on being busy for now and I'll come back and join. If I feel like I need any more support." I love that.

Michael Reynolds:

Me too. All right. My quick tip is this, this comes from one of Chris Brogan's newsletters on LinkedIn and it's find your one number. In the newsletter he talks about finding a single number that you can use to focus on to make it easier to make improvements in your life or business. And his example, he was talking about his one number in his sleep study. It's kind of a personal example. He was doing a sleep study. He found he was waking up a bunch of times over and over at night. And then so he focused on that one number. It was causing lots of fatigue and problems everywhere else. And so he was able to get some help with his sleep patterns and his one number he was focusing on is times awakened per night. The less time he can wake up through the night, the more time he can spend asleep, basically the better quality sleep he was getting and the more rested he felt during the day and the more productive he was during the day.

Michael Reynolds:

He was focusing on how to get that number down and he's noticed improvement. He also references the movie Moneyball and the one number they focused on was one statistic, which is on base average. And so the point of all this is, the quick tip from this is, if you're overwhelmed. This actually ties really well to Allissa's commentary today. If you feel yourself, overwhelmed, its sometimes useful to focus on one single number for a while and just that number. And so that number should be something you have influence over. For example, focusing on number of clients booked. That is not a productive number to focus on because you can't control that. You can't control whether people book with you or not, but you can focus on other factors like number of emails sent in your marketing campaigns or a number of appointments you make with referral sources, but, or networking appointments you make.

Michael Reynolds:

You could focus on things that you could influence. And if you focus on one number in that particular aspect of your business, then it's a way of avoiding overwhelm because you're just focusing on this one thing for maybe six months or even a year and improve that number. So finding one number to focus on, one metric in your business for a while can be really useful for those of us that get overwhelmed with lots of things we can do. I like that tip from Chris Brogan. I thought it was really actionable for us today.

Allissa Haines:

I like it too. Thank you for sharing it. It's given me idea to do some kind of project where we all focus on one number and then have to be accountable to each other for doing those things. It's good for... This has been a very tangent filled episode, sorry, but I've been kind of focusing on my monthly number of clients that I want to have booked, but it's felt really hard to maintain that because COVID cancellations and just all kinds of stuff. There's been a lot of weird cancellation stuff going on and I'm not someone who wants to hustle to fill last minute vacancies. That is just not how I run my business. It stresses me out. I don't do that. However, I could absolutely focus on the number of retention outreaches I make. People who've dropped off the calendar for one reason or another. I could absolutely create a goal number of like how many outreaches I make to clients I haven't seen in three months or more. And I think that could be really good. So stay tuned because we're 100% doing a project on this.

Michael Reynolds:

Nice. Love it.

Allissa Haines:

All right. Take us home. It's been too long an episode.

Michael Reynolds:

It's been too long. Let's wrap this sucker up. All right, everyone. A reminder, our website is massagebusinessblueprint.com. If you're not a member of our community that we talked about today, please feel free to check us out. There's a free trial for 30 days, no obligation to pay it first. You can just kind of check us out, look around, see what you think. You can email us also @podcastmassagebusinessblueprint.com. That email goes to both Allissa and me and we will respond. We appreciate you being a listener and being with us today. With that have a great day. We will see you next time.

Allissa Haines:

Sekinah says, "Let me know when you want to sell a lifetime membership." $1 million Sekinah.

Michael Reynolds:

Love it.

Allissa Haines:

Have a good day.