Podcast

Weekly Roundup

• Everything Here is Under Control, by Emily Adrian

Discussion Topic

• How to Handle Mismatched Clients in Your Massage Business

Quick Tips

• Make note of the product you use in the client’s session notes!
• Pay your quarterly estimates (avoid penalties)

Sponsors

• ABMP 
• The Original Jojoba Company 
• Jane  enter MBB1MO at signup for a 1-month grace period on your new Jane account.

Transcript: 

Sponsor message:

This episode is sponsored by Jane. Jane is a complete practice management software designed to help practitioners grow and manage their practices. They do this with helpful features like online booking, scheduling, billing and charting. Whether you are working solo or in a large multidisciplinary practice, no-shows and delete cancellations are something every practitioner faces and boy, do we hate that. Jane offers several tools to help you prevent and manage those no-shows, including the ability to save a credit card on file, send out unlimited text and email reminders. You can learn more about Jane's helpful features at jane.app. Listeners can also mention the podcast at the time of sign up for a one-month grace period applied to your new Jane account. That is at jane.app

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.

Allissa Haines:

This right here is Allissa Haines.

Michael Reynolds:

And, we're your host. Welcome to our show today. We are glad you are here. Allissa, it looks like you're reading some stuff and things. What are you reading?

Allissa Haines:

I'm reading some stuff and things, Indeed. The fiction that I read last week was a book called, Everything Here Is Under Control: A Novel, by Emily Adrian. And it is a really good story with a plot twist in the middle of two friends, who were friends through their childhood and young adulthood. And what happens when one of them who lives further away has a baby, and is in that early throes of newborn-ness, and struggle and no sleep, and decides to return to her hometown and to this friend for some help. And, it's a good story of friendship, and some of it's pretty funny and it's a good book. That's what I think about that.

Michael Reynolds:

Nice. I love hearing about all the fun fiction you're reading.

Allissa Haines:

Now, you didn't put anything in the reading section because you said you're reading all boring financial advisory stuff, but tell me what you're learning in financial advisory stuff. What kinds of stuff are you reading and learning?

Michael Reynolds:

Oh, fair enough. So, the main thing I'm focused on right now is a course on opportunities found within tax returns. Basically kind of a really deep dive into reviewing a tax return, finding planning opportunities, finding ways for tax optimization, etc. So I thought about not sharing that, just because that sounds super boring I think to everybody. So, that's the chorus I'm taking right now. And then before that, I just finished a course on estate planning, which was a deep dive into things like trusts, wills, powers of attorney, beneficiary designations, how to structure things properly. So those are the last two courses I've been taking, and I find them super fascinating and very exciting, but saying that out loud just sounds ridiculous.

Allissa Haines:

Are you kidding me? Both of those things, I mean, I'm just as nerdy as you are, so sorry listeners, but I think that's, both of those are neat and I'm super interested in the estate planning stuff and might have some conversations with you about that. Because after having to be knee-deep in the probate process, even for someone who had a clearly written will in all of that, I want to do everything I can to not make my loved ones go through that, because it's a [inaudible 00:03:35].

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah. Well, here's a quick takeaway just from some of the things, I knew this before, but it was more reinforced during this course is, one goal a lot of attorneys will recommend, this is not legal advice, I'm saying a lot of attorneys will recommend, is to try to keep as much out of the will as possible by properly titling and beneficiary designations. So things like transfer on death deeds, things like beneficiary titling on accounts, transfer on death deeds for other properties, even businesses. So as much as possible, you want to keep things out of the will, according to attorneys I've talked to, because that will bypass the probate process, which can be lengthy, and expensive and high maintenance for those loved ones left behind.

Allissa Haines:

Yeah, and I'm lucky that we have a simple situation, so it's not super expensive, but totally, my ex-husband did not get the proper advice on how to title his truck. So even though it immediately went to the other person whose name was on the title, we still had to wait for the paperwork from the probate court for me to sign off on the title transfer and sale. So if it had been titled differently, if it had said his name and the other name, if it said his name or the other name, versus his name and the other name, or his name and the other name without an and or, like radically different process. And three hours on the phone with the registry of motor vehicles, and then the attorney to figure that out, and the insurance agent who is delightful and the most helpful of all. So yeah, fascinating to me Michael and I'm going to pick your brain about that at another time.

Michael Reynolds:

Awesome.

Allissa Haines:

Okay. Enough vamping, who's our next sponsor?

Michael Reynolds:

Our friends at ABMP.

Allissa Haines:

They are our friends at ABMP, we really like them. They say that they're proud to sponsor our podcast and we're going to choose to believe them.

Michael Reynolds:

I believe them.

Allissa Haines:

I believe them. They have a lot of really good benefits. I have been an ABMP member for years. I have the higher level, I think certified level membership and I also have the additional property, personal property writer for like a hundred bucks a year. And it covers all the property in my office, which is good because I got some hydraulic table and fancy stuff. And anyhow, they have good stuff. But specifically, let's talk about their education center. You can learn more about their education center at abmp.com/learn. Over 600 hours of CE courses, included with ABMP membership or available for purchase at a ridiculously low price to non-members.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, ABMP offers their courses to non-members for a lower price than that other organization offers courses to their members. So anyhow, topics include hands-on techniques, ethics, self-care, cultural competency and courses for massage educators. You can learn anything you want to learn, my friends. It is a good way to meet CU requirements. You can save your bucks for those live classes, you can test out presenters in the education center, and then decide you want to spend your big bucks on a Costa Rican retreat with that educator, do it. You can learn more at abmp.com/learn.

Michael Reynolds:

Love it. All right. So we had a listener write in with a question, or a comment, or a thought and you thought you turned it into an episode, so.

Allissa Haines:

I did.

Michael Reynolds:

Yay, for that.

Allissa Haines:

Especially because the email was titled like potential podcast topic or something like that, so.

Michael Reynolds:

Slam dunk.

Allissa Haines:

Okay, here's what our listener said, "Recently, I've had a few new clients asking me to only work on their area of pain and nowhere else for the entire hour to 90 minutes." "I always nicely explain why I am moving onto surrounding areas and not overworking tissue, etc." "And I'm always told, I understand that, but I always feel better when the therapist only works on that one spot." "Same goes for using way too much pressure to the point that they're wincing and tensing, yet they say to keep up the pressure." At the end of the massage, they always seem disappointed and I want to say I'm not the therapist for you, but it already seems obvious that they won't be back anyway, which is fine with me." Besides explaining why we need to move on to other areas, why we don't overwork the tissue and why we need to back off on pressure if the client is clearly tensing up."

"How else would you handle these kinds of situations while the client is on the table?" "Have you ever had to end a session because of requests like this?" Okay, so I did reply to the listener to find out if they were self-employed, but I did not hear back from them, so I couldn't get that info. So this answer needs to be tailored. If you're working for yourself in your own business, this is a little simpler in some ways, less comfortable, but still simpler. If you're working for someone else and you don't have control over some of these factors, I don't know. It's a conversation you got to have with your boss and whoever does the booking. So, let's just dive in. First of all, listener, I think you are handling this as well as you could. When someone's on the table and you realize that their expectations are dramatically different from your skillset, or what you think is right and safe and how to work, there's not a ton you can do.

I think that you are handling this as well as you could. You're saying, "Here's why I need to work surrounding areas," or "Here's why I'd like to back off a little bit until you unclench, and then we can get more specifically into the muscle." I think you're doing that and that's all you can do when someone's on the table. The second part here is have you ever ended a session, because of requests like this? I have not ended a session because a client insists on more and more pressure. I've definitely just like let the client's [inaudible 00:09:17] be unsatisfied, I guess. And I know that there have been a few times where I tried to apply more pressure or stayed in just one spot, and I feel like the client's body was injured or hurt and, or I ended up hurting because I just worked too hard past the limits of my own body.

And we can learn all of the good body mechanics, and safe ways to do deep work and safe ways for our bodies to do deep work. And, there's still going to come a point at which you can't do anymore without hurting yourself and, or the client. So, there are those limits. So I don't want 20 emails telling me that it's because I don't know how to do deep work, I do. I'm very good at it. That's not the point. So anyhow, I kind of want to back up, because I think you're doing everything you can do in session when this happens. You sound like an articulate person. What I want to know is why are these clients who want to get beat up, why are they coming to you? Because, you're not a beat them up kind of therapist. There are people who just want to feel like they got hit by a truck after their massage.

You're not that kind of therapist. Let's make it so that they are not coming to you anymore. So, what do we need to do? We need to change your messaging. And again, this may not apply if you're working for somebody else, because there's only so much you can do. But, do you need to update your website and other marketing to discourage this kind of client from booking with you? And that can be something really obvious, like a couple of blog posts that say, "Am I the right massage therapist for you?" "Are you, as a client, the best fit for me?" All over your website, all kinds of phrasing, some blog posts, maybe even some videos of the kind of work you do. Also, maybe you can choose and market specifically on a technique or a pathology that just by its nature does not cater to people who want deep work.

So if you are, let's, I'm going to choose a pathology focus for a second, so let's say you do rehab after people have knee or shoulder surgery. That's your shtick. You're really good at working at people after they have surgery, maybe while they're in PT, or as they're being relieved from PT. That's a very specific kind of work that doesn't involve laying elbows into people. It's specific, it is often very regimented and organized kind of work to reduce swelling, increase the range of motion, help the person move better on a daily basis as they recover from this joint surgery. So, that's a pathology. So, what about as a technique? So maybe you advertise on the fact that you do neuromuscular therapy, or dura neuromodulation, or cranial sacral therapy, or any of these specific techniques that are not deep, that are not drive your elbow into people deep.

And, that is how you market with this technique. And you add into that the communities you can serve, migraine, or TMJD, or chronic neck and shoulder pain or things like that, that aren't... Drive your elbow into people deep. So changing your messaging, and doing that on your website, and your networking, and all of your materials and all of your interactions, that will stop those people from being attracted to you. Now on occasion, we all get people who just blow right by our website and click the button to schedule online. And then when they come in, or when they fill out the form before they come in, you find out that they have low back and glute pain and really deep tissue work. I'm like, "Ugh." So, how can we prevent that? Because, it will happen.

No matter how good your website is targeted, people completely out of that target will schedule with you at some point or another. Better screening. And maybe that means a verbal screening before someone books with you, maybe it means they book with you online, but then you do a verbal screening before the appointment. Or maybe you have a form in your online scheduling that asks as they are scheduling for what purpose are you seeking massage and, or what is your experience with massage? Or have you had massage in the past? And specifically, what kind of massage are you looking for? So, you can ask these questions at booking or verbally before the first appointment to effectively screen out the wrong kind of clients. And it can feel like an awkward conversation, but I promise you it gets easier. And sometimes people call me, it happened last week. A guy called me, really nice, "Hi, is this Allissa the massage therapist?"

I answer the phone, "Allissa Haines, can I help you?" But, "Is this the massage therapist?" "And I want to make an appointment, I have some low back pain." And I said, "Okay, explain that to me a little bit." And he had a back surgery a couple years ago, he had some disc issues. I think he had a fusion. He was having X, Y, Z. It is not what I do. And I said to him, "You know what?" "This is not the work that I am very good at, mostly I'm seeing oncology massage clients and people with anxiety and depression, but my office mate is really good with this kind of pain." "Can I give you her number?" And I do this, I probably do it twice a month and I always have that clench in my chest like, "Oh, I need the money, I want the client."

But when I let go of that, I'm so much happier because I know if I scheduled this guy, I would be nervous and frustrated, and already freaked out before he walked in the door, worried that I wasn't going to be able to handle the situation because this is not what I do best. So referring it out to somebody, if you can find a referral source that you trust, is always the best way to get out of these situations, so that you are filling your schedule with the kinds of clients you enjoy, that are good for your soul, and your confidence and also your body. That's what I have to say. Update your marketing, really target it, so that you're not attracting the wrong kind of clients. Maybe add some really good screening in before people come in for their first appointment and that is all that I have to say.

Michael Reynolds:

I love that. Thank you. I am not a get hit by a truck kind of client, I'm a help me relax and feel good. Get the muscles feeling better. So yeah, some people do like to get hit by a truck, and get the elbows in and that's just not me.

Allissa Haines:

We got a great comment. Bring it up.

Michael Reynolds:

We did get a great comment, Kitty on Facebook is joining us saying, "Good morning, happy to finally tune in live." I've been with you two since 2020 when I was going through massage school, much love." Thanks, Kitty.

Allissa Haines:

Oh, little hearts.

Michael Reynolds:

We're glad you're here.

Allissa Haines:

Thank you, Kitty. I hope we haven't disappointed you with this, your first episode you're listening to or live, at least. All right, what's next Michael?

Michael Reynolds:

Our last sponsor of the day is the original, Jojoba Company.

Allissa Haines:

Rock on Jojoba. Let me tell you the thing that I really appreciate about Jojoba, and I'm going to tie it into my quick tip shortly. Jojoba is non-allergenic. It is the closest thing you can get to the sebum that our skin naturally emits. I apologize, words are hard. So I can use it on any client and every client without being concerned about an allergic reaction. It is non-comedogenic, it does not clog pores. So if you have a client that is prone to acne breakouts, Jojoba will not cause this reaction. In fact, Jojoba is going to help clear out those pores. It's not going to stain your sheets, you're hundred percent cotton sheets. So your sheet's going to last longer, they're not going to smell rancid. It's just awesome. You should totally check out Jojoba. And, you can get 20% off the price of the product when you shop through our link massagebusinessblueprint.com/ jojoba

Michael Reynolds:

Thanks, Jojoba. Quick tip time. We got couple things.

Allissa Haines:

We do. And actually as I was scrolling down my Jojoba page, I just have to go back up because I said that Jojoba is a wax esters akin to the oils that your skin produces, but I just want to... Oh no, I think I said sebum, that's okay because your skin doesn't produce oil, it's an ester. Okay, sorry. I hate it when I get that kind of thing wrong.

Michael Reynolds:

All right, so-

Allissa Haines:

I'm going back to my [inaudible 00:17:32] now.

Michael Reynolds:

... what is your quick tip?

Allissa Haines:

So, my quick tip is totally related to product. I feel like I was taught to do this in massage school, and then at some point I stopped doing it. When you're writing your session notes, no matter how brief they are, make a note of the product you used in the client's session, even if it's someone you've seen many times before and you've used all your different products on them. Make a note. And I will tell you because I did not do this, I saw a new client last week and I am 99% confident I know what I used on him. I'm pretty sure I used Jojoba. I have a couple other products in my office, but typically with someone's first visit, I just default to Jojoba. And he emailed me yesterday and said, "I loved my massage, I just wanted to ask, what product did you use on me, because I had a reaction on my back?" "I had a few hives and I just want to narrow it down." "Can you send me the ingredient list of the product?"

And, it was so good. I wish I had written it down, so I could be like a hundred percent sure, but I'm 99.9% sure I used Jojoba. So I emailed him and I said, "You know what?" "I used this product, here's a link to the website." "I'm pretty confident this isn't what you reacted to, especially if you just reacted on your back because I use this all over your body." And, it didn't react on his neck or his chest, which I found is more common for people when they react to products, or on the inside of their arms or thin skin areas. And I said, "It is more likely that it was a reaction to maybe it was my laundry detergent, or my fabric softener, or maybe it was something not even in my office, maybe it was something with your shirt or something you ate or whatever." I said, "I would be surprised if it was a reaction to this product."

And, I gave him the link to my laundry detergent because I get it online, and asked a few more questions and I was like, "I don't think I used an essential oil on you, I typically don't without discussing it with people and I know we didn't discuss it." "Do you remember a scent or anything?" And it was so good because he emailed me back and he was like, "Thank you so much, I looked at that site, I'm pretty sure I didn't react to that because you're right, I would have it in different places."

"In the past when I've reacted to something like that, I've had it all over my body, so I think it is either a laundry detergent issue, or something else that happened that day or that night." So it was kind of good because I was, at least, I had most of the information, but I so wish that I had been a million percent sure that's what I used on him. And I did make a note in his file, so that if he comes in again, which I hope he does, I'm going to use a different product that doesn't have any Jojoba and we'll see how that goes. And I might even send him home with some of each product, so he can even test it on himself. Anyhow, I felt terrible because it was like his birthday massage. It was his first visit to me, but he was so precise and it all went really well. But, I still wish I could be a million percent sure and had written that down on the notes. So, make a note of the product you use in the client session notes.

Michael Reynolds:

Fair enough, good advice.

Allissa Haines:

What's your advice?

Michael Reynolds:

All right. Mine is timely. I've said it before, this is not a new quick tip, but I like bringing it up around tax time and that is pay your quarterly estimates. I bring this up because it seems like on a regular basis, I work with people that are, they don't realize that you get penalized for not paying your quarterly estimates. And, that's only one of the issues. So the issue that happens is, first of all, if you're self-employed, which the vast majority of our audience is, so I'll kind of assume that, so if you're not, this may not apply to you. But if you're a self-employed massage therapist, you're probably a sole proprietorship, LLC, maybe an S corp, you're required to pay quarterly estimates because you don't pay yourself through payroll. And if you do, even you probably still take distributions, which means you have compensation not through payroll, which means taxes are not withheld.

So, you're required to pay quarterly estimated tax payments and many people just don't pay them. And two things happen when you don't pay them, one is you get this big lump sum tax bill at the end of the year or at the beginning of the next year and you're like, "Ah, I got to scramble and pay my taxes." And, that's no fun for anybody. And the other thing is, you are likely to get charged penalties. The IRS does charge you penalties typically, if you don't pay your quarterly estimates on the proper schedule. And, that's just extra money and penalties that you don't need to be paying.

Allissa Haines:

And if you have to go on a payment plan, it's very, very low interest and they're wonderful working with you, but you're still paying penalties and interest.

Michael Reynolds:

So, you're just paying more than you should be paying. It's just not a great thing. So now is a great time to start the year off right, paying your quarterly estimated tax payments. What I like to recommend is, first of all, we'll talk about, I'll touch on this in a second, but calculate the proper amount, and then divide that by 12 and just put that much money every month into a tax account. And then you have the bucket of money built up that you pay your taxes out of and it's much more comfortable. You don't have this big surprise at the end of the year. As far as calculating your tax payments, I can't give tax advice here on this, but my preferred advice is talk to your tax professional. They can calculate those for you. Or look up the safe harbor, like the safe harbor method of calculating your estimated taxes.

And it's basically 90% of the tax you expect to owe the current year, or a hundred percent of the tax you owe for the previous year, so basically that can kind of give you a ballpark of what you should be expecting to pay in quarterly estimates. But the best thing to do is talk to your tax professional, they can calculate it for you, so.

Allissa Haines:

There's also a decent form on the IRS website that lets you work through that. So as long as you're tracking, like your gross income, and then you minus your expenses and that's your net, as long as you're loosely tracking that, the form is not hard to complete.

Michael Reynolds:

Yeah. If you get stuck anywhere, send us a note, we'll send you some tools and resources to read up on for help with this, but pay your quarterly estimates. You will be much happier that you did. That's what I got.

Allissa Haines:

Yay. Good for us with the tips.

Michael Reynolds:

Good for us with the tips. All right, well, thanks everyone for joining us. We appreciate you being a listener. You can find us as always on the web at massagebusinessblueprint.com. We have a lot of resources there and a community you can join as well, which we've talked about a bunch before. And you can email us at podcast@massagebusinessblueprint.com with any topics, questions or comments. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day. We will see you next time.

Allissa Haines:

Bye.