Amy Bradley Radford (01:15)
Well, welcome back to the Massage Business Success Podcast. I'm your host, Amy. And today I want to talk with you about something that I'm hoping will actually be an answer for some of the questions that some of you might be having. This episode is for those of you who are trying to get more repeat clients or grow your massage base. And I know that this is in the back of your mind. So I'm going to validate this for you. You don't need a new technique. You don't.
you just need to learn how to listen differently. this episode is all about expectation training and what that means is learning how to really hear not only what your client is asking for, but also hoping for in the massage session. Even when they don't know how to say it clearly, it's about learning how to pull that information out of your client.
so that you can understand their expectations and then meet it through the massage session.
As an educator, I have heard many times people are coming to this hands-on class, hoping
that whatever they're going to learn inside this class is going to fill up their schedule.
I think what happens to many therapists is that they believe the reason people aren't repeating a service with them is because they still need to learn the next tool or the next class or the next certification that will finally grow their business and get their clients to rebook.
But I'm here to tell you that nine out of 10 times, the problem is not your skillset. It's that your clients are walking out of the door thinking, well, bummer, that wasn't what I expected. It didn't even match what I thought I was going to get. And the problem is, is they're not going to tell you. They're actually going to smile very politely and maybe even say, thank you, or my favorite, you know, that was great. And I'll text you later to reschedule, but they don't.
because deep down the overall feeling that they left with after the session did not match this mental image of how they hoped they would feel. I'm gonna give you my opinion on repeats because we've all heard this in our business class you just have to ask for reschedule at the end of the session and
it is not a matter of making sure you ask for the reschedule. That's not it at Whether it's 15 minutes into their session or 30 minutes into their session, they have already made the decision that they are going to return. So it's about the client requesting to return because their expectations were met
And that's why people reschedule with you. And that is what we have to talk about. it's not about a new technique. It's not about asking them to reschedule. It's about creating the feeling in them that makes them ask to reschedule with you. So let's talk about what an expectation is. every client will come into you with this unspoken image
of what they think the massage will feel like and what it will do for them. And this image is not just this clear image of, Hey, I want this great deep tissue massage and I want it to be 30 minutes on my back. It's not that at all. It's not how we think as massage therapists. It actually comes from all of their touch experiences in their life and how that has felt to them compared with or added to what they're needing right now.
and how they want to receive relief in a certain way. that right is a lot of information to kind of plug into the word expectation. But I want to kind of break that down for you a little bit so that you're understanding process that we all go through to create this expectation in our mind. So let's just start with touch. Touch has a lot of different feelings around it. And when we get people that come into our office,
their touch history many times dictates what they will allow us to do. For example, let's say that somebody is coming to you because their massage therapist moved and they're looking for a new therapist and they loved their massage therapist. so they already have this mental image in their mind of what they want that was provided to them by a different massage therapist. And they're hoping that you're gonna repeat what this other therapist did.
and you have no idea what this other therapist did. There's a lot of clients that believe that all massage therapists are the same until they start to experience that we're all artists. We all do things just a little bit differently. so they come in with this, high expectation of you. And if you don't know what it is that they're looking for, trust me, honey, you're not going to meet that expectation. And on the flip side of that,
If they've had a lot of massages and they're still looking for their therapist and they've had things that have never met their expectation, they walk in the door and you kind of have two strikes against you and three strikes you're out. And they're hoping that they're going to get what they want, but they're beginning to believe that they're not going to find what they want. So they start out the massage grading you like, ⁓ I guess we'll see how this one goes. And you have no idea because you don't have their experience.
You know, these are just some of the things that kind of fit into what's going on inside the client's mind as they get on your table for you to work on them.
A couple other things, you know, that may be happening when it comes to this unspoken image of expectations is maybe they've been hurt. Maybe their spouse is really rough on their shoulders because they like that and they come in and they don't tell you their true expectation, which is
my gosh, you my neck and shoulders are hurting and could you really get in there but not hurt me? They say something like, ⁓ you know, I have all this pain in my neck and shoulders, but I just want just some lighter work on it. And that right there is kind of a confused expectation. And I'm here to tell you, if you actually meet that expectation that came out of their mouth, but not the image in their mind, that person's not going to return because you're going to give them a lighter massage, but they really wanted a deeper massage. They just didn't want to be hurt, but you don't know that.
you don't know what their expectations were because they didn't tell you. So part of expectation training has to do with learning how to glean or pull this information out of your clients.
so that you can truly understand what it is they want, but also not want. So you have an idea of what massage you can give them.
There's some other things that might go into this, you know, like some emotional needs where they might come in and give you some conflicting answers where I just want to relax, but my neck and shoulders, but I just want to relax.
and you have to kind of break that down as to what it is you can offer them in what order or how they are expecting that to feel for them because that's two different styles of massage that might be five different massage techniques for you but we need to break that down a little more and see what it is they truly want another problem I see is you get newbies on the table and they have this glamorized idea of what the
whole massage experience will be because on Instagram they've been watching all these videos about these massages where the music is right and the candles are going and hot towels and they're like, my gosh, I want that experience. But they come in and they only want to pay $75 and they want you to do deep tissue on their back. And there's this whole confusion that's going on inside of your client And then there's the expectations that can never be met.
because they're not realistic. Like, I've had low back pain for 20 years, can you fix it in one session type of people? And those aren't necessarily expectations you can't meet. They just are expectations that need to be reset because they're not realistic, but the client doesn't know that. They don't know that at all. are all things that fit into this expectation picture that's inside your client's mind.
I think what happens, especially when we're new, is we have a tendency to get through the client intake process and get that client on the table as fast as possible so we're not behind in our schedule and we do not take the time nor do we understand exactly how to interpret the answers to the questions that need to be asked in order to be successful with this client on the table.
So this is why listening differently matters. You're not just listening for problems. You're actually listening for directions and wants and hopes and do's and You're actually beginning to understand what this person truly wants and not just the keywords that tell you, okay, I'm gonna be doing this in the massage. It's much deeper than that.
you are listening and asking questions that are gonna bring to life the massage experience they are hoping for. This sounds easy, right? Actually, we're gonna break this down for you a little bit today. you're going to have some new tools and skills that are gonna help you figure all of this out.
we're going to look at this through the lens of what I call the three massage motivators. I teach this in a training called Massage Your Market, and it changes everything for This training helps you really set up the framework to understand expectations and how to turn those expectations into a feel. a skill. It's an art. It takes time. when you massage therapists in the field,
what you're observing with them is they have learned through failure and success, no different than myself, what specific words mean, or if people are hesitant or confused, what direction you need to take the questions in. It takes time to understand that, but I'm here to tell you there's only so many answers. so getting a framework to build around how to ask the questions is actually the best thing that you can do to start to have more success at the massage table.
I've been around in this field for, three decades or so, and I have gone to a grundle of massage trainings. And if you don't know what grundle means, it means a lot. And there are so many different techniques to choose from in our industry. There's different styles and applications and thought processes and belief structures. There's tools and trade secrets. And You know what I've learned after all these years? It matters to us as massage therapists, what the names of those things are.
Whose technique we're training amount of money we've put into getting a certification under so-and-so But your client they don't really care I mean they might they might because one therapist use this technique on them like myofascial and so they're looking for another myofascial therapist but Kind of as a whole they don't care. They don't they don't care what they're called They don't care who you're trained with and they don't even care how much money you spend on your training
All they want to know is can you use this heaping toolbox of massage tools, and I mean your skills, all the skills that are inside your hands, to meet three very specific needs. these needs are what I call the motivators. they are the reason why someone books an appointment with you in the first place. Those three motivators are relaxation,
stress reduction and pain management. And these motivators can change from appointment to appointment with the exact same person, but they are what motivate people to get on our table. So if you assume every client coming to you wants one of those motivators and that's how you build your skills, but they're actually coming in for a different motivator, then as much as you want to, it's a mismatch. No matter how skilled you are, no matter what you're going to
going to offer them if what you're doing doesn't match their motivator, they don't come back.
So I want to talk a little bit about these motivators. I think what this does is it just simplifies some things for you so that you know what tools you need to use with this client who asks for this motivator. And you also know how to create the environment, which is a huge part of what we do in order for this motivator and expectation, to be met.
let's talk about relaxation.
This is the easiest one for most of us to be able to do because relaxation is easy on us too. This person just wants to relax. you have to understand the expectation behind it and the reason why this is motivating them. These clients are wanting their nervous system to calm down. They want it to be regulated, but they don't know how to say it in clinical terms. So what they express as relaxation is often a desire for a place that's safe
and quiet and they can disconnect from everything else going on in their life. They're hoping for mental quiet and not necessarily muscle correction. They're hoping for that experience that will give them a chance to check out. the environment and you that needs to go into meeting this expectation is to have nurturing and safe touch, this flow-based rhythmic technique, low to moderate.
pressure, we're not talking about deep pressure, sometimes it will actually feel too invasive because I won't let them check out enough. for you as a therapist, there needs to be very little talking inside this session. And of course you can do the dim light and the soft music and the warm towels or whatever. the last thing I'm going to tell you about relaxation massage is a half an hour is not going to work for this. They need a full body massage. If you even forget,
that one little pinky on their left hand, they're going to know about it, because this is a full body massage experience.
This experience caters to the skin as an organ that accesses the nervous system. It is about pleasure and sensation. And I'm not talking sexual. This is just pleasing to be taken care of completely without expecting anything in return.
The client wants to feel emotionally held and energetically cared for. This is what we do people. This is why we got into massage therapy. These are the clients who might fall asleep or they sigh deeply or say, my gosh, I needed that more than I realized. If a therapist, in a
really great attempt to help their client feels all these knots in their back and all this kind of stuff. And they're like, I know what to do with this. And you push too hard into the tissue or it shifts into a therapeutic quote unquote fixing. These clients may not come back. Even if the work was technically great, their expectation was comfort and not correction.
I want you to think about that a little bit. Think about clients who have asked you for a relaxation massage and have you stayed true to that expectation or have you gone in and out of, different types of treatment or this new technique you learned so you wanted to try it, but it wasn't meeting the client's expectation. The next one we're going to talk about is stress reduction. This is actually one of my favorites because this is one of my favorite massages. This person has the expectation of
I'm just really tense and everything hurts and I just need to have someone kind of dig in and help reset my body. This client wants an energetic and emotional reset. They're not quite in the relaxation category. They want more of what I call tissue input, but they don't want aggressive work either, even though they ask for it a lot.
This client usually presents with this mental narrative of burnout, mental overload, or systemic fatigue. They're just overall tired. They've pushed and pushed and pushed and they just need something. Sometimes they can't even tell you what they need. They just need something, It's between that relaxation motivator and that pain management motivator.
What they really want is a full body balanced session with intentional pacing. They want firm medium to deep pressure, but not painful. I say this is like squishing the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube. You want to squish them, flatten them out, deflate them. You're fighting pressure with pressure. They have this internal pressure going on and you're using this pressure from you to just kind of squish.
them down so that they can exhale the pressure and deflate on the table. You know, I kind of want that massage today.
they can't really tell you where they want you to go. They want more of an intuitive flow. wanna feel like you just know where to go next. They want to be taken care of. They don't want to make one more decision. And there's a lot of emphasis on breathing and grounding and decompression. They want to feel like when they get up, they are restored, but not beat up. That's why it's confusing when these people say, my gosh, I just need some deep tissue because what they're wanting, they're wanting to feel less pressure.
They're not necessarily wanting to be
beat up. So this person feels overstimulated in life. They can't be overstimulated by us, or they're going to leave irritated. They want to feel sorted out. They want to feel less foggy, less tension and pressure, and they want to definitely be more grounded. The session is an attempt to regulate their body and mind at the same time. When I teach this class, I always say it's
just enough pressure to make their mind focus on you so it quits focusing on everything else, but it's not so much pressure that they're in pain. Over focusing on that one pain spot can leave them lopsided or maybe even like portions of them were neglected. And if you don't have enough pressure with these people, they are so aggravated when they leave, they're so frustrated because they don't feel like they got that grounding. They don't feel deflated in a really good way.
They don't feel better. We have to make sure that when they leave, they feel that relief so that they want to reschedule with us.
The last motivator is pain management. The expectation that goes behind pain management is, Hey, can you fix this today or yesterday? I don't, I don't have time to deal with this, I know I've had this for 20 years, but I really want it just gone. So can you fix it today in one session? That's the biggest problem behind pain management. These particular clients are often your referral clients. Someone told them you could help them with XYZ shoulder, neck, hip.
and they're coming in with a functional goal in one or many specific pain patterns and they want you to clinically focus and get a result out of that. These are my favorite clients to work on. I do not like to work on spa clients. They can go find somebody else. That actually kind of goes along with our expectation training of who I will schedule and who I won't schedule.
these are my favorite clients. This is a tasty little treat for my brain. I love to pick apart knots and find solutions. And so this fits me with what I can offer. Some of the expectation ideas behind this are this person's coming in and they want targeted strategic work. Sometimes with a lot of involvement from what they think along with what you think. That
can kind of feel like them telling you what to do, they have a specific need and they understand their body well enough. This is an athlete or this is somebody who's done a lot of different kinds of therapy and they want to have input on how they are taken care of. And sometimes they just want to tell you what to do the whole time. And sometimes you have to in order to gain their trust so that you can do what you want to And you have to prove yourself to them that you can help them.
They require very clear communication. There's a lot of communication through the massage. This is when you were told in school or what I just said about the relaxation massage of you don't talk much. This is the opposite. You talk a lot and it's not about, you know, your life. It's about how is this pressure and how does this feel and what is changing and you're utilizing communication along with the massage to create success. They require very clear communication about what you're doing and why.
These people are also willing to feel a little discomfort if they believe it will help them. And at times if it isn't deep enough and I'm talking controlled pressure, I'm not talking acute inflammatory reactions. If it's not enough pressure, their expectation will not be met as well.
And that takes us back to pressure scales in order to know if we're meeting a client's expectation correctly and understanding what, when they say they need a pressure level of seven or eight, that we're actually hitting that seven or eight and not just what we think it is. So there's that communication that has to occur. And these people are often skeptical or cautious due to past treatment disappointments or
they've been injured so much trying to find relief that they're hesitant as well to truly trust you until you gain their trust. They want to focus on progress from session to session. Their reason for coming back to you is to see relief and to heal. And so they want to see that from session to session. And if that doesn't occur, they're going to get off your table and go look for something else.
They can be very challenging and very rewarding clients can create a very rewarding career for you as well. What they really want is relief and understanding. They want to know why they're hurting. Why is this keep coming back and why can't somebody fix this? And I just want relief. These clients are trying to find someone who takes them seriously, can track their progress and provide this clear plan and solution for them
to travel along in order to find pain relief. If they don't feel progress, like I said, they'll go somewhere else. These clients evaluate massage outcomes, kind of like PT, physical therapy, and they need validation. They've got to see that this is happening. That's also why I talk about using a four point change in pain at each session. Because if they come in at an eight and they leave it a four and the next time at seven and they leave it a three and a six and a two, they're pretty happy people. And so are you because the progress was made.
their expectation is being met.
I think this is where a lot of people get confused as to why they can't find success. So if someone came in for relaxation and you gave them deep tissue or trigger pointing and they now have a headache and don't feel well, they're not going to come back.
Or if someone came in for strategy and pressure and got this massage flow and they feel disappointed and irritated, they're not going to come back. Or if someone needed to be grounded and they had this combination of too light of pressure, too fast of pressure, too heavy, and it was kind of all over the place in the same session and they have ADHD and they just felt like they got an ADHD massage, they're going to leave so anxious and restless that they're never going to come back.
It takes skill to understand what the client is telling you and what they need and how to glean that information and then take your skills and say it back to them so it meets their expectation. That is what expectations in massage is all about.
I think that's why there's therapists out there that have been giving their all to their career. And they're so confused as to why they can't find the success that they hope for.
So let's make this a little more applicable to you. Let's say you're a great relaxation and stress reduction therapist. And for whatever reason, the majority of your clients coming to you are wanting pain management. You know, I see this in rural communities. You have all these hardworking people, these ranching, farming, hardworking people wanting help for pain. And you are the only therapist in 50 miles and you don't do
pain management is not what you want to do, but that's where the clientele are putting money out there. And that's a whole other level of frustration. But after you've had 20 or 30 people not come back to you, you don't question the motivator, you question yourself. And you are likely amazing. It's a wrong pairing of client expectation with your preferred skill. In order to be successful in this situation, you may
advance your skills and willingness to venture into the pain management category or advertise correctly to keep the right clients and not just taking anyone who schedules, which is hard if you're building your business, but maybe you need to interview more on the phone or interview more so that you know that the client coming in and the work you do are a good match, which will then set you up for success. Another scenario I saw with all of this being a teacher in school,
I saw some students who came to massage school and we were doing a class in a deeper modality and this person, had this life altering experience. Like they were finally out of pain.
or they finally felt better or they were amazed at the results that this modality gave them. And so now this therapist believes in their heart that every person that comes across their table needs that deeper work because they know what's going to help them.
And it's true when it's what that client expects as well. And it's not true when the client expects something else, but our mind is not open enough to listen and then apply what the is expecting from us. And then on the flip side of that, I saw this one a lot. There were
students who got injured in class. Well, you know, we're learning massage. So of course we're going to get a little injured, but sometimes it was a pretty heavy injury, a lot of acute inflammation to recover from as we were practicing and learning our skills. So you had these people that got injured. So now they want to make sure as a massage therapist, they don't hurt somebody else. When they have clients come in who really want that deeper work, that controlled pressure, they hold back
from what their clients are asking for because they are afraid that they're going to hurt them. that fear keeps them from meeting their expectation. In fact, it gets very frustrating for that person on the table because you're almost there. You hold back just a little bit, but you're almost there and you just don't quite get it. And so you're not meeting the expectation enough and they don't come back.
It's interesting to me that your experiences and your expectations can clash or mesh with a client's expectations your experience with touch and your client's experience with touch and how you create a neutral ground in order to design the massage that your skills will match their expectations with. So
ask yourself what space you're operating out of and be open to listening more to what your clients are saying without your experiences being the filter that you hear what they're asking for through.
Let's talk about tools to listen proactively. And really it's just about asking questions. It's about asking the right questions It's being able to hear something and going, well, I'm confused as a therapist, so I'm going to ask more questions so I get a clear idea of what this is really asking me for. How do you listen differently? You ask the expectation questions. Here are some of my favorites.
What would make this massage feel like a success when you walk out of here today? How many of you really ask that? We usually say, well, what are you looking for today? But we don't ever say, what are you wanting to feel when you walk out of here today? What's the feeling you need created? It immediately gives this person a chance to give you their truth. Not to just say what they think you want to hear, which they tell us a lot, but it gets them to tell you what the end goal has to be.
That's the feeling, that's the picture that's inside their mind. Another good one is to actually cue them into some words such as, are you looking for a more calming and comforting session today? Or do you want work on a specific area of tension or do you want both? And you can use those words that I just taught you, the motivators, relaxation, stress reduction or pain management, because each one of those
words cues different feelings inside their mind. And when the client spits back out to you, stress reduction and pain management, you already know I got to squish them and, be very specific with some things. If a client says they want relaxation, stress reduction and pain management, and they want all three, that means one of two things. They either need a two hour massage where they want everything, or they have no idea what they want. And that's a good time to ask
some questions about, why did you want a What is it you were hoping that you would get from this and how can I help you the
These questions shift the energy of the experience so much. And you know, the best is you do it before the massage starts. Because remember I told you in the beginning that 15 minutes into this massage, a client already knows if they're going to come back. So if you've had this great conversation and you've really outlined some of the goals or expectations that they're looking for, once you start giving the massage, the client,
actually starts to trust you faster and they start to relax more for you and then the session flows. Then they already know in their mind they're going to come back to you. You're no longer a service provider, my friends. You are a translator for expectations in a touch experience format language. There you go. That is what we are doing.
Here's the ultimate truth. Your client isn't assessing your technique the way you were graded in school.
They are assessing the alignment between what they hoped for and what they experienced.
And that's it. All they had was a image. They had a hoped for feeling. And even though they may not have said it, they brought it with them and placed it on your table like a little secret. And you didn't know how to open that secret, not because you failed, but because you didn't know you were supposed to ask. When you miss the expectation, the client might feel overworked or underwhelmed. They might feel emotionally unseen and they might walk away feeling nothing at all. And that's the most dangerous of all.
because the massage world doesn't struggle with bad therapists. It struggles with misaligned experiences. So here's your challenge this week and it's simple, but it is powerful. Before each of your next five clients get on the table, I want you to ask them, when this session is over, how do you want to feel? Then pause and really listen. And if they give you a vague answer like better or less stressed, you need to follow it up with
Would you say you're needing more relaxation, stress reduction or pain relief today? if you need to have a visual aid, use a diagram or chart, let them circle or point or talk it out or whatever it takes until you are clear about what it is that they need. And you need to plan time to talk it out. Don't rush this part. You need a good five, 10, sometimes 15 minutes to really gather this information.
so that you know how to this massage. reorganize your time in your schedule today if you need to create more time to talk to your clients. And remember, people are not practiced at asking what they need for themselves. They are not People are really good at deflecting away from that. they need you to help them articulate what they want.
in order for you to get what you need so they can get what they want. The next key part: You have got to write it all down. You've got to write down this massage flow. even so much as, should we start on your neck and spend, you know, so much time in this area and this pressure level and let them design their massage flow and then repeat it back to them.
and ask them if that is what they wanted. And if not, you keep refining it until it is what they want, and then you use it to guide your intention. And let that answer shape the tone, the pressure, the pace, and even the music if it matters. Here's what I want you to do after the session. I want you to write down how the session went. And I want you to write out how you sequenced that massage, because if they're coming back for a repeat experience,
or should I say performance, you've got to remember what it was you did. Because when they come back and say, my gosh, give me the same massage you gave me last time and you don't remember because it was 40 sessions ago, you're kind of a little bit screwed. So make sure you write it down so that you remember what you did. And then be prepared to build off of that experience for their next appointment. And also don't expect them to be the exact same person when they come in the next time.
they may have had a really stressful week and they just want to check out. And their last appointment was, you know, focused work on their low back. So make sure that every time they come in, that their expectation hasn't changed and you're just giving them the same flow that you think they want. And you're giving them the opportunity to make sure that those, small changes to their expectations from appointment to appointment are met as well. the last thing I want you to notice is
Do you feel more connected and confident during that session? These are those sessions that we walk out of and go, man, that was amazing. I love my job is when we feel confident about what we offered. So listening isn't just a tool for client retention. It's a tool for a therapist, peace of mind for your work and how it is accepted. Cause that's very important to us to continue to drive your passion for massage and also to create a successful business.
Let's bring all of this down to what I started with. You don't need to reinvent your hands. You just need to sharpen your ears. client loyalty isn't built through offering the longest menu of options available. It's built through making sure that a client feels heard, respected, understood, and supported. And all of that has to conveyed back to them in a form of touch. that's the massage you offered.
That way they walk away thinking, that was exactly what I wanted and I want to go back for more. that's when someone becomes your repeat client.
So if you want to go deeper into expectation-based massage design, it's all part of that course I talked about, Massage Your Market. This course for massage therapists is unique in that it was kind of what I felt about expectations in my hands and how it created business, and it was all poured into one manual. So it's a massage expectation business manual. And it has so many parts, and it's like all these
folks in this wheel that make up what we call a successful massage business. This training is part intuition, business advice, practice, experience, what creates success, what failure looks like. It's all the things that go into how to create and maintain a repeat client. And it is included in the launch program, which walks you from referrals to revenue and everything in between such as repeat clients. the link to launch is included in the podcast.
description. I want to thank you all for listening today, my friends, I look forward to our next podcast and we will talk soon.
