Amy Bradley Radford (00:02.616)
Welcome to Massage Business Success. I'm Amy Bradley Radford, and this is the podcast for massage therapists who want to grow their business, strengthen their skills, and create a career they love. Let's get started.
Well hi there and welcome back to the podcast. So today I want to start out by asking you a question. That question is what kind of a massage therapist do you want to become? And when I ask you that question, I'm not asking what kind of massage you want to do. I'm not asking whether you want to learn cranial sacral work or lymphatic drainage or become really good at deep tissue. I'm asking you to think a little bit bigger than that. What kind of therapist do you want to become over the course of your career?
What do you want to be known for? What do you want your business to look like? What kind of income do you want it to provide for you? How many hours do you want to spend at the table? What kind of experience do you want your clients to have when they come through your door? And maybe even more importantly, what do you want this career to make possible for you for the rest of your life? Because I think sometimes we forget that we're allowed to ask those questions, or sometimes we just don't take the time to.
Massage therapy doesn't really come with a career ladder. In a lot of professions, there's this obvious step if you want the next step. You can start here, you can gain some experience, you move into this position. Eventually you might manage people or become an executive, whatever that ladder looks like in that particular profession. There are recognizable places to go. And as you move through them, your responsibilities change, your skills change, and usually your income changes with them. And massage therapy isn't really like that.
But maybe massage therapy isn't really supposed to look like a ladder. Because when we think about professional growth, we almost always think of moving up. What's the next certification? What's the next class? What's the next level of income? What's the next price increase? What's the next thing I can add to my resume? And all of those things can absolutely be part of growing in this profession. But I think there's another direction we don't talk about nearly enough.
Amy Bradley Radford (02:11.202)
What if instead of always asking how much higher you can go, you started asking how much deeper you can go? And I don't mean in a massage sense. I mean how much depth can you pull out of yourself as a professional and a massage therapist? How much more attention and presence can you bring to the person on your table? How much more can you notice? How much more intentional can you become about the way you touch somebody or the way you communicate and talk with them?
Or the way you run your room or the environment that they're experiencing, or the way you present yourself, the way you create the entire experience of being your client. Because there's a depth to becoming a professional that doesn't necessarily show up as another certificate hanging on the wall. You can take 10 more classes and still show up exactly the same way you did before you took them. You can add five more techniques to your toolbox.
and never really change the experience you're giving the person on your table. You can raise your prices without raising the level of service you're offering. And those things might move you somewhere on paper, but I'm not sure they necessarily give you more depth as a professional. Maybe the next level of your career is becoming more of the therapist you already have the capacity to be someone who is more thoughtful, skilled, and observant.
More professional and intentional, more invested in the experience you're creating for each individual person, more willing to look at yourself and your business and say, where have I gotten too comfortable? How often am I just going through the motions? Where could I improve my interactions with my clients and be better? That's the depth I'm talking about. And the interesting thing is that when you begin going deeper into who you are as a professional, some of those things we normally
associate with moving up begin to just follow naturally. Your skills become more valuable. Your clients experience something very different from you. Maybe something that's just more. You become more confident in what you offer. You may become more specialized and you may be able to raise your prices and your income can increase. But those things become the result of growth rather than the definition of it. And I think that is important to understand the difference because you can have a full schedule
Amy Bradley Radford (04:31.69)
And still have an enormous amount of room to grow. A typical path for many of us is you go to massage school, you learn how to become a massage therapist, you graduate, you get licensed if that's what your state requires, and you start working and you start getting clients and you get better at massage, and hopefully your schedule starts filling up. And then one day, if everything goes according to plan, you have a full schedule. And then what? What do you do now?
I think that's where a lot of massage therapists get stuck because nobody really tells us what comes after that. We've been taught that getting a full schedule is the goal. So when we finally get there, it can almost feel like we have arrived. I'm busy, I have clients, people rebook with me, I'm making money, I am a successful massage therapist, and you are. But that doesn't necessarily mean you're finished growing. I've coached many therapists that once they achieved what they wanted, to be fully booked.
They feel lost about what's next. A full schedule can actually be the beginning of an entirely different stage of your career because once you don't have to spend all of your energy wondering where the next client is going to come from, you have the opportunity to start asking yourself different questions. Things like: Do I like the work I'm doing? Do I want to become more specialized? Do I want to be known for something? Do I want to make more money? Or do I want to work fewer hours?
Do I want to change the kind of clients I work with? Do I want to improve the experience I'm giving the clients I already have? Or even do I want to teach someday or own something or create something or mentor somebody or develop another part of myself that I haven't even explored yet? And none of those things have to be your answer. I don't think every massage therapist needs to own a big business or hire employees or teach or create classes or any of the things like I've done throughout my career.
Maybe your perfect career is you. One beautiful massage room, a clientele you absolutely love, and three or four really good working days a week. That's a wonderful career if that's the career you choose and it supports the life you want. The point isn't that you have to become something bigger. The point is that I don't want you to assume that where you are right now is as far as you can go.
Amy Bradley Radford (06:49.474)
You know, I started massage in 1993, and I couldn't have told you then where this profession was going to take me. I couldn't have looked ahead and seen all the different versions of myself that would come out of this career. I became an instructor. I became involved in owning and running massage schools. I became a business coach. I started developing pain patterns and solutions because I had clinical questions I couldn't find answers to. And I started teaching those ideas. I created classes. I created this little podcast. And even now I'm still asking myself.
What I want the next version of my career to look like? Where are you and I going? Those things didn't all happen because I had some master plan in 1993. Believe me, I was a 19-year-old kid. I had no idea. They happened because I just simply allowed myself to grow. And sometimes that growth took me somewhere new, but sometimes it took me deeper into something I was already doing. I became more curious. I asked better questions. I expected more of myself. A lot more.
I saw something I hadn't seen before and wanted to understand it. And one change would eventually lead me toward another one and then another one. And through it all, I found simple joy being a massage therapist. And it grew me into who I am today. And I think that's what I want you to consider today as we have this conversation. There isn't some predetermined place in this profession where somebody is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, okay, you've reached the next level. Here's what you get to do now.
you have to decide what that next level or maybe the next depth is for you. So when I ask you what kind of therapist do you want to become, maybe I don't want you looking up that ladder quite yet. I want you looking deeper. Because once you start thinking about what you're actually capable of becoming, you also have to start looking at what may need to change in order to become that person. And that's what I would like to talk to you about today. I think one of the hardest times to make changes in your massage business
Is actually when nothing is really wrong and everything is fine. And I think fine is one of those words we use to describe something that is okay, but maybe not as good as it can be. It's like when you ask your client how the pressure is and they say fine, because believe me, it's not fine. It's okay. It's time to find out what they really want and meet that expectation and make fine amazing and wonderful. So if your schedule is empty and you can't pay your bills, you know something has to change.
Amy Bradley Radford (09:16.8)
If clients aren't coming back, you have a problem you have to solve. And if your body is completely falling apart from the number of massages you're doing, well, eventually you're probably going to be forced to make some different decisions. But what happens when you're doing okay, when you're fine? Your schedule's fairly full, your clients like you, most of them are coming back. You're making enough money to keep doing what you're doing. Maybe you've been practicing this way for five years or 10 years or 20 years and you know how to make that work.
There's a certain amount of safety in all of that. And I think that's where this little internal war can start inside of us because maybe there are things you would like to change. You'd like to raise your prices. You'd like to stop working evenings. You'd like to take Fridays off. You'd like to specialize. You'd like to see fewer clients or make more money. You'd like to change the kind of work you're doing or the kind of clients you're attracting. But every one of those changes comes with a question. It's what if?
What if I raise my prices and people leave? What if I stop working evenings and my clients can't come anymore? What if I specialize and suddenly I've made my potential clientele too small? What if I change my schedule and I can't fill the new one? What if I stop offering something people have always expected from me? What if I change what is currently working and then it doesn't work anymore? And I think that fear can be really powerful because the status quo has evidence behind it. You know this works.
You know these clients, you know this schedule, you know that if you do approximately this many massages at this price, you can make this much money. The thing you're thinking about changing to doesn't have any evidence yet. You haven't lived in that structure. You're not there. So even when you know you want something different, there's this part of you that's saying, don't rock the boat. Everything is fine. And maybe everything is fine.
But I think there's a difference between asking, is my business working? And asking, is my business still working for me? And those are not the same question. You can have a successful business that you've personally outgrown. These are the people that reach out to me for coaching. They don't want to leave what they're doing, but they want something more. You can have a full schedule that you no longer want to work.
Amy Bradley Radford (11:32.672)
You can have all these loyal clients and still realize that the way you're serving them is costing you too much physically. You can make enough money to survive, but gosh, you really need this profession to provide more for you financially. And you can be very good at what you do and still know there's another level of skill, professionalism, or specialization that you want to reach for.
And I don't think acknowledging any of that means you aren't grateful for what you've built. It doesn't mean you're abandoning your clients. It doesn't mean you're becoming greedy because you want to make more money. It doesn't mean that what you've done for the last 10 years was wrong. It may simply mean you've grown enough that you're ready to ask something different from your career. You want more. But what is more? And here's where I think we sometimes underestimate ourselves as massage therapists.
We imagine change as this enormous thing. We picture upsetting all of our clients and rebuilding our entire business and losing half our schedule and changing everything all at one time. And because that feels pretty dangerous, we decide it would be safer not to touch anything. But professional growth doesn't have to look like blowing up your business. Sometimes it looks like a $5 price increase or deciding you're no longer going to take that seven o'clock appointment.
Or simply changing the way you schedule so you actually get a lunch hour or a lunch half hour. It's taking one area of massage that really, really fascinates you and deciding you're going to become really good at that piece. And sometimes it's realizing you've been doing so many massages that you're just trying to survive your schedule and you need to figure out how to make the hours you're already working worth more instead of adding another appointment. And then sometimes the next change is even smaller than that.
Maybe it's looking around your treatment room with some fresh eyes. Maybe it's evaluating how you greet people. Maybe it's asking yourself whether the experience you're giving your clients today represents the professional you want to become. Those changes may seem small, but for a solopreneur massage therapist, I think that's how we grow ourselves in our careers. You begin expecting a little more from yourself and a little more from the business you've built.
Amy Bradley Radford (13:46.752)
And yes, there's always some risk in changing something, anything. You may raise your prices and lose one client. You may stop working evenings and then somebody can't move to another time and you may lose a client. You may change something you thought would work and realize that you need to adjust it again because that didn't work. And there's also a risk in never changing. Because staying exactly where you are doesn't actually guarantee that everything will stay fine. Your expenses
Are going to change and your body will absolutely change. Your clients will change. Some will move on. Where you are at in your life will change. And I can tell you from experience, my own, and those I've coached, that what you want from this career will change. And if your answer to all of those changes is simply to keep doing more of what you've always done, eventually the business that once fit you probably will not fit you anymore.
So I don't think the question is whether you should constantly be changing your business for the sake of growth. I think the question is whether fear has quietly become the thing making your business decisions for you. Because if it has, you may be protecting what you already have so carefully that you're never giving yourself the opportunity to discover what else you could build. And that brings us to another question. If you did give yourself permission to grow, what could that growth actually look like?
I think when we start talking about growth, it's really easy to immediately translate that into something bigger, a bigger business, a bigger office, more clients, maybe employees, more money, more things to manage. And maybe that's what you want, but it doesn't have to be. Because I think one of the things we don't talk enough about in massage therapy is just how many different directions this career can actually go once you stop thinking that the only progression is getting better at massage and filling more appointments.
Maybe your next level is actually going deeper into the work you're already doing. Maybe you've noticed that you've become really good at working with people with chronic headaches and migraines or athletes, or maybe people recovering from surgical procedures. Maybe you love prenatal massage or oncology massage or lymphatic work or relaxation work or pain management and scar tissue or working with a particular population. There's something that makes you curious enough that you find yourself wanting to know more.
Amy Bradley Radford (16:09.208)
What would happen if you followed that? Not because every massage therapist needs a niche. I don't necessarily believe that. There are wonderful massage therapists who provide amazing experiences at just relaxation. But specialization can change a business because you're no longer simply saying I'm a massage therapist. You're developing a depth of knowledge and experience in something. You're seeing more of it, you're recognizing more, you're getting better at communicating about it.
People begin to understand why they might specifically come to you. Other professionals may begin to understand why they would refer someone to you. And over time, that depth can change the value of what you offer. That's one direction. That's the direction most of us pick. Maybe your next level isn't specialization at all. Maybe it's becoming exceptionally good at the kind of massage you're already doing. Maybe you love providing a really beautiful relaxation massage. Then how good?
Could you become at that? And I mean really good. What does the room feel like? What does your massage flow feel like? How seamless are your transitions? How well do you listen to what the client wants? What happens from the moment they arrive until the moment they leave? Could you become the therapist people think of when they want an exceptional massage experience? Because there's depth there too. Or maybe growth means looking at your income differently.
Maybe you've spent your entire career believing that the only way to make another hundred dollars is to find another place on the schedule to put another massage. You know, and at some point there aren't any more places. Or maybe there are places, but you can't physically do more. And it's important to understand that just because there's an empty space at 6 p.m. doesn't mean you owe your business that hour. Maybe you just want to go home. Maybe your body is telling you that four massages is enough for one day. Or maybe you've spent years getting your schedule full.
And now you're realizing you don't actually want it any fuller. In fact, maybe you want it to go down a little bit. So perhaps your next level is learning how to create more income from the hours you're already decided that you're willing to work. And by the way, if that idea of earning more without simply adding more massages is something you're trying to figure out in your own business, I have a free resource called Earn More Without Working More. And you can download it. It's in the link in the show notes. And it's free. It'll give you a place to start looking at some of this.
Amy Bradley Radford (18:31.072)
in your own business. But maybe it's raising your prices eventually. Maybe it's improving the value of what you offer. Maybe it's changing your service menu or adding something that genuinely benefits your clients and that you truly enjoy doing. Maybe it's getting better at retaining the right clients. So you aren't constantly spending energy replacing people who disappear from your schedule. Or maybe the next version of your career reaches beyond the table. You might discover that you love teaching.
Maybe someday you want to mentor newer therapists, or maybe you want to own a practice with other therapists working alongside you. Or maybe you just want to create something. It's a product, a class, a workshop, another service that makes sense because of the experience that you have accumulated in your career. There are so many directions this can go. And you know, I want to be careful here because I don't want you listening to me list all of these possibilities and then suddenly feeling like you're supposed to be doing all of them. You're not more.
is not automatically better. I don't think owning five treatment rooms makes you more successful than the therapist who works alone in one room. I don't think becoming an educator makes you more successful than someone who wants to spend her entire career at the table. And I don't think having 10 different streams of income automatically means you've built a better business. The question is whether what you're building fits the person you want to become. You know, maybe success for you is working three days a week, seeing 12 people you really enjoy.
making a very good income and having four days left for the rest of your life. That's more, not necessarily bigger, but more aligned with who you are and sustainable and intentional and maybe even a little deeper. I think we need to give ourselves permission to define professional growth that way. Because otherwise massage therapists can reach a full schedule and think, well, I guess this is it. I can take another class, I can charge a little more someday, but basically this is what my career looks like from here.
And I don't believe that. I think there is so much room inside this profession to become more of who you already are. And sometimes it is simply deciding that you're going to raise the standard of what happens inside the room you are already working in. Because before you start adding more things to your business, there may be an opportunity to look at what you're already doing and ask a much simpler question. How good is the experience I'm creating right now? Not just the massage, the whole experience.
Amy Bradley Radford (20:55.01)
Because if we're talking about becoming a deeper professional, I think that's one of the first places we need to look. So when I ask how good the experience you're creating is right now, I don't mean whether you give a good massage. And I think that's a really important distinction for us as massage therapists because we're really good at thinking about our hands. If we want to improve, we take another class, we learn another technique, or study anatomy again, or we become more proficient at something we already know how to do. And obviously all of those things matter. Your skills matter.
The massage matters, but your client isn't only experiencing your hands. They're experiencing you and your business. They're experiencing everything that happens from the time they decide to make an appointment with you until the time they walk back out the door. And there are a hundred little things inside that experience that we can get really comfortable with because we see them every single day and your client doesn't. You walk into your massage room five or six times a day.
You know that little pile of dust has been in the corner for three months. You've just stopped seeing it. You know that one of the blankets is getting a little worn, but it still works. You know the baseboards need to be cleaned. and there's dust on the shelf. The dust. I have walked into some massage rooms over the years that they were just plain dirty. And I don't mean that they weren't fancy. I don't care if you have an expensive massage table or beautiful furniture or
A spa that looks like it came out of a magazine. Professional doesn't mean expensive, but it should be clean. Your linen should be clean. Your room should be clean. Your bathroom should be clean. The things your client sees and touches should be cared for. And sometimes I think we need to walk back into our business and actually look at them again because familiarity makes us stop seeing things. The same things can happen with the way we show up personally. How do you greet your client as they walk through the door? What are you wearing?
Do you look like you're ready to work? Do you look like a professional? Are you running behind and rushing somebody through the beginning of the appointment because the last massage ran 10 minutes over? What does your text reminder look like? Do you have one? Is it clear? Is it professional? Does your client know where to go and what to expect? Is scheduling with you easy? Are you answering messages in a reasonable amount of time? None of those things are massage techniques. They're professionalism. And that's part of going deeper too.
Amy Bradley Radford (23:17.068)
Sometimes becoming a better massage therapist means becoming a better professional around the massage, you're already very good at giving. And I think there's another place we can look that might be a little harder to evaluate because it's something we do over and over and over again. And it's our actual routine, our massage routine. When was the last time you really thought about your massage from beginning to end? Not whether your clients liked it, not whether people rebooked. I mean really evaluate it.
How does your intake feel? How do you transition the client onto the table? How does your massage flow? Are there places where you've gotten a little sloppy because you've done the same movement a thousand times? Are there things you're doing because they're useful? Or are you doing them because that's simply what you've always done next? Do your transitions feel intentional? Is your draping as professional as you want it to be? Are you paying attention to the client in front of you?
Or have you become so comfortable with your routine that your hands can almost perform the massage without you paying attention? What happens at the end of the massage? Do you rush out of the room because you're already thinking about changing the sheets for the next client? What happens when they come back out? How do you close the appointment? How do you rebook? How does that person feel as they're walking out the door? And you know, those are all interesting questions to ask yourself, but sometimes
We're not the best people to answer them because we're too close to what we do. So maybe you bring in someone you trust, a close friend or a family member. Maybe there's a longtime client that you have the right kind of professional relationship with. Someone you know can give you thoughtful feedback without it changing the way they view you as your therapist. And you say, I want you to experience this from beginning to end, and I want you to tell me what you noticed. Not just was the massage part good. That's too easy.
What was it like making the appointment? What did you think when you walked through the door? How did I greet you? How did the room feel? Was there anything you noticed that I probably don't notice anymore? How did the massage flow? Was anything awkward? Did anything feel rushed? How did I end this session? What could I do that would make the whole experience feel just a little bit more professional? And you know what? It takes a lot of courage to have someone give you positive critical feedback because
Amy Bradley Radford (25:40.288)
If you ask somebody what you could improve, they might actually tell you that. And sometimes it's hard to take that. But that's part of becoming the therapist you want to become. I think failure can start when we begin letting things slide just a little bit. Not some huge catastrophic failure where suddenly nobody comes to see us anymore. I'm talking about that slow lowering of our standards where this is just good enough. That linen has another six months in it. I'll clean that later. My clients don't care what I wear.
Everybody knows me, so I don't really need to worry about how I greet them. I've done this massage a thousand times. And little by little you can begin putting less into the experience without ever realizing you're doing it. Now I don't think most massage therapists do that because they don't care. I think they care a lot. They're just tired. If you're doing too many massages, something has to give.
You're trying to preserve enough of yourself to get through the week. So you start conserving energy wherever you can. Maybe you don't spend as much time preparing the room or your intake becomes shorter or there isn't one. Maybe your massage becomes more automatic. Maybe you're not thinking about customer service because you're thinking about the four people who are still coming through your door before you get to go home.
And that's important because when we talk about putting more effort into your business, I am absolutely not telling you that the answer is to exhaust yourself even more. Effort doesn't have to mean doing more. Effort can mean attention. It can just be thoughtfulness or preparation or continuing to notice things around you. It can mean having a standard for yourself and your business and deciding that you're going to just maintain it. And this is where professionalism and income
Begin to connect for me. Because how can you continually ask your clients for more money if you're slowly giving them less? If you want to raise your prices eventually, maybe the first question isn't how much more can I charge? Maybe the first question is what can I improve? Maybe you improve your skills, absolutely. But maybe you raise the level of everything. Not overnight, not by spending thousands of dollars, not by turning your little massage room into a luxury spa. You can do this simply by
Amy Bradley Radford (27:57.166)
Paying attention again and taking pride in what you've built or ownership of the experience you're creating for each client. And you know, then something starts to change. You're not simply asking the client to pay more for the exact same service you've been providing for the last five years. You've grown. Your business has grown and the experience has grown. That means the value has grown. And that's where I think we need to talk about something massage therapists hear all the time, but may not really know how to apply.
That to this profession. What does it actually mean to work smarter instead of harder? We hear work smarter, not harder all the time, but what does that actually mean when the thing you sell is an hour of your physical time? I think sometimes massage therapists here work smarter and assume it means they need to find another income stream or sell products or hire somebody, maybe create a class, figure out how to make money while they're sleeping.
And those things can certainly become part of a larger business, but I think there's a much simpler place to start. You need to make the hours you've already decided to work more valuable. I want to take some time with this because I think there's an important distinction between price and value, and they are not the same thing. For example, let's say I'm charging $80 an hour for a massage. I can decide tomorrow that I'm worth $100 and change the number on my website.
And I've increased the price of that hour by $20. But have I increased the value of the hour? Maybe not. But now imagine instead that I spend the next six months leveling up what happens in that hour and around it. I improve my skills. I evaluate my massage flow. I get better at intake. I become more confident in a particular kind of work. I improve my communication and clean up my room and replace worn-out linens. I dust, I improve my reminders and make scheduling easier. I start running on time.
And I greet people more professionally. You improve the way you rebook and follow up or start paying attention again to all the little places where you've gotten really comfortable. The appointment is still an hour, but it's not the same hour anymore. And that's the piece I really want you to understand. You haven't asked your body for another hour. You haven't squeezed another client into Thursday. You haven't given up Monday morning to fit someone in, and you haven't added another evening of appointments.
Amy Bradley Radford (30:14.688)
You've invested in the value of an hour you were already willing to work. And now when you eventually move that appointment from 80 to 90 or to 100, there is something behind the increase. You're not only asking the client to invest more in you, you've invested more in what you're giving them. And increasing the value of that hour can also protect you as a therapist. Let's say I needed to make another $400 a week and I'm charging $80 a massage. If my
Only strategy for increasing my income is to do more massage. I have to find room for five more appointments. Five more appointments every single week. And it's not really five hours, is it, people? There's getting the room ready, there's intake, checkout, changing the table, laundry, notes, scheduling, maybe a little extra time because somebody arrives early or leaves late. And then there's the part we can't put on a spreadsheet.
The physical energy it takes to perform those five massages and the mental energy it takes to be present for five more people week after week. Now let's look at that same $400 differently. Suppose I'm performing 20 massages a week at $80 an hour, and over time I genuinely increase the value of what I provide enough that my business supports moving that appointment from 80 to 85 to 90 to 95 and to 100. That's the same.
$400. 20 massages multiplied by a $20 increase is $400 more each week. I didn't perform massage number 21 or $22 or $23 or 24 or 25. I worked the same 20 massage hours I had already decided I was willing to give my business. And if I work approximately 48 weeks a year.
That $400 a week becomes $19,200 in additional gross revenue over the course of a year. And people, this is when work smarter, not harder, starts to make sense. Because for a massage therapist, working smarter can literally mean how do I make the hours I'm already willing to give this profession worth more? And worth more has two sides.
Amy Bradley Radford (32:25.24)
That hour becomes worth more to the client because the experience has improved. Maybe your skill has improved. Maybe you've specialized and you're better at understanding what that particular client needs. You communicate better, your customer service is better, the room is better, the flow of the whole appointment is better. The entire experience feels more intentional and professional. But that hour also becomes worth more to you because it produces enough revenue.
That you don't have to continually give your business more and more of your physical capacity just to reach your financial goals. I think that's something we don't talk about nearly enough in massage or in service industries in general. Your body is most definitely part of the economics of your business. Your hands and shoulder and back are, but so is your energy. And your ability to pay attention to the fourth client of the day, the way you paid attention to the first client of the day is also part of that.
And if the only way your business knows how to grow is by asking your body for one more hour and then another and then another, eventually you're gonna pass your ceiling and your body is going to collapse. So when you increase the value of the hours you're already working, you are preserving your hands, your shoulders, your back, and your energy. And you're also preserving that part of you that actually enjoys doing massage. And on the other side of that, you're preserving time with your family.
And what you do outside of the office and how long it takes you to run your business. You're preserving your life outside of massage. I have talked to so many therapists that they just work as much as they can through the week and they take all weekend to recover. That's not a life either. So when you're preserving all of that, potentially you're also preserving the number of years you're able to stay at the table. And so that's a very different way of thinking about making more money. And when I talk about maximizing your massage business.
I'm not talking about extracting every possible dollar from every person who walks through your door. I'm not talking about squeezing another massage into empty space on your schedule. I'm talking about creating enough value inside the hours you choose to work that those hours can adequately support you. And I think that's a much more sustainable definition of maximizing because working smarter does not mean giving less. In some ways it means giving more, but giving more of a different part of yourself.
Amy Bradley Radford (34:50.68)
And that is more thought and attention and professionalism and skill and intention and more care about the experience you're creating. You're investing a different part of yourself into the hour instead of continually asking your body to work another hour. And that's the distinction I really want massage therapists to understand. Growth doesn't always have to mean asking more from your body. Sometimes growth means asking more of yourself professionally.
So that every hour you choose to work becomes more valuable to both you and your client. And once you begin looking at business that way, the question changes. Instead of saying, where can I fit one more massage because I need more money? You can start asking, what can I do with the hours I already have to earn more each hour? So after everything we've talked about today, this is where the question becomes personal to you. What kind of therapist do you want to become?
Because if you really do want something different from your career, at some point something is probably going to have to change. And I know that's uncomfortable. We talked earlier about that feeling of not wanting to rock the boat. Your clients are coming, your schedule is working, you're making money, you know how to do what you're doing, and there is safety in staying right there. But you can't really ask yourself to grow while also insisting that everything around you has to remain exactly the same. Maybe the change you need to make is your price or your schedule.
Or maybe it's your customer service or your massage routine or deciding to specialize. Maybe it's just taking fewer clients. So you have enough energy to give the clients you do see the level of experience you want to provide. Or maybe it's simply walking into your office tomorrow morning and seeing it. And I mean really seeing it and asking yourself, does this represent the professional I want to be? Because maybe you don't need another five appointments. Maybe you need the 20 appointments you're already doing to support you better more.
And maybe you're listening to all of this and thinking, okay, Amy, I understand what you're saying. I know I want something to change, but I don't really know what I need to do next. And I understand that because I've heard some version of that in coaching over and over and over again. Someone would come to me because they wanted to make more money, or they were doing too many massages, or their schedule just was not working for them anymore. Or maybe they knew they needed to raise their prices but didn't know how to get there, or they just had this feeling that the business needed to be different.
Amy Bradley Radford (37:12.204)
and couldn't quite identify what needed to change. And you know what I began to realize after working through this with people repetitively was that even though everyone's business is different, there were some pretty common places we always needed to look. We needed to know the numbers and what the business actually needed to produce. We needed to look at the schedule and how many massages they were asking their body to perform to produce that income.
We needed to understand what an hour of their time was actually worth, whether the schedule they wanted to work was full, and if it wasn't, why it wasn't. And then we could start looking at the value of what they were offering and where there might be room to increase their income without automatically putting another person on the table. And you know what? Eventually I realized that I didn't necessarily need to be sitting across from someone to walk them through those things. I didn't need to be sitting across from you to help you through those things. There's a pretty common process.
There were questions I was asking again and again for each of my clients, numbers we were figuring out together, and parts of the business we were evaluating every time. And that's really where Maximize Your Massage Business came from. I took what I was doing with people in coaching and I turned it into a structured class. But even more importantly, people, I build a workbook around it so you can actually do the work on your own business while I'm teaching you. You're not just listening to me talk like you're doing here on the podcast.
You're sitting there with your numbers, your schedule, your prices, your income goals, and your business, and you're working through many of the same things I would work through with you if we were sitting together. Because the truth is, you may not need me sitting across from you or being on a Zoom call with you. You may just need to know where to look. And I think that's where a lot of massage therapists are. It's not that you aren't capable of making good business decisions.
Sometimes you've just never been shown which numbers matter or how the different pieces fit together or how to look at what you're already doing and recognize where the opportunity is. And once you see those things, I need something to change can start becoming much more specific to you. Maybe you don't need more clients. Maybe the schedule needs to change. Maybe the value of your hour needs to change. Maybe there's room to improve the experience you're providing before you increase your price.
Amy Bradley Radford (39:26.956)
Maybe you're asking your body to solve a financial problem that actually needs a business solution. And whether or not you ever take maximize your massage business, I think that's what I hope you walk away thinking about today. There may be more room inside the business you already have than you realize. There may be room to become better at what you do or become more professional in how you do it to improve what your clients experience. Or to become more specialized if that's what your interests take you.
And to create more value in the hours you're already willing to work. You don't necessarily have to climb higher to become more successful. Sometimes you simply need to go deeper into what you're already doing and ask more of yourself professionally. Not more hours, not more massage, but more intention about who you are and when you show up to do this work. So maybe that's the question I want to leave with you this week. When you picture the therapist you want to be five years from now.
Don't only think about what she earns or how full her schedule is. Think about who she is when she walks into the business, what it feels like to be her client, how good she has become at what she does, how confidently she runs the business around that work, and whether the career she's built is taking care of her as well as she takes care of everybody who gets on her table. Then look at where you are today and ask yourself what would move you a little closer to her.
Thanks for spending this time with me today on Massage Business Success. I'll see you next Tuesday. Thanks for spending part of your day with me. If today's episode helped you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another massage therapist. To learn more about today's topic, explore continuing education, coaching, and free resources, visit AmyBradleyradford.com. And until next time, keep building the business and the career you love.
