“Feeling Like a Million Bucks for Just 70”
By Coach Cary Bayer
Cary Bayer was keynote speaker at the AMTA national convention. Widely known as The Business Coach for Massage Therapists, for having privately coached more than 300 MTs, Cary is also a CE provider licensed by NCBTMB and Florida Dept. of Health’s Board of Massage Therapy, and a faculty member of Massage Business University. He also writes for Massage Today, and AMTA publications in 15 states. For MTs, he’s authored the Grow a Rich Massage Business trilogy of books, 9 ebooks, and 2 DVDs, one of which has been translated into Japanese. His CE seminar, “Build a $100,000 a Year Massage Business” is very popular among therapists.
Yesterday, in a coaching session with a massage therapist from Texas, I asked her what clients typically say when, emerging from the treatment room, they’re asked how they feel. “Great,” “terrific,” “like a million bucks,” she said. A light bulb went on in my mind because, just the week before, a New York MT whom I coach, responded by saying, “Really relaxed,” “Peaceful,” “like a million bucks.”
Last night, I had a very nice dinner that cost me $70 but I never, for a moment, felt like a million bucks. I bought a great shirt the other day for $70 but it didn’t make me feel like a million bucks, either. I bought a great bottle of red wine from France for $70, and, while it went down smoothly and went to my head quickly, it never made me feel like a million bucks, either. I scratch my head trying to find out where else can you spend seventy bucks and feel like a million? Nothing comes to mind. Nothing, except, for massage therapy.
If you doubt this, take a poll among your clients for a month. Ask them to rank the things that they did the previous month from one to 10 that made them feel the best. The answers you’ll typically find are activities like the following, which I discovered when polling many people whom I know. They’re listed in no particular order:
Playing with their grandchildren
Making love to their mate
Walking on the beach (I live by the ocean in south Florida.)
A family outing.
Having a great dinner at a really good restaurant.
Going to a really good concert.
Playing with their dog or cat.
Playing with a baby.
Being on vacation.
Getting a massage.
Do you realize that, for the price of dinner for two, you’re giving people an experience that they just can’t find anywhere else? Not only are you giving clients the subjective experience that they can’t find anywhere else for just $70, but you’re also providing great objective benefits to their entire nervous system, and the healing effects that accrue from that. When you come to look at the work you do as a massage therapist in this light, you begin to realize the most important secret that so few MTs ever really grasp: namely that, virtually every adult whom you see every day, deeply wants what you offer. I say adult, because kids and teenagers are so busy playing that they usually haven’t amassed the disposable income that working adults typically have. Therapists who haven’t understood the desire for their work often feel frustrated, trying to figure out how and where they can get their next client. Therapists who have understood that virtually every adult whom they see deeply wants what they offer feel relaxed because they know that they can find a new client that week, that day, maybe even that hour.
So, I ask you a simple question, What would you do differently if you realized that you have the ability to give virtually anyone the pleasure of feeling like a million bucks for just seventy bucks? Would you think differently about what you do? Here’s a powerful massage marketing idea: I bet you’d speak differently about what you do. I bet you’d market and advertise differently than you do. And you’d realize that a business card-size ad that lists your name, the modalities that you practice, and how to get into contact with you is usually a waste of money, and that, with regard to advertising, size does matter. So does the message that you communicate. And you’d realize that, on the whole, the average person suffering with tennis elbow, backaches, and a pain in his neck doesn’t care a whit about modalities, that he just wants relief from these maladies. Here’s another big massage marketing idea:you’d also network more among health care professionals like medical doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists. Most importantly, you’d stop worrying about where you’re going to find your next client so that you could relax into seeing just who among all the people you’ll see in the next hour is going to be the next lucky person to feel like a million bucks.