Starting a new massage business without treating it like a business.

Here is the deal. You had to fulfill specific requirements to successfully become a massage therapist. You had to gather the finances for school, massage tables & chairs. You had to devote a considerable amount of time studying and training to gather the necessary massage skills. You also must have some natural ability. To have a successful business you also need finances, lots of time training and planning, natural ability, and many other assets. And these requirements are all different from your massage requirements.

Imagine if you wanted to become a massage therapist and decided you were going to do it without going to school, without reading a book about it, and without ever having put your hands on someone. What would happen? It would be a big struggle for you, to say the least.

And that is exactly what many therapists do when it comes to starting their own new massage business. They want all the money and rewards of a business without achieving the minimum requirements of business.

Here are three major mistakes commonly made:

1. Having little or no business education.

2. Having no business plan.

3. Having no startup capital.

After all, it is an exceptionally well known fact that over 80% off all new businesses fail in the first five years and massage therapists are no exception. You just cannot ignore that critical fact. Massage businesses often don't completely fail, because the operating costs are sometimes not very high. But unfortunately most will not be successful at achieving their desired income, or even make it their full time profession.

I partly find fault with the massage schools for this. They often recruit new massage students with the idea that once you are a massage therapists that is all you need to know to start your own new massage business and get paid $60 an hour. The business training classes are often very unsuited to preparing you for the real world.

Wow! That has got to be the most depressing thing I have written on this site. Yes? But do you know what? If you solve these problems for yourself, you will have developed a unique business advantage. So these problems can actually be assets for your new massage business.

What are the solutions to these problems, how do you turn them into assets?

1. Take time with your business planning. Don't be in a rush. Don't quit your day job. Take the slow and steady approach, but work hard.

2. Study business. Take some college or local library/community center courses. Utilize a local business consultant. Make use of SCORE – www.score.org. Read a new business book every two weeks for a year. Focus on business finances, marketing (my site will get you up to speed on that), customer relationships, management skills, competitive advantage, market analysis, and any other subject that comes up that you have questions about.

3. Create a business plan that works for you. This is so important. You cannot make any business decisions correctly without knowing where you are heading. Study how to do it. If you are not trying to get a loan from a bank, don't bother with the type of business plan they want. Write a business plan that makes sense to you. Make it work for you. In the early stages of writing your business plan it is mostly about discovering your business. Don't set your mind on important business decisions until you allow yourself the freedom of really exploring options. Take a lot of time doing this. Look at your new business from every angle you can. Look for competitive advantage, expenses, location, growth plans, five & ten year goals, personal goals, financial goals. Everything. And after you have done that, make sure you work it over with a small business consultant. They will be able to help you see many problems and opportunities that you lack the real business experience to see. I guarantee after having gone through this process your actual business will look different than you first imagined it, and you will be better positioned to be a success.

4. Get business capital (money). Save it, borrow it, or have a good paying second job. Many therapists think they should have a profitable business right away. But almost every other type of business does not expect to make a profit until after 3-5 years, and will have invested a large amount of money and time to get to that point. Fortunately a massage business can be very low cost to run compared to others. But you still need money to start and grow it, until it is on its own feet. If you don't have this money, you will make short term business decisions that will negatively affect the quality of your service, and will create a lot of stress for you. Save or borrow enough business capital to see you through a full year of losses in your business, at the very minimum (two or three years would be better). Do be very careful about what interest rate you would be paying on a loan. If possible borrow from family before a bank.

If you feel a strong reluctance to do any of these things, and you feel like you don't need them for your new massage business, be careful. It is likely that you just don't want to put in the necessary work. These are fundamental requirements for business that have been proven over and over again. But the stress of making yourself learn these new skills is nothing compared to the stress of a failing business. Have fun expanding your learning horizons.

Now, is it possible to succeed without doing these things for your new massage business? Yes. But if the odds say you will only have a 20% chance of still being in business in 5 years, why not increase your odds? The reason why 80% of businesses fail is in no small way because the owners did not do these things.

And the other good question is how do you define success? Just barely making it? If you start in this way with your new massage business, I guarantee that your success will be greater than without these three business requirements.

OK. Explore the rest of the pages on this site, and particularly the pages about starting your new massage business.

More Massage Marketing Products

Back to the Start Your Business page