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This is the third of a series of short articles on the law of attraction, and how you can apply it to your massage business marketing and your life. In the past two issues I mentioned the principle of "what you focus on is what you get". And I also mentioned that that is all well and good, if you can really allow what you want into your life. Part of learning to create the life you want is to train yourself to ignore the things that are currently present in your life that you don't like, and to instead put your focus on what you do want. Because if you focus on how few clients you have, or how little money you have, you get more of that. But if you focus your mind on how many clients would really make you happy, basically pretending that you do have that many clients now, then you get more of that. The universe of energy that creates everything for you does not know the difference between something you are imagining to be true, and something that is currently true. So you have to learn how to pretend your way into a better life. But you are not really pretending. In this process you are changing your personal vibration to match what you want, by imagining it, thinking about it, and allowing it. And this takes a little bit of experience. And the art of allowing is very important. For example, I mentioned in the last newsletter that my wife and I were very focused on having more wealth in your lives, but despite our focus, we were not seeing it. Yes, we were imagining ourselves as wealthy, but we realized something amazing. When we went out into the world to buy things, or thought about things we wanted, do you know what we actually thought? I can't afford that. I don't have the money for that. And it did not feel good, those thoughts. And do you know why? Because those thoughts were not vibrationally aligned with the wealth that our source had sitting there waiting for us. We realized this by playing a game that helped us get more aligned with wealth. We got out a blank check ledger. And every day we made a deposit, a $1000 on day one, $2000 day two, and a thousand more each day. And every day we had to figure out what we wanted to spend that money on and write it down so that we had a zero balance. Yes, it was imaginary money, but we still discovered we had difficulty spending it freely. We discovered that to really be aligned with wealth, before it can come, we had to allow ourselves everything we wanted, in our minds. Learning that, we changed things. When we went into a store, and saw something we wanted, we allowed it. We just said to ourselves, I am buying that, and it feels great. I am very wealthy. And even though we may not buy it, we never let ourselves feel in a place of lack concerning money. And that made all the difference. Once we discovered that about ourselves, then our actual money situation made a big change for the better. More importantly, we learned a big lesson about how to allow other things into our lives that we want. So give it a go. Always allow in your mind everything you want. Don't ever say no to yourself. That does not mean you spend yourself into the poor house. Just pretend like you bought it if you know that you don't currently have the funds for it. Pretend you have a big bank account. Pretend you have the practice you really want. Feel it. When you are aligned with it, and are allowing it, it has to come true. In the next newsletter I will tell you about the next most astonishing thing about the law of attraction. Your feelings are not random. They are a indicators that show you how aligned you are with what you want. Figure this out, and there is no guess work about what path to take. Now, please enjoy this next article by guest author Colleen Holloway who is a massage marketing expert. Increase Appointments via the Telephone
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One option would be to hire someone to answer your telephone. However, this option can be expensive for the self-employed therapist, and often not financially possible. Hiring an employee involves interviewing, training, payroll, taxes, and more headaches. In addition, you will need to find someone with a pleasant, helpful voice, who is dependable and can schedule appointments efficiently.
If you are considering this option, I would recommend hiring the employee part time to start, during peak telephone times only, and then record how many calls were received during the time the phone was answered, and how many appointments resulted from those calls. This will give you a good idea as to whether or not having an employee answer your telephone will increase your business. If, for example, you hire an employee to work 10 hours per week, for $10 per hour, costing you $100 (plus taxes), and the employee schedules eight new clients per week at $55 each appointment ($440 revenue), then it is worth paying the employee to answer your telephone.
If you don't want to bother with hiring an employee for your business, a second option would be to utilize a telephone answering service. This, too, can be expensive for the self-employed therapist, but is certainly worth investigating. Although you can find one in your local telephone directory, I recommend looking for a telephone answering service that caters to the massage field. One company, called My Receptionist, offers this service. The costs entails a $30 monthly basic service charge, plus between .40-.70 cents for each incoming and outgoing call, fax or email. The highlights of this service are that your telephone is answered, using your business name, whenever you want it to be, appointments are scheduled for you, questions about your business are answered (such as your hours, location, and fees), and you can even have the service sell your gift certificates for an additional fee. My Receptionist offers a free trial period, if you want to explore this option.
A third option for gaining more appointments via your telephone, is an option that doesn't cost you anything other than a few minutes of your time, a pleasant voice, and an answering machine with mailbox options, or a voicemail system. An answering machine with mailboxes, or a voicemail system, allows you to give the caller various amounts of information that they may be calling for in the first place. A large number of callers want to know basic information, such as if you are open, if you have appointments available for that day, what your hours are, where you are located, and what your fees are. By using mailboxes, you can direct the caller to a specific mailbox where they can obtain the information they need and then leave you a message.
Here's an example of an answering machine, or voicemail message: "Thank you for calling Professional Massage Associates. Today is Monday, November 5th. We are open and we do have appointments available for today, however we are currently assisting clients at this time. If you would like information regarding office hours and directions, press 1; for information regarding our services and rates, press 2; or you may leave a message after the tone and we will call you back shortly. Thank you. "
After pressing 1, the message is: "We are conveniently located at 7 Wells Street in Saratoga Springs. From the north end of Broadway at the Sheraton Hotel, turn left onto Van Dam Street, go six blocks and turn right onto Wells Street. We are the third building on the left. Our office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 am to 7 pm, and Saturdays 9 am to 2 pm. If you would like to leave a message now, we will call you back shortly. Thank you". (It is important that you create simple directions). After pressing 2, the message is: "Our services include Professional Massages at $35 per half hour and $55 per hour; Foot Reflexology Treatments at $55 per one hour; Cranio-Sacral Therapy at $ 65 for 75 minutes; Hot Stone Massage at $75 for one hour and $100 for 90 minutes; European Facials at $55; Chinese Herbal Consultations at $50, and Acupuncture Treatments at $60 each. We offer gift certificates and accept mastercard and visa. If you would like to leave a message now, we will call you back shortly. Thank you". Note that I stated the current date at the beginning of the message, (which you will naturally change every day) because it immediately told the caller that we were open, checking messages, and had appointments available that day.
By adding this information to your answering machine or voicemail system (I use Verizon), you should see an immediate increase in the number of messages left on your machine.
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Colleen Holloway is best known for her Success Beyond Work book. Learn more of her marketing tips here:
