I recently had a good friend of mine go through a lot. She moved offices, moved houses, and a slew of other misfortunate events. In that time, many of her “regular” clients moved to different states or simply had life changes. She was sharing with me her plan and her fears about her money situation. Firstly, this is something all massage therapists deal with. The feast or famine is real. It’s important to keep in mind, it’s not just massage therapy that has such a fluctuation in the flow of clients. Various industries experiences this.
She mentioned she was going to do a serious slash of prices for the month of December to bolster her bank account since she had such a transition over the last year. I asked her if I could give a suggestion. This is what I said:
“Instead of slashing your prices…spend a bit of time considering who you’re target client is? If it’s the person who doesn’t have the funds to pay full price…(I say that because I worked on performers/artists for years who are broke…) it’s time to start diversifying your client base. It’s definitely a noble cause to work w people who can’t afford you, I still do! But you have to then bolster the rest of your practice w people who CAN afford it. That’s how it works. It’s not an in/out business as everyone thinks. It’s more of a big pot and you put money in it and then take out as you need. Does that make sense? If you’re feeling stifled by your current pool of people, it’s time to start creating a new pool. You’re very good at what you do. Your work speaks for itself. But if you’re not getting the right people on your table, you’re going to be working twice as hard for way less (aka time. And time is money baby). Your energy is valuable. Remember that.”
In many ways, yes.. Money in = money out. But at some point, we have to start changing our view and see the money IN going into a big pool and that the money OUT should not equal the same amount as the money IN.
The other thing I mentioned was about “regulars.” We love regulars. It’s something we can count on. But don’t get too comfortable because you really can’t count on anything. Sorry to burst your bubble. It’s a game of spinning plates. You must keep your regulars happy so they continue but it’s inevitable, life changes, people move or get married or loose jobs. You must also be concentrated on building your continued flow of people. Regulars or not. It’s always about multiple streams of income (future blog post) & networks.
” Just remember. The number of “regulars” need to continue to grow. You can’t ever rely on that pool of people because of precisely what you experienced…people moving/changing/etc.”
It’s true that your business will change and grow and flourish as time goes on. Have you developed your mindset around your business to match your current business trends? I’m happy to help you with that. If you’re interested in learning more, contact me for my time.
