3 Reasons Massage Schools should be inviting Continuing Education Providers into their classrooms. 
Recently, I polled a few Facebook groups to understand where licensed professionals searched for their continuing education and the majority of people said the same things: their massage school and fewer said they would follow their interests.
I can get behind the latter but there’s something you should know about your massage schools. They have a for-profit interest to only host classes that make them money.
Are all schools doing that? No, of course not.
I will continue to believe that the majority of core education schools want to do right by their students by offering and providing bountiful options regarding massage therapy education. The majority of schools owners I know deeply care about the work they are putting out and the success of their students. I also know some school owners are more interested in their ego and guru status but I’ll save that for another posting.
Alternatively, I want you to consider, if you had a course to teach, something like…. Pregnancy massage and you had an on-staff instructor who could teach this, why would you seek out an outside instructor to teach the course? Often our industry takes a territorial position which prevents multiple instructors to come in to teach.
Honestly, if I had a school—which I don’t and really not interested in doing, I would be sure to have those classrooms packed with so many different teachers and theories of massage therapy. (I understand why this doesn’t happen considering logistics and scarcity marketing, but it’s something I would like to see)
3 reasons Massage Schools should be inviting Continuing Education Providers into their Classrooms.
- Varied perspectives. Bringing in more instructors will bring multiple perspectives and options for students to choose from. Students will discover their path and what resonates with them.
- Cross Promotion. It’s usually understood that the CE provider will promote their own classes and thus giving you marketing for your school. Remember, how there is not one place to list classes? That means CE providers have to hustle their own classes and if they are smart, they are seeing this hustle as it’s own entity to market and promote.
- Staying Relevant. Brining in multiple CE providers from many places brings relevancy and current ideas to your school. I’ve seen too many schools go stale because they aren’t staying on top of current massage trends and philosophies. We also travel quite a bit so we’re seeing trends across the country from music styles, decor, and massage approaches.
To massage school owners: Let’s work together. Seek out new and unique CE Providers to use your space. Network and connect with local and national CE providers. It’s a supportive move for your students.
The massage landscape is quickly and vastly changing from year to year. As a CE Provider, I am interested in staying on the edge of what’s going on within our body of professionals. I’m involved with different organizations and governing bodies to know what is needed from my contribution and changing that as the needs of our clients and therapists change.
If you’re not involved, you need to be. For more support, see my current schedule.
