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By admin, February 21, 2009 9:52 pm

any success stories from opening a small massage business?

I live in daytona beach florida and need to know how to run a business in Massage Therapy. i am frustrated from waiting for jobs to open up only to sit in empty spas waiting for clients…….
I don’t have alot to invest in dead ends

I am up in New York — talk about competition and high overhead. Yet, there are tons of people here.

The hardest part about massage is getting the word out. Some people say that advertising doesn’t usually pay plus you might get weirdos looking for more than just massage.

Here are some things I did which created a wonderful clientele. So, for example, New York is expensive — I charge $90 for a one-hour session. However, I also sell a series — buy 5 massages and get 6. So, if they pay $450 upfront, that means divided by 6 they are paying $75 per massage — not $90 — a savings of $15 per massage.

So, to introduce this and to introduce myself — I created a coupon that I put everywhere — health food stores, gyms, supermarkets, yoga studios, vitamin stores — which said
“Take $15 off your first massage with this coupon.” This way, it would introduce the series price. 9 times out of 10, the client returned and bought a series for $450 the next visit. A great marketing technique — one that you can easily design to match the massage prices of your area. Plus, worst case scenario, you get a client once and that one person pays the price of your coupons.

By the way, to design my coupons, I used Quark Express and put three rectangular coupons on one 8-1/2 x 11 page — the layout of the page was portrait. Then, I brought my black and white pages to a printer and had it printed on a 500-page ream of colored paper (whatever was the nicest) and they also cut the coupons too. The entire cost: $40 so one massage made me money!!!

Another cheap marketing tool — Vistaprint business cards. With so many wonderful color choices and always free cards as an introduction. Also, always get glossy for the extra $9 — it looks so much nicer than matte.

The best marketing tool of all — yourself!!! Go around, talk to people, introduce yourself. Wear a nice smile, show you care…if you put the right energy out there, people will feel drawn and you will always be busy!

Back and Shoulders Massage by Joan