
Allissa Haines walks us through the process to set and achieve a reasonable financial goal for 2025 without the corporate jargon.
Author links:
Website: www.deepbreathdigital.com/community

0:00:00.2 Allissa Haines: Welcome to Business or Pressure Taking the Pain out of Massage Business with me, Allissa Haines. This is your no nonsense guide to managing your business money. It's our mission to make sure every massage therapist and body worker has the tools to make a living wage in a thriving business. This is our first episode of 2025 and we are going to spend a lot of this year talking about the money in our business, how to manage it, how to change, how we manage it, how to prioritize and reprioritize when circumstances change, maybe how to take home more of it or how to put more of it in a smart place for later. But ultimately in 2025, our goal is to feel good about the money in our business and to understand what is going on with the money in our business and to be sure that our earning and our spending matches our values and our goals. So it's the beginning of the year or whenever you happen to be listening to this episode and I'm recording this. We're already well into January and it can feel like you've missed the window for a fresh start or a clean slate.
0:01:22.4 AH: Be assured you have not missed a window. Financial goals, all goals, are a long game and you need a long runway just to set goals and make changes and settle into a new rhythm. And it doesn't matter when you start. You can start on February 23rd, you can start on January 1st. There is no magic in flipping a calendar page. The magic is inside you, my friend, and hopefully in your bank account. I also want to sidebar a little bit here. I know a lot of people don't do like New Year's resolutions anymore anyway, but they're a terrible concept. This idea that you're going to wake up one morning and all of a sudden start living some part of your life completely different without any practice or setup is absurd. Anytime we try to change any habit in our life, any pattern, any rhythm, it requires some practice. You go to try something, realize why it doesn't work with the rhythm of your life, and readjust and try it in a different way. And you can't do that all on January 1st or all on any other day. Creating any kind of new pattern is going to take some time and experimentation.
0:02:31.5 AH: It's really easy to think you're going to do something differently and then not and then give up altogether. All right, that's the end of the sidebar there. I'm also not going to use acronyms like smart goals. That is a wonderful system of creating goals, but it's not what we're doing here. I don't run a small personal service business so I can use corporate speak. I am not interested in synergizing my action items or drilling down the low hanging fruit. I want to run my business without killing my soul. Our goal here is to pull our financial life together without igniting that little rebellious demon in your belly that makes you not want to manage money stuff at all. So we got to ask ourselves a few questions to suss out some goals. Where are you at right now? What are you grossing and netting and taking home monthly right now? And what do I want that to be by next year? So the gross is the total amount of money you take in for providing services or selling products. The net is what's left after all the business expenses. And then typically the net is the take home pay, what's left after the expenses that you take home as an owner's draw, or as contributions to a retirement account or via any other benefits.
0:03:44.1 AH: The next question to ask yourself is what do I wish I had done differently in my business with regards to money and can I make a change to remedy that now? The most common results of this question are discounts. Offering discounts you feel icky about and then you got to make a plan to phase them out. Or people feel yucky about how they organize or don't organize or understand or don't understand the bookkeeping in their business. What is the change that's required to fix those issues? Because financial goals are not just about earnings in a strict sense. Your goal could be to not feel like a bookkeeping mess. Your goal could be to be able to quickly find out how much I made this year. And then in considering what changes would it require? The answer is to conquer a learning curve with some kind of software or spreadsheet or manual logging. Another financial goal that doesn't seem immediately financial is to not have to stress about needing to take a sick day or a three week vacation. So what changes would that require? It would require a savings plan and maybe that would look like auto withdrawing a certain amount of money weekly from your checking account and putting it in a separate savings account.
0:05:00.4 AH: And finally you got to ask yourself, is this a reasonable goal? Yes, it is reasonable to work towards not feeling like a financial mess. It is reasonable to work towards a savings account balance that makes you feel comfortable if all of a sudden you have to take a month off of work. But setting a goal to start saving $500 a week for retirement when you don't actually have enough money coming into your Business. That's not reasonable. That's not a plan. It's not going to work. You're just going to feel defeated. A reasonable approach to increasing your retirement would be to raise your prices and put 75% of that increase into retirement. So if you raise your prices by 10 bucks and you have 10 clients a week, that's an extra hundred bucks. And now you have $75 a week to contribute to your retirement. Or it would be reasonable to go through all the expenses of your business, find one that you could cut and funnel that amount of money into your retirement. It's really easy to think of some goal in your head and then as you map it out, realize it's completely unrealistic and unreasonable, and then feel defeated and not do anything.
0:06:12.0 AH: And I will tell you my little personal story. I did this myself last year. I spent down some of my savings when I took some time off of work and I wanted to replenish it. And I thought to myself, like, loosely thinking through these goals in my head, I'm like, well, I want to get it to $10,000. And I think I can reasonably do that by June. And then a day or two later, I actually sat down and looked at what I would have to save monthly to do that by June, and it was like eight months. So to save $10,000 in eight months means you're saving more than a thousand dollars a month. I did not have a thousand dollars in my budget to set aside to the savings. And then I didn't do anything for a few weeks. I did nothing to save anything towards that goal. And I caught myself and I readjusted and I set up on auto withdrawal from my checking into my savings, and I only set it for $20 a week. But I got that savings started. And no, I'm not going to have $10,000 saved by June. I'm going to increase that $20 soon.
0:07:15.1 AH: Starting with something reasonable, even though it's not going to achieve that goal as fast as you would like, is better than not starting at all. So let's do an example. What's the goal? What has to change? What are the steps? So let's say your goal is to save money for an office renovation and some equipment that you know you're going to need when you reno and expand. What has to change? You need to start saving. So what are the steps to that? Just like my little problem, you can estimate how much you need, when you want it by, and then break it down by week or by month. And again, that's usually the part where you figure out your plan might not be entirely reasonable and you have to make some adjustments. So what you need to save, can that come out of your current budget with some little adjustments? Or do you need more income? Do you need to raise your prices? Do you need to adjust your menu, do you need to increase your client load or rent your room? And if you say something like, you know what, I could increase my client load by one or two clients a week, I can open my schedule up a little bit more.
0:08:14.8 AH: Cool. How are you going to get those new clients in? And this might look like reaching out to some long lost clients, letting your current clients know you're accepting referrals. You could take an hour and just work on the search engine optimization of your website. And in a few weeks when you've got that extra spot or two in your calendar filled, you can set up an auto withdrawal to savings and then move along with your life in your business and set a little date in your calendar to revisit the plan and look at what you've saved and see how you need to adjust. That's a bigger goal, right? That's got like a lot of steps and that might seem a little daunting. So what's a smaller goal? Maybe it is to get proficient in your budgeting and bookkeeping and be aware of what you're earning and spending. So what has to change? Well, if you're not aware of what's going on in your money, you're probably not using any kind of bookkeeping or software or you've contracted it out, but you haven't actually learned how to look at the reports yourself. So you need to start using a software, you need to learn how to do such a thing.
0:09:16.4 AH: And there are a million and ten resources online. And then create a plan for regular upkeep, which might mean a weekly or monthly coffee date with yourself. I will say that I think monthly is not enough. I think weekly or every other week is best to create a real pattern and to be able to remember the things you learn about your bookkeeping system each week. So you got to set a little date with yourself to actually do that work. And then once you do it a handful of times, it will become much easier. But you got to want the change and be willing to do it. I was in a massage class years and years ago, like the first few years of my career in the early aughts, someone else in the class asked, well, how do you get clients to do their homework? And the instructor said, we remain the same until the pain of remaining the same is worse than the pain of change. You can pause and think about that if you need to. If the pain of not understanding the money in your business has become worse than the pain of knowing you have to learn something new and make a change, then here we are.
0:10:14.5 AH: If you are not yet annoyed with the hot mess of money in your massage business, then you're not ready to make any changes. And that's okay. This information is going to be here when you're ready. But we will remain the same until the pain of remaining the same is worse than the pain of change. There are times over the last 20 years where I have considered having that tattooed on my body. Back to money, what's your goal? What has to change to make that happen? What are the steps? And now we are introducing a new segment for our 2025 episodes, a brief chat with a colleague. Each episode is going to include one short chat with a colleague where they answer one question. I have just a few questions to choose from or my guests can come up with their own, but there are questions like, what would you do differently if you could go back in time and start your business over again? Or what was your massage school right or wrong about? Or what do you do that keeps clients coming back? And my guest gets to choose the question. We have a quick conversation because I think it's really neat to learn little bits from other massage therapists and we're going to jump into the first one now. For today's chat with a massage therapist, I have my friend, Marcie Basil, licensed massage therapist and certified personal trainer. Hi Marcie.
0:11:40.1 Marcie Basil: Hi Alyssa. How are you?
0:11:41.7 AH: I'm good. I want to tell you a little bit more about Marcie. She is the owner of Connect Body Works and Chief Muscle Mover. She is currently creating in addition to her hands on practice, she's currently creating an online village for women over 40 looking to increase mobility, strength and community as they navigate the aches and pains of aging. You could not have more succinctly crafted a sentence that defines who I am. So let me be joining up for that in the next couple of weeks probably. Marcie is also a website designer specifically for women owned businesses. So if you need a website you can learn more from her @bluesettercreative.com. She does lovely websites. All right Marcie, anything else you want us to know about you and your massage practice?
0:12:33.5 MB: Well, I am also a massage instructor which comes in handy when clients have anatomy questions or they ask is that a knot? What is that? Where did that come from? Why do I have that? So I have answers for them, which is nice to have.
0:12:50.8 AH: I also want to note that Marcie is gifted and so generous in teaching other massage therapists about working with larger bodies and specializes in working with larger bodies. And I think there's not enough people doing that and there's not enough people saying that they do that. So I wanted to point that out as well. But our primary question for you today is what do you do that keeps clients coming back?
0:13:15.6 MB: Well, I've already alluded to it when I was talking about myself being a massage instructor. I love to teach my clients about what's going on with their body and what I'm feeling. And it's not just, oh, wow, that's a big knot you have. I like to explain to them why I'm doing the work I'm doing and how that is going to impact them going further with their healthcare and with their wellness journey. And it, sometimes I, my clients are wondering, why did you start me face up when I was telling you it was my middle back? Well, that's where the teaching comes in, right? Because you got to explain to them working on your pecs and then going in to all of the underarm work that goes in with issues that have to do with back issues that most massage therapists, I don't want to say most, but a lot of massage therapists don't. They just work on what the clients think needs to be worked on and move on to the next client. I like to educate my clients on why they're doing that, and the feedback I get is fantastic. This is why I come back to you. This is why I refer people to you, because you go above and beyond what I would get in just a spa environment. And they love that. And they keep coming back in droves.
0:14:39.9 AH: Client education, then.
0:14:40.3 MB: Client education. As simple as that.
0:14:43.2 AH: We're going to tangent for a moment. Do you tend to give your clients homework?
0:14:48.9 MB: I do. I absolutely do. I'm also a personal trainer, and I did that on purpose because when I first got my massage license, I was not a trainer. And I live in Texas. And in Texas, you're not, unless you're a trainer or a body worker, like a PT or something. You can't give them exercises to do at home. You can show them and you can suggest it, but as a personal trainer, I can say, hey, try doing this three times a day and see how that improves or changes how you feel about your body. And I check in with them after a few days. Hey, have you started with the homework I gave you? If they haven't, I do a video for them and I send that to them and then they have it. And then I check in another week after that and almost two person, once I send out that video, they are doing it and they all see improvements with just simple exercises, even just using a tennis ball on their back. Nobody has suggested that to them. And once they start it, then they want more and more and then they come to me.
0:15:58.7 AH: So you already kind of answered the follow up question, like the reason I asked, which was that do your clients even do the homework? So you become a professional nag to get them to do their homework by following up and making sure they have the instructions. And I'm going to guess that like, some people probably still don't.
0:16:17.9 MB: Yeah.
0:16:18.7 AH: But your compliance... Sounds like your compliance has absolutely increased with being a nudge nagger as well.
0:16:25.7 MB: Yes, exactly. I like that nudge nagger. I think I feel like I need to make a T-shirt that says nudge nagger on it. So one of the things a client did for me was become my nudge nagger. Knowing that I had my personal training certification. She's like, why don't you have a gym? Why don't you open a gym in here and then we can just come in and work out with you before our massages and then we get a twofer. You get, honestly the extra income, but you also make that connection with your client that nobody around here has been doing. And I did that. I opened a gym last year. I have the equipment in my clinic and if they really want home exercise workout, then I can work with them online from their home with whatever equipment they have at home. And we've set up, I've got like three or four clients that do that now. And it's a nice way for them to continue. I know they're doing the homework and then they come in once a month or once every two weeks for their massage and a workout. And it's a fantastic arrangement that I'm hoping to roll out to more and more clients.
0:17:41.3 AH: I think you just touched on something so important about building a practice is seeing what your clients needs are and then giving them that. Right? Like, so for some of us it's, oh, I have, I've had so many clients who have gotten cancer diagnoses. I need to get trained in oncology, massage or wow, I'm working with a lot of young people starting families. I need to get trained in Prenatal massage. And you saw the need for a more structured approach to, like, I don't want to say self care, but, like, very specific kind of homework and self care. And you slowly put together all the resources to serve that to people, which is such a convenience for our clients. So I'm going to say one of the things you do to keep clients coming back is just keep giving them what they need. And you've educated them, so now they know they need it.
0:18:34.6 MB: Yeah, that's very true. But you know what? It rolls back into, I get from them, I get the feedback, and they... I don't even have to ask them for feedback. They just give it to me. As far as you know, you showed me this exercise, and it was great. And now my shoulder is feeling better, but I'm having problems with my hip. What can we do with that? And how can I do this and how can I do that? Or I sit at a desk all day, and when I stand up, I'm very creaky, and everything's popping and messed up, and I have no mobility anymore. How can we work on that? And they are happy clams when I show them just simple, simple exercises. They do them at home. Then they crave it. They want more and more.
0:19:24.8 AH: That is brilliant. Thank you so much, Marcie Basil, for sharing that pro tip with us. And you know what I didn't ask? Is how long have you been a massage therapist?
0:19:34.3 MB: 14 years.
0:19:35.8 AH: Dang, girl.
0:19:37.1 MB: I know. It feels like yesterday that I was in school, honestly.
0:19:42.0 AH: Well, clearly you are slamming it down there in Texas. So good on you.
0:19:46.1 MB: Thank you.
0:19:47.5 AH: Thank you so much for sharing this with us. And again, if you need a website or just good business advice, you can find Marcie @bluesettercreative.com and her massage practice is Connect Body Works in Texas. And we'll have the links to all of these things in the show notes as we do. Thank you, Marcie.
0:20:07.7 MB: Thank you, Alyssa. It was great to talk with you.
0:20:11.3 AH: And that wraps us up. If you have a question about running your business or an idea for an episode or you would like to be my guest for A Chat With A Colleague, please reach out via email business or pressure@abmp.com you can also find me building websites and coaching massage therapists @deepbreathdigital.com and make sure you're subscribed to ABMP's podcast so you don't miss a beat. I will see you right back here for the next episode. I can't wait.