If you find yourself daydreaming about a different schedule, then it’s time to make that dream a reality! In this article, I am going to walk you through creating your own personalized massage schedule that meets needs for both sides of your personal and business life.
I want you to honestly consider what would make your schedule work the best for you. For the sake of planning, set aside what you think are required expectations from clients or others. Once you have that idea, then we will discuss bringing your clients into this new plan.
In this article, I am going to walk you through creating your own personalized massage schedule that meets needs for both sides of your personal and business life.
There are four concepts that go into setting a dream schedule to maximize your time and effort.
1. Select Your Perfect Number of Sessions
2. Schedules, Budget, Time and Money
3. Aligning Your Clients with Your New Massage Schedule
4. Schedules and Economics
Select Your Perfect Number of Sessions
A set schedule is the best way to manage your workload in a way that supports your body physically.
One of the most important factors in determining a new schedule is the number of massages you can comfortably complete each day.
As I have discussed in previous articles, there is an energy ceiling for massage therapists. Massage therapists have a specific number of massages they can complete each day and each week before injury or exhaustion begin to occur. These amounts can look like:
- three massages five days a week
- two massages six days a week
- five massages four days a week
I would like for you to decide the amount and order that fits you and your body best and then we are going to apply that to a calendar. If you have been thinking about selecting a different number of people to work on each day, this is the time to follow your intuition and create that opportunity.
Schedules, Budget, Time and Money
When creating your personalized schedule, one of the other main factors that determines your perfect number of sessions is your financial budget.
I am a firm believer in understanding your business through numbers. Therefore, I would like to walk you through this process so you can be successful with this concept for yourself:
Take your required monthly budget and divide it by the amount of your most common massage session, such as 60 minutes, to figure out the number of massages you must complete each week to make that targeted amount. For example:
Let’s say your combined personal and business budgets total $4,500 a month. If you charge $75 for a 60-minute massage, then you take $4,500 ÷ by $75 = 60 massages a month.
Then take the 60 massages and divide it by four weeks (i.e., one month). This shows you the total number of massages you need to complete each week is 15. (I suggest planning on 16 massages so any trades are accounted for and you still meet your budgeting needs.)
Now translate those 16 one-hour time slots into a schedule that fits your lifestyle needs. There are several ways you can do this based on what fits your life best. Here are some ideas:
• four massages four days a week
• three massages five days a week, plus one extra on your last day
• five massages two days a week, four massages one day a week
To help, I have provided some images showing possibilities of how to design your schedule. As you look at these schedules, think about what days and times would fit your life the best. Which schedule would allow you to complete the number of massages you need to fulfill your budget?
This may take some puzzling through, but at the end of this exercise you should have a schedule that feels like it would enhance your personal time and protect your body.
Align Clients with Your New Massage Schedule
One of the things that holds therapists back from shifting into a new schedule is they are afraid they will lose clients if they make changes.
The reality is most of your clients can be flexible to your new schedule. If you sit down and think about each client and their individual scheduling needs, you can design your schedule to match up for both of you; however, you may need to find some time compromises and perhaps offer one day of later afternoon and evening appointments.
Working later one evening, perhaps until 8:00 p.m., in exchange for being able to leave work at 4:30 every other day, allows you to reclaim more time in your personal life. Other adjustments you can make to accommodate clients are to offer lunch-hour appointments or schedule one Saturday a month.
In my experience with helping therapists redesign their schedules, most clients are adaptable given the appropriate options.
Schedules and Economics
Stabilizing your schedule naturally begins the valuable economic process of shifting supply and demand for your time. Creating the scenario within your own business where you have more clients than time available is the first, crucial step in having the ability to increase your rates for massage.
When clients know they can’t just call and get in that week, they start scheduling appointments in advance, filling your schedule. As clients contact you for appointments and they have to wait to get in, this scarcity drives the client’s behavior in a positive way for your business.
With a firmly set schedule, clients will set appointments further out and cancel less often to maintain those reserved times. This feeling of scarcity and demand is one of the first steps that has to occur to create the ability to increase your rates.
When your schedule is full you are full. At this point, clients are placed on a cancelation or waiting list, allowing you more control over managing your time efficiently at work.
Your Massage Schedule is a Boundary
When scheduling is scattered, it becomes easy to schedule just one more person into an already-full day; however, this will start to impact your body significantly. The greatest value that occurs for you from having a set schedule, aside from being able to manage your budget more efficiently, is career longevity.
Maintaining your schedule is a healthy boundary and is also a key component of having a lifelong massage career. It is empowering to take control of your time and make it match your life in a way that supports you and your clients better.
About the Author
Amy Bradley Radford, LMT, BCTMB, has been a massage therapist and educator for more than 25 years. She is the owner of Massage Business Methods and the developer of PPS (Pain Patterns and Solutions) Seminars CE courses (ppsseminars.thinkific.com) and a National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork-approved CE provider. Her articles for MASSAGE Magazine include “MTs Ask: What Are Exact Steps I Can Take to Raise Fees?”
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