I was recently invited to speak at our provincial association’s gathering of Nova Scotia RMT’s for the semi-annual general meeting.  

Our massage therapy association – MTANS – organizes two annual meetings for its 1300+ active members.  The RMT community in Nova Scotia is fairly substantial. To compare, there are 880 Physiotherapists & just over 200 Chiropractors. During the meeting, I spoke to a crowd of 30 plus RMT’s & over 120 virtual attendees to field questions on best career-building practices for RMT’s. Coming to these meetings is such a lovely way to share & receive pearls of wisdom from other thought leaders in our profession.

I’m forever grateful to have been invited to the table to discuss. The dialogue that ensued from each of the panelists seemed to touch on some very parallel and organic themes such as the importance of community outreach, education and patient communication.  These themes became central to how all the participants viewed a successful, well-balanced approach to building a massage therapy practice.  

Here were the questions & some of what I answered. 

please describe for us how you built your massage therapy practice? 

In my case, I actually bought Sore Spots at its 6th year in business.  You would think as an established business, that my first month would be fairly booked up, but in fact in my first month of operation, I had only  five appointments pre-booked.  Imagine you bought a house, but could only stay in it five nights of the first month?  Albeit not quite an even comparison but you get the idea.  In any case, the early days had me scouting and installing various chair massage events to build up my personal name as an RMT and speaking to groups about the benefits of massage therapy.  There was a myriad of volunteer and networking events that occupied my ‘off’’ time and slowly but surely, I was able to find a sustainable balance of client intake.  Within six months, I realized I would do better to have an associate work with me (I personally prefer working within a team vs being a solo practitioner) and so began the journey of switching from a practice building focus to a business building focus.  The two are similar but the latter requires shifting the framework on how things operate in a clinic on multiple levels. Building a business for yourself is easy (so to speak), building a business for others, that is another animal in and of itself.   

In your practice building, what attitudes, or lessons you did you learn that you feel has contributed to created success?  What have you tried that you would not recommend or do again?

Early on, I worked fairly studiously, but I probably missed out on properly defining the values with which would be the foundation I would use to guide business focused decision making.

If I were to do it all over again, I would start with an evaluation of my mission and value set.  When faced with a problem or project, it is much easier to navigate solutions or frame steps forward if you can easily reference what matters most to you on a personal and professional level.  Now my personal mandate is to help as many people as I can and I realize I am bottlenecking that goal by only focusing on myself as a practitioner.  When I work with other massage therapists and help drive creative approaches that fuel their own treatments via skill building sessions, that in turn has a ripple effect on all the patients we treat.  Being a therapist centric clinic allows us as a whole to be more comprehensively, client centered.  

Our current values revolve around gratitude, creative collaboration and authentic communication.  Defining those values guide us in choosing the creative direction & projects that matter most within the framework of Sore Spots. When we look to troubleshoot a problem we can ask, how can I approach this opportunity to grow with appreciation? How do I respect both the art and science of bodywork? How can I hone and curate communication with respect that aims to give and receive honest dialogue and authentic support?  For me these values help guide treatments, trainings and balance our clinic flow and dynamics.

What is the single biggest piece of advice you have for anyone looking to build their practice?

Hands down, among the panelists; responses revolved around maintaining a growth mind-set as a practitioner. A growth mind-set might mean different things to different people, but being open minded & committed to life long learning via continuing education & mentorship were universal themes discussed.

When I first graduated from massage therapy, I always thought I would work in a multi-disciplinary clinic with a host of other complimentary providers – naturopaths, chiropractors etc.  – but as luck and timing would have it, I ended up in a little 164 sq foot boutique hotel-based clinic.  I started in a place that could not be more opposite to what I envisioned.  However, what became very clear to me early on is that when you truly love what you do, to a certain extent, the setting of your location doesn’t really matter too much.  Keeping an open mind with regards to where I would end up working early on lead to an unexpected work placement but in the end, that was a perfectly successful & fulfilling opportunity. When you bring your most curious, creative and caring self to the table, the work will always speak for itself.  To keep yourself in a state of keen curiosity that fuels consistent and connected treatments requires a commitment to growth, continued education and in my opinion creating a circle of mentorship around you.  That circle of mentorship may include those in our industry or in other business or community groups, but I believe when we share our expertise and listen to those around us, we deepen the collective circle of care.  Your mentors or colleagues need not be perfect or even expert in their arena of work but the act of collaboration, listening and brainstorming nourishes our professional perspectives.  We need not sensationalize any paradigm of care in particular or thought leaders, but rather use the ideas or techniques that best guide our individual way of connecting to the trail of tension in the body we are meant to provoke, disturb, connect and help heal.