You are ready to launch your company and your ultimate massage practice, everything is magical, so many possibilities, so many clients, so much to do, and infinite directions you can go. How do you choose? you want to build an amazing practice and be a huge success, you want to live by your core values so you feel like a success at all times. And there is no one out there in the world that is not helped by massage. You with your talents and skills can help these people, but you need a place to start.
Determining what is important to you, and what is most important to you is the place to start, they are your foundation and your compass
Finding your direction. Success means saying yes, and saying no.
When you begin your Ultimate Massage Practice and then in January every year, you need to determine the direction you are headed, and that direction needs to correlate with your core values, this gives you more power. You can say confidently say no to distractions and yes only to things that take you in the direction of your dreams.
With a list of your top ten core principles as well as a determination of what they mean, how you plan to execute and hold your business accountable for those principles, and how they relate to your practice you can more easily make difficult decisions. What type of clients do you want to see? What education should you pursue. Should you work for someone or by yourself, take the extra shift or take your kids to the zoo, core values determine what decisions you need to make, as well as how you make and then communicate those decisions.
Avoiding mistakes-
When I first started Your Health Span I had a wonderful girl working for me, I loved her and I miss her still. She was fun, silly, engaging, and captivating. However, though she was a pretty good therapist she was also totally unreliable, for a variety of reasons and in almost every imaginable way.
Her values of individualism, free spiritedness, (if I can make up a word) and impulsiveness meant she dressed inappropriately, had conversations with clients that were very uncomfortable for those clients, broke into song during appointments and was late and missed appointments.
Allowing you to make better decisions, and guiding other members of your team to make good decisions also. Sometimes those decisions would be very difficult and even heart breaking without these principles to guide you, and help your team make decisions that reflect the best interests of the company.
I was not clear on my core values so I was unclear on what decisions to make. I wanted to help her, guide her and lead her to success, she did not want to be lead. And in the end everyone, but most especially the clients suffered, and let me tell you, clients have lots of options, which meant my other therapists suffered and so did my business and ultimately me as well.
Your core values and the values of your massage practice need to be totally in line. These are the commandments you live off and the compass by which you steer your business.
They keep the boundaries firm between life and work, and guide every choice you make.
Below are the values that we currently put into every training kit.
Finding your core values
There are lots of great tools out there for finding your core values, this is one I use with my team, by Scott Jeffries. But glance through a few and find one that suits you.
Once you have determined your values, you can lay your foundation, and decide what type of practice you want.
This will take time and reflection. So set aside at least 2 blocks of an hour.
Some companies that have great core Values listed are Whole Foods and Starbucks. So if you are looking for an example to inspire you have a look at those.
If your job is running a successful massage business you need first and foremost to know what will make it a success.
The Success of your Massage Practice depends on your preparation.
