So, the official one-year of professional practice mark has come and gone for me, with little fan fare. However, the one-year mark is a great time for me to re-assess where I am now and where I would like to be, professionally speaking, over the next while.
As I’ve mentioned before, my first RMT position was taking over the practice of another therapist who was moving out of town. This meant that I had the chance to retain some of her client list as my own clients. As is to be expected, some stuck with me, and some chose not to for a variety of reasons; any therapist taking over someone else’s client list will experience the same thing. I have also gained a good number of new clients who were not part of the other therapist’s practice, and the number of new clients on my list is growing by the week. All this adds up to mean that I have a good base to my practice. I never have a week with no bookings, and I have a decent stream of regulars in my schedule. For this I am very thankful, and I appreciate all the wonderful people I have met over the last year.
However, something didn’t seem quite right. I’d have a few weeks where I’d be booked quite solidly, and then several weeks where bookings dropped off to only 1 or 2 per day. I’ve always known that is the ebb and flow of a massage therapy business, and that it is to be expected. But something still didn’t add up for me. If I have a steady number of clients coming in, why are my bookings all over the place?
This past week I sat down with my client list and looked at how people are booking. I looked at two major things: how often people are booking, and what time of day they are booking.
With the time of day, I found what I had already known: I get a lot more bookings between 4 and 7 pm, although I do have a number who book when they have a day off or who work an irregular schedule. So I do have some who book in the morning or early afternoon, but they are certainly in the minority. Not surprising in a town where government and high tech are two key employers, which means there are a lot of ‘9-5′ workers.
As for how often people book, I found that the vast majority of my clients either book in to see me once per month or book when they feel like a massage, not with any regular pattern. Now, both of these situations are very typical of massage therapy clients. Many would like to come more often, but either they have no insurance coverage, or their coverage only allows for one ‘maintenance massage’ each month. Of course I completely understand that people need to do what is affordable for them, and I’m always happy to do my best to work my treatment plan around that. But what I didn’t realize is that I had very few bi-weekly or weekly client bookings!
I can now look at my books a bit more critically and look at ways to attract more people who can have massages more often, or people who are able to come during the day. For those of you wondering how to get more clients in the door, I recommend doing a client list assessment of your own practice. You will probably learn something you didn’t realize about your own clients’ pattern of rebooking, which will help you plan where to focus your marketing efforts. I know I did!