Thursday 30 July 2009

The only thing I have to fear is fear itself.

Yep, FDR's words are applying to me these days since I moved my business location this week. It's a change, but I believe it is for the better. It's a wee bit scary too!

I am no longer working out of my home. I'm renting a room at a place that is very near my home which has a separate area for massage therapists and aestheticians that has it's own little waiting area. I had a few reasons for the move. Firstly, my husband was getting fed up with not having his home available to him and he couldn't take vacation time if I was working all the time - especially since I work a lot in the evenings. Secondly, I think that I was going a little stir crazy with being in the house all the time, especially on busy days. Sometimes I wouldn't leave the house at all. And thirdly, I just wanted to try something different to see if it is easier to market my business with a different location. Even though I have a fairly decent client base and I think I have a good return rate, it's getting people in for that first massage that was difficult. I think it will be easier to do in this new place and it might give my practice a more professional initial feel. I get a lot of hits on my website, but I think people are reluctant to go try someone in their home - since most of my clients are referred by existing clients, I think I should get more people other ways. It will be interesting to see if I get more newbies from the website.

So I got a floor covering down in the room over the weekend and moved my stuff in on Monday. I was pretty busy on Tuesday and Wednesday and so far my regulars have been positive about the new location. The room is considerably smaller than what I've been working in, but it is forcing me to think of things that I really NEED rather than junk that was accumulating in the room I've been working in. I'm amazed at how much crap I've gathered up over the years. Old massage oils and lotions that I tried and didn't like (why did I keep them?) and tools and little do-dahs that I thought might be interesting to try. I need to have a garage sale for MTs only!


The new place has a shower facility so I can still do some foo foo stuff (salt glows and wraps) and it will be interesting to see if I sell more of them than I did at home. The only thing I can't do is a foot soak since the room isn't big enough to do that, but then soaks were only to get people's feet clean for a reflexology treatment and I can use hot towels for the same purpose - plus cleaning the foot soak thingy was a pain in the neck anyway, so I won't miss it.
The other major change is that I won't have my PC in the next room ready to check my email for people wanting appointments BUT SINCE MY HUSBAND BOUGHT ME AN IPHONE FOR MY BIRTHDAY (which is today and the capital letters is me bragging, yes, I have been assimilated into the iPhone Borg ship), I can check my email through it instead.


The place seems to be fairly quiet. The manager is nice and my next room neighbor is a massage therapist who seems to be very professional and cool. On the other side of me is an aesthetician who seems pretty nice too. She's even sending me 2 of her clients on Saturday which is a good thing in my book!


So we'll see how it goes. If I get on here in a few days ranting and raving about how much I hate it, then I'll just have to grin and get on with it since I've signed the lease for the year. I don't think that will happen though. My initial feel over the past couple of days has been a good one.

OK, I'm off to change a load of online listings!

Gaelic lesson #65 "eagla", pronounced "agla", meaning "fear"

4 comments:

  1. Happy Birthday, Belatedly!!!!

    And how awesome for you, to move into a new space. I think that will be my plan for when I move to Texas. Rent space in a salon. So, do you keep SOAP notes, or do any other type of charting? Inquiring mind wants to know...

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  2. Hey Christina,
    When you're planning on moving I can give you the upshot on what it's like working in a place like this. So far it's working out grand.
    Yes, I keep SOAP notes and I've tried many ways of doing so - different software, but the really cool software costs a bundle. I'm back to doing it the way it was done in the Jurassic era (paper and pen). I just like it better!

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  3. Thanks, I'm sure I'll need all the advice I can get! I'm used to using paper and pen at the chiro's office, so I'm sure I will have no issues keeping notes when I'm on my own.

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  4. Happy belated birthday Roismhaire! Congrats as well on your recent move; how exciting. I'm making myself wait until after graduating from school next year before I get an office. So, that makes for 15 years with a home office. I'm always tempted to move out for all the reasons you mentioned; but so far nothing has been just right. AND YOU'VE ALREADY GOTTEN TWO REFERRALS FROM YOUR SUITE MATES; that's the biggest temptation for me to move. So it will be interesting to see if that makes a difference for you; keep us posted.

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