Friday 27 February 2009

Swedish Massage? How about "Irish Massage"?

Since we're nearly at the end of February, I thought it time I updated my website and got rid of my "Valentine's Day Specials". The next big promotional day for gift certificate sales in the massage world is Mother's Day.
So....I decided to have a brainstorming session with my multiple personalities (Sybil, Phoebe and Meryl) and come up with Mother's day specials. One thing we've decided on is a "Mum-to-be" special for pregnant ladies.

According to statistics, it costs approximately $500,000 to raise a kid. So I'm going to give the Mum's-to-be a break on their prenatal massage. Most people charge more for prenatal massage, so I'm going against convention here, but who wants to be conventional anyway?! Plus I like working on pregnant women since I'm actually working on 2 people at the same time. How cool is that?

I've got a prenatal table, which works well 99.9% of the time (if not, then I work on the client side-lying) and the clients love it. Complete with holes for breasts and an adjustable sling in a hole for the belly, it means that the pregnant client can lie face down.
Sometimes I wonder if the set up would work for those of us that have imbibed a little too much Guinness in our lifetime. "Got a beer belly and not able to lie face down? Never fear, Guinness loving massage now available."

Hmmmmmm.....might be a possible niche there....St. Patrick's day is coming up......."Sybil, Phoebe, Meryl!!! Time for another brainstorming session!!!"

Gaelic lesson #4 "Ta me go maith", pronounced "Tah may g'moy", meaning "I am well"

Saturday 21 February 2009

Dragon slayers.....or tamers?


The dragon in question being that big, nasty STRESS DRAGON - NOT a cutesy Eragon-y type one. The STRESS DRAGON is a troublesome beastie, but thankfully there are groups of people out there trying to slay him. Consider the teams:

The Red Team: Personal trainers - helping clients get de-stressed through exercise. These guys 'n' gals have mega-strong hamstrings and quads, so they're able to kick the livin' daylights out of the critter.

The Green Team: (Hey - Irish, remember?) Massage Therapists. Our metaphorical swords are our hands, employing the use of a hec of a lot of tapotement.

And last, but not least, The Earth Colored Team: Yoga Instructors. They can get away with wearing the earth colors since they all look like runway models. These peeps have the dragon balance on it's tail, with it's back legs wrapped around it's neck 5 times.

We're all out there, surrounding the stress dragon, doing our thing.

This is how I have previously viewed stress in my head. However, recently I've began to think I need to change that. Here's why......

I'm sure most of you have heard the story of Mother Teresa and the anti-war rally. If not, the basic story is that when Mother Teresa was asked to join an anti-war rally she graciously declined, then said something along the lines of "When you have a peace rally, let me know, and I'll go to that". I've read this in a couple of books, and many of the writers on self-development say that we shouldn't be "against" or "anti" anything, instead we should be "for" the opposite.

So my picture of the dragon slaying must change. Instead of us fighting it, we'll pet it, give it copious cups of tea (maybe the odd scone) and have it purring, mellow and tamed!

Gaelic lesson #3 "Cad e mar ata tu?", pronounced: "Kadjay marr a-taa too?", meaning "How are you?"

Wednesday 18 February 2009

The Pursuit of a Biel-butt and a little business promotion

I did it.
I crawled out of bed and got over to the gym early.

In normal circumstances I look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards when I go to the gym, but I thought I'd better put a little effort into this since there is a possibility that my personal trainer client MIGHT just put in a good word for me and I envisioned myself shaking hands with other gym-goers etc. I ALSO HAD A BIT OF INSPIRATION. Rather than putting on the most wrinkled t-shirt on the planet (my usual attire for the gym) I decided to put on a t- shirt that I made a while back that has the domain name of my massage business on the back of it. When I say "made", I mean that I just got a plain t-shirt and did an iron transfer thingy from a .jpeg that I created on the computer.

So off I traipsed with referral cards and some other promotional stuff to give to the trainer, ready to shake everybody's hand and do a lot of business card dispensing.

Only to find the personal trainer wasn't there!

No worries - I got my butt onto the precor machine and did a cardio session. As I'm turning myself into a sweat-ladened drowned rat I'm thinking:

"Wonder if those peeps behind me are looking at my domain name? Or are they thinking "I don't think I want that sweaty mass touching me" ?"

Whatever.......Biel-butt making AND ingraining my domain name into the heads of gym-goers all at the same time? Well, there's nothing like killing 2 birds with the same stone (I actually don't like that phrase since I feel sorry for the birdies.....)


Gaelic lesson #2: "Dia is Muire duit" pronunciation: "Djeeah iss murrah ditch", translation: "God AND MARY be with you" - it's the usual reply to "Dia duit" and just shows that one upmanship is prevalent wherever you go in the world!

Monday 16 February 2009

The most used word by a massage therapist...

....surely must be "scoot".

"OK now, if you'll just turn over and scoot down the table a wee bit"
"Just scoot down a bit more...that's it, just to get your head off the face cradle"

Going off subject here....
If anyone ever reads this blog I'd like them to get a bit of education on something that will be REALLY useful to them in life. What is more useful than Gaelic? From now on with every post I will add a line of Gaelic, the pronunciation and the translation.

The benefit? When a telemarketer calls and you just can't be bothered, start talking Gaelic to them and they'll soon hang up. Brilliant!

Gaelic lesson #1: "Dia duit" pronounced "Djeeah ditch", meaning "God be with you" or "Hello"

Sunday 15 February 2009

Valentine's Day Aftermath

It's over. One of the busiest weekends of the year and even with this recession, there was a lot of demand for massage - a good thing, but I'm knackered! I need a massage!

Anyway, I was sort of pleased with myself on one thing. I worked on a physical trainer and his girlfriend yesterday - nice people. I'm hoping that the physical trainer was impressed enough to send some of his clients my way, and the fact that he's at my local gym most of the day SHOULD motivate me to get my butt over there a lot more often, get more exercise and MAYBE more clients as an add on, just by having him in the same area.

So it's on my list of things to do for this week.....go to gym with referral cards and tell him that for every 5 people he sends me, I'll give him a massage.

Then work out for 2 hours, get consistent about doing that, and have a butt like Jessica Biel's by the end of April......miracle's do happen.