Help Your Practice Marketing Newsletter  
(Newsletter For Both Massage Therapists
And Personal Trainers)

Welcome to our first newsletter! My name is Michael Humphreys and my business partner at Help Your Practice is Eric Mitchell. This newsletter is the result of our combined efforts and experiences while dealing with the 
time demands that owning and running our individual full-time practices can require. 

Each month, we will be coming to your email in-box with the  latest Help Your Practice news, special offers, and great business tips that can help you create the massage or fitness practice of your dreams. 

Do you know someone else who would enjoy reading this newsletter? Please forward this newsletter to them and help share the wealth! 

Do You Have A Question For Us?  

We’ve added a new feature to the Help Your Practice website where you can submit a massage therapy or personal training related question. Simply go to our website, www.helpyourpractice.com and choose the ‘Contact Us’ link. Each month we will randomly pick one question from our readers to answer in the next newsletter issue.

If we pick a question that we can’t answer sufficiently in one page or less, we will pick another question.

Why?

Most people don’t like reading a ten-page answer to someone else’s question and we have made a promise not to bore our newsletter readers!

We want to share as much information as possible in each issue, while keeping the issues short and to the point. 

Feature Article: How Your Mindset Can
Determine Your Practice Success 

When I started my massage therapy practice in 1993, I was 23 years old and barely had two nickels to my name to start the business. When I opened my private practice, I started with a $100 budget and eventually grew it into the massage therapy clinic it is today. 

I’ll share one little secret with you: I almost didn’t make my practice a success. For the first four years, I really struggled and had to work other jobs to support myself.

Why? 

There were plenty of reasons including that I had no clue how to run or grow a business. But the biggest reason of them all was my mindset. 

You see, for the first four years, I treated my practice like a hobby. It was merely a part-time hobby that created cash to pay for beers with my friends or the periodic Saturday night date. If I made $40 on Friday doing a massage, I’d be buying the first round that night with my buddies. 

It took me getting fired from my Physical Therapy job to change my mindset. Four years on the job. One of their first-ever employees. Top-ranked in patient satisfaction. It didn’t matter when they decided my manager was more important to keep than me. It was “Bye-Bye Mike!” 

At that point I made a shift in my mindset and how I thought of my practice. I stopped treating it like a hobby and starting running it like a business. From my work attire, how I talked with clients or answered my phone, I changed my attitude and my practice for the better. 

[Eric's comment: I worked in the health club environment for over 5 years and soon felt that my ability to move up the so-called ladder of success in the health club field was limited. I was unhappy and knew that some type of change was necessary. However, I held back in fear until I made a positive step within myself to effect a change. I broke  away from a negative mindset and began to understand my true calling. I wanted to help people on my terms based on my own schedule. I aggressively pursued the local media and with one article I had 40 referrals in a 48-hour period. I changed my mindset and instilled a positive framework that has been with my business and me ever since.  I had a business within the health field and no longer 
looked at myself as just a trainer.] 

So what happened? 

Within 3 months, I was up to 15 clients weekly. Within 6 months, 25-30 clients weekly. I went from almost no referrals for 4 years to clients asking me when I could fit in their spouse or friends into my schedule. 

When I changed my attitude and changed how I thought about my practice that was when the major breakthroughs to started to happen. I went from “Gee, I hope I get another appointment this week” to “I’m sorry, I can’t fit you in until next week.” 

Start thinking of your practice like a business and treat it like a business. As Michael Gerber (the author of The E-Myth) says, start working ON your business and not just working IN your business. Your clients will thank you for it! 

On behalf of Eric, we’ll look forward to talking with you next month.

Sincerely,