What seems like not so many years ago, I was getting my massage practice in Atlanta off the ground.

With a lot of hard work and consistent effort, I had grown my practice into a three room business and also had a corporate / event / mobile business that was gaining traction.

From the outside looking in, it appeared that things were going very well.

But that’s not how I felt.

I was crazy busy from the time I got into the office until late at night when I finally had put my sheets in the dryer and could finally go to bed.

It was exciting, but it wasn’t fun. Something had to change if I was to get back to a place where I was able to re-connect with why I became a massage therapist to begin with. Less frenetic, more calm.

To identify areas where I could gain time and minimize effort, I began by making a list of non-massage tasks I performed each day, which looked something like this:

• Clean and stock the waiting room, treatment room and bathroom • Return missed phone calls • Call and leave reminder messages for clients I had the following day • Call and email staff to alert them of any schedule changes • Review and respond to emails from clients • Chip away at writing my monthly client newsletter • Complete writing up my client’s SOAP notes • Reconcile the day’s income • Go to the bank to make a deposit • Track staff income • Organize attendance at upcoming events around the city • Wash/fold sheets

After going through the process of writing down the things that sucked both time and energy from me every day and weren’t aligned with me becoming the best massage therapist I could be, it became pretty obvious that I could benefit greatly from hiring an office manager.

But - that’s expensive, right?

Did I want to give a sizable chunk of my hard earned income to someone for doing things I was perfectly capable of doing myself? The internal conflict over what to do was huge.

What I settled on was to hire someone who would only come in to work half a day. I floated the idea by some elite runners I knew. They needed the money but also wanted to have a flexible schedule and “resting” work so that they could still get in their morning and afternoon runs in. Win-win.

And that’s how I discovered the magic in knowing when to get help.

My quality of life improved significantly, and I was able to use the extra energy to not only be a better MT but also to pursue other opportunities that I had simply been too busy to pursue earlier.

I suddenly found I had more time, more income, and a happier existence.

Fast forward twenty some years to present day.

It’s a great time to be a massage therapist. If I had then what we have today in terms of technology, I never would have needed to hire an office manager.

In fact, the experience I had drove the vision behind creating MassageBook: Build a solution that would play the role of full-time office manager and marketing team, for less than $30 a month. A no-brainer solution to a problem virtually every practice owner has to one degree or another.

MassageBook is already used by over 4,000 independent massage practices around the US and Canada and saves therapists gobs of time and stress - while also helping drive new and existing clients in the door.

What really excites me is that we’re nowhere near done improving and building additional time saving and income generating features onto the MassageBook platform.

The best is yet to come!

We thank you for being part of this journey and look forward to continuing to delight you with our work to help you and the massage profession realize its potential.

With deep respect for the work you do to help improve the lives of others,

Mark and the MassageBook Team