Updated October 5th, 2022

As a massage therapist, the power is in your hands. Literally. But here’s the thing: Excellent service goes beyond just the technical skill required to help your clients feel better and move freely. You need soft and interpersonal skills to set your practice apart from the competition.

Strong client relationships are essential for growth, and the most successful massage therapists know how to create them. So what’s the key ingredient?

We believe trust is fundamental and should be at the heart of everything you do!

Below you’ll find five things you can do to establish trust that will help you become an even more successful massage therapist.

1. Act Professional

Building trust begins with the first touchpoint: a social media post, Google listing, a friend’s referral, or a flyer pinned on a local business’s bulletin board. When a client takes in this information—regardless of the source—professionalism will build the first step to a bridge of trust.

Curated and creative business materials not only instill trust in your business, but conversely, inaccurate information (like hours, phone number, pricing, or available services) can undermine trust.

Once a client is inside your practice, their brain is registering judgments about your space. Keeping a clutter-free, clean space is essential if you want to continue establishing trust and communicating high standards. Things like odd smells, stains on the carpet, or countless knick-knacks can be distracting—leaving you with a missed opportunity to impress.

Your appearance and demeanor are also components that can influence a client’s trust. Simple practices like excellent time management, active listening skills, and personal hygiene prove that you respect and care about both yourself and your clients.

If someone arrives at your practice and has to wait for fifteen minutes while another session finishes, that client might not feel their time has been respected. This puts you, as the massage therapist, at a disadvantage in establishing trust and an open line of communication.

2. Educate

The most successful massage business owners know that education is empowerment—for both themselves and their clients. Continued education is a huge part of massage therapy. Though many of the techniques are centuries old, there is new research emerging constantly about the benefits of various therapies, as well as new contraindications of which to be aware.

However, if you’re just educating yourself, you’re only doing half of the work. To have a truly successful massage business, you also need to educate your clients.

Take the extra five minutes to communicate with them about their progress and pain or discomfort. Talk to them about their posture, lifestyle, sleep habits, stress levels, and more. Empower them with the information they need to make changes and what kinds of practices can partner with massage to generate even better results.

Much of the work done in a massage therapist’s room can influence the mental, emotional, and physical. Be sure you alert your clients about these effects and encourage them to share what they are noticing in themselves outside of the room.

3. Innovate

As with any career, innovation makes the difference between having a massage business and having a successful massage business. And it can come in the simplest of forms. COVID-19 has forced many of us to innovate the ways in which we manage our schedules, clean our spaces, onboard new clients, and more. It wasn’t an easy transition, but staying flexible and pivoting when necessary has been essential to keeping our businesses alive.

Perhaps you had to space appointments farther apart to make room for more cleaning protocols. Perhaps you introduced contactless intake forms. Perhaps you created paths inside your building to ensure social distance. Whatever you did, that was innovation and—you guessed it—building trust! The innovative ways you adapted to the new normal communicated to your clients that you were thoughtful and considerate of everyone at your practice, including yourself, your staff, and other clients.

But let’s not just wait for the next pandemic to find other ways to be innovative. How else can you make your massage business more successful this year? Here are a few ideas to get the wheels turning:

• Offer mobile services
• Provide special scheduling for at-risk clients
• Create online tutorials for self-massage
• Coach fellow therapists virtually
• Earn new certifications (especially if you’re able to continue education online)
• Implement a digital marketing strategy
• Build a stronger social media presence
• Introduce online booking and payments

The list goes on and on. Take time to consider what’s best and possible for you.

4. Communicate

Successful massage businesses are built on communication. This means communicating about your policies, your services, and your specialties, as well as asking open-ended questions to clients about how they feel and their level of comfort. But beyond how you communicate with your clients when face to face, communication starts when they are searching online for massage therapists in your area.

How are you representing your business to those who do not yet know you?

Communicate through your website

Does your website leave something to be desired? Even worse, are you missing a website? When you sign up for MassageBook, you get a fully functional website that includes your bio, contact info, service menu, reviews, online booking, and more. This all makes it easier for someone to do business with you and to convert website visitors into paying clients.

But maybe people don’t even have to go to your website every time. When you use MassageBook’s Reserve with Google integration, you can remove that step by allowing clients to book appointments directly through Google search. When your Google My Business page pops up, there’s a button that says “Book Now” that lets clients choose their time slot and service right then. Boom! It’s never been quicker.

Communicate on social media

There are about a million pages and places online where people could potentially find you. Social media is a huge part of that network. When someone recommends your business on Facebook, much of their network sees it. Those in their communities might comment and ask for more information—or just click over to your page and explore for themselves.

When you post on Instagram, and someone shares it to their Stories, you’re expanding your reach for free—because posting yourself doesn’t cost you anything—with their actively engaged audience.

MassageBook makes it easy to add online booking to your Facebook and Instagram business pages, plus we also share lots of social media ideas with our members to help solve the problem of what to post. These forms of digital connection are still communication and are just as important as how you present yourself in person.

These tools say that you’re out there looking for potential clients and growing your business. They say that you’re aware of consumer behavior trends and want to make their lives easier. They also say that you value your own time instead of shuffling through paper notebooks, trying to find that week’s schedule.

Yes, they really say all of that!

5. Invest

This brings us to our last point: the most successful massage businesses invest in tools and technologies that support their goals of growth and retention.

For example, if your goal is to spend less time on administrative duties so that you can see more clients (or spend more time with family and friends), then investing in practice management software like MassageBook is a step in the right direction.

First, we can help you get rid of your paper problem. With MassageBook, your schedule, intake forms, SOAP notes, and client records are all available within a few clicks or taps.

Second, we can help you gain exposure by being listed in our expansive massage therapist directory.

Third, we can streamline your appointment reminders, digital marketing, and payments.

Lastly, our job is all about making your job easier. That means you can be sure you have a team behind you who is always looking for innovative ways to simplify and grow your business.

And we can do all of this for an incredibly affordable price. Seriously. No contracts or obligations. Our pricing is low and straightforward. Plus, we even offer discounts for AMTA and ABMP members.

Now is the perfect time to experience how MassageBook’s easy-to-use practice management software can help you become an even more successful massage therapist. Try every feature free for 30 days. Then pick the best plan for you!

Get Started Now to Simplify and Grow Your Business