Ready to take your practice to a new level? This handy guide covers everything from becoming a numbers nerd to embracing the crazy. Use it as a monthly resource throughout 2016 to break out of your rut and try something new.

January
Start a new Routine
Les Sweeney: Whether you’ve been in practice for 10 months or 10 years, the last thing in life you want to be is boring, right? To avoid ending up in a rut, don’t be afraid to juggle your schedule. Do you understand enough about your practice to know which days are less profitable than others? If you do, consider changing up the routine to see if you can stimulate some new business. Make your hours 3:00–9:00 instead of 9:00–3:00. Put yourself in a position to serve a new audience—a demographic that may grow your clientele. Do something for yourself, like take up a new hobby or activity, such as rock climbing or conquering a triathlon. By doing so, you’ll likely start hanging out with new, inspiring people—people who might end up being your clients!

February
Change Your Scenery
Kristin Coverly: One of the easiest ways to shake things up in your practice (and life) is to change your surroundings. With daylight hours depressingly short, and therapists in a good portion of the country already several months into the cold gray winter, February is the perfect time to clean your massage room, move things around, swap out some colors, and bring fresh energy into your space.
Take a good look around. Have you been adding things to your room bit-by-bit and now it needs a purge? Maybe your room needs a little rearranging: move the furniture, change your picture placement to create a collage or accent wall, or swap out the rug with one from your house. Sometimes something as simple as a blanket in a new color or texture feels like a wonderful change. If it’s time to add something new or put a different color on the wall, plan your purchase to take advantage of the Presidents’ Day sales. Pop on to Pinterest for low-cost inspiration, and challenge yourself to a small design project. Don’t think that out of sight means out of mind! Give your storage closet and office work space a lookover and cleanout, too.

March
Sell Something
LS: A good way to augment your earnings is to increase the amount of revenue each client spends with you. Your options are to raise your rates, increase your frequency of services, or add additional services or products. Many professionals earn multiple streams of income—especially in the spa world. Are there products you use every day that you already talk about with friends or clients? Are they readily available everywhere, or would it be a plus if you offered them? Some therapists aren’t interested in selling products—inventory is another new task to take on. But if it’s a product you believe in, adding it to your offering might be an easy way for you to add revenue to your sessions.

April
Get New Clients
KC: It’s spring! Have your marketing strategies been hibernating over the winter? This is the perfect time to wake them up and put renewed effort into growing your practice. Start by giving your marketing plan an overhaul. What’s working? What’s not? Let go of the strategies that aren’t paying off anymore and incorporate new ones. Create a marketing calendar and fill each month with a mix of community events, networking activities, email marketing, referral-relationship building, and social media marketing. Putting consistent energy and attention into your marketing efforts will bring new clients to your practice.

May
Keep Your Current Clients Happy
KC: Now that your marketing strategies are paying off and your schedule is swimming with new clients, give your current clients some attention. You’ve worked hard to get those clients; what are you doing to keep them happy and coming back? Providing the cornerstones of client retention—excellent bodywork and fantastic customer service at a fair price—should always be your first priority. Sometimes that’s enough to keep a client coming back. But sometimes it’s not. Clients often need a reminder about why it’s worth their time and money to come back for another session. Or they just need a little nudge because scheduling their next appointment is just one of many things on a long to-do list. Successful client retention plans include immediate rebooking, client education, regular communication (email, text, social media), frequent-visit appreciation/rewards, birthday and holiday recognition (feel free to make up your own holidays), package plans, “It’s been a while” promotions, and more. Let your creativity run wild and create strategies you and your clients will enjoy. Don’t feel like you have to jump straight to a discount as your incentive or appreciation gift; clients also appreciate and respond to extra session time and complimentary add-ons!

June
Find a (Professional) Partner
LS: Massage and bodywork is usually a solitary endeavor. During my clinic experience, the most profound thing I noticed about practicing was that you are alone in your thoughts while your client is (ideally) in dreamland. Many people are attracted to massage because they enjoy having their own environment. For others, practicing alone doesn’t provide the sense of fulfillment or social support they require. Have you been flying solo for a while? Maybe it’s time to consider finding a partner to work with. The nice part is that there are many ways to achieve this, and it doesn’t mean you need to be locked into a binding, permanent relationship. Partnering can run the gamut from renting a room from someone else to going into business with a partner, but there are lots of differing types of relationships between those two extremes. You could also find someone who is not a massage therapist—for example, an acupuncturist, esthetician, or chiropractor.

July
Take the Tech Challenge
KC: Whether you classify yourself as technology challenged or a tech god or goddess, technology tools can enhance the way you manage and market your practice.
First, cover the basics: website and smartphone credit card payment. If you don’t have both of these up and running, that’s your goal this month. If you’re already rocking these, your next step is to incorporate online scheduling. And, yes, you have much more control over who can book and when they can book than you think you will! Once that’s checked off the list and you have clients booking online at all times of day and night without a lengthy and annoying game of voicemail/email/text tag, explore the benefits of client-management software programs and email marketing programs. Therapists often feel overwhelmed when they try to incorporate all of these tools at the same time. Integrate them one by one and you’ll be tech-savvy in no time!

August
Work Somewhere Else
LS: Of course, one other way to establish more of a sense of community is to join one. The demand for massage employees has never been higher. Massage therapists have their choice of employment options—primarily in the membership/franchise arena. Perhaps you’ve always thought, “I don’t want to work at one of those places.” Well, there’s one way to find out. Just like when talking about finding a partner, employment isn’t a binary decision—it isn’t “all me or all them.” Maybe picking up one day a week working somewhere else will augment your income and give you an understanding of what potential options exist for you. Your other option is to work somewhere else outside the profession. Perhaps that gives you a real sense of balance. I always remember speaking with a member of ours who was a middle school teacher. Saturdays were her massage time—a very different work environment than her Monday–Friday!

September
Become a Numbers Nerd
KC: Trust me: I mean nerd in the best possible way here! Kids all across the country are heading back to school this month, cracking open thick math textbooks and struggling to master the Pythagorean theorem. By comparison, tracking your practice’s data is a breeze!
It’s time for an honest check-in: are you on top of your tracking, or is it on your “Oh, yeah, I should probably do that someday” list? Your business will thank you if you’re tracking at least these things on a regular basis: revenue, expenses, client visits, and client retention. Detailed tracking of your revenue and expenses not only helps you have a clear understanding of how your actual net revenue is shaping up compared to what you need and want to make, but it makes tax time a whole lot easier. Looking at your monthly and quarterly net revenue figures gives you a sense of how your practice is doing over time and allows you to catch a downslide before it’s catastrophic.
Use general data about client visits to help you make smart choices about how you run your practice. For example, if you have historical data that shows your practice is slow the last two weeks of August every year, you can either ramp up your marketing efforts to book more clients during that time, or take a cue from your clients and schedule your own break. Individual client visit data will show you when it’s time to check in with a client you haven’t seen in a while. Your client retention statistics—how many clients come back for additional sessions and how often—indicates how successful your retention strategies are. Some other helpful things to start tracking: average revenue per session, average cost per session, average length of session, most popular session times, least popular session times, etc. You might learn it’s time to adjust your schedule or to start promoting 75- and 90-minute sessions.
Your goal this month is to create systems to start tracking data and implement strategies to stay consistent. Many therapists use programs like Excel, and others use client management software and financial software programs. All that matters is that you find a system that works for you. And that you do it. Regularly.

October
Learn a New Skill
LS: This is an obvious, regular refrain when discussing ways to refresh your practice: “Learn a new technique!” As mentioned, that’s an obvious answer, but not my favorite. The heading on this section says, “Learn a new skill,” not “Learn a new technique!” To follow this idea, you must first start with a mirror. Take a good look in it. What do you see there? Are you satisfied with your professional and personal development? There may be new skills you could acquire to make you more successful in your practice, rather than a new technique. How about a dissection class? Or learning Spanish? Or web development? Or salsa dancing? Why do people select their therapist? Interest, capabilities, trust. Are there pursuits that could make you more interesting as an individual? They might make you more interesting as a professional as well.

November
Thank Your Body
KC: When I really appreciate someone and something they did, I thank them with a kind word, big hug, note, or gift (or all of the above). How about you? Your body does some pretty spectacular things for you on a daily basis; when was the last time you gave it a big grateful thank-you? Massage and bodywork jobs are unique because they’re so physical, which is good in many ways (you’re not sitting at a desk all day), but that physicality can also take a pretty hefty toll. Thank your body by giving it the gift of self-care. First things first: are you receiving regular bodywork? This month, schedule extra time to do the activity or practice you know you love—yoga, meditation, hiking—but also try something new like a Hula-Hoop class or simply sitting quietly and drinking a new flavor of tea. Your goal this November is to embrace the Thanksgiving spirit and find a way to thank and restore your body every day.

December
Embrace the Crazy
LS: Life can be difficult sometimes, or at least repetitive. As I tell my staff fairly regularly, “Work isn’t hard; it’s just that you have to keep doing it.” That could apply to life in general. Every once in a while, you have to just embrace the crazy. For me, I did this last year when I had to renew my driver’s license. I had to have my picture retaken, so I decided to go for a new look.
Don’t be afraid to just do something different. You’re special; you’re you. Go for it. Embrace the crazy.

Les Sweeney is ABMP’s president. Contact him at les@abmp.com and read his blog Expect More, with Les on www.abmp.com. Kristin Coverly, kristin@abmp.com, is the manager of professional development at ABMP and teaches workshops for therapists and instructors across the country. Both are massage therapists with business degrees who care about you and your practice.