As a professional practitioner of healthy touch, it is important to be able to tell your clients all about the services you provide. While it may be true not every client cares to know how they benefit from a session, but for those who do, a well-informed bodyworker makes a wonderful impression.
Most likely, you could easily explain how the hands-on therapy you provide can help boost circulation, reduce stress levels and more, in turn promoting overall health and wellness. However, the knowledgeable practitioner should also be able to tell his or her clients exactly what’s in the massage cream that’s applied to their skin, and any benefits these ingredients may bring.
As mentioned, you may not be giving a lecture on the efficacy of bodywork or the advantages of the ingredients in your chosen massage cream during every session, or even very many of them. While you may not be asked to share this information regularly, simply staying abreast of all such pertinent details should help to enhance your general performance as a massage therapist or bodyworker. After all, it seems as if one can never have enough knowledge about the work he or she does on a daily basis, especially when that work involved the health and wellness of other human beings.
Another place where this information may truly come in handy is in the realm of marketing, a place where many massage therapists would rather not step. However, it is true that in order to have a thriving bodywork business, one must be a good marketer, unless a long and stable client list has already been established.
For those massage therapists who may be looking to earn more money by bringing new clients through the door, sharing information on the benefits of your bodywork sessions, including the perks your massage cream brings to the table, can be a great way to do so.
Consider giving a lecture on these topics at a local health-food store, wellness clinic or even at a hospital. Another option is to create and distribute brochures about your practice, or try writing a press release and then contacting the newspaper or TV station in your community about the possibility of a story.
Of course, if you’re going to do any of the above, from sharing information with clients to sharing it with the entire community, it almost goes without saying that you must know your stuff.
Take the time to research each ingredient in the massage creams you use. Find out where it comes from, how it’s grown and processed, what health benefits it has and whether it is contraindicated for certain clients.
For example, one popular massage cream ingredient may be Arnica montana, which is included in massage creams that aim to reduce pain. This element is straight from Mother Nature—a mountain plant common to the northwestern U.S. as well as central Europe.
Such simple facts may go a long way to assuring and impressing current clients, and they may also help draw new people to your practice.
—Brandi Schlossberg