Running a massage practice involves far more than just working with clients. Tasks like laundry, bookkeeping, social media, and other behind-the-scenes tasks can quickly become overwhelming. Outsourcing certain responsibilities helps therapists reclaim their time and energy, while also benefiting from professional-quality work. By finding the right support, massage therapists can avoid burnout and focus more on what they love: caring for their clients.
Key Takeaways
- Outsourcing saves time and energy by freeing massage therapists from draining administrative and maintenance tasks.
- Professional support improves quality, whether it’s bookkeeping, web design, or marketing.
- Cost should be weighed against value; outsourcing often pays off in efficiency, accuracy, or reduced stress.
- Finding the right fit matters; not every accountant, web developer, or service provider will align with your needs.
- Delegating prevents burnout and allows therapists to focus on client care and growing their practice.
One of the first things you learn when you go into business for yourself (whether private practice or independent contracting) is how much “behind the scenes” work there is just to make it possible to do the thing you love. You probably managed those behind-the-scenes responsibilities on your own when you started. Laundry, bookkeeping, social media, cleaning, scheduling, taxes, and even more technical tasks like creating a website, designing a logo, and providing your own tech support. You definitely saved money doing it yourself. When you’re starting out and have time on your hands till that schedule fills, it may not seem like a big deal. It’s also a good way to learn what it takes to manage a business.
However, after doing these behind-the-scenes tasks for a while you may wonder if there is a better way to use your time.
There are four good reasons to let someone else take care of certain tasks for you:
- Buying back your time
- Buying back your energy
- Getting professional-grade work
- You just don’t want to do [task] anymore!
Some tasks are time-intensive. Think about how long it takes to keep up with the laundry for a busy practice. What could you do if that time wasn’t full of laundry? It might mean more time for clients or it might mean more time for you, maybe for some of that self-care we’re always talking about.
Some tasks are more energy-intensive, especially mental energy. For example, if you do your taxes how much mental energy does that take? How much better would you sleep knowing that someone else was taking care of them?
There are other tasks we can do for ourselves but we probably don’t do as good a job as a professional would. With free online tools, you can create your own website. Will it look as good as a website done by a professional? Maybe, maybe not.
In speaking to another massage therapist about this article, she laughed and said she recently handed her taxes off to an accountant. She’d done them herself for years but she was now taking care of her practice and taking care of an elderly parent and she said “I’m just tired!” She handed off her taxes to an accountant and is happy to not have to think about them anymore.
So why don’t we all outsource everything we can? Obviously, there’s the cost, whether you pay someone directly or arrange for an exchange. You might feel like a “real” business owner should be able to do it all. You might not know how to find a good person to work with. Let’s address those concerns.
Cost
You have to consider cost as you do everything you purchase for your practice. As with every other purchase, you have to ask yourself what this purchase truly buys for you. For example, what would make it worth it to you to purchase an electric table? An electric table is not the difference between a successful and unsuccessful practice. It can, however, help with body mechanics and it can make it easier for clients to get on and off the table. What are your body mechanics and client ease worth to you?
What advantage do you buy for yourself if you hire a bookkeeper? Is it time, energy, or accuracy? What are those worth to you? How might it make your life easier?
“Real” business owners
If you talk to most busy successful massage therapists, you’ll find that they happily pay someone to take care of certain tasks for them. If you find that taking care of the administration of your business is wearing you out, you’re walking yourself toward burnout if you don’t at least consider finding someone to take care of some of your administrative tasks.
Finding good help
This isn’t any different than finding a good realtor, hairdresser, or dog walker. Ask your colleagues for recommendations. Check out websites. Do an internet search. Be open to the reality that you may have to try two or three people to find the right match.
Last year I hired someone to re-design my website. They took four months to do something that they said would take three weeks. The results were mediocre. I corrected what I could and hired a second person to fix the rest. The second person was a dream to work with. I didn’t find the right person on the first try but I did on the second.
Rebecca Manitsas of Durham NC switched from a local laundry service to a linen service two years ago. She said her practice had reached the point where “we were seeing too many clients and [her previous service] couldn’t do it every week, their capacity was too small.”
All that being said, what are the tasks massage therapists most commonly outsource if they can?
Accountants and bookkeepers
So many of us are not enamored of all things number-y. A bookkeeper does the data entry to keep your bookkeeping entries up to date. You still need to know what things to track and are still responsible for your receipts but they handle the data entry. The most common use for an accountant is to help with taxes (including quarterly estimate taxes) and major financial decisions. I often joke that my husband and I use an accountant for our taxes because it’s cheaper than marriage counseling.
Web developers
It is possible with free online services or the tools offered by professional societies to design your own website. Working with a website developer expands your options, both in design and functionality. A website done by a competent web developer should look more polished and professional. They can also do updates and changes much more quickly than most of us can.
Editorial support
Not everyone can write well or is even comfortable with it. Yet a lot of our standard marketing tools – websites, rack cards, client newsletters, etc. – require good writing. Finding someone who can do the writing for you or just clean up your work is a good investment in effective marketing.
Graphic designers
Whether it’s a logo, images for a website, or a good-looking rack card a graphic designer can make everything more beautiful.
Andrea Smith said “I worked on my logo for quite a while, before handing it to someone else. I just did not have the software to make it nice and crisp and get the different file formats that make a logo easy across any platform. I think buying decent software would have cost more than my logo did overall, so that is exceptionally worth it…running a business is its own full-time job. Delegating to other professionals allows me more time to do the things that I love.”
Laundry services
You have several options for outsourcing laundry; from hiring someone else to do them in your home (what are your kids doing right now?) all the way up to engaging a linen service that provides the linens and launders them for you.
Amy Hartl of Buffalo NY said “I (generally) take my laundry to a wash and fold service and it is the greatest business luxury I give myself. Granted I have a small practice – about 10 clients a week – but the $20 it costs is monumentally less than the time it saves and the beauty of perfectly folded sheets is a joy.”
Social media managers
The trick to getting the most out of social media is posting regularly and often. The challenge is we are all busy people and often can’t think of what to put on social media. A good social media manager can handle all that posting and give you good advice on ways to use social media more effectively.
Cleaning
Whether you bring someone in occasionally for a deep clean or have someone come in weekly for regular maintenance, it’s nice to let someone else make your space clean and spiffy.
The final challenge in finding the help you need is finding someone who is a good fit for you. You may be an excellent massage therapist but you’re not going to be the right massage therapist for everyone. The same is true with hiring support for our business. An accountant who intimidates you so much that you never ask questions is not a good match. A social media manager who assumes you can come up with content three times a day, seven days a week may not be a good fit for your schedule or energy. A web developer who needs you to understand the technology that is central to good web design is going to be difficult to work with if you don’t have that knowledge.
Take time to carefully consider what you want, what you know and don’t know, and what kind of working relationship you’d like to have. Be clear about this when you interview people for a given service. They need to be more than skilled. They also need to be a good fit for you and your business.
About the Author
Kelly Bowers is the owner of the Healing Arts Business Academy (healingartsbizacademy.com) and specializes in helping massage therapists set up their private practice and navigate the first two years in practice. She is an author, a presenter at regional and national conferences, an instructor in professional training programs, an NCBTMB-approved provider of continuing education, and a retired massage therapist. She lives in Durham, North Carolina. (NC 16669)
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