There are certain steps one may be wise to take in order to become a successful massage therapist or bodyworker—and to maintain that success once it is achieved. The obvious stepping stones toward success include getting a good education in massage school and then advancing your skills on a regular basis through high quality continuing education courses.
Another key to achieving and maintaining success as a professional massage therapist or bodyworker may not be so obvious. This involves “taking the pulse” of your practice on a regular basis. In other words, it may be quite helpful to the continued success of your practice if you build in a set time to check up on the status of every aspect of your practice, from the number of clients you appear to have each month to the current quality of your session room.
In fact, making sure you have an objective take on the quality of your sessions can be one of the most important factors of all. This might mean spending some time on your own massage table, to really get a feel for how comfortable it is for clients, as well as how the massage linens may feel—whether they are too warm or too cold, too soft or too scratchy. It can also mean really diving in and exploring the texture and quality and other components of your staple massage cream.
For the purposes of this article, we will focus in on doing a quality check on your massage cream, as massage cream can be one of the most vital tools in the session room of the professional massage therapist or bodyworker. The massage cream you use will go home with your client, and the impression it leaves can influence whether or not that client will be coming back to see you on a regular basis.
Obviously, you want your massage cream to leave a good impression with each client, or at least to leave a neutral impression. What you do not want is a massage cream that bothers the client in any way, shape or form. So, as you explore your own massage cream, you will need to slather it onto all your skin—the same amount you would apply to the skin of your clients during a massage session.
See if the massage cream feels too heavy on your skin as you apply it, or if it leaves you feeling sticky later on, at the time when the client might be leaving your office or an hour or so past the massage appointment. Also, pay attention to whether there is any aroma in your massage cream that might irritate a sensitive client. If you have a massage cream without any aroma, you might find that it leaves a neutral impression.
In this case, consider exploring options for massage creams that could actually enhance the impression made on your clients. This might mean looking for a massage cream that brings a wonderful dose of aromatherapy to the table, or a massage cream that feels luxurious going on—rather than just neutral.