There are often many mistakes made by the newly qualified practitioner eager to build a practice and please costumers.

1) If renting a room or space be sure to check it out at different times. Your perfect room may turn out to have a noisy gym class above it or next to it with the trainer shouting instructions. The unscrupulous owner may be misleading you just to rent the space.

2) Be very clear about your personal space for life and work, clearly state your boundaries to your clients and be sure to enforce them.

3) Be clear on pricing and what the client is paying for. Stick to the time allocated and don’t overrun making the next person late and every client after. Take the time off of the session the client is late for. If they complain just explain that you have a client at X o’clock and that if they had been on time they would have had a full session. Stick to your guns and don’t let them pressure you, they will respect you for it in the end.

4) Make sure you get your clients to sign a form stating that they agree to your cancellation fees and not showing up policies. This gives you a degree of cover for when people mess you around, don’t show or cancel their appointment just before they are due to come. If you use an electronic booking system be sure to include a page and check box agreeing to your policies.

5) Do not try to do too much in one session, have a clear goal and focus on that. Once you have achieved it move to the next, remember the body can only assimilate so much. Often less work but with high focus yields better results.

6) If offering voucher be sure to clearly state an expiry date as people will show up with a five years old voucher they found in the bottom of a drawer. It is OK to honour the voucher but remember that your prices were a lot less than and they are now and the voucher client is taking the place of a higher paying client.

7) Vouchers are great but if they include a discount be sure to limit it to a short duration or you will have lots of clients work very hard and make less money

8) Long term discounts are a menace and end up destroying the value of a session or treatment within the wider massage community. The less you charge the harder and longer you have to work to earn the same money, damaging and tiring your body in the process. Cheap and nasty will eventually cost you clients.

9) Long term discounts are a menace and end up destroying the value of a session or treatment within the wider massage community. The less you charge the harder and longer you have to work to earn the same money, damaging and tiring your body in the process. Cheap and nasty will eventually cost you clients.

10) If a client comes to you complaining about the last practitioner or the last two, you can bet that you are going to be next in line. People like this can really damage a reputation that it has taken years to build. Be aware of this and don’t be shy to send them on their way they won’t be worth it in the long run.

Tip: If a client won’t stop talking, ask them to breathe in and out. It’s magic it works every time