Attracting new clients

[Shiite Rabbi]

On the subject of men asking for sexual services I used to give Aromatherapy massage in an alternative health centre, some of the problem was that because they charged 45 pounds per hour people used to assume that this included "Extras". What I did was put a life size model skeleton in the room and a few books on anatomy scattered around and most people would get the message.

Also today there are a lot of women younger foreignwomen especially who are qualified in massage/aromatherapy but also theydo offer sex. In some ways this makes it very confusing for male clients because the difference betweenlegitimate massage and prostitution becomes blurred. I have actually had at least one male client come to me who assumed that I offered extras and told me he was happily married and he didnt want any. Made me laugh anyway.

 

[vidbbzrr]

A colleague of mine works in a very posh neighbourhood in West London, she charges £70 an hour and she's totally booked up. My theory is that one part of the reason people book her precisely because she's extortionately expensive (the other major part of course is because she's very good). Because of the type of clientele she has, the more expensive she is, the higher their perception of value. I guess you always have to price to the market.

x

henry
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[link=http://www.massageworks.co.uk]www.massageworks.co.uk[/link]

 

[sosGlymmestyassthma]

I know people dont have to pay it but doesnt she feel guilty is sort of a bit of a rip off.[&:]

 

[I AM A TROLLey -LOL-]

Blimey, I'd expect some extras for £70 an hour! Maybe she could come round and clean my oven after...?

 

[znepkumpirricoeuo]

Ha ha, now that's a business idea if ever I heard one!

Well my take is that it's not the price, it's the value that our clients put on our service that's important. If £70 is a rip-off, why does she get repeat business? People aren't stupid. I'm sure there are plenty of other therapists out there servicing her area that are much cheaper than her. Why aren't her clients going to them?

Personally I think (and I'm generalising horrendously here) that massage therapists (of which I am one) undervalue the contribution our service makes to people's lives. Now I'm not saying that we should all go out there and start asking everyone to pay through the nose, but we shouldn't be embarrassed or timid to price at a level that's a true reflection on the benefit that our clients get from seeing us.

I say, respect to her for valueing herself highly!

I'm steeling myself for a barrage of abuse now...

Much love

Henry
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[link=http://www.massageworks.co.uk]www.massageworks.co.uk[/link]

 

[Tanja T]

Well said Henry, I agree.

 

[jUST MEEE DUDE]

I'm with Henry and Trow on that one - putting a price on your services is tough but I personally believe it shouldreflect the value you place on your expertise and time. Plus although I love this job, Ihave ongoing training, rent, laundry costs, etc etc to pay for, andwant to make enough to eat at the end of the day!

There is a danger, I think, that if people price themselves too low that it undervalues the work of the profession as a whole... I'm certainly not saying we should all start charging through the roof, but I do think there is a place for a range of prices in the market.

Thorny issue

 

[~m!]

I'm in a slightly different line of work, but I think it would be GREAT if we did all charge a more standardised price that reflected our real costs, training and skills.

Whoever calls out a plumber for as little as we charge an hour!!???

If the CAM professions did unite in our pricing, I doubt we'd raise much of an eyebrow at £70 per hour rates. IMHO

Aragorn x

 

[Pompal 09.]

Despite my flippant comment above, I do agree. One problem is we tend to start off low in the hope of attracting our first clients. But then, of course, it's hard to put up the rates significantly when you do get established.
My wife has found this problem over the years with her piano teaching practices. Problem is, like most of us here, she's a nice caring sort of person and doesn't want to price people out of her services. That's something you don't get much with plumbers!
I suppose the ideal is to operate a dual pricing system for therapies - reasonable rates for those who really need them and can't afford to pay too much, and high rates for the ladies who lunch and who think nothing of paying out a fortune for hairdressers, nail "technicians", etc etc. I'd be happy to take £70 an hour off them!

 

[* E r i c a *]

I don’t think that Aragorn’s analogy between a massage therapist and a plumber was a very appropriate one, because a plumber is (unfortunately) sometimes a necessity, whereas as massage therapists we are supplying a luxury rather than a necessity.
And I don’t think that it would be very helpful to encourage a newly-qualified massage therapist to think that he or she could charge £70 for an hour’s massage. Using Deb’s original query as an example, it appears that at the time she posted her query, she had only had three ‘full-body’ clients in about four months. If she had charged £70 rather than £34, I suspect that she would have had no clients, which would have been a waste of her training (and of her room rent).

None of the advocates of ‘pricing high’ seem to have to responded to the point which both LouLou and I have made, ie that if a therapist charges an unusually high price, the odd client will probably assume that the price includes sexual services, with a consequent threat to the therapist’s personal safety. The murdered Dorset therapist to whom I referred in an earlier post was reportedly based in the Sandbanks/Poole Harbour area, which was described in the press as a wealthy ‘yachting’ area with some of the highest property prices in the UK. So presumably she had several wealthy clients who were happy to pay the £100 which she charged. But she has now been murdered, and her daughter is having to grow up without a mother.

Personally I would be willing to pay £70 for a high-quality treatment demanding specialist skills, such as (for example) ‘chavutti thirumal’ or ‘lomi lomi’. But I couldn’t afford to do so very often! And I certainly wouldn’t be willing to pay £70 for an ITEC-style ‘Swedish massage’, unless it was delivered by an excellent therapist who included the type of ‘full-body’ strokes which are common in spas outside the UK but are apparently not usually taught by ITEC tutors.

Alan

 

[Frank the tank]

Alan - I am not 'advocating' high prices, I just don't see why the woman mentioned should be criticised as being a 'rip-off' when her clients are obviously happy to pay her prices. She is charging according to what is suitable in her circumstances, and fair play to her for doing that.

I don't think it matters what level you charge at, depending on where you practice, people will make assumptions - if you are cheaper they will want to know how much the extras cost, for example. It hasn't happened to me, but it is unlikely to a) because of my location and b) because of the business that I rent a room from -I regard myself as fortunate in that respect. A friend of mine had a very dodgy experience, and she wasn't charging anything like £70 or £100 per hour.

 

[Arly]

Sadly I think that regardless of the prices charged by therapists (whether £70 or £25)we will never necessarily "put off" those clients who are looking for sexual services on the basis of price alone. What I do think comes into play, as you yourself mentioned Alan, is the way in which we advertise or word our services, have our clinics set up, etc, in order to create the right image.

In addition, I personally feel more comfortable and safer working from a salon/clinic environment rather than from home (which I used to do), and I always have someone else on site regardless of the treatment I am providing. This isn't possible for everyone, however, and in these instances I do think we have a responsibility to ourselves and the profession as a whole to think more about what, how and where we advertise, rather thanassuming thathigh prices will automaticallyattract people who want "extras" solely because of that high price.

*Edited to make more sense*

 

[packfan4ever133]

Ultimately the market will pay, what the market will bear. Remember that in a lot of Spa's and major hotels guests pay what many of us consider to be ridiculous prices for treatments, but relative to income and expectations of the individual it is acceptable.

I think its unkind to make assumptions about a person and their practice when they are unable to reply.

I occasionally reduce my prices when I think that a client might have difficulty paying, maybe I should ask for a P60 on my more affluent clients to raise their prices

LOL

FBx

 

[Dr House in the house.]

Crikey, that's arathergob-smacking assumption! Disagreeing with a pricing structure is one thing, but I personally feel that making accusations about what a therapist offers behind closed doors when you have no personal experience of that practitioner is both unfair and potentially harmful.

On a lighter note, and in relation to Funnybunny's post, I agree that there are occasions when it is right/acceptable to adjust prices or to have a flexible pricing structure in place. I believe there are ways of reducing the actual monetarycharge of a treatment without compromising the value we place on our time and work as therapists.

Swapping services is one way of doing this- if a client has skills which would be of benefit tomyself or my business, I'll often do a trade-off. I got myself some free artwork and advertising recently by doing this, and it's also a great way of networking!

Andy

 

[picador]

I can understand that many people will feel that charging £70 is unreasonable, but I think that the second sentence of LouLou's latest post is unjustified.

Alan

 

[Dalton Traviz]

I won't dignify Lou Lou's comments with an answer.

Hi Alan D,
I totally disagree with you that massage is not a necessity. As humans we seem to think that we are indestructable, right up until the point we develop back pain or the stress that we've been ignoring overwhelms us. As a massage therapist, surely you must have seen heaps of remedial cases that could have been avoided by if the client had booked a regular massage? I know I have.

Regarding your later comments and I'm not quite sure I understand your point yet. I think that you saying that by charging a premium rate, therapists are putting themselves at risk?

Cheers

Henry
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[link=http://www.massageworks.co.uk]www.massageworks.co.uk[/link]

 

[Lutoberrupt]

Hi Henry

1) I would like to agree with your view that massage is a necessity, but I'm afraid I can't, because many people manage to live 'normal lives' without ever having a massage, and I suspect that if we all charged £70 (as Aragorn appeared to suggest), some ofour 'lower-income' clients would simply do without massage. And yes I do (for example) regularly see people who have been forced to stop runningbecause ofinjuries which could have been avoided with regular massage.

2) Iagree that, regardless of the price charged,therapists working from home are at some risk from clients looking for sexual services, which is precisely why I reactivated this thread backat post no 14 (because I thought that some of the early posts on this thread, concentratingon how to advertise,seemed to completely ignore this danger). But I also still think that this risk is significantly higher if the therapist charges an unusually high rate, as with the murdered Dorset therapist who charged £100 for a massage.

Alan

 

[ovefquevidgitbeaq]

Hi Everyone[/align][/align]There are different forms of massage, most will contribute to the overall health and wellness of the recipients, even if it is just to reduce the amount of stress they are carrying around.[/align][/align]I am going to put my remedial massage therapy hat on now.[/align][/align]A lot of people spend years suffering unnecessarily, putting up with dysfunctions and restrictions simply because their Dr told them there is no treatment for what they suffer from![/align][/align]If we cannot cure something that does not mean that we cannot improve both the condition and the quality of life of the person who has sadly beensuffering unnecessarily.[/align][/align]There are not many of us who charge what we are worth simply because most of our patients could not afford the cost of the regular maintenance treatments that help to keep them mobile and reduce their discomfort to a manageable level.[/align][/align]Each person has to decide how much their level of expertise is worth against what the market can afford, private heath care is expensive, the training is often very expensive up to 5 figures, also the insurance can be expensivelargely depending on what you are treating, if you go to the expense of renting quality premises, staff and advertisingthen that also has to be added to the overall pricing structure.[/align]

 

[Jackee]

Paul - Totally!

 

[jakemonster4]

Feeling a bit "tarred" there Alan.

My point wasn't so much the price itself, but the standardisation of prices.

Around where I live most accountants charge £75 per hour +VAT. Most plumbers and electricians £45 per hour etc etc.

Similarly the ostepaths charge £30 per ½ hour, the chiros £30 per ¼ hour. There's not much variation.

At my clinic, the cheapest treatment is £5 (ear acupuncture) whilst the most expensive is a homeopath that charges £70. Our massages range from £28 to £42 for an hour depending on the type of treatment.

I think a broad range of prices is good, in that people on low income can afford treatment, but the flipside is that a broad range can be confusing for people. Many do think that it must be better because it costs more. Not necessarily true!

I run a low cost acupuncture clinic (£10 per treatment for full body traditional acupuncture). The clientelle are not generally low-waged. Standardising prices I believe would give a simple message: We provide a professional service; this is what it costs. If that did end up nearer £70 her hour, (in line with osteos and chiros) I suspect it wouldn't cause too much of a stir.

Aragorn x