The first time I thought about becoming a massage therapist was in 1991 when I decided to drop back to part time at my full time corporate job and  enrolled in massage school.  I talked to my dad about it, and his comment was “why would you quit a good corporate job with benefits to do something weird like massage?”  Wow!  Thanks for your vote of confidence Dad, I thought to myself.  But then I said, “well dad, you do the math;  If I work 4 hours in a day at $50 per hour (the going rate in 1991 for massage)  I will make $200 in a day and still have half the day left to be with my family when I have kids”.  At the time I was paid about $9 per hour for an 8 hour day totaling $72.  I felt very strongly about being called to massage therapy as a way of helping people to lower their stress levels, and I felt called to the occupation as a therapist.  I was married at the time but had no children yet.

I enrolled in school and once I graduated I started my massage practice and continued to work my job part time as I built my practice.  I replaced my corporate part time income very quickly, quit my job and never looked back!  I have loved being self employed since 1992.

I was a massage therapist from Aug 1992 to Oct 2014. Then I retired my practice after 22 very rewarding wonderful years.  Being a massage therapist afforded me to be home with my son and be my own kid’s mom.  My husband and I divorced when he was 3 years old, and I was able to still be with him and work to make enough money to support the two of us.  My schedule was flexible because I was in control of it, so I could be with him whenever I wanted and was always there when he got home from school.  Massage therapy as a self employed occupation gave me freedom and blessings I never would have dreamed it would.  It was the perfect fit for me, and helped me to live life on my terms and not on someone else’s terms as I did when I was employed by someone else.

During the 22 years in my massage business, I had many other therapists ask me how I got so many clients.  Until I stopped to think about it I never realized I had brought a lot of business skills into my practice with me from the beginning.  I studied general business at Boise State University (prior to my corporate job) and before launching my massage practice I had dabbled in business for years.  I sold direct sales products on the side of my full time job, as well as read a lot of books on selling and business.  I also went to www.ccui.com for a coaching certification in Nov 2002 to become a Life and Executive coach.  So what seemed very easy to me, was actually very difficult for other massage therapists who didn’t have business experience as well as traditional hands on training.  Other therapists would tell me how they were having such a hard time getting enough clients on their own, so they would go and work for someone else only to find that someone else would keep a large percentage of the money the client would pay for the massage session.  I knew lots of massage therapists who had another job to makes ends meet besides working as an MT.  But I was so busy with my full time practice I would throw them a few nuggets, but really couldn’t do much for them at the time.  So in Oct 2014 when I decided to retire my massage practice, I decided it was time to assist other massage therapists (and other practice builders who depend on generating their own leads) to grow their practices!  So I wrote down what I did to build my practice, and taught a series of 6 classes in person locally.  My first class had an attorney and a real estate agent in it!  I found out, I am a coach, but I really didn’t want to spend my time teaching. 

So I took the information and put it into an online product I can share with multiple people (which helps more people anyway!)