- OR – The blog gets a makeover

If you’ve been coming to the site to read the posts, you’ll notice that something has changed.

Not a lot, mind you, but I did give the site a bit of a refresh. You’ll notice the stuff at the top has changed:

I’ve updated the logo, moved the massive 3 item menu to the right of the logo, and added 2 ad boxes. One is a permanent link to the instructions on joining us on #massagechat and the other will take you to my web design business website.

If you click on a post title, the post page will have a floating social sharing menu on the left. Just click Like or + or Tweet and the plugin will take care of the rest.

You’ll also see that I’ve updated my social profile links and added my Google+ profile. This, too, is done with a plugin. No more uploading icons and writing html in widgets. (I realize that sounded a lot like Romulan to most of you, sorry for the geek speak).

Archives

The list was getting really long, which shows I’ve been at this a while, so I’ve changed it to a drop down menu to save some space.

Categories

This is a word cloud because it was fun. And it saves space.

Blogroll

They are all still there. If you’re not on this list, use the contact form on the Contact page and shoot me your URL.

I kept most of the formatting really similar. I may have missed a thing or two here and there, so there might be a bit of tidying up to do.

Why the refresh?

The blog was getting close to 2 years old. I wanted to be able to ad the advert blocks on the top. But mostly, my theme of choice, Headway, just came out with a huge new update and I wanted to show the users there that they can do a refresh with an old version running live and the new version running behind a magic curtain.

Easy Peasy

This was so simple with Headway. I used a plugin to allow me to redesign the site on a new theme while you only saw maybe 1 or 2 tiny changes on the live site. The entire site redesign, including a couple of new photoshop files, was done over a weekend. The change over took less than 2 minutes.

I hope you like the updates. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Well, that went well.

I had the opportunity to chat with Ryan Hoyme, The MassageNerd, last night about making the most of your website. Many of you dropped in to watch and ask questions, and I want to thank you all for that.

I had a great time. Ryan is funny, smart, and personable and I could hang out with him all night, but he has videos to edit and I have blog posts to write.

As I mentioned, embedding video on WordPress is extremely simple and here’s the proof:

As you can see, I’ve arrived in Portland and picked up my registration packet.

I’ve finally gotten to meet Allissa Haines from Writing a Blue Streak AND we’ve already recorded 30 minutes of video for a blog series we’re working on. I won’t give away the secret but it’s going to be fun and informative. No snacks were consumed, but Allissa was drinking coffee.

The convention hasn’t started in earnest, yet. People from all over the US are starting to arrive. I’m getting to meet a lot of new people and I’m looking forward to making some new friends. I have my video camera with me to get some video interviews with some of the attendees. If there’s a question you want asked, add it to the Facebook page.

I’ll be blogging throughout the convention so that those of you who couldn’t make the trip can still get a feel for what it’s like.

This is my first national convention, so everything is new to me. I can say, without a doubt, everyone is friendly and gracious, even some of the more famous people in the profession.

We have such an awesome group of people in our little slice of the universe!

Bloggers meetup Thursday starting at 5 PM, Double Tree Hotel lounge

If you’d like to meet me, Allissa, and others, please stop by. If you’re interested in starting a blog, stop by and we’ll share what we know. I’d love to meet you!

When should a massage school reject an applicant?

When is the confidentiality of a student’s background more important than his risk to the clinic clients of a school?

What is the school’s liability?

These are all big questions that deserve some very serious consideration by the administrators of this country’s massage schools. Recently, a very public case has become an embarrassing example for the entire massage school industry.  This is a subject that must be addressed or we risk ruining the reputation of an entire industry and undoing decades of work to legitimize massage.

The example:

A student in WA State had completed massage school and was applying for licensure. This student had previously been convicted of a Class C felony (1) for Child Molestation in the third degree (2) in 2003. This conviction was approximately 8 years prior to the application for licensure.

The Department of Health Denied the licensure based on the applicant’s prior convictions.

Disclaimer – Please read this

The applicant’s court records are not available to me at this time so I do not know the details behind the crimes or the conviction. I am not trying to make this individual an example nor am I trying to make him a villain. That was for the legal system to do and they have done so.

My biggest concern is with the school that accepted him as a student and let him work on the public.

If the school was unaware of the student’s prior convictions:

How is it possible that you would run a public clinic with students and not run a background check? A simple background check would have indicated that the applicant had a sexual assault conviction on his record.

If the school was aware of the student’s prior convictions:

How is it possible that you would accept this student into your program? It is completely unambiguous that the state will not license someone for any of the following reasons:

RCW 18.130.055 Section 1 a “ … Has been convicted or is subject to current prosecution or pending charges of a crime involving moral turpitude or a crime identified in RCW 43.43.830.”

RCW 43.43.830 section 5 “ … first, second, or third degree child molestation; …”

The school should be knowledgeable about laws regarding massage therapy in their respective jurisdictions and should be teaching those laws to their students. Therefore, ignorance of this law that would result in the student never being licensable brings to mind 2 very serious issues:

1 – The school is allowing a convicted felon to perform massage on the general public via their student clinic

2 – The school is taking the student’s tuition money knowing that the student will never be granted a license.

How are either of these legally, morally, or ethically acceptable?

I would like to think that this was an isolated, one time only case, but sadly, it isn’t. I teach ethics and, as a result, I get private emails from therapists and students alike asking about this sort of thing. Even when students approach the school administrators with concerns regarding a fellow student’s background, they are largely ignored and the issue is left to the state licensing department to deny the application.

Is it not the school’s responsibility to protect the public?

Is it not the school’s responsibility to inform the potential student that a prior conviction will make it impossible to get a license to practice and urge that student to spend their money pursuing another career?

What do you think? Am I being unreasonable? Expecting too much of massage schools? Too little? Let me know in the comments below.

Notes:

RCW means “Revised Code of Washington”. WAC means “Washington Administrative Code”. All RCW and WAC for the state of Washington are available online at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/ and http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx, respectively.

1 – A Class C felony is the least serious in the state of WA.

2 – Child molestation in the third degree: the victim is between the ages of 14 and 16 and the perpetrator is at least 48 months older than the victim. It is a class C felony. RCW9A.44.089

Recently, I’ve been spending a good deal of time designing websites for businesses, so when I came across this article in my reader today, it really struck a chord. Go read it, I’ll wait.

Referrals- Why They’re Killing Your Biz and What You Can Do About It (Word.)

And, you’re back.

What I’ve found is that too many of us are letting our marketing materials get stale and out of date because we’re doing so well based on referrals.

The referral engine you’ve built may be an illusion

Ask most massage therapists what their biggest source of new clients is and they will answer “Referrals”. So they neglect all of their other marketing materials and resources since none of these is as good as word of mouth.

But maybe, it’s that your current website sucks so badly that it will never generate any new clients.

Maybe your business card that uses the same template as everyone else doesn’t set you apart.

Maybe your brochures haven’t been updated or use cheesy clipart.

None of these things is a favorable reflection of you or the quality of your service

So no wonder they don’t generate any new clients. They look like crap, they don’t have any “What’s In It For Me” take aways for potential clients, and they may even be turning people off and away.

And that’s why all of your new business is coming from referrals.

Maybe if we updated some of our materials, made them more client-centric, and put some serious polish on them, we’ll get more clients from our marketing materials.

For the next few posts, I’m going to walk us through updating our reflections so that they match the quality of what we have to offer.

Take a look at your website, business cards, and brochures and ask yourself “What isn’t working well?”. Leave a comment below of what materials you need to have updated. We’ll do this together because the world needs our services and we have to get the word out.

* photo: nvbr11

I normally post links to blog articles I think you might enjoy. This week, I’m providing links to just 2 articles that I think you MUST read.

On Being an Employee/Employer

Whether you are an employee or an employer, Cherie Sohnen-Moe has information you should read. She published a well written survey result, The Employment Quandry. Having managed employees for many years, and been an employee since I was 15, some of the behaviors described by the employees goes against any reasonable advice being taught by management experts.

If you recognize yourself as one of these bosses, I recommend that you start reading up on management theory. I have discovered, over the years, that good managers are usually made, not born and excellent management skills can be learned. Your business will benefit and your own sanity may be saved by becoming a better boss. If you want suggestions, email me and I’ll send you some good resources.

The employers profiled all seemed to have figured out how to run a business and manage the diverse personalities that make up a workforce. Some of them have carved out unique niches in their markets and would make good case studies for how to succeed in the massage marketplace.

In search of myofascial trigger points

The next article is a journal article on the use of ultrasound to visualize trigger points. Titled “Novel Applications of Ultrasound Technology to Visualize and Characterize Myofascial Trigger Points and Surrounding Soft Tissue“, the paper describes the research methods and includes some really amazing photos of trigger points in tissue. Take your time and read the article, and you might need a dictionary (Google is very helpful here), but I think you’ll be glad you did.

After previous articles published discounting the existence of trigger points, it’s good to see that there are researchers trying to get a handle on how to measure them. If they can be measured, it becomes more clear as to whether or not trigger points actually exist or not. If their existence can be proven via visualization, then the technique can also be used to determine the efficacy of different treatment methods. Is direct compression the best way to relieve a TrP? What is the best length of time to hold the pressure? How much pressure is required? Answers to these questions would help us bring much needed relief to our clients much sooner and, perhaps, with less treatment discomfort.

Those two links should keep you busy for the next week. I’d love to hear your feedback on them, so chime in in the comments below.

What the Coneheads can teach you about your marketing materials.

You’ve spent days writing and re-writing the text for that new sales brochure. You’ve proofread the matching text on your website and tweaked all the formatting. Hours have been invested, the local printing company has charged you a few hundred dollars, you’ve spent even more on postage. You’ve cleaned up your mailing list database and printed out a few hundred mailing labels. Your gorgeous new trifold brochure has been launched into the community. Huzza!

And no one has called.

Now you’ve decided that the brochure and website were a waste of time. “See,” you tell yourself, “the only marketing that ever works is word of mouth. I’m never wasting another cent on printed brochures or website design.”

Is it really true that printed materials and websites don’t work? If not, why do so many businesses, successful businesses, spend so much money on them? How do they make their marketing materials successful?

Why don’t your marketing materials work?

Because you’ve told your reader to Narfle the Garthok

Right now, you’re scratching your head and thinking to yourself: do what to the what?

My point, exactly.

If your marketing materials are full of industry jargon, or Massage-speak, and your readers don’t speak Massage-speak, all they see is bullet point after bullet point of Narfle the Garthok.

Does your audience know what myofascial release is? cranio sacral? Can they tell a scapula from a sternum? Probably not, but I see therapist after therapist printing out lists of industry jargon and abbreviations that only other massage therapists understand. To your non-massage therapist audience, it’s all

• Narfle the Garthok

If this describes your marketing materials, you’re only marketing to other massage therapists. Not much of a client base, believe me. In fact, doctors and dentists won’t understand most of what you’re talking about either because they have their own jargon and abbreviations. While there is some overlap, many of the abbreviations actually mean different things. (I have a whole story about RTV that’s pretty funny if you’re an engineer).

If your reader is to make any sense of your brochure, they are going to have to spend a significant amount of time on Google looking up all of these terms.

Would you do that? Probably not.

I want you to look through all of your marketing materials and, using a brightly colored highlighter, highlight any words or phrases that are NOT common English. I’ll bet the paper is a little soggy with highlighter ink when you’re done.

Comment below if you’ve actually found any of this jargon.

“Narfle the Garthok” is my favorite line of dialog in the Coneheads movie. It has no earthly equivalent as a Garthok is an alien creature. Narfling is ‘fighting’ or ‘killing’.

Last week, Allissa Haines wrote an article on how to review someone before you hire Experts, mentors & coaches.

I want to talk a little bit about buying internet products.

Product launch season must be just ’round the bend. Why do I think this? Well, it’s been months since the big internet players have released products, people including Chris Brogan, Johnny B Truant, Dave Navarro, or Naomi Dunford.  Many of them are starting to drop hints that stuff is coming ‘soon’. I’ve determined that when the big dogs unleash their products, all of the smaller players are usually close behind. Plus, it’s summer and no one does a product launch in the summer.

Be prepared, be very prepared!

The people who are successful at product launches and teaching people to do so are successful for a reason: they know what the hell they are doing! They’ve studied the psychology of buying, how to design a squeeze page, how to maximize conversion, the value of social proof, and a lot of other words and phrases that may not make sense to you but are proven ways of getting the customer to part with their money.

Some of these products are worth every penny you can scrape together.

Some of these products are utter crap.

Trust me on this, I’ve bought both. I’ve gotten stuff that rocked my world and made my business week a little easier or profitable. I’ve gotten stuff that was nothing more than a few vague platitudes dressed up with fancy type and cool layout.

How do you determine whether an internet product or course is a good buy?

We’re going to dip a bit into Allissa’s list here, since some of the items came from me.

1. What kind of business does/did the Advisor run?

Does it have anything to do with the product they are selling? Maybe it’s because I’m old and have a lot of experience, but I’d like to think that you know more about a topic than I do before I buy your product. Direct experience is often the best teacher.

The other part of this is: if they’re teaching something that doesn’t relate to their current business, does the knowledge come from past experience? Many of us in the massage world are on our second or third careers. Me included. At this point, I could effectively teach you how to: develop a killer Power Point slide set, speak in front of 600 people, manage 20 technical people and 40 projects, design a switching power supply, write html code, and design a website using divs. Why? Because this is what I did for over 20 years and many of those skills still apply (granted the power supply design stuff is rapidly falling behind the state of the art).

2. Does it have a great website? Can you see the past email campaigns to clients/customers?

If you can’t be bothered to put together a decent website, then you probably can’t be bothered putting together a coherent product.

3. Is the advisor actively communicating with clients/customers (not just colleagues) in the current forms of media (Facebook, linked in, etc)  Is he/she practicing the techniques they preach?

If nothing else, it gives me an idea of what your techniques actually look like when implemented. That’s one of the ways I learn best.

4. How long has the Advisor run a successful business? If he/she is no longer running a business, why not? How long as it been?

I see a lot of “How to be an epic (insert business title here)” written by guys that are 19 years old. Unless that job title is “video gamer”, it’s unlikely that you have a lot of real world experience in the field. Don’t get me wrong, there are some areas where young people have the advantage: how to engage in social media, how to sell to Gen Y, how to write software are examples. How to manage a team? Probably not.

There are also a lot of people that cashed out a few years ago (at Intel, it was called “Calling in Rich”). That’s great, but was your success so long ago that the world has evolved past you? Or are you like Tom Peters or Guy Kawasaki always staying in the game and keeping up?

5. Have you tried any of the advisor’s free products and found them helpful?

I bought a product from Dave Navarro based entirely on what I got out of a product he provided for free. Why? because if he could offer me that much new knowledge in something free, then the paid products would be outstanding. I haven’t been disappointed.

Free stuff lets you see whether the expert teaches in a style that’s compatible with how you learn. There are many learning styles, so you need someone who can make that connection with you.

6. Are the people hawking their products doing so because they have an affiliate relationship with them? Are the affiliate links clearly noted?

This is a big one. You’ll see a lot of product reviews that come out the week of a product launch. This means that the reviewer was given a preview copy and asked to write a (favorable) review in exchange for getting an affiliate link. This affiliate fee can be as high as 40% of the selling price, so for a $200 product, that’s $80 for everyone who buys by clicking on your affiliate link. That’s one hell of a motivation to write a glowing review.

This is where I was burned in the past. I didn’t understand the whole “affiliate marketing launch” strategy and bought a product based on multiple rave reviews. I found that the product was mostly a lot of platitudes that didn’t really help my business. I also left a comment on a blog with a “I wish they had done B instead of A” and received a personal email from the product creator requesting that I address future issues with him in a private email first and could I please go and edit my comment to something a little more glowing. Needless to say, that email cost him my respect and any future business.

The problem isn’t just the money spent on these dogs, but the time you’ve lost

Some reviews are honestly positive, even with affiliate links

Some reviewers are all about the money, but then their blogs never catch on because everyone figures out that you’re just a shill. Some reviewers are about trying to spread the word about a great product. The trick is in knowing which is which. One way to do that is to look at their archives. Do they actually write about stuff other than product reviews? Do you trust them?

As a blogger, this is the potential quicksand. I’ve spent over a year developing your trust, dear readers, and I’m not willing to sacrifice that trust to make $80. If I recommend a product to you, it’s because I’ve found it to be useful to me. The products I advertise (my webhosting company for example) are things I use and stand by. The fact that I make some money IF you choose to buy them is a bonus, it’s not my primary means of income.

So, before you buy that bright-shiny-new-whatever, or hire that business or life coach, do a little research. It might save you some money and some time.

The first ever massagechat took place tonight. We had 13 participants and posted 360 tweets. There were great questions, great answers and, in Michael Reynolds case, ice cream sandwiches. I’ve saved the transcript as a PDF file so that all of you can see what we discussed.

We’ll be doing it again next week, same hashtag, same time. I’d really like to encourage all of you to attend and speak up. Everyone is really down to earth and helpful.

Thanks to everyone who participated!

#massagechat transcript for July 25, 2011

This is an idea I’ve been kicking around for a couple of months. It’s time to make it happen.

Tweet Chat for massage therapists

Using twitter, we can have a free flowing, realtime chat with one another. The first TweetChat will be this Sunday, July 24th at 10PM ET/7PM PT. All you need is a twitter account (what do you mean, you don’t have a twitter account?).

I’ll be using the hashtag #massagechat.

How to participate in #massagechat

First, you’ll need a twitter account. They’re free and I know over a hundred of you are already following me on twitter.

Second, click on the tweetchat link. Follow the directions. Basically, you’ll login to twitter via the tweetchat website.

At the top of the tweetchat page, type in massagechat. It will take care of the hashtag (the # sign) for you.

When you want to post, simply type in your message. You do NOT need to add #massagechat when you are using tweetchat because it’s done automatically for you.

If you want to use twitter for this (I don’t recommend it), you’ll need to do a search on #massagechat and add the hashtag to your tweets.

Keeping track of when someone replies or mentions you

In a separate browser tab, open up your twitter home page and then open up the tab that says @Mentions. Whenever anyone replies to your tweet or mentions you, it will display here. Chats can get a little fast, so this is a handy way of keeping track of when someone is talking directly to you.

Come and join us. This is going to be fun.

Leave a comment below with your twitter name. Mine is kelliawise. See you Sunday.