Before we jump into safety I want to show you how safety works into my Covid-19 Survive to Thrive updated plan. There are 5 steps to this updated plan.
1. Work as safely as possible now.
2. Plan for another shutdown.
3. Renegotiate to a lower rent or look for another place.
4. Raise prices.
5. Build for post-pandemic.
The key to executing this plan is to NOT look at it as a recipe.
What I mean by that is start with step #1, but have the other steps going on in the background.
It’s not as hard as it sounds because the steps are interconnected.
Steps Are Interconnected
For instance, step #1 (keeping your clients and yourself as safe as possible) is also connected to step #2 (planning for another shutdown).
How?
Right now you can use your emphasis on “safety first” in your advertising to bring in more clients. So, you’re padding your client list to have more to draw from after the next shutdown.
Also, “safety first” is an advertising strategy that can be used in step #5 (building your massage business post-pandemic) because advertising safety will be a big seller even after the pandemic is over.
Step #2 (plan for another shutdown) is related to step #3 (renegotiate to a lower rent or look for another place to rent) because you are trimming expenses now to recoup increased supply costs and should there be another shutdown, you’ll have less to pay out in rent.
Okay, that’s some of the ways the steps are interconnected. It will make more sense as you work the plan.
This week I’m going to continue with step #1 (work as safely as possible) because right now, it’s the single most important thing we can do for ourselves, our clients and society—and our businesses.
Work As Safely As Possible
We are non-essential workers expected to take frontline worker risks.
That is not a political statement.
That is a fact.
We can’t social distance to do our job.
And we are in close contact with a person for 60 to 90 minutes.
Previously I had talked about how massage therapists can mitigate risks in the massage room. My conclusion was that everyone, clients included, needs to wear masks.
I also shared how I was a bit shell-shocked on reopening day because I wasn’t trained as a medic. Okay, that was a bit dramatic, but there was a whole lot of safety that was going on that I had never done before.
Mary Fowler, a massage therapist in a county over from me, was not shell-shocked on reopening day.
Why was Mary calm, cool and collected her first day back?
In an interview she told me it was because she was built for a pandemic.
Okay, that’s my commentary.
Mary said it was because of two things. One, Mary works at a dentist’s office as well as having her own massage practice. The dentist’s office reopened before her massage office did which gave her a lot of reps in a medical-safety protocol situation.
She also said that she loves barking orders. And the combination of the two things made for a great reopening day.
Wait, I love barking orders and I thought I had done a pretty good job bossing people around reopening day, but I was way stressed.
As I talked to Mary, I realized that I had made one big mistake.
I barked my orders when the client got there. Mary barked her orders before the client got there—in a text.
Mary’s Text and My Text
Here’s my text to a client about what she should do when she arrived:
Hi Amanda, when you arrive tomorrow please stay in your car and I will text you when it’s okay to come in. We are limiting the number of people in our office at one time. Thanks!
Here’s Mary’s text:
I am looking forward to your massage appointment!
Add date and time
Please bring your signed intake form. It can be found on my website, hands2nurture.com on the “Contact Me” page. It is page 3 of the Intake form. This needs to be completed for each massage session.
Please remain in your car when you arrive.
Have your mask on. It must be worn the entire time until you return to your car. I will be wearing one as well.
I will come to your car to take your temperature and your completed form.
With your mask on, you will walk right through to the session room.
Hand sanitizer is available for you to use.
Please do not bring any belongings other than your phone, keys and method of payment into the session room.
My priority is keeping us both safe and well.
Okay, to my credit, I explained our other safety procedural details when the client walked into the office.
But looking back I now realize that having to explain the other safety procedural details to the client was part of the shell-shock feeling, as in just one more thing to remember to do on my safety protocol checklist.
I also think that writing a detailed text would have forced me to go through all the procedural steps over and over in my head and that would have made the whole safety protocol feel more familiar to me.
Granted, nothing is going to teach you like experience, but a detailed text would have been good mental rehearsal.
Here’s another tip that Mary had for me that would have helped me out: Clear out the waiting room.
Waiting Rooms Are Obsolete
My goal was to get the client to go from her car directly to the massage room and not stop in the waiting room.
The challenge I faced was that all my regulars were used to stopping in the waiting room and either waiting for me or chatting with me before they went into the massage room.
And I had done nothing to the waiting room to discourage that behavior.
Magazines were on the glass table.
Chairs were around the table.
The room still said “sit down and relax”.
And clients in the waiting room meant that the waiting room needed to be disinfected.
More disinfecting meant more work and more stress.
From her experience with the dentist, Mary knew to clear the waiting room out at her massage office.
By the way, Mary was ahead of the curve. Before Covid-19 hit, she would always lead clients to one section of her waiting room to talk, take money and book appointments. That section was an area that was contained and easy to clean.
Now our waiting room is cleared out, and guess what I’m going to be doing from here on out?
You got it—I’m going to be barking out orders through texts.
There will be less rules explaining and reinforcing that I’ll need to do face-to-face, and it will be another layer of CYA in addition to our waiver that I have each client sign.
Thanks, Mary!
Next week we start the process of raising our prices.
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Comments on this entry are closed.
Hi there Mark,
I was not schocked when I opened up. I use to work as nurses’s assistant in an hospital for 7 years and cleanliness, sanitation and universal precautions was deeply in grained. One thing I did was to remind my clients to wear a mask in the text and sure enough I had just 2 clients who barked for not wanting to wear it. I guess they see how sweet I am that they did not think I would stand behind my bark. I did and it worked out well. Very curiuos to know why you are raising your prices now considering we are probably in a recession. I too thought of raising my prices, but part of me says it is the wrong time- due tremendous job loss and the economy not as strong. Your input, response would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
More power to you, Nguyet! Glad your 2 wayward clients complied when you held your ground. I think I’m picking up a theme that people who have worked in the medical field in some capacity were better prepared to handle reopening day than those of us who have not worked in the medical field.
About raising our prices: In a nutshell, we’re incurring more operating expenses and we aren’t able to see as many clients in our office as we normally do because we are only doing one therapist and one client in the office at time for safety reasons. We also now schedule 30 to 45 minutes in between clients. We used to schedule 15 minutes in between clients. In addition, we’re probably going to be out of work again when Covid numbers start to spike around us in the next month or two.
I understand that some of our clients are hitting tough times, too. And we can always make exceptions with our pricing for them if we like. On the other hand, some clients are doing just fine during this pandemic, like clients who work in the pharma industry, and will be okay with a price increase. In fact, I had clients telling me to raise my price on reopening day and some even insisted on paying more that day.
Will there be some client loss when we raise our price? Probably. But we will pick up clients because there are less massage therapists competing in the market, our referral sources are solid and we’re increasing our online presence on GMB, Yelp and through our website.
So, that’s my rationale. I will explain how we’re going to do it and who it makes good sense for in upcoming posts. Thanks, Nguyet!