Do you need a waiting room for your massage clients now?
Nope.
Will you need one post-Covid-19?
I don’t think so.
However, my wife wants waiting rooms when things clear out with Covid. So we’ll have to fight that one out. Hmm…I wonder who’ll win?
If you’re still guessing, I’ll give you a clue: Not me (haha).
Anti-Waiting Room Mark
Why am I anti-waiting room now?
Well, I got to experience firsthand the pluses after we closed our waiting rooms down when we returned back to work.
Positive number one: I know who is in my office at all times.
Along with that I can control when a client comes in by having her wait in her car until I text her that it’s safe to come in. Psychologically that does wonders for me. I feel less rushed not having someone sitting and waiting for me.
Another benefit of not having a waiting room is that it makes the process of client check-in and check-out go faster because all of that is now done in the massage room instead of the comfy waiting room where the client is tempted to hang out.
And here’s the new bonus of not being able to use a waiting room: I can potentially recoup shutdown/reopening losses and higher operating expenses due to Covid.
In other words, I can move OR renegotiate my rent.
Yes, moving requires a lot of work and renegotiating your current rent agreement requires you putting yourself out there.
But here’s the thing, if you’re doing the same strategies you did pre-pandemic, like paying for a waiting room, you’re not going to go from surviving to thriving fast enough. In fact, you’re in for a long haul.
How do I know this?
Because my business limped through two crisises: 911 and the 2008 market crash.
Working Through a Crisis
Yes, eventually, my businesses did come back full-force after both events, but it happened at a snail’s pace because I didn’t adapt quickly enough to the new massage order.
After the crash in 2008 my massage clients who weren’t wealthy stopped coming in, leaving me with about a 30% income deficit.
You know what my response was? It was to hang in there until things got better.
And, sure enough, as the economy got better, so did my business. Bubble clients, people who could afford my massage when the economy was good, started coming in again.
But that business plan is like purchasing bonds when you’re young and can afford to be more aggressive. Low risk and low yield is what retired people do.
Survive to thrive growth is stocks. It’s what working people do.
Yes, I’m saying run your massage business as if you’re buying stocks, not bonds, but the analogy breaks down here because you don’t have to risk any money to accelerate your business growth during this Covid-19 time. You just have to invest some of your time and adjust how you think.
Ask yourself right now: Where are the opportunities in this new massage landscape?
I’ll tell you one. Back to 2008, like I had said, the crash knocked out a chunk of potential massage clients BUT it also knocked out a chunk of massage therapists. Less competition and people looking for a massage therapist because a lot of massage therapist dropped out of the game meant I had an opportunity to actually pick up clients.
Back then I got that bubble clients couldn’t afford massage. I also understood recession-proof clients still could afford massage. What I didn’t get was that there were still recession-proof clients looking for massage therapists.
By the way, if I had gone after recession-proof clients I wouldn’t have needed to spend any money on advertising.
I would have just needed to focus my energy on nurturing my current referrals sources and adding a couple of new referral sources whose clients/patients/customers were recession-proof.
During this pandemic, thinking differently than pre-pandemic is the key for not only bringing in clients, but is also the key for surviving the higher operating costs you’re incurring, and you know exactly what I’m talking about—masks, wipes, air purifiers, more sheets, more blankets and the list goes on, which brings us back to waiting rooms.
Waiting Room Bargaining Chip
We haven’t used our waiting rooms since reopening. In fact, in one office we took all the chairs out so that no one is tempted to sit down.
No one blinks an eye or objects when I say please wait in your car when you arrive until I text you to come in.
Why?
Because takeout is delivered to car windows.
Groceries are put in car trunks.
Patients sit in driver’s seats until they are texted that it’s okay to come in.
Cars are safe and guess what?
They are the new waiting rooms.
If you have a waiting room in your office space and aren’t going to use it in the foreseeable future, why are you paying for it?
Okay, you may have signed a contract pre-Covid, but here’s the thing, the world has changed. Commercial real estate is available—lots of it—and there’s wiggle room for renegotiating.
So, if you’re paying for waiting room space that you don’t use, approach your landlord about a new deal. I’m fairly sure that she doesn’t want to have another non-rented space.
If you’re on a month-to-month you have even more leverage because there’s a lot of office space on the market now.
I’m not saying Montgomery Burns this rent situation. I’m saying if you want to go from survive to thrive faster, look at every place where you can save money and accelerate your business.
Rent is one of them.
Strike a new deal.
How to Strike a New Deal
“Kisha, since re-opening my operating expenses have gone up, some clients aren’t coming in until it’s safer to do so, I can’t see my more normal client-load because of the extra time I need to put in between clients, and, frankly, I’m not sure if I’m going to be shut down again.
I’m looking to cut costs anywhere I can until we get out of the throes of this pandemic. And I’m asking for $200/month reduction through the rest of the year so that I can sustain my business?”
What if Kisha says no.
Well, you can always go back and ask for a smaller reduction in rent, AND you can always start looking for cheaper rent.
At this point, unless you already have a super-great deal, you’ll probably find something cheaper now.
Is it worth it to relocate during a pandemic?
To me, the answer depends on how much money you need to recoup. Reducing your rent by $500 a year may not be worth it. But reducing your rent by $5000 a year might be.
What if you’re just starting out or are restarting and looking for space?
Remember: It’s a renter’s market in commercial real estate.
I’m not claiming the area that I operate my business in is a microcosm of office space for massage therapists globally, but my poking around has found landlords willing to make deals. And I’ve come across very competitive square footage pricing from the get-go.
Speaking of square footage, no waiting room means less square footage to pay for.
Yes, your office could be a 10 x 10 room.
Your waiting room—the client’s car.
The bathroom—a shared bathroom between offices.
And guess what the cost of your office space is? Not much.
You can always upgrade later when the economy gets better.
Don’t Buy Bonds
So, don’t miss the opportunities that come with bad times.
It’s a renter’s market.
Think about renegotiating your current rent or relocating your office because survive-to-thrive is an active process. You need to recoup losses and build at the same time.
Recouping means you may shrink your business in some areas, like the size of your office, but absolutely does NOT mean that you’re shrinking your client list. In fact, you’re client list should be growing.
If you take a passive approach and wait for the economy to recover you’re going to really struggle. Don’t. I did in 2001 and 2008. Not this time.
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