• Marketing tools such as business cards, brochures, and gift certificates;
• Marketing skills such as listening, educating and communicating;
• Marketing attributes such as caring, commitment and service.

Of these, the tools and skills varied greatly from person to person, but the attributes began to emerge from the data with remarkable consistency. I identified five strengths as the key ingredients that the successful practitioners had in common, and that the unsuccessful practitioners were missing. I grew excited. No matter what environment the therapists worked in, and regardless of their competition, regulatory laws, local economy, or education level, they were making it if these five characteristics were the foundation for their marketing mix of getting and keeping clients.
 
Five Key Marketing Ingredients
Ingredient No. 1: A Desire to Serve. A desire to serve people may sound corny and simplistic, but it's not. Visiting a fraction of the more than 1,000 massage schools that have sprouted across the country, I found many filled with students who yearn to serve mixed in with students lured primarily by dreams of easy money and high per-hour fees. While money is a crucial factor in success, long-term financial rewards are earned through years of work sustained and motivated through the normal ups and downs by the unflagging desire to serve.
 
Clients, whether they can verbalize it or not, know when their massage therapist genuinely cares about them and when they are in it for the fast buck or other solely personal reasons. Because of the very personal nature of massage, most private practices have been, and will continue to be, successful because of repeat clients and referrals. So let's face it; unless therapists can love clients through their stinky feet and hairy backs, repeats and referrals probably will not occur. While other professions may be able to skate by with lip service to genuine caring, the factor of touch in massage gives away true intentions, and the desire to serve or not can be felt directly. Short-term success may be achieved without this ingredient, but every massage therapist I have met who has achieved long-term success carries in his/her heart and hands a genuine desire to serve.
 
Ingredient No. 2: A Commitment to Succeed. Crucial to this commitment is the ability and willingness to overcome obstacles, both internal and external. People end up with one of two things when facing the inevitable obstacles to building a practice good excuses or good results. The successful therapists I met worked through anger, frustrations and resentments of unfair treatment by authorities, establishments, employers or building owners. They overcame hostile environments and competitors with major advantages, and were determined to work their way around whomever or whatever got in their way.
 
Professionals I met who were making it had slogged through such internal obstacles as low self-esteem, flagging confidence, fear of the unknown, a sense of inadequacy and weak boundary skills, and many had grappled with taking money for their gift of healing. Issues such as these face most every massage therapist I have met or taught, and dealing with difficult internal barriers full on or step-by-step makes the difference between a happy, satisfying massage career and just working on a few friends and family members.
 
The unsuccessful therapists I met whined about everything imaginable, and acted as if anything painful or disruptive was a valid reason to quit. Whether their friends and relations sympathized with their struggles, or they felt self-righteous in blaming the environment, their school, or the ever-popular "saturated market" for their woes, their commitment was to being right about their excuses, not about doing whatever it took to succeed. Unfortunately, their seemingly credible excuses nonetheless kept them from their dream of making a living with massage.
 
Ingredient No. 3: A Strong Emphasis on Professionalism. Talking to the general public about massage, whether it was the clerk at the Rite-Aid store in Denham Springs, Louisiana, or fellow Californians sharing a barbecue dinner at an RV park in Orlando, Florida, I got an earful about what massage clients thought about their therapists' professionalism, and sometimes it was downright embarrassing. Frankly, after what I had heard, I was beginning to think that if massage therapists could show up on time, or show up all, are willing to wear shoes and decent, appropriate clothing, and could give a full hour of average Swedish without talking about the latest sexual escapade or lament the whole session about personal dramas/traumas, they would be well on their way to success. After getting over my initial shock, my overriding feeling was one of sadness what a waste and a pity that caring and gifted therapists were losing clients and not getting referrals because of small but crucial unprofessional behaviors.
 
Perhaps because so many massage therapists have the soul of an artist, they have difficulty seeing the world from any perspective other than their own. While this is great for art, it is lousy for professionalism. The successful therapists I met could see themselves through the eyes of their clients, and adapt themselves to speak, dress, and behave appropriate to the realities in which their clients exist. Being appropriate does not mean the loss of self-expression, giving up style, or not being your self it just means paying attention to the client and trying to see, hear and feel the massage experience from the client's perspective. Doing a self-review from a client's point of view is a first step toward professionalism key marketing ingredient for getting and keeping clients.