Over the years I've written a lot of articles for various national trade and local consumer magazines...Massage Therapy Journal, Massage Magazine, Dermascope, Spa Management Journal and others. Here is one that I wrote for Massage & Bodywork Magazine that they keep posted on www.massagetherapy.com about building a clientèle. Everything I wrote in it still holds true and is applicable to just about any service business or profession.

"After my first experience teaching business classes in a massage therapy certification program, one of my students told me that he used to hate my class. "Danny" didn't like it because instead of talking about how easy it was to build a practice or how rich all massage therapists became, I taught my students the cold, hard facts about being in this business. In fact, Danny nicknamed my class "The Reality Class." Luckily, for both Danny and I, he came to appreciate my honesty by the end of the program and was actually thankful that he had a chance to learn some of the knowledge I had to share.

So what does the Reality Class have to do with building a clientèle? One myth I have found to be prevalent with students and new therapists is that a clientèle will somehow miraculously appear at the moment of graduation or the printing of business cards. Sad, but true, many business owners -- not just massage therapists -- have the idea that if they build it, customers will come. Though that idea worked nicely in the movie "Field of Dreams," such is not usually the case when starting a massage therapy practice. So how can you turn your "field of dreams" into a reality? Here are a few ideas I share with my students..."

Click here to read the whole article at MassageTherapy.com.