One day I came across an interview. In it, a girl who moved from Russia to some Scandinavian country told how cool it was for her to work there as a masseuse. The minimum income, according to her, was equivalent to 5 thousand US dollars per month, she worked a lot, but without overexerting herself. Most importantly, I thoroughly enjoyed my profession.

At that time, I was, as they say, in a “creative search” for my dream business, so I was very interested in this information. “Five thousand bucks!”: I began to reason.

“Well, okay, let’s make a discount on Russia... how much can you earn here... well, fifty, well, a hundred thousand rubles”...

Immediately my eyes misted over the picture with half-naked girls of appetizing shapes standing in line in front of the door of my massage parlor...

The decision was made with lightning speed. I want to be a massage therapist! This is my dream job!

To master the profession of a massage therapist you must:

- or go to study at medical institution(University, college) to the department where they teach the subject “medical massage”,

– or graduate from a physical education academy, where the discipline “Massage and physical therapy” is required,

– or study at one of the many paid courses with the qualification “Massage Therapist”.

One clarification: medical education gives more advantages over others, since such a professional can get a job in any medical institution (clinic, hospital, sanatorium), providing treatment with the help of massage procedures, while without it you have no right to treat.

Relax, tone, heal, but do not treat!

In principle, therapeutic massage makes up a small proportion of the “total mass”, so most massage therapists live well without medical education.

I don’t have a medical education, but I do have a physical education degree, received ten years ago. While studying at the academy, there was only one subject that I constantly missed, so I received a pass in it only “for a present.”

Unfortunately, this subject was massage... And in the specialty I received, I have never worked a day in my life...

Well, there was a third option: take a course. Fortunately, there are quite a lot of them in this specialty.

Massage courses are the easiest and fastest option to gain a profession. The duration of training is most often one and a half to two months.

The educational institution must have a license to educational activities. Therefore, when choosing a place of study, make sure that it is licensed, otherwise you will receive a “filkin’s certificate” instead of a document.

The standard course program includes the subject “Basic (health) massage.” This is the minimum that allows a specialist to start his activity.

The cost of the basic course is approximately from 8 to 15 thousand rubles. But there are also periods of discounts. Usually before major holidays or during the summer off-season. At this time, the cost may decrease to 4-5 thousand rubles for the basic course.

In addition to wellness, for an additional fee you will be offered other massage specialties, for example, anti-cellulite, cupping, sports, honey massages and so on. This is also recorded in the certificate.

If finances allow, be sure to study two or three of these specialties. Firstly, more high qualification, naturally, will be a big plus in the future.

Secondly, a future employer or a fastidious patient will definitely ask you to show the document. The trust is higher according to the one who knows more.

It is clear that they are different training centers They also offer different quality of training. Here I can only advise based on real reviews about them.

After calling five or six companies in my city, I chose the one that best suited my needs and signed up. The training lasted approximately a month and a half. The result was a certificate with the qualifications “wellness, anti-cellulite, cupping and honey massages.”

Yes, by the way, the opportunity to take courses remotely has appeared on the Internet. If you are tempted to learn from a distance, I will say that massage is, first of all, a practice.

Moreover, one of the most important tasks of the teacher is to “position” your hands: to teach you competent manipulation of the hands, taking into account the nature of the movement, the force of pressure, and so on, as well as the correct position of the body during the procedure (back pain is one of the professional diseases of massage therapists with incorrect posture) .

Therefore, learning massage at a distance is the same as making, say, love on Skype...

Once you have received your certificate, you can do the following:

– start your own business right away,

– get a hired job at first,

– combine both options.

I started with the first, however, I soon switched to the second, and then to the third method. But first things first.

Starting a business

Having become a qualified specialist, I immediately bought the following equipment:

– portable massage table with roller and pillow – 4500 rubles,

– a set of massage oils: base oils (peach, coconut, grape seed), essential oils: lemon, grapefruit, orange, juniper – 600 rubles,

– anti-cellulite gel – 400 rubles,

– Consumables(disposable sheets, towels, a set of plastic jars, medical gloves, chlorhexidine) – 350 rubles.

If you decide to work both at home and away, take a portable folding table. When folded, it looks like a hefty diplomat. It can be more or less conveniently transported. The cost of such a table is from 3,500 rubles and above. I don’t recommend taking the cheapest one - their design is very unreliable and will break quite quickly.

Whether to massage with oils or creams, or in some other way is up to you. I initially liked oils. They have different effects on the body, they can be combined, or you can get by with one base.

If you intend to do “anti-cellulite”, choose anti-cellulite products according to the circumstances. The most common criterion for their selection is a warming or cooling or neutral effect.

Always have disposable supplies on hand.

Clients, promotion features

To promote his services, he created accounts on Instagram and Vkontakte, began posting interesting posts about massage, inviting people with the “First massage is free” campaign.

I also posted an ad on Avito, which was blocked half an hour later. Yes, according to the Avito rules, you cannot place ads offering massage therapist services, you just have to come to terms with it.

There are, of course, workarounds, but they are ineffective. One way is to submit an ad in the “Job Search - Resume” section.

I posted an ad on Yulia. Moderation there is less strict. “Yule” is still far from “Avito” in terms of the number of users, this can be seen almost immediately, but the first client came from there.

I was called to give a hand massage to my bedridden grandfather. For my first order, I didn’t need a table, oil, or consumables. The asking price is 300 rubles. The customer did not agree to more, but I was simply happy with the first order.

The guys are beginner massage therapists!

If you're dreaming of crowds of half-naked girls who only dream of lying on your table, exposing their buttocks, cool down!

90% of specialists spend most of their time working with bodies aged 50+ who are far from model in appearance and, moreover, not always cleanly washed.

Girls who have just received their diploma and think that they will only meet decent, intelligent patients!

I will warn you: you are unlikely to be able to avoid periodic male advances and questions about intimacy. You need to mentally prepare for this in advance. Naturally, try not to visit complete strangers.

Understand one more thing: a massage therapist does not just deal with a person, he works with the body, and with the naked one. It is not always elastic and pleasant to the touch; most often, it is senile, flabby, and has many consequences of ailments (fat, psoriasis, scars, scars...).

Each patient has his own specific smell. To be honest, after some you have to literally run out Fresh air catch my breath. And with all this, you must be smiling and courteous.

This business is akin to self-sacrifice.

But how nice it is to see the results of your labors! Smooth, tight-free backs and shoulders! Girls who got rid of excess folds on the sides or “orange peel”! They are simply ready to carry you in their arms!..

Two weeks passed and still no orders. By the way, there were plenty of views on Yulia, and the account was gaining popularity on Instagram. People actively liked the posts, but were in no hurry to buy.

In general, a massage service is based on trust. Well, tell me, can you calmly undress next to a person unknown to you and lie down on his couch? Does the fact that someone else's hands will touch you make you think about relaxation?..

It follows from this that for novice professionals, looking for clients remotely is the most ineffective activity.

Of course, if you're a pretty girl posting pictures of your body on social media, men will line up. The only question is for what services.

But how can you get these very satisfied ones, if no one is in a hurry to sign up with you even for free?!

The answer came naturally: you need to go where this client lives. That is, get a job either in a salon or in a clinic.

Successful business strategy

In the beauty salon where I came to get a job, they looked at my documents, asked a couple of questions and nodded approvingly. A massage therapist is not a vacancy where there are “two hundred people per place.”

The salary was a daily payment of 1000 rubles at the end of the working day.

For visitors to the salon, who mostly came for a haircut or manicure, the administrator offered a free 15-minute massage session. If the client liked it, he bought the next one.

On the first day I did almost a dozen free procedures. Over the next month, he “plowed like hell.”

But for that I received invaluable practical experience, took several dozen contacts potential clients, and also realized that good masseur must also be a good salesman.

In addition to performing their direct duties, it is critically important for a specialist to learn how to sell their services: make self-presentations during procedures, give favorable answers to patients’ questions, make upsells (upsells), and persuade people to buy long-term courses.

If a massage therapist does not learn this, then his work will be reduced only to finding new customers. Your goal is regular customers who come to you year after year, bringing their relatives, friends and acquaintances.

A month later, “enlightened”, I rented massage room in another beauty salon. Yes, many salons rent out their offices.

Rental prices are completely different, sometimes beyond any logic. In my case, rent cost 5 thousand rubles per month.

I started working with the list of clients I had collected over the course of a month. I continued to work for hire for some time until the rented place began to bring in money.

Over the next three months, patients slowly filled the office. My prices were approximately average for the city.

The portable couch also came in handy: many visitors to the salon asked to come to their home, which I did, serving, in addition to themselves, their relatives. For an additional fee, of course.

In general, when setting the price for their services, a novice massage therapist usually sets a price below average. This is understandable: the lower the authority, the lower the price tag.

I can only advise you to immediately make a note in your price list that low price– a temporary phenomenon. It is valid, for example, for a month. An interesting “trick” with crossed out numbers is when the price for the service you are striving for is crossed out in the price list, and the low, current cost is written next to it.

All this will help you increase your income by more in the future. high level, simply removing smaller numbers from the price list.

As for my profit, I earned, on average, about 60 thousand rubles a month. This is approximately 2-4 patients per day.

Now I don’t rent a salon and don’t conduct active massage activities. Switched to others interesting activities. However, regular customers I still accept it. They make up some of my passive income.

Conclusions:

Massage is quite advantageous view business, but on one condition: if you understand that this is not entertainment with half-naked guys and girls, but serious, sometimes not very pleasant work related to helping people.

A profitable massage therapist is a combination of professional skills, psychological stability, sales ability and lack of disgust towards someone else’s body.

The main source of income is satisfied customers who come again and again. The main capital is real positive recommendations of you as a great specialist.

Constantly learn new things and improve! There are a great many types and subtypes of massage. Fashion trends appear and disappear, which, if you want to increase your income, you must catch, adapt and sell.

Good luck to you in this difficult but very noble business!

P.S.: Several of my colleagues are massage therapists in summer season leaving for the Black Sea coast. To earn money. They give massages to vacationers on the beaches. On average, they earn, according to them, about one hundred thousand rubles a month.

They combine, so to speak, business with pleasure.

Hello, dear readers of the site. After completing a massage course, a newly minted master usually walks around inspired and dreams that people will soon sign up for his sessions in the dozens - as soon as he starts working, the business will take off on its own. But just being a good specialist is not enough.

For successful promotion It is necessary to stock up on knowledge in two areas:

• how to perform your job at the highest level;
• how to attract clients for massage.

In conditions of fierce competition, spending time waiting for those who want to improve their health with the help of massage techniques is inappropriate: you can be left without clients at all and lose a significant part of the neophyte’s former enthusiasm.

Ways to attract clients for massage

Method 1. Word of mouth

Quite recently, masters had the only opportunity to make themselves known to the world: the so-called "word of mouth". If a person came to a session and left satisfied with the result, then there was a high probability that he would tell his friends about the wonderful massage therapist who relieves back and neck pain with one wave of his hand.

However, it will take a long period of time to acquire your own client base and at least recoup the costs of training and minimal equipment (a couch, various oils, a medical gown, disposable sheets, etc.).

To obtain a more noticeable result (if you want to promote a massage parlor or work from home, visiting patients at their requests), you should use several techniques, and the more of them you use, the better.

Method 2. Business cards

Print business cards and have them with you at all times. Finding clients and inviting them for a massage in a personal conversation is quite easy - people are usually interested in the proposal to improve their health. But the problem is that 5 minutes after the end of the conversation, all this is forgotten.

But if a person has business card, the chances of a call from him increase. Therefore, at any opportunity, in particular, when talking with an acquaintance or stranger, you can mention your skill and invite you to a trial session.

Method 3. Notice boards

Tell people about your services using message boards. Use for this, for example Avito. The site does not require investment. The only resource you have to spend is some free time.

The advertisement should not contain laudatory odes - only brief information about the nature of the procedure, expected results, cost of services and contact information.

Method 4. Cosmetologist buddies

One of the methods that works great in small town, - ask a familiar cosmetologist, makeup artist or other specialist from any related field to tell you about the service that you are ready to provide. You will not be his competition, so most likely he will not reject the request and will do this small favor.

Method 5. Work for competitors

Contact massage parlor and work there a little under the conditions that will be offered to you. After dismissal, you can “entice” some clients to join you.

Method 6. Social networks

Post information about massage on your page on any social network that you actively use. Find clients by creating a group "In contact with". Promote advertising of your services in Instagram.

Organize attracting clients using reposts of your ad: ask your friends to make at least one repost for your friends. Let's say you write to 30 of your closest friends, and at least half of them take the time to repost. Imagine how many people will know about you right away!

Must be taken into account! In order for your business to develop at a good pace, you need to supply any of your texts on social networks with photographs. good quality. The first thing that attracts the eye is the image. A bright, visual picture serves as a kind of “bait” for anyone who looks at your page to wonder if anything new has appeared. If the picture “catches”, the person begins to read.

When promoting massage services, you need to pay special attention to the text. A long boring “canvas” is tiring. Therefore, you need to compose the text so that it simply and clearly answers three questions:

• What user problems can be solved?
• What result is expected?
• How much?

It's important to give brief information about the place of the massage, indicate all the ways to communicate with the master, add a few words about the massage therapist himself: where he studied, what he can do, what is his work experience.

Method 7. Zest

When promoting your own massage business, you need to think about what "zest" can be offered to the consumer.

The challenge of starting from scratch isn't just that it's a highly competitive industry. The problem is that many offers received by potential clients are often of the same type. The master talks about how his massage helps with osteochondrosis, nervous tension, normalizes sleep, and so on.

Today this is not enough. To start earning money, you need to come up with something of your own that will additionally encourage people to come to you. What could it be?

Options:

• buy essential oils with pleasant aromas for every taste and add to massage products;
• Prepare invigorating or refreshing drinks after the procedure (a glass of ginger tea, herbal infusion);
• From time to time, give your clients small gifts (this could be something to maintain beauty and health - as they say, “pleasant little things”).

When opening a massage parlor, you need to be prepared for the fact that at first you will have to work for more than modest money. First you need to win your place in the sun, convince people that you really good master, and only then raise prices.

Even after becoming a high-class professional and acquiring a large client base, you cannot abandon advertising. Maybe it will be your group or blog on any social network. There you need to regularly talk about new products related to massage techniques and healing methods, and answer readers’ questions.

To advance his business, a master must constantly improve his skills. Stopping the process of self-education means starting the mechanisms of stagnation. Yes, those clients who are accustomed to your hands will continue to come to sessions, but it will be difficult to attract new ones.

Tip 3. Create comfort, cleanliness and pay attention to the client

It is important that the person leaves the session satisfied. To do this, the following conditions must be met:

• If you have your own office, you need to keep it perfectly clean; If you go to a client’s home, change into a clean medical gown, wash your hands thoroughly, and carefully pack all massage products.
• It is necessary to create the most comfortable environment for the client, that is, dim the lights, turn on low music, maintain a pleasant conversation (if the person is in the mood to talk).
• Before the first session, you should ask the person in detail about their state of health, complaints, find out if there are any contraindications to massage or allergies to any medications or cosmetics.

Tip 4. Honey. education is good, but you can work without it

Of course, it is much easier for a medical massage therapist to start working and stay in the industry: there will be a greater flow of clients to him. But in the absence of professional education, do not despair.

The main principle of a doctor is: “Do no harm.” If you are not a medical professional, it is still quite possible to make money through massage. But the emphasis in this case should be placed not on the therapeutic effect, but on relaxing.

Conclusion

The task of organizing your own massage business is not an easy one. It will take a lot of effort and time to get people to know about you and start signing up for courses on health-improving treatments. But massage has many advantages over other types of services market: in particular, it does not require large investments (with the exception of paying for studies).

The main tool of a massage therapist is always with him - his hands. Always work honestly, give your best in every session, during the massage forget about your problems and completely focus on the client.

Our advantages

1. Professional teachers: only in our school classes are taught by a doctor, a medical school teacher and a certified massage therapist of the highest qualification category with more than 20 years of experience.

2. The largest, most interesting program in the city of Ufa. Classic (therapeutic) massage of the whole body, including for osteochondrosis, hernia and disc protrusion, children's, cupping, honey, anti-cellulite, Brazilian, Creole, cupping on the face, basics of acupressure (all-inclusive program). Baby massage included general program learning!

3.Available fixed prices for the entire training program withoutadditional payment for each type of massage separately. Students pay for the entire program only the amount stated on the website and in the contract.

4.Discount for students and pensioners!

5.Installment payment. Possibility to pay for training in parts, for 2 or 4 payments of 1000 rubles weekly.

6.The first training session is free, and you will be able to evaluate the quality yourself before paying teachings.