© www.wellness-fee.ch
Business Model
Costs and Performances - How to become a Massage
Owner?
When it comes to opening a successful massage business, there are two elementary components
you must have that will affect whether or not customers decide to come to you for their massage
needs: quality and cost. It’s up to you to offer a service so great that customers would be willing to
pay for it. The good news is that you have plenty of time to perfect your business as it takes some
time for new massage owners to make a name for themselves in the market. However, many
businesses don’t survive because they expect a miracle to happen right away and this industry
requires patience.
Diving into the deep end of the business too late in the game can be just as harmful as diving in too early. In a structured business like this, you need a reliable stream of customers before you take on high fixed costs. The market will sway in unpredictable ways and you don’t want to find yourself stuck in a situation where you suddenly can’t afford to pay your fees. This type of adaptability separates the wheat from the chaff in the massage business. On that note, a solid business plan that takes into account changing customer flow is vital. Going in without a plan is a recipe for disaster. With that being said, this guide should be something you continue to come back to over time as your business grows. Many businesses follow these rules whether they know it or not. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a complete list but a guide for beginners. Your list of best practices will grow as your experience does.Key Resources
•
Who are our Key Partners?
It’s important to decide who your key partners will be when you start your business. Massage businesses require a variety of expenditures that you likely won’t be able to take on alone. Having a partner will allow you to operate your business’s infrastructure easier as well as manage your risk because you’ll have another party available to help with your operation and you won’t take on all the liability. You will also need to make sure you have the right partner to make a significant contribution to success, not just any partner. Every time you encounter a new problem that needs to be handled, ask yourself: Do I have time for it? Can I acquire the skills to do it? How do I optimize it? Do I have the ability and knowledge to handle it? A few details that can quickly incur high costs and time expenditures that need to be solved are business licensing and regulations, infrastructure, appointment booking, cleaning, tax matters, payroll accounting and marketing. Incidentally but however, the origin of the search for all of that: What sources are needed to fulfil and all of this ends by a Key Partner. • Who are our Key Suppliers? Just like with your key partners, the same rules apply to suppliers. You’ll need plenty of materials to start a massage business, such as laundry, furniture, liquids and oils, lotions, and disinfectant supplies, and they have to come from somewhere.•
Which key resources are we acquiring from partners?
You shouldn’t partner with someone without knowing what you stand to gain from the partnership. Are they able to ensure the operation of the massage room? Or are they focused on supplies? Knowing where you stand with your partners will give you the mobility to withstand any market fluctuations due to force majeure, a key part of owning a successful massage business.•
Which key activities do partners perform?
What is it that you’re hoping to get out of your partnerships? In the massage industry, a partner can perform all sorts of activities, from marketing to cleaning services.•
Key Resources
Of course, you may first deal with the key resources needed. As your may have guessed, to know the Key Resources is just the warm up.Key Activities
•
What key activities do our propositions require?
Figuring out what services your massage business will provide is important to your success. Waiting time is a key factor for customers when they choose a massage and service providers need to meet their needs. Use this knowledge to optimize your business and lower costs, improve the customer experience or reduce the costs you spend on your key partners.•
Distribution Channels?
Nailing down your distribution channel is vital. You must know how you’ll reach your customers to deliver your services without taking on too much cost yourself. Opening several distribution channels can lead to high fees.•
Customer Relationship?
Going above and beyond to delight your customers will help build you a loyal client base that continues to grow. At every step of the experience, anyone who interacts with your business should be satisfied. Booking appointments easily is an important feature for many customers, so make sure your telephone availability is top-notch.•
Revenue streams?
At the end of the day, the goal of your business is to become profitable. This can only happen if your revenue streams are strong enough to outpace your expenditures. Even when you’re doing well financially, you should optimize your fees as much as possible, because when times get tough, it might be too late. If you aren’t making enough revenue to cover overhead, for example, your business is finished.Value Propositions
•
What value do we deliver to the costumer?
Customers won’t purchase your services if they don’t think it’s valuable. You need something unique to set your offerings apart from similar businesses and that generally comes in one of two ways: specialization in a service your competitors don’t offer, or selling your serves at a unique price point lower than what other businesses charge. The value of your service depends on what quality you’re delivering at a certain price, so if you keep prices constant while increasing the quality of your service, then your offerings are at a lower price than the competition’s. This means you must know exactly how your costs arise and adjust your price accordingly to achieve the optimal price-performance ratio.•
Which one of our customers’ problems are we helping to solve?
Your services should fulfil a job to be done that your customers want. They’re coming to you because you have something of value that can help make their lives better. Define what it is so you can position yourself in the market better.•
What bundles of products and services are we offering to each Customer Segment?
Different types of customers have different needs, so it’s essential that you divide and conquer. Segment your potential customer base into separate groups based on their needs and sell them corresponding products and services that fulfil those needs.•
Which customer needs are we satisfying?
People want a unique solution to their needs that they can’t create for themselves, and it’s your job to offer that.Customer Relationship
•
What type of relationship does each of our Customer Segment expect us to establish and
maintain with them?
Cultivate a strong relationship with each of your customer segments in order to build your brand. Any successful business will not only satisfy customers’ needs, but deliver excellent customer service while doing so. Your clients should feel like they’re in good hands when they’re with you and offering them personal assistance from appointment booking to billing is one of the best ways to achieve that.•
Which ones have we established?
A high-level view of how your business is currently operating will help you improve what is working and drop what isn’t. Identify the aspects of your business that are converting sales right now. Privacy and communication are two core components of the massage experience for many people.•
How are they integrated with the rest of our business model?
Every piece of your business strategy should make sense together, from top to bottom. Ensure that you’re making your customers happy and loyal while you generate profits. For example, key tenets like privacy and communication should be baked into your business every step of the way so that your customers know you’re trustworthy.•
How costly are they?
Naturally, you can’t add extra parts to your business model without factoring in costs. However you strengthen your relationship with your customers, it has to be affordable. Co-creations with key partners can be leveraged here; your partners are in this together with you and may be able to offer financing for mutually beneficial ventures. Whether or not you employ self-service offerings or automated services will also affect your expenditures, so be careful there.Customer Segment
•
Mass Market
Massage businesses aiming to capture just about everyone will compete in the mass market. If your goal is to tap into the mass market, you’ll need to differentiate your business substantially from the competitors currently at the top. Often times, a successful strategy here will be to deliver great massage services to your customers that matches the quality of other businesses at a lower price.•
Niche Market
Finding a niche for your business is excellent for gaining access to smaller markets. This can ultimately be more profitable for your business than entering the mass market because you have the ability to increase your market share. Specialize into a specific kind of service, and you’ll scoop up a large part of the market looking for that service.•
Segmented
As mentioned above, you don’t have to just cast a wide net and offer all your customers the same thing. Many businesses thrive by offering a variety of services targeting several different customer segments. Once you’ve defined the segments you’re trying to reach, you’ll be able to optimize your offerings to each segment and increase conversions.•
Diversified
A diversified massage business will capture new opportunities as they see them rather than just sticking to one kind of service. If it makes sense for you financially and you see demand that you can fulfill from a different market, it can be a good idea to branch out your business offerings into other products or services.•
Multi-sided Platform
Not all massage businesses will be as simple as the owner selling a service to each customer who walks in. Businesses operating with the multi-sided platform model create value by connecting multiple parties as an intermediary. You might decide that your business would be more profitable by sharing space with another business or that you might get more walk-in customers by working with a nail salon.Channels
•
Through which channels can the customer segments be reached?
How will you reach the customers you’re trying to target? By now, you should have a solid idea of the customer segments you’re trying to appeal to. Identifying how you’ll reach them is the next step. In order to grow your customer base customers have to find you and learn about you and this is where you’ll make that happen.•
How can the channels be integrated into the business model?
As with everything else above, each decision you make must work with the business model you’re operating in. Will your choice of channel fit perfectly into your current operations, or is it something that needs to be adjusted? One size does not fit all for every business; take a careful look at your massage business and see what works best for you.•
How much cost and time do you expect to spend to keep the channel working?
Operating your chosen channel will incur costs and time expenditures and these factors need to be carefully considered. You might find that you have to switch channels because your initial choice winds up to be too expensive. This piece will vary depending on the nature of your business. For example, niche customers are the hardest to capture and define and take a lot of research to determine whether or not they’re even actually out there. A lot of costs can go into solidifying a channel for niche customers, so keep that in mind as you decide on a channel.•
How can costumer routines be integrated?
Integrating your customer’s preferences and behaviours into your channel is vital to keeping them satisfied at every level of the experience. You want to take advantage of the actions they typically take. Relying on your customers recruiting other customers is a strategy that’s likely to fail. Be realistic about how your customers interact with your business and what that means for your channel.Revenue Streams
•
For what value are costumers willing to pay?
Your customers wouldn’t be buying your services if they didn’t find it valuable enough to justify the cost. Defining the value you’re giving them is crucial so that you can best optimize your business. Which pieces of the service are they finding value in and which pieces don’t matter as much? Answering these questions will give you the ability to raise the value of the important pieces and cut costs on less important matters.•
For what do they currently pay?
What services are you currently offering and how much are they being purchased? Compare these answers to your answers about customer value and try to bridge the gap. Ultimately, you want the services you’re selling to align perfectly with the value that customers are looking for.•
How do they prefer to pay?
There are many varieties of payment methods right now and not everyone prefers to use the same one. It’s a basic principle that your customers need to have the option to pay for the service however they want; otherwise, they won’t shop there. Figure out what the most commonly requested forms of payment are from your customers and make sure they’re all available.Cost Structure
•
Fixed Costs
Everything we’ve mentioned in this guide, and everything it takes to run a massage business, will cost you time and money. This needs to be considered at every step of your decisionmaking so that you can ensure you are meeting costs with matching revenue and that you are running a profitable business at the end of the day. Your fixed costs are extremely important to nail down because they never adjust to the number of customers you receive; you’ll be paying the entire fees regardless of how well your business is doing. Major fixed costs that you have to take on include employee salaries, the rent you’re paying to operate in a building and utilities.•
Variable Costs
Unlike fixed costs, your variable costs do depend on the number of customers served. Therefore, you need to adjust your budget to take care of fixed costs while leaving room for enough variable costs to service a wide range of customers. Having a sudden influx of customers and becoming really busy can be a good problem to have, but not if you can’t afford to pay for the variable costs that are needed to service them. Analyse your variable costs to ensure they make sense in your cost structure. It shouldn’t cost you so much in variable costs to service a customer that you’re losing money.Conclusion
Massage businesses tend to go in a certain direction and it’s difficult to change once those decisions have been made. Many will go into the health care space while others are focused on operating as Wellness Massages. These are different types of businesses that use different cost structures, so it’s important for you to decide which direction you’ll go in and not try to do everything. This decision will hugely affect your choice of key partners, key activities, and customer segmentation because you’ll need different variables to operate successfully. It’s difficult to manage two different cost structures, so it’s a best practice to choose the best one for your business and make decisions based on that.
WELLNESS-FAIRY.CH
Massage in Aargau / Switzerland
Business Knowledge:
WELLNESS-FAIRY.CH
Massage in Villmergen, Aargau
© www.wellness-fee.ch
Business Model
Costs and Performances -
How to become a Massage
Owner?
When it comes to opening a successful massage
business, there are two elementary components
you must have that will affect whether or not
customers decide to come to you for their
massage needs: quality and cost. It’s up to you to
offer a service so great that customers would be
willing to pay for it. The good news is that you
have plenty of time to perfect your business as it
takes some time for new massage owners to
make a name for themselves in the market.
However, many businesses don’t survive because
they expect a miracle to happen right away and
this industry requires patience.
Diving into the deep end of the business too late in the game can be just as harmful as diving in too early. In a structured business like this, you need a reliable stream of customers before you take on high fixed costs. The market will sway in unpredictable ways and you don’t want to find yourself stuck in a situation where you suddenly can’t afford to pay your fees. This type of adaptability separates the wheat from the chaff in the massage business. On that note, a solid business plan that takes into account changing customer flow is vital. Going in without a plan is a recipe for disaster. With that being said, this guide should be something you continue to come back to over time as your business grows. Many businesses follow these rules whether they know it or not. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a complete list but a guide for beginners. Your list of best practices will grow as your experience does.Key Resources
•
Who are our Key Partners?
It’s important to decide who your key partners will be when you start your business. Massage businesses require a variety of expenditures that you likely won’t be able to take on alone. Having a partner will allow you to operate your business’s infrastructure easier as well as manage your risk because you’ll have another party available to help with your operation and you won’t take on all the liability. You will also need to make sure you have the right partner to make a significant contribution to success, not just any partner. Every time you encounter a new problem that needs to be handled, ask yourself: Do I have time for it? Can I acquire the skills to do it? How do I optimize it? Do I have the ability and knowledge to handle it? A few details that can quickly incur high costs and time expenditures that need to be solved are business licensing and regulations, infrastructure, appointment booking, cleaning, tax matters, payroll accounting and marketing. Incidentally but however, the origin of the search for all of that: What sources are needed to fulfil and all of this ends by a Key Partner. • Who are our Key Suppliers? Just like with your key partners, the same rules apply to suppliers. You’ll need plenty of materials to start a massage business, such as laundry, furniture, liquids and oils, lotions, and disinfectant supplies, and they have to come from somewhere.•
Which key resources are we
acquiring from partners?
You shouldn’t partner with someone without knowing what you stand to gain from the partnership. Are they able to ensure the operation of the massage room? Or are they focused on supplies? Knowing where you stand with your partners will give you the mobility to withstand any market fluctuations due to force majeure, a key part of owning a successful massage business.•
Which key activities do partners
perform?
What is it that you’re hoping to get out of your partnerships? In the massage industry, a partner can perform all sorts of activities, from marketing to cleaning services.•
Key Resources
Of course, you may first deal with the key resources needed. As your may have guessed, to know the Key Resources is just the warm up.Key Activities
•
What key activities do our
propositions require?
Figuring out what services your massage business will provide is important to your success. Waiting time is a key factor for customers when they choose a massage and service providers need to meet their needs. Use this knowledge to optimize your business and lower costs, improve the customer experience or reduce the costs you spend on your key partners.•
Distribution Channels?
Nailing down your distribution channel is vital. You must know how you’ll reach your customers to deliver your services without taking on too much cost yourself. Opening several distribution channels can lead to high fees.•
Customer Relationship?
Going above and beyond to delight your customers will help build you a loyal client base that continues to grow. At every step of the experience, anyone who interacts with your business should be satisfied. Booking appointments easily is an important feature for many customers, so make sure your telephone availability is top-notch.•
Revenue streams?
At the end of the day, the goal of your business is to become profitable. This can only happen if your revenue streams are strong enough to outpace your expenditures. Even when you’re doing well financially, you should optimize your fees as much as possible, because when times get tough, it might be too late. If you aren’t making enough revenue to cover overhead, for example, your business is finished.Value Propositions
•
What value do we deliver to the
costumer?
Customers won’t purchase your services if they don’t think it’s valuable. You need something unique to set your offerings apart from similar businesses and that generally comes in one of two ways: specialization in a service your competitors don’t offer, or selling your serves at a unique price point lower than what other businesses charge. The value of your service depends on what quality you’re delivering at a certain price, so if you keep prices constant while increasing the quality of your service, then your offerings are at a lower price than the competition’s. This means you must know exactly how your costs arise and adjust your price accordingly to achieve the optimal price-performance ratio.•
Which one of our customers’
problems are we helping to solve?
Your services should fulfil a job to be done that your customers want. They’re coming to you because you have something of value that can help make their lives better. Define what it is so you can position yourself in the market better.•
What bundles of products and
services are we offering to each
Customer Segment?
Different types of customers have different needs, so it’s essential that you divide and conquer. Segment your potential customer base into separate groups based on their needs and sell them corresponding products and services that fulfil those needs.•
Which customer needs are we
satisfying?
People want a unique solution to their needs that they can’t create for themselves, and it’s your job to offer that.Customer Relationship
•
What type of relationship does
each of our Customer Segment expect
us to establish and maintain with
them?
Cultivate a strong relationship with each of your customer segments in order to build your brand. Any successful business will not only satisfy customers’ needs, but deliver excellent customer service while doing so. Your clients should feel like they’re in good hands when they’re with you and offering them personal assistance from appointment booking to billing is one of the best ways to achieve that.•
Which ones have we established?
A high-level view of how your business is currently operating will help you improve what is working and drop what isn’t. Identify the aspects of your business that are converting sales right now. Privacy and communication are two core components of the massage experience for many people.•
How are they integrated with the
rest of our business model?
Every piece of your business strategy should make sense together, from top to bottom. Ensure that you’re making your customers happy and loyal while you generate profits. For example, key tenets like privacy and communication should be baked into your business every step of the way so that your customers know you’re trustworthy.•
How costly are they?
Naturally, you can’t add extra parts to your business model without factoring in costs. However you strengthen your relationship with your customers, it has to be affordable. Co-creations with key partners can be leveraged here; your partners are in this together with you and may be able to offer financing for mutually beneficial ventures. Whether or not you employ self-service offerings or automated services will also affect your expenditures, so be careful there.Customer Segment
•
Mass Market
Massage businesses aiming to capture just about everyone will compete in the mass market. If your goal is to tap into the mass market, you’ll need to differentiate your business substantially from the competitors currently at the top. Often times, a successful strategy here will be to deliver great massage services to your customers that matches the quality of other businesses at a lower price.•
Niche Market
Finding a niche for your business is excellent for gaining access to smaller markets. This can ultimately be more profitable for your business than entering the mass market because you have the ability to increase your market share. Specialize into a specific kind of service, and you’ll scoop up a large part of the market looking for that service.•
Segmented
As mentioned above, you don’t have to just cast a wide net and offer all your customers the same thing. Many businesses thrive by offering a variety of services targeting several different customer segments. Once you’ve defined the segments you’re trying to reach, you’ll be able to optimize your offerings to each segment and increase conversions.•
Diversified
A diversified massage business will capture new opportunities as they see them rather than just sticking to one kind of service. If it makes sense for you financially and you see demand that you can fulfill from a different market, it can be a good idea to branch out your business offerings into other products or services.•
Multi-sided Platform
Not all massage businesses will be as simple as the owner selling a service to each customer who walks in. Businesses operating with the multi-sided platform model create value by connecting multiple parties as an intermediary. You might decide that your business would be more profitable by sharing space with another business or that you might get more walk-in customers by working with a nail salon.Channels
•
Through which channels can the
customer segments be reached?
How will you reach the customers you’re trying to target? By now, you should have a solid idea of the customer segments you’re trying to appeal to. Identifying how you’ll reach them is the next step. In order to grow your customer base customers have to find you and learn about you and this is where you’ll make that happen.•
How can the channels be
integrated into the business model?
As with everything else above, each decision you make must work with the business model you’re operating in. Will your choice of channel fit perfectly into your current operations, or is it something that needs to be adjusted? One size does not fit all for every business; take a careful look at your massage business and see what works best for you.•
How much cost and time do you
expect to spend to keep the channel
working?
Operating your chosen channel will incur costs and time expenditures and these factors need to be carefully considered. You might find that you have to switch channels because your initial choice winds up to be too expensive. This piece will vary depending on the nature of your business. For example, niche customers are the hardest to capture and define and take a lot of research to determine whether or not they’re even actually out there. A lot of costs can go into solidifying a channel for niche customers, so keep that in mind as you decide on a channel.•
How can costumer routines be
integrated?
Integrating your customer’s preferences and behaviours into your channel is vital to keeping them satisfied at every level of the experience. You want to take advantage of the actions they typically take. Relying on your customers recruiting other customers is a strategy that’s likely to fail. Be realistic about how your customers interact with your business and what that means for your channel.Revenue Streams
•
For what value are costumers
willing to pay?
Your customers wouldn’t be buying your services if they didn’t find it valuable enough to justify the cost. Defining the value you’re giving them is crucial so that you can best optimize your business. Which pieces of the service are they finding value in and which pieces don’t matter as much? Answering these questions will give you the ability to raise the value of the important pieces and cut costs on less important matters.•
For what do they currently pay?
What services are you currently offering and how much are they being purchased? Compare these answers to your answers about customer value and try to bridge the gap. Ultimately, you want the services you’re selling to align perfectly with the value that customers are looking for.•
How do they prefer to pay?
There are many varieties of payment methods right now and not everyone prefers to use the same one. It’s a basic principle that your customers need to have the option to pay for the service however they want; otherwise, they won’t shop there. Figure out what the most commonly requested forms of payment are from your customers and make sure they’re all available.Cost Structure
•
Fixed Costs
Everything we’ve mentioned in this guide, and everything it takes to run a massage business, will cost you time and money. This needs to be considered at every step of your decisionmaking so that you can ensure you are meeting costs with matching revenue and that you are running a profitable business at the end of the day. Your fixed costs are extremely important to nail down because they never adjust to the number of customers you receive; you’ll be paying the entire fees regardless of how well your business is doing. Major fixed costs that you have to take on include employee salaries, the rent you’re paying to operate in a building and utilities.•
Variable Costs
Unlike fixed costs, your variable costs do depend on the number of customers served. Therefore, you need to adjust your budget to take care of fixed costs while leaving room for enough variable costs to service a wide range of customers. Having a sudden influx of customers and becoming really busy can be a good problem to have, but not if you can’t afford to pay for the variable costs that are needed to service them. Analyse your variable costs to ensure they make sense in your cost structure. It shouldn’t cost you so much in variable costs to service a customer that you’re losing money.Conclusion
Massage businesses tend to go in a certain direction and it’s difficult to change once those decisions have been made. Many will go into the health care space while others are focused on operating as Wellness Massages. These are different types of businesses that use different cost structures, so it’s important for you to decide which direction you’ll go in and not try to do everything. This decision will hugely affect your choice of key partners, key activities, and customer segmentation because you’ll need different variables to operate successfully. It’s difficult to manage two different cost structures, so it’s a best practice to choose the best one for your business and make decisions based on that.
