I had another awesome day at the Health and Retirement show today. Although I have not sold anything, I have scheduled a couple of appointments. But the best part is doing the work.
One thing I have learned is that all my pretty pictures and all the neat signage I have done for this is real neat, but doesn’t mean squat in the defining of everything. It gets the people to slow down, and draws some in. The defining point of what makes or breaks anything I do is the five or 10 minutes people spend on my table.
Rather than doing fluff, I have been intent on finding problems and fixing them. This is the same attitude I have in my shop, which is why I’ll continue to chase something until I fix it or realize that I have done all I can for that session. It makes sense that I bring my same working attitude here with me as I do this show.
One lady was asking me what is different in what I am doing at the show. I told her that the massage school students are just doing ‘feel good’ massages. I’m doing actual work, some deep, to make lasting changes in people. She still wasn’t sure what I meant, so I told her to get on the table. After 10 minutes of combination Swedish, Lomi Lomi, and Reiki, she took several of my flyers and cards and told me she’d call me. (Now, I know that I generally get about a third of the people who claim they will call me to call me, but she was very sincere.)
There was one lady that told me the story of the time she got couples massage from somewhere, and it was all fluff and no real work. It took about three times telling her to get on the table for her to do it, but when she got off, she booked an appointment.
I worked on two teachers that had started working out. I guess they decided that they could each afford $50 a month for necessary bodywork.
There was a couple with a small child that I worked on. I worked on the lady first. Her hips pop when she walks and causes her pain. I saw where her problems were, and fixed them so they didn’t hurt. Next I worked on the guy. He works as a server, and his legs were tight.
When I hand-scanned him, I saw problems in the low back around the spine just below the waist. I didn’t sense anything in the shoulder area. He asked if I was sure about that, and I told him that I really didn’t get anything there, that the main problem was in the low back. A few minutes of massage and he got off the table and was feeling good. He told me that his neck had been hurting him when he laid down on the table and since I didn’t sense anything there, he thought I was “a fake and didn’t know crap”. I had worked quite a bit on his back and legs and just a little on his shoulders (Lomi moves). He told me that when he got up, he didn’t have any neck pain. He was truly amazed, and quickly revised his opinion. If it’s one thing I learned, it’s that everything is connected. A problem somewhere can cause a pain at another place. In his case, I’m sure it had to do with the pain in his back radiating up the spine causing the neck pain. Once the back problem was corrected, and his posture straightened, the neck pain went away.
While I was working on him, I overheard the lady telling someone that she had a headache. I asked her if she really did and she said yes. I pulled out the headache and threw it away. I then asked her how her headache was. She stood there wide-eyed for a moment before telling me that it was gone. She then told me “You’re weird.” I agreed, that yes, I am weird. Then she added “But it’s a good weird.” J They want to come see me too.
I went through the day like this. it was so neat hearing people get off the table going oh, awesome.” Each got a little Swedish, a little Lomi and a little Reiki. Hmmm, Sweloki?
I was doing a Lomi move to stretch the shoulder blade muscles (which involves holding the arm up in the back and using the elbow to do the stretch), when a man walking by told me he’d never seen a hold like that before. (He was referring to it as a type of wrestling hold.) I looked up and smiled, and told him it as Hawaiian Martial Arts.
What is neat is being able to deal with the challenges. I had to see what each person’s problems were, and then change the massage to ‘fix them’. Realistically, this is what I do every time in the shop. But doing it here, with so many people, and so little massage time, the challenge is multiplied several times.
I hope that those that promised to call for an appointment will. I know that by the percentages, most will not. At the same time, these are people I actually worked on, which is a difference between them and most of the people that promise to call me. I just hope that when they do get to the point that they feel they need bodywork, they will remember me.
So far this weekend has been an awesome experience. The challenge of the bodywork has been incredible, and I have made people feel better, which has made them happy. And realistically that's what I do this for anyway. Forgetting the hopes of potential business, just doing the work has been worthwhile. If nothing else, it has been a great confidence booster.
I’m hoping the short day tomorrow will be as good as today was.