In my business, I sell gift certificates. My gift certificates are valid for six months from the date of purchase, and as most gift certificate sales go, some of them come in, and some of them don't. Sometimes these gift certificates change hands a time or two before actually getting into the hands of a person that actually brings it into the shop for a session, however, I don't think I've ever had one go this particular route.
On July 23rd of last year, I got a call from a lady in Madison, Wisconsin who had found me on the Internet. She has a friend in town and as a gift for him, wanted to give him a certificate for a massage. I wasn't sure, that I had the right to take a credit card over the phone, but I did. (With no actual signature from the purchaser, I could get the money charged back to her along with a processing fee from the bank if she ever decided she wanted to. This is why taking cards over the phone is a risk unless you're in a business that is specifically set up to do that.) At any rate, I took the information and charged the card while she was on the phone with me. She had me send the certificate directly to her friend and make it out to him from her. Until a couple of months ago, that was the last I had heard of it.
I got a phone call from the person I had sent the gift certificate to wanting to book a session. We set up a date and time, and I put it on the schedule. When the session time came, he didn't show up. About a half-hour or so after the session was supposed to start, I got a phone call from him. He had been sent out of town, and had forgotten that he had scheduled a massage. He couldn't at that time tell me when to set up another session so we left it with him needing to call me to reschedule. And that was the last I had heard of that until two days ago.
I got a call for someone wanting to use this gift certificate for massage. I scheduled that, and saw him today. As it turned out, the person that came in to me was the father of the person that I had sent the gift certificate to. Apparently he had felt that he wasn't going to be able to make a session, so he gave it to his Dad.
When I looked at my client, I was immediately drawn to the neck and upper shoulder areas going about halfway down the shoulder blades. He told me that I hit the nail right on the head. I spent an hour working on him, spending a lot of time working the shoulders and neck area, using a lot of Lomi Lomi moves. He felt much better when I had finished as the shoulders were loose and he didn't hurt. After the session he came out and his wife asked if I had hit his trouble spots. He replied "yes he did, several times".
Before I walked out, my client took several business cards to pass out to people he knows, and claimed he would be back. If he does truly come back, and some of the people that he gives my card to actually come in, then it will be a big plus. (This is how I hope things work, as they should work, where someone who comes in for a session likes it so much that they tell other people and those people come in.)
What I find funny about the situation in itself, is the potential for new business since the certificate went through this convoluted route. You see, the person who the gift certificate had initially been intended for was a student. The person that ended up bringing it in was a semi-retired vice president of a beef manufacturing company. (I was actually joking with him about this. I told him that when he said he worked for beef manufacturing company, and taking the literal meaning of manufacturing to heart, that it sounded like he was actually taking a cow and a bull out to the barn so they could have some happy time. He told me that sometimes it's absolutely that. J) The student, with however many friends he may have, would not know the type of people that would be coming in looking for massage. On the other hand, the vice president does, and would know the type of people that would be needing massage.
So again, the universe winks its eye, and causes things to go through strange pathways so that the final outcome is (hopefully) much better than if it had gone the original route. What can I say? There are no accidents.