Every
month Relax to the Max graduates get together on the phone for
a networking meeting. We invite guests to join us on each of
these calls. Sometimes it is a successful Relax to the Max
graduate who is willing to share their secrets. Other times it
may be a key figure in the massage industry or a business
expert. And it’s absolutely free for Relax to the Max
graduates. These teleconference calls are just one of the many
ways we provide support for people who have been through the
program.
Here's
part of a transcript from a recent teleconference call. I
interviewed Christa Stuehler, a graduate who has specialized
in working in schools. I picked her brain for the benefit of
others on the call. The rest of the interview can be viewed on
a password protected resource site for graduates only.
Eric:
I want to introduce Christa who is one of our
students who graduated in September of 2000. There are a
number of graduates that have been interested in doing massage
in schools – working with public schools as a market. So I
asked Christa to join us and share her vast wealth of
knowledge with us because she’s been so successful at it. I’m
hoping she’ll tell us a little bit about how she does that. OK
Christa. I’m going to pick your brain and then after I’m
finished, if it’s OK with Christa, I’m going to open it up and
let anyone ask questions. Does that sound like a plan?
Maybe you could start off by giving us a little bit of
background on yourself?
Christa:
well, I’m originally from Germany. I’ve come to Canada has an
immigrant and I notice that other people on the line have
accents. So they know how I felt coming into the country with
a totally different language. It was difficult, but I dived
right into it when I got here. I started in direct sales. I
was in real estate for five years. And when I started with
chair massage, I was working for a transportation company
selling truckloads. So I was a professional sales rep. I
enjoyed it. I liked people. It taught me something very
valuable. I taught me people skills and how to market myself.
I’m a healer – like therapeutic touch and Reiki -and I was
always interested in doing something a little more involved. I
saw the information on Relax to the Max. I thought, “Wow, this
is really something I want to do.” I’m glad that the course
was held in Kitchener. I drive a two-tone car – black and rust
– and it wouldn’t have made it to Toronto. I was the only one
in my whole class that didn’t have the chair, even when I
graduated. I was the only one. I am a single mom. It was
pretty hard for me financially to come up with the money
because I have the house, I have a mortgage, and money was
always difficult. I was determined to make it work. I took the
course and enjoyed it thoroughly.
Eric:
I remember you telling me that you had a garage sale to make
enough money for your chair. Now, once you graduated, you had
to make money relatively quickly. What did you do at first?
What kinds of places did you approach? What kinds of
environments did you work in initially?
Christa:
It is quite interesting, you know. I want to tell everybody:
you just can’t sit there with your hands in your lap and wait.
You have to go out there. You have to market yourself. You
have to talk to people. What I did is the moment I had my
chair, I remember I was driving down the road and the YMCA was
right there. And I said “Oh heck! Why don’t I just go in?” I
didn’t have anything planned. The whole thing was very
spontaneous. I just drove into the YMCA and I spoke to the
woman at the front desk. She gave me the name of the manager.
I called him and I said, “My name is Christa and I do such and
such.” I told him about the chair massage. And he said to me,
“That sounds very exciting. I know exactly what you’re talking
about. I’ve seen it. We’ve always wanted to have massage here
at the why, but we’ve never had the room for it.”
I told him that I wouldn’t need much room. I told him that
I’ve been in the Y and the foyer would be just fine. He said,
“You know what. Bring in a proposal.” I wrote him out of
proposal that I would be at the Y two to three times a week. I
would charge $15 and the YMCA would get two dollars out of the
15. He accepted that. He thought it was a good idea. He
suggested that I do it for free for the first week. The first
week I did about 60 people for free.
The moment I started to charge, I did next to nothing. And I
thought, “Holy smokes! What’s going on here.” You know, this
is in the Kitchener/Waterloo area. People especially in this
area are very, very conservative. They are very tight for
their money, much more so than some of the larger surrounding
towns. I spoke to the manager and said I’ll drop my prices
down to $10, but the YMCA won’t get a cut. He agreed.
Boy, all of a sudden it started to pick up. I went there are
on evenings two or three times a week for about two or three
hours and I did six or seven people. And I thought, “How can I
let the rest of Cambridge know that I’m here. I want everyone
to know that I’m here.” And advertising costs a lot of money
and I’m not sure that it will work. So I said to the manager,
“Would it be okay I called the newspaper and they did a
story?”
That is the thing, girls. You have to go out there and
approach them. What you do is very, very unique and very, very
interesting. I called the Cambridge times. The Cambridge Times
is the newspaper which circulates to 42,000 homes in the
Cambridge area. It’s free and almost every household gets one.
I called them and I talked to the reporter. I said to him,
“Ray this is what I do. Is it interesting?” He said, “Let me
get back you.” He got back to me two days later and said yes
and I said okay come to the Y and do the story. He shot a
couple of pictures and wrote the story. Most of you have
probably seen it in some other materials. It’s called, “Ticket
to heaven for $10.”
Eric: It was a
great article! He did a great job.
Christa:
Yes. And from that moment on it just mushroomed.
Eric: What
happened?
Christa:
I went into the newspaper to say thank you to them and give
them free massage. Guess what? They are one of my best clients
today. I now have the Cambridge Times, the Waterloo Chronicle,
and the New Hamburg Independent.
Eric: Wow!
Christa:
Just because I went back into the newspaper to say thank you
and give them all of free massage. I do on a weekly basis with
all three of them about 15 to 20 people. Now I get home one
day, and there was a message from the Cambridge Memorial
Hospital – the occupational health nurse. That’s the person
you need to approach in a lot of big operations, the
occupational health nurse. She said, “I read that beautiful
article in the times. That is something that we need here at
the hospital. Give me a call.”
I called her and I booked an appointment with her. I went to
see her. I gave her a massage. I left her a package. And the
package contains – you probably want to know what’s in my
package – my newspaper article, a copy of my liability
insurance, a copy of quotes from the press, a copy of how
companies can use chair massage for their employees, I have
another copy from the package from Eric about
depression and job stress. That’s what I have in the package.
They gave me a seven-day to contract. They said, give us a
proposal. I did the same for them as I did for the YMCA, but
didn’t have to pay anything to the hospital. They gave me a
room and allowed me to charge whatever I wanted to. I gave
them the proposal and from that they put together a seven-page
contract.
Eric:
And there were other massage professionals or therapists that
had submitted proposals as well, isn’t that right?
Christa:
Yes, there were others. I knew I wasn’t the only one. Anyway,
I go every Thursday to the hospital. And I’ll tell you
something: the hospital being one of my clients gives me
credentials.
Eric: It gives
you credibility. And that along with the media coverage you
have…
Christa:
I had a gentleman coming to the Y when I was there and he said
to me, “This is awesome. This is awesome. Christa, you should
go see teachers.” Report cards were due. He said, “They have
report card knots.” And I said “Okay okay,” but I never really
acted on it. Then one evening he brought his wife. His wife is
a teacher. She asked me for double massage. She loved it. She
said, “Christa, please come to our school. How many teachers
do you need to come to our school?” I said, “At least six or
seven.” So she talked to her principal. I talked to him. I
went there. Bang! I was in. A day later, I drove by another
school. It was very spontaneous, but I just dropped into the
school. And the Secretary wanted to brush me off, but I wanted
an appointment with the principal. I wanted to explain to her
what I was doing. And lady came in and I knew right away that
was the principal. Then she said, “What’s going on.” And I
said, “I’m Christa. I’m a massage practitioner. I do massage
at the YMCA, at the hospital and that the school. I’m just…”
and she said, “Oh, massage?” And I said, “Yes. All I want is
an appointment with you for 15 or 20 minutes. I’d like to give
you a free massage and drop off my information package.” And
she said, “Sure.”
I got the appointment. Next week I went back and gave her the
package and the free massage. She got out of the chair and she
said, “Oh, boy! My teachers need that.” A week later she
called me and she had 15 teachers lined up. And that’s how I
got into schools. In Cambridge I do Monsignor Doyle every
Wednesday. Every Monday I do Conestoga College. Every Tuesday
I do Saint Mary School. Every Friday I do Mitchell Wood School
in Guelph. And every first Thursday of the month I do St.
Michael’s School in Cambridge.
Eric: So you are
doing five schools right now? For people on the line, who
would you suggest that they approach if they are interested in
schools?
Christa:
Don’t go to the school board. The school board is very funny
in the way they look at things. The principal is the one to
speak to. The principal is the king of their kingdom. The
principal is the one that makes the decision as to what goes
on. Monsignor High School is a very large high school. I
started there last year. The school paid half of the massage.
Now that the new semester has started, the school has told me
that they are going to use those funds for something else. The
teachers have to pay on their own. You wouldn’t believe. I do
more teachers now than I did before when the teachers paid
half. So don’t get the discouraged when a company or school
makes the employees pay on their own. I do excellent. I do
very well. I made $25,000 last year doing $10 massages.
A lot of practitioners get discouraged that the massage can be
charged to a benefit package. But you have to turn it around.
Every coin has two sides. I had an appointment with two
companies. I pointed out to both of them that companies are
very much concerned about their costs. If employees charge
everything to their benefit plan, that results in a higher
costs for the company. The company usually sends out
newsletters to the employees saying if you need a
prescription, use generic medication instead of the name
brand. And I said, “If I’m here and they use my services, they
can’t charge this to the benefit package.”
Eric: That’s
certainly an interesting approach.
Christa:
They say, “Wow! That’s great!” And I talk about
self-responsibility. Why should my boss, or the government, or
anyone else take care of my health. This is
self-responsibility. This is my own health. I look after it.
I’ll tell you guys, most teachers and the people in hospital
are extremely grateful to the employer that they give me the
room and give them the chance to take 15 minutes for a
massage, even if they have to pay for themselves.
Eric: How would
you approach a school to set up an appointment?
Christa:
(laugh) I call the school and I say to the receptionist, I’d
like to speak to the principal. Quite often it’s a better idea
to find out the name of the principal. If you don’t know the
name of the principal then the Secretary will ask you what
it’s about.
Eric: When you
say, “Please connect me with Mr. So-and-So.” They connect you
directly.
Christa:
Find the name of the principal. Call the school. Say, “I want
to speak with Mr. Johnson.” The moment you have the person on
the line, you say, “Mr. Johnson, first of all, I’m not a
parent of a student that you have in the school. I’m not
somebody who wants to complain about your school. So I’m going
to take that right off your mind. My name is Christa. I’m a
chair massage practitioner.” And I explain to him what I do,
how it works, what the costs are, how long it is. I explain to
him what the benefits are for the teachers, for the school,
for the students, and for the whole system. And then I say to
him, “I could tell you whole novel here on the phone, but the
best way would be if I can have 15 or 20 minutes of your time.
I’d like to come in and see you personally, drop an
information package and give you a free sample massage. Then
you’ll know what the whole thing is all about.” And about 80
percent say sure. Eighty percent say yes.
Eric: What kind
of arrangements have you actually set up in the school? What
times are best to go into the school? Where are you setup
typically? Maybe you could tell us a little bit about how they
publicize the program or how the teachers find out about it,
and those types of things.
Christa:
The first thing you should know if you go to schools, is go to
high schools. The teachers have spares. They have a little
more time than they do in elementary schools. High schools are
better. I’ve got a beautiful sign up sheet. The principal
tells me whether it’s best in the morning or its best in the
afternoon.
Eric: So the
principal knows when most of their teachers are free.
Christa:
Friday’s are not good. Teachers usually leave the school at
4:00, but most schools are finished by 2:30. If it’s a Friday,
guess what? The teachers take off. If it’s a weekday they stay
in school to catch up on marking or preparing. So I’ve found
that in most of the schools that I do that the best times are
from 11:00 or 12:00 to 4:00. That’s a reasonably good time. I
have a nice signup sheet with pictures on it about chair
massage. It’s broken down into 20-minute appointments – so,
three massages in one hour. The sign up sheet is hanging in
the staff room and teachers know exactly where it is. Every
time I do a massage, when the teacher gets out of the chair I
say, “Hey, Cindy! How about next week? Why don’t we put you
down for next week? They usually say yes. And I say, what
time?” And I put their name on the sign up sheet
Eric: So you
take responsibility for getting them signed up again?
Christa:
Yes. And before I leave I hang the sign up sheet back up in
the staffroom. When I come in for the next day I first go to
the main office and get them to announce on the intercom that
I am in.
Eric: Are you
usually set up in the staffroom?
Christa:
No, in Monsignor Doyle I’m in the nurse’s office because she’s
not in on Wednesdays. It’s very nice. At Mitchell Wood I’m in
a conference room beside the library. In Conestoga I’m at the
recreation centre. And at St. Michael’s I’m often in the
principal’s office or the staffroom.
Eric: How
important do you feel visibility is in that market to attract
the teachers or to remind them that it’s there? Is being
visible an issue?
Christa:
No, it’s not. What I usually do when I get to the school is
walk around a little bit. When I see that I have a spare in
the sign up sheet, I just walk around to make sure that they
see me. They say, “Oops! I forgot. Christa’s in today.”
Eric: You did
have a second article written. How did you manage to get that
one written?
Christa:
The same way. I called the newspaper. You know guys, you have
to call the newspaper. Eric , on Friday I’m going to be
on TV. I called the TV station the same way that I called the
newspaper. I told them what I do and they said, “Can we come?”
I talked to the principal and they could. I was on the news -
on CKCO news. I asked the principal if I could call them. I
even ended up having the principal in the massage chair for
the newscast.
Eric: So you’ve
been in newspapers twice and TV once…
Christa:
I’ve been on TV twice and now Friday is going to be the third
time.
Eric: You are
becoming a media celebrity. Do you get people stopping you for
your autograph on the street?
Christa:
Sometimes people say, “I’ve seen you on TV,” or “I know you
from somewhere.”
Eric: Is there
anything else that people on the line should know about
working in a school environment? Any tips or suggestions
before they start asking questions?
Eva:
I have a question. What is in your proposals?
Christa:
For the schools, I didn’t do a proposal at all. I only put in
a proposal to the YMCA. I wrote that I would be available for
two to three days a week at certain hours. I said that I
charge $15 and the Y gets $2.
Eric: Was this
just a single page? Like a letter?
Christa:
It was just a single page typed on the computer. It was very
simple.
Danielle: So you are doing a basic routine?
Christa:
Yes. I’ve been doing chair massage for 1-1/2 years and I’ve
only done the legs three or four times. So I usually do the
routine. Sometimes they ask for a double. So they get 20 or 25
minutes.
Eric: Are they
given that as an option?
Christa:
Yes, they know that and they’ll ask me, “Can I have a double
today?”
Danielle: In the schools you’re charging $10?
Christa:
Yes.
Angie:
Do you always charge $10? It sounds like that’s your standard
fee. Do you ever go to $15 for 15 or 20 minutes?
Christa:
It all depends where I go. I’ve told several people that I’m
raising my fee up to $12 and customers have even told me that
I should do that. They know how I do the massage and they
don’t mind paying the increase. I don’t always charge $10. It
all depends whether I do a longer massage. If I do
house-calls, I charge $25.
Eric: Do you
ever get tips?
Christa:
Gosh! All the time! (laughs) The lowest tip I get is usually
$1. Sometimes I get $15 or $20 for a $10 massage.
Eric: I like
those environments when you get tips. And that’s an advantage
of offering a personal care service rather than a medical one.
The
remainder of this interview is available to graduates of Relax
to the Max only at our private resource website.
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