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Any thoughts on starting a new business after not practicing for a few years?

Hello everyone,

I am concidering starting a business for myself. At this point my biggest concern is the fact that i went to school, then practiced for only a few months. Soon after that i had something come up in my life that took me from practicing. I have now not practiced for about 4 years. I would like to know if anyone else has been in such a situation? Is online CE enough to keep you up to date to practice? I would love any feed back on this to help me along. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Joana Maria de Meneses Silva on June 28, 2011 at 1:17pm

Hi Jolie,

How are you?

That is a very good point...experience is needed when you open a business (even if it's small). probably, you will need to make yourself a few questions before you go ahead with your idea. I'll leave you with some and i hope that can help you to clarify your path...

- Are you ready to work 10 to 12hrs a day?

- make sure you take time off and you use some of it to refresh and improve massage and beauty skills

- Are you ready to work during when your friends and family are vacationing?

- How do you feel about managment? Probably, thats more important on a first stage when we open a new business, bring clients in and then work from there.

- Do you LOVE to do massage?

- Do you know that there will be good days and there will be very slow days, when no one comes in and it can be very hard to deal with it?

- What do you want to learn with your business?

Maybe this are not the right questions but it's some questions that i do myself every time i think to work by myself. And for me it's not the right moment...

I am very happy that you have found your moment!!!

Hope i could help.

With joy

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Permalink Reply by Lucianna Johnston on July 1, 2011 at 12:38pm

My advice to you is make sure you don't over extend yourself financially. I have had 2 separate massage businesses. The first one was a healing center where I had four therapy offices, a yoga studio and a small book store. I way over extended myself, didn't have a business plan and ultimately burned myself out. I wanted it all to be too big too fast. The second attempt has been much much much more successful. First, I did a business plan so I would know exactly what type of office space I could or wanted to pay for. If you don't have a clientele then you need to get a part time job for a while in addition to doing massage and build your clientele. If you do this for 6 mos to a year you could potentially save enough money to have a cushion for your business start up. I recommend keeping your overhead down and really getting clear on how many massages etc. you would have to do to pay for your office, supplies etc. I think you can absolutely do it just be smart so you don't have to go through what I did. My current company is a private office where I have massage, reiki and private yoga instruction. I also teach classes via my company at the local Recreation Center. This keeps my overhead so low making a profit is a non issue. Look for the right space. Before you look know what you are looking for as far as size/price etc..and you will find it.Congratulations!