How to Write a Massage Therapist Business Plan for Sustainable Growth

Massage therapy is in increasing demand across the country; nearly 48 million people had a total of 214 million massages in the U.S. in 2018 alone. If you’re a licensed massage therapist feeling compelled to establish your own holistic practice, the odds are in your favor for finding clients in your community who are seeking your services.

However, starting your own practice or brainstorming a plan for sustainable growth doesn’t happen overnight—and, unfortunately, it’s not enough to be passionate about serving your community! While that passion is a great foundation and motivation, you really need a business plan to establish a strategy for your massage therapy practice and its successful future.

What Is a Medical Massage Therapist Business Plan?

Broadly speaking, a business plan is a formal, written document outlining the goals of a business, the means by which those goals will be achieved, and the metrics for measuring those goals. Essentially, a business plan provides a comprehensive strategy for the future of your business and helps you, as the owner, address the many components of operating a successful business.

With that understanding, a massage business plan is all of the above but tailored to establishing a massage therapy business. Along these lines, you’ll need to determine the general outline of your business but also navigate the medical billing and coding practices, understand the laws and regulations pertaining to your specialty, and how to market yourself to the community. Your work is important, and establishing your own holistic practice will be a fantastic asset to the patients you serve!

3 Benefits of Creating a Massage Therapy Business Plan

Owning and operating a successful massage therapy business entails managing a wide array of responsibilities; it can be overwhelming! Here’s why you need a massage therapy business plan:

Set Yourself Up For Success

There’s a popular saying: fortune favors the prepared—what seems to be “luck” on the outside is actually the result of your hard work and preparation! Taking the time and effort to compile a well-rounded business plan demonstrates to yourself and potential investors that you have a vision and a plan to bring it to fruition. Leverage your passion to bring massage therapy services to your community with a practical business plan that holds you accountable for making it a reality. After all, a business plan creates a 30% greater chance for growth—and a chance to double your success!

Keep Everything Organized

Starting a business is, unsurprisingly, a complex and complicated process that requires you to handle numerous decisions and factors. Thus, having a business plan that accounts for your holistic practice’s marketing strategy, potential supply and demand in your community, legal paperwork and certifications, and so much more will keep you and your team organized by putting everything in one place. As you learn more about the process of starting a massage therapy practice, you can just add information to the business plan and compile a list of questions with resources to find the answers.

Ensure Accountability at Your Holistic Practice

What does success look like for you and your massage therapy practice? Your practice needs to attract new patients, operate on sustainable financial practices, and have a strategy for growth over time or else risk falling stagnant and behind the competition. A business plan for your massage therapy practice can ensure accountability in terms of financial, operational, and even emotional success simply by putting your goals into writing and checking them over time.

7 Essentials You Need In Your Massage Therapist Business Plan

The business plan for your massage therapy practice needs to have some fundamental elements that set a solid foundation for your practice, both internally and externally. These essentials include:

Executive summary: This is basically the mission and vision statement of your massage therapy practice; it’s your first impression and elevator pitch
Business concepts: In this section, you’ll outline the who, what, and how of your practice; who is your audience, what value are you providing, and how are you going to deliver that to your patients
Market analysis: Put your research skills to work by analyzing the market for massage therapy in your community and across the industry in general; this also can set up your marketing strategy by learning how best to attract patients
Competitive analysis: Scope out the competition in your target area by getting insight into their pricing strategy, where they attract clients, and more
Business strategy: This section distinguishes your massage therapy practice from the competition; for example, are you a value-based, accessible holistic practice, or do you offer specialized treatments for a small pool of clients?
Financial plan: Divulge the costs of running your business, the current financial status of your practice, plans for medical billing and coding, how you’re funding your practice, and more; anything related to money matters goes in this section
Operation & Implementation plan: Outline the daily operations of your practice—for example, the business hours and number of personnel you’ll have in the office—and what it’ll take to make it happen, such as the equipment or number of parking spots you’ll need

Your business plan will likely have tangents that branch off of these elements, which is to be expected and further illustrates how methodical you are regarding your practice’s future. Just be sure to start with these umbrella terms and return to them along the way of formulating your holistic practice’s plan for success.

holistic business plan

How to Write a Massage Business Plan to Support Your Growth

The aforementioned seven essentials for your business plan set forth the sections required for a well-rounded, thoughtful business plan. In an effort to further break those broad sections down into manageable components, be sure to do the following when writing the business plan for your massage therapy practice:

Create SMART Goals

Articulating your goals is an essential step for writing your massage business plan; after all, studies show that 90% of people perform better with relevant and challenging goals.

SMART goals will help further define your business plan and establish metrics by which to determine how your massage therapy practice is operating. SMART is an acronym that fleshes out each individual goal:

Specific: What exactly are you trying to accomplish?
Measurable: How will you objectively judge your progress?
Attainable: Make sure you’re not trying to wrap up too many things into one goal.
Realistic: Carefully evaluate your available resources and skillsets when making your goal.
Timely: Give yourself a deadline—and stick to it as best as you can.

For example, you might set a SMART goal to gain 10 new patient reviews in one month. If you have an established practice of 50 patients, that might align well with your goals, but if you only have 7 patients, then you’ll need to adjust your aims.

Do Your Research

This might be an obvious point, but it’s worth repeating: your massage therapy business plan should be researched from start to finish so you can make informed decisions regarding your practice’s strategy for growth and overall success. To start:

Learn more about your market and how best to market your practice to acquire new patients
Scope out the competition to see what they’re doing well or where you would improve on their methods
Network with physicians in the area to establish connections and gain patient referrals
Find out what events are happening in the community that you can host a table at to get more awareness about your holistic practice
Ask current patients for feedback and for them to write a review to see if there are pain points you can address

While there won’t necessarily be a finish line when doing research—since new ideas, opinions, and strategies can emerge at any point—it’s still an important factor in the planning process and one that will greatly benefit your massage therapy practice.

Consider Strategic Partnerships That Support Your Growth

Running a successful massage therapy practice doesn’t happen overnight and it takes a lot of work that can feel overwhelming on your own. When writing the business plan for your massage therapy practice, consider one or two aspects that might be able to be automated or delegated to a partner organization.

One crucial element of your massage therapy practice’s success lies in your revenue cycle management process, which includes medical billing and coding, insurance reimbursements, compliance with important laws and regulations, and more. You don’t need to navigate those complicated components of your practice alone—the team of experts at Holistic Billing Services can take care of it all for you!

Established in 1999, Holistic Billing Service is an integrative health services firm focused on streamlining your documentation, billing, and coding process to enhance your revenue cycle management. We empower holistic practitioners to focus on delivering quality patient care and growing their practices.

November 5, 2021

- by Antonio Arias, MBA, CHBME