Crystal Mountain gives you the massage business education you need to succeed in your new massage career when you graduate so you can continue providing service in your chosen profession. Our massage business classes teach you how to evaluate different types of employment situations to find what’s right for you; match your personal goals with what an employment opportunity offers; understand non-compete agreements and employment contracts; find employment opportunities; write a resume; and feel confident during job interviews.

Our massage business education program also gives you the basics of starting a successful massage business of your own. This includes how to define, price, and market your services to attract the number and types of clients you desire in your massage business, and how to build ongoing, loyal relationships with those massage business clients. Our massage business classes also include the nuts and bolts of licensing, getting insurance, setting up an office, running an office, and managing your accounting.

These massage business startup tasks can seem overwhelming, especially if you’ve never run a small business before. In the massage business classes at Crystal Mountain our goal is to simplify this information, making it clear and easy for you to learn, so you’ll have everything you need to begin working when you get out of school. Our massage business education program is experiential, hands-on, and practical, using role plays, group exercises, and games to teach you what you need to know in a way that is engaging and fun.

Here’s some good news if you’re thinking about a massage business career: the demand for massage in the U.S. is exploding. According to a 2005 survey by the American Massage Therapy Association, between August of 2004 and July of 2005 roughly 47 million American adults received a massage. That’s 2 million more adults than the number that received a massage the year before, which is about 4% more. It’s also almost 1 out of every 6 people in the United States, or about 16% of the U.S. population. The massage business in the U.S. is booming!

Now, here’s a challenge: the number of massage practitioners in the U.S. is growing even faster than the demand for massage. In 2004 ABMP (Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals) reported that massage school enrollment had grown 22% since 2002.

What does it mean to you that demand for massage is growing at a rate of about 4% a year, but the number of therapists graduating from school is growing at more than 10% a year? It means that even though the massage business is booming, competition for clients and massage jobs can be intense, depending on where you’re located.

And what does it mean to you that more than 71,000 students graduated from a state-approved massage or bodywork program in the U.S. in 2004, but there are currently only about 165,000 licensed massage therapists in the country – or a total of approximately 180,000 – 230,000 licensed and unlicensed massage therapists in the U.S.? It means that the attrition rate for therapists in the massage business is amazingly high, with something like 30 – 45% of therapists leaving the profession every year.

Why are so many therapists leaving the massage business? One of the reasons is that many of them ultimately don’t make enough money as massage therapists and need to seek other work. And why don’t they make a good enough living as massage therapists? For many of them the answer is simply that they don’t know how to start and run a massage business successfully.

So, if you’d like to earn some or all of your living as a massage therapist, getting massage business skills under your belt while you’re in school will help you survive when you get out.

(Note: Taking into account that 10 states have no state massage regulations, that another three states have freedom of access laws rather than state licensing, and that two states have passed laws that are not yet in effect, the total number of therapists including students that AMTA estimated in the massage business in the United States in 2005 was 250,000 – 300,000.)

Crystal Mountain specializes in teaching students to succeed in the “real world” of massage business after graduation from massage school. For a quick rundown of what to look for in a school’s massage business education curriculum, click to download a free checklist.

Many if not most massage therapists are dedicated to service, healing, and nurturing others. This is a wonderful, admirable focus, and a great reason for becoming a massage therapist and entering the massage business.

This orientation sometimes comes at the expense of the therapist taking care of him or herself. Massage therapists often put all of their emphasis on taking care of others, to their own detriment. One of the ways they may neglect themselves is financially, believing that being “profitable,” or “financially successful” is “selfish” or is not “service-oriented.” Being a “successful massage business person” may conflict with other identities they hold for themselves, such as “caregiver,” “nurturer,” or “spiritual person.”

Unfortunately, if as a massage therapist you do not create massage business success to make ends meet financially, you will soon need to find other employment and therefore literally unable to afford sharing your healing gifts with those who need them.

At Crystal Mountain we believe that massage therapists can be both service-oriented AND financially successful, nurturing AND profitable. Our goal is to help you balance caring for yourself with caring for others, physically, emotionally, AND financially. Part of this balance is having at least a basic understanding of massage business skills.

In order to take the national massage certification exam, students must attend a massage school that offers at least six hours of massage business training. Each state in the United States has its own approach to regulating massage education. The state of New Mexico requires that all registered massage therapy schools offer massage business classes as part of their curriculum but they have no specific number of massage business education hours required.

Crystal Mountain has chosen to offer presently approximately 20 hours of massage business education in our day and evening classes. This is two to three times the national licensing requirement for massage business education, and significantly above and beyond what most massage schools throughout New Mexico and the U.S. are offering. We are allocating this much of our curriculum to massage business training because we feel these skills are essential for our students to be able to make a living as massage therapists when they get out of school.