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.