- 1. Wordpress
It would only be proper to start off the list with the application that has helped me obtain the exposure I needed to go from a 9-5 to a self employed massage therapist. Wordpress which is a content management system that allows us non geeks to build a web site and update it with ease. Whether your a seasoned massage therapist or new graduate, allowing your local community to get to know who your are through socializing via your blog or at the very least having information about the different services you offer and different types of qualifications you have is in important aspect of developing the relationships you want for your business. Wordpress helps this process by allowing you to stay connected to your audience 24/7 through open dialogue via your blog area allowing your visitors to leave comments on posts you’ve written such as this post I’m writing now. Wordpress for massage therapists also allows you to add plugins to your web site which are little programs written by savvy developers that you simple upload to your site and activate them in your admin area (don’t worry, simple, simple, simple!) that will allow you to extend the capabilities of your web site. Here’s a few ways plugins can help you:
- Appointment calendar allows your clients to book from your site and pay you when they book
- Social bookmarking icons allow your visitors to bookmark your web site, or even better, spread the word about your great site
- Google Analytics will help you determine your traffic sources, and the keywords people are finding you with on the internet with (that just touches the surface)
- And the list goes on and on, Wordpress had 4,100 plugins available at the time I wrote this post
- 2. Daylite
Daylite is a fantastic customer relationship manager application, I believe the program was ideally written for Lawyers and or Design Agencies but this is perfect for a one man team massage therapist or organizing a team of therapists. The downside to this application is that it’s only available on the Mac computer, however, for all you window lovers out there I would suggest using Sales Force an onDemand web application which I would be using if I wern’t a Mac Guy.
The most common areas where daylite can be utilized by you is in it’s ability to sync all information about your activity with any given client. From the time that you receive an email from a client Daylite immediately records any email coming in or going out to the client in the clients records known as Activity Record which also syncs any appointments, tasks, or any other activity that has been associated with that client for record keeping. Many of the features that Daylite offers is based on David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system which many fortune 500 companies pay executives to learn to promote a more productive working environment. Daylite also has a seamless integration with Billings which is a program for invoicing your clients with beautiful templates that you can use.
“Some Say Presentation Is Everything”
- 3. Stationary - Tito
Take the time to invest in your business and you’ll reap the rewards from the investment. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve meet self employed entrepreneurs that didn’t have a business card on them or even invest in stationary. At the very least you guys, pick up some business cards even if you grab stock cards from your local printer, it really does have an impact on the all important first impression. If you’re thinking about hiring a professional graphic designer be sure to find one that has work in his/her portfolio that is verifiable and is aligned with your style or is able to convey your image to the public.
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