First of all those reactions that you elicit from your clients will make you feel great.  There aren’t many jobs that can give you so much satisfaction.  I really enjoy ot when I see clients who came into my practice all stressed out and after they have gotten their massage they have a smile on their face, they’ve calmed down, they feel so great, they breathe deeper and all of a sudden they have that little sparkling in their eyes back again.

Another advantage of working as a massage therapist is that you have lots of freedom and independence if you want to.  You do not have a boss who is looking over your shoulder and telling you how to do things.

And it’s a really easy to get started.  Just go out there and offer your massage to several people.  Put up some ads in the newspaper.  Though don’t spend a lot of money when you’re just starting out, the classifieds section is totally fine.  Some newspapers will be more effective in generating clients than others and you want to make sure that you track which once were effective and which ones don’t.

If you’re not sure whether this is the right profession for you or not, you can just give it a try without making a big commitment.  Instead of going to massage schools first and becoming a licensed massage therapist, you can just start out offering relaxing massages.  These massages have no therapeutic intend, they just feel good and have the person relax.

The only thing that you want to be sure about is that you follow your states licensing laws.  It is very regulated how you can advertise your business, what kinds of claims you can may when you offer massages — so be sure that you know what you’re allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do.

Then just get some hands on experience.  Practice first with friends and family.  If you see a friend who is tired of stressed out than just offer him a quick backrub.  Of course you should not charge for this.  This is really just about getting started.  Getting experience.

Once you have done that for a couple of weeks and at least every day giving someone a massage and you still think that this is something that you would enjoy doing then proceed to the next step.

Tell your friends and family about your plans and offer them a real massage, like a one hour massage.  This again is totally free and just to get experience and some feedback from a person that you actually massage.

Once you have done that a couple of times and the feedback is positive start advertising your business.  Put some classified ads in the newspaper.  And see if people react.  And go to local businesses and ask them if they are interested in putting these on the counter so that clients can take them if interested.  Many businesses will help you gladly.  And then one day you first phone call arrives.  And it’s a client.

One thing that I do want to mention to you is that you should make it clear statement in your advertisement that you are not offering any kind of erotic service.  If you fail to do that, you might get some requests for happy endings and extras.  However if you make a clear statement in your advertisements that you do not offer these services then you are really on the safe side from my experience.  Since I implemented this simple technique I stopped getting these kinds of requests.

At one point you will have to think about registering a business.  This is of course something that you should inform yourself about before getting started.  You do not want to break any laws.  Where I am living it is actually possible to start a business and not register it for about two months and only if you in this time generate revenue do you have to register the business.  See if something like this is possible where you are living and if so make use of this.

Another thing that you will definitely need is a massage table.  A massage table will probably be the biggest upfront investment in your massage career.  You should not get a flimsy massage table that makes squeaking noises if you apply pressure or even has the shaky feeling to it.

But when you’re just getting started you should not overspend neither before you know that this is really something you want to do for many years to come.  Just spent about 200 or $300.  There are many things to watch out for when buying a massage table and I do recommend that you make an informed decision.  I have created a massage table buyers guide for you, so that you don’t make the same mistakes that cost many people hundreds of dollars.  You can read it for free online.

And I hope that this article helps you to get started and take action.  Working as a professional masseur or masseuse really can be a great job and if it’s something you would like to do there is no reason why you shouldn’t.  So let’s get started.

But why should you as a massage therapist have a blog?

You see, it’s really about building a reputation and becoming an acknowledged expert.

You want to get your name out there to as many people as possible.

And blogging is a great way to do this. You can get a free blog at www.blogger.com and publish your blog right away. It’s as easy as writing an email.

What is important is that you write about things that are of importance to a massage therapist and the field of massage. So, you write about your massages, you write about experiences you have when massaging people and you write about  courses and seminars that you visited or massage books that you read.

But do not only write about massage – sometimes also you want to add a bit of personal things in your blog. This way you can connect to your readership. People want to know that you are knowledgeable in your field, but they also want to know that you are a human being to whom they can connect.

It’s a great way of getting in touch with new customers and other professionals in your field. Maybe other business owners will contact you and propose to do some kinds of joint ventures with you later on. These are all possibilities that wouldn’t have been open to you had you not started blogging.

Don’t expect too much from it neither though – when you start out blogging very few people will actually read what you write. But over time, if you provide value content then a readership will find you, people will start commenting on your blog and other blog writers will start writing about your posts.

This is also something I encourage – visit other blogs and engage in conversations there. Read their posts and leave a comment on their blog. This way you can start to get your name out there.

Now you really know enough about the benefits of blogging and have the strategies it takes to become successful doing it. It’s up to you to take action and use it to your own advantage and to the advantage of the people to whom you’ll provide a massage.