Massage CE: Employment & Touch Techniques

By Rima Star MA, LMT, Employment Consultant. (This article is part of the series Got a Massage Job: Key Points for Creating Successful Employment.)

What are employers looking for? What are you looking for? How to navigate the world of employment more successfully is the focus of this class. This series of articles addresses the key points that will be addressed in Rima Star and David Lauterstein’s upcoming employment success workshop.

KEY POINT #4: High Quality Touch Techniques

This gets right down to the basics of your job! As a professional you will continue to learn and grow, adding different ways to address common client needs and knowing what techniques to select for a given client. If you ever find yourself thinking, “I already know it all. It’s the “same ol, same ol”—beware. That can indicate it’s a good time to jump into a class, trade sessions with a colleague, take a fresh perspective and get re-inspired. One of the ways to continually maintain high quality as a massage therapist is to continually be open to learning something new from any therapist. I have learned new things from first year massage therapists. Why? Because we each bring to our techniques our unique ways of interpreting and applying those techniques with the energy, concern, compassion and care that goes along with our work.

Finding, and keeping a fulfilling job as a massage therapist includes ingredients for success in each phase of the process. Being successful in an employment environment includes building quality relationships with yourself, your clients, your colleagues, clinic staff, managers and owners. In all of these points communication is the key—whether it’s through the quality of your touch, the first impression of how you greet and meet a client, your verbal communications to the business reception staff, your manager/owner and your communications to/with your colleagues on a daily basis.

Never before have massage therapists had so many choices about where and how to work in their career. Let’s work together for successful careers!

Rima Star, formerly of Massage Envy, has interviewed, hired and trained over 400 massage therapists.