Back in the day, when I managed a team of engineers and technicians, I had one particular engineer on my staff who generated multiple patents every year. As his manager, it was my job to make sure he had every resource necessary to do his job and no hurdles in his way. I also had a manager who was a complete dope when it came to this man – he pressed me to make my super engineer into a manager to further his career.
What the hell was he thinking? Really? Take a man whose passion for engineering results in multiple patents every year, who spends his free time at home tinkering in his home lab and force him to do something he doesn’t enjoy and isn’t any good at?
What if I told you are doing the same thing to your best employee?
You.
You might be a brilliant massage therapist, with hands of gold, and a winning personality but you still insist on forcing yourself to do jobs for which you have no talent or interest. Maybe you have no interest in doing chair massage, but you’re out there drumming up more on-site chair business. What are you thinking?
The ideal is when you can match what you’re passionate about with what the market needs. Today, we are going to look at how to analyze your SWOT chart to grow your business in a way that plays to your strengths and passions.
Match your strengths to opportunities and threats
We’ve picked off the easy things in the first pass at our SWOT analysis. Now, we’re getting down to brass tacks, as my grandmother said. By the way, if you can explain what that phrase means, I would really appreciate it. Leave a comment below.
Take a look at my SWOT chart. I’ve grayed out the Weaknesses, because I’m going to ignore those right now. I’m going to match up my strengths with opportunities and with threats.
Strengths + Opportunities = Business Growth
By matching up what I’m good at and passionate about with what the market needs, I should be able to identify the right directions to grow my business. If you look carefully at my chart, you should probably see a few different directions I can branch out. I’ve circled a few things that I think might fit together.
Here are a few strengths:
- I’m a great public speaker
- I have mad computer skills
- I love to teach
- I’m able to explain computer stuff in ways that people can understand
- I have a lot of advanced massage training
- I want to share what I know
The opportunities
- Expand the number of continuing education classes I teach
- Expand my CE classes so they are available online
I know that there are any number of classes that you would like to take but can’t because of schedule. If you live in the boonies, it’s hard to take the travel days just to take a class. What if some of your classes could be taught as webinars where you call in for an hour of two during the morning or evening? You get CE credits and you get to learn something.
I get to teach and take advantage of my computer skills by working out all of the technical issues. Would you be interested in taking your ethics or business classes online?
Strengths + Threats = Defense
The threats
- From what I’ve read on Facebook and other forums, a lot of massage therapists don’t see the need to take continuing education.
- A lot of massage therapists are not as skilled with the use of computers and technology as I am.
- Massage therapists tend to put off signing up for CE classes until the last minute.
How to leverage your Strengths to turn Threats into new business
Online CE courses will help with the late sign ups. Right now, when a student signs up at the last minute, I have to scramble to make sure there are enough books available and to print up a certificate. Online courses don’t use paper books, everything is computer files, so there are no late night trips to Kinko’s to make copies because you’re 1 short.
I have this great blog to teach you the basics of tech skills you need to take advantage of online courses.
And for the therapists who don’t see a need for continuing ed? They aren’t my target market. They will take the absolute minimum required to keep their licenses current and they will take the cheapest class available, whether they are interested in the topic or not. If they decide to take my classes, I’m more than happy to have them. It’s a chance to share what I know and help them build a great career.
Look at your SWOT Chart Strengths
I want you to look at your SWOT chart and match up the Strengths with Opportunities and Threats. If you’re having a hard time with this, you can contact me via email and I will be happy to take a look at it. Sometimes, a second pair of eyes can really make the difference. Just email me at
Kelli (at) massagetherapyworld (dot) com
Are you finding this helpful?
15% of all of my google search visitors here are looking for swot analysis for massage therapy (I checked the data, this shocked me). I know you’re looking for this, that’s why I’m going through it in such detail. Let me know in the comments below if
- You are doing a SWOT analysis
- If there is something here that I haven’t made clear
I’m planning on pulling together a guidebook on how to do a SWOT analysis for massage therapists. It will walk you through the process and give you room to fill in your own data. I’m doing this because there is obviously a need for it. Stay tuned for the final guidebook when I’m done with the next section on Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
[...] out the massage therapy SWOT analysis Kelli has been doing over at Massage Therapy World. She’s a great example of someone [...]