Massage Therapy Careers 20 years ago used to be a more of a lifestyle choice than really a career choice. People could easily become a massage therapist after 100 or 250 hours of education and could easily start a massage business. There weren’t many jobs in massage 20 years ago. You could easily start a massage business on a shoestring budget. People became massage therapists wanting a different lifestyle and wanting to help people. They were interested in health and healing and wanting to make a difference. We didn’t care about making money – we didn’t need much to live on back then.

With my 250 hours of training I started my own business in a health club with a friend where there had previously been a massage therapist working. He was charging $25 an hour or something really low. We came in and started charging like $45 an hour which was unheard of back then, but we needed to make a living.

Massage was still fairly unknown in many places. Being in Seattle, I am fortunate to be in a more progressive area. Back in Western NY State where I am from, my parents used to tell me about massage therapists trying to start a business in their homes and were shut down by the authorities. The city wouldn’t have it because it would be too much traffic on the street!

When I first started out in 1987 in massage school in my 250 hour training, nothing was ever mentioned about how difficult it would be to start and build a massage business. The business skills class was a few hours long – hardly enough time to even get an understanding of what business licenses were required.

Today many high school students are finding my websites on massage (www.thebodyworker.com and www.massage-career-guides.com) and wondering if they will have to take math classes for requirements to get into massage school. Most have never had a massage or know anything about it. I guess that isn’t much different from when I decided to become a massage therapist.

No one taught us anything about billing insurance companies. We figured it out as we went and helped each other. No one taught us about how to deal with clients and work with clients. We learned on our own. No one taught us about raising our rates every year. We learned on our own.

Today more states are regulating massage and most states require 500 hours of training or more to become a massage therapist. During the years there has been no research what so ever that more training is needed to become a successful massage therapist. The number of hours of education seems to only coincide with the amount required for massage schools to get Federal Grants and Loans for massage students.

The average age of massage therapists has been 45 according to ABMP. I would guess that is changing because of the low paying jobs that are available for entry level massage therapists is only $15 an hour. 45 year olds with families and planning for retirement can’t live on that. That is what the new massage franchises has brought to the massage profession – a younger crowd of massage therapists.
In doing that massage has become more available to lower income families but at a cost of hiring more professionally based massage therapists.

So where does that leave you if you are looking into a massage therapy career?
Massage therapists who start their own massage business are becoming entrepreneurs and learning how to set clearer boundaries especially around money and they can make $100,000 a year (net) when they value themselves enough to charge what they need to make that or discover other ways in making money – like teaching classes or creating blogs/websites like I do.

It is really just a matter of looking at a massage therapy career as a journey into self discovery and a path to deepened client relationships that allow real healing rather than just as a job that you will have till the day you die.