Business issue and covering my a** - your advice needed

[guerrero82]

Let me start at the beginning.

A year ago I started helping out a therapist at the local country club. She had injured her wrist (tore some ligaments) and needed someone to cover her clients while she was on the mend. She told the powers that be at the club what had happened and that she had to have me help her so that she could still offer this service to the membership. Things rock on, she heals up, starts seeing her clients again but we work out a deal where I can see my own clients there for a %. Great, no problem. BUT... this was all on the down low, off the radar of the management (some knew but kept it quiet). Fine, I can keep a secret. Oh, and there are (including me) 4 therapists working out of the same room. All on the Q.T.

Earlier this year she decided that she was going to need more than a couple of months to heal, (she was hurting again) and decided to go inactive for a year. In the meantime, all the other therapists (all 4 of us) get together and decide that I'm going to officially take over the practice (no money exchanging hands). So this wasn't an actual buying of her business, since she has been operating without a lease agreement or a contract for some time apparently. The 3 remaining therapists are just going to split the rent, which I might add is a rediculously low sum ($100/month). I will be the official face of massage therapy at the club. The rents and client scheduling will flow through me.

Okay, so here is where it gets tricky. The club has hired a new general manager. Seems to be a great guy, doesn't seem to want to come in and 'clean house' so to speak. No one has asked any questions yet but I'm a horrible horrible liar. The lady in charge of membership relations wanted to take a picture of me for the club newsletter and she suggested using the massage room. I told her I didn't think it possible because I think someone was in there. Who? Ummmm..... "I think it's Claire doing a self-tanner application." ('Claire' is the one that injured her wrist that I've been helping.) Claire has cautioned me about keeping it quiet because they might want to raise the rent if they find out that I'm not the only one using the room.

I'm really uncomfortable working without something formal written down. Either a lease agreement, or a contract or something. Should be an easy matter, right? The problem is that there are some issues to consider.
* I have 2 kids and after school starts I won't be available after 2:00 in the afternoon. Sorry. But that's the way it has to be.
* I want to be able to have enough therapists available to service the membership - regardless of time of day or my personal schedule.
* If the number of massage I've given this past year is any indication I'm not sure that it would be enough to support a higher rent.
* The other therapists and I want to be able to see clients other than members in the space. From what I've been told by 'Claire' this might be frowned upon. After all, this is an 'exclusive' club.

So if I approach this from a proactive POV, what can/will I do for the club.
* I will make sure that there are enough massage therapists available on an on-call basis to service the membership. But the agreement that I work out with the MT would have to be under my control. The other MTs would be either employees or ICs.
* I will work closely with Membership relations and the Pros (golf and tennis) to provide sports massage services during tournaments.

What else? What other services could I offer that would make management happy?

How should I approach this whole issue? Right now, I'm scared that I'm going to let something slip about one of the other therapists being there or something. I have a big mouth and while I can control it some, I hate having to be afraid of getting caught off guard and me saying something to screw up the whole deal.

 

[Izzy r]

If you have a big mouth, keep it shut about the past situation, but bring what you want to do want to be out in the open.

They obviously know you've been helping 'Claire' while she has been healing, even though it was off the radar of management, they probably haven't been blind to the others either.

I wouldn't even mention school part of the issue. Explain you are unable to cover the membership's needs by being available 7 days per week 7am to 10pm or whatever it is, you will be resonsible, but you would like to be able to bring in other therapists as needed (the fact that 'needed' will be every school day after 2pm doesn't have to be mentioned). Explain it will also make it easier to bring in therapists for tournaments when you may even require another room to meet THEIR demand, since the therapist(s) will already be familiar with working with golfers. Also it will make things smoother if you are sick/go away on holidays/etc - you have a life, they should understand you can't be available to work 24hr per day, 365 days per year.

They'll ask for all the details about the others, name/liability insurance/qualifications/licences/ etc. Make sure you know the situation with everyone you want to work with. Does everyone have keys to the massage room? Keys for other parts of the building? Parking?

It can't be that exclusive with all the current random MTs wandering around without being challenged, outside clients may be frowned on if you promote it as the location is one of the perks. Were you thinking of blanket advertising, or relying on word of mouth to attract non-members? Say you expect it to just be an occassional non-member client, you're not planning on heavily promoting it, but you would like to be able to cater to others. Are there other services at the club like a restaurant/beauty therapy/gym? Are they promoted outside? Can non-members use them?

You might have to bite the bullet with a rent increase, but you're splitting it between 4 of you, if split equal 4 ways, going from $6 per week to something slightly more realistic isn't unreasonable, particularly if you are allowed to get people form outside. It sounds like 'Claire' has been overly cautious because she is protecting her rent, and you've bought into that fear. A 500% increase on the rent would only be total rent of $30 per week each, they're realise it would be very unfair to increase the rent that perceneforum.xxxe, but they could say the rent is subsidised because it is members only, let in non-members and you pay closer to market rates, how much would non-members be worth and would all 4 of you be comfortable with a rent increase?