In-home business?

[Jen]

After two years of sharing office space my office-mate has given her notice. I have tried finding other responsible therapists to come in to share the rent, but I am wholly unimpressed with the people who have responded to my ads.

Business has been extremely poor since October of last year, and I am considering surrendering the office and creating a space in my home to provide massage. I never wanted to do this=-I have always had a personal bias against it, but finances make it a likely path. At this point, I will have the opportunity to teach full time as soon as January, which would also allow me to get health insurance for myself and my daughter. If this were the case I could see my established clients ( most of whom I would welcome into my home as a guest), but what about developing new clientele?

Things I am concerned about:
*Creeps knowing where I live
*Clients knowing more about me (by virtue of being in my home) than they do now (I tend to be a pretty private person)
*I have two very well-mannered dogs who would be cloistered upstairs in my room while clients were here, and I foster for a rescue organization, so pet allergy sufferers would probably self select out.

I'm not worried about keeping the house clean--I'm not a neat freak, but it generally stays under control.

The unused formal dining room would make a great ground-floor space that I could devote to massage, and it is right next to the downstairs bathroom and kitchen,(convenient for hot towels and a glass of water at the end) and the only thing I would need to do is figure out how to close off an 8 foot opening /doorway and a 4 foot opening/doorway. I'm thinking heavy drapes/curtains.

I would be so grateful if you would share your own experiences, good and bad, having a home office to help me sort this out.

 

[colorprodigy]

In-home business?

I have worked exclusively from my home office for almost 6 years and was working part of the time from home for a few years before that. I am very happy with working from home. I have 2 small kids (1 and 5) and my husband works long days. Being at home helps me keep up with the household stuff and enables me to work less that I would have to working working for someone else, or in an office I have to pay to rent. I sometimes miss the separation of work and home, but since I have a room dedicated to massage only, I can just close that off and be done. Although there are always sheets to wash!


Let me address your listed concerns:

*Creeps knowing where I live

I only accept clients by client referrals, my website (I can ask a lot of question prior to scheduling or giving out addiitonal information), or my professional friends who I trust and are very specific as to who they refer to me.
I don't have my home address listed on anything (ie: business cards, website, etc). If a person calls and they can't give me a name of a referring person that I know, I won't take them I tell them. I am not accepting new clients at this time. The online way to contact me from online is by email. I don't list a phone number.
I don't have a sign, nor am I interested in one.
I don't have a listing in the phone book

I seldom ever get a phone call or email that isn't legit. And again, I won't take someone who can't tell me a referral name. If they contact me from my website, I will make sure that I am comfortable with our emails and with them coming. I will also try to have someone else here in the event of a first time appointment. No offense to the wonderful men out there, but I am more careful when dealing with male inquiries than female. I have had issues in the past with way more males than females, but since working from home I have had drastically less. I have had 1 clients I let go because of being inappropriate, one I had to speak to who then eventually left months later and maybe 4 calls that I denied - in 6 years!

*Clients knowing more about me (by virtue of being in my home) than they do now (I tend to be a pretty private person)

I am a pretty upbeat person. Most of my clients have been with me long enough to see me be pregnant and have my 2 children and some even to see me get married. They have taken a personal interest in me and my life, but I'm ok with that. Do I share with them my deep down secrets, of course not. But many of them can feel their blood pressure drop if my kids are around and they get smiles. Some just like the atmosphere here and the privacy. My room is only for massage and I try to take care of all the little things. Little details can make a big difference in comfort level of being in someone's house too.
There are family pictures and all, but I know more in general about them, than they know about me and my family.
I find that you do have to be more aware of transference and you have a harder time of keeping up your professional wall so to speak. It's easy to get too comfortable with things when working at home.

*I have two very well-mannered dogs who would be cloistered upstairs in my room while clients were here, and I foster for a rescue organization, so pet allergy sufferers would probably self select out.

And that is ok. We have a cat, a very needy, nosy cat. Most of my clients enjoy the cat, genuinely. I can tell if not. If your dogs are kept at a comfortable distance until you know what your clients preferences are or just always - I would say that's fine. I had a therapist once, who worked at home and had a dog. But, the dog was loose and would bark and jump on you as you came through the door. Having been bitten by a dog in the past, it did bother me some, but I just delt with it since he was part of the package and I wanted to continue to see her.

I'm not worried about keeping the house clean--I'm not a neat freak, but it generally stays under control.

I have a little stick vac that I run around the house with regularly since my kids are always dropping food on the floor in the kitchen and people track in things from outside. Takes no time. I make sure the bathroom is clean. My MT room is in the basement, so I keep the basement neat, my personal office stuff out of site, and the massage room clean and neat. Most people are realistic and don't even notice things you would.

The unused formal dining room would make a great ground-floor space that I could devote to massage, and it is right next to the downstairs bathroom and kitchen,(convenient for hot towels and a glass of water at the end) and the only thing I would need to do is figure out how to close off an 8 foot opening /doorway and a 4 foot opening/doorway. I'm thinking heavy drapes/curtains.

If your house is pretty quiet, I think you'd be fine with heavy curtains. My house has kids by my 5:30pm appointment, so I have to control the noise during that time. The rest of the time they aren't home when I am working.
Try lying in the room you intend to use and see what things you notice. Would you be comfortable there, or feel exposed? Noisy or not?

Marketing is obviously tricky when you consider how little information you want to give out. So I put more effort into finding trustworthy referral links than into marketing for myself. If I like them and they like me, we end up with a great referral give and take. The clients benefit too from the joint relationship of seeing professionals who are really good at what they do. What was also successful for me in the beginning were maintenance plans. Discounts for people who stayed on my schedule appointment after appointment. I know I wrote on here about it a while back. I don't offer it to new clients now, but past clients who had it still do. I do increase their amount if I raise my general rates, but that has only happened every 4-5 years.

I hope this information helps you. If you think of anything else, I'm happy to help answer questions based on my experiences.

 

[Susana]

In-home business?

I've never had a home office, but I have thought about the concept over the years, just in case I ever had a home in a tiny town and wanted to do somthing like this.

I think the most important thing to do is to establish in your mind what boundaries you need to set in regard to accepting clients into your home.

You might just as well consider this a long term situation and plan to build for the future. Masthera has some great input (points at her post above), and piggy-backing on that- I certainly suggest you not take every person that calls you and that you be "ok" with the prospect that only a few people (of the numbers who actually call) are allowed though your doors (the ones you know, who have been referred to you, or happen to sound fairly normal on the phone after the "big quiz" you give them). Once you establish that pattern and let your existing clientele know that is the plan, you'll be more likely to build a practice of the "type" of people you resonate with, instead of every Bob, Joe and Jane that want to see you.

I did this with my practice, and this factors into why it took a lot of years to build a practice that now has wonderful (really wonderful!) people.

At this point, I will have the opportunity to teach full time as soon as January, which would also allow me to get health insurance for myself and my daughter. If this were the case I could see my established clients ( most of whom I would welcome into my home as a guest), but what about developing new clientele?

The other question would be if the school is a massage school and if they'd let you see clients there? You might want to ask, if it could be an option. Maybe you could pay them a flat rent or something?

 

[Silent Arty!]

In-home business?

Just some food for thought. I rent one room in a professional office building and I pay $300 a month heat and utilites included. And I have found professional office bulidings in my area to have lower rent than a salon and chiro office. For me personally I like having a place to go to work.

 

[x_babygurl_x]

In-home business?

Just some food for thought. I rent one room in a professional office building and I pay $300 a month heat and utilites included. And I have found professional office bulidings in my area to have lower rent than a salon and chiro office. For me personally I like having a place to go to work.

This is the situation I am in, though my rent is higher, and the other room renters are all financial people and realtors/mortgage bankers who yell into their speaker phones, have conversations in the hallway out side my door, and are generally oblivious to the needs of others, despite my gentle request that they limit speaker-phoning to when they can close their doors and the small sign alerting them to a massage session in progress. Several clients have commented, and they are not pleased. t012

Masthera, thank you for your point-by point response--it was very helpful. My home is generally quiet, as is my neighborhood. In fact, I often meditate in there. JLW, I too like having a place to go--except I don't like my current office set-up due to the noise issue. Pueppi, I tend to give callers the third degree also, and have honed my creep-o-meter skills, but having people come to my home exposes my 16 year old daughter, too. I'm a single mom, no man around at all. It's pretty obvious, too.

Then there is the issue of my own bias. I want to preface my comments with the disclaimer that I am only thinking of myself when I say them, and that I do not sit in judgement of others.

I feel like having a home office is somehow less professional looking than having one elsewhere. I have worked hard to develop a very professional pain management practice over the last 4 years, and I take great pride in helping people care for themselves. I also feel like leaving a real office setting and working out of my home somehow means that I have failed to build a sustaining practice and that I must not be very good. The logical me knows that the economy has tanked, that many of my regulars have experienced cutbacks, job losses, and relocation, and these factors figure as prominently in my current situation as my own inattention to marketing and networking do.

I also recognize that teaching is both intellectually and emotionally demanding, and while I really enjoy it and believe it's a perfect compliment to the office work, the conditions that I work under and the students whom I manage are a constant source of stress. I teach at a corporate school on a campus that is less that 2 years old in an area that draws from a very under-served and poorly educated student population. It is one of 6 massage schools in the area. So much of my time is spent counseling students who are chronically late or have poor attendance, and teaching basic study skills, like: If you don't know what a word means in the text, you ought to look it up, that I have little time to spend with the students who are actually interested in the material. Add to this an administration that has had a 100% or more turnover in less that 24 months (4 deans, 3 registrars, 2 presidents, 2 massage program directors) and only 7 original employees are left(I am one of them)) and you can imagine all the policy and curriculum changes that take place almost daily.

So, back to the issue at hand. It ain't so neat and tidy, and just writing this is making me realize I could really use some mentoring/professional supervision. Blargh!

 

[ocean blue]

In-home business?

Have you considered just finding a new space to rent that is less expensive?

Since the market is down, you may be able to pick up something that you didn't have access to previously, be that a nice but less expensive office, just a new opportunity in a space that wasn't availiable before or maybe even finding a physchologist or psychiatrist who has an empty room they are willing to rent.

 

[Aijaz]

In-home business?

Then there is the issue of my own bias. I want to preface my comments with the disclaimer that I am only thinking of myself when I say them, and that I do not sit in judgement of others.

I feel like having a home office is somehow less professional looking than having one elsewhere. I have worked hard to develop a very professional pain management practice over the last 4 years, and I take great pride in helping people care for themselves. I also feel like leaving a real office setting and working out of my home somehow means that I have failed to build a sustaining practice and that I must not be very good. The logical me knows that the economy has tanked, that many of my regulars have experienced cutbacks, job losses, and relocation, and these factors figure as prominently in my current situation as my own inattention to marketing and networking do.

Thank you for the disclaimer. I have felt this way too. That is it less professional looking or feeling. I personally put in a lot of thought to what the entire experience coming to my home office is like. I have pretended to be a client from start to finish and I adjust things if something seems odd or off to me. Which I would do in any setting. My office space used to be in a bedroom on our main floor. I really didn't like it being there, but at the time that was what I had to work with. Once I knew I was having our 2nd child, we needed that bedroom for her. My husband and I finished off our basement and added a massage room there. SO much better feeling! I could make it the place that I wanted it to be and have it feel like it was meant to be a massage room and not a spare bedroom.
IMO, you do have to put in more effort to make sure everything is up to par with what someone might feel in an detached office setting. For me at this time, it's a must do. I don't care to work more so that I can pay rent for a place outside of home. I also have zero interest in working as an independent contractor again. I'd miss spending time with my kids and it would just get me home later in the day which is already a chaotic time for us. I think that the saying "if you build it they will come" applies. Whatever you set up and whatever you put out there - you will find people who will be happy with you and your business. It might take trial and error, time, etc. But with consistency and determination, I think you can do anything.

If you want to give it a go at home, just make sure that you are 100% happy with the space. If you are not, it will be there bothering you. The bedroom was like that. I wasn't 100% comfortable and my clients knew it. Now we all love the space and everyone compliments it. I have a nicer room than any room I have worked in or received a massage in. So if being in the house bothers anyone, I can happily blindfold them till they get into the massage room. j/k :

I also feel like leaving a real office setting and working out of my home somehow means that I have failed to build a sustaining practice and that I must not be very good.

You need to do what you need to do. You may find that you have greater success and less stress working at home.

 

[LabradorLover17]

In-home business?

Have you considered just finding a new space to rent that is less expensive?

Since the market is down, you may be able to pick up something that you didn't have access to previously, be that a nice but less expensive office, just a new opportunity in a space that wasn't availiable before or maybe even finding a physchologist or psychiatrist who has an empty room they are willing to rent.

I have done some looking around, and I still can't make it without sharing with someone reliable. Despite the economy, office rents seem very high in my area.

 

[africbeauty69]

In-home business?

Piggy-backing off Masthera's comment:

I don't have my home address listed on anything (ie: business cards, website, etc).

I happened over this statment from another therapist on the forum who provides in-home appointments and thought it might go good here. She tells people:

"Once you book your appointments I will be happy to send you a map."

 

[darl]

In-home business?

I have just bought a house about six months ago and I am fixing up a massage room in my breezeway area. It is pretty much done. It gets really hot in the room though in the summer. I had a client come last week. It went pretty well but it was rather hot in the room even with fans going. I am not sure if a window unit would be ideal though because then the client may get to chilled.

I am working full time though at another job and I am having a hard time getting motivated to start massage work back up again. I took a little bit of a break from massage. I was still seeing one or two clients a month through in their home. I now just need to gain more clients so that I can maybe leave the other job possibly. I love massage and I miss caring for others. My current job is not really me but I felt I needed to make the transition a while back. I want to get back to my love of massage again.

Here are a few questions re: being self employed: What do alot of you out there do for health Insurance when you are self employed? How do you motivate yourself to market to others when you work out of your home? What can I do to refresh some of my skills and knowledge? I know I need to take more classes but money is a little tight right now for my husband and I. What keeps you going and gives you the energy to stay focused on your business?

P.S I really appreciate this website and all the encouraging people out there.

 

[LAgirl]

In-home business?

I think that's exactly what you need to do in order to get rid of the bias you feel towards working from your home!

Personally, I have been working from my home office for 2 years now and even though I started out with many of the feelings you have, I now don't feel any of them. I really feel like working from home is having your cake and eating it too! It's not "failing", it's being so darn awesome that people come to you...where ever you are! (I mean, how cool is that?)

Touching on some of the issues you have:

Being afraid of creeps is a big concern for me, especially in the area I live, I do get a lot of calls for stuff that let's just say is not what I do. However, I've never had anyone creepy actually come in. It sounds like your skills are pretty good at figuring out who is a creep and who is not, so I think you will be fine. Personally, if I have someone coming in that I'm not 100% sure about (even though by the time they are coming in, I am usually 100% sure they are not a creep) I ask someone in my household to be around. For them, knowing that other people are present is enough. Even just having people walking around and making some slight noise during the session will make them realize it's not some place where they are alone in a house with you, and when they are face down in a room, they don't know if that person moving around is a guy or a 16 year old girl! Another thought, is if you have some guy friend, neighbor, or someone who is compassionate to your situation, ask them or pay them a small cut to be around just in case. It will make you feel a lot safer.

Of course, the more prudent thing to do is to only except clients (or even just male clients) by referral only.

As for them knowing more about you bc they are in your home, I don't think that has to be the case. People ask me the same questions and generally act the same as they do where I work at a spa versus my home. People are curious, they ask me about my life regaurdless of where I am working. I think it will be the same for you. While I answer them and I am polite, I don't feel the need to indulge every detail of my life, and I have gotten VERY good at turning stuff around and asking them questions. If people seem like they are just asking questions because they want to chat, I get them chatting about their life, not mine. On the other hand, some clients know me better and know my personal life more (because they know my mom or know me from other organizations and other events outside of massage) and I think they like me better and refer people to me more because of it. Some I have a close bond with and it makes our working relationship that much better. So I guess be open to whatever happens, some clients have really changed my life, when I thought I would be changing theirs!

As for dogs, I have 2, and 6 cats. Yeah. The one dog goes up to a room, because she is more of a hype when people come around. The other just lies around and sleeps (he's old and deaf, so he doesn't even know half the time when clients are in the house!) On a few occasions, clients have even had to step over him! As for the cats, I know people have allergies, so I do have my massage room 100% pet free. They get the rest of the house though, and I am not changing that. If clients have a problem with that, then they probably shouldn't be coming to me.

I have had a few clients that don't like animals and/or are allergic, and they don't seem to have any issues. On the other hand, I have clients that spend an extra 15 minutes after the massage petting and talking to my pets. It's a win win for everyone, especially the cats!

It's really nice though being where you are relaxed and can control more aspects. Like you said, in that office, with people being loud, you can't really control that. I feel that way when I work at the spa, you will have someone in the hall drying their nails, being loud on the phone, or clearing their throat non-stop. People slamming doors, you name it. At home, if someone is being loud I threaten their lives! : It's hard because I live with 2 other people but it's so much more in my control. Also, I get to control the temp, the look of my place, the music, everything I can't at the spa.

Also, while I wait for a client to come in, I sit in a chair in my living room, with a book, and relax until I see their car pull up. I feel so much more centered and relaxed, getting to do what I want to do, even if I have a weird amount of time in between appointments, I don't just have to sit and wait, I can throw some sheets in the laundry, clean the house, start prepping dinner, you name it, I'm home!

Anyways, try it out, you will love it, believe me!