If you are like me, you just hate it when your new shoes get stepped on and become dirty. You also hate door dings on your ride so you park away from other cars at parking lots. You hate when your new Maui Jims get scratched and you especially hate it when you drop a few hundred dollars on a new Blackberry and drop it to now find freakin scratches on it. And lose your interest in your new phone because now its all scratched up.

One of my biggest apprehensions with buying a Blackberry was the fact that I was going to drop it and it getting all scratched up and dinged. I mean the iPhone and blackberries are very cool but damn they are proned to getting messed up, its not a matter of will it but when will it get scratched up? On a referral from a friend I went and bought a Case Mate Shield for my Blackberry because their video made it seem so easy to install it yourself and you save your cell from scratches, well after sinking $19.99 plus shipping, I failed and throw the damn cover away out of frustration.

But recently while walking through Oakridge Mall in South San Jose, right across from the Apple store there was kiosk cart there selling “invisible shield” from Zagg. What made me look twice at their product was this video demonstrating the invisible shield strength, check it out here, I was convinced.

So if you are like me and can’t stand scratches on your stuff, go down there to Oakridge Mall in San Jose. I am sure that just about any mall will sale these invisible shields but at Oakridge Mall you can go see Rachael “the only girl” who works there and get your Blackberry or iPhone covered. They will even do your laptop or Ipod among all kinds of other devices. Keep “the re-sale value” of your cell by keeping it new looking. They will install it for you ( a huge bonus ) and you get a lifetime warranty on the shield.

It is a little pricey @ $34.95 for a complete cover ( 8 pieces in all ) for my Blackberry but you do not have to install it yourself and you pay only once and never have to buy another “invisible shield” again. You can always just get the faceplate done if you want to save money. Also if you do decide to get one, let Rachael know that the “dude with the blog” who knows the owners from Shoe Palace, sent you.

Oh btw, visit Shoe Palace as well and get yourself some new kicks. I just got these last night “Air Jordan Phat Low”

[where: 925 Blossom Hill Road San Jose, Ca, 95123]

[where: 95123]

With all the technology available these days, you would think that selling gift certificates for spa or massage services would be so easy. And for the most part it is. You have so many different options available to you that just choosing from one company or another can be a task in itself. Take our word for it, you need to research these companies before you decide.

Just about any company will be willing to take online sales of gift certificates and offer a system of sending that gift certificate to the recipient via email. Here are few companies that are willing to “help you out”:

• Paypal
• Appointment-Plus
• Mind Body Software
• Boomtime
• Gift Certificates Online

Paypal of all the companies that offer selling gift certificates online, they are the LEAST of the desired companies to go with. Paypal being a large and known brand as they are, you would think that this would be the best solution for selling gift certificates online yet they are not. Of course, they make it real easy to accept payments online and will allow you to custom design your gift certificates with your logo and what not. And they will tell you that they have over 100 million users and that they are a well established and so forth…blah blah blah. This is just a Sales Tactic!

What they won’t tell you is that when you make a “buy gift certificate” button and embed it on your website or blog, Paypal will “hold” your funds until that massage or spa gift certificate is redeemed. And if that gift certificate is not redeemed, Paypal holds onto your money for 18 months.  I repeat, a buyer will purchase a gift certificate for a friend or family member and pay for it BUT it is put into a “PENDING” status for 18 months until redeemed.

Cash flow to a small business like ours is essential, especially in this economy. Currently Paypal is “holding” over $2,300 from us due to their system, that we cannot touch. And let’s not forget who is collecting the interest on that $2,300… (hint it is not us.)

In our last conversation with PayPal which lasted an average of one hour per call, they stated the following; if the recipient’s email address is not registered with PayPal, they will have to register their email address with them, wait  couple of days to get it activated, THEN redeem their gift certificate with us.  When a client is ready for their massage, they do not want to wait 2 days to redeem it which is why the gift certificate are PAID for by their friends and family prior to their appointment.

Appointment Plus after researching different options, appointment plus is the company that Roman Paradigm Massage is going with. We already use appointment plus for their online massage scheduling system, our clients love this feature. Appointment Plus charges only $10 a month to sale gift certificates online, branded with your logo and sent to the recipient via 4 different options. They do not take a commission on each massage gift certificate sold, you can use your own merchant account or Paypal.

Paypal for collecting money online is ok, just do not use them for selling gift certificates “buy gift certificate” button, you want to use their “buy now or pay now” buttons, yes there is a BIG difference. I may write another blog post on this at a later time.

Mind Body Software is a great company that offers many different features and options that we loved, but they were expensive over the course of 3 years ( this was researched by our good friend Jeff Sloan). Mind Body also takes a commission on each gift certificate sold as well as charging you a monthly fee. Some of the major Spa and Massage companies out there use this brand, but Roman Paradigm Massage decided not to, again based on research by Jeff Sloan.

Boomtime and Gift certificates Online both look very good to use, especially if you are first starting out. Both companies offer the same services and features and I have included them both for you to research for yourself. I am not going to talk much about these two companies due to us not having any previous experiences with them.

But here is a list of some of their benefits…

• You pay only when you sell — just 5% of online sales!
• No long-term commitment, no cancellation fees.
• Real Time e-commerce
• Secure web interface
• Your funds go directly into your account, via Paypal or authorize.net gateways
• Customized to your website’s look and feel

I know that there are allot more companies that offer selling Spa and Massage gift certificates online, and if you have some recommendations please share them with us. I am writing these blog posting to share with you our recommendations and to warn you of Paypal’s unfriendly and in my opinion un-ethical ways..

Appointment Plus has been very user friendly to us at Roman Paradigm Massage not to mention very reasonable as well. We use them for our online massage appointment scheduling and we love their reporting system, their reporting system allows to see exactly what marketing efforts are paying off and which marketing efforts are not. We never play phone tag with our customers and our current and potential customers can book 24/7/365 days a year.

I wrote a blog post early last year detailing some of the great benefits that we have seen using their services, so if you like to find out more, just click this link titled “appointment plus our choice for online massage scheduling and gift certificate sales”

[where: 3097 Moorpark Avenue San Jose, California 95128]

[where: 95128]

Owners Doreen Jattan and Robert Vignoli started their massage business a little more than 4 years ago, but have been in the massage business for over 12 years each. The two owners had very contrasting massage styles with one offering more of a traditional massage and the other consisting more of a sports therapeutic type of massage.

Robert operating as a single massage therapist and sub-leasing out of a hair salon in the Silver Creek area asked Doreen if she would market his services to the Evergreen and Silver Creek Country Club area. Robert wanted to see if a female marketing a male massage therapist would be perceived more favorable in the eyes of the general public-it was.

Doreen Jattan being more “business orientated” than Robert was becoming more and more involved in running his massage business and soon joined forces to work together.

Vote for us “Massage Therapy Best of the Bay”

Get Results Therapy was their first business name and after attending a week long Entrepreneurial workshop in 2006, Roman Paradigm Massage was born.

During these 4 years Doreen and Robert have experimented with many different marketing and business models to settle on what Roman Paradigm Massage is today. And they are seeing solid results both in their daily in-house operations and marketing strategies. A commitment to their massage clients and offering quality deep muscle therapy has allowed them to expand their massage practice twice in the 4 years.

This success has also attracted other quality massage therapists, such as John Dodson, Roger Kittles, Andrea Naugle, Caron Gonzalez and also a Sports Chiropractor named Justin Brink.

Currently their massage business is expanding with projected opening date of May 10^th. They will also be updating their massage website to a membership platform and a corporate wellness program all set for 2009. Please help  them continue the success that they are having and vote for their massage business to be the best of the bay.

Written by Linda Yip.

[where: 3097 Moorpark Avenue Suite 102 San Jose, Ca, 95128]

[where: 95128]

]]> http://think-diagonal.com/?feed=rss2&p=1075 0 http://think-diagonal.com/?p=1062 http://think-diagonal.com/?p=1062#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:53:09 +0000 Robert Vignoli http://think-diagonal.com/?p=1062 Yelp.com is an online review site has a love it or hate it relationship with small business owners. And for good reason too. Yelp.com has had their fair share of negative comments about their business practices since this San Francisco based company started up in 2004.

Due to increase complaints from business owners and negative publicity, Yelp is now allowing business owners to comment on reviews.

Yelp.com allows users to post reviews on businesses in an open forum where anyone can the read them.

The internet and social media websites like Yelp.com, Facebook, Twitter and blogs are now empowering individuals to speak their minds. For small business owners like me who are operating on a “small budget” embrace these technologies to spread “word-of-mouth” marketing virally. But this same technology is available, to everyone, including your competitors and to your unhappy customers.

Up until recently Yelp did not allow for your negative reviews left by unhappy customers to be deleted off even though they would take down positive reviews left by users weather they were legit or not. It was once rumored that Yelp sales reps were promising potential advertisers that they would remove negative reviews if they spent $150 a month contract locked for one year.

Because of these negative perceptions and others like this, Yelp was becoming less favorable to the most valuable customers (paid ones). So as a way to become more favorable and friendly to premium business owners to advertise with them, Yelp.com recently announced that they would even out the score and allow business owners to comment on both positive and negative reviews. This allows potential clients/customers to see how a business owner responds to their client’s reviews.

So does this help Yelp?

“As a small business owner, having Yelp add this new feature, does this help you in any way?” Last week, I asked this question on Facebook and most of you claim that it does NOT matter because Yelp has burned too many bridges with business owners.

I would agree with you but for our massage business in San Jose, it is hard to be mad at a company that produces average of 2 new clients a day. Here is a sample 30 day report on traffic coming in on direct links, from Yelp compared the 2nd most.

And these customers are coming in on direct links to our website from Yelp. This makes them highly responsive and targeted. Direct link web visitors are the most valuable of all web traffic because they are coming to your website based on number of other different websites competing for their attention.

Whether you are selling a service or product, leads from direct links are considered warm leads because they choose your website specially based on a recommendation or some other factors.

These are not large numbers but we convert about 25-30% of these Yelp visitors on average per month. And we could possibly even convert a higher percentage by sending all Yelp users to a “Yelp specific” landing page with a call to action. To really drill down your Yelp visitors, keep a separate email list for customers coming in from Yelp.com. I will go into the benefit of keeping this record in an upcoming article.

You can choose to use Yelp or to ignore it but your clients/customers will not stop writing good/bad reviews.

Roman Paradigm Massage & Therapy

[where: 3097 Moorpark Ave, San Jose, Ca, 95128]

[where: 95128]

Our own Massage Specialist John Dodson, here at Roman Paradigm Massage, will have an opening on his Personal Training schedule for a full-time client at the beginning of April.  This will be the only anticipated opening in his personal training practice this year. He is available for mutual interviews for those of you interested in further discussing how his individualized training programs can help you reach your goals.

John Dodson is a Certified Personal Trainer who takes a holistic approach to training finding the synergy between training components within a progression program.  His training practice includes Sport-Specific Strength and Conditioning, Resistive Flexibility, Running Coach, Nutritional Consultant, Weight Management and Optimizing Human Performance through Mind-Body Awareness Training.  John has successfully worked with all walks of life and ages from absolute beginners to Olympic and Professional Athletes.

In addition to his clienteles’ success, every single one of them had the added benefit of remaining injury-free through their conditioning and competition. John is a Structural and Functional Specialist. His private practice includes Massage Therapy (both Sports and corrective), Postural Re-Education,Resistive Stretching, Personal Training, Stress Management, Mind-Body Awareness, Nutritional Counseling and Weight Management.

His recent most notable clients and training has been with…

• Working on Troy Tulowitzki of the Colorado Rockies, during this past off season.
• Resistance Stretching- John now offers resistance stretching. Dara Torres at the age of 41 is performing better today than she was when she was 25. Dara Torres contributes her success to resistance stretching and her training. She won 3 silver medals in Beijing.
• Helped qualify one of his clients, Carol Reeves for the Boston Marathon.
  

John can be contacted by email if you like more information on rates and availability: john@rpm-therapy.com

[where: San Jose, Ca, 95128]

[where: 95128]

This Wednesday night from 6pm – 8pm we will be hosting open interviews. So if you know of someone who would make a great addition to our facility, please let them know, that we are hiring.

***Please help us to spread the word on this event. If you refer someone who becomes a part of our massage team, you will receive a gift card good for 1 free 60 minute massage.

We are asking for all interested massage therapists to email or fax their resumes to us, prior to Wednesday night. And to call us on Wednesday the day of our open interview, to let us know what time you will be coming by.

This interview will be a meet and greet, from there if we (you including) see a fit, then at time we will be contacting you for a 2nd practical interview.

Thank you very much.

Email: info@rpm-therapy.com
Fax: 408 247-1169

Roman Paradigm Massage

[where: 3097 Moorpark Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128]

[where: 95128]

Dr. Brink is a Sports Chiropractor and is now available on Tuesday’s at RPM Therapy in San Jose. Dr. Brink completed his undergraduate studies at California State University of Sacramento with a bachelor’s degree in Biology. He then earned his doctorate from Palmer College of Chiropractic West.

Dr.Brink has also enhanced his knowledge with additional post-doctorate level training. In 2006 he came certified in Active Release Technique as well as a Level 2 Certified Graston Instrument for soft tissue mobilization.  He has also been certified in the HansOn Muscle Therapy, an advanced manual technique using trigger and acupressure points

Why you should you get A.R.T?

If you suffer headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain, sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems or muscle aches, numbness or tingling chances are you need ART.

A.R.T. is short for Active Release Technique is used to treat a varies issues related to soft tissue and injuries from repetitive-motion.  This technique is performed by professional on professional athletes or individuals suffering from chronic pain or range of motion issues.

A.R.T now at RPM Therapy

Dr. Justin Brink, is not a massage therapist but a doctor of Chiropractic who specializes in soft tissue work. Dr. Justin Brink is such qualified individual who administers A.R.T. at Roman Paradigm Massage & Therapy.  When Dr. Brink performs A.R.T., he applies pressure in order to find injured areas. During this process, he will examine the texture, tightness, range of motion of your muscle tissue which may have formed scar tissue or muscle adhesions.

If abnormal muscle tissue is found, he will administer an intensive series of massage techniques to move the muscles through its full range of motion therefore, breaking up and relieving surrounding muscle tissues of any adhesions or scar tissue. This also allows for the free flow of blood, lymph fluid and nerve conduction to move through the body and heal the muscle.

Can non-athletes get A.R.T?

Even though A.R.T. is typically used on athletes for sports-related injuries, it is also an effective in treating individuals with chronic headaches, poor posture, frozen shoulders, back and spinal pain as well as carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, sciatica, ankle and knee injury and tennis elbow.  A.R.T. doesn’t require you to undress since this technique can be applied on individuals over their attire.

If you believe that you may be qualified to get this treatment, make an appointment with Dr. Brink and he will examine you to let you know approximately how he will treat you and for how long.  Most of his patients admit that within 6 visits with Dr. Brink, their pain minimizes by 80-100%.  Wouldn’t you want to be pain free?

[where: 3097 Moorpark Avenue, San Jose, Ca. 95128]

[where: 95128]

Especially on day like we are having today in San Jose, you would think that most people would NOT want to be sitting in front of computer working or worse yet, just mindlessly surfing the net inside a coffee shop, People we need to get outside and get some sun, run, workout, play volley at the beach or just soak up some vitamin D and decompress.

But, on the other hand, for individuals like myself, this is our workstation. Our time for a change in atmosphere and get away from the office, its one of the beautiful perks of having an online business. With this said, I am seeing allot of crap that just pisses me off, so much that, I am taking the time out, to write this blog post and tell you my “Free WIFI and Coffee Shops Pet Peeves”

I can hear it already, my business partner thinking, “with all the work that he says needs to get done, why is he wasting his time on this stuff”.

And she is right, so I am going to make this quick and outline just SOME of my worst pet peeves, and leave it open for you to share yours.

1. Crying babies, dont get me wrong, I know that coffee shops are public places and open to all, but damn do you need to feed your baby there, change their diapers, let them throw food and run all over the place  (was that a pastry that almost hit me? Is this a kidspark that serves coffee and has WIFI?) Sorry parents.
2. Coffee shops not providing enough outlets to supply all the tables. I mean come on, you guys know that working on laptops and drinking coffee is what made you very rich. CAN WE GET MORE OUTLETS PLEASE (Orchard Valley Coffee, Campbell & most Starbucks)? It will not break your bank, to show some love here.
3. Speaking of Star-rip-you-off-by-charging-you-for-wifi-bucks, what is this all about? Again it will not hurt your bank acct. to offer free wifi at your locations, damn you guys charge enough for the coffee. But I probably can see why, Starbucks is now charging us, They have accelerated their business so fast (greed), they are losing money now and closing shops up.
4. People not paying attention, everyday I see individuals just walking in, chatting, looking around for their friends not paying attention and now they have  just tripped over my charging cord, ripped it away from laptop forcing me to save my $1500 investment from dropping to the floor, yes I said investment. Remember this is my business, it is not just a laptop. People please pay attention, I mean you are, in a coffee shop that provides free wifi and that means, that there will be laptops and powercords everywhere. It makes sense to me.
5. People who leave their mess from spilled coffee, bread crumbs and empty plates. On a day like this tables are a premium and when you get up, most likely someone is going to take up your place, please be considerate of that.

Well, I feel much better now that I got that off my chest, now maybe I get some work done. I left this list of pet peeves unfinished, so that you can leave your pet peeve, thank you.

[where: 349 East Campbell Ave, Campbell, Ca. 95008]

[where: 95008]

I get so angry that these massage parlors, are able to open up shop so easily, get busted for prostitution, get closed down and open up again in a week. But when we follow the rules and try to open up a legit therapeutic massage business, we are treated like shit and experience nothing but one obstacle after another. Our massage business Roman Paradigm Massage is not a “massage parlor” we provide real therapeutic benefits for our clients.

Massage Parlors and Professional Massage Businesses

There is a difference, but the city treats, acts and labels us as a “massage parlor” WTF? If we wanted to run a “massage parlor” we would not be walking into the city offices with tax papers, physical examinations papers, business licenses, floor plans and background checks in hand. I mean come on, if we can legalize weed for medical reasons, they should legalize “massage happy endings parlors” for medical reason as well. But keep the two business categories separate from each other,

Massage Parlors=happy endings

Massage Establishments=legit therapeutic bodyworkers

I think that some rules and regulations need to be adjusted or changed, Massage parlors in SF, so what this does not hurt us, keep those businesses labeled as “massage parlors” but if you are an operator/owner of a legitimate therapeutic professional massage business, we should have a different licensing title, such as “therapeutic establishment” or “massage business” is this too much to ask?

This way the public, law enforcement and city planners will know that there is a difference, Roman Paradigm Massage is not giving out hand jobs or sucking dick, San Jose stop treating us as such. If we were giving out hand jobs, I am sure we would be making allot more money. When you want a no Fluff Oily Spa massage, come to our massage business in San Jose, near Santana Row, we provide the best in deep muscle therapy, not hand jobs.

Anyways, this is just my two cents worth, here is the rest of the

massage parlor story from ABC news

Happy Friday Spring is Here! Happy Birthday Mom (Linda Yip).

Wow, it has been 4 months since I have posted anything here on Think Diagonal. I took some time away due to some personal as well as some business reasons. I just want to thank everyone for all the emails that I continue to receive on my blog posts, while I was away. I am so happy that my experiences and insights as a massage therapist/massage business owner has helped some of you.

Our Massage business, Roman Paradigm Massage has been going through some good changes as well as some bad changes, and I will be sure to share some of them with you in upcoming blog posts. Think Diagonal A Massage and Marketing Blog for small business owners will continue to blog about massage related material but now it will also talk about internet marketing strategies that massage therapists can implement in their own practice. These strategies and experiences have been tested by me, using our massage business as the guinea pig, but for now, enjoy this classic massage video.

Our Location: Roman Paradigm Massage

[where: 3097 Moorpark Ave, San Jose, CA. 95128]
[where: 95128]