Going Solo; It’s Never too Late to Do Something BIG!

Michele was first captivated by massage more than 30 years ago while working as an RN in a busy neurosurgical unit. The sole physiotherapist on staff was desperately overextended. To keep up with the demand, she trained some of the nurses in basic stretching and mobility exercises to ensure that circulation and muscle integrity were maintained.

At the time, physiotherapy closely resembled what massage therapy is today, and so began Michele’s interest in massage therapy. Despite wishing to change careers, no local training programs were available. And with being a busy mother to two young children, commuting out of town to go to school was out of the question. Her kids came first. With that settled, she let go of the idea.

Fast forward 15 years later…The idea was re-ignited while talking to another mother at her son’s school. The other mom, an RN, was chatting about how she had always dreamed of becoming an RMT. Inspired once again, Michele reached out to the local college to see if they now had a massage therapy program.

It was perfect timing. The school was in the process of getting final approval for a new 3-year massage therapy program. Michele applied, was accepted and completed the program. With honours!

The next 17 years were spent as an independent contractor in a Chiropractic clinic. However, the desire to work closer to home led to her switching locations to work with a chiropractor in her home community. Much to her surprise, many of her clients followed her there. Unfortunately, after just a year, the chiropractor decided to close shop and move across the country. That left Michele scrambling to figure out what to do next.

Deep down, Michele felt she could be successful at opening her own clinic, but the risks were terrifying. To think of starting something this big this late in life scared her to death but was also exciting.

After many long conversations with her husband and with the support and encouragement of him and her now-adult children, she took the plunge to assume the lease, and it has turned out to be the best thing she’s ever done.
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These days Michele has a lot of fun running her own business. She has a great group of therapists working in her clinic and thrives on the stimulation of learning new things. For example, Michele never thought that at her age, she’d be learning how to build a website and to post on social media.

Michele loves her work so much that she struggles to maintain a sense of work-life balance. She works a lot because she finds it truly fulfilling. She says that, luckily, her husband is a very understanding guy.

That said, Michele is bringing on another therapist to take on some of the workload. This will allow her to cut back her hours and have more time with the family. She’s also contemplating a second location. Overall, her prospects look good, and she’s excited by all the possibilities.

Michele's biggest challenge when starting her own business was fear of failure. Once she pushed past that, she had to figure out how to manage her own clinic.

At her previous job, she had the opportunity to use online scheduling, so when starting her own business, she knew it would be essential to have. Clients were accustomed to it, and Michele did not want the added expense of hiring a receptionist. For her, having clients leave voicemails was not going to cut it.

After much research and knowing that the one thing she wanted was to make it as easy and user friendly for her clients as possible, she tried ClinicSense for free. That free trial was a game-changer.

She quickly saw how easy ClinicSense is to use.

She loves that clients don’t have to create a login or set up an account to book an appointment. Many other software programs require that. She hates doing that and figured that no one else wanted to either. Making an appointment should be easy.

Every week I have a half dozen clients come in and say,
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For Michele, ClinicSense has been a huge time and money saver. People can schedule appointments at their convenience, and appointment reminders have practically eliminated her missed appointments. She especially likes being able to sell gift certificates, create reports, mass email her client list and personalise her bookings.

Since most of her clients book online, Michele now has more time to do the work she loves.

ClinicSense was (and still is) everything she needed. She experimented with other software before finding ClinicSense, but nothing else offered the whole package. Once she got her staff onboard, transferring to the new system was pretty easy. Her clients have an easy time using it too.

This software has significantly decreased Jacqueline’s workload. It allows her to spend her time on what matters most.