Building A Sustainable Practice with - Mike Reoch

We didn't learn this in school — but we probably should have.

In this episode, Jamie sits down with friend and fellow RMT Mike Reoch to talk about something most massage therapists are never taught: how to actually build a sustainable practice.

Mike has been a massage therapist for 18 years, worked in seven clinics across five cities, and now runs a thriving clinic in Kamloops with his wife — and he has a lot to say about what actually makes a practice work long-term.

In this episode we cover:

• Why BC isn't actually saturated with RMTs — and what the numbers really say
• How to stand out when every therapist's bio sounds exactly the same
• Finding your ideal patient avatar and why niching down actually grows your practice
• The danger of building your practice on one referral source — and how to diversify
• Why "sales" doesn't have to feel gross — and what good sales actually looks like
• Mike's new course, *The Honest Practice Blueprint*, and why he built it for newer RMTs

Whether you're just starting out or feeling stuck in your current practice, this conversation is full of practical, honest advice that nobody taught us in school.

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Transcript

Podcast Introduction & Guest Introduction

00:00:00 Jamie Johnston: In the podcast intro, I always say that we're going to talk about some of the things that we don't normally talk about, and some of the things that we've been told not to talk about. Well, this isn't something that we've been told not to talk about, but it's definitely one of the things that we didn't learn in school. On this episode, we're going to bring in our first guest, and we're going to talk about how to run a business and how to create a sustainable practice. So, if that's of interest to you, keep on listening.

00:01:10 Jamie Johnston: Hey there, I'm Jamie Johnston, and you're stepping into a new era of thriving as a massage therapist. We're embracing who you are, pursuing what you love, and confidently shaping your practice. We'll challenge industry norms, spark change, and discuss what truly matters—things like mental health, evidence-based practice, and some topics we've long avoided. Let's create better outcomes for our patients, and happier, more fulfilling practices together. Welcome to the New Generation Massage Therapist Podcast.

00:02:40 Jamie Johnston: Alright, we're here today with a buddy of mine. I feel like we've known each other for about 20 years, but I think it's only actually like 12 or 13, something like that. But I think we—I think we first met at a—at an RMTBC meeting where they had us all come out to talk about like future direction and then I think you were already on the board and I ended up on the board, and got to know each other that way a little bit better. But with that, we'll just introduce Mike Reoch. And Mike, if you can just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you are starting to do as far as helping other therapists out.

Mike’s Background & Moving to Kamloops

00:04:15 Mike Reoch: Hey Jamie. Yeah, yeah, I think it was an RMTBC board meeting we did meet at, yeah. That was probably—I mean I've been a therapist for 18 years, and I was on the board probably for my fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh year, so...

00:05:05 Jamie Johnston: Yeah, I mean I graduated in 2011, so I want to say it was like 2013 they—they had a big meeting that they invited a bunch of people to. I think that's where we first met.

00:05:30 Mike Reoch: Yeah, yeah, and I was kind of transitioning out and you're transitioning in. So, we had an overlap there. Yeah, those were fun days. Um... Yeah, I'm Mike Reoch, I'm an RMT. I'm based out of Kamloops. Um, I've been here—this will be my fourth summer, and I own a little kind of mom-and-pop clinic, literally, because I—I own it with my wife. We both work out of it, we're both RMTs, we met in school. And, um, we're—I've been, yeah, doing, like I said, doing this for 18 years, and I've worked in I think seven different clinics in five different cities. And each time you move, you got to start up a practice again, right? Or you just transfer part of your practice, or you have like a good transition or a bad transition from the old clinic. Sometimes there's a bit of, uh, disagreements as you leave.

00:07:45 Mike Reoch: So, I've—I've experienced a lot of different things, and I've also seen my wife go through the same thing. We've only worked together since 2013. So, um, she transitioned out of a clinic in—she had her—we had our second kid, and when she came back, she—we decided we would just open up together as a business. So, we worked out of a chiropractor clinic, and then we worked out of part-time in—we left that and we're transitioning, so we work together in a couple of other clinics, one in Surrey, one in, uh, Richmond. Uh, I've worked in Burnaby, I've worked in Delta in a few different places. Um... and, yeah, so after a while, we decided to move to Kamloops as a family, and it's been a great, um, great move, great opportunity personally and—and—and as a business as well. And we moved to Kamloops because we wanted to get out of the Lower Mainland, and we found that Kamloops was close enough so that we could still visit family and friends back in the Lower Mainland, but it was also—it had a good market to work in.

00:10:30 Mike Reoch: So, there's like—we wanted to be in a smaller town, Kamloops is kind of a mid-sized town, and some of the small towns, they only had one industry, so like a mine or a—a mill, or one—one thing. So, if that has a change, if that shuts down or if that downsizes, then I think the town suffers, right? So...

00:11:45 Jamie Johnston: Which is happening like everywhere now.

00:11:55 Mike Reoch: Yeah, yeah, so we wanted to avoid that. And Kamloops, you know, they have a—a big hospital that employs hundreds of people, they've got a university that employs hundreds of people, they've got a pulp mill that employs hundreds of people, they've got like two or three mines that employ hundreds or thousands of people. So, like lots of steady, solid industry, plus like all the—all the work that involve—is involved in the city, like big city employer, there's, um, like federal buildings, there's provincial buildings, and then there's like lots of blue-collar industry around Kamloops, too, and a bit of white-collar. So, a huge mix. So, if we see a downturn in—in one or two or three industries, it's still very viable as a—as a massage therapy business.

00:13:55 Mike Reoch: And I also see like, we're kind of a really sticky industry, right? Like if—I've noticed if, like I've gone through three recessions, and I can almost predict a recession because I get busier. Because people, um, they start to feel a bit nervous so their stress is up, so they're a bit more pained, bit more stressed, and also, they're like, maybe I should use up my benefits because I don't know if I'll have benefits.

00:15:10 Jamie Johnston: Yeah.

00:15:15 Mike Reoch: And so, you see a big spike there, whereas before they might be in pain or stressed and they're like, no, I need to save my benefits, I need to hoard them away, which is, you know, a subject for another day. So, yeah, so I think that we're well-positioned here. Um... Yeah, that's—that's us, yeah.

The "Saturation" Debate in British Columbia

00:16:30 Jamie Johnston: Okay. Um, so getting into like some things we—I mean, we chatted a little bit before about some of the things we'd talk today. Um, and I think one of the thing that—one of the things that is probably, um, how do I say it, not the out—not the right outlook on my part, you kind of corrected me on it, which, um, I—I feel like I'm probably not alone in my thoughts. So, I'd love to get your thoughts on the idea that BC is becoming saturated with RMTs because we've got like something like a dozen colleges or something like that now in BC that are churning out massage therapists. Um, it's maybe it's not a dozen yet, but it's getting up there.

00:18:20 Jamie Johnston: Um, and I feel like that's probably—it's probably not the only place that's happening where there's just, you know, it seems like a lot of massage therapists coming out. Um, so what—what are your thoughts on that, whether we're getting saturated with too many therapists, and if that's the case, like how do you—how do you build a successful practice with that many massage therapists coming out?

00:19:15 Mike Reoch: Yeah, I think—I think the word "churning out" is—is pretty saying because a lot of people are coming out and not working that long because they're—they're getting into a business and industry, a profession that they're not quite ready for, I think. So, a lot of people are like getting into it because they think it's an easy path because you don't have to have a lot of education, like say a physio. Um, like you don't have to have a master's before you start. Um... So, that's part of the issue, I think. Yeah, like we've—I think when—when we had that meeting over 10 years ago, that there was about 3,000 RMTs, 3,500 RMTs, and now there's about 7,000 RMTs. So, it's more than doubled, but our population's also grown.

00:21:40 Jamie Johnston: Yeah.

00:21:45 Mike Reoch: And other—other health care, like we're all kind of branches of the same healthcare tree when it comes to like manual therapy and rehab and exercise therapy. So, there's way underutilized, like not underutilized, but there's not enough physios, right? Like they—they need 30,000 more physios in BC. Um, so we're kind filling that gap for—for them. Um, and the reason for that is just because it's so hard to become a physio and there's not enough educators to educate physios. Um...

00:23:10 Mike Reoch: But for us, like there's 7,000 RMTs now, and I think the population of BC now is almost 6 million. It's like 5.something, 5.7. Um, and if you do the math, that's between 800 and 900 people per RMT. So, 800—I think it's 850, 860, I can't remember the number. And, um, most clinics like I've seen, when I go to a clinic and I was younger and I was—I was looking at other clinicians that I work with, I would see that the ones that are really busy, they had minimum 500 people in their clinic—or in their, sorry, in their books. So, they if you look—like back when I started, it was physical manila files, right? So, they would have 500 different files under their—their practice, and they were, you know, going gangbusters. So, I'm like, okay, that's a kind of a number I need to look at. And I found when I got to around that number, um, we—I was doing—doing really well. And now with our clinic, we're—we're like three—between Marcy and I, like just our mailing list is a 1,000 people. And our mailing list is less than 50% of the people who we treat. So, um, we're doing—doing well and that—that grew out of, yeah, this would be like our—my fourth summer, so...

00:26:25 Jamie Johnston: Yeah.

Standing Out and Finding Your Avatar

00:26:30 Mike Reoch: Bit of growing pain, um, but, yeah, we're doing really well now. Um, so what you want to look at is why do we feel that we're not getting enough people in—in our practice? And there's multiple reasons for that. One of the things is that, like I said, when at our meeting, we were—we had just finished a survey, the RMTBC, and I was part of the communications department there, we just done a survey of all of BC, and it was really showing because it said that 60% of people in the province use massage therapy. And so, that's 40% of people don't even use massage therapy. So, um, it's an under-penetrated market really, so it's not a saturated market. We're just—there's lots of room for growth there.

00:28:45 Mike Reoch: So, it's more kind of making yourself stand out as an RMT and kind of finding your—like in business they call it, say, your avatar. So, like what's your ideal patient? Like what kind of patient walks in the door and you're like, ah, I'm super happy to treat this person today, like this is going to be a lot of fun, I like treating these conditions, I like this type of person. Like you need to really try to build your practice around that style of person. Um... But when you come out of school, you come out and you have the same kind of scope language.

00:30:10 Jamie Johnston: Yeah.

00:30:15 Mike Reoch: Like you have the same intro, the same booking page even. Like you don't stand out at all. You all sound the same. You're like, "I treat everything, I'm not going to—I'm not going to pigeonhole myself because I'll miss out on patients. I really have to grow my practice." And sometimes when you're growing, you need to take on a few of those people just to fill your week. But that kind of hurts your business long-term. So, you need to be careful with that. Um...

00:31:40 Mike Reoch: So, when you all look the same, people just—they choose who's nearby and who's the cheapest, right? Because they think you're all the same. And so like a fungible asset, like a gold bar is the same as a gold bar is the same as a gold bar. Whereas we're all different and we treat different and we have different qualities and different personalities, so we need to really market ourselves to those people who—who we're happy to treat and who, like they're like, oh, that person treats me, like that's what I am, they're really going to help me. Um...

00:33:55 Mike Reoch: So, you want to have that clear—clear identity. Um... So, you yeah, you just don't—don't be louder, don't just advertise more than the next person. Um, because I've to—turned off all my advertising now. Like I don't even advertise, um, it's just word of mouth now. That fills that little gap. Um, but to get there, I did advertise, um...

00:35:10 Jamie Johnston: Sure. And like you say, so many of us have like—when I started out, my bio on the company or the clinic website was like, "Oh, I do myofascial release and I do this." And everybody's bio is pretty much cough they don't—you don't stand out as being any different from the other person. But you know, if somebody goes to a clinic website, it might be that you're just the only one that has availability that day, so you get that person.

00:36:20 Mike Reoch: Exactly, right? And I mean, my bio for years was just like that and everyone's got such a shitty bio. Laughter Like you're not marketing to other RMTs. You're not trying to say, "I'm a great RMT, read—other RMTs need to read my bio." Like who cares what another RMT thinks? You want to market your bio where someone's reading it and it's like you're telling them exactly what you do and they will read it and say, "Oh, that's exactly who I need to see." Or they'll say, "That's not for me." Like, "I love treating um, pregnant people and and I love um, working with young moms, and I love kids," or like if that's your thing, then people like, "Oh, that's me." Oh, you know, "People are pregnant with low back pain is a thing I really like to treat," all that stuff, right? And then if you're like a a 20-year-old male athlete, like they're like, "Oh, that's not me," and then they can be served by some other person, right? So, you can't really market to all those different people. You need to kind of find your niche there.

00:39:15 Jamie Johnston: Total. And I know like, especially for me when I first started—it was first starting out, I would like started to put in the bio that like I was working with our local Junior A team, and then as I worked up, I was working with like Rugby Canada and then Hockey Canada. And once that was in my bio, all of a sudden I was getting those people who were more athletic or who would have—who weren't necessarily an athlete but had what they thought was an athletic injury and would come in like, well, that's the guy I'm going to go to.

00:40:40 Mike Reoch: Like a 65-year-old woman with arthritis isn't going to really want that style, right? But if I'm like, "Oh, I really—I've been working with these populations, like I treat, you know, I'm really interested in arthritis, and I—and I—that's a real—real thing I'm passionate about treating and helping these people, and and I put out blogs every week about arthritis," then that person's going to be like, "Oh, that's who I need to see." Right?

00:42:10 Jamie Johnston: Yeah. And at 22, like just as you said, like 65-year-old person with arthritis, but I would also get the 65-year-old tennis player that's like, "Oh, that's the person I'm going to go to because they know how to treat an athletic injury."

00:42:35 Mike Reoch: Totally, yeah. Yeah, and then there's so many of those people out there, like, yeah, it's easy to get busy, but it's hard to get busy. Laughter

The Shortage of Physios & The Scope of Exercise Therapy

00:43:10 Jamie Johnston: One—one thing you said that—and it's kind of, I don't know if it's specific strictly to BC, but the fact that you said like, we're—we don't have near enough physios, I think opens up such an opportunity for us that—that I think we leave unmarked, if that's the word. Um, you know, as somebody who, you know, I've dedicated a good portion of my career teaching um, movement and exercise-type therapy for people, um, is that I think as massage therapists, we don't focus enough on that, and people always go, "Well, I'll go to a physio for it." But we—we essentially have the same scope as far as exercise goes. So, you should be—like, I think more massage therapists should be going, "Yeah, I'm going to do more movement and exercise with people." And I like, over the years, I had people come in where I'd, you know, do a 45-minute treatment and then I'd take them into the gym for 45 minutes, and people would look at me and go, "Why has no one ever done this with me?"

00:45:20 Mike Reoch: Yeah.

00:45:25 Jamie Johnston: I think we're leaving a huge opportunity on the table there if—if you're not doing that kind of stuff with—with people already. And, and granted, I know it's not for everyone, but...

00:45:55 Mike Reoch: Yeah, I mean in a perfect world, I would like to just do mostly manual therapy and then send them next door to a physio who's amazing at at exercise programming and and assessment, right? Physios are like the best at assessment and triaging, and they're really good at that exercise prescription. But you could also have a really good trainer who's really good at exercise, right?

00:46:50 Jamie Johnston: But I also always thought that physios automatically came out of school with all that exercise training, but most of it they get after they're done school.

00:47:15 Mike Reoch: Yeah, and a lot—a lot of physios here have the reputation of like a hot pack and a TENS machine and ultrasound, right? So, it's nice to see physios who are out of that, like, you know, and massage therapists here in Kamloops are often seen as like spa-esque, like a—a nice—a nice relaxing massage.

00:48:25 Jamie Johnston: Which is totally—which is great if that's what people are looking for and that's how you want to work, that's—that's great.

00:48:40 Mike Reoch: And that's that's cool, like if you're—if that's your market too. But if everyone is the same here, it kind of creates that culture with people, so when they—I often get people that come to see me and they're just like—they assume, right? So, I have to have that talk with them of how I treat, because I don't—I don't necessarily treat that way. Sometimes I'll do—I'll do it, but it's not my—my focus, yeah.

00:49:30 Jamie Johnston: Cool. Yeah. Okay, so I think we've probably touched on that enough.

The Reliance on One Industry (The Nurses’ Union Example)

00:49:45 Jamie Johnston: So, the next big question I was going to ask you, um, especially when it comes to building a business, um, this—this might be specific to BC as well, but for years I would say I, like I've said on podcasts in the past, that, "Oh man, somebody could build a practice off nurses in BC because they get so much benefits." But now it's looking like they're probably not going to have that much benefits, and I'm seeing a lot online where people are kind of freaking out going, "Well, what am I going to do with my practice now?" because they've built that practice on nurses. Um, so how do we—how do we make a shift or, if say if you're just starting out, how do you start your practice up where you're not so reliant on one group of people that has benefits?

00:51:20 Mike Reoch: Yeah, well, let's like regardless, right? Because this happened last time the nurses had a vote, and they ended up getting their full benefits, right? They—the government backed down when they were playing chicken. And the vote strike is for—is tomorrow, I think, for the nurses, and I'm 100—I'm almost 100% sure the nurses are going to go on strike. Like I've talked to a bunch of nurses and they're like, "No, we're not accepting what's—what's being offered." And I get it, the government's broke for whatever, you know, decisions they've made in the past, but nurses, they're not treated well, there's, you know, they're often experiencing physical and—and verbal violence. They need these benefits, like more than—I would say more than most professions, right? My daughter's thinking of becoming a nurse. Like I want them to have a safe environment to work where they're supported by their employer. So, I—I'm behind those nurses.

00:54:10 Mike Reoch: But I mean regardless, if you rely on one industry, you're—you're setting yourself up for potential problems, right? Like your practice could fall apart if an employer changes their benefits, um, if you rely on that one pulp mill, right? And the employer changes the benefits or the pulp mill shuts down, you're in trouble. Um, if you build yourself just on ICBC, you're in—and if the ICBC contract like one day they might decide that they don't want to—

00:55:10 Jamie Johnston: They want to change things.

00:55:15 Mike Reoch: Yeah, they don't want RMTs—they don't want to pay RMTs. RMTs are going to have to come out of the—the client's pocket. Um, so ICBC would be another. Um, big corporate client, you might just do corporate events, like there are some RMTs, they just go to big office buildings and—and do like kind of that. And you could lose a contract. So, you can't build on that one referral source. You can build on a certain population, but not on the one referral source. So, yeah.

How to Diversify Your Referral Sources

00:56:30 Jamie Johnston: Any like recommendations on how, especially if you were just starting out, how to diversify and make sure that you're not just relying on that one thing? And it's—I mean we kind of talked about it, too. It could be that you've just got the availability in the clinic and nurses or one—one group is booking in with you all the time.

00:57:15 Mike Reoch: Yeah. Like for sure, like we treat a lot of nurses, but if we lost all our nurse patients, we—it would only affect us by like 10% or something for—for a short amount of time. Um... I would say just pursue those for sure, but also pursue others. Like don't just go for hospitals. Um... Like I—I mean, if you want to build on nurses, that's cool. I would—something that I think would be a great way to—to go after nurses is send—send a gift basket of like fruits and snacks to a—a emergency ward or a cancer ward or something. Just say, um, "We just appreciate what you're doing from so-and-so clinic." Um, build—build your name up that way. Get posters into into um, like snack rooms at at hospitals.

00:59:55 Mike Reoch: But also, you know, you can go with—after any industry in in your area that's a—a big employer, and just make sure that when you're looking at who you treat, it's not just one employer backing it up, right?

01:00:40 Jamie Johnston: Yeah. Yeah, so try—try and approach like that across like ten different segments in your town that you want to—

01:01:10 Mike Reoch: Maybe choose a segment and pursue that for six months, and then, okay, cool, now the next segment pursue that for six months. Have a plan, right? And just have like have a system. Like I can help people implement systems where like, here's a six-month system to go after and you can use it on anyone, right? You could use it with say chiropractors and ICBC, or you could use it with doctor's offices, or you could use it with nurses, or you could use it with uh, postal workers, right? Um, whatever—whatever it is you want.

01:02:40 Jamie Johnston: Awesome. Um, yeah, that's great. So, I know that you're developing a course that you're going to teach about business. Um, what—what are you naming the course again?

01:03:15 Mike Reoch: Uh, yeah, so, um, it's called The Honest Practice Blueprint.

01:03:30 Jamie Johnston: Right.

The "Honest Practice Blueprint" & Overcoming "Gross" Sales

01:03:35 Mike Reoch: Um, and I kind of want it because people often have—and I'm—I'm exactly that too—is sales kind of feel kind of gross.

01:04:15 Jamie Johnston: Yeah.

01:04:20 Mike Reoch: But I've—I've changed my—my approach to that because sales, you're basically you're just trying to serve people who have a problem, right?

01:04:45 Jamie Johnston: Yeah. Well, we talked a little bit before we came on talking about people's pain points, right? So, specifically pain points.

01:05:10 Mike Reoch: Yeah, pain points. So, a good—good sales is like you're solving a problem for someone, right? They actually have a real problem that is is a real issue for them, and you're helping them find the best solution for them. That might not even be you, right? So, if you can find that solution for them, that's you're—that's I think what sales should be. Um, you know, you could be a car—There's a famous story about a guy who was like the best car salesman in North America, maybe in the '70s or '80s, I don't know when it was. And he built his his book by not selling the car today, but being the person they go back to for the rest of their life.

01:06:45 Jamie Johnston: Mmm.

01:06:50 Mike Reoch: So, they were like—I forget what the guy's name was, let's call him Dave. He—they would come in, they're like, "I'm looking for this, this is what I need," and he would help them find that exact car even if it wasn't in his dealership.

01:07:45 Mike Reoch: car, even if it wasn't in his dealership. And then they would be like, "Oh, like this guy's so good." They'd—they'd even he'd even phone them and they're like, "Oh, my aunt's looking—" "Oh, yeah, I don't sell Hondas, but there's this Honda at this this dealership down the road, go talk to this guy, he's he's a friend of mine." Like he, that's kind of stuff he would do, right? So, I think if we can do that, if someone comes in and they're like, "Yeah, I need I need help treating my Achilles tendinitis," and you're like, "Well, I don't really—I'm not the best person for that, I actually do this instead, but you know you really need to go see Jamie, he is really good at that stuff." And then, you know, that person now would would say, "Okay, now I've got the problem that when I went back to Mike, he said he does this instead, and I've got that now, now I want to go back to Mike." So, that's the kind of with sales stuff.

01:10:30 Jamie Johnston: Yeah, yeah, I know with online stuff, they—they quite often calling it the "know, like, and trust." They need to get to know you, like you, and trust you. So, I mean, what you just talked about—

01:11:15 Mike Reoch: school. Um, so I've I've struggled with keeping my books full because of that, and that was kind of a big aha moment for me.

01:12:40 Jamie Johnston: For real. For real. Well, I appreciate you coming on today, man, if people want to reach out to you, how will they find you online? Where should they go?

01:13:15 Mike Reoch: I, you can find me I think I'm on Instagram and Facebook Honest Practice Blueprint, um, website honestpracticeblueprint.com, still um, still building it, but you can email me through that too, uh, michael@honestpracticeblueprint.com. Um... yeah.

01:14:40 Jamie Johnston: Awesome, man. Keep up the good work. Thanks for coming on.

01:14:50 Mike Reoch: Thanks, Jamie. Good seeing you.

01:14:55 Jamie Johnston: You, too.