Guest blog: the pros and cons of working as a mobile therapist
Kerry Beavis is owner of The Revive Company in Wixams and winner of this year’s Professional Beauty Therapist of the Year 2016 award. She reveals the factors you need to consider before starting a business as a mobile therapist
If you’re thinking about becoming a mobile therapist you need to weigh up the pros and cons of offering mobile treatments, no matter what your background – whether you’re a newly qualified therapist or you’ve owned a salon in the past.
As someone who did a lot of mobile work while establishing my home-based salon, The Revive Company, I learned a thing or two about what life is like as a mobile therapist. Here are the pros and cons of this type of work:
The pros:
1. You have no overheads in terms of renting a premises, which removes a lot of pressure.
2. The world is your oyster so you can spend time targeting your ideal client base. You can also appeal to a broader spectrum of people such as those who work from home, stay-at-home mothers, clients that are housebound and so on.
3. You’ll find “no shows” are limited. Even if clients had forgotten you were coming, it’s hard for them to turn you away when you’re already on their door step. But always send a reminder just in case.
4. No day is the same as you’re constantly working in different environments – variety is the spice of life. For example, you can offer pamper parties and corporate team-building days to local businesses or can even organise regular slots in an unused office space to treat more clients without having to travel around.
5. You can choose your working days and hours to suit your lifestyle.
The cons:
1. You will have a lot of equipment to carry around, especially to and from the car.
2. You have to be well organised because it’s just you – you can’t afford to forget anything.
3. You have to be adaptable and ready for any situation. For example, you will need to have extension leads to hand because sometimes there won’t be power points nearby and you may be faced with working in a small space.
4. You have to take into account set-up and clean-up time when managing your appointments.
5. You will have clients scattered all over the place so you need to factor in travel time and traffic to your day.
Four things you should never forget to do:
1. Always let someone know where you are for safety.
2. Don’t forget to set a mile radius for how far you are prepared to travel.
3. Factor in costs of mileage and petrol to treatment prices.
4. Have a minimum spend or minimum treatment time from the onset.