Hard to believe they are having a heat wave on the south coast while I'm wrapped up in a warm blanket here at home in the Midlands.
Still I have lots of heaters to supplement the central heating in my massage studio.
My clients strip off, and even when completely naked they shouldn't be cold when they come to be relaxed with me.
I aim for the room to be nice and toasty, plus I have a few addition tricks up my sleeve for extra pampering.
From Friday 21st July through to early September I may be flexible with my hours. So, just contact me by text or email if you want a short notice appointment or a time that isn't showing via my online booking system.
I might be able to fit you in.
This is because the kids are off school and have different commitments. I will only be going away for a few days, not weeks on end.
But I still won't be working evenings or night times.
I don't know why that should be.
I don't think it is so much to do with the heat as that we are all energised from the lengthy hours of day light.
All I can tell you is that in my experience July seems to be one of the busiest months for booking. However, the other busiest time of year is December and January, which is counter intuitive too.
You would think in July people are too busy with outdoor activities or too hot to want a massage. And in the heart of the winter you'd think it was too cold, dark and miserable, plus people have spent all their money on Christmas.
I don't understand it either.
I would warn you these are the busiest and best months if you are starting in this business. And if you are a client, expect the service providers to be booked up, so get ahead and book in advance.
I would be the first to tell you do not pay more than you can afford when you are treating yourself to a luxury.
I am sure you will find a massive range of prices. Now, let's consider what would you expect to pay?
Do your research.
For comparison you will find the typical price for a non-erotic massage in the UK in 2023 is £70ph, so naturally you can expect to pay about the same or more.
I currently charge £80 ph but it is a 2-hour session that I have allocated and the overwhelming majority of my clients stay with me for 2 hours a few stay a little longer and a few leave fairly quickly (quickly in my world means soon after the end of a 90 minute massage).
Very few clients are in my building for less than 1 hour 50 minutes.
However, looking at it another way, my massages are 90 minutes for £160, so you could say I charge £100 per hour.
Either way, I'm sure I have set my fee at the right level for a number of reasons:
£160 is a lot to spend.
It is a luxury.
If you wanted to spend half that amount then I won't see you but you could try to find people who offer shorter sessions. It won't be exactly the same but it will be within your budget.
Of course you should be wary of anything that sounds too cheap, there are a long list of things that can be wrong and dubious at the bottom end of things.
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If you want to make a booking to meet me here in Cheshire (near Stoke-on-Trent) it is best to book at least 1 day in advance.
The easiest and best way is to use my online booking system. It will show you my schedule so you will know whether I'm available or not and it will block out the session for you
The system will send you an email reminder they day before and a text message to your phone. And it will automatically tell you where to find me.
I will know you've booked: my phone pings with a notification, and your details appear on my calendar. If you attached a message, it might be a while before I see it, so if it is an important question then send me a message via email or text message or WhatApp with your question.
My automated online system is very handy for me but some clients can't use it for one reason or another. Fear not, there is an alternative: contact me directly.
If you contact me: I prefer text, WhatsApp or email, because I am rarely able to chat freely on the phone, I'm either driving or there are often people around.
Sometimes I'll get back to you fairly quickly but it can take a few hours; I will usually see your message within 12 hours.
But perhaps you want to book with another provider, not me. Check their website or advert. Some people specifically state they prefer you to phone and some will only take bookings via the phone. We are all different. Both what we do and how we run our businesses.
From time to time, if people are unable to get to visit me due to either my location or my working hours (I only work daytimes) I get enquiries about whether I know / can recommend service providers similar to me: unfortunately I don't. However, I know they are out there.
so
I'm considering putting together a list of tantric or erotic and sensual massage providers in the UK. Do you think that would be useful? Can you recommend anyone? Leave a message or send me an email.
I never know what to make of April & May. April can be freezing, I've know heatwaves in recent years in May.
Fortunately the massage studio where I do my thing is in a solid old building that is naturally cold.
There's quite a bit of energy to get it warm enough in the winter, but it stays very reasonable in the summer - so much so that i might be tempted to sleep there!
On the hottest of days last year when the car part was recording 40C and the official outside daily temperature reached 38 for several days in side my space stayed below 25C at all times, even without air con. In fact, it hardly touched 24C.
People who have visited will know I have a digital thermostat in the room and keep a close eye on the temperature.
But the down side to the hot weather is what to do about the warm towels?
It's part of the pampering to be wrapped in warm towels, and something you want want to experience in the middle of July. Cold towels out of the fridge just aren't the same.
Let's clear this up straight away: I do not use avocado oil on my clients. I always use grapeseed oil for all the reasons that make it the industry standard.
But if you are trying this at home I just wanted to throw this suggestion out there.
I use it at home for frying, on salads, and I've used it to moisturise my own skin.
I use other products too, of course including other oils.
I use plenty of hemp, rape, and olive oil plus coconut oil, all depending on what I've got in the cupboard and what I'm making. I have no qualms about swapping one oil for another and changing flavours.
Anyway, if you love avocados, don't over look their oil.
At least monthly I will have a text message conversation that goes something like this:
Message: Are you available tomorrow?
Me: No, but I'm available plenty of other times, you can look at my schedule and book in advance.
Message: I'm only available tomorrow.
Me: Sorry, I'm booked. Plan more in advance next time.
Message: If you get a cancellation let me know.
At this point I don't know what to say.
Never say never, the booked person might just cancel right then and it all works out.
Cancelling a Sensual Massage
What I want to tell the person behind the message is that doesn't often happen. Sometimes people cancel just the day before, but not often.
Occasionally people cancel on the same day, but that's really rare.
As for people just not showing up? Well, that's all most as rare as hens' teeth.
People do cancel. Lot's of people cancel and often. I have a simple online system so people can easily book and reschedule and cancel. Butt they normally do all those things way in advance.
Anyway, if someone does cancel the following morning - on the day of their appointment - should I really message a person who contact me the day before? That doesn't make sense to me.
Surely that person has already made other arrangements - I think this because the person has told me they have such limited free time that they only had one day to see me and they were unable to make any other date in the future. If they really want to see me then they would have looked at my schedule and made an appointment.
I also want to tell them that I am not scrabbling around trying to fill my diary. If a client cancels, I already have plenty of things to fill my time, so it isn't a problem for me.
That's all just about how I work - in my one person part-time operation. This isn't true for other businesses of course.
I could write the book on this one, and perhaps one day I will.
But who would buy it?
It's not going to be a best seller when I tell the truth: it is difficult and probably impossible to make a full-time living as a Lingam Massage Therapist.
That's not what anyone want to hear.
Especially nowadays when we're bombarded with averts for change your life and get rich methods. Honestly, if you want to get rich or even make above the average wage then do something else!
I'm always sceptical of those individuals who appear in the adverts saying:
"I started selling a niche product on line and now I work 5 minutes a day and make mega money."
Because if that's true, why are they sell courses to teach other people to do the same!
Everyone can see I have run my SEXY MASSAGE business in the same way for over a decade, so perhaps I've found the secret sauce and I'm keeping it to myself by warning other people not to even try it.
Hey, that would make sense: that's exactly what I would do!
The average income in the UK is something over £30,000 per year and in the last decade I have not made anything near that from offering my massage service. But if you were to start up in business you might well earn more than me if you do something differently.
These are some of the things that have kept my revenue (the income) low:
1. Limited hours - this has been my biggest constraint the entire time. I've had children and therefore the need to factor in their needs. I have never offered full time hours. I've never been available 48 weeks of the year.
2. Having outside premises as I don't work from home and this is a big expense. If you work from home you can cut your costs and travel issues. You do need to think about client parking and have an immaculate space for the clients including bathroom facilities.
3. In all the years I've offered my service in its current format (over a decade) it has always only been my secondary income. I run another business so I divide my time and attention. This suits me as I don't like having all my eggs in one basket, and I was easily able to pivot when we had lockdown for the pandemic.
If you set up your business offering 2 or 3 time slots per day morning and afternoon with the occasional evening and you were consistently available for at least 46 weeks per year then you would certainly have a good chance at gaining regular clients and earning more than me.*** Although that's not all there is to it.
Now, for some amusing stories... well, amusing to me anyway.
I've seen businesses start up and disappear within a year, some of them have copied my business completely down to tiny details. Some of those details which I started are now very much standard. I'm fairly certain that it was my website in 2011 that was the first to tell clients the exact time allocated for the massage and the time allocated for conversations and getting changed
It used to be that all other sites would simple advertise a 1 hour massage, when they actually meant a 30-40 minute massage.
Initially, I promised my massage would be at least 75 minutes. I was twice as expensive as the massage parlours in my area but offering a session that would be twice as long. And when clients came to me they knew exactly what they'd get and how much it would cost: which was all vague and hidden in massage parlours.
Anyway, over the many years various people have set up copy-cat businesses to me and extremely close to me when I was based in Kent (2 or 3 times they were located within 1 mile) without actually doing all their research. They opened, they closed. They didn't see the success they were hoping for.
Now clients do talk. And a few will visit all the services. So I did get to hear about the differences from the client's perspectives. It is my impression that my competitors did two things different from me:
1. overestimated the number of clients that would see and therefore were disappointed with the financial return.* remember I've never needed it to make a FT income.
2. underestimated the attention to detail required for every aspect that wasn't the actually massage service: things like excellent clean facilities and extra time for talking.
***
Are you still with me?
Have I put you off?
Have you realised this business isn't the route to giving up your day job and making more money than ever before.
DO NOT GIVE UP THE DAY JOB
This kind of work is ideal if:
1. You already have the perfect premises and don't need to invest money in a separate building (because the chances are that will never pay out for you).
2. You only need to work PT hours and can be flexible with those hours. Note: almost all of the clients will want daytime appointments. You will find hardly any demand for 7pm or later.
3. You aren't under financial pressure because you do have a different main income.
***
That is the Reality Check delivered
Now, if this kind of work is ideal for you now that you have had the reality check then get down to the nitty gritty of doing the work. That really could be a book, or a course. Perhaps I could offer a mentorship.
I didn't start doing this overnight. If you have any thoughts comments or questions I'd love to hear them.
From time to time, I'm asked if I could do a 1-hour erotic massage service.
The short answer is NO.
But let me explain a little bit about my thinking.
The Cheshire based YLM Approach to Lingam & Erotic Sexy Massage:
* I aim to provide a slow unhurried pampering service
* it is self-indulgent self-care for clients who don't have to rush to an appointment afterwards. They aren't under pressure for time and neither am I.
* If they have work, my clients usually book to see me when they have a day off.
* Many of my clients are single, some are widowers, some have complex emotional and physical issues.
* Many of my clients have come to talk about personal matters (usually after they get to know me) in addition to the 90-minutes of massage.
* Allowing time before and after and including clean up, I actually allow 3-4 hours for each session and each session does take a minimum of 3 hours of my time and a surprising amount of mental energy. I really enjoy the sessions, they are relaxing and satisfying but still take energy from me.
Contrast all that with:
The Fast Service Massage Parlour Happy Ending Mentality
The people who are looking for a session of 1-hour or less are:
* looking for something very different from what I offer
* approaching me with a completely different mindset to my typical clients
* looking for a quickie massage with hand relief "happy ending" and they want to squeeze it into their busy day.
* Careful with their money and have limited funds - I can totally understand and respect this. The point about pampering and treats is that sometimes we have to save up for them. But also my service won't be for everyone so I hope no one spends their money with me if it is not what they are looking for. I only have the time to see about 3 clients per week on average.
Apples and tomatoes are two completely different types of fruit.
The same is true of comparing my specialist erotic massage or Lingam Massage to a standard massage parlour service.
If you are looking for a quick service and to be in and out within 60 minutes so the masseuse can get ready for the next client straight after you - then that is what you should look for.
