By Dylan Crake RMT, RKin
You’ve graduated from your Massage Therapy program; you’ve passed your registration exams and now you’re officially an RMT. Now what?
Being a Massage Therapist is great, however it is a profession where you can cap out in terms of salary. So, what else can you do as an RMT to help you earn some more money, while continuing to do what you love?
The good news is, this is a great registration to have because it allows for a flexible work schedule, while you pursue other income strains. One of the most popular options for Massage Therapists to earn more money, is to open their own clinic. This allows you to not only continue to massage and earn your usual amount of money, but you’ll also be taking a split from your contractors or employees. If you find your clinic is busy, you can hire more people, which means more income for you! But remember, you’ll have to put money into your clinic as well, and it can be a lot of work, but can be extremely rewarding.
Next, you can become a teacher. You can teach at a college for a massage therapy program, become a certified tutor with your college registration, or create and teach your own continuing education courses. This is not only a great way to earn extra money, but it’s also a great way to stay up-to-date on all things continuing ed. Because you can’t teach the subject if you’re not fully knowledgeable about it.
The third way an RMT can use their registration and earn extra money is a combination of the first two ideas. Create and own your own business. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a clinic, and it doesn’t necessarily have to just be a business about continuing education. It can be anything health or wellness related. If you find yourself working as an RMT and notice there’s something that’s missing in our field, like a new type or massage tool. You can create it, develop it, market it and sell it. It’s your business. Massage Therapy is really exciting in that way. Once you have the background of all things body (physiologically and biopyhscosocially), the world is your oyster to build your own business and become a business owner.
Or maybe you have a lot to say and you want to tell the others in your RMT community your thoughts.
Podcast host may be for you. Here you can educate folks about Massage topics, chat about what you see in your treatment room or maybe just talk about the RMT community, because there’s always something to talk about. And maybe, if you grow your podcast, you can work with brands and advertise for them.
The next thing you can do when you’re an RMT is become a part of your Registrants College or Association. There are a number of committees that you can join within the College, and if you want to do more advocacy work for yourself and fellow RMTs, then working within the RMTAO or your areas massage association is something that you can do. Within the associations, you can help organize future conferences, be the liaison between your RMT peers and the Massage College.
This is a great thing to be a part of if you like the politics and governance of your registration.
Finally, you can even work with an insurance company, like WSIB to help with claims. You can learn about a client’s case, determine what they get in compensation, and review and agree on a treatment plan that other health care practitioners put together.
So, remember when you step into your treatment room, you’re not locked in to only treating, in fact the world has opened up even more for you with your title.
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