A guest blog post by Velina Lujan, a Boulder massage therapist and BlitzLocal client.

Questions to ask Yourself before interviewing Massage Therapists:

1. What do I want out of the session?
2. Do you want to just de-stress, work out some really big knots, focus on an injury or a  combination of things?
3. Do you like to chit chat or do you want to be silent and just let go during your session?
4. Do you like to feel nurtured and cared for in a session or are you a no-nonsense client that just want to get the work done?
5. Every therapist has their strengths and weaknesses and just like in romance, there is someone for everyone in the bodywork world.
6. Getting clear on your needs and desires before interviewing will give you a much better chance to finding that perfect therapist.

As a massage therapists who hires therapists for my business, and a very picky client, I always look for these qualities. Having been highly successful myself in my practice offering these qualities, I believe that this is what delivers a great massage, every time!

First and foremost, are they warm, open-hearted and confident, yet humble? The worst massages I ever got were from therapists who had every certification in the books and many years of experience but were cocky, rigid and ego-centric. They had their way of giving a massage, their idea of what worked and what was best for me and didn’t listen to what I was asking for. Some of the best massages I have received were from therapists that just graduated or went to alternative training. They listened openly and were flexible and willing to do what it took to make me comfortable. Years of experience and a diverse background are wonderful and that can bring a lot to the session if they are service-oriented and attentive.

Ask the therapist what their ideal client is. This may throw them off but will give you a good sense of who they are and how they approach their work. If the answer is too rigid and doesn’t sound at all like you, that is a good clue that it is probably not a good fit.

Trust your gut. This is a person who will be touching your naked body for a full hour or more. Do you like the sound of their voice and the feeling that you get when you talk with them? Do they sound genuinely interested in you and what you are needing? Are they asking you questions and listening to your answers?

The truth is, you can’t be completely sure until you actually get the massage, but the biggest mistake most people make is that they don’t tell the therapist what they want or how they are feeling, such as “OUCH! Don’t do that! It hurts!!” Or, “OH YEAH!! DEEPER PLEASE!!!”

Just remember, the therapist can’t be expected to read your mind, and no body is the same. So if they are a good therapist, they are going to want to know. They are at your service, and you are probably paying them a lot of money. You are the boss of your body and they are there to honor you and your needs, not be the expert and do their thing.

Wishing you a wonderful massage experience.

Velina Lujan, MA, CMT, CDH

Owner

Stress Management Services

A guest post by Adam Sachs, co-founder of Ignighter, a group dating site with great relationship advice and a fun place to work

I’m Adam Sachs and I run the world’s largest group dating site. Since our initial launch as a Facebook Application in January 2008 and subsequent relaunch as a destination site in August 2008, we’ve amassed a significant inventory of group daters using our free service.

However, if you’re simply growing a free user base at a steady, continuous pace (read: you haven’t detonated a viral bomb like only the Facebooks and Twitters of the Internet have) then after a while, the free model starts to seem unsustainable. Acquiring new users on a free site has a cost. User acquisition could be costing you money (PPC ads, live sponsored events) or even just costing you time (Commenting on blogs, marketing via Twitter). But until you can establish a lifetime value for a new user, then you are simply shelling out for marketing while seeing a virtually nonexistent ROI.

With no ROI and no value associated with each user who registers for your site, it’s only a matter of time before you run out of money, time, and the ability to keep acquiring them. Your investors probably won’t be too happy either.

It’s taken Ignighter a while to come to this realization, but now that we have, we are beginning to experiment with incorporating paid functionality into the website. Introducing a paid model to Ignighter doesn’t just benefit the company however; we predict it will benefit our user base as well.

Below are a few Pros and Cons that we predict to encounter when transitioning from a free to paid service. We can revisit these pros and cons in a few months and see how accurate they proved to be.

Pros: Money is finally coming IN the door.

1. Money means more users. If you are making more per user than you are paying to acquire them, then the goal is to spend as much money as possible to acquire them. I’d pay $25 to get $35 back, wouldn’t you?
2. Money means better users. When you offer a free service, you get registrations from people of drastically varying levels of interest and relevance to your site. When people on the not-so-interested-in-meeting-new-people-but-it’s-free-so-I’ll-try-it-anyway end of the spectrum register, they’re actually adding what we affectionately call “shit inventory” to the site and hurting the experience of the registered users who want to use the site for its intended purpose.

Incorporating a paid level will naturally introduce a tiered system of usership to the site, facilitating an experience that groups users based on their intentions and expectations. Asking people to pay will also help to make your users more passionate about the company. Paid users will now be part of a community that they’ve invested in and helped to create.

Money means happy investors. This one is pretty self-explanatory.

Cons: It’s not so easy

1. It’s not so easy to convince someone to be one of the first to pay for your service. Before you can establish a track record of value that you’re providing to the user it can seem like you’re asking them to pay taste-tester to the King of Zamunda.
2. It’s not so easy to build the damn thing. At Ignighter this fundamental shift is requiring a ton of web development and business development resources. This kind of thing can’t be half-assed, you have to give it your full attention and planning.
3. It’s not so easy to accept that it’s going to work beyond a shadow of a doubt. But isn’t that what startups are all about?

Guest Post by Nicholas Abramovic. Nicholas helps singles meet new people at Zoosk – the largest dating application on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Hi5. Nick also covers affiliate marketing, advanced ppc tactics and other fun stuff at many body theory.

Facebook’s self-serve advertising platform now allows advertisers to target whether users have already added your application or not yet added it. This is a huge play for companies such as Zoosk Online Dating, Zynga Games, and other application developers.

Why is this important?

A lot of companies use application networks such as SocialHour and RockYou to get users to click off of other applications and get them to view your application. This is pretty easy, and as we have all learned from the lessons of SocialHour getting banned by Facebook – these ads can be pretty deceptive and users sometimes have no idea that they have added your application.

By allowing application developers to target new and existing users, you can setup different bids for what the value of a new customer from Facebook is worth, and what the value of someone returning to your application is worth (especially for companies such as Zoosk and Zynga which operate on a subscription/gifts currency where using the application is king).

You can find out more about this at Facebook’s official developers blog. A word of caution: I’ve noticed that this targeting is accurate about 15% of the time, so this new feature although very welcomed to the big players of Facebook applications, this is still very much a work in progress.

Official Story: http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=263

This article was written by Leigh Hanney of SEMSamurai.com

In any structured system the introduction of a new variable will have a lasting influence on that structure. In short, nothing will remain the same.

Take a typical family unit of two parents and one child… When a second child is born the dynamic shifts and sibling relationships become one of older versus younger. Parental influences and guidance may also differ and thus the potential for psychological differences between the siblings also emerges. Then however we have the appearance of a third child, and as a result the ensuing ‘middle child syndrome’ emerges. Now I‘m no psychologist, so that’s as deep as I’ll go, but I find it interesting to view the ‘landing page’ as the often ignored and over looked, ‘middle child’ in many online marketing campaigns.  

Too many marketers devote all their attention to the ‘first child’, the Campaign itself (PPC, SEO, CMP, Facebook Ads), and the remainder of their focus goes to third child, ‘the sale’. But   the third child is often looked at questioningly, asked ‘Why can’t you do more?’ And the question that should be asked, ‘How can you do more?’ is never asked of the middle child – the landing page – at al l. Instead this key part of the structure and campaign is entirely ignored.  

As online marketers we cannot afford not to focus on the entire conversion funnel, and we must never underestimate the gains to be found in optimizing the landing pages used in our campaigns.

At no time is this more pertinent than now faced with the current economic crisis.  

What would the marketer who ignores the landing page do if her budget was cut in two? Panic certainly, knowing that her effectiveness will surely drop by 50% too. ‘I’ll lose my job!’  

Yet the marketer who understands the importance of the landing page and conversion optimization, should see this as yet another challenge. For now he can focus even more on how to squeeze additional conversions out of every 100 clicks.

In short, the marketer who understands the whole picture and the complete conversion funnel has many more levers to pull when the dynamic shifts.

Ignore your landing pages at your own peril.