Cherie Sohnen-Moe

I never would have thought I would utter the words: Can Attractiveness Hurt Your Business? But after two related instances I have to wonder.

1. We held a birthday party for a friend at our house. We surprised her by starting off the afternoon with a massage by my regular therapist. After he left, people asked her about the massage (she had the post-massage bliss look). I said that I could go into my office and get some of his cards and several women made comments about how cute he was and stated that they didn’t think they would be comfortable with him because they would want to be staring at him the whole time. I laughed along with them, thinking they were joking. After all, who cares what your therapist looks like....
2. This next story is complicated. Several weeks later I received a phone call from another friend, let’s call her Ms. C (by the way, Ms. C did not attend the birthday party). To give you a little background on Ms. C, she has been in the healing arts world for decades, has received lots of types of bodywork and has been involved in personal growth. Over the past three years she has lost a substantial amount of weight. While no longer obese, she is still well-rounded.

She said she wanted to ask me some questions about my massage therapist. She told me that she is in a women’s support group. She mentioned in the group that she was thinking about getting regular massages again. One of the women in the group is a massage therapist and she recommended that Ms. C schedule a massage appointment with her husband. (As an aside, this is a great example of keeping good boundaries and not creating a dual relationship). Ms. C told her therapist friend that she wasn’t sure she would be comfortable getting a massage from her husband because he works on a lot of athletes and is really attractive.  (Sheesh!)

The massage therapist proceeded to tell Ms. C that she needn’t be concerned as her husband works with all sorts of clients. She then mentioned how one of her husband’s client is a very large woman and they love working together. Unfortunately, the therapist disclosed more information, saying that this client wrote the business book they used in school. (And here I was so proud of her setting good boundaries regarding dual relationships and now she broke confidentiality.) It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that she was talking about me! Thus, the call to me.

After this second experience, it got me thinking about the whole issue of attractiveness. Sure, I had noticed that my massage therapist was attractive, but so what! Lots of people are attractive. The only things I care about are that he does good work, is kind, is trustworthy and has a good sense of humor. And he definitely has all of those qualities. Yet, here were 5 women whom all have had massages and are all more than 50 years old, and they had the same concerns.

Some therapists are concerned that people might only come to see them because they are attractive. Yet this shows the other side of this double-edge sword. How do you see this possibly affecting your practice? And more importantly, what can be done to counteract the negative effect this can have on one’s practice?