Storm4U

Yes! It’s happening on pretty much every airline. I was supposed to be home by 6:00 pm but didn’t get home until midnight. At one point I thought I might get stuck in Chicago because the first flight was so delayed I thought I might miss the connecting flight, but the connecting flight was significantly delayed as well.

Just a heads up to other masseurs and providers who are traveling by plane right now. If a client is flying you in, I highly recommend that you ask your client to book direct flights as opposed to connecting flights. I just got back from a weekend trip and almost every flight is delayed by several hours right now.

THIS

What’s done in the dark always comes to light, so don’t lie about it because the truth will it reveal itself whether you want it to or not. Always be honest, and if someone is not comfortable with what you do, then they are not the right person for you at this time in your life.

Someone who snores doesn’t bother me. I’m a deep sleeper usually, so I just keep sleeping.

The truth is that they do it because they don’t respect you, your time, or what you do, and they get off on interacting with you. They take advantage of any time and attention you’ll give away to them because they have no intention of booking you, and they will not be able to interact with you outside of any time and attention you’ll give to them for free. It’s the reality and one of the worst, if not the worst parts of this business. What you’ll learn though is that there are patterns, and it is pretty easy to identify people who are serious about booking and people who are not serious. Learn how to Identify those people who are clearly going to try and waste your time, and stop engaging with them. They can only waste a lot of your time if you let them.

I wasn’t sure which cities are my favorites for working, but after thinking about it Ive decided that New York and London are my favorites…by far

Thanx! This is helpful. I’ll be flying in to a so-so location, but the client is low maintenance, so…I’ll think of a fair rate.

Rates will not go down.

What are you guys generally charging these days for a weekend rate. 3 days (Fri, Sat, Sunday)

Yes, ive had 3, and it’s one of the worst parts of the business.

This is what I wore on Saturday

That is a good old-fashioned Flake in my opinion. But what I can say with absolute certitude is that when somebody REALLY wants and INTENDS to see you, they will see you and they won’t waste your time with the back and forth that will lead to nowhere, and they wont bother messaging you unless they know they have availability to schedule with you. They will contact you knowing exactly when they can see you. Me personally, I feel like you can always tell when somebody is a flake or non-committal based off of what they say in their first one or two messages and when I sensed that they were a flake, I made myself unavailable for them altogether and Blocked them. Saved me a lot of time! Problem solved. I think your time and attention are better spent on guys who know what they wanted and know how to make it happen.

I'm not sure if this is petty, but if they have poor grammar, then I'm not dating them.

This is flattering, not embarrassing!

I pulled out of the business for a few reasons. A couple of them are: 1) Overall, I stopped enjoying having a massaging in LA specifically and dealing with the negative things that come with it. I was ready to move on. 2) When I moved into my new place, I decided I did not want strangers coming in to my new home and knowing where I live, and most clients in LA want you to host. My new place is like a sanctuary for me, so that’s another reason.

All of what's mentioned by @Swazca and @Daniel84.I no longer do massage in LA, but I did until very recently but when I stopped my rates started at $180 and went up from there. I have seen multiple client guys on this forum mention that when they see a masseur, they expect him to be able to host at a convenient and/or desirable location, and they want the masseur to host in a nice place. According to an Apartment List Rent Report, rent is up 17.6% in year over year increases overall. With that being said, a massage by a great massuer, in a desirable location, in a nice place is not going to be on the low end of a price range. Not to mention inflation making everything more expensive, gas, supplies, etc. Masseurs have to factor all of that in, in order to make it worthwhile to even offer clients the service. It's a business.

For me, it did not make it harder at all.

Most West Hollywood apts (depending on when they were built) are rent controlled and can’t go up more than 2.5%. I just moved in to one. But yes, any newer buildings aren’t binded by rent control but newer buildings in West Hollywood are very few and far in between.

I would challenge you to look at this differently as well. When I talk about my own experience & success doing massage in LA, I am not including my other sources of income in that at all. As you noted, many of us have posted that we are or were providers or masseurs on a part-time basis because… really that is the smartest way to do it given that it is such an unpredictable business. If recessions and Covid teach anybody anything it is that they should have multiple sources of income, ideally passive sources of income (I’m working on the passive part). I have a 9 to 5 job, a social media business, and stocks, in addition to when I was doing massage. Given the direction that our economy is going in, it may behoove you to consider diversifying and not having all of your eggs in one basket. Based on your posts it sounds like being a provider is your only source of income. Everyone can define success differently, BUT I don’t think that whether someone can be a provider as their only or main source of income is the metric for if they are successful because many people and arguably the wisest ones don’t and won’t want it to be their only or main source of income. If they have a certain amount they want to make from it, and they hit that goal, then they are successful.

I always downplay my size. I like them to be pleasantly surprised

Yikes…i’m not sure if you will receive this in the spirit im intending it, but I would challenge you to look at the problem you are having with time-wasters differently. First of all, I empathize with you & I feel I can speak on this because I have managed to do really well in one of the flakiest, most saturated cities in the US (LA). If you want to P.M. me for advice, Im happy to give feedback when I can by the way. Im not on here as often these days but I do login. That being said, Im sure it depends on the demographics of the location, and I can only speak from my experience, but I think in most territories, most of the clients are white, so most of the flakes, and time wasters you experience are going to be….you guessed it….also white. But you’ll have flakes in every color. The first few Black clients I had flaked on me consecutively and I started thinking Black clients are flakey, and then I got some really great Black clients and I learned that it wasn’t a color issue at all, it’s just that flakes are just a part of the business. And it was a coincidence that 3 in a row flaked. But many more didn’t. I also noticed you changed the title of this question from “white” to “all american” and I think you have to be very clear if you are suggesting that it may be a color thing you are experiencing since as you may have noticed from the responses, white and all American are not always synonymous. White is relegated to color, while All American lends itself to many characteristics that have nothing to do with color as others have described in their answers as well…and that could change the type of answers you get to your question. For example, if you’re in a city where the “all American” look is more popular, and you have that look, and there is a white guy in the area that doesn’t have that look, (assuming your marketing and everything is good), then you are going to bring in more business than he will. With that being said, if you get too frustrated with the time-wasters and flakes, I think it is healthy to take a break from the business. Also, you have to remember that you are a product, so if your product is good and it’s being marketed the right way to the right demographic in the right territory, it will do well regardless of the number of flakes that you will inevitably encounter. If you have it all together and you feel like the flakes are outnumbering the bookings, then that is your sign to move as quickly as you can, and it sounds like you’ve already figured out your location is bad for your business.

I have had no choice but to step away from massage because my 9-5 job is about 40 hrs a week, my social media business is taking up another 15 hours. My social media business is on track to replace my 9-5 income and massage income combined, but it’s requiring a little more hand holding right now, which means I’m not available for massage like I was just a couple of months ago. Any free time I have, I want to relax. I thought I might do massage for another year, but id rather focus on my other business because it’s way more lucrative and hopefully a year from now it will be more passive income, which is the goal. Massage will never be passive.

It depends on my mood…sometimes I’m a Levi's and t-shirt guy, other times Im more “preppy” and like Ralph Lauren or Todd Snyder. Your provider is lucky. If a client bought me Todd Snyder I’d probably melt.

I quit my massage business recently. but I was only doing it part time around my career job.