Pacific College Presents: Acupuncture at Sea!

I graduated and had a very similar experiences a lot of acupuncturist which was after I took the horrendous California Board Exam and passed it I don't think I ever ever thought I would pass it all of a sudden I was faced with the reality of what next what do I do now that I passed this test now that I've gotten out of school what's the next step for me and the reality was is that there was really only one step that I could take and that was private practice and the truth was I didn't know anything about private practice I had taken one class in school most of the time I zoned out or or studied other things because I just kind of felt like okay well this information isn't relevant to taking these big tests that I have to take I'll figure this out later well the later comes faster than you ever imagined it will and when it does come it's very sobering all of a sudden you realize oh my gosh I have to start a business what do I know about business and let me tell you I personally didn't know anything about business I knew that I was already in debt okay I had a massive student loan that I took out throughout school all of a sudden I was expected to pay it back I knew that starting a business required capital investment I didn't want to take out more debt okay I also knew that starting a business required a lot of information and experience that I didn't have and so that became more daunting and more terrifying as the reality of the fact that that was my only option became more and more apparent I remember calling Marilyn Ellen does everyone know Marilyn Ellen you should in our field you should know who Marilyn Ellen is I remember calling her which so many people do and saying Marilyn I passed the test do you know of any jobs for acupuncturist and she said she laughed and she said Stephanie there are no jobs for acupuncture acupuncturist you are an entrepreneur go start a business so there was that reality again that I just couldn't I couldn't get over and about four or five months after graduation I just started looking on the internet trying to find somebody that would hire me I was willing to fly anywhere as long as I could just do what I worked so hard to learn how to do but no one would hire me there were no jobs Marylyn was right my only option was to start this private practice and I actually started looking into other careers I started looking into a nursing program I started looking into becoming a PA just anything where when I stepped out I'd actually have a job because that became more and more important as the reality of the fact that I didn't have one started to sink in fortunately I came across an ad and what that ad was it was celebrity cruise lines and they were hiring they were looking for acupuncturist to to launch their acupuncture Otzi program well I saw two words I saw acupuncture I saw travel that was all I needed to say see that was it for me I sent in my resume I didn't hear back one morning at like 7:00 in the morning I get a phone call from the person who is in charge of this little pilot program she interviews me over the phone they never met me I just happened to she she explained she lost everyone's resumes except for mine so I got lucky enough to just be one of the few that that they actually had to call and two weeks later me and nine other acupuncturist were placed on the ship to launch the whole program and we were placed on the ship called the millennium and for one cruise we all kind of figured out what we were going to do we had these seminars and we quickly learn them and we try to figure out what we would do why we were on board and then they divided us up into two acupuncture spur cruise ship I was grouped with an acupuncturist named Dan Brown he's now the director of this program and we after about a month of being on board we looked at each other and we thought okay someone's cooking for us someone's cleaning for us we're in a new country every single day food is provided all we have to do is do acupuncture we don't want to go home and so this trial for us became about just not wanting to go home we were blaster you're having a time of our lives we never really thought that it would amount to anything like many people when we were hired to do this job we never thought oh a Q puncture will be a huge success on the cruise ship we just thought okay someone's gonna allow us to do acupuncture and we get to travel for free that was it but what we found is once we really started to put our effort into it once we started to work some of our experience and once we started to learn more about business about marketing about promoting acupuncture what we found is that cruise after cruise our business got better and it went from you know us being hidden in this corner of the ship and no one ever knowing that we were there in a way it was almost kind of a joke at first we were just this pilot program to a really successful exciting program people were getting better they were getting great results they were talking about acupuncture more and more people started coming to our seminars and cruise after cruise what we started showing is success at the end of our contract it was such consistent success that they invited down and itíd to to be the managers of the program and so for about two years dan and I worked with just that one cruise line celebrity Cruise Lines and we hired acupuncturist there was about 20 acupuncturist and we all just took turns going out on ships and it was a really small program but again it was a very successful program so successful that celebrity Cruise Line actually built million-dollar clinics in the center of their cruise ships okay if you go on some of their ships today you're gonna find acupuncture clinics in the center of their ship there's another cruise line that has that and the only reason why that happened is because everyone was amazed by how successful this program became eventually the spa company their name is Steiner now Steiner is the crush is the company is the spa company on literally every cruise ship in the world so it doesn't matter what cruise ship you go on whenever you go into a spa its operated by Steiner okay Prince's Norwegian crystals Carnival they're all operated by Steiner and they all of a sudden started looking at program saying wait a second if it's successful why am I not running it and so they basically took us over they they took over the celebrity program they took down and I into the office they sat down with us and said how soon can you roll out acupuncture on every ship in the world and so from 2006 until now that's all we've been doing we've been putting acupuncture programs on cruise ships one at a time and today you'll find it on literally every single cruise ship in the world every major one and it has been a very successful program one of the reasons why it's so successful is because people heal faster when they're on vacation okay think about this though okay I I when I was in LA and I was practicing in LA as an acupuncturist I would have someone come into my clinic right they would come in for one hour I would treat them then they would leave the clinic they would get into the car they would hit traffic they would get home they would clean they would cook they would sleep on mattresses that were probably bad for the back that I was treating the next day they would wake up go to the office and uncomfortable shoes hunched over at a computer for seven or eight hours drinking eating fast food and drinking coffee all day and then they would come back to me a week later for one hour I mean facing those odds I'm amazed that we ever get results at all when you're on a cruise ship you don't have to worry about that okay we see our patients every single day sometimes twice a day their relaxed no they're not they're not cooking they're not cleaning every day they're looking at the ocean okay they're in a very good space mentally spiritually they can exercise they can sit in the jacuzzi if they need to they can go in the sauna okay so it's a really conducive atmosphere for healing and because of that what you see are people getting better faster okay so the results are one of the reasons why we have been so successful never once has there been a cruise line executive that's sat in their corner office and thought I know the next best thing for cruise ships acupuncture okay that's not why we're on cruise ships we're on cruise ships because the program itself speaks for itself it still surprises Steiner how successful it is even in the recession when even massage declined acupuncture was still successful okay so the reason being people are on vacation they heal faster also think about it okay one of the main obstacles that we deal with on land as an acupuncturist is people don't have time to come and see us okay a lot of times I don't even have time to come and find to get acupuncture and I'm an acupuncturist okay so imagine most people they get really busy by their lifestyles okay and it's really hard to find time to put an hour on their calendar at least once a week and they really should be coming in more than that on a cruise ship you don't have to deal with that time is not an issue okay so all of these things are reasons why acupuncture has been successful also we have a captive audience another major reason why people don't get acupuncture they don't know anything about it acupuncture continues to remain in this shroud of mystery it's this mysterious medicine they don't know how to use it they don't know why they would use it the the the one one of the great things of working on board a cruise ship is you get to get in front of people you have a podium you can stand on a stage and explain to them why they would use acupuncture why they might need acupuncture and you have a captive audience okay so I just wanted to give you a little history about why acupuncture is even on the cruise ships okay it's a really exciting program I am always honored to have been a part of it I not only is it a wonderful program for acupuncturist to go and work onboard but it's an incredible program because it also helps to integrate this medicine into the mainstream if you think about it right now the way people use acupuncture is completely wrong right they try everything else in the world and if that doesn't work then me have an aunt that knows an uncle that has a friend that tried acupuncture right and then then we become their last hope we're their last effort to fix this problem how much more effective with this medicine be if we were their first right try acupuncture first and then if it doesn't work try surgery and drugs okay so one of the wonderful things about this program is we get to educate the masses about how acupuncture works why they would use it gee it's a major PR campaign for the medicine I have a hundred and two acupuncturist right now as we speak doing seminars three to five a week sometimes there's 2,000 people on board that will at least see the name acupuncture every week think about that exponentially how many people are just becoming a little bit more familiar because it's there and that's another reason why we're very excited about this program so let me kind of get into the basics at the end of this if you have specific questions about this program of course that's why I'm here I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what got me into it now coming into the program at this point in time you have something that I didn't have you would have choices for me we had really one one Cruise Line to choose from celebrity and their ships only went so many places was that the Caribbean Mexico or Hawaii Europe was really exciting if we got to go to Europe now because acupuncture is on so many cruise lines okay if you look at some of these I'm sure you've heard of some of these cruise lines princess cruise lines crystal wool Caribbean we're on every major cruise line what that gives you our options so let's say you decide you want to do this okay well there's a lot of possibilities here okay we've got ships where there's different motivations for people to do this job we have ships that have really exotic travel okay they tend to be smaller ships they go all over the world we even have world cruises okay where literally you're on the same ship for 180 days with the same passengers and you go to every single continent even Antarctica then we have some ships in the Caribbean these tend to be for the acupuncturist make a lot more money okay so there's a lot of reasons to do these this job and based upon those reasons we do try to fit your preferences with what we have available you do have options we kind of try to give you the the pluses and the negatives or the the advantages or challenges of each position there's always going to be both and we do try to fit you with what you're looking for as best as we can okay so the program overview right now we're on a hundred and one ships twelve different cruise lines as I said so it is it's a massive program this does provide you with options we hope to continue to grow as well every new cruise ship that's being built acupuncture is a part of it now that's pretty exciting and the incredible thing about it is that acupuncture isn't just opening the door for Chinese medicine it's also open the door for wellness since acupuncture has come into the spa all of a sudden Steiner saying okay well acupuncture works really well maybe we should open the door to other wellness ideas maybe cruisin can be more about can be about rejuvenation not just entertainment and so this expansion of the program has expanded the idea as well out there now we do worldwide recruitment the majority of our acupuncture's out there are coming from America and in fact a huge majority come from Picon we for some reason we get a lot of students from Picon which is great they do really well out there I would say if you looked at my top 20 acupuncturist you'd find a handful of pecan graduates that does says it says something about your education also just in terms of we we find that the program tends to be really good fit for your alumni we also hire from Japan Australia Europe Canada Brazil anywhere in the world where the equivalent where their training is similar to the United States so we need those 2000 hours we're actually now bringing over from China as well why should I work on a cruise ship a lot of people think about this job first and format most as an opportunity to travel that is substantial when you think about it as an acupuncturist okay here's the reality of being an acupuncturist if you like to travel I love to travel okay borne you're the horse the more I can travel the happier I am okay that is something that I've always loved when I became an acupuncturist and I graduated I realized that once I set up a practice I am NOT going to be able to travel very much anymore gee that's just reality if you leave your practice more than a couple weeks guess what your patients are gonna find somebody else then you come back and you have to rebuild almost 50 percent of your business on top of that you still have to pay your bills right you have to pay your office bill I don't know what you do with your receptionist during that time you know there's a lot of overhead that you have to cover even though you're away on a vacation very different than what you're doing now if you go on a trip all you have to worry about is the ticket price right how much is going to cost just the vacation when you have a business you now have to worry about your business well when you work at C you don't have to worry about that okay you get to travel and you get to do what you love there was a point in my life where you know as long as I got to travel I would have done anything wait tables anything you know possible that would allow me to travel I was open for it that's how much I loved to travel when I was able to actually do acupuncture what I love most and see the world that was a really good combination okay as I said we have ships that go to every continent so if there's a place in the world that you want to see this is a way that you can do that okay here's some just some quick scenery shots of Europe and Alaska the Caribbean Alaska its glacier kind of oscillate between the Alaska and the beach here here's some shots of the cruise ship is let's go back here here's some shots of the cruise ship itself this is a Caribbean ship not all the ships are this new and this big this is a Royal Caribbean ships they do tend to have some of the more flashy ships you can see here there's a basketball court in a rock climbing gym and an ice skating rink and a golf course obviously not all ships are going to look like that this is a bigger ship the reason why I'm showing you this picture is because yes you get to travel the world but working on a cruise ship in and of itself is an experience okay cruise ship has its own it has its own culture and the reality is is whether you like that culture or not is going to you're not going to know until you get out there some people get and get out there on a cruise ship and they love it it's a perfect fit they love working on board they love the international environment of working on board they love being in a new country every day some people don't but the actual living and working on the cruise ship itself is it is an experience in it of itself I know I remember when I was on my ship it was fourth of July and I went down to go celebrate the 4th of July party and there were 10 Americans that was it on the whole ship everybody else was but then when there was the soccer tournament when there was the World Cup I mean there was you know people all over Europe the whole bar was filled with people just celebrating the World Cup just to kind of give you an idea this is truly an international environment right now there's a lot of places in the world that I can go travel and stay because I have friends that live there and I met them on the ship South Africa all over Europe Philippines you know Australia there's a lot of friends that I made on the cruise ship itself that also exponentially allow you to continue to travel if that's something that you love to do as I said one of the you know some of the main reasons to do this is obviously to travel but I think as an acupuncturist you also have the opportunity to learn very valuable skills that I are very difficult to learn anywhere else can we talked about how you get to learn how to take this medicine into the masses well this is a very important skill I doubt you've come to this realization but when you get out there and start your own practice hanging up a sign is just not going to be enough okay you do that and you're not going to make it the only way to be successful in a private practice whether it's at sea or on land is to bring this medicine to the people don't think for a second that the people are going to come to you they're not okay so this is an important skill and it is a skill that you can learn at sea not only do you learn it by trial and error but we actually teach you the effective methods of bringing this medicine to the people okay there is a skill to that and it has to happen what we've found is that there's a high demand for acupuncture in Chinese medicine can we know that by how successful we are but the problem is getting the information to the people how do you do that effectively okay getting up in front of a group group of people isn't enough if I have a group of people and I do a talk about Chinese medicine that doesn't mean that at the end of my talk they're going to want to come and see me as a practitioner and that's what I mean by effectively we teach you how to get up in front of people and at the end of your seminar you have a line of people that want to see you as a practitioner okay that's bringing the medicine to the people and then motivating them to do something about it to make a difference with their health okay so the experience that you gain bringing this medicine to the masses is invaluable okay not only do you get to learn it at sea but when you do decide to start up your own private practice you make those kinds of experiences whether you're speaking to a group of people or whether you're just talking to someone one-on-one you learn how to do that effectively and you're not going to learn that in school the reason why you can't learn this in school is because you need a context I could sit and talk to you about how to turn a conversation into a pay into a treatment all day long but until you take that dialogue and practice it on people you're not going to know whether or not it's working for you okay and the when you work on a cruise ship you have the opportunity of taking the information that we've learned over six years of doing this and then practicing it on someone else's dime right you don't have to make the investment we've already done it for you all you're doing is honing this very valuable skill now here's some shots as I said education is a really important part of our program and a lot of it the acupuncture's do and in terms of getting patients is to go out in front of people in front of the passengers and do seminars that we've created that motivate people to get acupuncture so here are some examples of that now I mentioned the nice thing about this program is that you can learn these skills on someone else's dime what do I mean by that there is no there's there's very little living expenses when you work at sea okay you have someone paying for your food your room and board your office your liability insurance okay your supplies you don't have overhead that is various substantial it doesn't matter how much mate how much you make per month how much at the end of all your bills are you profiting or are you just barely making ends meet every single month do you save anything it's very difficult to save money in this day and age especially if you haven't you have your own business by the time you pay your own overhead and your business overhead you don't have very much in terms of saving well on a cruise ship this is one of the main reasons people like to work in this environment okay you don't have overhead again someone's paying for your food your room and board your liability your supplies that's a really wonderful thing when you come out of acupuncture school and you don't have a lot of experience you don't have a lot of financial you know you income so that you can invest in your own private practice so you have this opportunity to gain a lot of experience while saving money and saving money is really the key here okay if you have a lot of overhead you're not going to save the money now a lot of people ask me what is their rooms going to look like I'll be straight with you your room is going to be small look at it it's pretty small there's your bathroom I mean you could sit on your toilet wash your hands and look at the shower at the same time okay but I have to mention you do have your own room and less than 6% of the people on board have their own room most people share this small tiny little box with three sometimes even four people okay so the fact that you have your own room it is an advantage but I'm not going to tell you that it's going to be a huge suite it's not it's a tiny bed it's a desk it's a bathroom it's a closet it's a little bit of floor space enough to do a meditation certainly not enough to do a Tai Chi okay so it is going to be your own space it will be a box but it will be your box you don't spend a lot of time in your room this is a very different lifestyle than what you're probably currently living you know right now we go home we recharge we clean our room we clean the kitchen we listen to music home is this place that we spend a lot of time in on cruise ships it really is just a place where we sleep okay we sleep we get ready and then we're out we either are working and doing acupuncture or we're out in port seeing beautiful things okay never never never on your day off do you want to be in your room you know that you never know how long you're going to be doing this for and every day you're going to be in a really amazing country I remember there was one day where we were in Florence Florence Italy and that was the day I always do my laundry because it was a whole train ride to get to Florence and I thought I can be bothered with the train ride to get to Florence so I'll just do my laundry and kind of hang back boy do I regret that okay I never even saw Florence and now I really missed that you know I don't have that opportunity to hop on a train and see Florence Italy and so I tell you this story because you really don't want to spend a lot of time in your room it's really just a place sleeeeep Kate how much do you want to earn now the commission structures are going to be based upon what you're bringing in this is not a salaried position okay this is going to be based upon your gonna make as much as you work okay in terms of how many patients do you see it's very much like your own private practice right if you don't see any patients you're not gonna make any money well the same is true on on ships you're gonna get a percentage of what you bring in the treatments just to give you an idea range between a hundred dollars two hundred and fifty what you're taking from that is sixteen point six percent plus tips tips can really range depending on you depending on the cruise line on average it's another ten dollars sometimes more than that you also get a percentage of the retail so whatever you sell we have Chinese herbs we have facial products you get seven point two five percent of that I can't give you a guarantee you're never gonna hear me say that because it's a commission based position I can give you an average okay I have a hundred and one acupuncturist at sea if I take the average of what they're earning right now it's about eight hundred dollars a week okay so it's about two three sometimes four thousand dollars a month I have people on the high end okay my top five six acupuncturists are probably making anywhere between ten a couple of them are even making eleven or twelve thousand dollars a month okay that's a lot of money if you think about the fact that they have no overhead I have it I had an acupuncturist recently come to my class and tell my class I make more than the captain does she's obviously one of our top acupuncturist exception not the rule but you can make a lot of income if you're somebody who's motivated to do so okay I also have someone who's not you know I have people who don't make a lot of money you know maybe they're making a thousand dollars a month okay that's not a lot of money but you know obviously you're going to have when you have a commission based position you're going to have people on both ends and I kind of gave you an idea what's in the middle you have a question yep $95 if for 270 caps so we don't usually give people a week's worth we give people about a month's worth of herbs and we can talk more about that because I know that's different than how you're trained any other questions we do yeah you do have you do have some ability to discount okay so we have package pricing for example you can never bring the price of acupuncture below a hundred dollars so if you do that then everyone's losing money but you can bring it all the way down to a hundred dollars the full price of one treatment this is a full price acupuncture one treatment 150 follow-up 125 and then we have package prices where they're incentivized to book you know multiple at a time packages of three five seven and ten most people do book people and pack our treatment plans depends on the acupuncturist I mean the acupuncturist really sets the tone we don't really get involved with how you practice acupuncture or what you're really pushing we have our seminars we teach you our business model which is really successful and effective but ultimately if you're someone who does a lot of facial rejuvenation you're gonna push it in your seminars you're going to talk about it and then you're gonna motivate people to get it so I mean if you think about it this is an incredible opportunity for whatever you want to promote you are basically it's like moving to a village of 2,000 people and you're the only acupuncturist okay there is no competition go to San Diego throw rock okay it's just like LA you'll hit an acupuncturist there's acupuncture is on every corner in these beautiful places but on the ship that's it you're it there's no competition and so if you want to promote facial rejuvenation there's business there for that yeah the only exception is we have a few ships where there's couples the the husband and wife are both acupuncturist they're good we put them on a ship where they have a clinic so we have seven ships that have acupuncture clinics that the celebrity clinics and their four rooms and so it can accommodate the couples it also accommodates our top rack you know acupuncturist you ask if you ask me who's making you know that top end of the ten thousand dollars a month you know it's the people who are running three and four rooms an hour to get to that number you really do have to be a whirlwind and that's not for everybody yes it is that most ships you can run at least two rooms yeah I mean every every cruise ship will have your own treatment room on port days which is usually the majority you'll have Yuki you can swing two or three rooms because people will have their day off if the acupuncturist before you was really busy then the spa manager a lot of times if there's an extra room we'll give two full rooms for the acupuncturist okay so it will depend on your experience level who you came who was there before you obviously if we put an acupuncturist on a cruise ship and they're not filling those two rooms on a regular basis they put a massage therapist in the room and now you have one full time and then another one on a swing on a port day so the treatment rooms will vary we do have some ships that have fixed three and four rooms those are celebrity ships those will be for people that we know can run three and four rooms and coming in a school you wouldn't even want to try running three and four rooms that's something you would want to work in too yeah they're proprietary blends they're actually certified organic which you're never gonna find anywhere else yeah and they're proprietary blends they come from China they work really well they were designed by a group of Chinese doctors for specifically for the cruise ships so they work well they're very safe they are better quality than anything you're going to find here so they're really you know they're excellent formulas the only the downside to the Chinese herbal formulas is you know we only have about ten of them so you have to mix and match them yeah you can so let's say someone has like spleen sheet efficiency and yin deficiency you would just combine the two formulas and adjust the dosage so and we go over that during overtraining you know this isn't these aren't things we expect you to know we expect you to know basics about Chinese herbs but we do go over kind of the fine is a little bit more of the details obviously when you come through training well that's a good question and it really depends I mean a great itinerary for acupuncture or any business the more si days and that's the ship that's the day when the ship is that see the more see days the busier you're gonna be okay the port days are gonna be days where people get off but the thing about it is that port days are not necessarily all day sometimes the ship doesn't get into important till noon and so because as acupuncturist we can run you know several rooms at a time so maybe you're practicing from 8:00 until 1:00 okay and you're seeing two people an hour so that's substantial you know a lot of people you might have a couple hours off in the day they get off and then they come back on and maybe have a couple hours before they go to dinner there's going to be times when you have the full day off just like do they do import you know so your schedule will be based upon you know the ship where it's located and and the volume trying to get as many people as possible while they're there when you first start know you're gonna go on board and the spot manager will create your schedule you you don't know enough yet to book your own schedule eventually the longer you do this you know you go on board you know what you're doing especially if you're successful the spa manager gives you pretty much space to run your own business it's not something that you're gonna get from the get-go and the manager technically is your supervisor so if she decides you're not running your schedule right she'll step in most of the time if the success if the acupuncturist is really successful because the small manager doesn't get paid on salary either she gets paid or he gets paid on a commission of the whole spa so the better you do the more freedom you're gonna have in terms of scheduling you do work a 52 hour workweek okay so I just want to make that clear that's about 12 hours more than probably what you're used to I don't know that you're students so I'm not really sure what kind of schedule you're running right now keep in mind a lot of times you know that might sound like a big number and it is you're going to be working probably a lot more than maybe you would on land but you're not driving you're not cooking you're not cleaning you're not doing a lot of the mundane things that take up at least 12 hours during your week okay so when it kind of boils down to is you have this period of time where you're really focusing on acupuncture yes no no we expect you to definitely keep notes you have an intake form it's gonna be a lot more brief just like the liability form will be a lot more abbreviated than what you would have on land but it's very important for you to keep good records so you know yes you will have an intake form yes they have to sign their liability release yes you have to put your points we really put a lot of emphasis I hopefully you guys are learning how to do this in school we have found that this is really important on on ships to do needle counts that's another thing that's really important on our intake forms yeah yeah that's tough unfortunately unless your wife is an acupuncturist we you can't really bring her on board so you would either have to right now we have it so that you could do short contracts and that's what a lot of married people do but after August no because we have to pave it rolling so everybody who goes on board we pay for it it's not just that you know we pay the cruise line room & board food and things like that and so we can't let spouses unfortunately come so you'd have to basically be away for seven months unless she won I mean a lot of times then I do have people who are married out there it's just you know they'll they'll pay for their wife to cruise the nice thing is a lot of the cruise lines and you'd have to really kind of figure out how to do this once you get out there if you stay with the cruise line let's say you do maybe multiple contracts with one cruise line by your second contract sometimes even your first you can have a friend or family come and cruise with you from pretty much free they paid $10 a day and they get a free cruise okay so you know the more people you know out there that helps every Cruise Line has their own rules around that but you're you know actually you you get better deals than we do in terms of bringing a friend or family member on board if you stick with a cruise line any other questions before I okay your office space okay obviously ideally you want a window you know but but you might not have one that's an inside cabin inside cabin treatment room outside and you know it's it's really nice when you have here let me go back to this when you have a window because you pretty much will have an ocean view to your office I mean if you think about how much that would cost you and lay on to have an ocean view office but even if you have an inside room I mean there it's a it's a it's a beautiful five-star treatment room that you have that you're able to use I've seen all kinds of different treatment rooms they're all you know I think they're all really nice but in general I just wanted to give you an idea of of what they might look like we talked a little bit about the products that you have to sell you do get a percentage yes you have we provide you with an e stem with alcohol swabs with sharps containers biohazard containers the herbs the products no moxa no cupping okay moxa there's no ventilation for it not to mention we don't even want to deal with the burns that come with moxa number two cupping it's just not a great advertisement for what we do think about the pool think about formal night even if someone wore a sign that says this didn't hurt everywhere that person goes everyone's looking at him like what did you do so that's not exactly the the press that we want for action functions let the advertisement that we find is effective so so those that you go back to basics I mean I have to tell you when I was on board I only had acupuncture no Eastham no heat lamp no herbs no nothing just needles and I came from a school where herbs were everything and I cupped every patient practically because I was such a big and I did you know bleeding and moths of so when I went on board and found out that the only thing I had were needles I was thinking oh my gosh and now I'm charging three times what I was charging in the clinic how is this gonna work well the nice thing is is you really get to see the power of acupuncture you know out there you get to see how powerful just acupuncture is so the good news is is you do have a lot more than what we start up if you do have Eastham you do have herbs you have massage oil you have a lot of products to use you also have amazing facial products okay for those of you who do want to do facial rejuvenation out there not only is there a business that you can promote but there's products and they're really good products they are based on essential oils most of them are organic ingredients and the essential oils are cold-pressed they're really really awesome and so the nice thing about it is not only do you have to invest in products you don't have to do that you have excellent products that you can recommend to your guests that they we'll get good results with I think a lot of times what happens with acupuncturist and I've seen this with just even my own friends who are acupuncturist when they get out of school what ends up happening is they invest all this money into an herbal pharmacy okay $3,000 or whatever else and they're really excited and they put their Herbal pharmacy up and they're really you know they can't wait for the first patient that comes through the door the patient comes in and they recommend you know Joey Xiaoyu sign and then the patient says something like well let me check with my doctor first oh I'm on medication I don't really want to take those herbs sorry when the acupuncturist is ok all right you know get to the next person well eventually you know you're too later a lot of these herbs start expiring ok and then you end up throwing them out not only did you not make any money but you actually lost money so then you say ok let me invest in another Herbal pharmacy so you invest more money and if this happens a couple times eventually you stop buying the herbs and the supplements because they expire and you lose money and then you just practice acupuncture and a lot of people after 10 years that's exactly what they're doing they're just practicing acupuncture and that's why what's good about working for Steiner and what's good about working on board is that you get to work with our products that are excellent and you get to learn how to address those questions comfortably ok if someone says hey I don't want to take that because I'm on a medication or let me talk to my doctor first you learn how to address those concerns comfortably and you can do that you know while using our products and so you learn how to bring in supplements bring in herbs bring in those kinds of things so when you are ready to invest in a herbal pharmacy you'll find that you'll be a lot more comfortable with that and you'll you won't lose money like a lot of people are doing ok so what is a typical day going to be here what what I have here is basically a CE day so this is going to be your busiest day ok sometimes you have to see days a week sometimes ideally you'd have three that would actually be the best schedule believe it or not and then sometimes you only have one C days are going to be the days where you see the most patients they're also going to be your busiest where you work the longest hours and they are long days okay you are gonna start in the morning 7:30 meeting okay you'll get up now keep in mind 7:30 might sound early but it's not like you have to get in the car you're an elevator ride away from work you get dressed whatever you do eat some breakfast and take an elevator up to work you have your meeting with your whole team and then ideally you'd be treating patients until your seminar you do your seminar after your seminar that's ideally when you're booked up and you're treating patients you have your lunch break you have dinner that's a C day yes well that's a good question in the beginning of the beginning of every itinerary you have what's called embarkation day where you have everybody coming on board and they're doing spa tours we train you how to take that take that opportunity where you have all those people coming to you and then book patients from that so you're going to be booking your morning up from embarkation day you should book the rest of your day up from your seminar and then you put everyone on a treatment plan right so let's say you book ten people and all those people are on a treatment plan of three five and seven that pretty much fills your whole schedule every week now you know every additional seminar just fills in the gaps you have referrals from your patients from within the team that's how you're gonna fill your schedule week after week okay it can be really consistent once you learn what you're doing and how to do it it's very repeatable hey and that is one of the benefits I think of working at state is there's a very clear objective this is what I need to do right now this is what I need to do next and now this is what I need to do and if I do these things I will be busy every cruise and again the good news is is we don't expect you to know how to do that we do provide training to teach you how to do one step then the next and the next okay I know I didn't learn that in school I would go to treat a patient and then they would just magically reappear the following week okay never once did I book them never once did I decide when they should come back they just came back that's not what happens in real life right you treat somebody and if you don't have if you don't set up a treatment plan with them you'll never see them again for all they know you are supposed to cure their 25-year back pain with one treatment and so we do teach you in training how to set up a treatment plan and that is going to be really important in terms of feeling your schedule we refer to a queue finder I mean we have no ties to a queue finder you can refer them to whatever site that's comfortable for you I have a lot of acupuncturist that practice you know in nearby port towns and they'll say we get a lot of people from the khrushchev's so you know a lot of what you do there will be some people who have you know acupuncture on board and their pain might not come back I mean that might be good for them for a while and then there'll be people who get good results and want to continue treatment and then you say listen you can put in your you know zip code and a list of qualified practitioners in your area will come up so however you want to handle that is up to you we you know we're not allowed to give out specific recommendations we don't want to be tied to any specific agency or specific acupuncturist but of course we want to have people continue their treatment paperwork's usually fill out paperwork throughout the day both and it depends how busy you are and it depends on you know how busy you are really you're gonna be doing your people work throughout the day and then at the end of the day you have to ensure in everything in through like what's called a smart machine so there's no cash that takes place on board everything is electronic and so at the end of the day you have you've been working from one data machine all day long then you just have to match against the other data machine it'll take you 10 20 minutes when you first get on board it'll take you a couple minutes after you've been on board for a while you can go fast once you get used to it you have well probably not as thorough as what you're used to I mean it's a good practice and you certainly can and that's great it just depends how busy you are you you there will be an intake form what's most important that we absolutely need from you and that we will audit from time to time is that did the patient feel sign the liability waiver number one number two did you point your put write down your point prescriptions very important for obvious reasons right if there's ever a question about your treatment we need to know where those needles went number three needle counts if you want to see needle tens ten needles went in ten needles came out those are the three things we need from you in terms of your intake everything else is up to you as a clinician one contracts yeah I mean right now we have flexible contracts but there's going to be some changes that take place in August there's something called the mlc maritime labor laws and they're just regulating basically a lot of the the labor that that's not just on cruise ships it's not even really about cruise ships but we got lumped into it it's more about people who travel on ferries and things like that yeah and so because of some of the laws that are coming down we're gonna have to start being more rigid with our contracts urines unless you're graduating right now yeah so you realistic we're looking at seven months right now we are we might at some point change it so that you fly yourself there we fly you home either one that's fine yeah we just we need a diploma and we need either NCCAOM or state license either one is fine any other questions seven it'll change it seven months onboard its this will all be coming August and because you guys aren't if you were let's say you're applying for the job now there's some flexibility we've been we've we've had flexibility for years but come August with some of these news laws that are coming down that really they have nothing to do with us but we have to abide by them we have to be rigid with the settlement contracts yeah you know honestly you kind of it takes about four months your first contract to really know what you're doing anyway and those last three months it's like okay now I know what I'm doing now I can really you know make the make makes make some good money have get some good experience I'll go over that any other questions ongoing every month I do training and every month I hire absolutely you will what this doesn't show is your time off okay you will have time off you have day and a half off every week and then you have the hours outside of the 52 hours okay 52 hours will take up a lot of your week in terms of the day time there's gonna be a lot of time where you're gonna have off most of the cruise lines allow you to use the guest gym in non peak hours which is fine you wouldn't go during peak hours anyway so that's the morning in the night they'll all have if they all have a crew gym so if you're not allowed for some reason to use the guest the guest gym you can use the crew gym there are ways to exercise also your day off I mean I have an acupuncture as two loves to bike ride okay so every time she's in a port the way she sees the port is by you know renting a bicycle and traveling around and she's been working with us for so many years that actually the ship that she stays on she stays on this one ship for through she's been on it for three years on and off they actually let her keep a bicycle on they're not I mean don't expect that okay that that's weird I've never heard that before but you know you will find your way within this I know for me before I worked on a cruise ship I did a lot of Tai Chi I did a lot of Qi Gong I did a lot of yoga those were all things that were part of my daily practice when I worked on a cruise ship it became very obvious that I was not gonna be able to maintain those routines so I found new things right I for me I like to walk on the top the top the track just to get the fresh air or the walking deck I did that I went to the gym when I was in port I would go bike riding or I would go jogging on the beach there was always something that I could do to get my energy moving and it was different but I still kind of ended up at the same place okay so you will find your routine you have to you have to so you'll kind of figure out these are my options and out of these options these are going to be the best fit for me there's going to be a lot of rules around guests okay you have to realize that we're the ones working on board we're not on vacation and these people they've worked all year round to go on this vacation they're very excited and the experience is about them it's not about us you know I have a lot of acupuncturist who do yoga you know they do this some in their room they do it a lot of times in Port there is a yoga class that you could take on your day off it'll be your friend who's teaching it some of you probably even know more about yoga may well but you know at least it'll kind of maintain your flexibility and things on your day off you have to clear it from your spot manager but yeah it shouldn't be a problem it's not going to be it's going to be different than what you're used to though now yeah here's what's on limits and here's his off limits okay so you will have a lot of areas that are your own okay so there'll be crew areas where guests are not allowed okay has everyone here seen the matrix it's a lot like that movie where you have this kind of industrial area and that's kind of like real life because people are living in these areas and you know you can wear whatever you want in that area and then you go into the guest areas and these are areas that you know there's artwork and music and in there you know everything's really done to the nines and that's where the guests are okay they don't even know that these other areas exist and you're going to be going in and out of these areas so in the crew areas you know that's your time where you're comfortable you can wear what you want you know there's there's you know you can just relax in the guest areas when you're in a guest here you're on so even if it's your time off there will be nights like formal night for example formal night is when you get dressed up everybody does men wear tuxedos and ties women wear gowns and you'll be one of them okay you'll go out on formal night you know there'll be music there'll be a show if you have a ship that has a restaurant you know maybe you've got a restaurant that night the difference between you and the gas is that you have a nametag so that means that there is accountability to your actions so let's say you go to the bar and you're rowdy and you're crazy well if your guest no one's gonna say anything to you but because your crew and you have your nametag if you're making not at your feet you're being if you're creating issues if you're being rude to the waitress then your actions will be held accountable yes you are allowed to joint you but when you're in a guest area you you still need to always know that your actions will be held accountable okay so there is there is a big difference between relaxing in a crew area and relaxing in a guest area just like let's say you go see the show their shows and you know the shows are wonderful a lot of times you can go to this show no you can go to the show but you're not going to get the best seats in the house is all go to the guest you'll probably be sitting in the back watching the show from you know a little bit further of a vantage point and every ship is different okay and the rules are gonna really differ based upon the hotel director on board based upon the cruise line you know all of these things are going to be very different pretty much usually off which ship I briefly mentioned that you do have options you know we it is in my best interest to match you with what I think is going to be a good fit for you okay I I only have three days with you and training people kind of tell me okay I really need to save money on this trip oh I really want to see the world I will try to match you the best I can with what you're looking for I don't always have that flexibility or that availability your placement will be based upon your performance at training you availability and what I have available requirements we already we already kind of went over this really quickly seven-month contract acupuncture license also a physical you do need to be physically fit to work on board what does that mean is that everyone will have to go through a physical before they're cleared to work on board and that will that physical is outlined by the cruise line so role Caribbean has their own physical Norwegian has their own physical there is a port doctor that you can go see in San Diego in LA you will have to pay for the physical it can range anywhere between a hundred and fifty to four hundred fifty dollars or even sometimes more depending on which Cruise Line if money isn't it is a real issue for you then we can try to fit you on a cruise ship where the medical is not going to be that expensive we don't pay for that that is going to be a cost for you because if you don't pass the physical we can't put you on board also we expect for you to be able to run at least two rooms I don't know if you're able to do that in the school right now can you guys run multiple rooms no so so starting at starting out I guess at this point we would just need you to be open-minded to the fact that we do have that expectation so if you're not used to doing it at this point you just would be have to have to be comfortable with stepping into a situation where that might be the reality I wasn't used to doing it and I stepped until two and and three if I could do it you could do it she's time management oh wait I'll get to your questions ability to publicly speak on TCM taught topics there is a lot of public speaking when it comes to this job that's just the reality if that terrifies you welcome to the club everybody is terrified of public speaking they did a survey and apparently public speaking is scarier than death okay so if you find yourself intimidated by public speaking you're not alone all I can tell you is you'll get over it you do it so much in this job and the wonderful thing is you have a revolving audience so if you do a seminar and it doesn't go well you get a new audience in seven days it's not a big deal and obviously completing our training core the training course is in Los Angeles it's three days it's free you can attend the training course without even committing to the position it's a chance for you to really get more information about this job and make sure that it's for you I mean this is such a quick orientation it's a seven month commitment we want to make sure that you feel really good about making that commitment before you do and the course would be the next step now it's just a really quick one it's not it's not like what they're training out there it's it's a it's an abbreviated facial rejuvenation okay so I've gone over really a lot of the benefits of this of this position I I also want to go over the challenges because I think that you should know both it's important to note it is a 52 hour workweek it is going to be hard work you are living with a lot of people you may or may not get along with all of those people you may or may not like your spa manager if I you know I always get the question what are reasons why people break contract or that they don't like this job I would say number one reason they don't like their manager okay whether or not you get along with that person I don't know that's a variable I have no control over okay if you find yourself in confrontation with a lot of people this person tends to be very you know type-a you know they're in charge of 20 people okay so so getting along with people is really important you're going to be living and working with a lot of people very far out of your comfort zone okay you will be away from friends and family you're going to be eating different food you're going to be treating a lot of patients a lot more than what you're doing now okay you're going to be doing a lot of public speaking which is uncomfortable for most people we will be meeting people from all over the world you'll be in a new country every almost every day this is very far out of your comfort zone and you know the challenge to that is that you're going to feel really uncomfortable when you first get there for a period of time but the reward and the benefit of that is mence okay I I can't tell you how many acupuncture's I've seen come into our program and you know not sure of their next step not sure of themselves as an acupuncturist okay not confident in their skills and even after one contract they leave with confidence okay they learn how to to build and book people in for treatments they learn how to not just talk about Chinese medicine but to motivate people okay to get people out of their chairs and want to make a difference in their health okay they learn these very valuable skills and a lot of confidence not just as themselves as a practitioner but as a person okay something beautiful happens when we step outside of our comfort zone okay we learn that we can do anything we set our minds to and that we don't need anyone in order to achieve our dreams and you really get to see that on board okay I know for me I wasn't confident when I graduated acupuncture school and I I was a I was on Honor Roll I was a great student but I had only seen five cases of everything five cases of back pain a couple cases of knee pain a couple cases of sciatica how can you be confident if all you've seen is a couple cases of everything and until you can look at someone in their eye and say you know what I can help you you will not be successful as an acupuncturist how do you get that confidence only one way experience we're happy to give you that experience so I'm happy to be here today to provide you with that job opportunity so that you don't have to graduate looking on the internet thinking oh my god my only option is private practice and I know nothing about business you have another option when it comes to jobs options are a good thing especially in this day and age Europe from my first contract and there was a portion of people who spoke French and Spanish and some of them came in for treatment and I would pull on the international hostess and I would have her translate you know I learned things like duelo or civil you know like stuff feel okay you can pull in a translator for that to do your seminars though you you know you're not going to be able to do a full seminar in a different language you would sure you get a lot of you know there's a lot of also Americans that are on their ships the ships that are dominantly like French we wouldn't put you on or Spanish we just wouldn't even put you on unless you spoke the language

Channel: Pacific College of Health and Science

Views: 10,603

Keywords: Acupuncture Field Of Study, Herbs, Pacific College Of Oriental Medicine Organization, Tcm, Pacific College Of Oriental Medicine, Herbology, ship, Holistic, pcom, Integrative Medicine, Alternative Medicine Medical Specialty, Education, Pacific College, Oriental Medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine Field Of Study, PCOM, TCM, holistic medicine, Oriental medicine

Id: DWKkOPmuJkc

Length: 64min 34sec (3874 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 13 2013