It Happens For A Reason My Own Experience Starting A Massage Business

by Booth
(Seattle)

I am currently a message therapist with my own practice in Seattle, Washington.

But understand this, starting a massage business was never something that I thought that I would do. Once I was done with my training/apprenticeship, I worked in a shop that my friend owned for 2 1/2 years.

I never really thought about having my own practice, until there was a flood at the store I worked at, and we were without our store for 3 1/2 weeks.

During this time, the majority of my weekly clients were willing to go to my house for their message (also in Seattle about 10 minutes from the shop).

This really surprised me and was the moment I realized that these people come to me for help, not to the store for help.

Once I realized that I had enough clients that I really could start my own practice, I had to decided weather to invest in a store, or work out of my basement.

For me, starting a massage business required me to look at both the pros and the cons.

The pros: Costs are extremely low in my basement and there are almost no overhead or fixed costs. The cons: For anything other than word of mouth, it's very difficult to advertise and gain new clients when there isn't a shop they can physically go and see.

So, for me, starting a massage business meant that I needed to invest in having my own store.

I worked out of my basement saving up for about 6 months and finally opened my own practice. In order to get the word out, I used the weekly coupons that are mailed to homes in the area and also listed myself in the yellow pages.

Because keeping the store open was much more expensive than I was used to, it became necessary to sub-lease to another message therapist to help with the costs.

Honestly, I was loosing money for the first 3 months, but I'm in a profitable position now that my client list has expanded and I'm willing to work small shifts on the weekend.

One of the biggest points that I'm trying to get across is that on my own, I don't thing that I would have been willing to risk so much to quit where I was working and start my own business...

But when the flood happened and I got a 3 1/2 week "trial period," I realized that I could make this happen on my own.

It's always difficult to leave your comfort zone, but you can't grow if you're not willing to take risks.

And though starting a massage business was the furthest thing on my mind, I'm glad I did it. But because of an unfortunate incident, I was forced to leave my comfort zone. Let this be a source of inspiration for you.