Massage 2 Motion
One of the more interesting small business start-up projects I have ever worked on. The owner graduated from SUNY Maritime with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, then subsequently spent many years on a ship honing his skills.
Growing tired of spending long stints at sea, he decided to seek both personal and professional freedom, and pursue a career in massage therapy. As a brilliant mechanical engineer, he possessed little business start-up or development knowledge – because he really did not need it.
Good News
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He was, and still is an incredibly calm, methodical, and professional individual committed to helping others find avenues for stress/pain relief and better health, by translating his acute understanding of mechanics to that of the human anatomy and musculoskeletal system.
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Reality Check
He was the consummate technician without business experience and did not possess much start-up knowledge other than what he had researched.
Initial Challenge(s)
The massage therapy space is a brutally competitive, price-driven market inundated by part-timers, independent, and chain-type models. (In addition to those aggressive, chair-gripping “massages” performed at nail salons for some unknown reason) The owner is very mild mannered, and relatively non-competitive so it remained critically important to literally perform step-by-step start up education from planning to inception, that instilled eventual understanding of the requirements associated with recurring revenue and market sustainability.
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Recurring Challenge(s)
The social media, internet and print marketing space is cluttered with advertisements of rock-bottom or by-the-minute massages; so limited room remained for traditional advertising options. Thereafter, the advent of on-line discount voucher programs tended to drive this market to a point of saturation and daily undercutting. In reality’s sense, most people would not know the difference between a “bad” or good massage anyway. (Unless maybe if you have actually undergone the entire spectrum.) Most potential customers merely consider is; how they can get hands on them, via the most affordable massage possible.
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Plan of Attack
We DID NOT attempt to “market above the noise” in an already crowded space, rather created a network of exclusive strategic partnerships that bypassed the traffic of deal-seekers and tire-kickers, ultimately driving a client base that appreciated great massage therapy as a critical part of overall health and well-being. Once stabilized, both organically cultivated and enumerated methods for growth would be a bonus addition set to drive sustainability.
Special Implementations
The owner quickly obtained further certifications in specialized acumen as well as capitalized upon his own creativity to establish proprietary, high value service protocols not possessed by any competitors. He was then routinely placed him into specialized
presentation settings that almost guaranteed conversion to appointments.
Notable outcome(s)
The owner successfully completed the start-up process including filings, web, systems and processes creation, and has been established as an expert practitioner in specialized massage techniques. He is sought after by both his own client base and receives per-diem requests from various organizations to either practice or present. He remains under a limited advisorship structure with us.
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Personal Note
The owner is an excellent massage therapist with an expert degree of human biomechanical understanding. He possesses a particular acumen in deep tissue massage, proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, stretching and mobilization, trigger point and pain relief. He serves as my own, personal go-to source for soft-tissue/massage and stretch services.
To utilize the services of Massage2Motion visit www.massage2motion.com