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by Pete Reinwald
Marilyn Kier knew the stresses of the workplace. As a business consultant for 15 years, she knew the aches in the fingers, the tightness in the shoulders, the pain in the neck. She knew she needed to bring wellness to the workplace.
She joined the chamber of commerce in Northbrook, Illinois, with the idea of sitting chamber members down and showing them what they'd been missing.
"I went there with my massage chair, and everybody looked at me like, 'Is she serious?'" Kier says. You bet she was. She still is. About 10 years later, Kier maintains a core group of about 12 companies, and others seasonally, with which she maintains relationships in the art and income of workplace- or corporate- massage.
"I had no trouble getting into any corporation from large companies like Motorola to smaller privately owned companies," Kier says. No formal studies have been done on trends, but some say corporate massage has leveled off since its 1980s mainstream introduction by TouchPro Institute founder David Palmer, known by some as the father of contemporary chair massage.
Others say it continues to boom. They cite an increasing number of therapists offering workplace massage and an increasing number of companies welcoming it with open and aching arms. "There's so much potential business out there," says Denver therapist Julie Wallace. "I get very excited when I see it becoming accepted as a mainstream idea as a wellness practice."
Says therapist Linda Dumbrigue of Novi, Michigan: "I think there is a huge untapped market, and that's why it's an interest to me." Dumbrigue is among the therapists looking for ways to tap into it. Therapists who have had success securing relationships with companies say it usually comes down to a lot of hard work, homework and creativity-and sometimes, a little luck.
Luck?
Gary Jones of Austin, Texas, says he once was doing chair massage at a public event-and the CEO of a local company sat down in his chair. "She said, 'Can you come to my company?' I happened to be in the right place at the right time."
Hard work and homework?
Kier sent out flyers to all members of the Northbrook, Illinois Chamber of Commerce. She also joined a local group called the Worksite Wellness Council of Illinois, in which businesses would vie for an annual wellness award. The businesses would attend meetings on wellness in the workplace-and Kier made sure she attended as well. Before she knew it, Kier was bidding on contracts for seated massage. "I'd determine what their goals and needs were, and I would come back with a proposal on how I could help them achieve that," Kier says.
Creativity?
Jason Miller of Enfield, Connecticut, and his partner, Kevin Zorda, spent $1,500 on newspaper ads trying to attract corporate interest to chair massage. They didn't get one call back. They knew they had to try something different. That's when they started thinking outside the box-literally.
They got a four-inch-by-four-inch box. They decorated each side with either words or illustrations that trumpeted their service. One side had an illustration of somebody receiving a chair massage. Another side showed a testimonial from a previous client. Another side included research on employee and company benefits. The top featured just four words: Think outside the box.
"It helped us stand out from the crowd," Miller says. "And it showed a little uniqueness. We'd get a call: 'That's kind of funny. You think outside the box.'"
They'd not only get a call, Miller says. They'd get a client. Miller and other massage therapists-who have been successful in workplace massage-say they can't emphasize enough the importance of the planning and work that go into securing and maintaining corporate accounts. They say therapists should be aware of the time involved in each account, some of which can take up to a half a day or a full day of work, including travel and setting up. That doesn't include communication and coordination leading up to each corporate visit and administrative duties such as billing and collections.
Successful therapists also point out that expanding into corporate massage can mean hiring and training additional therapists.
"You have to decide whether you want to be the business owner or the massage therapist," Kier says. Kier, owner of Wellness At Work, says she wants to remain a therapist. She says she scaled back on her corporate business, which "kind of runs itself now" on the strength of independent contractors whom she trained. "I personally am focusing on orthopedic massage and pain management," she says.
Kier says her background as a corporate consultant helped her to understand "all the stresses that might occur" within the workplace. Her company website (www.wellnessatwork.net) cleverly reads: "Kier, a nationally certified massage therapist who has a BA in psychology, spent 15 years working in employee benefits consulting before she switched gears and became an employee benefit."
But if a business background is helpful, a business plan is essential. Therapists should know the market, the time and money involved in winning a share of it, the resources involved in maintaining it, and the financial results therein. Kier says she uses the same business plan she wrote in massage school-a 60-page paper that features her ethics,
policies, principles, operations and more. Once their financial plans are in order, therapists are ready to go after a piece of this vast and seemingly growing corporate pie.
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American Massage Therapy Association®
