Calling all motivated massage therapists. No more playing small or working for pennies.
We are currently accepting applications to join us at Stay Home Massage. We are a collective of independent owners who share business burdens and expenses so that we all flourish. Positions available and locations are limited. If you are motivated and looking for the perfect opportunity to grow, we encourage you to apply. Unlike a traditional franchise, you retain 100% ownership of your business and 100% control over your earnings while reaping the benefits of a national brand.
Mobile massage is taking off. People want to enjoy all the benefits of massage with the comfort of being in their own home. It’s growing so much that the net worth of the two top national brands (Zeel, Soothe) has jumped over the 50 million mark. But how do you compete with a national giant as a small business owner? You collaborate! Stay Home Massage offers you the benefits of national collaboration but without the chokehold of working for someone else.
So what does it take to start your own mobile massage business? You’ve done the hard work of learning massage just to turn around and face the mountain of starting a business. Here are a few things that you’ll need to do.
Pick a Name
This sounds easy enough right? Nope. Your name has to be easily recognizable. It has to be something that doesn’t confuse people. It has to be generic enough that it can show up in a google search (this is why using your name rarely works), yet catchy enough that people can remember it. The time you have to explain what you do and where you do it is the blink of an eye. Unless you are a nationally recognizable name (ie Nike) then you must be self explanatory. (ie Stay Home Massage)
Trademark the Name
Since you didn’t use your given name as your business name (to make it easier for people to find you on google) you’re going to need to trademark that name. Why? When I started my first business over 10 years ago I skipped this step. I picked my catchy name, I printed off business cards, I made posters, and I started my website. I was 3 months into making money with this business when I got a cease and desist letter from an attorney. I was using a name that was already protected by a trademark. It didn’t matter that I lived in a different state from the trademark owner or that I was in a completely different line of work. I had no choice. I had to go around town taking everything down. I had to switch everything on my website and print materials. It cost me so much money and time plus I was back to having to find a new name. So how much will the trademark cost you? It could range from $500-$2000 depending on your legal team and how thorough your trademark searches are.
Register Your Business
Every state has different fees and different requirements. It’s important to check with your state’s Secretary of State on what your individual requirements are. This ranges from $50-$500 paid annually or bi-annually and that’s not including any business help fees.
Get a Website
People have to know where to find you. Your website should be as easy to find as your name. (ie stayhomemassage.com). Do you happen to have a degree in coding as well? If not, then you’re going to need to hire someone to do your website. Between hosting fees, domain name fees, buildout fees, and annual maintenance fees- you-re looking at between $2000-$10,000.
Choose a Clinical Software
Once you have a website, you need a way for people to book with you, pay you, and have their charts on file. You could manually do charts, you could charge cash, and you could only allow people to schedule with you over the phone….if you want your business to die. The reality is that people want access to your schedule at any time. And that might be when you are already with a client. That’s where clinical software comes in. Clinical software saves you time and makes you more money, but it does come at a cost of between $60-$100 monthly and that doesn’t include setup fees.
BUSINESS GROWTH
SEO
This is search engine optimization. This is what you have to do in order for google, bing, duckduckgo, or any of the big guys to see you. There are millions of websites now so to show up on the first page of a search engine takes a lot of SEO. As a small business owner, you have to be working on your SEO all of the time. The most efficient way is to outsource this process. You are looking at around $1500 a month in SEO services and it takes several months before you see results.
Marketing
THIS IS HUGE. Marketing can suck you dry of any funds you have. If you want to compete with the big guys, you have to spend money and time on marketing. If you are new to marketing then it is going to cost more in learning and also in trial and error. One of the easiest and cheapest ways to market is digitally, though learning the rules for the different platforms takes…you guessed it….time and money. Over the course of 10 plus years in marketing I have spent thousands and thousands on courses as well as thousands on trial and error ads to see which ones work the best. Since marketing can really be a limitless amount of money, I’ll just outline the learning process. Learning digital marketing is going to cost you between $1000-$5000 or to have someone else write your ads, emails, and flyer words is going to cost between $100-$2000 a month. Keep in mind that this doesn’t include the actual cost of running the ads or printing the door hangers. This is just for the words to put on ads and emails.
Networking
There is a reason that there are so many networking communities out there, they work. Having people to bounce ideas off of, or someone to show you how they dealt with a similar problem to yours can save you so much money and time. Most networking groups that are worth your time will cost you money. BNI which is one of the most well known national brands will cost you around $600 a year. Plus you are expected to give a certain number of referrals to the other members which means more of your time.
This is a pretty broad overview but you are looking at around 2-3 months to start your business, between $6000-$20,000 startup fee (not including monthly costs between $1600-$3600), and a whole lot of stress. It’s no wonder why many massage therapists opt to stay small and struggle, or work for the big guys and never make what you’re worth.
There’s a Better Way
As a massage therapist myself, I understand the unique struggles of having a mobile massage business. I took what I learned running my first business and used those tools to start Stay Home Massage. We have grown in the Portland OR area and I now have contract employees that work for me. We have survived and thrived through the pandemic because of our ability to be mobile.
One of the reasons why national brands do well is because they have the ability to share resources such as SEO and marketing ideas. The downside to joining a national brand is that you lose a lot of the decision making powers and a portion of your money. Not to mention the enormous franchising fees that make it very hard to join in. For example, to own a massage envy franchise starts at $45,000.
Join the Collective
Joining the Stay Home Massage Collective as an owner has an upfront investment of $5000 with a monthly maintenance fee of $600. What do you get with that?
*Name and Trademark Leasing: You get the protection of having a trademarked name that lends itself to easy online searches. The name will be adapted to the city that you choose (i.e. Stay Home Massage Chicago, Stay Home Massage Dallas)
*Professionally Made Website: You will enjoy the benefits of the main Stay Home Massage website as well as a microsite specific to your region. This gives you the platform to start attracting customers right away.
* Help Navigating Clinical Software: We here at Stay Home Massage endorse using Clinicsense as our preferred software. We will help you navigate using this software as well as give you advice on how to make it work the best for your business.
*SEO Totally Included: We cannot stress enough how much search engine optimization will affect your business. This is a major reason why the big guys remain the big guys. People need to be able to find you on google (and other search engine sites). Because of the unique way that we are running this collective, you get to take advantage of the SEO that has already been running on our main site. It’s a huge leap ahead. The more we work together, the higher we all rise.
*Marketing Blueprints: As a business owner, marketing will be an important part of letting people know who you are and what you can do for them. Your membership in the Stay Home Massage Collective comes with all of the tools, education, and actual PDF’s for marketing. You will get the social media posts, the email wording, the text sequences, and the print material images you need to succeed. This simple plug-and-play marketing can be adapted to your area and you retain full control over what you want to use.
*The Perfect Network: As a member of the Stay Home Massage Collective, you will be part of a growing network of owners who are facing many of the same struggles and successes as you. We have monthly meetings where we will learn from each other and navigate building our businesses. The best part is that since we are not in direct competition with each other, the walls come down and true collaboration happens.