I remember when I first heard about Massage Envy on the internet, I was really excited, than I was mad and became frustrated.
Massage Envy was founded by John Leonesio in Scottsdale in 2002, Massage Envy is a membership-based and single-visit provider of massages and other body-oriented services. Currently Massage Envy operates 420 franchises in 36 states with another 350 under-development, pretty impressive in just 6 years.
Friend or Foe?
I came across Massage Envy right about the time I started working on my own idea’s of building a massage business franchise. As a massage therapist at that time for nearly 9 years, I knew right away what Massage Envy success meant for me as a small massage business owner. You see my time as a male massage therapist was constantly being questioned, why did I want to do massage, what kind of massage was I going to be doing, you can’t do this, you can’t do that. I also knew from experience how difficult it would be to get the approval from the city regulators and licensing officials. Massage Envy is literally helping to change all that for future massage businesses.
Massage Envy’s success is everyone’s success, if you have plans on opening up a massage facility of your own. They are literally deregulating (or I should say getting pre-approvals) from all the cities and counties licensing officials, cutting through all the red tape for anyone coming in behind them. Massage Envy is pre-approving other massage establishments that want to take up space around or near other Massage Envy businesses.
- Massage Envy is using their time and money for getting local cities and regulators approval for their license to open a massage business.
- Massage Envy is logging in hundreds of hours in various court rooms, fighting for city permits and licensing approvals, when they are being challenged. Massage Envy is paying good money in attorney fees to fight these challenges, less you have to pay.
- Massage Envy is doing all the test marketing for different regions and demographics across the United States that they occupy, which you won’t have to. All you would need to do is see what Massage Envy businesses are well and which are not doing so well it is easy as that.
- Massage Envy aggressive expansion is bringing more individuals to massage, who may not have gotten one before because of price and negative perceptions.
- Massage Envy is the experiment, from which you can look to and learn from.
With all this said, Massage Envy is Friend. But, for all that they are friend for, they are also my foe. Not only to me but to all professional massage therapists and bodyworkers out there.
- They pay less than industry standards, the average massage therapist makes about $15 - $18 per 50 minute massage. Exploiting massage therapists straight out of school and subjecting them to less than admirable working conditions and pay.
- Massage Envy’s aggressive expansion plans will decrease the value of getting a massage, not increase it. Massage customers will continue to expect to pay less not more for their massages and future competition will only see more drops in pricing structure. Unless you change that business model.
- Massage Envy’s failure to recognize, their unique opportunity. Massage Envy can introduce many first time massage goers and individuals who seek “spa massages” to a better quality massage that is more therapeutic in nature. I believe that this could raise our level of professionalism within the massage industry to higher standard, not less.
- No in-house training program for massage therapists to increase their knowledge base.
So I ask you, “Is Massage Envy Friend or Foe?”
One day when you decide to open up a massage business for yourself, make sure that it serves the massage therapists (your employee’s) as well as your clients.
Maybe with their latest buy out by Veria, things will get better at Massage Envy. But I don’t think so, Veria only bought them out so that would have a platform to market their own health related products to a already captured-ready-made audience.
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June 2nd, 2008 at 8:49 am
Two years ago I was looking forward to checking out the two new Massage Envy’s being built in my city. I would be graduating soon and our career officer was telling everyone about them. Then a couple of us went in for interviews and found that $15 would be our pay for our hard work. Auhhggg
I have rented a room in an Acupuncture office for these two years in the same city block as one of these Massage Envy establishments. I have heard they have a good MT every once and a while but only for a couple of months.
It’s hard to get established as a therapist when all the places to work take advantage or mislead. I really enjoyed your take on it, I hadn’t thought about all the tape they must be going through, and for that I am now giving them props. But I still don’t approve of them exploiting Massage Therapist the way that they do.
Thanks for the great incite!
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 am
I wasn’t aware that Massage Envy was so agressive with the local governments taking them to court to get their laws and rules changed. I didn’t give them that much credit of making a positive impact to the massage community.
I don’t believe you can lay all the fault with Massage Envy on the way they are paying people to do massage and are not the first at low pay. Most Spas I have seen pay poorly as well. I feel that part of the blame must lie at the Massage Schools that entise people with “easy money” doing massage without truly preparing them about the field of massage therapy.
There was one Massage School in Dallas that their “graduates” were so bad at massage, that only seldom could I hire a massage therapist that graduated from that school. It seemed that the school was more interested in making money than training massage therapists and it was flooding the market with poorly trained “therapists.”
I do agree with you 100% when you said that a massage business must make “sure that it serves the massage therapists (your employee’s) as well as your clients.” I believe the clients of your business will see you through your therapists. When I had therapists, I did whatever I could to make sure the therapists were well taken care of. I felt that it was my job to take care of the therapist so that the therapist could take care of the clients.
Thanks again for your article.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Massage Envy is a constant topic of discussion. They also just presented the Massage therapy foundation with a $20,000 check for research. They are active in the community in promoting massage.
It is a good place for beginners who are also right out of massage school and high school to get a good start in just working on people. If you are one of the many older than 25 yo massage therapists, it isn’t enough to support a family on.
I would rather see more money go to the massage employees and improve their skills in dealing with clients as it is giving massage a bad image. I have been for a massage at one of those places and another franchise and they really are not aware of what the massage therapists role is in building a business really.
But for anyone who just wants a job in massage and doesn’t want much more than that for themselves then it is a good place to start.
Julie
http://www.thebodyworker.com