Massage for the masses - Florida Weekly

[massage]

ON A SCALE OF AMERICAN APPETITES and habits good and bad, there may be two extremes: On the one hand, the destructive opioid epidemic.

On the other hand, wellness, and the growth of businesses and industries devoted to healthier Americans


— to people who have learned that we all live in bodies with a planned obsolescence, and keeping them tuned is one of the great joys of existence, as well as a way to extend their shelf lives.

These statistics from the Global Wellness Institute, a trade organization, suggest just how important the industry has become: “The global wellness economy is a $4.2 trillion market. The industry grew 12.8% from 2015–2017, from a $3.7 trillion to a $4.2 trillion market, nearly twice as fast as global economic growth (3.6 percent). Wellness expenditures ($4.2 trillion) are more than half as large as total global health expenditures ($7.3 trillion).”

That may be a significant reason why Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Massage Envy, a business offering “total body service” in massages, skin care and state-of-the-art stretching at prices working people can afford, has taken off in the United States. Franchisees may pay $500,000 to $700,000 to open a new franchise. There are almost 1,200 stores nationwide.


Owners and managers, top: John Preston, M.C. Schwenk and Gordon Kaufman, and bottom: Steve Schwenk, Judy Husen and Maryann Preston. MASSAGE ENVY / COURTESY PHOTOS


One of those, the Naples Massage Envy managed by longtime general manager Craig Keane, recorded the second highest number of service hours for massages and other therapies in the United States, in January — 3,462. And that’s in a smaller store with 14 rooms, instead of the typical 18 or so.

“For us that’s easy because we are the leaders in the industry in terms of customer care. That’s who we are,” says Mr. Keane.

You can pay $65 for an hour-long massage or deep stretching or specially designed skin therapy, or you can become a member for $65 a month and pay $45 for every additional hour after the first you spend at a store getting healthy or just feeling wonderful, managers say.


John Preston, president of the five-store Massage Envy of Southwest Florida. He is pictured here at Yosemite.


The other reason for the company’s success is smart management. The company employs about 25,000 people nationwide. Each franchise owner is trained, hiring licensed therapists, giving them additional training, and providing them good salaries and benefits including programs to help them stay healthy in a very physical and demanding job — which is why so many stay to work for years.

“Self-care in the therapist community is important — they’re on their feet for hours, they use hands and backs heavily, so we have self-care tools and educational programs,” Mr. Keane said.

“We teach therapists the importance of self-care. It’s a very demanding job. We were the first in the country to come up with structured programs for our therapists. So many have been here over 10 years, which is unheard of in the industry.”

While there have been lawsuits filed against franchise holders in parts of the U.S., including the east coast of Florida, for workers allegedly sexually assaulting patrons, that hasn’t happened in the stores in Southwest Florida.

“Everything is franchise specific, and there’s a risk when a company has 1,200 stores. But we (in Southwest Florida) have never had a problem, and we lead the industry in terms of safety, both from employees and customers,” said Mr. Preston.

Judy Husen, who has managed the south Fort Myers store for more than a decade, says she hasn’t really worked since the day she started at Massage Envy. “I’m a firm believer that if you love what you do, you don’t work for a living.”

She describes people with cancer, old people, athletes, highly stressed business people — all of whom find solace and strength in massages and other treatments.


“Massage used to be for wealthy people, but we’ve made it affordable, convenient and professional,” she says — in stores open seven days a week from morning into the late evening.

How it works

“At any given store we probably average about 30 therapists, and in any given hour at our five stores we have 50 or 60 people coming in,” says John Preston, group manager and co-owner with his stepfather, Gordon Kaufman, and Steve Schwenk (who helped start the Naples store) of the five-store Southwest Florida Massage Envy. Their stores range from Naples to Fort Myers and Cape Coral, comprising five of 22 stores stretched from Naples to Tampa, including three in Sarasota County.

Next month, the Southwest Florida group will hit a record-setting precedent: 1 million hours of the special treatments they seem to do better than anyone else.

“It took us 10 years to get to 500,000 service hours, and we’ve reached a million in the next four,” Mr. Preston notes. As a result, the group is planning a significant give-back celebration, with year-long membership and free massage giveaways along with other prizes.

“We’re just trying to say thank you to the people who got us here,” he acknowledges.

Massage Envy Southwest Florida got its start 14 years ago after Mr. Kaufman had two heart attacks and decided he was overworked and overstressed as owner of a construction company in St. Louis.

“He actually read about Massage Envy in the St. Louis Business Journal and decided it could be a nice retirement job for fun — and healthy,” Mr. Preston recalls.

“So he sold the construction business, moved to Southwest Florida, and opened the first Massage Envy store in Naples.”

It was fun all right, but it sure wasn’t a retirement, apparently. Mr. Preston came aboard with his stepfather seven years ago, after working in the banking industry in Missouri. He found the old man not only with three stores but planning to open a fourth. And working a lot more than 40 hours a week.

While massages of 60, 90 or 120 minutes are the core of the business, it has expanded to include other increasingly popular therapies as well.

His explanation lends an immediate sense to the larger picture: the health of an industry — wellness — that in the case of the Southwest Florida group actually grew more robust during the recession and continues to grow.

“We have a full line of skin-care services, from your basic relaxing facial to a medical-grade, results-driven skin care service,” Mr. Preston says.

“We have different product lines. We’ve partnered with Obagi and Jan Marini, high-end skin-care lines aimed at results — a lot of times they’re carried at medical spas or dermatologists’ offices.

“We also give chemical peels, and we offer a microderm infusion. A microderm abrasion is like sandblasting your face, and this infuses serum into the skin on a cellular level.”

But that’s not all. Stretching and Rapid Tension Relief or RTR, are gaining awareness as a key to wellness. RTR comes in 10- or 30-minute sessions using vibration therapy to promote blood flow and loosen muscle fibers.

And, “We do a very focused assisted stretching, developed with chiropractors, our own method of stretching. It’s called the Streto method: a full body stretch in a 30- or 60-minute increment. They start at the top, at the neck, and go through from head to toe, working down the spine, working outward, and ending up at the feet.” ¦

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