We recently connected with Alicia Marsicovetere and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alicia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

There are several things we do differently from the industry standard. First off, we really focus on our clients’ needs by communicating with them, by using a variety of pressure, and by taking a therapeutic approach to massage. We strongly believe in the health benefits of massage and our staff is excellent at what they do to help everyone in their health journey, whether it be working on decreasing pain and tension, helping after injuries or surgeries, or helping people relax and renew to reset emotionally and physically. We take client satisfaction very seriously and really ensure an excellent massage. That gives us the edge and we now have over 600+ five-star reviews.

The second part of doing things differently from industry standard is hiring the absolute best staff and massage therapists. We try to find the most incredible massage therapists in town, therapists that have their own specialties and style, but can focus on our clients’ needs. Part of hiring the best, is also supporting our massage therapists and their individuality, paying them well, and understanding what it takes to do massage all day long. Having a massage background, myself, I know how difficult it is physically to perform massage. We try to support staff as best we can and encourage their individual styles in massage. We also offer in-house training so staff can learn new modalities such as cupping or Hot Salt Stones.
My experience working at other massage places was always awful. I was overworked, performed so many massages back-to-back, barely had time to get a drink of water or use the restroom, and was paid very low. A-lot of other massage places treat employees as machines and want them to pump out as many massages as they possibly can. I wanted to change that when I started hiring LMT’s for Renew. I wanted to have a place that supported therapists where they are in life, and help them grow, so they can continue to love giving massage and helping others. This is the reason why I started Renew in the first place; I did not like working at other places and ultimately wanted to provide a better place for Massage therapists to work and not worry about all the other things involved with running a business.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started massaging at a young age, in fact, all my family did. We used to massage my father daily when he struggled for many years from a disease called Scleroderma. Massage helped his stiff muscles and poor circulation and was one of the only things that helped him. Unfortunately, he passed away in 1999 from his disease. He was a big reason why I got into health and wellness in the first place. After Highschool, I attended the University of Florida and got a B.S. in Health science, and then shortly after that moved to Colorado and attended the Southwest Academy of Natural Therapies in Grand Junction and got my Massage Certification. Massage school changed my life. It taught me about my body and about the power of alternative medicine and treatments. It is very beneficial for people emotionally and physically, and we especially need a little more support in both those areas after these past 2 crazy years.

I have been involved in this business from the beginning, in 2010. (We are just hitting our 12-year anniversary!) In the beginning, Renew had a single room office and I was performing all the massages. I truly started with nothing- no capital and no help from anyone to get the business going. I slowly expanded the business throughout the years and started hiring the most amazing therapists and started shifting my focus to grow the business, as we got busier and busier. We now have our 5-room studio on University Blvd in Bonnie Brae – which is our original location, and our new spot as of June 2021 in Applewood/ Golden. I am most proud of how far we have grown as a company, how I have fought to make it through the craziest past two years in business history, and how much support we get from the loyal clientele we have built, and that we get to help daily.  Currently, my amazing husband Tony is my biggest supporter and works for Renew as well, and I am the proud mother of two beautiful boys, Cy and Coda, ages 6 and 8. 

Here at Renew, we specialize in providing therapeutic and deep tissue massage therapy in an eco-friendly way. We focus on using the best organic products and green business practices while focusing on your needs as a client.
We specialize in Therapeutic/ Deep tissue massage styles but also offer Swedish massage, Massage w Cupping, CBD Massage, Hot Salt Stone massage, prenatal, Lymph Drainage, Craniosacral, Reflexology and have an infrared sauna at our Denver spot. We have beautiful and clean spaces for you to come to and relax, a 60 min massage is 60 mins of hands-on time, and we have heated tables, fresh water, free hot towels, and free aromatherapy (essential oils) in all our sessions if desired. We have also decorated our offices with local artwork from local artists around Colorado, and all our treatment rooms are themed, such as the Mountain room or the Sunset Room. Plus, we are continuing to do all the proper Covid protocols, follow the local orders, and take our cleaning seriously, to ensure a sanitary space for our community.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Gosh, the last 2 years have been nothing but resilience. We moved and expanded into our Bonnie Brae/ Denver office in Oct 2019. In March 2020 (less than 6 months later), we shut our doors for 2.5 months for the pandemic. We reopened at the end of June and started with only 5 staff (after shutting our doors with 20 staff). We lost a lot of our staff to career changes, and probably the unease of being in a room with others while the pandemic was so new was a huge issue for our old staff, and most didn’t come back. We are still dealing with staffing shortages and are currently hiring. A huge part of the company’s success during this was just trying to do everything I could to keep us open and busy, applying for the PPP and local grants to get us through the storm, which also made it possible to keep all my management on payroll. We slowly built back up and it took us a year to get where we were pre-Covid. The pandemic has really kept me on my toes. We are constantly changing protocols to match local and federal mandates, changing companies like payroll, and scheduling software, and are dealing with increased costs in everything, including increased covid related supplies, taxes, etc. This past winter was also very tough with all the sickness going around, especially with our loyal clients. The past 2 years have been the hardest I have ever experienced, but I am proud of where we are, and I will continue to fight. I now have two locations and 26 employees! I am forever grateful for my staff and employees for working hard through these past few years. They have truly helped keep Renew going through all of this. My mottos for 2022 are to stay strong, stay flexible and ready to pivot, stay positive, and stay kind.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy has been our online presence with Reviews, specifically reviews on Google and Yelp. It is the number one thing that has helped my business in the beginning and continues to help increase our clientele. We take client satisfaction seriously, and our 5-star reviews keep growing because of our customer service. It is a very important aspect of growing our clientele.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.renewmassagestudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renewmassagestudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/renewmassagestudio/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/renew_massage
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/renew-massage-studio-denver-6?osq=renew+massage+studio

Image Credits
Michaela Joy Photography. ( she has the headshots and people shots only)