We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Melissa Harrington. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Melissa below.
Melissa, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?
The hustle … no one really sees the beginning and it’s more than overwhelming. But staying in your own lane, filed by your dreams and desires for what you want your business to look lik.e. I worked out of a room at at gym for 10 years. And hired one other therapist to open Nirvana with me. Knowing where I wanted to take the business…. Creating a career for bodyworkers and paying them well for their time . Having a shop that is here for the community as a whole. Not feeling thirsty for employees but waiting for the right souls to come to Nirvana…. Building a team of very qualified therapists. And growing from there
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Massage found me. I started my massage career in California in 1997 @ 19 years old. Someone said to me, “you’d be a good massage therapist “ and I said ok. I moved to VA with my first husband and wanted to work but needed to be be nationally certified so in went back to school and never looked back. Learning and growing as a massage therapist all the years to follow. I don’t feel like I had the best education, even with 2 institutions, however, people would come to me and say, “fix this” and I would have to figure it out – this taught me how to use the knowledge I had and build up incredible intuition for reading the body and what needs to be worked on…. And that is how I massage / read each client who shows up on my table. It’s like a puzzle needing to be solved every time – I never get board and sometimes surprise myself when something works and the client is better.. the last few years, as my body starts to feel the aches and pains of 26 years as a therapist. I have been dreaming and planking to open a business…… and that’s how Nirvana happened.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I planning my next move – find a location Ana take that leap of faith. My husband decided that I needed to move out and we were done. So as it happened, I opened my business, moved out and my eldest child got married within the same week…. March 2022. The next few months were a blur however, from the years of planning, dreaming and hard work I stayed the course- I scaled. I worked the 14 hour days of working IN the business and ON the business….. so many wild things happened within the first 10 months. Figuring out parts of business I was clueless about …. Sales tax, payroll companies, out of state employees…. The hits just kept coming and the course didn’t change. I am happy to say, I joined entrepreneurs organization within the first 8 months of opening the business. You have to have a qualifying revenue amount to be able to join the organization, and we did that!!! Launching myself into a group that challenges, encourages and holds you to your goals. The accountability is off the charts and exactly what I needed to continue to scale and grow the business. I now have six massage therapists, two energy practitioners, one Stretch Therapist , one office manager and a front desk staff. Working 5-6 days a week and now I’m down to 3 massage days a week and the other days to scale.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
One of the things that held me back from starting my business sooner was the idea that I had to do everything…. And once I had the realization that I didn’t – I was free to pick and choose who was going to be by my side and help scale Nirvana. Social media is in that arena. I hired out that aspect of marketing and have never looked back. I am thankful every day for the company I choose to do our Instagram marketing. It’s like Christmas when she makes a reel.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.nirvanavb.com
- Instagram: @Nirvana_bodywork
- Facebook: Nirvana Bodywork and Mobility
- Linkedin: Melissa Harrington