We were lucky to catch up with Devontae Mccall recently and have shared our conversation below.

Devontae, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

How did actually start my business? Well, this is how it all happened. The backstory is 2016 moved in Raleigh started working at a armor truck company not gonna say the name but it wasn’t the best company to work for lol. I stay there for roughly 4 years and within the four years I moved up pretty fast in the ranks, the first year I got promoted to this elite team, called the swat team of the company, where we went to different branches and different states to see if the branch is profitable or not and if it wasn’t profitable we had to close it down, out of all the branch we only had to close down one branch so that was good and also I got a lot of experience. Unfortunately they shut down the swat team but form the experiences that I had it showed me how they manage and treated their employees. Fast forward to 2018-2019 came back to the branch here in Durham and they promoted me to route supervisor and my job was to basically make sure all the routes were good. Make sure the employees had everything that they needed to do the route and overall make sure everybody was safe and doing things the right way. So I working there until 2020 every day was a headache. I hated every day going it was stressful most most of the employees didn’t like me and the reason why is I was the guy that had to tell the employees bad news or tell them that he to go on a different route. Corporate made me the bad bad guy basically. So to keep my job I had to do why they said because I didn’t wanna lose it. Then 2020 came the pandemic hit the world, and there was one moment at work. I had to go on route and I got sick at that time. Nobody really knew what Covid was but I was sick and couldn’t finish the route so I called back to the branch and told them .that I need to go to the doctor and I’m not feeling too good. I Need to go home , they told me I couldn’t go home until I had to finish the Route told me if I came back I’ll be fired and in that sense I was like you know what it is what it is so I told my driver that we’re going back because I’m not putting my life in danger or his. So we get back to the branch and basically they told me I can’t come back until I get a doctors note. 2 weeks went by and I finally came back to work with my doctors note, mind you I had no income coming in, so I had to sell my investments and used up most of my savings to keep afloat. So when I came back with my doctors note they told me that the doctors note was invalid and they was not taking it, I called HR and told them I have a doctors note but they managers here said they don’t won’t it, the HR rep said to me well. Why did you bring the route back when you was told not too that day ? I told him because I got sick and he told me basically, I don’t care if you got sick the route needed to get done. so I asked him what do I need to do going forward and he told me that I have to talk to the branch manager which I did but the branch manager never responded back to me. So the person that I am, I can see I hint something that is not right so I took the messages to go ahead and start looking for another job and I found it when after that I was done with that company.

So from March 2020 to September 30 I lost four jobs in those few months September 30th I started a Massage school. The idea came when I lost my last job and I sat down with myself and was really thinking. I need a career that I don’t have to depend on somebody else. So I need to do something that I can manage myself because I know the type of person that I am I’m going to do what I need to do to be successful.

So the overall idea came after I got laid off the fourth time. So I sign up for massage school and started and when I was going to class and working my way through school one class brought another idea to me and the class was a business class. Once I finish that class Active Massage by McCall was born. Once I finished school and graduated the next step was to take the state exam, believe it or not I fail the first time and if you failed it you couldn’t take it until 30 days later.

So every Saturday I would meet me mentor at Barnes & Noble until test day. I said that to say if I would’ve gave up and just quit I wouldn’t be where I’m at today and the reason I kept studying because of the idea that was still at the back of my head. So after I passed it I had a job already lined up to start as a MT, mind you i went and got a LLC and at that time my teacher recommended us to go through a third party to get everything set up so I went through Zen Business. I open up an Business bank account with Navy Federal and I did all of this while I was in school because my plan was to hit the ground running right after I passed the first time but that didn’t happen as soon as I wanted too.

But once I started at the spa immediately I knew this wasn’t for me, this wasn’t the type of therapist/person I wanted to be. The therapist/person I want to be is one that can help and at the same time be in control of how I can help. So now I got my license and it’s 2022, my business was established in 7/24/21 but I didn’t start working in my business in 2022. Once I started working in my business I had to figure out how expenses work, I had to figure out how 1099 work when owning a business and working as a contractor. I had to figure what to do and don’t do as a business owner, one example don’t swipe your business card like you do your debt card always keep them separate. But I say all that to say it started with an idea of me now wanting to work for anyone and at the same time if I wanted to, now I have the opportunity to work under my own conditions.

Devontae, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Their is one word that can describe me and that is workaholic. I mean it in a good way too. I’ve already told you the reason I got into massage but there is another reason I got into.

I tore my ACL and meniscus playing basketball and after going to the doctor and had the surgery, the doctor told me that it would take at least 6 months to a year to get back playing. So I told myself I’m not trying to wait that long, so with PT and me massage my leg to help with mobility I was back playing ball 6 months later.

My business is mobile massage I service the RDU area and the surrounding cities. I do everything from Swedish massage to lymphatic drainage. But I specialize in sports pre-injury and recovery. Most of my clients I see are people that are very active, It ranges form your athlete that plays football basketball baseball, down to your everyday people that runner, working, play tennis, golf, or just running around the yard with their kids lol.

One thing that sets me apart from the normal therapist is, my passion!

The things that I’m proud of is the support from my friends and family. My mentors that are shaping me to become a great massage therapist. I’m proud that I made it this far and I took the risk and stuck with it, because I’ve been through some stuff and I have God to thank for everything that he has done for me! I’m proud to have an awesome girlfriend that help me with my logo and getting my website up and running, and being there when things got tough.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

So to fund my business I worked a 9-5 job. I took a percentage out of my check every 2 weeks. One thing that I do and most business owners don’t is I give! I give my 10% to the church and have faith that things will work out, now I’m not saying it’s not easy or anything and there was some times that I skip a Sunday. But overall I I did and just believe that the money will come. So the things I did was saved a percentage out of my check and gave and had faith.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

The two thing that help me build my reputation in this field was word of mouth, and giving free services for awhile. Because as a MT you really have to be good to be successful and as a new therapist it’s hard to get people to trust you with their body especially being a black man lol. But once I started to work on people, the word started to get around that I’m really good ( which I am lol) and people started to reach out. Some just reach out to just hear what I offer and some book it depends on that day and that client.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mccallmassage.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/
• Linkedin: Devontae McCall