Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Erika Andersen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Erika thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Risk is an interesting topic which I love to discuss. My husband and I listen to a podcast called “How I Built This” hosted by Guy Raz. In one of the episodes he interviews the founder of Sam Adams Brewery, Jim Koch. Mr. Koch discusses risk in a way that changed the way my husband and I view risk and as a result, how we plan and live our lives. Because of this podcast episode, we look at risk as being either scary or dangerous; in this context dangerous doesn’t just mean physically, but could mean emotionally, financially, etc. When we’re looking at a decision that scares us, we need to decide whether it is just scary (for example, giving a talk to a bunch of athletes might be scary, but is not dangerous.) or is it dangerous (starting a small business could be incredibly dangerous, both emotionally and financially and several other ways besides)?

Opening Superior Massage Therapy was a huge risk for us. neither of us had ever started our own business before, we didn’t know the first thing about accounting, hiring staff, marketing, social media, or any of the other myriad of responsibilities one has when they start a business. So, we looked at the risks involved with opening our own business and we decided that we wanted to do it anyways, even though it was risky, and I have to say that it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Superior Massage has grown into a successful massage practice with incredible staff and exciting prospects for the future.

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

My name is Erika Andersen, LMT. I started in this field with my bachelors degree in Sports Science and Biomechanics thinking I would go to physical therapy school. When that didn’t work out, I decided to look into other options and massage school seemed to fit. I always wanted to help athletes recover from injuries and Sports massage seemed to be the method that would get me there.

As an athlete myself, I was looking for ways to stay healthy and active. How could I continue to do the sports I love for my whole life without having to give them up because of pain, or worse, “getting old”? That’s ultimately where the idea for Superior Massage Therapy came from. I wanted to create a business geared toward keeping athletes healthy and doing the activities they love for their whole life and what better way to start then with sports massage?

Superior Massage Therapy differs from other massage places because we are focused on the performance of our clients, and we understand the demands of your sports. All of our massage therapists are athletes in their own right so they get it, Because we run, we know what is likely to hurt our runners. We encourage our staff to stay fit and active and try new things so that we have an understanding about what it is that our clients go through, what might be hurting, and how we can help.

When you come here to get a massage, we’re going to talk to you about what your concerns are in this moment and focus on those concerns. you will never get the same massage twice here because we don’t do cookie cutter massage. Each visit is tailored to the person coming in and is specific to their concerns for that day.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

I’m sure that this story won’t be new to anyone, so many of us went through something similar in the last few years, but the COVID-19 quarantine was almost the death of Superior Massage Therapy. We’re located in Michigan and many of you know that we had some of the strictest lockdown mandates in the country in 2020. It was mandated that we be closed from March 15, 2020 to June 15, 2020; 3 months to the day. There was nothing we could do.

I thought I had done ok, I had enough set aside to pay about 2 months of our expenses at any given time. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where I would need more than that, and then there it was and there was no end in sight. I can remember telling my husband that I had 2 weeks left, in 2 weeks I’m going to be out of money and I’m going to have to give notice to the landlord that we needed to cancel our lease. I was devastated. Until that point, my business had been thriving. February of 2020 was the best month we had ever had, we had more clients than ever, I was even considering hiring another massage therapist to help take the over load. How could we go from our best month ever to closing the doors permanently so quickly? But there we were.

Fortunately, our clients and friends are amazing. I don’t know if my husband reached out to people or if people just inherently knew that we were struggling, but shortly after I realized that we would likely be closing soon, one of my friends reached out to ask if he could buy some gift cards. He bought about $500 worth of gift cards for friends and family. That doesn’t sound like much but it was enough to pay for our utilities.

The real hero is Infinite Multisport Triathlon Club. I am a member and sponsor of this club, I frequently give away gift certificates to events they host, club members always get a discount when visiting us, and they decided to pay us back in spades. I got a call from the president asking if we would be willing to sell them some gift certificates for a challenge they were going to run with the goal of helping out some of their local sponsors because they knew we were hurting. Apparently the club members raised enough to give $1500 each in gift certificates away to 3 local businesses who sponsor them, a running shop, a bike shop, and us. This saved us! $1500 was enough to pay for our rent for another month, just in time for the quarantine to end and for us to start seeing clients again.

I have expressed my gratitude to both my friend and the club. I’m not sure if any of my words are enough to convey how thankful I am to them for keeping us open when we thought all was lost.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

From the beginning I new that a main goal of the business was going to be education. People have an image in their head of what “massage” looks like and who receives it. If I asked you to tell me who typically gets massages and where they go for it, and what that looks/feels like, I bet you would tell me about a 45 year old woman who’s husband makes a lot of money so she doesn’t have to work. she goes to a spa to get her massages the same day as she gets her nails done, and a facial. there are probably hot stones, or essential oils involved. We had a lot of work to do letting people know that this isn’t the only option.

Part of our mission is to become synonymous with sports massage in the Metro Detroit area. When people think of Sports recovery, we want them to think Superior Massage Therapy. One of the ways we’ve gone about this is by being super involved in the sports we participate in, We’re constantly going to group runs, bike rides, yoga meet-ups etc. We give free massages at marathons, triathlons, boxing matches, olympic lifting competitions, etc.

We’re showing athletes that sports massage was designed for them and Superior Massage Therapy is where they can go to find the best.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.superiormassagetherapy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superiormassagetherapy/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Superiormassagetherapy/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/superior-massage-therapy/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/superior-massage-therapy-pleasant-ridge