We recently connected with Erin Stebbins and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Erin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

When I first started my massage practice, I was determined to do it myself.

I took a lot of pride in being the sole practitioner, in doing it all myself, and being the face of my business.

I thrived on it. I love the pressure, I loved the deadlines, I loved having it all ride on my shoulders. It was a thrill for a really long time, and I was hugely successful.

I started my massage practice in 2011, and it was just me. I started working from my home, offering massage services to anybody who would hear my message, and was interested in feeling amazing.

And it went well for a really long time!

I was making great money, I was helping tons of people in my community, and my books were pretty consistently full. I threw every bit of marketing I had at it, I tried tons of different things, and I was willing to fail. And I did fail. Many times.

As my business grew up, I was finding that I couldn’t do it myself. I couldn’t be the only one who could deliver the services that I know my community needed. Not only were my books full, but I was finding myself turning people away.

And I was a painful point for me, because I knew that these people might not look anywhere else. They might not get help from anybody else. And that broke my heart.

So I considered my options. Everybody around me, on the Facebook forums, in person, other colleagues, my parents… were telling me that hiring was a nightmare. There’s so much more to manage, there’s higher taxes, and more expenses, you end up making way more less money in the first place. And not to mention, you still have your own clients and your own business to take care of.

For a while I bought into it. I thought that if this is the only way I could help more people, and continue the growth of my business, forget about it. I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, and keep turning people away.

It got to a point where I couldn’t feel good about doing that anymore. At around this tipping point, an incredibly good friend of mine happened to be going through massage school.

He reached out to me, and we started having conversations about him coming on to my imaginary team. We both agreed that it would be messy in the beginning, and I told him out right that I had never done this before.

So I was going to be making mistakes. As long as we kept our communication, and stayed honest with each other, we agreed to be in this for the long run.

After the massive stumbling block of figuring out my standard operating procedures, and delineating every microscopic part of my process in my practice, including how I treat my clients in the treatment room, I finally got him on board.

There were times when we had to be brutally honest with each other. There were mistakes on both ends. And the communication is what kept us going.

After a few messy months of experimenting, and forging on, we got it down. It was an experiment for both of us, and it paid off in all sorts of ways.

I wasn’t turning away clients anymore, people in my community were getting excellent care, in some cases the types of massage that I can’t deliver!

This gave me the space to start experimenting with helping my clients in deeper ways, teaching them self-care outside of the treatment room, and guiding them in their own strategies for things like work balance and stress.

Which means I was able to help my clients and my community on a deeper level. Meanwhile, my therapist was treating even more people with massage, and it felt like a ripple effect.

Now it’s kind of a streamlined machine. All of my systems are in place, so nobody needs to be babysat, there’s minimal hand holding, and the people who work for me are able to do what they do best, and not stress about anything else.

The back end of things, the business, marketing, and structure side of things is all set up, and it’s repeatable. Which means I’m able to bring more people onto the team, and help even more people in my community.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’ve been receiving massage since I was 8 years old, thanks to my mom! It’s always been a powerful part of my life, and something that I have held very dear in terms of my self care.

I graduated high school in 2009, and new immediately that I wanted to go to massage school. I attended the massage therapy institute of Colorado here in Denver, which turned out to be an incredible school.

There, I honed my technique, became an absolute nerd for things like structural integration, which, if you’re not in the industry, is basically pain relief and posture.

There wasn’t a year that I wasn’t taking some sort of continuing education, deepening my learning and understanding of the human body, and how stress affects everything else in life.

As I continued to learn, I discovered I have a real knack for problem solving, and sustainable care for people.

I love treating issues like posture, and getting people out of pain who had been experiencing it for decades.

It’s incredibly satisfying to help people get to a place where they never thought they could, just with massage!

This is truly my passion, and helping people learn how to take care of themselves is another beautiful layer of this.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

We all remember the year 2020. What a crazy time! Most all of us had some sort of impact to our career or our work. This was particularly apparent with massage therapists, and people who are hands-on with their work.

And I was no exception. For months I wasn’t able to touch anybody, or help people in the only way I knew how, which was hands-on in person.

So I had to pivot.

I had to change how I helped people, and I learned how to do that.

I discovered that I was much more than just a massage therapist, and I started creating ways to help people outside of the treatment room in remote ways.

I learned how to create a business out of helping people learn to take care of themselves. And as a massage therapist, we spend so much time teaching people how to take care of themselves in between massage sessions, and I finally felt like I had something new I could try!

It was rocky at first, lots of experimenting, lots of “no”s, and a whole lot of “What do you mean?”

But over time, and with every failure I experience, I learned and grew and changed what I was doing. I expanded how I was helping people, and now I’m proud to say that I’m able to serve clients on a deeper level, in more ways.

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

In 2018, I was presented with an opportunity I could not turn down. I was offered to purchase a chair massage company here in Denver Colorado, with two locations.

I felt like a fool to say no, so I said yes. The business had 25 employees, and although I did not feel ready, I stepped into the role anyway, as a manager of more people than I had ever managed before.

And it was terrifying. I also thought that this is going to be an opportunity for me to step up into more of a leadership role, and to learn with trial by fire.

The owner and I had very different ways of functioning, and I had to change a lot of the structure of the business to make it work for how my brain works.

I updated a ton of systems, including the communication between employees, and even the space itself.

It was a beast to hire people, and to be in this constant state of managing other people’s schedules, and the endless emails!

When COVID-19 hit, the chair massage business was essentially put to rest. People weren’t coming into grocery stores for groceries, much less for massage.

I was left with a really tough decision of holding on, and waiting, or throwing in the towel on something that I considered to be part of my bigger dream.

It was a painful moment, but it helped me learn better ways of managing people, and a lot of my own blind spots.

In the end, I decided to forgo the chair massage gig, and move on with helping people in the best way that I knew how, and that’s when I decided to scale my massage practice.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.truebalancepainrelief.com
• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/truebalancepainrelief
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/truebalance

Image Credits

Holly brown photography
Blue Flame Studios