We were lucky to catch up with Rebecca Tamm recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Rebecca thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?
Entrepreneurship is not for the weak. When I started Michigan Massage and Wellness in 2004 I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going with it, and after doing it for 20 years, I think ALL THE TIME what it would be like to have a regular or ‘real’ job as I like to call it. To have a 401k contribution, paid time off, benefits, the ability to just leave my work at work, not worry about keeping everyone happy and successful and not having the world on my shoulders which is how it feels often for small business owners.
Having to shut down for 3 months for the pandemic and not having a safety net left me spinning. What if I didn’t have a business to return back to? What if my employees quit? What if clients stopped coming in? Who in the world is going to hire someone who has been running her own business for 20 years and needs to make a career change? I have joked for years that after working for myself for as long as I have I am essentially unemployable haha! And I firmly believe that one of the reasons why I (and my business) are still standing after all of these years is simply because I never had a fallback plan. Or a second source of income so a fallback plan could just turn into early retirement. I’m responsible for myself and I had worked so hard to create something that I didn’t want to just let it go.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve been working since I was 14 years old. So when I stumbled across a brochure for the massage school I ended up at, I had never given or received a massage, so naturally I threw caution to the wind and decided to take a tour and sign up for classes. I cashed in my 401k to pay for school and set out on my way. While in school, I had aspirations of working for a fancy day spa and quickly that became a reality, and then a nightmare. Having no clear plan or goals, it was a total fluke that I wound up in a space that I ended up renting for over 12 years until I outgrew that location and moved to our current location in Troy, Michigan.
With the career span of a massage therapist averaging 5-7 years, I have managed to stay in this field for 20+ years by always learning. Whether it’s new massage modalities, adjunct therapies such as stretching and other movement work, I’ve been in this field full time since 2004 and many of our clients are still with us after all of this time.
I often joke that I want Michigan Massage and Wellness to be the Cheers of the massage world. And for the younger readers who have no idea what I’m referencing, Cheers was a great sitcom in the 80’s and in the theme song they sang “sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name”. But that’s it. That’s what keeps people coming back after all of these years. It’s like home to them.
At Michigan Massage and Wellness we offer a one stop shop for what ails you. Whether it’s with a relaxing or therapeutic massage, or trying to work out some of the adhesions from that c-section scar or you’ve had a full mommy makeover and need some post operative care, our staff works together cohesively to bring a variety of treatments to help you feel and move your best.
In 2023 I completed my training in Manual Lymphatic Drainage and am excited to be furthering my studies in early 2025 as I train in Complete Decongestive Therapy which will allow me to work with the lymphedema population. I am especially excited about this pivot in my career because after ignoring MLD for 20 years it has been the best thing for me, not only from a standpoint of being able to still work in this field after so long, but I am proud to provide true clinical manual lymphatic drainage services for our surrounding area. There has been a large uptick in lymphatics over the last few years and I think it’s just going to become more popular, however there is so much misinformation on social media these days that we focus more on education and research rather than what the latest influencer is doing with some painful looking tools and sometimes doing more harm than good.
You’ll see on our socials that we don’t have 20K followers and we don’t have anything that has put us on the map for going viral, but we also don’t care about those metrics. Someone could have 100,000 followers but has availability to see you in 3 hours. We have less than 1000 followers and people will wait a month for an appointment. We don’t run a revolving door business and our work is about quality over quantity. We work to build a relationship with you and the biggest thing is TRUST. Our clients trust us and our work and they know they are going to be cared for and in this day that is something that we don’t see too much. When you start to come in regularly and we don’t see you for a few months, we notice, and we check in.
It’s hard to choose what I am most proud of with my business and what I’d like people to know about what makes us different, but I guess I would have to say the people. We may be a small practice but we are a very cohesive practice. Our team works together to create a community and space that our clients AND staff feel safe, included and appreciated. I wouldn’t be here without the support of our clients that keep coming back, but my staff is the glue that holds it all together and I am grateful for them every day!
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The sunk cost fallacy.
During the pandemic, having to shut our doors for 3 months and not knowing it was going to be for 3 months had me spinning. I didn’t have a second source of income at home, and my business is how I earn my living and put food on my table and a roof over my head. So naturally I decided that I should look at other income sources, and after reading in various bodyworker groups for years about all of these people recommending doing medical coding/billing (“you can do it from home!” they all cried out) I signed up for course to become a CPC (Certified Professional Coder).
I spent over $3000 and close to 9 months spending my weekends studying and taking online exams and finally taking my certification test and receiving my CPC-A (Apprentice, which that would fall off after a certain number of working hours were completed).
I quickly found out that it’s VERY difficult to get a job as a medical coder with no experience and wanting to work from home in your spare time. And I held on to my books for an additional year, because every time I looked at them I just saw money wasted. Finally one day I ripped the band-aid off, took the huge stack of heavy books to the recycle bin and just told myself it was time to let that go.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
If being a single woman in her mid 40’s who has been living alone in her own home for the past 16 years and has been running a business solely on her own for 20 years while keeping dogs alive, friendships in touch and maintaining some sense of self and sanity doesn’t illustrate resilience then I don’t know what does!
In all honesty though, running a business is hard. Growing a business is even harder. And trying to do all of it while taking care of oneself from a mental, physical, emotional and financial standpoint is really hard. But when people ask me how I am still going and doing all of the things, or more importantly, why I’m doing all of these things, my answer is simple: Because I see what happens when you stop trying and I want more out of life than that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.michiganmassageandwellness.com
- Instagram: @michiganmassageandwellness
- Facebook: @michiganmassageandwellness
Image Credits
Jessica Hance Photography