When we sat down with Anna, the owner of Remedial Wellness in Edmonton, Alberta, her clinic had seven rooms, two event spaces, and a story worth telling. Six months earlier we had visited while she was still covered in drywall dust, mid-renovation. Now there were clients downstairs getting treatments and a growing team upstairs. This conversation is a masterclass in building a wellness business with a real foundation — and a candid look at what actually happens after you take the leap.
“Burning the boats” — when the plan doesn’t go to plan
Anna opened her new location in October 2024 with a familiar plan: rent out three or four of the rooms to other practitioners to balance the income and cover the overhead. Reality had other ideas. She ended up renting just one room. But instead of a setback, it became the making of the business.
“I really, really had to burn the boats,” she told us. Rental income is comfortable — consistent payments that cover the overhead let you get comfortable, and comfortable businesses stop sharpening. Without that cushion, Anna was forced into a very uncomfortable position: figure out fast what is working, what is not, and refine relentlessly. As we often ask owners: are you in the real estate business or the health and wellness business? Most therapists want to be in wellness — and Anna’s empty rooms pushed her all the way in.
The proof is in the numbers. In Edmonton, summer is traditionally slow — most clients use benefits, and in the short northern summer people are outside enjoying the heat rather than booking treatments. Owners almost get amnesia about it every year. Anna braced for the dip — but because she had no rental cushion and had honed in so hard, her slowest month of the year became her highest-income month yet.
Faith, foundation, and steadfastness
Ask Anna what she learned between the drywall dust and today, and she keeps returning to three words: faith, foundation, and steadfast. “You cannot prepare for everything,” she said. “Sometimes you just have to take the leap of faith and see the fruits of your labor when the compound effect happens.”
She prepared for roughly a year — licensing, zoning, funding — and still hit walls she could not control. The location she fell in love with was not zoned for her business, and formal rezoning can reasonably run $13,000 to $15,000. Naively, she decided to just do it herself rather than pay someone. The story ended well: the city made an exception and fit her business in so she could practice there. But it captures her core lesson — build a good foundation, stay steadfast, and the other pieces come together.
A word on business plans and AI
Anna and Riley traded a sharp observation worth repeating. You can now generate a genuinely robust business plan in an afternoon with tools like Claude or ChatGPT — which tempts owners into thinking the plan itself guarantees success. It does not. More often than not, the reality is surprises, good and bad, all the way through. A plan is essential for setting a realistic budget — Anna was disciplined about big-ticket spends like her roughly $2,300 electric tables — but it has to be paired with the flexibility to roll with the punches and seize opportunities as they come.
Her carpet-versus-paint decision is the perfect example. Facing hideous dark-green carpet, replacing the flooring in a space that size could have run $15,000 or more. Instead she painted — the walls came to about $1,000. The catch: a painter quoted $1,800 just for the tall stairwells, so she rounded up friends and did it herself. With up to ten people painting at once over long days, she reckons hiring it out would have cost closer to $20,000. The lesson: make good friends, then convince them painting is fun.
The client experience is every touchpoint
Anna’s philosophy on client experience is that it does not start in the treatment room — it starts at the very first interaction, in any capacity. Does that touchpoint make someone feel calm, hopeful, secure, at ease? Consistent music runs through the entire clinic so there is a feeling of continuity (and no therapist fighting a dying, beeping speaker mid-session). Small touches remove friction: cubbies in the bathrooms stocked with ear swabs, hair ties, and deodorant, because people constantly need them. As Anna puts it, when you go to McDonald’s you know exactly what the cheeseburger will be — clients want that same reliable expectation from their treatment.
The bigger picture is community and hope. Anna hosts events — a market, a clothing exchange — that are not strictly about massage but create wellness and belonging, so clients who struggle with things like body image or isolation feel safe enough to come out and participate. And she makes a profound point about her work: solving the problem is not always the first job — sometimes bringing hope is. If a client who has felt stuck can see an upward trajectory, that they are no longer alone and no longer sliding backward, that itself is a solution. The full fix comes later.
The intake: four camps of clients
One of Anna’s most practical insights is about the five to ten minutes before the massage even begins. She has been to places that just say “here’s your massage, go lie down” — and that is where disappointment is born. Instead she takes time to understand what the client actually wants, and she sorts people into roughly four camps:
- Those who only want to relax.
- Those who want to relax and also work on pain.
- Those who only want therapeutic work and do not care about relaxing.
- Those who essentially want it deep and intense — “dig it out, do whatever you need.”
Miss this and a client who wanted to relax leaves frustrated because you spent the whole hour digging into one shoulder. Get it right — often by gently drawing out what they did not explicitly say — and you close the gap between their expectation and their reality, then exceed it. That short conversation is where a great experience is won or lost.
After the treatment
The experience does not end when the massage does. A 60-minute treatment might be two accumulated hours with you — and every part should feel good. Do you rebook them, or at least ask? Do you offer direct billing to make payment easy? Is there a thoughtful follow-up a day or two later — “how was your treatment?” — that feels like genuine care rather than spam? The goal, Anna says, is that clients have a positive feeling every time they see your name.
What working with Spamarketing.com has been like
Anna has run a lot of different marketing, and what stands out to her is simple: you get clients right away. “There’s tons of marketing out there where you spend a whole ton of money and do you even see one client? No.” With us, the bookings actually come in — and because we put the bookings in for her, she does not have to stop treating to handle it or hire a full-time admin to do it. She also values the communication loop: when she spots something to refine, we take the feedback and work out how to make it fit her business for the long term. Over our time together we have brought her a few hundred clients at a steady, predictable pace — which she finds even more valuable than unpredictable organic referrals. Her verdict: “Every massage business probably should have you guys around.”
Anna’s advice: build the foundation first
Her closing advice for anyone dreaming of a big space: hold off just a little. Anna was very established before she opened this large clinic, and she credits that for its success — she was not starting from the floor. She built her base while renting a room inside a chiropractic office, working alongside him on shared clients from a different angle. When she expanded, she brought that base with her: she announced the move six months ahead and emailed her new booking details so the transition was as seamless as possible. If you are brand new, establish your own schedule first, understand your industry and your local clientele, and then open something bigger. Foundation first — everything else compounds from there.
Frequently asked questions
Should I rent out rooms in my new massage clinic?
It can cover overhead, but Anna found that renting fewer rooms than planned forced her to sharpen the core business fast — and her slowest month became her highest-income month. Decide whether you are really in the real estate business or the wellness business.
Does a business plan guarantee a successful clinic?
No. AI tools can produce a robust plan in an afternoon, but a plan does not guarantee success. Use it to set a realistic budget, then stay flexible enough to handle the surprises that always come.
What makes a great massage client experience?
Every touchpoint, starting before the room: a calming first interaction, consistent atmosphere, thoughtful amenities, a proper intake that identifies what the client actually wants, and genuine follow-up that builds a relationship.
Should I open a big massage business right away?
Anna advises building a foundation first: establish your own schedule and client base, understand your local clientele, and expand once you can bring that base with you. Foundation first, expansion second.
Build your foundation — we’ll bring the clients
Anna built the experience; we keep the calendar full. As the only massage marketing agency built solely for massage businesses in the United States and Canada, we deliver a steady, predictable stream of new clients and book them for you: more clients, or you do not pay. Schedule a free discovery call or get your free growth assessment, and see more results like Anna’s.
