41. Growing a Million-Dollar Wellness Brand Through Crisis with Amber Briggle
EPISODE 41
Amber Briggle shares her inspiring journey from hands-on massage therapist to CEO of Soma Massage Therapy, a business that has grown to two locations grossing over a million dollars annually with plans to franchise nationwide.
Catch the Conversation
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Amber Briggle shares her inspiring journey from hands-on massage therapist to CEO of Soma Massage Therapy, a business that has grown to two locations grossing over a million dollars annually with plans to franchise nationwide.
Amber Briggle (she/her) is the founder and CEO of Soma Massage Therapy, which was recently voted Best Pain Management 2023 & 2024, and Best Massage Center in Denton for the last 11 consecutive years.
Amber grew her business literally with her bare hands, starting in a spare bedroom of her home to now operating a downtown business and a growing franchise brand that employs nearly 30 people. During covid, her business was ordered to shut down entirely, and nearly closed permanently. Excess pressures put on the female workforce during the pandemic amplified the challenges of being a woman-owned business that employs primarily women in a woman-dominated industry! Today, Soma is located in a beautifully renovated downtown building and rebounded stronger than ever, with 2 locations, a gross annual revenue of over $1 million, and plans to franchise coast-to-coast.
Amber has been published in numerous trade-specific publications and featured on dozens of podcasts because of her unique and successful business model. She is currently offering Soma Massage Therapy franchise opportunities to individuals with an interest in the wellness industry, so that this successful business approach can be duplicated across the country, bringing high paying jobs and healing touch to thousands of people while transforming the massage industry as a whole.
You can connect with Amber on LinkedIn.
You can also find out more about Soma Massage Therapy on their website.
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0:00
Welcome to Figure Eight
4:24
Massage Therapist to Business CEO
9:44
Surviving COVID as a Wellness Business
18:14
Rebuilding a Million-Dollar Practice
21:52
People Before Profits Philosophy
26:37
Franchising Coast to Coast
34:37
Creating a Sustainable Business Model
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Julie: 0:04
Welcome to Figure 8, where we feature inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses to seven and eight figures revenue. If you're in the mix of growing a bigger business, these stories are for you. Join us as we explore where the tough spots are, how to overcome them and how to prepare yourself for the next portion of the climb. I'm your host, Julie Ellis. I'm an author, entrepreneur and a growth and leadership coach who co-founded, grew and exited an eight-figure business. This led me to exploring why some women achieve great things, and that led to my book Big Gorgeous Goals. Let's explore the systems, processes and people that help us grow our businesses to new heights. If you're interested in growing your business, this podcast will help. Now let's get going.
Julie: 1:04
Hello and welcome to this episode of Figure 8. Today I am in conversation with Amber Briggle. Amber is the founder and CEO of Soma Massage Therapy, which was voted recently the best pain management, the best massage center, for the last 11 consecutive years. So she has grown this business notwithstanding COVID and closures and all of the upheaval that has happened in the last few years. They now are in a beautifully renovated building and they've rebounded stronger than ever, with two locations grossing over a million dollars a year and plans to franchise from coast to coast. She has been featured in many publications and I'm so thrilled to have you here today. Welcome, Amber.
Amber: 1:49
Julie, thanks so much for having me. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today.
Julie: 1:53
Thanks. I'm so excited to talk to you because I do think about your journey from a hands-on massage therapist to having two locations and many therapists and, are you know, are you actually even practicing now or are you really focused on running your business?
Amber: 2:11
Yeah, that's a great. That's a great place to start. I'm still licensed. I just, in fact I just renewed my license, like last month, month before. I worked really hard to get that, so I'm not going to let it lapse.
Amber: 2:21
But I hardly ever get my hands on on and it is, I admit, heartbreaking because I never got into this business to be a business owner. I got into this business to help people, to serve people, to help them feel better and increase their range of motion and improve their health and their wellness, and I do really miss getting my hands on people. But I love what I'm doing today as a CEO and franchisor of an emerging franchise brand, because I'm able to take that same sort of philosophy or ethos, I guess, of wanting to be a helper, wanting to serve as many people as possible and really scale it up, cause I'm really limited. As one solitary massage therapist I can only see three, maybe four people in a day, work four, maybe five days a week before my body just craps out right. We now, at our, between our two locations, see over 1000 people in a month.
Amber: 3:12
Now imagine if we could scale that coast to coast, we'd be able to see 1000s of people a day and so just being able to kind of scale up my ability to help and serve others. So I'm really I don't get my hands on people anymore, but I love what I'm doing. In that it's massage adjacent, I can still be in this industry, but not behind a closed door with one person for 90 minutes at a time. I can get so much done in a day and make sure I'm setting the stage for other people to create that healing space. Yeah.
Julie: 3:40
Well, and I think it's interesting because I think that it is a reality for a lot of people who, like you know, as a massage therapist, use your own body to deliver the treatments that you're doing. So longevity and injury prevention and all of those things is definitely got to be on your mind, but I also feel like it's like you know, the true entrepreneur in you, saying you know you didn't start the business thinking you would not be massaging, but here you are right.
Julie: 4:10
And here you are running two locations, with the team reporting to you, working on getting franchising up and running and, you know, really diving deep as a business owner.
Amber: 4:20
Yeah, no, and I love that again. Yeah, I just. I was just talking with someone about this recently, about how I feel that my entire career has been sort of like many tripping, tripping forward accidentally often. I had never gotten a professional massage before I became a massage therapist. It was just something I thought I'd be, I know right, something I just thought I might be good at and might enjoy. Turns out, I loved it.
Amber: 4:51
Never thought I would be a small business owner but again, as I said, there's only so much energy in my hands and time in my day to meet that need. So I began a small business and then post. Well, then we had COVID. Didn't think I'd be able to hold on my business at all when we reemerged on the other side of that, you know, one year to the day from when we had reopened to opening again at our new location and rebounding as strongly as we did.
Amber: 5:21
I then started thinking about well, maybe there's something here where I can really serve not just my immediate community but serve the entire, the entire world. Like, why, like? Why stop with just Denton, Texas, where we're located now? Why stop with just Texas? Why not go coast to coast and see if we can expand beyond that. So it's always been sort of I never had planned on this, but I think I think probably a lot of your entrepreneurial um listeners probably sort of understand that um, that sometimes a lot of this isn't planned. Like you. You kind of have you know where you want to, you might know where you want to go, uh, but but you but what happens is you find these opportunities that just kind of the door opens and you just kind of get that gut sense, like is the next right step?
Julie: 6:07
Well, and I think it's so interesting in a way, because I think having an event like covid sometimes sends you on a different path, right like the opportunities that you see, you know you might.
Julie: 6:23
If that had never happened, you might have just had your head down in your other location and never really had to think about what might be possible, because you were growing that business and those sorts of things Like sometimes it's those like real, like feeling like it's a big sucker punch and yet doors come out of that that you can then open to see where else you can go.
Amber: 6:46
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean I know, you know it's 2025 and a lot of people are sick of talking about COVID. A lot of businesses have moved on. A lot of businesses have closed permanently. For me, it was such a traumatic experience that those scars are still deep in me. I mean, I remember the night that the governor declared that my business was closed and walking downstairs to go to bed and thinking, well, I'm really glad that we still have our pop-up camper so that when we lose our house, we'll at least still have a place to sleep at night. Like that's, like that was the first place my brain went to Right and I just busted my ass, Julie, every single day of that pandemic, to make sure that I was caring for my team. Like, do you need a micro loan? Like what does your schedule need to look like when you come back? Like what? Like, where are we at? Like, how like, do you need me to bring you groceries? Like what is it that you need?
Amber: 7:39
y also for my clients, because they're I mean, I had people, had people you know, emailing, texting, calling me, saying you know I, you know, I know your closed. So I, I overdid it with my yoga, trying to stretch out my hips and I pulled something in my low back and now I'm in worse shape. What do I do? So I would coach them over the phone on maybe some self massage or some stretching or whatever it was that they might be able to do that was appropriate for them. That then turned into a virtual massage studio and it turned out to be one of probably the smartest things I could have done, because, you know, for months at a time, people are just at home, just doom, scrolling and and then. And then here comes my face and I'm you know I'm talking about, you know unclenching your jaw, bringing your breath down into your belly, giving you some stretches for your neck, showing you things you could do just sitting at home you don't need a gym membership, Gyms are closed anyway, Right and getting people to think about massage as being more than just like this fluff and buff, like treat that you do on your birthday and anniversary, but something really more comprehensive and holistic, that that addresses, you know, the whole body body, mind and spirit and it isn't just a feel good thing but something that's actually good for you.
Amber: 8:51
And then, when we got, when we were able to finally reopen a couple months later I had I guess I lack for better, for lack of a better word of following online who had been curious about, about Soma massage therapy. When and then we reopened, most of my massage therapist had quit at that point in time because they were either scared to come back or they just quite simply couldn't come back. I mean, 85% of massage therapists are women and the statistics I mean. It was called the she session for a reason. Like a lot of us lost our jobs because unfortunately we still make less than men. And if schools and daycares and camps and all that are closed, who's going to stay home?
Julie: 9:30
And it's often the mom that's going to..
Amber: 9:32
Right, exactly, so I didn't have a workforce.
Amber: 9:33
I had a bunch of clients knocking down my door trying to get in One by one. I rebuilt, I hired one by one, I hired therapists back and then within a year of reopening, like I said, we had had this beautiful location downtown. We grossed out a million dollars a year. We're looking at franchising. I think I totally lost track of your question, but it was one of those sort of like.
Amber: 9:56
I just remember feeling completely terrified that I was going to lose everything, and I was determined, absolutely determined, to do everything I possibly could to keep this business going as long as I possibly could, in the hopes that when the governor finally said I could reopen my doors, all I had to do was just, you know, turn a key and flip on a switch and it wasn't quite as simple as that, because I did have to rebuild my workforce right. But I learned so much about my leadership skills in that time. I learned so much about what works for us from a business model, our philosophy, our ethos, our values, learned so much about marketing. I just learned so much in those months that we were closed that it really set us up for a lot of success when we reopened and we just, we just took off.
Julie: 10:46
Oh yeah, Hire the people you needed. Then you could really see the growth start to take off.
Amber: 10:51
Absolutely, absolutely yeah.
Julie: 10:53
And so that was a real sort of role transition for you, though, from you know kind of solo massage therapist and adding a small team to nothing to like. Really coming back in a different way.
Amber: 11:10
Yeah, again, and it was none of this, like I said, like none of this was planned. But you, just you kind of recognize opportunities as they come along. And you know, I just you know little, you know, asterisk follows. I've been a massage therapist for 20 years. It wasn't like this was like an overnight thing, right. So I, you know I had moved around. You know I lived in the Netherlands for a spell. I lived in Boulder, Colorado, for a spell, landed in the Dallas area, which you know been here now for about, oh gosh, probably 16-17 years.
Amber: 11:37
You know started off really small when, here in Denton, Texas, you know, just offering free chair massage at, you know, at a farmer's market, and all I asked was like an actual working email address so I could start an email list Like don't give me your spam, like I'm giving you free massage, like be nice to me, right. And I started an email list from that and it just kind of just slowly over time, scaled up, scaled up, scaled up. So now we I started Salma massage therapy, I believe officially, in the summer of 2011. So we had been in Denton for about two years. That's when I started hiring people individually.
Amber: 12:13
We had moved into our first location in 2013. So we had two years of me as a solo practitioner two years operating a very tiny small business out of the spare bedroom of my house, and then, from 2013 until 2020, operating in a brick and mortar that was impossible to find, but because we don't do walk-ins, we're by appointment only and we want a new credit card number and we charge you if you didn't show up, like you made the effort to find us. So the first time finding us was a trick, but the the next time was always new.
Amber: 12:45
We kind of you know, very sort of you know quiet, tucked away almost like a speakeasy, like not three times and we'll let you in. But it was hard to find. But we made it work. And then COVID happened and that's really again that year post-COVID is really, when we saw this just like rocket shit growth. Because, you know, unfortunately a lot of massage places had closed, a lot of solo practitioners had decided they no longer wanted to do this work anymore. So we had clients looking for a new place to land and felt like those locations were not doing all that they could to keep their practitioners, their employees and their clients as safe as they could. And we were really being.
Amber: 13:38
One of our core values is really people before profits, and I know that sounds campy and cheesy, but 100%. If you care for the people that care for your business, the profits will follow. If you're constantly chasing the money, then you're you're cheapening your brand. You're, you know you're making your employees feel like dirt. You're like your clients are just like, well, what's you know like, are you in it for me or are you in it for the profits? Right, and so when we really put that forward and really articulated so clearly for people what it was we were doing to keep them safe. That really attracted then a lot of those clients from those other bigger brands that people have heard of to come see us, and so we had a ton of clients wanting to get in, which meant I could guarantee work for those massage therapists who still wanted to work, who couldn't find work or were at these spas that didn't feel safe. And and because because I really put forward that people first philosophy, my brand just just took off and now we're franchising coast to coast today.
Julie: 14:39
I know. And so what was it that made you think about taking that kind of because that's a big next level step right, like going up to the business side of becoming a franchisor from having a single, you know, main street kind of building practice in it. What does that look like? What was it that made you realize that you had potential there?
Amber: 15:08
What made me decide to become a franchisor? Sure, yeah, I do. I get that question a lot because, you know, being that I'm also, in addition to being a franchisor, a small business owner. A lot of my friends are small business owners too and they're like what Like? Why Like, why, why are you doing this? I mean the short answer. Well, there's two answers. One again I really I've always wanted to find ways to make massage as accessible to as many people as possible. And if it's just me working by myself, I can only see a handful of people. And if it's just our one or two locations here in Denton, seeing, but I can only see people in a certain you know you're like a geographic, exactly Right.
Amber: 15:51
Yes, how can I scale this? You know this really unique model of massage. You have a no tipping policy, first and foremost, right. Like you've never took your physical therapist or chiropractor. Why are you tipping us Right, this no membership model?
Amber: 16:07
Like you don't have to lock yourself into a massage every month. You come as you come, as often as as you're able to, as you're able to afford or as your schedule allows. You don't need a membership to unlock the great deals. We're going to make this affordable for you. We provide full 60-minute hours, whereas a lot of places will just do 50 or 55 minutes. You're going to get a full 60 minutes of hands-on, so your appointment is actually closer to 75 or 90 minutes. So we have time to talk with you and customize your appointment before we even get our hands on you. Like, we do so many things differently. So how can I scale up this really unique, wonderful model of care where we're really doing more like rehabilitative work on a national scale or just on a bigger scale? Right, and I open a third or fourth location and just really focus on the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex or the triangle between, like Austin, houston, dallas or just Texas, and I could just own several studios. But girl like that's oh, that's a lot of management, that is managing a lot of people, that is managing a lot of people and and selfishly.
Amber: 17:33
The second part of my question, of your question is is you know, my son is graduating high school in a year. My daughter will be starting high school in a year. Do I really want to spend the rest of my life in Texas? I don't have any family here, you know, you know like, and I can't transfer to another location, say in Colorado Springs, where my in-laws live. I can't transfer to a location in St Paul where my mom lives, because they don't exist, right, and so am I just going to be? Am I going to be tethered to Texas my entire life because I've had all these locations? Or can I take that same amount of money that it would cost me to open a third location and instead invest that into a franchise model so that someone else can open that third location? And I've just got these two here in Denton, right?
Amber: 18:10
And so I hired an incredible coach His name is Rick Grossman with the Franchise Bible Coach, he walked me through basically franchise boot camp for about six months and we extracted all of this information that's been in my brain for 20 years and put it on papers. We have an operations manual so we can duplicate the success, whether we're in Toledo, ohio, or Sacramento, california, or just down the street in Dallas, like wherever Sacramento, california or you know, just you know, down the street in Dallas, like wherever you're at it's going to be, you can duplicate that. I did more than just that, but I did like, as an example, that was one of the things I did during bootcamp. And now we're at the point where we are ready to go. We have our franchise disclosure document. We have our franchise agreement. We're a registered trademark. We have an ops manual. We have, like we have all the the. We've got a build out spreadsheet.
Amber: 18:58
So when you purchase your Sawmama Slosh Therapy franchise, you know what kind of sheets to get, what color to get them in, how many paperclips you're going to need. Like, do you need a printer? I mean, we're doing hands-on work. Like, what would I need a printer for? Yeah, you need a printer. Like, just you know, now we have everything. We can give it to you. We've got a marketing plan. So we are ready to go and I'm so excited to see this brand just take off across the country.
Julie: 19:22
Well, and I think it's so interesting because, every like, there's no easy path in entrepreneurship, right? So it's all about, like, looking at what your choices are and determining what you think is the best solution for you. I feel like right, Because also opening several locations in Texas could have been a great choice for you. Also, it wouldn't have been easy Franchising not easy for different reasons. Look at all the work done, you know, in the sort of legwork I'll call it, but, like the, you know to be ready to franchise, and so I think it is just so interesting how, like you know, we can make choices that suit us and we think are going to be the best path forward.
Amber: 20:07
Yeah, I think, and again it's sort of that's like tripping forward that I talked about. It's like I, I, what, what? What had happened is it's the summer of 23,. I want to say I had an amazing vacation to the Pacific Northwest and decided that I wanted to move to the Olympic Peninsula and live with the trees for the rest of my life. But I can't do that if I'm managing a location in Denton, texas, and that's all I've got. And um, and I came back from that vacation with the text message for me in my inbox saying you know, I'm Joe, with whatever company out of Miami, Florida, we're interested in helping you franchise. And I was like, oh huh, that's an interesting serendipity. So I called Joe in Miami and it was. He was just some some guy in a cubicle who really was in it for the money and not in it because he wanted to make Soma a strong and sustainable brand. But it did get. It did get the that thought process going.
Amber: 21:08
And that's when I started vetting different coaches to think about. You know, I really needed something. I know a lot about massage, but I don't I didn't at that time know a lot about franchising and it's you're starting a totally new business, and the last thing I'd want is for someone to invest their life savings in a business that I didn't know how to support and then they lose everything and I get taken to court and Joe in Miami still makes whatever percentage from the sale, like I didn't want any of that. So I found a great coach who really has worked, made this a very sustainable model, so that I'm able not only to solidify the policies and procedures that we had at Soma that were working so well already, but be able to then coach other small business owners on how to do it successfully. And I really want to point out to your listeners too, if they're interested in any of this like you know, you don't have to be a massage therapist to own a SOMA massage therapy.
Amber: 22:01
Like when you open a Dunkin Donuts, you don't need to know how to even turn on an oven right, like they teach you right, and as a small business owner, as a franchise owner, you're not doing the massage, because if you're doing you, I mean you're doing HR, you're doing marketing, you're doing it and we have, you know, we're doing the bookkeeping, we and we have, we have tools to help you with all of this. But you don't have to be a massage therapist to own a massage. You just got to be someone who's a hard worker, you know a passion for the wellness industry, you know willing to put in the work, communicate. That's really who we're looking for. And I do want to point out I just want to make a little quick, little plug too, if that's not for you, but you know someone that this might be a great opportunity for them.
Amber: 22:45
We are offering a franchise referral bonus. So, julie, if you know someone who might be a fantastic Soma Massage Therapy franchisee, introduce them to me, and if they sign up later and they get their spot up and running, then you, julie, or any of your listeners, will get either a thousand dollars cash or a year of free massages. So just keep that in mind. Like, who do you know? Send them to mysomamassagecom. We do have a franchise tab at the top and you can just learn more information there.
Amber: 23:14
Yeah, and that's great, and I think it is interesting right, Because it's different.
Julie: 23:18
You're in a different sales zone now in terms of, like, who you're looking for and what you want, and finding those right people especially in the well always, but especially your first, like those first handful of franchisees is so critically important as you build a brand.
Amber: 23:40
Oh, absolutely, and I'm learning too. Like you don't just sell a franchise, like you sell a burger, like you. We award franchises. We want to make sure that the people who are going to own a Soma Massage Therapy Studio align with our values, right, that they're investing in the community, that they, you know again, they have that people before profits philosophy that they're, that they, you know, celebrate inclusion and they create a welcoming space for both their employees and their clients. We're really looking for franchise owners that align with our values. If they do that, then we'll move forward in the process. But the last thing I'd want is again chasing the money and selling a franchise to just the first person who comes along who ends up being an absolute bigot. Like that would tank the brand. Like we're not about that. We're about inclusion, we're about diversity, we're about, you know, people before profits and so, um and so making sure that we're that we're um, attracting and working with the right kind of people who can really take this brand forward.
Julie: 24:45
Yeah Well, and it really goes with the whole the hire slow fire fast kind of right. Like you need to be very careful and choosy, because it is a long term relationship that you're entering with people and, yes, I know you sign lots of agreements and all the things. But it is that kind of thing where you want to choose really carefully who you partner with.
Amber: 25:09
A hundred percent. I want to again, I'm sorry to keep repeating this it's people before profits. I want this to be sustainable, not only for my own personal interests Like I really like making money, Julie, and I'm really freaking good at it, I like that, I like being able to pay my mortgage right, but I also, obviously, I want it to be sustainable for our franchisees. They're dropping their life savings into this. They're investing in their future and creating a legacy for their children and their grandchildren and beyond, and I would be devastated if I wasn't prepared to support them and make sure that their business was sustainable as well. Exactly, and that's what. That's exactly why, instead of going with Joe in the cubicle in Miami, you could do it for half the price. You know, I went with the more expensive but the more sustainable option. So, yeah, go ahead.
Julie: 26:04
And what led you to kind of declaring people before profits as a value for you, like as you got started in the business and, you know, opened the new building and all those things, how was it I mean you talked earlier about during the pandemic, you know, did people need groceries, did they need help with anything like that speaks to it living within you. But how did you, how did it come to be something that you actually wrote down and decided to live by?
Amber: 26:33
I mean, I've always lived by it. Um, I guess it just got more evident and obvious to the wider public during of safety and this message kind of resonated with people. So it is, it's something I've always believed. I think it just got magnified, more obvious during the pandemic because I was really putting the effort into creating, like I said, this virtual massage studio. Before we opened, I reached out to a local HVAC company and asked them to install an air scrubber directly to our HVAC unit so that when we had the fan running and we had it going all the time, circulating air through the facility, it would purify the air. And I want to make sure that everyone was sorry. Julie, my son just called me. Can we pause for just a second? He's at school. I'm so sorry, hold on.
Julie: 27:42
Okay, I'm wondering if you can tell me about the value and the statement about people over profits and how that I can tell that it comes from within you. I mean, you talked earlier in the interview about do people need groceries in the pandemic? How could you help your team, those kinds of things. But how did it become something that you went from living and breathing to actually like declaring it, writing it down and then really structuring your corporate values around it?
Amber: 28:12
Yeah, that's a super great question. It's something that I've always adhered to, but I think it just became more magnified and obvious during the pandemic, because I think we were all looking for that sense of safety, because I mean, we couldn't even find toilet paper at the store, there were no vaccines, like people we knew were dying or ending up in the hospital, like it was a really scary time right, and we're looking for that sense of safety or comfort or just reassurance it's going to be okay. And again, I had, you know, like I said, I had my virtual massage studio, so I was, you know, teaching people on a daily basis with you know, like I said, I had my virtual massage studio, so I was, you know, teaching people on a daily basis with you know short, like three to five minute videos how to care for themselves. Before we opened, I hired a local HVAC company to install an air scrubber. So rather than having air purifiers in each room, which only had like a small range that would work, I had something installed directly to our HVAC unit so that when the fan was running and I made sure it was running continuously it was scrubbing the air in the whole studio. And it was a thousand dollars and I didn't have a thousand dollars. We were closed and the only thing I sell is physical touch, so I wasn't making any money Right. But again, I didn't. I never wanted to be the type of person that valued what my bank account said versus the safety of other people, and so I had this thing installed. I made a big stink about it online. I got a picture and I'm like like Soma is a safe place to come Right.
Amber: 29:45
I did a number and I did a number of things that I could continue. I mean we could do a whole podcast just on the things I did during the pandemic, but it did a number and I did a number of things that I could continue. I mean we could do a whole podcast just on the things I did during the pandemic, but I did a number of things where I really tried to show people I really care about you. Like we're again, we're healthcare workers. I'm not doing your nails, I'm not cutting your hair, not bringing you margarita.
Amber: 30:03
Like we are healthcare workers and it's our job to keep our employees and our clients safe and healthy. To keep our employees and our clients safe and healthy and what you know if I have a COVID spread through the office, then no one can work. Clients don't feel you know safe to come back and then again, and then you're cause. You're chasing the profits instead of the people. So when I really put that forward and really made it super like these were already my values. But when I really like vocalized them and shined a light on them, people were like this place is different, this is special, and it really attracted. It attracted a ton of clients, the right kinds of clients too, and it attracted the right kinds of therapists who wanted to feel you know safe and protected in a space like that.
Julie: 30:46
Well, and it strikes me too that in some ways it was a preparation for you to go through the exercise of becoming a franchisor, because you were already thinking about and articulating policies and processes and and the things that ultimately you had to sit down and put into operations, manual and other places.
Amber: 31:09
Yeah, no, absolutely, and it was again. I hadn't thought about franchising in 2020. I was just thinking about-.
Julie: 31:15
Hang alive. No, that was what I was thinking of.
Amber: 31:20
But when we reopened exactly a year to the day, so we had we closed March 20th, we reopened May 20th, so only two months, because I'm in Texas and apparently COVID doesn't exist down here. So we were only closed for two months, but in that time, my team had gone from 13 therapists down to four and one of our locations had closed, and then, one by one, therapists continued to quit. So in those two, just those two months alone were devastating. So in those two, those two, just those two months alone, were devastating. But when we reopened, we reopened May, may 20th, 2020. And then one year to the day to the day, may 20th 2021, that's when we reopened in our new location. It has twice as many rooms. I now have 25 massage therapists on staff. That's our primary location. That's the one that makes us the most money. The one that makes us the most money, but we that that has been just.
Amber: 32:11
I was not thinking in 2020 or 2021 about franchising. I was just thinking about how do I keep this thing from falling apart, right? And then, and then, when I continued to see the success when we reopened in that location, and then our, our, just, our, we just were able to scale up and I just kept thinking. I came back from this vacation. I'm like how can I live in the trees in the Olympic Peninsula? And I had this text message and it was waiting for me, asking me if I was interested in franchising. It just kind of sparked this brainstorm that a lot of your listeners can probably relate to. It's like this is an opportunity. I hadn't even thought about what would this look like, and you just kind of do the that, you do your homework and you start exploring different options and it just felt right and that's what we're doing now today.
Julie: 32:56
Yeah, yeah. And how do you feel like you're growing as a CEO through all of this?
Amber: 33:01
Oh yeah, I really trust my leadership and decision, decision making a lot more than I ever have, because I can see. I can see the success that we've experienced during a time that was devastating for women and devastating for small businesses, and for me to be a woman owning a small business and um and emerge as strongly as we did made me think like maybe it was on the right track. With all of this, um, I also, um, you know, the encouragement of my coach, um, rick Grossman. He, you know, he, he, I didn't understand this until months, if not maybe a year, later, after I had, um, you know, signed a contract with the Franchise Bible Coach to be my, I guess my consulting firm for this.
Amber: 33:54
I didn't realize that they're very, very picky about who they take on. They're not going to take on just anyone and any business model, right. And they, you know, they chose me and they chose Soma because they also saw the potential in this and that just kind of also sort of gave me like the confidence boost that I needed. It's like I, you know, I don't know everything, I'll never know everything, but I know enough, and I'm surrounded by a team that believes in me, both at Soma and with my franchise team, that, um, that I really feel like we could all together, we can really kind of launch this to the next level and we can be the next big brand coast to coast. So I just I feel just more confident in my decision-making because I've seen the success and because I understand the potential and the sustainability of this business model really has just sort of given me sort of like the pat on the back.
Julie: 34:45
The right decisions. Yeah, yeah, good. Well, I can't wait to see where you go from here and I want to thank you so much for chatting with me today and we'll put, of course, all your info in the show notes so people will be able to find you and learn more, and I'm wishing you all the best. Thanks for joining me.
Amber: 35:06
Thanks so much, Julie.
Julie: 35:11
This was a real delight. Appreciate you.
Julie: 35:12
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