PORTLAND, Ore. — Despite economic woes from the COVID-19 pandemic, an Oregon massage therapy business is seeing a lot of growth.
"It's been crazy, but it's been a lot of fun," said Stephanie O’Donnell-Peters, owner of Massage & Yoga Portland.
O’Donnell-Peters has been a licensed massage therapist for more than a decade and teaches at East West College of the Healing Arts in Portland.
She started her business several years ago, prior to the pandemic. When she became concerned about COVID, she closed operations in March 2020, about a week before the state implemented its own lockdown orders.
"We didn't know contact wise what was going to happen," she said.
After several months, she reopened the business in summer 2020, with all-new safety protocols. She saw demand for massage therapy services increase.
"Clearly this year has shown how stressful life can be," O’Donnell-Peters said.
She decided to take a risk and borrow money from family. She also applied to several government-funded pandemic assistance business loans to expand her practice and hire more people.
Since that move, she has gone from seeing 40-50 clients per month to 130-170.
She said one key to that success has been constant communication to customers.
"We've put out so much information to clients through social media and through newsletters about what exactly we're doing, why we're doing it and what they should expect when they come in," she explained.
That includes notifications about stringent sanitization practices, surgical mask requirements for both clients and staff and air purification tools. O’Donnell-Peters said this communication inspires trust with existing clients, while boosting visibility to potential future ones.
Ultimately, she said a greater prioritization on health is helping her team thrive.
"Massage [is] more important than ever now. People are starting to realize it's not just this frou-frou thing that you do once a year when you get a birthday gift certificate or anniversary present," O’Donnell-Peters said. "People are really starting to notice that they need to take better care of their bodies for the long term."