Michele Merhib, the entrepreneur behind Elements Therapeutic Massage, on WomenEntrepreneur.com
Michele Merhib thinks it is really the failures in her daily life that have pushed her to entrepreneurial accomplishment.
By: Michele Merhib

Resource: http://www.womenentrepreneur.com/2010/11/lucky-at-dropping.html
When I was requested to publish a visitor column and share the secrets and techniques of my organization achievement, I instantly grew to become enthusiastic about the chance to explain to my story about becoming a good loser. I’m the founder of Features Therapeutic Therapeutic massage. It truly is one particular of the speediest-rising franchises in The united states, with 75 studios throughout the United States. I contemplate myself a winner for the reason that I have become one particular of the luckiest and most identified losers along the way.
I come from a prolonged line of losers. My father’s side of the relatives escaped a famine in Lebanon in the course of Environment War I that wiped out virtually a 3rd of the country’s population. My mother’s aspect fled Germany soon after their property was bombed through Globe War II. My ancestors on each sides misplaced their properties and just about missing their life. Yet they persevered. They had a resolve not only to endure but thrive.
When I was growing up, both my parents owned enterprises. But their entrepreneurial desires had been analyzed. My mother ruptured a disc in her again, wound up in the medical center and lost her enterprise in the approach, for the reason that it could not run without the need of her. My father dropped his business all through the Oklahoma oil bust in the 1980s. I like to say that my ancestors and mother and father walked so I could operate. The fact that my relations have been in a position to retain likely in spite of adversity established an outstanding case in point for me to adhere to. In truth, I adopted along almost also very well. The shedding portion, that is.
In the late 1990s I was a practising occupational therapist and director of a rehabilitation department. I was in company America with a continual paycheck and predictable several hours. HMOs and PPOs ended up changing the face of health care. But at the rear of the scenes, I was modifying, also. I resolved to depart the overall health-care industry to go after a certificate in massage therapy. I built this alternative so I would have a much more flexible timetable and much more time with my teenage son and daughter. Individuals imagined I was insane, and occasionally I assumed they could possibly be appropriate, but I felt pushed to come to be a therapeutic massage therapist.
When I concluded college, I went into enterprise for myself. I rented a massage area at a area country club. I experienced officially arrived. I experienced my desire job. No more corporate stress, pink tape, disappointed workers and minimal morale. It was just me and a continuous stream of consumers.
Then, about a calendar year into my bliss, my family’s losing streak struck me when the place club was sold. The new house owners did not want therapeutic massage therapy, and I lost my initial company area.
The cliché is real. Dropping that area was one particular of the greatest points that at any time occurred to me. It did not come to feel like it at the time. In point, I still left kicking and screaming. I was cozy, pleased, and almost everything appeared to be clicking. But after I stop battling my fate, I took a step ahead. I secured a retail house and opened a retail therapeutic massage studio. I was no more time a room renter. I was involved in the construction method, producing business methods and choosing workers. This was the very first of many experiences that taught me a excellent lifestyle lesson: What may appear disheartening at the time is an chance to grow. Becoming pushed out of the state club opened a new doorway for me, and I ran as a result of it.
My idea was to open a normal wellness centre. Therapeutic massage would be just 1 of lots of providers. I could see it all so obviously in my brain. The customers, nonetheless, observed one thing distinctive. Demand dictated offer, and therapeutic massage became my core business. Becoming a rookie company operator, I had to drop my eyesight of the business I assumed it really should be in buy to grow the productive business it needed to be. I allow go of some workforce so I could seek the services of extra therapeutic massage therapists. Which is exactly where the demand from customers was, and I experienced to drop in order to acquire. And, boy, did I win.
Business enterprise grew. Desire grew. I opened a next locale. And inside a 12 months, I signed a agreement with Physical fitness With each other Holdings Inc. to franchise the strategy. Some may possibly imagine I was offering it all away. But I understood I had to lose my limited keep on issues in order for a fantastic company to develop into a terrific countrywide chain. I could only do so significantly by myself.
Our arrangement was basic. As founder of the recently designed Components Therapeutic Massage franchise, I would share the small business techniques I had developed with potential franchisees. I would assistance with education and genuine-entire world expertise.
I also remained an lively franchise proprietor with two renamed Features Therapeutic Therapeutic massage studios in the course of the network’s progress. That attained me wonderful reliability as the chain expanded. I got to share what I professional at the shop stage — the similar encounters that franchisees expertise in their markets. I could possibly have a company title, but I have put in my time at the rear of the entrance counter. And that has been a must have to my friends in an ever-increasing method.
In return for all that, Exercise Collectively has embraced a sister brand name that has grown into a national chain. Inspite of the challenging overall economy, we keep on to increase studios, and studios continue on to add consumers. Not that it really is been simple. In a tight economic system, even I, the founder of a nationwide chain, had to tighten my belt. These days, I have a wonderful business associate and co-proprietor, and we now have three Factors Therapeutic Massage studios. We also oversee a great crew of 45 staff members. Our most critical obligation as organization entrepreneurs is to make payroll for our firms.
But when shopper bookings grew lean because of the depressed overall economy in 2008-09, I was faced with a hard conclusion. I could pay out my studio professionals, or I could pay out myself. My partner and I agreed that we had to shed the studio supervisors and re-enter the day-to-day functions of the enterprise. I felt like I experienced lost again. Why did I have to go again and regulate a studio once more?
When again, I figured out that a decline can be a blessing in disguise. It experienced been a when since I actively managed a studio on a day-to-working day foundation. In the previous months and decades, I experienced expended as considerably time touring to association conferences for the massage business and traveling to with franchisees at their studios as I expended in my own studios in Colorado. In this article was a likelihood to revisit the nitty-gritty. What I realized from this new problem is that the devices get the job done if we perform them. I like to say that losing my studio professionals was a way for me to achieve back again my self confidence in the business enterprise and in our devices. They’re as excellent currently as they were being when I made them. In fact, they’re much better thanks to the contributions of our astounding franchise proprietors.
We have weathered the financial storm properly, and we are more powerful right now for the reason that of it. Now I am back again to preparing my regular travel to franchise studios throughout the U.S. community for 2011. And I will share not only most effective tactics from when I initially created the company, but also finest techniques of nowadays. We are all in this collectively, which is a ton much better than hoping to determine every little thing out on your personal.
So for me, getting rid of turned out to be a quite good thing. Positive, I could have stored a prosperous company all to myself, stayed in my 1st locale, stored a watchful eye on every single aspect of my little domain, and under no circumstances ventured exterior that ease and comfort zone. And I would have a compact therapeutic massage studio with a minimal quantity of people today I could touch in favourable methods. I would be owner and operator of an independent business. And everyone else would be my competitor.
But I made the decision to be a loser. I enable go of some of that manage in get to share the prosperity with other folks. And today there are 75 other studios in my exact enterprise, with the identical title, who are not my competition. That can make me the luckiest loser in the world.
Michele Merhib is the founder of Factors Therapeutic Therapeutic massage, based in Highlands Ranch, Colo. She owns a few Colorado studios and has been franchising the strategy since 2006. There are now 75 franchise spots in the U.S.
