JP business is ‘hands-on’ venture

Many small business entrepreneurs who worked previously for someone else admit they started their own venture as a way to have their hands on all aspects of a business. Christine Rose is no different. It is just that in her case, her desire for a more hands-on business is literally “hands on” as her startup venture is a massage therapy company, Imani Massage.

The Jamaica Plain-based business offers common massage services including deep tissue, pre-natal, sports and Swedish, but it also offers more specialized massage services like myofascial and hot stone.

Started in 2011, Rose has grown Imani Massage from a side business into a fulltime occupation that she is hoping to expand.

“I have been trying to build my brand of Imani Massage since I started,” Rose said. “My goal is to build my business so I can create a company and have employees.”

Room to grow

Imani Massage is currently located in The Meeting Point building in Jamaica Plain. The Meeting Point is home to a number of independent body workers and mental health practitioners. Rose rents space to offer her massage services, but keeps overhead down because she only has to rent the space when she is using it — right now about 20 hours of massage time a week. For a massage therapist that is about fulltime with 20 actual massage hours and the rest of the work week on administration.

Rose is talking to a potential partner from The Meeting Point about finding their own location, an office in the 2,200-3,000 square-foot range to office both massage and yoga services. She has set a goal to make this happen in the next two years.

In the massage business, client referrals are critical to growing the business so Rose is very active getting out and about beyond just serving clients at The Meeting Point.

She also serves customers each week through Rolling River Massage, an Arlington-based mobile massage company that works with clientele at hotels, businesses, events and homes throughout Boston.

In addition, Rose does chair massages at Boston Medical Center one night a week.

“Now, I am building because of referrals,” Rose said. “I think with any service-oriented business it is about word of mouth.”

Cultivating loyalty

Though Rose does business around Boston, she is very much at home in Jamaica Plain and most of her clients are from the area. She plans to keep the business there as well.

“I knew that I wanted to have a practice either in Jamaica Plain or in Mission Hill,” she said. “And the reason why is because those residents I know support local business. If they want a business to happen and succeed — they will make it happen.”

Imani Massage charges between $50 and $100 an hour for its different massage services. Rose points out, though, that she charges $65 an hour for many of the most common massage services, which is about $20 less than many charge for these same services.

As an evangelist for massage in her neighborhood she is OK with charging a little less because she doesn’t want the cost to keep people from trying it. A lot of her customers come back consistently — once a month or twice a month. Loyal customers are the lifeblood of her business.

Something else that is unique about being in the massage business is that the hands are the talent, and they need to be taken care of. That means nightly icing and staying physically fit overall, as well as, periodic breaks throughout the year to rest the hands. Generally, the most any massage therapist can do of actual hands-on massaging is six hours in a day.

As a small business owner, Rose draws on what she calls a family full of entrepreneurs.

She grew up in Rochester, Mass., a small town in the Cape Cod area. Her linage traces back to the Cape Verde Islands four generations ago. The traditional family business was running a 30-acre cranberry bog in the fertile Cape region. Her grandfather carried on the family’s legacy operating the bog until his death in 1990. Her father ran his own construction business. Her sister, Elizabeth Siggers, owns and operates Liz’s Hair Care in Mission Hill.

A series of career changes

For her family, Rose was actually late to the entrepreneurial table. After graduating Boston University in 1992 she spent a decade working in the financial industry with BNY Mellon in Everett before leaving and helping her sister get her hair salon off the ground. She was part of this business from 2002 to 2008.

In 2008, after many years of volunteering with Mission Hill Main Streets, she took a job as executive director of the organization, which she did for another two years. But her experience working in her sister’s business, and perhaps the pull of her family’s entrepreneurial spirit, made her want to do something on her own.

She hit on massage based on her desire to do something in the service industry and because while working with her sister she had previously considered expanding Liz’s Hair Care into the spa business, which includes massages. She liked the idea and decided to use it for herself.

In 2010, she attended the Cortiva Institute in Boston to learn the massage craft. When she graduated in early 2011, she immediately took a part-time massage job at Elizabeth Grady Day Spa in South Boston and used the rest of her time to launch Imani Massage.

She doesn’t have a single regret about making the move.

“I am absolutely thrilled. This is the best career change ever,” Rose said. “I pray that I can last for 20 more years doing this.”