Franchising Spas

Like most wellness practices, many more of us would partake regularly if the hefty prices didn’t give us big knots in our shoulders or otherwise stress us out. Staying well should not do that. Someone needed to fill the schism between a healthy body and bank account and for now it seems to be the unfortunately named spa franchise, Massage Envy. (Freud anyone?)

The founder, who is not surprisingly male, seems to be doing a bang-up job of filling the vacuum. John Leonesio started out in the health club industry, and for 30 years he did it well. So he took the health club membership model and has applied it to his new venture. It varies from location to location but generally goes like this: Fifty-nine dollar monthly fee gets you a one-hour massage each month. After that you’ll pay around $40 or so for each additional massage. Non-members would pay about $80, which is just about the going rate of an owner-run spa. The ambience will be spa-y but cookie cutter and it will likely be located in a strip mall. (Many are.)

Help me out to understand something here. Yes, there are savings in those figures and yes, our mantra is Bring wellness to the people. Actually, it wasn’t but I’m hereby proclaiming that to be the mantra until further notice. But! But! But! (As the great PeeWee Herman once said, Why do all my friends have such big buts?) Is this really the way to go?

So many thoughts, questions and concerns swirl I can barely get hold of them all without hurting myself. The first question that comes to mind is, What does this mean for the individually owned spas that go out to search for and hire therapists who are the most seasoned and professional and have nurturing dispositions? And what of the struggling mom and pop one-table operations? If they had to match those prices it would mean taking food off the table. So how do all those skilled, healing hands compete?

I heard Leonesio speak and he comes across like a kind and rational man—a businessMan, that is—but he demands that his franchisees share his mindset. One of the most troubling comments he made was that he tells potential franchisees "right off," whom he puts through a rigorous vetting process to make sure they know their way around a spread sheet, that they “are not in the massage business.” The therapists are, he says somewhat unhelpfully.

Leonesio goes out searching for people whose skill sets are strong in marketing, sales and management. Most of them, he says, come from corporate America “looking for a change.” I apologize in advance for my cynicism, but I read this as burnt-out people, who don’t want to compromise the lifestyle to which they’ve grown accustomed, looking to capitalize on the next growth industry. One that allows them to trade in their suits for a statue of Shiva.

Meow.

The biggest question that comes to mind is how are those business brainiacs going to manage massage therapists, who are practically by definition constitutionally anathema to bottomline concerns? Shouldn’t they be just sorta kinda familiar with their therapists’ needs? And after franchiser and franchisee get their cut what, exactly, is left for them? Leonesio says he recruits therapists from massage schools so the therapists will be green and hungry and grateful for the work. But it doesn't necessarily mean they'll be good massage therapists. It will remain to be seen how long they stick around before they too start looking for a kinder, gentler industry to enter—and how long Massage Envy does, too, for that matter.

The franchise has already identified about 1200 locations targeted for opening. I think they’re about a third of the way there.

I don’t think I’m done with this topic yet. So perhaps the next related topic I should explore is elitism in the Land of Spa and me.

Almond Eyes, Lotus Feet

I’ve heard it said by other spa cognoscenti that most spa goers really don’t care about the origins of their spa treatments—the hows and whys of the benefits—that they don’t have the time and all they care a hoot about is that they leave feeling good.

I tend to disagree. I think the advantages of being enlightened to the sometimes spiritual/mystical/magical bases for treatments can be compared to the Slow Food or eating-locally movements whose missions—I’m paraphrasing liberally here—are knowing where your food came from as a deeper way of enjoying it. As in: I raised this cow, I slaughtered this cow and I will now eat this cow.

With spas, I think that the more we’re groomed to appreciate the ritual aspects as part of the inherent healing process, the better each new treatment will help us to develop a more highly attuned sense of how our bodies are responding or what they need—not to mention learning to recognize when we’re getting a quality treatment vs. a hack job. It will also raise our body awareness such that we will grow into partnership with our practitioners. No more handing ourselves over like a slab of meat.

Here ancient cultures have it over Westerners. To that end, I'm recommending a book that has not yet even hit the bookstores in the US, but has been a bestseller in India, called “Almond Eyes, Lotus Feet,” by Sharanda Dwivedi and Shalini Devi Holkar, both from Mumbai. (The latter is a princess through marriage. How's that for magical thinking?) The book, a fictional memoir, weaves the stories of one Indian princess and her beauty secrets with cultural insights and, as only India can depict, colorful photos. The book shares ancient remedies for keeping your hair shiny, skin soft and even includes a glossary of all the plants, spices and herbs to get you from teenage acne (papaya-mint tea) to post-natal strength (cress and rosewater) to menopause. (Though I'm not sure Indian women get the sorts of menopausal symptoms Western women fall prey to and I suspect diet and natural remedies may have something to do with that.)

Why this book? For Indian women, beauty is tradition. Even in the poorest parts of India as they work the fields or carry heavy burdens—real and psychic—women wear beautiful bangles and bright colors and have shiny shiny hair. Their hands are hennaed and their faces dance with splashes of color. Is this inner beauty penetrating outward or vice versa? Either way, I think we have much to learn from them.

"Almond Eyes, Lotus Fee" will be in stores this month. In fact, as I write this, according to Harper Collins website, the countdown is exactly 12 days, 10 hours, 34 minutes and 23. . .22. . .21 second away.