Episode 15: Fear and a Courage Cocktail with Meli Thomas

Meli is originally from Hawaii. She started her business in Sacramento, California, with a technique using zero-cost marketing, and her business exploded. She moved to Utah about two years ago, and with the recent change, she has found a love of teaching people Self Massage techniques for chronic pain and relaxation.

What motivated Meli?

Meli had fear working for herself. She kept being told to work for herself. She was working for a family business, and rent got high, and she was transitioning working for an independent contractor. She saw that owning her own business was possible.

With nine years of experience in Sacramento working as an employee, she started building a reputation, and clients began to request her for her excellent service.

At that time, Meli was reading self-improvement books, dived into marketing for massage. She had encouragement from outside sources, and that was the driving force to help her jump into her own business.

I started my business with what was a combination of courage cocktail, including youtube videos, self-help books, and business books for massage. ~Meli Thomas

Meli Was Told Her Life Journey

People get Meli’s energy, nurturing, maternal energy. In the first months of her career, she was giving a woman a massage, and the woman woke right up from the massage and asked, “Are you a mother?” Meli had not even had children yet. As with other people in our podcast, it takes outside influences sometimes to tell you what your life path is.

How does Meli get referrals?

Meli takes anatomy and physiology very seriously. She has a deep respect for the body and the mind. She is also a good listener. When you tell her what is causing you pain, that is where she is going to focus.

Any word that has “ship” in it, like “relationship” it is great to be a good listener. ~Meli Thomas

The biggest thing that Meli did was market to her current clients. One of her favorite “f” words is free. She gave out gift certificates. At first, she was so scared to give something away for free, but after people were so grateful, her clients came back one hundredfold. Then she did a client appreciation week where she gave free upgrades and made them unique gifts with gift certificates to give away. They got an excellent massage, a gift, and gifts to give away. Loving on her clients and spoiling them worked very well.

What is Meli doing currently?

Meli is networking. Although out of her comfort zone, she is getting out of her shell and meeting people. She is usually a one-on-one person and networking with other people online and LinkedIn.

Why Meli loves Nurses

Meli is the child of addicts. She developed a co-dependent relationship and has grown to understand and overcome those tendencies. Meli thinks of the first 18 years of your life. First is friends and family, second is teachers, and last is nurses. A nurse is the first to touch you other than mom and dad. Nurses are in your life from the beginning. She decided that it is the group she wanted to focus on.

The right side of the quarantine is that Melihas been studying nurse burnout. She has enormous respect for everything that nurses do and wants to help them in their lives.

If she services X amount of clients, then she would be able to pay rent and put food on the table. Meli describes herself as selfish, and to help someone is to help myself. The testimonies propel her every day. If someone says, I can now lift my grandchild. I can think I can focus, and I can get back to my everyday life. Those success stories get Meli through her career and are fulfilling.

Meli received good advice lately, and that is to stay open to opportunities. Meli describes herself as an over“anal”izer. That is part of the whole childhood survival. Meli’s mother taught her to read people. Meli was always told by her mother to be 15 steps ahead of other people.

Meli wants to create a subscription for self-massage. Meli can touch more people without touching people with self-massage. People buy the tools, and they collect dust. Nobody can get massages right now, so why not teach them to help themselves.

How does Meli balance her personal with business life?

Meli is honest that she is still trying to manage this aspect of her life. Meli wants to be able to schedule things and stick to her schedule.

Meli’s quote for the day is:

If you listen to your body when it whispers, you won’t have to hear it scream.

Having her clients acknowledge that they are in pain. A lot of people are disconnected from their bodies and are embarrassed to have pain. Meli wants people to listen to their bodies because it is smarter than you are.

An example was that Meli was having cramps for many years and found out she had fibroid tumors. She became aware that the pain was not normal, and she needed to listen.

Life in your body and if something is off, you will know and can get to an expert to find out what is wrong.

Meli’s Goals

Meli wants to give hugs.

Meli wants to be seen and known. She has been asking in networking groups to do chair massage. Just to be seen in the community and have to contact.

Meli is going to expand on the self-massage. She explains there are three groups of people who know about massage. 1) I love massage, 2) Questions and are on the fence, and 3) do not touch me ever, I do not want human contact. Group 3 is the people that need massage the most. They are probably in the most pain.

Meli is licensed and certified in cupping and cold stones.