By: Schenley Kent
Valerie Ross is the owner and operator of Inertia Massage & Spa located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Inertia Massage & Spa is a full-service spa that offers massage therapy, facials, and other therapeutic services.
Valerie has been a massage therapist for 22 years. For several years she was an adjunct massage therapy instructor at Harrisburg Area Community College. She is certified in five massage modalities and specializes in Thai massage, therapeutic, and deep tissue massage. Valerie has been a small business owner since 2008 and her business is thriving and growing despite the uncertainties of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
COVID-19 and its subsequent variants have ravaged several small businesses that have been in operations for decades; however, the pandemic has revitalized Inertia Massage & Spa. Valerie credits her small business’s success in weathering the tumultuous past 23 months to people’s increased interest in developing and maintaining healthy self-care habits.
“This is a very stressful and uncertain period we are currently living in. There is a global pandemic that does not seem to have an end in sight. People have to balance their work and their family obligations. People are struggling in many ways and looking to many different avenues of self-care to maintain their peace of mind.”
The road to “peace of mind” has increased foot traffic and the book of business at Inertia Massage & Spa. The uptick in new customers has been a welcome addition and has helped recover some of the business’s losses from the early days of the pandemic when the government mandated that all non-essential businesses must shut down for 14 days to slow the spread of COVID-19. Valerie says that it was a terrifying and uncertain time during this period. To bring in some revenue while the business was closed, the Spa sold gift cards to their established clientele that could be used for future services. This strategy helped to ease the financial burden of being closed, but it was no replacement for not operating at normal capacity. During the initial days of the pandemic, Valerie did lose some long-term clients who did not feel comfortable returning to the Spa. However, losing these clients has not slowed down the business because of the influx of new clients utilizing the Spa’s services.
In addition to providing massage therapy and esthetician services herself at Inertia Massage & Spa, Valerie also has other massage therapists who offer services at the Spa.
When asked about any staffing challenges she’s facing due to labor shortages, Valerie says, “now is a challenging time to hire massage therapists because the practitioners are in such high demand. I haven’t had much luck hiring additional staff because it is difficult to compete with larger spas or chains that have the ability to offer tuition reimbursement as an incentive to come to work for them. Unfortunately, this isn’t an option for me as an independent business owner. Recruiting new therapists is an ongoing challenge. As a result, I have had to decline some business because the demand is greater than what we can meet.”
Valerie’s advice to those who want to become entrepreneurs is, “Just Do It!” She says that you shouldn’t be scared, and never give doubt any space; otherwise, you may not take that leap of faith and go into business for yourself.
Website: https://massageharrisburgpa.com
Social Media: @InertiaMassage on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Schenley Kent, at the time of this blog, is a second-year law student at Penn State Dickinson Law School. She is interested in pursuing a career in employment law post-graduation. Schenley currently works as a law clerk at McNees Wallace & Nurick in the firm’s Harrisburg office.
