I am Jody Held-Salm, and I am ready to share with, and teach, other massage therapists how to start and run a group massage business.

Aside from my business life, I am a wife and mother of three children. Being a mother is not only my most important role, which has crossed over into many of my business roles, but has so far been the most amusing role. It is always a comedy show at my house full of boys, and a daughter who visits from college.

I have been a massage therapist for 15 years. I graduated in 1993 from North Carolina School of Natural Healing in Asheville. I love massage, I love to give massage, and I love to get massage. I love to advertise massage, I love to talk about massage, and I love the business of massage. I think massage can change the world. Just imagine what the world would be like if every one got a massage once a week. How angry could you be after being that relaxed? It's just not possible.

Massage business seems quite different than most businesses. There are many great massage therapists in the world, yet many of them know nothing about the business side of a practice. While most massage therapists work in private practice, I feel that working in a group practice has many more benefits. That's where my business comes into play: helping professional massage therapists working together as a group.

I have practiced massage in a variety of settings: health clubs, sports centers, hospitals, medical doctor offices, hair salons, private practice, private home settings, nursing homes, with the young, and with the old.

What I found was that demand for massage outweighs supply. What I also found, was that there were lot of very talented massage therapists who had no idea how to get, or handle, large-scale business. So in 2001 I opened Relax & Rejuvenate, a massage center in Asheville North Carolina. I truly enjoyed achieving my dream of bringing massage therapists and clients together. It reminded me very much of being a mother in that I first dreamed of having a child and then nurtured it to fruition. This took plenty of work, trial and error, a lot of laughs, and plenty of blood, sweat, and tears.

I sold the business in December of 2006, ready to evolve my business and years of experience into helping other massage therapists start and run their own dream massage practice.