Meet Gretchen Hill of Saltwater Massage Studio in Gloucester

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gretchen Hill.

Gretchen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I opened Saltwater Massage Studio in 2013, but my career path to get here has been a bit of a winding one. I was never someone who knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, but I always had a clear sense that I needed my work to be meaningful, help others and have a positive impact in the world. I have also always been very independent, so I had a deep craving for autonomy that was another driving factor.

Massage Therapy was a career change for me. I studied Psychology in college and that led to an 8-year career working in and developing programs helping people living with HIV/AIDS get access to services. It was an important time in my life and taught me nearly everything I’ll ever need to know about life and what it means to be a human. I feel immense gratitude for the people that I knew then – they have been my biggest teachers. I also feel grateful that I had the opportunity to develop so many parts of my skill set. Working in a non-profit, you are often doing big work on a small budget. And because of that, I had to have my hands in many different areas of the work – from managing people to budgets and simultaneously balancing the very real and very unpredictable issues that come up when the work centers on the intersection of community, addiction, poverty, trauma, a wide spectrum of social justice issues, progressive illness and issues related to death and dying. It was like boot camp for running a small business. Nothing I ever do will be as challenging or multi-layered as my work at that time.

But ultimately, I felt a deeper desire to create something of my own, to learn a trade I could work at mastering, and to feel as if I had some control over my own destiny. Whether or not any of us can control our destiny is another topic, but at the time that was a driving urge. Somewhere in the middle of my former career, I decided to enroll in massage school nights and weekends and I did that for two years and then for the first two years of my massage career I was trying to juggle both. A friend of mine broke the hard news to me that I was never going to be able to turn massage therapy into a real career unless I jumped in full time. So that’s what I did.

That decision was a hard one for me, both emotionally and financially. But I really knew deep in my gut that what I wanted to do was own my own business. The first thing I needed to do was get good at my job, so that’s where I started. It was a real sink-or-swim moment for me, but that’s where I thrive. For the next 5 years, I worked in several different massage therapy centers while working on developing my skills. I took the money I earned and put it back into continuing education and learning everything I could both about massage therapy and business. Meanwhile I was shaping my dream business in my mind and, while it had a different name then, it’s for sure the embryo version of what Saltwater Massage Studio is today.

A series of events led me to moving from Cambridge to Gloucester and by that time, I was started to become impatient with where I was in life. All I wanted to do was open a business, but the one in my mind felt far from what I could afford to do. So I started where I could. I knew I was a great massage therapist, I knew I was a hard worker and I knew that I was not going to feel satisfied until I made this vision a reality. So I took $1500 and rented a small room, whipped up some marketing materials, built a website, set up the massage table that I already owned and got to hustling. I guess the rest is history.

It’s hard for me to believe that 5 years has passed since then. From Day One, I treated Saltwater Massage Studio like it was the business I had in my mind. I would literally sit at the beach waiting for the phone to ring and every time it did, I answered it like I was sitting at a desk, booked the appointment and got to work. Looking back, there was so much sweetness to my life. My intentions were so clear about what I wanted and what I was building that growth just felt like a natural evolution. Sometimes I would look ahead at the calendar and I would have no work lined up for myself. My mantra became: Don’t panic. Just worry about where the next client is going to come from. I think I really came into my own as a person then. I was forced to put myself out there and that was really good for me as a person.

There is a lot that has happened between now and then, but where we are today is that that little seedling has actually turned into the business I saw in my mind. We moved to a larger location and I did a major construction project to convert what was formerly a breakfast restaurant into my dream space for Saltwater Massage Studio. We now have a team of 7 massage therapists and a few rock star admin staff members. I’m at a point now where I’m realizing that Saltwater Massage Studio is now so much more than just the vision I created. It’s beginning to take on a whole life of its own made up of the contributions and talents of everyone that is involved with it. I’m beginning to see that there are ways that I can start to let go and enjoy the ride. That’s an incredible feeling for me. I’m really really proud of what I made. And I’m beginning to think about what is next for me, personally and professionally.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I don’t think anyone could say that launching a business is a smooth road. Every new level of growth has presented new challenges and stretched me in new ways. I’ve been growing both as an entrepreneur and as a leader alongside the business.

Early on, a lot of the challenges were mental. There were days when I felt like a failure and days when I felt that anything is possible. I recognize now that our thoughts create our experience, so on any given day I can see Saltwater totally differently depending on what’s going on with me internally. The challenge is to recognize that and ride that wave without looking too much into it. The best moments of clarity have come when I’m not overthinking it and I’m able to hear my own creative intuition clearly. That’s when the magic happens.

On a practical level, the biggest challenge I’ve encountered recently is recognizing that we are at a point where we need more infrastructure in order to continue growing the way we have been. Back when it was just me or even when I had a few employees, I was making a lot up as we went along. Suddenly we need a lot more systems and policies in place to keep things feeling effortless. It takes some extra work to do that, but it’s worth it in the long run. It’s good for everyone.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Saltwater Massage Studio – what should we know?
At Saltwater Massage Studio, our focus is therapeutic massage. Most of the people that come through our doors are looking for some sort of relief from pain or help getting through a difficult time. Of course, we see a lot of people just looking to relax or treat themselves to a nice experience, but I don’t really see the work as very different. These days, so many of us are over-stimulated, over-worked, stressed and tired. I see massage therapy as being a concrete tool that can be used to cope with that. I watch it making a real difference in people’s lives every day.

The team of massage therapists at Saltwater Massage Studio is incredibly talented. Most of our therapists have been in the field for 5 to 10 years, so we have a lot of combined experience. Everyone brings their own unique style but is equally skilled. That’s what I’m most proud of. Clients trust us because they know they are going to have a fantastic experience no matter who they see. Some clients connect with one therapist they love and others bounce around and see whoever schedule fits is best that week. I’m really proud of the culture we have created at Saltwater. It’s a completely non-competitive, ego-free work environment. We all truly want clients to receive what they need.

Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
There are definitely people that have been really influential to me along the way. My first anatomy teacher in massage school was a woman named Lou Benson who is a brilliant woman and an incredible teacher and who I consider to be my mentor. She sparked a curiosity in me about studying the human body that changed the course of my life. If it hadn’t been for her, I might not have connected to massage so much. After I graduated, she continued to work with me individually and taught me how to really develop my hands and tune in to the finer details of muscular restriction. It completely changed my massage work and turned me into the massage therapist I am today.

My other important teachers have been former bosses. Jo Gray who owns Inman Oasis in Cambridge, MA where I worked is someone that I have great respect for. She runs a thriving business that clients love and it’s a place that feels good to work. She has strong values and takes her job really seriously, but also treats her employees like family and is very fair and respectful of everyone as people with real lives outside of work. She’s someone that I want to emulate and I feel so grateful that I have her as a resource as I’ve been building my own thing. Even though she is my former boss, she treats me as her peer and that feels amazing and I feel incredibly lucky.

My other teacher is my former Executive Director at Strongest Link AIDS Services and Cambridge Cares About AIDS, John Gatto. He has believed in me and given me opportunities when I was probably in way over my head. He has taught me a lot about compassionate leadership. I value his friendship so much.

Contact Info:

• Address: 65 Pleasant Street Gloucester, MA 01930
• Website: saltwatermassage.com
• Phone: 978-390-7600
• Email: info@saltwatermassage.com
• Instagram: @saltwatermassagestudio
• Facebook: facebook.com/gloucestermassage

Image Credit:
Vignette Lammott and Elizabeth Laduca

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