Massage-O-Grams Boost MT's Business

When Theresa Busse shows up a doorstep, no one is unhappy. With a massage chair in tow, and bearing flowers or balloons and reciting a customized poem, she might just be the most popular one-woman delivery service around.

Busse’s Massage-O-Gram service has taken off since its introduction to Greenbay, Wisconsin, almost two years ago. It started when she was asked to do a surprise chair massage for the owner of a Curves franchise next to her massage practice, A Touch of Theresa. “We both said, ‘That’s a good idea,’” Busse recalls.

Today the service makes up more than half her practice, with orders piling up on special occasions, such as Valentine’s and Bosses’ days. A radio interview on a local station generated even more business, and now she travels beyond the greater Greenbay vicinity for deliveries. She charges $40 for a 15-minute chair massage (more for out-of-the-area deliveries), and includes a choice of flowers or balloons and a customized poem she writes for the recipient, based on information provided by the gift-giver.

Busse says it’s a good feeling when people realize she is there to see them. “I’ve had quite a few people get tears in their eyes or cry,” she says. One memorable delivery came from a woman whose son, who was serving in the military in Afghanistan, asked his mom to arrange something special for his wife on their first anniversary. Busse got the same roses the young woman had in her wedding bouquet, and wrote a poem from the husband to his wife.

The most unusual delivery? A Massage-O-Gram request for a woman celebrating her 50th birthday, and who loved the color pink. Busse dressed in pink and brought a bouquet of pink flowers. But she denied the last request—to bring decorative pink flamingos into the massage session.