Michelle Barney

Michelle Barney graduated from the Salt Lake City Campus of the Utah College of Massage Therapy Family of Schools in July of 2001. Michelle transferred into C-62 after taking a leave of absence due to pregnancy. As graduation started getting closer and closer, Michelle decided to focus her energy into starting a private practice. She knew she wanted to create a practice that centered around working on women and children. However, she ended up taking a "safe" job in a beauty salon in a mall. "I thought I would have tons of walk-ins and I was only concerned with money."

The job did not work out exactly as Michelle had planned. I got one massage a month. I was sending out the wrong intention to the world. I guess the universe picked it up too." Michelle thought about quitting massage, but before she quite she wanted to see what the universe had in store for her. "I used mediation and prayer and visualized my perfect client, my office, everything. I didn’t force the image. I thought it would be women and children, but pictures of balding business men kept coming into my mind’s eye." Michelle put ads in the City Weekly, the Yellow Pages and Utah Primetime Magazine. Suddenly, an amazing thing happened. She got a call, then another, then six in one day. "I just got clarity about my vision and I got serious about my intention to be a massage therapist. I stopped relying on others to make appointments for me and started putting out the intention that I wanted these certain people to see my ad and respond."

Michelle is now making enough money to help support her family and she recently hired a personal assistant who works 30 hours a week for her. She states that the secret to her success is very simple. She answers her phone and returns calls. "You’d be surprised at the amount of massage therapists that don’t return calls! I am honest and sincere with my clients and they want someone to care about them."

Michelle works 4 hours a day and works her schedule around her clients’ needs, although she does not work before 2 P.M. She charges $75 an hour for an office visit and $100 an hour for out-call work at hotels. "It’s weird, the more money I charge, the more clients I get. I was told at the mall that people won’t pay more than $40 an hour in Utah. I charge $75 because I know the value of my bodywork and my intuition said they’d pay it."

Recently, Michelle went on an out-call job at the Grand America for a professional basketball player, a member of the Denver Nuggets. He paid her $150 for the hour massage and tipped her with 4 tickets to the game that night, a value of $360. Michelle took her three boys to their first professional basketball game that night. "My boys were on the edge of their seats! They had never been anywhere like that before. I could never have afforded things like that for my boys…"

Michelle will be attending UCMT’s Spring Job Fair at the Salt Lake Campus looking for a responsible massage therapist to help her with her business, Rising Sun Massage. Of course, when looking for her new employee, Michelle will follow her intuition, it never seems to fail her.