Episode Questions and Answers
Who is Michelle Naylor?
Michelle Naylor is the owner of Soma, a Sandy, Utah massage therapy business focused on healing, safety, and treating the body as a whole. Michelle Naylor is a single mom of four who built Soma out of a single treatment room inside Amber Renee Salon in Sandy.
What is Soma in Sandy, Utah?
Soma is a Sandy, Utah wellness business owned by Michelle Naylor that delivers personalized massage therapy designed to treat mind, body, and soul as one unit. The name Soma means body in its wholeness, and the practice is built around safety, presence, and healing-focused touch.
How is Soma growing as a one-room massage business?
Soma operates inside Amber Renee Salon in Sandy, Utah six days a week. In the episode, Peter Anthony walks Michelle Naylor through how to scale a single-room massage business through session-based pricing, add-on strategy, frequency-driven packages, and corporate gift-pack programs that can drive a single Utah massage room past $200,000 in annual revenue.
How can I book a massage with Michelle Naylor?
Michelle Naylor takes appointments at Soma inside Amber Renee Salon in Sandy, Utah. The fastest way to book is to message Michelle Naylor on Instagram at @s_by_michelle or on Facebook under Michelle Naylor, where she also posts holiday and seasonal massage specials.
Where is Utah Business Spotlight filmed?
Utah Business Spotlight is filmed in Draper, UT 84020. The show is produced by The INCubator AI Marketing Agency and hosted by Peter Anthony.
Episode Transcript
00:00 Starting before life feels ready
Michelle Naylor opens with the line that frames the whole episode: just do it, you are never ready. As a single mom of four building a Sandy, Utah massage business on a sole income, the fear was real, but waiting was never going to make the right moment appear.
01:07 Meet Michelle Naylor and Soma
Peter Anthony welcomes Michelle Naylor to Utah Business Spotlight to talk about massage, business, growth, and what it is like to build a wellness brand as a single mom. The conversation will move through positioning, pricing, and the operational math of a one-room service business in Sandy, Utah.
02:05 What Soma means for the whole body
Michelle Naylor explains the name. Soma means body, and in certain traditions, the body in its wholeness. That is what Soma is built to deliver: a mind, body, and soul experience where no part of the client is neglected. Peter Anthony notes that Michelle Naylor is a mom of four, a workload that makes the discipline behind Soma even more striking.
03:41 Starting over as a single mom
Michelle Naylor has been a single mom for almost five years, and her kids were entering their teens when life shifted. Peter Anthony names the reality: middle-class teens are surrounded by phones and visible expectations, and the responsibility of being the primary parent and primary earner is its own full-time job before a business is even on the table.
06:01 Building a dream while raising kids
Michelle Naylor names the principle that carries Soma: her kids are watching everything she does, and she wants them to see her follow her dreams. Peter Anthony reflects the same lesson back, when a parent is happier and pursuing real goals, the kids feel it, and they become some of the loudest supporters of the business.
07:17 The values behind Soma
Michelle Naylor names the three values she wanted her kids to see and that quietly run Soma: perseverance, the grit to keep trying, genuine kindness, empathy that clients can feel on the table, and creativity, the flexibility to adjust as a business owner when the day refuses to cooperate.
10:17 School, debt, work, and the long days
Michelle Naylor walks through seven months of massage school: 6 a.m. wake-ups, school, then commuting from Salt Lake County to a job in Park City, then back to the kids, sometimes wrapping at 1 a.m. The financial cost was real, the time deficit was worse, and the only thing that got her through was the same perseverance she now teaches her kids.
13:00 The first vision for her own space
Michelle Naylor was planning Soma the entire time she was in school, the colors, the room, the experience, captured in notes on her phone. Peter Anthony reinforces the principle: the more clearly an owner documents the business they want, the more real it becomes, until the day arrives where it is no longer a dream but a build.
18:23 Finding Soma in Sandy, Utah
Soma operates inside Amber Renee Salon in Sandy, Utah. Michelle Naylor rents the room, owns the business, and is responsible for filling, designing, marketing, and advertising the space. Peter Anthony notes that her marketing, the room reveal video that showed up in his feed, is what put Soma on his radar in the first place.
19:44 Making clients feel safe on the table
Michelle Naylor describes the heart of Soma: clients have to feel safe the moment they walk in. Touch is an exchange of energy, and she leads with heart-centered presence so the work itself becomes healing. Peter Anthony connects it to a culture that has lost permission to touch, and why Soma's experience matters more, not less, in 2026.
21:14 Emotional release through massage
Michelle Naylor introduces somatic energy releases, the way trapped emotion and trauma can be physically held in the body and gently released through massage. She believes the long-term cost of that trapped energy shows up as illness, and Soma is intentionally a place where clients are safe to let go.
22:20 The business math behind one room
Peter Anthony walks Michelle Naylor through the math: six days a week, 16 bookable hours per day, ~96 hours of weekly potential. At 80% utilization and $120 per hour, a single Sandy, Utah massage room can produce ~$8,500 a week and push past $450,000 a year, and lifting price to $160 per session pushes it past $550,000.
24:31 The cookie factor for service businesses
Peter Anthony introduces the Starbucks Cookie Factor: the upsell that turns every visit into a higher-margin transaction. For Soma, a $20 add-on across 40 weekly services adds another ~$40,000–$50,000 a year in profit at almost zero incremental labor, the simplest revenue lever a single-room wellness business has.
27:18 Packages, frequency, and client retention
Peter Anthony presses on retention: stop selling by the hour, start selling by the session. Selling by the hour quietly bleeds 15% of room revenue through turnover. Soma should sell packages, target every-three-week frequency rather than weekly burnout, and price the second session inside a package so the value is obvious to the client and the calendar is protected for the business.
33:03 Michelle Naylor's advice for starting anyway
Michelle Naylor closes with the same advice she opened with: just do it, you are never ready, and there is never going to be a perfect time. As a single mom on a sole income it was scary, but she is making it. Find Michelle Naylor at Soma inside Amber Renee Salon in Sandy, Utah, on Instagram at @s_by_michelle, and on Facebook under Michelle Naylor. Utah Business Spotlight is produced by The INCubator AI Marketing Agency and filmed in Sandy, Utah.
