Scaling Wellness Through Purpose and Community with Jolita Brilliant

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm here with our co-host Tullio Siragusa, and we've got a guest, Jolita Brilliant, who we're going to introduce in a second.

**Tullio Siragusa** (0:29)
Many businesses begin with one person solving a problem, serving a client, developing a craft, and to expand, the founder must learn how to build a team, create systems, protect service quality, develop leaders, and eventually allow the business to grow beyond their own individual effort. Today, we're diving into this stage of business and talking about that transition, which can be especially challenging in wellness, where the value of the business is deeply connected to personal care and the relationship between practitioner and client. Today, our guest is Jolita Brilliant Sakmanaite. Did I get that right? Okay. Yes, who is the founder of Brilliant Massage & Skin and author of From Solo Therapist to Spa Empire.
Jolita began with an independent massage practice in Burlington, Vermont in 2017 and she has since grown Brilliant Massage & Skin into a multi-location wellness brand, offering customized massage therapy, skincare and related services with a franchise location operating in-store. Originally from Lithuania, Jolita moved to the United States at the age of 19 after losing both of her parents. Her journey from studying classical piano to building a wellness company has been shaped by resilience, entrepreneurship and a desire to help other professionals create meaningful businesses of their own. Through Brilliant Massage & Skin and her book, Jolita is now sharing the lessons she's learned while moving from individual practitioner to multi-location founder and franchisor. Her vision is not simply to grow a spa brand, but to create a community of entrepreneurs in the wellness industry. Jolita, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast. Hopefully, Stephen, you can hear him again.
Let's try.

**Jolita Brilliant Sakmanaite** (2:29)
Check, check, Stephen.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:30)
Can you hear me now?

**Jolita Brilliant Sakmanaite** (2:31)
Yes, I can.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:32)
Coming in good.
It always happens when we press the button to go. That's when things go.

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:37)
Things blow up every time.

**Jolita Brilliant Sakmanaite** (2:38)
I'm like, did I do something wrong here?

**Tullio Siragusa** (2:41)
No, no, you're doing great.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:44)
Jolita, your story began as a solo massage therapist, and today you're building this growing spa and franchise brand. What was the moment you realized you were no longer simply creating a practice, but you were building a business that could grow beyond you?

**Jolita Brilliant Sakmanaite** (3:02)
Well, when I got into offering massage therapy services after I went to massage school thinking, I'll just do it as a part-time gig until I figure out what I really want to do after I stop pursuing my music career. I've always been passionate about wellness. But then once I started doing massage therapy, I saw the demand and I worked hard to market myself, and then actually got so good at marketing that I couldn't take on all the customers that wanted to come see me, and you can only see so many people in a day.
The next logical step was to hire people, and then I started to learn more about systems and processes, and how to scale business. I probably read mostly all the business books there is on Audible by now. But I just, I know some people, you know, they just will step back from marketing, and they'll be happy as a solo practitioner. But I actually enjoyed that, the ability to grow the business and get other people into this field, and help them, and create a place that not only I would enjoy working, but they would enjoy working also.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:36)
Now, Jolita, there are many talented people, practitioners who struggle transitioning into entrepreneurship because they were trained to deliver service, not necessarily manage people, manage finances, marketing, or operation. This is even true with doctors. You know, quite often, you know, they're good practitioners, but don't know how to run a business. Many of them are pursuing MBAs after their doctorate, so they can learn business skills. But what was the most difficult lessons you had to learn in transitioning from that single practitioner to a business owner?

**Jolita Brilliant Sakmanaite** (5:12)
I think the first employee was the hardest. And then once you have one, then it gets easier. It's the people that are afraid maybe of the unknown, or they worried about like the management aspect.
But if that's what you want, if you have the vision to create a community and business just besides serving your own needs, so to speak, it's really you have to be a giver to be an entrepreneur because you also switching from an hourly wage with the being like a solo practice doctor or solo massage therapist, a statistician, even a personal trainer when you switch to more so like an entrepreneur and a business owner. Now, you're not really paid per hour per se, but per your output how much you can grow and scale how much more people you can have good jobs, how much more people you can serve. That mindset shift has to happen, that detachment, becoming more like an investor. Because as an entrepreneur, you are also an investor sometimes because you have to invest upfront. You have to get that bigger space, you have to pay for marketing usually before you see those returns. So there is that mindset shift that has to happen because even when you are nine to five working for somebody or else, you can perform, you get paid, you leave, you don't have to think about anything else. But when you are now a business owner, you are more like an investor.