Car­ol Quash

Mas­sage ther­a­pist Kellee Spicer is dis­cov­er­ing the pow­er of brand­ing—the strate­gic process that helps build trust and shape a com­pa­ny’s rep­u­ta­tion.

At bare­ly four months old, her busi­ness, The Sage Room Well­ness and Re­cov­ery Ltd, is see­ing growth be­cause of her de­ci­sion to cre­ate a dis­tinct and pos­i­tive im­age of her craft from the out­set.

“I brand­ed every­thing—my scrubs, coast­ers, I have brand­ed hats—I kind of just pushed the brand­ing of The Sage Room…and your per­son­al­i­ty can make a big dif­fer­ence in what you do.

“There are a lot of peo­ple who have trust­ed me to be the first per­son to give them a mas­sage,” Spicer told Guardian Me­dia.

The Wood­brook-based Sage Room of­fers a va­ri­ety of mas­sages—deep tis­sue, Swedish, cup­ping ther­a­py, and sports mas­sage ther­a­py. Spicer said what she has been able to ac­com­plish so far has ex­ceed­ed her ex­pec­ta­tions, and she fore­sees even more growth for her es­tab­lish­ment.

“I see The Sage Room be­ing a brand falling un­der a well­ness um­brel­la; so ex­pand­ing def­i­nite­ly in­to the health, well­ness, fit­ness space,” and, at some point, hav­ing oth­er mas­sage ther­a­pists work along­side her.

In fact, she has al­ready be­gun col­lab­o­rat­ing with oth­ers in the in­dus­try.

“I have a friend from Cana­da who does fas­cial stretch ther­a­py. With­in the last two months, she’s come here (T&T) about twice to of­fer that ser­vice, and we kind of col­lab­o­rat­ed. She did it at The Sage Room,” and it was mar­ket­ed as a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two brands. Spicer said she is open to col­lab­o­ra­tions with oth­er health, well­ness, and fit­ness prac­ti­tion­ers.

But while she looks for­ward to the growth, she said she is try­ing to scale slow­ly to avoid be­ing over­worked and putting her­self in a po­si­tion where she feels over­whelmed.

Spicer, 33, is al­so a prac­tis­ing at­tor­ney and has closed the civ­il lit­i­ga­tion as­pect of her prac­tice to al­low her time to fol­low what has been a love since child­hood.

“I used to run track, and since I was a kid, I liked sports and health and well­ness and fit­ness and that kind of stuff.

“My first de­gree was in sports man­age­ment with a mi­nor in psy­chol­o­gy, and in the third year, when I ac­tu­al­ly had to take a sports law course, that’s when I branched off in­to law, and that’s how I end­ed up in law.”

When she took a step back from lit­i­gat­ing in May 2025, it was be­cause she need­ed time to fig­ure things out.

“I was still fin­ish­ing up my mas­sage course,” a one-year diplo­ma at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Col­lege of Ther­a­peu­tic Mas­sage and Beau­ty Cul­ture in Mara­bel­la.

“Then I took the li­cens­ing ex­am and just moved right in­to this as­pect of it.”

Get­ting cer­ti­fied cost her an es­ti­mat­ed TT$20,000, and start-up re­sources, which in­clud­ed rental of the phys­i­cal space, a mas­sage bed, scrubs, oils, out­fit­ting the room with plants, mir­rors, stor­age, and seat­ing, cost her around $30,000.

So far, she said, it has been worth every cent.

“The Sage Room is more the fo­cus, and I think it’s head­ing in­to the full-time thing. The work that I do here is so ful­fill­ing. Con­nect­ing with dif­fer­ent peo­ple, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to work with ath­letes—it’s just been an in­cred­i­ble ex­pe­ri­ence,” and one that has had a pos­i­tive im­pact on her over­all out­look.

“It can be phys­i­cal­ly de­mand­ing be­cause it’s a lot of body work, but I make sure to do the things that I need to do to take care of me so that I can take care of oth­ers.

“It’s def­i­nite­ly been re­spon­si­ble for a big change in not just my de­meanour, but how I ap­proach things.”

Spicer said, al­though run­ning her law prac­tice was a busi­ness in it­self, the mar­ket­ing as­pect of The Sage Room was a learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for her be­cause it was not some­thing with which she was fa­mil­iar—the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty’s code of ethics pre­vents at­tor­neys from mar­ket­ing their ser­vices.

“I don’t have any big mar­ket­ing ex­pert, and I have a lot of help from peo­ple around me to help push the brand out…I have a very sup­port­ive cir­cle in that re­gard.”

And as it re­lates to her ca­reer shift—a leap that many peo­ple do not dare to take for a num­ber of rea­sons—Spicer said, “I know I won’t be the first per­son to piv­ot in a ca­reer; I’m def­i­nite­ly not the first lawyer to piv­ot from law to some­thing else, and I don’t think I’ll be last. But I think that it’s im­por­tant that peo­ple know that there is no time lim­it on what you can do, when you can do it…If you don’t try, you will nev­er know how it’s go­ing to work out.”