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Published December 31, 2019

Many people resolve to exercise and eat better as a New Years' resolution. But for Abby Maleport of De Pere, promoting health and wellness is her life.

As the owner of Fluid Motion Fitness and Fluid Motion Massage, Maleport has two goals. The first is to help the elderly and disabled stay in their homes by doing in-home personal training; the other is to promote good health through a technique called lymphatic massage.

"I have a history of working in skilled care and for the past eight years have worked as a certified epidermal therapist," she said. "Most of our patients have had a stroke, muscle weaknesses, or spinal surgeries and I worked with them on balance and strength training so they could go from a walker to a cane to nothing at all."

In this role, Maleport said she had a rapport with patients and they trusted her and wanted to continue working with her.

"As a physical therapist assistant, I couldn’t legally do that," she noted. "I wondered, ‘How can I think outside of the box and serve these patients?’ That led me to become a Certified Personal Trainer so I could service them by working with strength, flexibility, and balance training in their homes."

That was the start of Fluid Motion Fitness. Her massage business, which actually started first, grew out of a similar passion to help others. Male port said she decided on separate entities because her target audience for each is so different.

"The massage business targets women age 25 to 55 who are into health and wellness, and the fitness business targets older men and women who are possibly homebound and want to be able to stay in their homes," she said.

Having two businesses provides a challenge as she currently works alone to promote both. She does networking events, manages social media, updates the website, creates content, collaborates with other business owners, and does continuing education to stay on top of the latest techniques.

She puts out business cards and flyers and does her least favorite thing – cold calling prospective clients.

"I have pounded the pavement at assisted living facilities, nursing homes, disability resource centers, and cosmetic surgery centers," Maleport noted. "But I don’t like doing those things because it is out of my comfort zone, and it is hard to find people who will meet with me. I can visit 10 places and maybe only one or two will see me. When I get a chance to talk about what I do, though, I can almost see the light bulb go off in the people who get it."

She tries not to take the rejections personally and is working with a Green Bay SCORE mentor for assistance and encouragement. With the challenge of the two businesses, she is also working on developing separate marketing strategies for each business.

For the Fluid Massage business, there is an educational component in explaining the benefits of lymphatic massage and how it differs from traditional techniques. She is one of the few certified in the area, and she says that this form of massage makes people feel better from the inside out by reducing inflammation, promoting healthy cells, boosting the immune system, and reducing pain.

Additional details are available on her website, fluidmotionmassage.com.

She currently does massage in her home but offers personal training at the homes of her clients.

"With the changing landscape of therapy services in the skilled nursing home and home health settings with Medicare changes, I realized there was a large gap in services for our geriatric population. Often times the barrier is a lack of transportation to return for outpatient therapy or get a membership at a gym. Therefore, I birthed the idea for my current business," Maleport said.

That desire to help this population improve their quality of life and keep them in their homes by improving functional mobility also means that it is also the same population that is often on a fixed budget and unable to pay for services.

As Maleport works with SCORE, she will be trying to figure out how she can provide needed services and still make a profit. One consideration might be forming a nonprofit so that she’ll be eligible for grants.

"I am so passionate about these two areas," she added. "I want to help as many people as I can and need to find a way to do that."

Tina Dettman-Bielefeldt is co-owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and Past District Director for SCORE, Wisconsin