Customer success story: Muscle Dynamics, Victoria

Evelyn Fernandez-Ferrer left her corporate job to study myotherapy and start a physical therapy business. But despite having built up significant savings, she realised within a year that she didn’t have enough capital to fully achieve her small business dreams. So, Evelyn turned to Prospa for funding to help grow the business and deal with early cash flow issues.

Hear more about Evelyn’s story:

Flexing new muscles

Evelyn was running an international commodity supply business when the Global Financial Crisis hit. She knew she needed to make a change.

Around that time, her friend invited her to a massage training course. Evelyn, expecting a casual weekend away, quickly realised how much she enjoyed the practice.

“I grew up wanting to be a surgeon, but that didn’t happen,” she says. “I believe that some people are born to be healers. Helping people is a gift.”

Needing a career change, along with her newfound enjoyment of massage and a desire to help people, Evelyn was driven towards myotherapy, a form of physical therapy. In 2010, she began a three-year Advanced Diploma of Myotherapy.

Working through the pain

Evelyn finished her course in 2013 but wasn’t ready to strike out on her own just yet. She built up her client list over the next few years, renting spaces in clinics in the Melbourne suburbs of Box Hill, Glen Waverley and Canterbury.

By 2018, Evelyn felt ready to take a leap of faith and opened the doors to her own clinic. Based in the Melbourne suburb of Mont Albert North, Muscle Dynamics has three rooms and offers myotherapy, chiropractic care and exercise rehabilitation.

“I had enough money to get things going,” she says. “But I needed an extra bit of elbow room to push the business further.”

To increase her earnings potential, Evelyn wanted to rent out a room to another practitioner. But the room needed some renovation work and she needed business finance to make that happen.

“I needed money to put in floorboards, to buy a table and fix up the storage room in there.”

Evelyn turned to a traditional lender for a small business loan, but didn’t get very far.

“That was really difficult,” she says. “They were strict and needed so much paperwork.”

Not long afterwards, Evelyn was talking to her sister-in-law, a Brisbane cake supply store owner, about her financing struggles. Her sister-in-law had previously had a great experience with Prospa and suggested Evelyn get in contact.

“I gave Prospa a call and the application process was really straightforward,” she says. “I filled out a form online and was pre-approved for a small business loan.

“Talking to Prospa was easy. You call them, they respond straight away, and I loved that.”

Massaging cash flow in down times

With Prospa’s help, Evelyn completed the renovation and sub-contracted the room to a chiropractor.

Evelyn took out a small business loan to refurbish Muscle Dynamics, along with a line of credit to help with the ebbs and flows of running her clinic.

“The line of credit helps me when I encounter cash flow difficulty,” she says. “Just like other businesses, I experience ups and downs in income. The line of credit helps me get through that.

“It gives me peace of mind that I have funds I can tap into when needed.”

The line of credit and simple repayment structure of her small business loan lets Evelyn navigate her finances, with smaller, more frequent payments that are easier to handle than larger monthly payments.

“The weekly repayments are easy to manage, and it’s direct debit, so I don’t have to worry about it.”