Sandi Carter - Started a Skin Clinic at 22—How She Turned It Into New Zealand’s "Beauty Salon of The Year" by 25!
Sandi Carter
If the business keeps growing, it creates more opportunities to grow within. I must say, aussie has stolen a couple of our great therapists and staff in the past and that's really for opportunity right. So if we can create more opportunities within Blush then we will be able to retain and hold on to a lot of very valuable and amazing people.
Anne McGinty
Welcome to how I Built my Small Business. Today, we have Sandi Carter calling in from New Zealand to share her story starting a skin clinic. Sandi is the founder CEO of Blush Skin Clinic, which she started in 2017 at the age of 22. Just three years later, she won a prestigious national award New Zealand's Beauty Salon of the Year, which also landed her a feature in the national newspaper, the New Zealand Herald. At just 29 years old, she now has two locations one on the North Island, in Whangarei, and one on the South Island in Christchurch. Her world-class spa uses state-of-the-art technologies with proven life-changing skin results. Just peruse the fascinating procedures with before and after results on her Instagram page and you will see how passionate she is about skin health and full disclosure, Sandi is my cousin-in-law. You can find a link through to her business in the episode's description.
Thank you to our listeners for being here today. Sandy, welcome to the show.
Can you give us an idea of what your experience was that led you to eventually opening up Blush Skin Clinic.
Sandi Carter
So when I left school I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I worked and I traveled for a little bit, I did like a three-month stint in Europe and do so. I worked and I traveled for a little bit, I did like a three month stint in Europe. And then I came back and I was like, right, I need to find something that I want to do. And I landed on a beauty therapy course. For a few reasons. I was like still kind of unsure and it was not a lot of time, not a lot of money to invest, so if I didn't like it, it wasn't the end of the world. And back then, coming from high school, three years was a long time to commit if I was to go to uni and do something. So that's kind of how I landed on a beauty therapy course and I absolutely loved it, worked in a local beauty therapy salon and then decided to move over to Canada where I also worked in a couple of spas over there, which was amazing. And I got the opportunity over there to move into a bigger role. So I was managing one of the clinics when the owner went away, which was amazing. It was a great opportunity to learn a lot.
03:21
And then we then did like a three-month trip in a van that we had converted and traveled around the states and then all around Canada as well. During that time my husband was like, okay, I really want to go home now. And I was like, no, we're sticking it out, we're staying longer. And we were on a ferry going over to Vancouver Island at the time and he was like, let's just say we were to go home. What would your ideal picture look like? And I was like, okay, well, I guess I would either want to buy out my previous boss or I would want to open something on the loop, which was a walking track in the main center of town in Whangarei, where I live, and I was looking for like a gap of opportunity where there was no other spas or salons, because I didn't want to open up right next door to someone. So I said that was my next option, otherwise I'd have a complete career change and go and become a travel agent and work at somewhere like Flight Centre because I love to travel.
04:29
And then we got off the ferry and got some internet and I had a message from my old boss and I hadn't spoken to her in probably around a year, I'd say and she was like, hey, what are you up to Like? Do you plan on coming back to New Zealand anytime soon? And I was like this is really strange, like we were literally just talking about her and then Ryan saw her ad. She was selling the business, and so that was really exciting and it kind of just felt like everything aligned. So we started to make steps there, but the banks wouldn't even talk to me without being in the country. So I think about a month later we had flown home to get that rolling, and then that all fell over anyway and didn't go through.
05:18
So I went to option two that we talked about and was looking for a premises on the loop, which was that main walk in Whangarei, and I tried a couple of different places prior to the one that we landed on, and I remember we ended up on the other side of the river, which is quite an industrial area, but the space was really big and I met with the landlords and they were really keen to give a young person a go, which is what I was finding. A lot of people wouldn't, given that I was 22 at the time. So yeah, I took my husband down there. Well, he wasn't my husband at the time, he hadn't got married yet, but and he was like, sandy, this is so industrial, I'm not sure this is going to work.
06:05
And all I could see was potential. I was like it's great, this is so industrial, I'm not sure this is going to work. And all I could see was potential. I was like it's great, there's car parking, it's so much space. I want to grow big, and at this time it was just me. So the space that we were looking at leasing was quite big, but there was a lot of room for growth and I guess I had no fear at 22. And I was like, yeah, why not? I can do this.
Anne McGinty
Amazing when you found the space. What was your vision for the skin clinic? How did you get ready?
Sandi Carter
It's a great question. So when I first opened, it was blush beauty therapy, so it was a beauty salon and I was really passionate about brows and lashes. And it wasn't until about a year into the business it started to get really busy. With the first six months of having Blush, I employed my first two staff members and that was amazing. But it was so busy and obviously quite stressful, like you're still learning so much so quickly.
07:05
And I started to get cystic acne and that was when my whole purpose and vision pivoted and changed. Because I had never had bad skin. I could never connect or relate. We had a style range at the time and people would say like, oh, I've got a breakout and I'm like I, oh, I'll use this cream, it will work. And they'd come back and say it didn't work and I was like, well, it says it kind of does so it should, and that's just me being naive because I didn't have a passion for it at the time.
07:34
But then, going through it myself, it took me about two years to clear my own acne and find my trigger and it got to the point where I would go home every weekend and research like how to fix my own face, but I wouldn't even want to leave the house without putting a like full cake of makeup on. I tried to see my husband to the supermarket because, you know, I just didn't want to go out and as well like putting that pressure on myself that you have a beauty salon, so you should have great skin there was that side of it as well. The whole business changed at that point, because it does really impact the way you feel by looking at your skin, and I know that firsthand because it just knocked my confidence completely.
Anne McGinty
Yeah, so when you say that you pivoted the business, what exactly do you mean?
Sandi Carter
Beauty and skin are two completely different businesses. What we were doing day in and day out was eyebrows and lash lifts, which we still do offer those services. But Skin Sighted Things is very different. So our team go through so much study every single year to be able to prescribe the ranges that we do. We're working with advanced technologies like lasers and that which you're not going to just put in anyone's hands, right. So the whole business changed in the sense of the services that we offer, but the structure of the education and to create those long-term changes rather than just quick, instant fixes.
Anne McGinty
Did you, too, have to go through extended education in order to make this pivot happen?
Sandi Carter
Yes, so it's always ongoing. It never really stops with the education and the industry is just always rapidly changing. There's always new developments coming out and the industry is constantly learning and evolving.
Anne McGinty
When you first opened your doors. What was that experience like? How long did it take before your first client came in the doors?
Sandi Carter
It's funny because we've actually been looking over there a lot recently with comparing when I first started on my own with how our second clinic's going now in their first month and year. So we've been comparing that data. So when we opened, I think it was October and we did the renovation in two weeks because I was adamant that I needed to be open with the lead up to Christmas time, knowing that our industry is always so super busy at that time. So we opened on the 8th of November back in 2017. And I threw a bit of a launch party with friends and family and anyone that I could tell, and I had put it in the local newspaper and I had put it in the local newspaper. And then I remember at the party making my first booking and it was literally the next day after the party and still kind of scrambling to get everything together because we had only just cleaned up the day before the party to make sure it was presentable for people to come. So the clinic was still getting pieced together at that point.
10:47
Yes, I had gaps at the beginning, but the word spread very quickly and, being a solo person, nobody found me as a threat, so I did get quite a few referrals from other places as well. The business grew quite quickly. I look back on that and failure wasn't an option and it still isn't to me. And over the last six and a half years of being in business, we've gone through ups and downs with economic climates and COVID, but it's the resilience, so if something gets thrown at you, okay. So how can I take the best out of this situation and make sure that I'm going to be better? Take the best out of the situation and make sure that I'm going to be better it's how you look at the situation and what you decide to do to make the best out of it and making sure that you're providing the best service of what you're offering those clients. Then the demand's there.
Anne McGinty
When you go to other skin clinics and spas, what are you noticing?
Sandi Carter
I learned not to look at the competition next door, because then if you're always looking there, you're never moving forward. So I actually stopped following a lot of the places around me and focused on what was going on overseas. So with our industry, australia leads. They're a few years ahead of us, and so I'm always looking over there and I do get a lot of inspiration from clinic owners over there. So when I'm looking for new services, new devices, I'm always looking for very result driven clinics that are providing that, and the aesthetics of the clinic as well.
Anne McGinty
How many people do you have on your team now?
Sandi Carter
So we have four in Christchurch and we have four in Whangarei and we also have just recently got a contractor in that does naturopath services as well. So just expanding that wraparound service for skin, which is amazing and very exciting.
Anne McGinty
As you've grown from the very beginning. How have you looked at the reinvestment in your business, so that first year, or even six months, as profits started coming in, what did you put it towards? And then, when the profits increased from there, what decisions did you make to expand your operations?
Sandi Carter
Yeah, that's a good question. So I think with business, like anyone that's starting out would know, it's not sunshines and rainbows. You end up putting everything that you make back into the business while it's growing. And I remember that first six months I never got paid, not once it was tight. And even employing staff to try and take some of that workload off you, you end up creating more work for yourself anyway. So you get busier and all of that money goes back into upgrading your equipment.
13:41
When I had first started, I was on such a budget and me and my mom had gone to Auckland and gone around all the different might attends to get the flooring because it was on sale and things like that. You do what you have to do to start out with and we were on a budget and our reception desk was secondhand, it was a steal and it's still beautiful. But yeah, it was tight at the beginning. And all of that money not even for the first six months I'm going to say the first two years I was constantly putting it back in and growing, growing, growing and we have recently had a huge growth where we opened another clinic and even then the same thing applies. It's just a bigger scale but you end up putting everything you have back into the business to make it grow.
Anne McGinty
What made you want to open the second location?
Sandi Carter
It's funny. When I first opened, I wanted to be huge, but I didn't know what that looked like. But then, in 2020, when we did win quite a big award, a client asked me a question and it actually stopped me in my footsteps for probably a good year or so. She told me a story about a fisherman, and this entrepreneur went on holiday and he saw a local going out and catching fish every day, and he stopped him on his way in one time and he said you know, if you just stayed out there for an extra hour, you'd be able to catch more fish, and then you'd be able to buy another boat, and then you'd be able to buy more boats and more boats, and then you wouldn't have to be catching the fish, and then you'd have all the time to do what you want. And then the guy stopped him and said yeah, and then I can go out and catch the fish for my family. So what is it that you truly want in life, and why are you growing this thing so big? I don't know what it was, but it really impacted me and it did stop me and make me think about what is it that I really want to achieve here? And we just want to help as many people as we can with their skin, knowing firsthand what it feels like. And it does change lives.
15:59
We had this one young guy and we helped him with his rosacea and he first had a 30% attendance at school and after he did his treatment plan and his visualization started to clear. He was doing outside school activities. His attendance had gone up so much. But when we first saw him, his mum had taken him to other places and they had told him to wear makeup to cover it up or given him just band-aid effects where it wasn't long-term for him. So for us, knowing the impact that we have on people, we treat the skin very holistically. So it's not just topical creams and there's not one treatment that's also going to do that. It is like a system. So your in-clinic treatments what you're using every day, but also your lifestyle and habits. So we look-clinic treatments, what you're using every day, but also your lifestyle and habits. So we look at the whole picture and it's another reason why I'm very excited that we've recently partnered with a naturopath.
Anne McGinty
What else would you attribute your success to? Because you started this you were quite young and then you won that national award when you were still quite young. What could you attribute your success to?
Sandi Carter
Hard work. It really is hard work. There's no jackpot here. I know when I first came off the floor treating clients, everyone's like, well, what are you going to do? And I was like I was to work on the business rather than in it all the time. So hard work. I literally work seven days a week figuring out ways that we can improve different parts of the business or new things that we can implement to make the business better Again. We wouldn't be where we are without the support as well. Like my husband has been a huge cheerleader I actually just wanted to mention as well way back in the beginning. So I think I had blush for like a couple of months and Anne came over and you put us on google and gave us all these tips that I just didn't know. You don't know what you don't know, and it's the support that everyone puts into you that makes you successful. So it's not just a one person success, it's the success of the team. It's the success of everyone else supporting different parts along the way.
Anne McGinty
I mean, you should really give yourself some credit here, though I may have given you a tip or two, but you have built your business from scratch. How much, if you can remember, did it take for you to build out? I mean, you turned the space around in two weeks, so that's an impressive speed.
Sandi Carter
So the full put out at the beginning, I think, was 10 grand, which was all the money we had, and I had maxed out a credit card that I had and I remember the day the credit card was due and that was very stressful. And now, yeah, it's just completely different. The stress has changed, right.
Anne McGinty
Yeah, there's always going to be a new fire to put out. So how is your business's income split up now?
Sandi Carter
80% of what we do now is skin. We still do about 20% beauty services. So your brows and and lash lifts, most of our clients are on membership programs because with skin there's again, not one facial is going to change anything. So it's like going to the gym, right, if you want abs, you have to go regularly, and if you want to keep those abs, you keep going to the gym. So it's the same with your skin. If you want to see change in your skin, you go regularly, and then if you want to keep that momentum going or maintain those results, you keep on going. So we are like your personal trainer for your skin and so we've made that cost effective for our clients a skin membership program sounds like a great business model.
Anne McGinty
It sounds like a results-driven way to increase revenue while also building relationships with your customers, so that's awesome. What would you say have been the biggest challenges that you've faced in growing your business?
Sandi Carter
The biggest challenge is definitely staff. It can be the most rewarding part at the same time watching staff members grow in that. But if you do have somebody in your team that doesn't align with your core values, then it can just bring the whole team culture down. It's hard. I remember watching somebody that I look up to, who's Carmen from Skin Theory, and she was saying one time that the person might be amazing but they might just not be right for your space and that's okay. And for me to hear that from somebody I looked up to was quite a game changer.
20:49
Not everyone needs to be in your company following your core values and they're going to flourish and thrive in somebody else's space and that is fine. We do monthly one-on-ones to check in on where they're at with their goals, but also it's an opportunity for them to invent anything that they want to bring up. And then we do monthly meetings with the whole team and we've recently just brought some power meetings. So we bring together both clinics for 15 minutes every week and we've started clinic wars. It's been really fun.
Anne McGinty
What's your ultimate, ultimate goal?
Sandi Carter
I would love to get that reach much further and help more people with their skin, and then also creating a place where our team can grow as well, so that they're not limited in one space, like it's creating more opportunities for the people that look after all of our clients. That is super rewarding as well, because we have amazing people that work for us and they're constantly wanting to grow, and so if the business keeps growing, it creates more opportunities for them to grow within as well. I must say Ozzy has stolen a couple of our great therapists and staff in the past and that's really for opportunity, right. So if we can create more opportunities within Blush, then we will be able to retain and hold on to a lot of very valuable and amazing people.
Anne McGinty
What advice would you give to anyone out there who's considering starting their own business?
Sandi Carter
Fill up your knowledge and skill buckets first. So if that means working for someone else, getting your knowledge up. But what you put in is what you get out. So I'm constantly educating myself so that I can create more value, and nothing comes to you on a silver platter. You have to work hard for it, and the more you put in, the more you will get out. One thing again which is quite funny, because we've definitely had to deal with this one but hire slowly and fire quickly.
Anne McGinty
Yeah, why didn't you tell me that one years ago, sandy? Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story with us.
Sandi Carter
Thank you.
Anne McGinty
As always, thanks for being here.
Today's key takeaways
If you're constantly on the go, take a moment to step back and think about what you truly want to achieve. What is the life that you want to live and what is the impact that you want to have, and what is the impact that you want to have?
In New Zealand, going on an OE or overseas experience is a cultural institution and considered a rite of passage for young adults. Working overseas can provide great learning opportunities and help you gain valuable career and life experience. So if this is in your bucket of possibilities, highly consider it.
Look out for gaps in the market where you can introduce innovative solutions or services.
It can be stressful, especially as a new business owner, as you are growing and still learning so much and so quickly. It's important to stay resilient and adaptable. There will be ups and downs in business. When faced with challenges, focus on how you can turn the situation to your advantage and emerge stronger.
When launching your business, do everything you can to get the word out. Contact local media, throw a launch party and tell everyone you know. Approach it with the mindset that failure isn't an option.
Providing the best service is essential because the demand for quality is always there.
Don't constantly compare yourself to local competition. Instead, look at the leaders in your industry globally and aim to innovate.
In the first year, don't expect to make much profit. Expect that you'll be focusing on growing your business and reinvesting profits to scale.
Starting a business doesn't have to be expensive. Be resourceful, like driving to find sales or buying secondhand items. Sandi, for example, drove two and a half hours to Auckland to get flooring on sale and sourced a secondhand reception desk.
Consider implementing a membership program for recurring services, like skincare, to ensure steady revenue and customer loyalty.
Ensure that your team members align with your core values. Misaligned team members can negatively impact the entire team's culture. So hire slowly and fire quickly.
If you're thinking about starting your own business, fill your knowledge and skill buckets first. Gain experience working with others and learn as much as you can.
Finally, the more effort and energy you put into your business, the more you will get out of it.
That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day. That's it for today. I release episodes once a week, so come back and check it out. Have a great day.
