MAD LOVE MONDAY | Bailey Brown - Below Hair Studio
I would say my passion in hair and make up began at a very young age! I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by hair and make up my entire life!
How did you find out you have a passion for being a Hair Stylist?
I would say my passion in hair and make up began at a very young age! I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by hair and make up my entire life! When I was really young I would attend hair and nail conferences with my mom as she was a nail tech. My mom always let me do whatever I wanted to my hair, and which I totally regret some decisions, my creative juices were always flowing! My sister was also in the beauty industry, she was a make up artist. When I wasn’t being used as her guinea pig for makeup, I was sneaking into her bathroom to steal all the cool make up she owned. Needless to say, my mother didn’t raise tomboys, I was destined to be in the beauty industry!
When did you know that you wanted to become a salon owner instead of just being behind the chair?
Let’s just say I was never someone to take direction easily from others haha. My personality definitely conflicted with what the definition of being a good employee was! I’m loud, I love to crack jokes, I love coming up with new ideas, etc. I needed an outlet that I could just be myself and surround myself with people like me. When the decision was made to enter into the world of self-employment, I remember my dad saying to me, “I knew this day would come, I always knew you needed to be your own boss.”
Why did you decided to expand your salon / how did you know it was the right time to expand?
I started Below Hair Studio in my basement with one of my best friends Danielle. We made it our mission to have the salon atmosphere that we always wanted. A fun, friendly, high end vibe that at the end of the day, just had a good time! All of our clients became more like family to us, and we decided we needed an assistant. I hired someone to help us with day to day duties that we were finding to be too much for us to do on our own. Before we knew it, our social media presence was making an uproar and we weren’t able to keep up with the amount of people that wanted to book with us. After 4 very fast years in the basement, the perfect store front location became available and my curiosity led me to look into it. I had always talked about expanding but never took it too seriously. When I went to look at the space, I had the same feeling im sure that a bride would get when she found the perfect wedding dress. Everything just felt right, nothing was rushed, it was time to expand. We knew we had outgrown the basement salon, we needed more people! We had become one of the most followed salon instagrams in Edmonton and we were in a 500 sqft basement! We made an unbelievably smooth transition to the bigger space and flash forward a year and a half later, we have 8 stylists on our amazing team and rent out a room to an awesome eyelash technician.
What makes you happy about being your own boss babe?
I would like to say that if you’re your own boss you can do whatever you want and take as much time off as you’d like, but it’s quite the contrary. My hours have grown longer, vacations have become fewer, and the hours behind the scenes that no one sees are the hardest. There is not a lot of glamour in being the boss, but the incredible feeling I get watching Below Hair Studio grow into what I always dreamed of is priceless. I’m happy that we’ve created a community of amazing stylists, developed so many new relationships with clients, and have a platform to share our passion the way we want it shared. Those are some of the many things that make me happy about being a boss babe.
If you could go back and tell yourself one thing in your first year of business what would it be?
OMG where do I start?! I would say my biggest piece of advice I would give to myself would be to take the time to understand the actual BUSINESS side! Source deductions, gst remittances, budgeting... I didn’t want to believe there would be actual numbers to crunch in owning a business! Thankfully my mom, Shelley, took care of all of that for me so I could put more focus into growing the business, but not everyone has a Shelley in their back pocket like I did! Learn about your business taxes, hold on to ALL of your receipts, know your inventory...they are a very important part of running a successful business. (But for real thank god for Shelley haha)
Find Below Hair Studio here
on Facebook
and on Instagram.
MAD LOVE MONDAY - Kaitlyn Breederland | Heritage Birth Services
I’m Kaitlyn Breederland, labour doula and co-founder of Heritage Birth Services, an Edmonton-based doula agency. I married young, and shortly after became a mom.
Birthing a Business
Hey bossbabes!
I’m Kaitlyn Breederland, labour doula and co-founder of Heritage Birth Services, an Edmonton-based doula agency. I married young, and shortly after became a mom. Before having kids I worked with seniors in a long-term care facility, but I never really found a traditional career I was truly passionate about.
After my first daughter was born, I started to think about becoming a labour doula. It all started so naturally, having become a mom before many of my friends, they came to me for support and encouragement during their first pregnancies and births. I became passionate about nurturing that relationship and found real joy in empowering them in the months and days leading up to their births. Then, a friend asked me to attend her birth as a support person. I knew it was time to embrace this calling and take doula training. So I did.
Ever since, I have never doubted that I was created to do this. When I started out, I just knew that I wanted to be a doula. What I didn’t realize, at first, is that to practise my passion I also had to embrace being a business owner. I would have to do the “business stuff” first in order to be able to get to the part that I was super-passionate about.
Birth work is a heart-centred industry, so turning my passion into a profitable, sustainable career was easier said then done. I quickly realized, however, that if I wanted to do this (and do it well!) I had to treat it like a business. I had to give it my all, and I had to charge my worth. I can empower women through birth and postpartum till the cows come home, but the turning point for my business was when I firmly decided to empower myself. I decided to charge my worth and in so doing have turned my passion into a career.
This does not mean there have not been times when I wanted to quit! Absolutely I have had moments when imposter syndrome has hit me like a ton of bricks, when my inner critic tells me “I can’t do this! I can’t be a boss and run my own business … are you kidding me?” But. Just like when a woman in labour looks at me in the eyes and says “Kaitlyn, I can’t do this” and I reply “It’s too late, you’re already doing it. You're in it, and you're doing amazing!” Just as I encourage women in that moment, I too have to encourage myself. Like a woman giving birth, I’m too far into it to just up and quit, so I do the only thing to do and just keep moving forward! And it’s been a beautiful, thrilling, eye-opening experience.
My goal and my dream now is not just to work with and empower women in birth, but also in business. Heritage Birth Services has blossomed in the past year to become a doula agency where women—labour doulas, postpartum doulas, childbirth educators, and lactation consultants—can come alongside us and work with mothers and mothers-to-be without ever doubting that their work is a viable career and that they deserve to earn a living doing it.
I'm not really in a place to give advice. This is all still so new. But one thing I know to be true is this: Value yourself and always charge your worth. And when you doubt yourself and your abilities doula yourself through it. Look in the mirror and tell yourself “I'm doing this, and I'm doing awesome!”
Well, there you have it. I’m Kaitlyn, a doula, turned accidental business owner, turned passionate entrepreneur, and now a #bossbabe!
SPRING MIXER 2018 | EVENT RECAP
"WOW" a simple but powerful 3 letter word that we could not stop saying about the turnout of our Spring Mixer! Did you know that this was the biggest YEGBOSSBABES event yet!?
"WOW" a simple but powerful 3 letter word that we could not stop saying about the turnout of our Spring Mixer! Did you know that this was the biggest YEGBOSSBABES event yet!? We are so excited to share some more details and photos from the evening!
The Foundry Room graciously hosted our event and the staff from the venue was absolutely amazing! They were fun, accommodating and we cannot wait to collaborate with them again in the future! We had some great prizes for our attendees and even better conversations. The room was buzzing with energy and chatter before we even kicked off the evening with our speeches.
YEGBOSSBABE mixers are a time for women in the community to meet like minded individuals across diverse industries who are all doing their best to succeed and grow as business woman and as people. We were so happy to share with our community the story of how YEGBOSSBABES came to be and how far we have grown since September. Grateful is just ONE of the ways we feel when we talk about the evening. Our vision for the YEGBOSSBABES community is coming together through our hard work and the dedication of others who see our vision as well.
To all of our attendees at this mixer and past mixers, THANK-YOU. Thank-you for joining a community that is driven by supporting each other and learning from one another. A community where real talk and genuine conversations are the back bone to making our events such a success every time. You all bring us great support and motivation and we keep working hard to bring you an evolving supportive community that all women in business can relate to.
To our amazing speaker, Courtney Buhler, Founder & CEO of Sugarlash PRO. WOW. We were so spoiled by your genuine presence and priceless advice. We appreciated you sharing your story with us and answering our questions. We were all infatuated to hear about how you built your successful empire and how you still keep your home town HOME. Thank-you!
This was our first event with "official" volunteers - and it was so great to see how many other women were interested in getting involved with YEGBOSSBABES. We cannot wait to see what the future holds for our team as it expands with ambassadors and volunteers alike. Thank you to our volunteers, Orlandice, Danae, Glenda, Dianne, and Ashley. The images on this post are beautiful snap shots of our Mixer taken by the talented Ashley Lazette Photography. & Dianne Stainthorp from Small Wave Photography.
We were lucky enough to have Honey Bees Booth on site for our attendees and it did not disappoint! We had so much fun dressing up and being goofy with the beautifully designed magic mirror that was customizable to our event!
Our sponsors - you spoiled our guests and we so thank you for it. Thank you to Tristan from YEG Lash Room for the free set of lashes! And thank you to Justine and her team over at Lipstick Empire for the amazing free facial giveaway.
For all the ladies who attended and were interested in some of the feedback we received here is a list of the FAV YEG HANGS!