The Glamorous (and not so Glamorous) Side of Entrepreneurship!
In this article you'll meet a woman who turned her love of beauty into a beautiful business. And while her boutique salon has blow dryers, she doesn’t need one to blow you away with her success story. By the end of reading this, you’ll be blushing with excitement to learn how she used her passion for hair & makeup to make up new income sources!
Beauty is in the Eye of the Business Holder
The entrepreneurial journey may not be perfect, but she’ll make sure your eyelashes and hair are!
Keiashia “Key” Wood is the Glam Goddess behind Key 2 Glam, a luxury, boutique hair extension and makeup company.
But her business is about so much more than hair and cosmetics. It's about building relationships, inspiring confidence, and uplifting women - all while looking fabulous, of course!
In other words, she provides extensions, but her business is an extension of her passion for women empowerment, mentoring, and making people feel good about who they are from the inside out.
No matter the hair or make-up style, every woman who steps through her door leaves feeling like she can conquer the world, which will never go out of style!
And while all that sounds glamorous, the sparkle in Keiashia’s eye alone was not enough to create her very sparkly logo; her entrepreneurial journey to build her business was not as glamorous.
It took grit, determination, patience, and lots of learning! She had to put skin in the game to learn how to work with and honor people’s hair and skin.
From starting her business plan in college way before she was ready to build it, to getting a part-time job at MAC, Keiashia was strategic about continuously expanding her skill set and knowledge base in her industry.
Just like the makeup primer she uses on clients’ faces to get them ready for the next layer, she primed herself with information to set her foundation (makeup pun intended here too) for becoming a business owner.
And in our interview with her, she reinforces that message for entrepreneurs- never underestimate the power of experience and its potential to open new opportunities for income generation.
So, if you’re feeling tangled up about your next steps on your entrepreneurial path, keep reading to learn more about how Keiashia combed through her journey for inspiration.
Interview: She Started with Hair, Now She’s Here
Be Helpful:
I love when the story starts with, “I was just doing this thing. It was a side hustle and it turned into a business!” As you started having this revelation, you decided you wanted to go to school. At what point were you able to leave your full-time job and actually switch over to full-time hair?
Keiashia Wood:
I was working a full-time job at a company in accounts receivables or something like that, nothing that I went to college for but it was paying for bills and taking care of things.
But, I was very into makeup as well. I worked at MAC part-time as I was working that full-time job.
“I knew I wanted to get out of that full-time job. It wasn't for me, it wasn't necessarily my passion, but hair and makeup were.”
While going to cosmetology school, I was able to leave that job and stay at MAC. So, I was going to school full time at this point and working at MAC part-time still. MAC was also able to work with my cosmetology schedule, and I realized how those just worked hand in hand.
When I finished school, I was able to go and start working at MAC full time. I don't think a lot of people know this, but MAC was paying me like a corporate job. I had a 401k, health care benefits, and all of that. MAC paid for me to go to graduate school too. They had a lot of benefits so this worked out beautifully.
So, after finishing cosmetology school, and utilizing MAC for my Master’s degree, I was able to leave everything, and I felt like I had the tools to be successful on my own.
It all came full circle and I was able to leave.
Be Helpful:
What's interesting is a lot of people start broad. They do everything and then at a certain point they step back and realize it's a lot better to stop spending all their time doing the smaller projects and appointments and focus on the big-ticket items. And so, at what point did you realize that you have a ceiling for how much you can make because your time was limited? When did that go off?
Keiashia Wood:
It’s all about working smarter, not harder.
People started to reach out to me asking me about classes, like, “Do you do one on one classes, do you do things like this?” It became something where people wanted to learn from me, and it was helpful having a following where people would even want to learn from me.
“So as far as time, I would utilize some of my days off. I would take classes on the side. I hosted my first class at a hotel that one of my clients worked at during that time. I started to do a lot of social media and things like that, where I was able to actually get people who wanted to pay me to teach them. And when I saw how well the classes were going, I'm like, I can do this! I don't have to just be in the salon all day!”
I realized I could tap into teaching as well, which is where I find true passion. Even with some of my former students, one of the things they would say is, “You do a great job of articulating yourself and I am really understanding this rather than just watching you do it!”
I always say to people, “It's one thing to be able to do something well, but it's another thing to be able to teach someone how to do something well.’’ And I think that I do very well with teaching people how to do what I do.
And with that, it brought another source of income too.
So, it confirmed my thinking like, “I don't have to just do hair, I don't have to just do services. Let's tap into classes. We have hair extensions, let’s tap into that,” and so on!
I feel like the hair is the center of everything but it's so many other avenues that I've been able to branch off to from hair.
For the full interview, please head over to the Be Helpful Podcast.
Ready for a Makeover?
Keiashia’s story highlights that building a successful business takes time, effort, and most importantly—experience.
She reminds us that we don't need a glamorous or traditional path to entrepreneurship; she took a wavy and curly path filled with different jobs and income sources, but it all plays a part in her business’ makeup today!
Now, she doesn’t bat an eyelash over helping other women have the eyelashes or businesses of their dreams.
And that’s truly beautiful!
Looking for a makeover in life or your new business?
Keiashia holds the key to more helpful information AND the Key 2 Glam. Head over to her website to learn more!
Are you an entrepreneur, start-up, or business owner who is an expert on a topic like this too? Tell us your story and get your business featured here. Follow this link to apply.