I made the trip down to Carson last Thursday, Nov 12th, for Undergraduate Student Day at Dermalogica. It was a great day of education where I took classes on hyperpigmentation, back treatments and how to incorporate technology into your practice. But the best part of the day was that Jane Wurwand, the founder of Dermalogica, was there to give us a motivational speech.
I love being motivated. That was my favorite part of working in Corporate America - the motivational speaker that they hired to pump you up during your conferences. I've heard a couple of great ones and one really bad one (to be fair she had to compete with a room full of 600 people eating dinner). Jane is one of the great ones. She's got a cute Cockney accent, a spunky haircut and an attitude to match. She shared a great story about a woman at her daughter's football game who looked down on her when she told the woman that she didn't go to college and instead went to beauty school. I wonder if that woman ever found out that Jane is in charge of one of the most successful skin care lines in the world.
Jane gave the undergraduates in the audience three pieces of advice on how to be successful in the beauty business.
1. Attitude is number 1: you have to like people if you are going to be in this business and you have to like women because 98% of skin therapists are women and 92% of your clients will be women. She also encouraged us to be passionate and positive, two of my favorite traits. So I'm feeling good and excited about my choice to be a skin therapist! (ha passion and positivity all in one sentence!!)
2. Know your stuff: learn your craft, know your product, understand ingredients, knowledge is the arsenal in your weaponry. I liked how she incorporated a metaphor for us going into battle.... kind of aggressive for beauty but she also shared that the industry has a 90% turnover rate two years after graduating. So be aggressive, Jane! She also gave out another interesting factoid that 50% of a skin therapists' revenue comes from retailing. I thought that sounded high since that stat that usually floats around for cosmetologists is 8.5% of their revenue comes from retailing. But I talked with my friend Ken Baker, an industry guru and beauty retailing consultant and he said that sounded about right. Considering that most of the products that skin therapists are retailing have much higher price points than for hair.
3. Ability to be authentic to who you are: She gave a great quote from Oscar Wilde - "Be yourself, everyone else is taken." She encouraged us to make a difference in the industry and be authentic, which will help you connect and be truly present in our craft.
The biggest impact of Jane's speech came from a factoid that she repeated several times: Skin Therapy as a career puts more women in business around the world than any other industry. After leaving Dermalogica, I wanted to go open my own spa, start a chain of skin-only professional beauty supply stores, develop my own brand of professional wax and open up an advanced wax academy. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do all of those things during my career as a skin therapists, but with Jane's voice in my head inspiring me and encouraging me to make a difference, I will definitely find some area to channel my passion for beauty!
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