studio (un)scripted: 5 questions with sarah & emily
SARAH MCCONNELL & EMILY WADE, co-founders of 704aesthetics (and the only people on the planet i trust with a needle to my face.)
To me, the studio is my happy place. Where is yours?
Our happy place is also our spa, 704aesthetics. Being able to create a space in which we work everyday is such a blessing. We intentionally made our spa our happy place because after spending so many years working in hospitals, we needed an environment that would feed our souls and make us happy. Our clients are some of the greatest people (unbiased opinion of course, lol) and being able to hang out with them all day and make them feel prettier/more confident is just the best feeling. \
704 Aesthetics tells stories of friendship, female empowerment, entrepreneurship, and care for both others and one’s self. So basically a business dedicated to beauty comes from all things beautiful. Tell us how this all came to be.
We met in Charlotte, NC, on a travel nurse contract. Neither of us had any idea of what our next steps looked like, or where nursing was going to take us, but we both knew that we enjoyed traveling and wanted more freedom over our own lives. One night while out to dinner, Emily brought up her most recent Botox treatment, highlighting how happy the nurse at the medspa was. After a few margaritas, we wondered, “how hard could it be to open a medspa?”
After a few months of deliberation, 704aesthetics was born.
As small business owners in competitive industry pillars — health & wellness, beauty, skin care — how do you bring in new and retain existing clientele? Any best practices to share?
We wanted to bring a new side to the industry; a side to show that medspas don’t have to be a scary place, and everyone should be able to seek treatment without judgement or pressure. Our entire business model stands behind treating our clients like our friends. We want to maintain an environment that’s welcoming, non-judgmental, and low pressure. Sure, we could pressure clients into higher ticket treatments, but instead, we prefer to invest more into the retention of a client. We choose not to try to up sell a client by $200-$300 but rather focus on the client experience, increasing the likelihood that they return again and again to the spa for services.
Speaking of clients, most if not all of yours, trust you with a needle to their face which is a LOT of trust. What are some tips you’d offer professionals in any field who may feel trepidation about trying things that scare them? If you could do it all over, what is one thing you (each!) would do differently?
(Emily) I think the most important thing about doing something that scares you is knowing that you may fail. We will admit to anyone who asks that we’ve made plenty of mistakes starting a business and growing our clientele. Some that have lost us thousands of dollars and that’s okay. As long as we learn from the situation, it’s not a fail. Letting go of the idea of perfection is hard, but necessary to grow. At the end of the day we are truly all just trying our best. You might see your competition and say, “wow they’re doing so well, that will never be me” but they started in the exact same spot that you did. They started though.
(Sarah) One thing I would do differently is change my mindset. My fiancé tells me all the time, “you cannot have a plan B”. I think for the longest time I was trying to have one foot in on shaky ground and one foot out on sturdy ground. Being half in is never going to make you grow. I needed to change the mindset of having a plan B and believe in myself enough to know that plan A was possible and could be better than I’d ever imagined.
(Emily) One thing I would have done differently is research everything. At the beginning I was naive to think that everyone else had the right intentions. You quickly learn that NO one is going to care about your business as much as you do. Go into every conversation educated and with a questioning attitude. The day you stop learning is the day you stop growing.
Follow these bombshells on social media, and book your next appointment immediately.