We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joi Mebane. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joi below.

Alright, Joi thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?

When I first opened my business my mom was working full time. She would come help me in the afternoon after a full day of work. She believed in me and had me train her in all of our services so she could be able to fill any role when needed.

After years of helping me after work and on weekends she ended up quitting her job to work with me full time! Her faith in me and my business is a HUGE reason why I am so successful today. I am forever grateful for her passion and dedication to The Look By Joi and being such a support system for me! She also became a client favorite and had her own loyal clients that specifically requested her for services, now, my mom is now retired and enjoying life!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! I’m Joi Mebane, owner of The Look By Joi Cosmetics. I specialize in all things brows, beauty and business and have been in business for 19 years. My flagship location is located in Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta, GA. We offer brow grooming services, makeovers and our namesake line of brow and cosmetics products.

After 16 years in business, I trained with Amiea Permanent Makeup Systems in Hong Kong and Chicago to become certified in micro-pigmentation. This expanded my business to include permanent make-up solutions, like microshading.

Since then I have traveled the country teaching others microshading, ombreshading, eyebrows 101 and launching and growing their beauty businesses.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

Back in 2020, I had just kicked off my Microblading to Microshading Tour for the year. It seemed like as soon as I launched the dates the world went into a complete shut down – COVID happened. This was a very uncertain time, not just in business, but in health and financial crisis across the world. Even though I had to cancel my tour and close down my business due to the new city regulations, I didn’t panic. In business you have to pivot, and having already experienced the financial crisis of 2008, I knew beauty is an industry that can survive uncertain times or even a recession.

While “inside” during the lockdown period, the trust I had in the beauty industry to recover from this made me want to share that with others. With job security and finances uncertain across the country, many people were confused as to how to secure their future with a stable and reliant industry. After a few months, the lockdown was lifted and I knew I had to reach as many people as I could with a way for them to break into the beauty industry.

I teamed up with 2 brands, Artistry Brows and The Perfect Brow Stencil, and both companies sponsored $1000 towards every students ticket for my Microblading to Microshading Tour. People thought I was crazy to try to host a class back then, but I knew people needed a fresh start and hope in themselves to create a business that would be able to bring them to financial freedom.

I ended up selling out 2 classes back to back for the last 2 weekends in December of 2020 and hundreds of people were able to learn a new beauty skill. It was definitely the highlight of my career thus far.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

When I first started my business I was still in college, working in a salon doing brows AND working at a cosmetics kiosk. The owner of the cosmetics kiosk gave me the opportunity to franchise the kiosk, I was so down. I knew I was ready to be my own boss and run my own business, but the catch was the start up fee was $10,000.

I definitely didn’t have $10,000 just laying in the bank back then, so I got to work. I saved every single penny I made, I refinanced my car, used my student loans, and asked every single family member and friend I had. I had no shame asking people to donate towards my business, I believed in myself and knew this was going to pay off. I even asked vendors to front me products so I could start selling them right away and get some cash flowing in the business.

It wasn’t easy, but I refused to give up. In business aside from the funding, what you really need to start up is the to put in the work and take action.

Contact Info:

• Website: thelookbyjoi.com browsbeautyandbusiness.com
• Instagram: @joimebane @thelookbyjoi
• Facebook: facebook.com/thelookbyjoi
• Youtube: youtube.com/thelookbyjoi
• Other: browstobank.com

Image Credits
https://www.instagram.com/miked.shotme/ https://www.mikedshotme.com/about/