We were lucky to catch up with Shannon Jones recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shannon, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

My business is both a hands-on and virtual skin clinic where I do facials and other advanced skin treatments in addition to nutrition counseling, with a focus on chronic skin conditions and gut health. I’ve developed a truly integrative approach to skin, addressing nutritional deficiencies, food sensitivities, and stress management for hard-to-manage skin conditions such as acne, rosacea, and dermatitis with both dietary and topical interventions.

I developed this concept out of necessity because I didn’t see anyone in the beauty or wellness industry doing what I saw as an important combination of services. I saw people with nutrition credentials trying to talk about skin conditions but without fully understanding the scope of topical products and interventions, and I saw estheticians talking about diet and nutrition without a full understanding of the root causes of the issues.

I originally opened my business to create space to get my master’s degree in nutrition, but I also saw that, down the road, I would need to be on my own in order to build the business the way I felt it needed to be. Because of the way I’m blending skin and nutrition, I needed to see clients on both sides of their issues, and there simply wasn’t an employer who could allow me the flexibility to do that. Most practices are very entrenched in one side of the business or the other. Spas don’t understand what I need for thorough nutritional counseling, and medical practices don’t understand what I need for facials and skincare. I only saw working for someone else as an uphill battle on whichever side of my business they didn’t fully understand.

I also really pride myself on accessibility and follow-up with clients, and that can be hard to accomplish if you don’t have access to an email list, booking parameters, etc. or if you don’t have the ability to price yourself according to all that you offer. My previous work experiences had always left me feeling out of the loop when it came to client communication, and I need to be able to control that in order to provide the level of quality in services I want to provide.

Shannon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I offer facials and skincare services, as well as nutritional counseling. I added nutrition last year after graduating with my master’s degree in nutrition and functional medicine. My facial philosophy has always been built on the concept that you don’t need to surrender results to the relaxation experience and vice versa. I’ve always firmly believed that you could get clinical results from skincare therapies in a luxurious setting, and the time to destress is hugely important from a wellness perspective. So I aim to provide my clients with an environment where they leave feeling heard, cared for, and relaxed while also seeing better results in both their skin and health.

I’ve always loved the personal care and self-care industry. I had a nail polish stand when most kids had a lemonade stand. I’d struggled with acne in college at the University of Georgia, which originally sparked my interest in skincare. My undergraduate degrees are in Finance and French language, but I graduated into a terrible economy. I continued to work on various sides of the retail beauty business and loved what I was learning about the skin. I went to esthetics school several years after college because I wanted to work hands-on with clients. I’d also suffered from food sensitivities, gut issues, and atopic dermatitis for years, so I began developing expertise around allergic reactions as I tried to understand and heal my own skin and gut. As my experience in spas grew, I began noticing that not only were my facial clients at the spa suffering more frequent allergic reactions as well, other conditions like acne and rosacea weren’t coming under control simply with topical interventions. No one in the industry was really talking about the deeper connections between skin conditions and food; it was all very superficial. So in 2019, I decided to go back for my master’s in nutrition to understand the connection myself.

I think the most important thing, and the thing I’m most proud of, is the integration of skin and nutrition through the lens of funtional medicine, which is getting people results that they aren’t seeing from other providers. I can often make connections between their diet and their skin conditions that other people don’t simply because I have experience and knowledge with both.

I’m also really proud of the education I’m able to provide for my clients. My goal is always to help my clients feel more comfortable and confident in their routines and nutrition decisions, and I deeply believe that the path to confidence is through education. If you can understand what your skin needs and what your food triggers are, then you can more comfortably shop for your own skincare or navigate a restaurant menu. Plus they’ll ultimately save money by avoiding products that don’t work or unnecessary nutritional supplements.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I had to pivot almost immediately upon opening, because six weeks after I left my job to go full time in my business, the state licensing board shut businesses down due to the pandemic. Spas and facialists weren’t allowed to offer facials for the following six months so I ended up surrendering my office space and attempting to pivot to an online business. That period of time was really challenging, as I also started my graduate program about a month after the initial closures in March. I shifted into more of a sales model, bringing in a new skincare line that had a wider variety of products and creating custom facial kits with online tutorials. That was also when I first started offering virtual consultation sessions. The virtual sessions never really took off for me, simply because there was so much zoom fatigue that summer and my focus was split between grad school and my business. But I built a retail sales business that is still going strong today. I do still have some virtual consults that are booked today, like my cabinet cleanout, where I go through my client’s stash of products with them and help them organize and clean out old or ineffective products.

Even though virtual businesses will never replace my hands-on facials, the popularity of virtual consults has gotten me to think differently about my business. How can I better reach people to help them with their skin, especially if they’re not in New York City? How can I build a business that doesn’t require me to be in the office all the time? I’m building out ebooks and even considering webinars to educate people on how to better care for their skin. I also recently joined the startup platform PROTEA, which offers virtual skincare consultations by licensed estheticians because I still think virtual consults offer value, and people are more accustomed to virtual meetings now.

Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?

My primary revenue stream is currently my hands-on business and my retail product sales. It’s such a large percentage of my business that it’s tough to replace. Now that I’m out of grad school, I’ve been able to pursue some of my other ideas and options to generate income in different areas. I’m currently building up the nutrition coaching side of the business, which can be entirely virtual, as well as virtual products such as ebooks and self-paced programs for people who have skin concerns that may need to be addressed through dietary changes. Additionally, I am also building out educational programs for estheticians, either the newly licensed or other solo entrepreneurs like me who need support with business development. My philosophy after the last three years is to lean into as much diversification and passive income as possible.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.skinbyshannon.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skin.by.shannon/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PracticalSkintuition
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-jones-96165229/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@skinbyshannon