We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ivana Benton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ivana , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Our mission is to enhance beauty one at a time. We welcome any and all at the beauty garden. We offer 5 star customer service to each and every client that walks through our doors.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

What’s the story behind your business? – I started Ivana’s Beauty Garden about 4 years ago, however I have been in my establishment for
almost 3 years. I attended school to become an esthetician to give my daughter a better life,
because I was a young mom and I wanted more for myself and for my daughter. Finishing up
school I started working in the field right away for about a year in a half. Within that year in a
half I wanted more for myself, so I took a leap of faith, quit my job and started Ivana’s Beauty
Garden out of my 2 bedroom apartment. During that time, perfected my craft and my
technique, gain loyal clients, and really started to make a name for myself, soon I was able to
open up a shop, and hire a small team to help me with the day to day operations. About 4 years
later, we are here now, however I do not want to stop here.
 What motivates you?”
– My daughter motivates me, however my loyal clients keeps me booked and busy so I am
extremely blessed to have them. Seeing there google reviews and seeing them refer other
clients to me really shows me that I am doing something right in this business. I get a joy seeing
my clients walk in and out happy.
 What are the opportunities and your challenges?
– Challenges: Getting and keeping clients every month, trying to be a great boss and not be in my
head too much with decision making. Being the best wax shop in Atlanta is a challenge. Staying
on top of marketing and all the trends.
– Opportunities: its great being a role model to young girls and all women. I love helping my
clients feeling good about themselves in and out. Being a black women owned business owner is
a blessing and showing others that its possible. Showing my daughter that if she aim high great
things will happen for her.

What services and products do I offer?
– full body waxing, Vsteams (yoni steam), Vajacials (a facial for your Brazilian area) facials, foot detox, ear candling, and lash extensions. We also offer wax classes (group classes and 1on1 classes), we offer private wax parties and v-steam parties.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding my business took about a year in a half to do. Waxed for about 2 years in my 2 bedroom apartment and stacked my money until it was enough to rent a storefront. For my birthday and Christmas I always had wax supplies on my list for gifts. Thats all i wanted, I needed as many supplies as I can get, wax and supplies are very expensive so having my loved one gift those things to me for birthdays and Christmas was a blessing and definitely helped me a lot tremendously. I am truly grateful for my family and friends, they are my village 100%.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Being a walking billboard is my motto! Before social media was popular I always promoted my business with business cards, word of mouth, and appeiarel. I did any and everything to just get my name out there. With social media now I have a few platforms that I promote the business on. I always try to interact with my audience, with poll questions, joining a live, advertising specials/deals, sending out email/text marketing, sponsored ads on social media, created a youtube, word of mouth, more business cards, after care cards with the business information on them. I try to come up with many different ways to keep the shop booked and busy. The only advice I can give is to stay consistent, in the beginning i had all of my family members and friends repost all my stuff, and they still do plus more. But staying consistent, making a social media marketing plan and sticking with it no matter.

Contact Info:

• Website: ivanasbeautygarden.com
• Instagram: @ivanas.beautygardenn
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ivanasbeautygardenn
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZz_bX-wSdLFfsIarp40h_g
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ivanas-beauty-garden-stockbridge
• Other: https://linktr.ee/ivanas.beautygardenn?fbclid=PAAaZ6QjiWMPj1DKzx6hANs861DCjexx5ovGIXSniz9hKGgKpvLfGaWnMz4-8

Image Credits
@capturedbyque @dr8nn