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

Hi Adline , thanks for joining us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

I had been doing my friends and family’s makeup, nails, hair, etc for as long as I could remember. Whenever there was an occasion I was the one called to beautify everyone even when I was the youngest, but I enjoyed every minute of it. After realizing being in the beauty industry was what I wanted to do as my career, i continued servicing just friends and family but I knew I had to start advertising my work. So I decided to create a instagram account and have it double as my portfolio, and as a form to promote myself so people who weren’t friends and family could see my work and hopefully book with me. As I was improving in my technique I was getting recommended by my friends and family to their relatives/friends and gaining a following on instagram, where I was blessed enough to have a variety of different people who didn’t originally know me, start to book with me. I appreciated it so much, I couldn’t believe that “strangers” would trust me to service them for their special occasion.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’ve loved anything having to do with beauty for as long as I could remember. Growing up I was a dancer and cheerleader so makeup and hair was introduced into my life at an early age and I’ve loved it ever since. As I got older, and YouTube makeup tutorials became super popular, my love for makeup kept growing. I remember being excited to get home from school just so I can play with makeup, practice any new makeup look that came to mind, and pretend like I was filming my own makeup tutorial. After graduating a year early from high school, I went straight to college to get my degree in what I thought would be my career. Being an entrepreneur was never what I had in mind for myself, being that I was raised with the belief that the only way to be successful is to get a degree and work a 9-5. When I started college, I enjoyed the degree I was working towards but I didn’t see myself working in the field. Being that my friends were still in high-school they would ask me to do their makeup for all the senior activities and that’s when I realized that being a MUA was my dream job.

When I first started, most of my clients were strictly friends and family and through their recommendations I was able to start building a clientele of people who I didn’t previously know. I used social media as a form to display my work, and promote myself. I remember, when I got my first ever client that I had no previous relationship with, it felt like such a success. After a year or two of only providing makeup as a service, I started to train and incorporate different services to my service menu so I can cater to a variety of different people.

For my eighteenth birthday my mom gifted me a lash extension course, I had never gotten my lashes done, I had no information on the process of applying them, so I definitely had no idea what I was getting myself into and I didn’t enjoy it at all. Compared to makeup, it was so much more tedious and I would practice for hours and barely see any improvement which was very discouraging, so I was certified but wouldn’t lash anyone. After a year, I finally had the courage to practice on friends and family and slowly started seeing improvements which was enough fuel to keep me going, and now I enjoy lashing so much. What was once the service that stressed me out the most, is now the service that provides me with the most peace.

My most recent addition to my service menu is what is known as PMU (permanent makeup). I provide the service “Ombre Brows” where it is a semi-permanent tattoo on your brows that looks like you have them filled in with makeup 24/7. Unlike lashes, this service was very second nature to me and I a-credit that to my years of experience doing makeup.

Being a one stop shop for all your beauty needs, and making sure you leave feeling your absolute most confident and are able to wake up with extra confidence every day, is the one goal at POSH Beauty Lounge.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a lesson, I would say it’s more of a mindset that I had to unlearn. Growing up I had a tendency to plan out my entire life, down to the smallest of details and I would make a timeline for myself for the age I wanted to achieve specific goals by. Once I started to realize that setting such detailed plans for my life and maybe not being able to achieve them by the age I had set out for myself in my ideal world was becoming extremely detrimental to my mental health, was when I had to unlearn that behavior. I had no idea how adult life was like when I was six years old journaling how I saw my future. My first wake up call was when I had planned for myself that by the age of eighteen I had to be moved out on my own, not realizing that in order to move out you need credit, which you can only start to build once you turn eighteen so that plan went completely out the window. I instantly felt like a failure, despite everything else I had accomplished by that age, graduating early, a year away from graduating with my associates degree, starting a business, etc, none of that mattered because I didn’t move out at the exact age of eighteen and i wasn’t going according to my life plan. I now know it’s healthy to have dreams, goals, and aspirations for your future but setting specific timelines for myself was only hindering my growth.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Social media and word of mouth has been my biggest strategy in growing my clientele. We are so blessed that in this day and age we have social media where we can advertise and promote ourselves and our business for free. Take advantage of all the platforms, post not only about your business but be personable on your page. Make sure the work you’re promoting on your social media is the quality that every single client is getting coming into your business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.poshbeautymia.com
• Instagram: @posh.beautymia