Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Allison Barbera. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Allison thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?
A few years ago, I was driving home from a television show my company does makeup for when I had a weird flashback. In reality, I was on 95 North in Rhode Island, but for a second, I thought I was on 95 North in Florida, driving home from an office job I had 15 years earlier. For a brief moment, I remembered what it felt like to be done with work at 5:00pm on a Friday, knowing I had the entire weekend completely off. I felt giddy, free and excited.
Then I remembered it was 2019, and I hadn’t taken a completely full day off since I opened my business in 2008. (Luckily, I’ve gotten a little better since!) I felt a surge of disappointment and the gnawing feeling that I may never experience the joy of an Office Manager clocking out on a Friday again. I don’t think it’s possible to really turn off that business owner switch, or at least it’s not for me.
I’ve thought about that moment a lot in the last few years. I’m not sure I’ll ever get that feeling again, and that makes me sad. But I snap out of it by reminding myself of all the amazing things owning a business has brought me. Schedule freedom. The opportunity to create the lifestyle I want. Limitless income potential. Never having to answer to a boss. And those are just the big ones!
Maybe the weight of owning a business will always be on my shoulders and I’ll never get that employee-driving-home-on-a-
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 background and context?
I own a beauty services company, Allison Barbera Beauty, which I founded in 2008. We provide onsite makeup applications and hair styling services for weddings, commercials, television and photoshoots. I have a team of 17 (and counting!) Independent Contractor makeup artists and hair stylists who work for me.
I started my company because I was miserable working office jobs in fields that weren’t interesting to me. I didn’t want to dread going to work every day for the rest of my life, so I decided to go to school for Esthetics and become a makeup artist.
There are a ton of beauty services companies in my area, but our edge is that we not only provide top notch hair and makeup services, but thorough and clear communication, organization, and professionalism. I’d been working in small businesses for a decade by the time I started AB Beauty, and that background allowed me to create a company that could offer clients a level of communication and professionalism that, based on my market research, was missing from people’s experience with other beauty teams. You see a void in the market and you fill it, right?
At AB Beauty, we take what we do very seriously. We want our clients to not only love their hair and makeup, but to be happy with the entire experience. We work in a creative field, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be structured, organized and efficient. Clients shouldn’t have to choose between good hair and makeup and a beauty services company that responds to them!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
2020 wasn’t a good year for most industries. That’s common knowledge, right? What you may not realize is how incredibly hard the events industry got hit. In Rhode Island, we were the first industry to get shut down and the last to fully open over a year later.
My company experienced a 70% revenue loss in 2020. Painful! I had savings, but I also applied for every loan and grant I qualified for. I started a Facebook group for wedding vendors in RI to help us all through the effects of the pandemic on our businesses. I knew I couldn’t be the only one struggling. The group grew to 600 people in no time, and next thing I knew, I was getting interviewed by news stations, joining in on conference calls with senators, and talking with the SBA about financial relief programs.
There were times when I didn’t know if my business would make it, but I decided I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I’d worked too hard for too long to let my company get crushed. My company made it through, and 2021 was our most profitable year in our 13 year history. Take that, COVID!
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. I’m horrible at math, cooking, parallel parking and a million other things. But I’m good at thorough communication, efficiency, organization and being punctual. (I was born early and have been early to everything since.) Those four qualities go hand in hand with fostering a good reputation in the wedding and beauty industries.
I have a strong team of makeup artists and hair stylists, so our work speaks for itself. I personally handle all of the client communication, scheduling, invoicing, payment processing, etc. I rarely personally take makeup clients anymore, but I know I’ve got a fantastic team onsite, and I make sure that the business side of each transaction goes smoothly. This combination of onsite hair and makeup talent and back end efficiency attracts clients via referrals and reviews, which has earned us an excellent reputation.
The venues, photographers, videographers, planners and producers who refer us know that when AB Beauty is on the job, clients will be happy and things will run on schedule. It took a couple years for us to prove ourselves, but once we did, the referrals began pouring in and haven’t stopped since.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.allisonbarbera.
com - Instagram: AllisonBarberaBeaut
y - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/ allisonbarberabeauty - Linkedin: https://www.
linkedin.com/in/allison- barbera-b2651ba/ - Other: Shop My Shelf: https://pro.
shopmyshelf.us/allisonbarbera Blog: https:// allisonbarberamakeup. wordpress.com/
Image Credits
Main Image (red dress): Lisette Rooney Bridal makeup (not the SmithBrad.com one): Katie Slater Photography