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

Alright, Ariel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers

Positive: A month after I had opened Mermaid Glow Co., I was scheduled to spray a few girls for a girl’s night in spray tan party. It was only supposed to be three or four girls. I got to the apartment at about 630pm, grabbed my things and walked up the stairs to knock on the door. I was immediately greeted with a shot of tequila and so many hugs. These girls were SO excited to get sprayed and just enjoy a night together. Things were going great! I sprayed those girls that were already there, and then more people kept showing up and wanting to get sprayed! I was nervous because I hadn’t had a lot of practice with spraying yet, and I wasn’t fully confident in my skills, even though I was doing just fine, and everyone was so happy with their spray tan. Again, more people showed up and the girls convinced them to get spray tanned also.

After a few hours of chatting with these girls, and drinking a few more tequila shots, I realized that I had sprayed 10 people that night! A random neighbor even showed up asking for a spray tan as well! It was an amazing first spray tan party experience. It helped to boost my confidence in my skills and also made me quite a bit of money.

I had no idea that I would go from spraying 3-4 girls to spraying 10!! My emotions were all over the place that night. I was nervous, happy, excited, realizing the success this business could bring to myself and my little family. I was grateful more than anything. Grateful that these girls had been brought into my life. I even ended up making a really good friend out of the party who I still keep in touch with to this day!

Negative:
Beettan is the company I buy all my solution from. It’s different because it is a one-step solution with no mixing of colors for each person I spray. It is vegan, all-natural, paraben free, and really great for your skin. Beettan was founded by a woman who loves to support other women.

When I first decided to open my business, I reached out to the only other girl in Jacksonville who was using Beettan as well for some tips and tricks on spraying. I asked her if I could shadow her and maybe spray a couple of friends with her watching me and tell me what I can do better/different than what I had already learned in all the training videos. Everything was going great until we had a break between clients and went downstairs to chat. She seemed very distracted and bothered by me. I thought nothing of it at the time, I just thought that she was super busy with her business back-end type things.

While I was with her, I asked her to help me set my gun to the correct settings. She seemed confident in her answers on how to set it properly, so I rolled with it and sprayed my clients. She even made a comment to me while I was spraying them in front of her that she thought I was spraying a little heavy. I just sped up my process a little bit to help with that.

A couple weeks later, I was getting complaints from women that they thought they were too dark. I could not figure it out for the life of me. When I called my Beettan mentor, she mentioned that my gun needed to be set 4 clicks to the right. This was my lightbulb moment. I realized that the girl who had “trained’ me, set my gun wrong. She set it 2 clicks to the right. I didn’t think it was on purpose but, something definitely wasn’t feeling right about the situation.

After some digging, I found out that she purposely set my gun wrong to try and sabotage me because she felt threatened by my business opening in the same area. She was afraid I’d take clients from her. Now, anyone who knows me knows that everything I do is in the best interests of my family, and no other reason than that. I would NEVER steal clients from someone knowingly or set out to hurt someone else’s business.

This whole situation followed me for several months. The girl who helped me out in the beginning did end up reaching out to me. She never apologized or brought up how she set my gun wrong or felt threatened by me. She did ask if I was okay, and that was about it. The rest of the conversation was about how she thought I would do really well out in Jacksonville Beach, and she wasn’t willing to go out there.

I really think it’s unfortunate that people have mindsets that other people are out to get them or take their business away. I genuinely want everyone to succeed! I am a girl’s girl and firmly believe that any woman in business deserves to do well!

Ariel , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Mermaid Glow Co. is a mobile spray tanning service that uses Beettan, an all-natural, paraben free, vegan spray tanning formula. I also have many products that complement the spray tan – products that help the spray tan last the full 14 days, products for your face, as well as tan safe lotions and self-tanning products.

Mermaid Glow Co. is founded on building relationships. Relationships with clients as well as relationships with other businesses that I partner with. Of course, money is the reason why I opened the business, but once I really got into running it, I realized that building relationships and making people feel good about themselves was more important to me than the money was. I want everyone to walk away from their spray tan feeling amazing about themselves and feeling like they genuinely got to know me throughout the process. I want to walk away from a spray tan knowing that the person I just sprayed feels amazing about themselves and also feel like I got to see into their life a little bit while I was spraying them.

I am so proud to run a business based off of building relationships! It not only helps create return clients, but it also helps to create an environment where these clients feel comfortable in front of me in a sometimes-uncomfortable situation.

I got into Beettan originally by spraying under a girl who was running her own business but was too busy to take on all the tans. I fell in love with the product and fell in love with making people feel good about themselves. I didn’t take it too seriously back then because it wasn’t my business. The way Beettan had girls investing at the time was also too expensive for us to buy in. As soon as Beettan changed up their business model, it made sense to invest in the business and start spray tanning for myself. It has taken a long time to get to where I am today but, I’m glad I invested in such a wonderful company who supports other women whole heartedly. Although I’m on my own, I still have an awesome support group of women who I can go to with questions or concerns!

Have you ever had to pivot?

Due to the everchanging nature of the country and the rising prices of everything, recently I had to pivot and pick up a part-time job at Ulta. Due to the nature of my business, seeing as how spray tans are not an essential part of life, it was necessary for myself and my family that I get a part-time job. Because I am still the sole owner and operator of Mermaid Glow Co., I still had all the responsibilities of running a small business as well as my responsibilities at work, making sure I had a babysitter some days, and making sure that I am spending enough time with my son and my husband. I currently have quite a lot on my plate, and it isn’t easy to run a small business with other distractions. Sometimes, things get pushed to the back burner and that just has to be okay. It has been interesting to find that balance between work life, home life, and small business owner life, all while trying to maintain a social life. Somehow, though, I manage to get it all done and then some!

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

Starting from complete scratch with Mermaid Glow Co,’s Instagram was terrifying. I started by inviting friends and family, who I knew would probably never get a spray tan, to like the page. From there, I posted consistently and eventually grew to where I am now. I’m still not where I’d like to be, but I am growing slowly but steadily!

One piece of advice that I have for those just beginning to build their social media presence is to post consistently! Make sure you are representing your brand well. When someone looks at your Instagram or Facebook, do you have enough on there for them to trust you?

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mermaidglowco.com
• Instagram: @mermaidglowco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mermaidglowcollc
• Twitter: mermaidglowco

Image Credits
Photo Credit goes to Salty Kat Creative