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

Bobbi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

My small town success is not an “oh I woke up and was the best thing smoking “. I began just like anyone else with a dream and a plan . I had my child Easton at 21 and from that point on – something had to shake . Right after I had him I was working at chase bank and was fired for THE craziest thing (but I won’t get into that ) , then I finally scored a dream interview as a freelance artist at MAC cosmetics. I was only getting maybe 10-15 hours on a good week , still struggling at home. The great thing about working there was the exposure to see other creatives doing their thing , I looked up to all of the girls I worked with . Eventually I decided to go to school to become the entire package , and graduated as an esthetician’ in 2016.
I perfected my craft in my free time ,to the point that my school asked me to teach the makeup chapter – I was so excited. When I wasn’t working or at school I practiced NON STOP. I even took free models to work on an array of different ethnicities. I built up my clientele by offering the best customer service I could even though I was still mediocre at the time . Consistency was definitely the key to getting where I am and it for sure didn’t happen overnight. God and my support system made it happen .

Bobbi, 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?

I’m just your ordinary woman working for a purpose . I don’t even call what I do a job anymore because I love it sooo much . I live to see my clients feeling beautiful inside and out when they arrive and leave from my chair . I provide makeovers , waxing , henna and tint services as well as eventually getting back into permanent makeup . The name of my business is Holy Grail Artistry LLC and I actually got the name from the song by Jay Z and Justin Timberlake at the time , mixing it with my Baptist upbringing . It was super catchy to me . I also have a cosmetics line Bobbi Pitre Cosmetics, available online and in my instagram shop .

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to learn was that unfortunately In this industry, everyone won’t be happy for your success. I had to learn the hard way that even people that you thought were your friends really aren’t . But you have to be resilient and keep it moving because everyone isn’t meant to go to the next season with you . I’m sure this resonates with a variety of careers but it was an eye opener for me . Anyone can get where they want with hard work and dedication- you have to WANT it .

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I literally did everything by myself , all of my equipment and supplies were funded by me . I collected products of of every store I went in and over the years it added up . To this day I haven’t received any funding – but hey , I would love to !

Contact Info:

• Website: Bookbobbipitre.as.me
• Instagram: Holygrailartistry
• Facebook: Bobbi pitre
• Youtube: Bobbi Pitre