We recently connected with Cayla Ogbulie and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Cayla 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

In 2016, after working as the Spa Director for a cute little neighborhood spa, the owner informed me that she was leaving the business to pursue a different one. She asked me if I’d like to buy the company from her. She wanted to offer it to me before she put it on the market. After really thinking about it, I felt like it was the next natural step as I had been in the spa business for almost 15 years by this time.

We got started on the process of changing ownership and there were definitely some red flags. Let me just pause here and give the advice to pay attention to red flags. One of the flags was that she was not under a lease. I was assured that it would be fine and not to worry. This one red flag proved to be one of the biggest hardships I had to face. But I proceeded and I became the owner of the spa. The actual transition was pretty easy as I had already been running her day-to-day operations including payroll and managing the staff, talking to vendors, and providing and setting up education for all the services we offered. That part was easy. But then about a month after I took over the building sold. I met with the new landlords and in person they expressed that the rent wouldn’t change, which was a relief to me since I had already factored in the rent. However, a week later the new landlord informed me that they had misspoken and that the rent would actually be, when all was said and done, DOUBLE the rent that I was paying. It was shocking, to say the least. Not only that, but they informed me that they would also be taking over my salon which was located upstairs. The salon was part of the rent I had factored in as I had a hair stylist paying booth rent. So needless to say, I immediately started looking for another space to rent.

During that time, there was a real estate boom and property rent was at an all-time high. It just wasn’t feasible for me to rent elsewhere so I made the choice to stay. Soon after this, they began construction on the upstairs part of the building (where my salon was) and without my knowledge slid an eviction notice under the salon door.

Let’s talk about having a spa in its inaugural year, and loud construction above the spa 5-6 days a week…it doesn’t work. And while many of my regular clients were understanding, many stopped coming. And because we were honest with new clients who would call to book, we were unable to book most clients since they didn’t want to come during construction. It was devastating. All while this was going on, the new landlords were inhospitable as well. Like having their kid come in and practice their clarinet above our treatment rooms. And yes, I’m being serious. The construction workers (who were just doing their job), would listen to the radio very loud and also made use of our bathroom facilities (even though they had access to the ones upstairs). They would leave it unflushed and muddy. It was a constant struggle with them and this went on for over 7 months.

Because of the loss of our salon, we made arrangements to take over a space in the back and used our own funds to build out another two treatment rooms. We were finally able to get that room going sort of…They weren’t willing to fix the other half and so we had to deal with an unfinished hallway while trying to make our space work.

One day I came in and there was a puddle of water in my lobby. I thought maybe someone spilled water or there was a leak on the roof. Neither had happened. I couldn’t figure out where the water came from and on my way out, I decided to check my brand-new space in the back area. As I walked in, I heard what sounded like a waterfall and when I opened my back treatment room, I was standing in a flood. Again I was in shock. Their hot water heater which was in a closet connected to my treatment room, has exploded and all of the water in the hot water heater was all over the floor. Brand new floors, equipment, and paint on the wall were all submerged in water.
Once I contacted the landlord, and they assessed the situation, they let me know that they would need to replace the floors and repaint (they put in cheaper floors that looked nothing like the floors I paid for) and then later I was informed that it would be an even longer process because there was asbestos! It took them over 8 weeks to get my space back operating and during that time they continuously badgered me for the rent. It was a very trying time for me.

I felt like the excitement of starting my own business had been stolen from me in so many ways. I had someone tell me that if I could make it the 1st 2 years in business I would be okay, and all of this happened in less than a year. I felt like a failure and was ready to give up.
After they finally fixed the space in the back and I was able to get back to giving services, there was another incident. Because there was still construction going on, every time I had a client in the back, I had to inform them to not go into that area. One day I had a client come in and so of course I let the landlords know that no construction workers should be in that area and they assured me that no one would be back there. I left to go to the front part of the spa for a moment and when I stepped back in, my client let me know that a man had walked in the room and wouldn’t leave. Another time, I noticed water leaking in the same area where the flood happened, so I contacted them to let them know. Instead of checking out what the leak could be coming from, they decided to blame some spa equipment I had in the room. It took me taking a video, showing where the leak came from after 3 weeks for them to realize that it was coming from their upstairs plumbing.

Close to the end of our second year in business, we had a heartfelt conversation with one of our business mentors and he asked me why I was still there. It struck me as an odd question, I was thinking that I was there first and they weren’t going to run me out of a building where I had been for over 5 years as a worker and then as owner, it was my business home. But he said, “It’s not working”, and it was an “Aha” moment for me. It was a scary moment for me. Change is difficult for me, but he was right, it was time. I began to make arrangements to leave. When all was said and done, I left with nowhere to go and I took a month off. I prayed and regrouped. My mentor found a space for me to reopen, it wasn’t the best place for a spa as it was an event venue. So I had to be a bit inventive and it for sure kept me on my toes. I stayed for 6 months, and then my partner found the space that I’m in now. My landlords could not be more opposite than the previous ones. We are settled here and we love the space.

You asked for the craziest story, Everyone I tell says it’s one of the craziest stories they’ve ever heard. The craziest part is that I survived. I made it through. I am here.

Cayla, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Cayla and I own Breathe Day Spa. I am originally from Oklahoma City. When I graduated high school in 1996, I engaged in a volunteer ministry work, and I wanted to be able to support myself during this time. Leading up to getting into the spa business, I worked a lot of different jobs. And a lot of times they were not jobs I wanted to do; they were just jobs that helped me stay in my ministry. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do career-wise.

My story of getting into the spa industry is one of coincidence and the perfect storm. I was on my summer break from driving a school bus and my best friend asked me if I would be able to fill in for her while she went on parental leave. She worked as a part-time receptionist at a swanky downtown hotel spa. I was happy to fill in for her. About two weeks into her parental leave, I realized that I really loved the job. That’s all it took…two weeks. I called her and asked if she really planned to come back or if she would be staying home with the baby, and she said she had decided to stay home with the baby, I told her that I would be keeping her job with her blessing of course.

I loved the job, the day-to-day activities, and learning about an industry with which I was wholly unfamiliar. In fact, I’d only been to a spa one time before and it was this spa because my friend worked there, and she had gifted me a massage. It was a whole new world for me. I fell in love with the industry. What really impressed me was that this is one of the only industries where a client would come in who may be having a difficult day and by the time they leave, we’ve alleviated the stress they came in with. I saw it repeatedly and loved it.

As I honed my skills, I moved up in the company. I started out as a part-time receptionist and within a year I was promoted to Spa Assistant Manager. It was a new challenge, but I embraced the change and learned so much. I became a buyer for the spa and as the owner expanded her business, I grew with it. I will again say I LOVED this industry so I was soaking up any and everything I could. I collaborated with the reps of major companies, coordinated schedules with high-profile clients (including celebrities), was a personal assistant to the owner, and eventually became the spa director of all three of her spas. This was all from me filling in for a friend on parental leave. Amazing right?
After being there for over 6 years, I made the move to the Bay Area after getting married. I really didn’t know what I was going to do when I got here to Oakland. I sent out a few resumes to different spas, but nothing was a good fit for me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it just wasn’t a good fit. I even started interviewing at banks (even got the job at one particular bank), because I figured maybe my spa career had run its course. I was kind of lost for a few months. Then one day I got a phone call from a spa, that to this day I do not remember sending my resume to. But I did a phone interview, and I liked their vibe, so I accepted the offer of an in-person interview. I have to say, it was different than what I was used to. I came from a very fancy hotel spa, and this was more of a laid-back neighborhood spa. I came from meeting new clients who were traveling every day to getting to know and love my regular clients.

I accepted the job and took a demotion of sorts; I started out as the front desk assistant manager/esthetics manager. Within 8 months, I was the Spa Director again. This job was much more demanding. The owner of this spa was less hands on for the day-to-day duties, and I was managing pretty everything on my own. Because of the fast-moving spa industry there was always something new to learn. I again became the buyer for the spa, but this was more intense, because I was working with skincare companies, something that I was not familiar with, since the previous spa I came from was more massage focused. It was a whole new world for me. And I mostly loved every bit of it. There were some trying times during this period. I learned how to deal with staff issues, client issues, vendor issues, and everything else under the sun. I did payroll, I was HR, I was the supply runner, I was the errand runner. I did everything. It was a lot.
I really immersed myself and to be honest lost myself a bit to this job. I’ve never spoken of it before, but this time period almost took me out of the industry. It was highly stressful. I was coming to a time in my life where the stress of the job was affecting my health, though I didn’t realize it.
As I was making some big life decisions, the owner of the spa came to me and let me know that she had decided to become a solo esthetician and that she was letting the spa go. She offered to sell it to me before putting it on the market. And this is how I became the owner of a spa.
When I became the owner, I wanted some things to change. I wanted to be more a part of my community as a Black woman. I think there is an underlying thought that spa services are for a special treat or something you do occasionally. That somehow self-care is not meant for the general public and unattainable. And what I heard a lot, was that women in my community simply forgot to take care of themselves. I wanted to be the catalyst to change that and to instill that self-care really is for everyone. Self-care is not a luxury; it is for everyone to enjoy and should be a part of your routine.

My spa provides a simple list of services including Skincare, Massage, and the unique one-of-a-kind V-Steam. I want clients to know that my brand is centered around well-being, inner beauty, and providing a safe space for all types of people.

I have been in the spa business for over 18 years and one of the most important things I’ve learned along the way is to treat people how you want to be treated. And offer stellar customer service. I have a motto that I learned many years ago, “Yes is the answer, now what is the question?” It means that I am going to go above and beyond to offer you a one-of-a-kind spa experience coupled with amazing customer service. It has served me well over the years.

When I was rebranding my company, my partner asked me how I wanted my clients to feel. I began naming how I wanted them to feel, I wanted them to relax, feel renewed, to reconnect and to just breathe… and that is how I came up with the name Breathe Day Spa. I am proud that I’ve survived thus far, and I look forward to meeting and servicing even more clients in the future. Welcome to Breathe Day Spa.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2018 I almost died. Literally. I was just about to reopen my business in a new location and a few days before my reopening I was getting ready for my day and I put on my all-leather Steve Madden knee-high boots and noticed a little pinch, a teeny pain in my right calf. I ignored it and went to a meeting. As I was sitting in the meeting, my leg felt like it was falling asleep. In fact, my friends that I was sitting with, laughed because I kept shaking my leg to “wake it up”, we all laughed.

I ignored it, and the pain got worse. I just figured that I strained it. But in the back of my mind, I kept thinking this is not a strain. But I kept working and going about my weekly routine. I had a business to reopen. Later that week I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to look at her essential oil book because my leg had been hurting. We’re 4 days in at this point folks…yes 4 days. So, on the 5th day, my hubby asked if my leg was still hurting and when I told him yes, he told me to call the doctor. I’ll be honest I.Would.Not.Have.Called.The.Doctor if it hadn’t been for him. I don’t like going to the doctor. But he insisted. So, I called, and they got me on the same day.

The entire time I thought that this doctor was going to walk in and say there’s nothing wrong, and I’ve wasted my time. But she didn’t. Her nurse described her as being very thorough. She had me walk, she did blood work, she did an ultrasound, an X-ray, and an EKG. And when she came back in with the test results, the look on her face said it all. I immediately knew there was something wrong with me.

She said, “You have a DVT (blood clot)”…I was shocked. She assured me that I would be okay and that she just wanted to wait on my blood work before letting me go. At this point, I was having like an out-of-body experience. I was told that I shouldn’t leave and that I needed to wait for the bloodwork even if it didn’t come back before the lab went to lunch. I waited through their lunch and when it finally came back the results were not good.

Again, my doctor walked in and asked me if I knew I was severely anemic. I knew I was anemic but severely anemic? No and then in hindsight…yes, my nails were brittle, my hair was falling out, I had extremely painful and heavy menstrual cycles, but I ignored them. I was running a business that in my mind was failing at the time. I didn’t have time to be occupied with these minimal things. My blood count was below an 8 (normal blood count is 12)…do the math…blood clot means blood thinners…severely anemic means low blood which=a BIG PROBLEM…so now I’m scared. The doctor didn’t know what to do with me, so she sent me to the ER. Now I’m really scared. I was at the hospital for a total of 13 hours. It was scary. When I went to the ER the intake nurse told me that it was a good thing, I had come that day, because one more day would have been too late. My husband saved my life. I needed to slow down.

This scenario of events was a wake-up call. I needed to pay attention to my body because all those small things were an indication of much bigger things to come. But that’s not to say that once I got discharged from the hospital, I didn’t go right to work the next morning. I am a business owner after all.

As the year went along, birth control was deemed the culprit and it had caused many other health issues as well, including very fast-growing and large fibroids. This was another hardship as it caused me to have severe menstrual pains and affected my everyday life. They were the cause of my heavy cycles and therefore the cause of my severe anemia. It got harder before it got easier. I had to make some life decisions. One of them was that I had to make the hard decision to get a hysterectomy. I had a hard time with it. It took me a whole year to decide. My quality of life was horrible.

Throughout that time, I was rebuilding my business as we had been displaced from our previous space. It was all happening at the same time. I went from having a full staff to being on my own, in a new space, trying to figure out how to reenter the spa business on a much smaller scale without a full staff. I wasn’t a service provider, but I did have my V-steam chairs, so I became a service provider. I brought one massage therapist and one esthetician with me, and they would work with me on an on-call basis.
I got to a point where I finally felt my business was healthy. I was fully booked, and I was expanding. I moved up from having one room to two rooms. The demand for my spa services was so great, that I decided that I should go to school to become a licensed esthetician at 43 years old. One month after I made the decision to become an esthetician, Covid hit. Everything shut down and I had to pivot. I made it through a pandemic, being closed for 16 months. Many businesses didn’t make it. I used my savings to pay rent during the time I was closed. I never gave up. To keep afloat, I restarted a business selling handmade body products, including body scrubs, bath milks, body butter bars, and a hand-crafted yoni bath tea. I was resilient, I never gave up. I just kept going.

But through it all, I am still in business. Since my initial death scare, I’ve been diagnosed with Fibroids, Spinal Arthritis, Severe Plantar Fasciitis, and ADHD. Oh, and I dislocated my knee, which took months of rehab. But I just kept going, and I will keep going. I think this is the best example of my ability to be resilient.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Building your reputation in your market is one of the most important things to establish in your business. I believe that no matter what business you operate you should find your niche. In an over-saturated industry like the spa industry, it can be difficult to distinguish yourself from all the other spas. At one point we needed to find another modality within our scope, and a conversation that I’d had with a friend about a spa treatment that they received came to mind. She called it the V-Steam and once I figured out what it was, I was curious to see if anyone else was offering it in the Bay Area. At that time, I couldn’t find anyone else offering it, but it was wildly popular in Beverly Hills. So, I did research for a year and found the manufacturer who built the same chairs for the Beverly Hills spas and got to work building our reputation as being the only spa that offered this service in our area.

For years, we were one of the very, very few places where you could get a V-Steam. And to this day, we are still the only place in Northern California that offers this type of V-Steam. And we made the experience top-notch, and we became known as the place to get this one-of-a-kind service. Our reputation is built on, namely, being immaculately clean, having a unique blend of herbs, cutting-edge technology, and stellar customer service.

Even now that there are other places that have opened, we’ve built such a following that we have loyalty from our clients. We are the ones to beat. Because we took our time and found the quality of V-Steam chairs that were popular with celebrities, it sets us apart. We make sure our new clients know that they are getting something that they cannot get anywhere else in our area. In fact, we are the only spa that has these chairs in Northern California. We are also known for our amazing customer service. Let’s face it, these days, it’s not very easy to find good customer service. But because I value customer service myself, I strive to offer the most excellent customer service to my clients. At this point, I almost feel like I could teach a class on it. Early on I realized that this is one of the only industries where someone comes to you for relief of stress and it’s our job to make sure they leave feeling that way. These little things will set you apart from your clients and it will bring them back to you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.breathespaoakland.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Breathespaoakland/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Breathespaoakland/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/breatheoakland?lang=en
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/breathe-day-spa-oakland
• Other: tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@breathespaoakland?lang=en