We recently connected with Helen Coquin and have shared our conversation below.

Helen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I have been in the aesthetic industry for over a decade and within that time I have worked in many roles, from working with clients in plastic surgery, to sales and consulting. I was working a lot with dermatologists, plastic surgeons, and large med spas and saw a need for something different. From a consumer perspective, I saw that there were relaxing spas, clinical offices, or makeup stores and nothing in between. There wasn’t a place to go that felt both knowledgeable and fun and I wanted something like that to exist. My friends and people I spoke with were craving a space in which they could come, have fun, and have a relaxing treatment but also had access to medical-grade products, services, and a knowledgeable provider to guide them through to their goals, all while not breaking the bank to achieve and since I couldn’t find it, I created it.

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.

My name is Helen Coquin and I own a Medical Spa called The Skin Bar as well as the founder of a training platform for aestheticians called The Skin Society. I fell in love with the aesthetics industry at a young age. My grandmother always took great care of her skin and I had my first facial when I was nine. Like many, I struggled with my skin as a teenager, fighting breakouts and feeling the impact on my confidence at a crucial age. It wasn’t until I was older and had graduated with a degree in psychology that I considered making aesthetics my career. I dove in head first and fell in love with the ingredients and results. Helping others feel confident in their skin became my passion and I wanted to learn as much as I could about every aspect of the field. I later went on to work for a large plastic surgery practice in Austin, Texas, and loved the clinical side of skincare. Watching surgeries, understanding skin cancer, and connecting with people in that way filled my cup. When I moved back to South Carolina, I was approached to be in a sales role for a global skincare company. I loved the challenge that was presented and quickly learned that sales was something I was good at because it meant, connecting with people and educating them about skincare (my favorite things). I loved the business side just as much as the procedure side and coaching aestheticians quickly became my favorite thing. After launching The Skin Bar and having success very quickly we doubled our size on our one-year anniversary. After the growth and continued success, I wanted more, I loved training our team and I wanted to do that for aestheticians across the country. Thus, The Skin Society was born. I am now able to help and coach aestheticians on how to truly put clients first in their practice and how simple changes in their business can make a huge impact on their sales and lives.

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

Gosh, this is such a great question and also a really difficult one. The biggest thing I had to unlearn was the need to be liked all the time. As someone who thrives on making people happy, the thought of someone being upset with me, kept me up at night. Making everyone happy and trying to run a business is an equation for failure. The truth is you can’t please everyone all the time or you end up making yourself unhappy. I would tip-toe around my staff, I would accommodate everything they needed or asked for and I was terrified to be the “bad boss” what resulted was people walking all over me and I still wasn’t making everyone happy all the time. When I realized I could be a great boss and still say no and have boundaries it made my team respect me more and made my business better because I was running the ship. It’s still something I have to work on and constantly manage, the need to people please.

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

Social media is a huge part of our business and marketing. We mainly focus on Instagram because that is where our clients are. Something important to think about is getting your niche down to a very specific group. When we post or do any marketing it is to a very specific person, because if you market to everyone it speaks to no one. Social media is all about feeling seen and connecting with people, or a business. We work very hard to make sure that every person who walks through our door feels seen and appreciated and we take the same perspective with our social media. We use real people and our staff instead of stock photos, we post funny behind-the-scenes moments and give people a glimpse of what it’s like at The Skin Bar before they ever walk through the door.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://raisingtheskinbar.com
• Instagram: theskinbar.gvl

Image Credits
Brogan Jackson