We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marleana Wells a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Marleana, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
For many years I have worked in the medical field in multiple business sectors. As a MA, I have worked in everything from Cardiology, family practices, urgent care, drug studies, dermatology, and my favorite, phlebotomy (I can stick my eyes closed as long as I can feel the vein). After ten years of experience and being laid off during the pandemic 2020, I decided that I would figure out how to use all my skills in my own business. I worked at a medspa by accident.
After being without work, I took a job at a medspa where I learned about aesthetics, health, and beauty. I liked it and decided to start my business by incorporating health and beauty literally. I noticed that spa services were in high demand in south Florida due to the climate and lifestyles of Floridians. My idea was to incorporate medical care with self-care.
I became a licensed Full Specialist at the Aveda Institute 2021. People can make you look good, but at my spa I work on healing from the inside out, with a holistic approach to health and beauty. Sometimes it’s not all about looking good; it’s just as important to feel your best from The inside out. We can’t control the fact that beauty unfortunately, fades in our physical reality, how you feel is something you can control. This is why I incorporated meditation, stretching, massage, and herbs with an Eastern medicine approach. This is why incorporating yoga, meditation, herbs, acupuncture, and more. This approach helps heal mentally and physically from my office or the privacy of your own Office or event. Now offering Paramedical Services for insurance policies in South Florida. This is why my company is called Luxury Health Mobile (LuxuryHealthMobile.com).
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?
Honestly, I hear a lot about branding, yet I do not get so caught up in the The idea of categories. I have enough to try to live with the titles society gives us as people. I don’t care about a title. I care about learning whatever I want and need to and being what I feel like being whenever I feel like it, to the best of my ability.
Honestly, I can’t keep up as many “titles” as I am suppose to have. I am only Marleana. A person’s brand is a perception of who you are and or represent. So, if my hypothesis serves me right, then I brand myself as an entertaining medical professional. That’s what I stand for. I am about—doing what I love—doing what I studied for many years and worked so hard for—doing what makes me smile the most and learn whatever I want to.
Ever since I was a child, I have always wanted to be an entertainer. I won second place in a talent show when I was 7 for dancing, and I cried like I had won a Nobel Peace Prize. That memory always reminds me of how much I love entertainment. The thing about a dream is it’s a dream, and it’s not guaranteed.
After dropping out of high school, I felt like a failure. I felt defeated by my actions. I told myself I I would try my best never to fail again; That experience traumatized me. I will never forget the way I felt when I watched everyone, including people that slacked off with me, graduate on time.
The ridicule, the embarrassment, the failure I felt about myself. I was severely damaged and depressed. I had to change my life. The hate I had for myself on the inside was starting to show on the outside. I went to medical school with my dreams of being a wealthy entertainer always in mind.
Nothing is promised; let’s be honest, I decided to cover myself and create a backup plan. I went to medical school 2010 and graduated successfully. I have worked with celebrities in both of fields with medical work on entertainers. I moved to Chicago in 2013, landed a small role on ABC. 2021 became a licensed Full Specialist. This told me that both careers would always hold weight in my life, and I was on the right path. As different as my jobs are, they work so well for me. I will always incorporate the two in my life. Entertainer/Medical Professional I don’t know how else to put it. This is who I am.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Funding for my business came from my savings and money being generated. One thing about a business people do not talk about much is the footwork, the investments, overhead, struggle, sweat, and tears put into running a business. My business is a start-up business on both ends of my Spa and Entertainment business. I had to be all hands and hats.
You only usually see the diamonds and champagne that come with the success of others after the success of their business; as a business owner who manages me on both ends of career sectors. I am here to tell you unless you have a franchise, investors, business partners with money, or a trust fund (I am joking), then those Diamonds going to be cubic zirconia in the beginning. That Louis bag may be a replica at first because it’s not easy on your own.
The bright side is that if you can stay focused, even if you fall a little, your business will succeed. I am still working out kinks, taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy. I put too much into myself and my business to give up. I will forever be a student adding new skills and knowledge to the table. The thing about life is you never fail until you quit.
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” —Paulo Coelho.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
My main hustles are my full time careers. I survive equally off of them both. Entertaining and Medicine both pay my bills. Sometimes one makes up for the other. I still have not perfected my business skills. I didn’t have a financial advisor, attorney, consultant nothing. Just dreams and a few dollars to fund them. I am only in my 2nd year as a full time entrepreneur. Still ticking working on new locations, products, and services. I smile a lot because I love everything I do, and am good at it. That’s a big flex. I do every I love for a living! Running a business is not easy but here something you could think about when things get tough!
No one has ever done anything important (perfectly) on the first try—failing once or even dozens of times—should never mean failing forever.
When I fail with a big project, not landing a new client I’ve been pitching, under-deliver on the results I was expecting, or when I get down about a cold email campaign that went completely unanswered, I always limit the amount of time I allow for being discouraged, to no more than an afternoon. After that, it’s time to dust myself off, figure out where I went wrong, and start hustling again.
Contact Info:
- Website: MarleanaWells.com
- Instagram: @Marleana_Wells
- Facebook: Marleana Wells
- Linkedin: Marleana Wells
- Twitter: Marleana Wells
- Youtube: Marleana_Wells
- Yelp: Luxury_Health_Mobile
Image Credits
www.MarleanaWells.com