We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mary Joe Delucca. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mary Joe below.
Alright, Mary Joe thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
I think it takes a lot of patience to be successful. It also takes a lot of commitment, motivation, blood, sweat, and tears to become any business oriented person. But patience is key is this industry and everyone eventually will have their moment!
Mary Joe, 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?
This is my second interview with Voyage and I’m thrilled to be part of it again! For anyone who didn’t get see it last time, my name is Mary Joe and I am the owner of Fota Beauty & House of Fluffies. I just currently took on being a dog breeder and next year I start school to become an RN and work in medical cosmetics. I have a store front in Fort Worth/Burleson Texas and we just celebrated our first year open! My dream is to tuen Fota into a full Med spa. I started with Body Sculpting and slowly pushed myself to open a boutique. One thing about me is I’m going to find new hustles! Haha! I can’t stay in one place too long, it’s really a blessing and a curse. I’m always ready to start a new venture, especially when I know it’ll succeed! At Fota we sell everything from shoes to bathing suits! We carry everything in store. Our spa rooms in the back offer Body Sculpting, Wood Therapy, Clay Body Ice Sculpting, Fascia Blasting, Waxing and facials. It was a tough start for sure in the middle of a pandemic but with God by my side I pushed through! Last year I chose to take on a new business with my husband to start breeding French bulldogs. So far our in a short amount of time we have been very successful. We now have 4 frenchies total and a new litter of 8! It can be stressful at times but as stated with God by our sides we always push and make it through! And to be honest I absolutely love everything about breeding, they’re all my babies so I really don’t feel like it’s a job. To me it’s natural! People ask us how we got into the breeding business and funny story is we never thought we would breed! We had paid a venue in 2019 to have our wedding which did not go through considering Covid, we just got the money back last year and decided to use it as an investment to buy the frenchies. And now here we are!
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Being an entrepreneur the most effective strategy I’ve came across to gain attention or get clients/customers is one: SOCIAL MEDIA, people do not realize how beneficial social media can be, it really can bring in so much money if you’re consistent with it, adds on social media also help! Two: running sales, parties, flash sales, collaborating with other owners. People love to see fellow entrepreneurs working together! 3: cards, flyers, stickers, etc, yes it sounds “old school” but they go such a long way!
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
Oh man! I think any business owner has gone through all of the above! Haha! There have been times I’ve wanted to just throw the towel in and call it a day! Hahaha! Biggest close call yet is having half my rent with my landlord on her way, I’m telling you like not a dime more than what I had on me! And BOOM a lady walks in and spends the rest CASH in my store. Let me tell you I could have kissed her feet! Haha! I was in utter shock! My landlord walked in 45 mins later and I handed her the rent! Any business is going to struggle! I’ve had my months of complete crickets, absolute silence. But hey when those good months come it makes up for the bad ones! Don’t take it to heart, we all have our days!
Contact Info:
- Website: fotabeauty.com
- Instagram: @fotabeautybar @fotabeauty_boutique
- Facebook: Fota Beauty Bar