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

Alright, Merlyn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

As I am actually starting over, I am currently doing a number of things differently. First, I would not limit myself to one source of income. Building out a beauty salon brought on many distractions that I did not anticipate cause of course, it was my first business. Secondly, I would have planned out my expansion before even opening. I knew I wanted to expand but had no real game plan as to how I would get there.

Today, I plan on rebuilding not using my own savings this time but grants and investors capital. I have also started using all the free tools I have at my disposal to gain clients trust and build more of a community than pushing a product or service.

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

I was actually raised in the beauty industry. My mother is a licensed cosmetologist and has been since before I was born. As early as I can remember, she has always had her own business as a hairdresser. When we lived in New York (where I was born), she turned our basement into a full beauty salon. Then in 1997 (about 3 years after we moved to Orlando), she found a location to build out her own full-service beauty salon. I can honestly say both beauty and entrepreneurship run deep in my veins.

After being unfulfilled in my 9-5 at the time and after having my first child, I knew it was time to pull the trigger on my own entrepreneurship journey! I looked into so many different career options before I landed right back to what my heart knew I should be doing: so, I signed up for cosmetology school. I first obtained my natural hair care license, then added my nail technician license and finally my esthetician license. By 2018, I was ready to quit my job and start the search for my own beauty salon!

Between wanting to honor my mother and being raised in a full-service beauty salon with so many different walks of life coming together and sharing loving and fun memories, bonding over hours spent at “the shop”, I created Madame Gems Beauty LLC. Madame Gems is my mother, Guerda, and GEMS is an acronym of me and my sibling’s name. Our company logo represents each of our birthstones. This company is more than just a beauty salon, we cultivate a safe space for any and every one to feel seen and heard. We promote authenticity and positiveness while helping you be the best version of you! When you came into our shop, it was like walking into home with family. That was what Madame Gems was and will be again soon.

Unfortunately, due to a seriously freak accident, we had to close our doors back in March and have been on the search for the perfect location to rebuild and grow our roots back. Hopefully we can get back to our beautiful gems very soon! In the meantime, Beauty By Merlzz LLC was born. Beauty By Merlzz is just me, raw, uncut and unfiltered. My mission is to teach woman the importance of self-care while providing beauty therapy that promotes healthy nail, skin, and hair care. I want to help woman embrace their whole self’s vs bits and pieces, especially mothers. After having gone through my own mental breakdown in 2021, I cannot stress enough the importance of mental health and building a sense of community among mothers.

I am glad I kept going. I highly considered going back to corporate America after the loss of my beauty salon but I’m grateful I pushed through life’s crazy circumstances at the time to create Beauty By Merlzz. I feel like I have a deeper sense of purpose now. I want to help woman rediscover who they truly are, their beauty, their purpose. Each appointment with my clients feel like a therapy session which is why I coined myself the “Beauty Therapist”. I currently see my clients from home and have a very special, exclusive client list which I love more than the open salon setting. It creates an intimate, comfortable setting where we can open up about any and all topics without interjections or interruptions.

Beauty By Merlzz also has a beauty supply store, ShopWithMerlzz and will expand to a podcast soon that focuses on discussions surrounding mental health, motherhood and being a woman-led business owner.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My salon has actually been shut down once before. Back when COVID first hit us, we were forced to close our doors and during that time and in that moment I knew I had to make a drastic change for my business to survive. This was when I decided to get on social media and create more content. I was never heavy on social media, especially for my business. That drove in so much business when we were finally able to open our doors again! We were able to build trust with our clients and a level of expertise in our nail care tips. I honestly wish I kept up with it but after being able to open back up again, I had to focus back on the day-to-day operations. Now, I’m pretty much a content creator!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

So as I stated before, I lost my first business due to a freak accident. Well that accident was a tow truck running into the middle of the building that I leased our shop space from. Our salon its self was completely untouched (thank God!) but we were faced with not having a building to work out of any more in a matter of seconds. The buildings structure was compromised and the roof was not stable rendering it condemned. Everything I have worked on in that unit from plumbing, electrical, painting, decorations, building a private unit just for esthetician services, all gone in a matter of seconds. Devastated was an understatement. I had to literally grieve. I didn’t want to continue on the entrepreneurship journey any more. I knew it was hard work, long days and even longer nights, but nothing could have prepared me for something like that. Then came having to face the music with my clients, retelling the story, why I had to let my employees go, it was gut-wrenching. After about a week and a half in limbo, I had two of my clients reach out to me asking if their appointment was still standing. I’m pretty sure I left them on read for 2 days before letting them know the circumstances and the situation I was faced with. When the response was, “We don’t care where you are, where we have to go, or if we have to wait however long, you are OUR nail tech and we are’t going anywhere else.” I knew in that moment I had to keep going and what I did was not in vain. I pushed through all my feelings of self-doubt and pain to see my clients in my very hot garage using my very first nail table. It was almost like a silver lining. I now have a whole spa room in my home as well as an online beauty store and soon to launch podcast.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.beautybymerlzz.com
• Instagram: @beautybymerlzz
• Facebook: Beauty By Merlzz
• Linkedin: Merlyn Colbert
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@merlzzthewmb

Image Credits
Dan Faenza