We recently connected with Natasha Nicholson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Natasha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

I LOVE being a business owner. It definitely isn’t easy and there are times I think of working a regular job when I get clients that stress me out or when I have slow days or weeks. However, I snap out of it very fast when I think about the flexibility of creating my own schedule, being able to be there for my kids, controlling how much money I make etc. I don’t believe there’s any job that will take care of and look out for me better than me.

Natasha, 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?

I’m Tasha aka Tasha Trendsetta! I’ve been in the beauty industry for yeeears. I got my license in 2006 16 years ago!!! That’s crazy! I’ve always been into beauty and fashion growing up. When I was pregnant with my first kid I decided to go to beauty school during the pregnancy and figured I could make money doing hair after i had the baby and that’s exactly what I did. I worked at every place with clips on the end of the name. I eventually started calculating the money the business I worked at were charging for the services I performed and it was alot more than I was getting paid hourly. I wasn’t feeling that at all so I decided to literally quit my job after getting a text one day that asked me if i wanted to be my own boss and rent a suite. I was all in! It sounded good and I thought it couldnt be too hard to build a clientele. Needless to say i was wrong! It took a long time and I cried many days due to being discouraged. My mom helped me out alot until things began to look up. That was about 7 yrs ago. Now I have my own location and I’m in the process of expanding and embarking on other business ventures so it worked out.

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

After getting started on my entrepreneur journey I went through several life altering challenges. I began going through a custody battle that lasted 10 years!! Throughout that process I was taking care of 2 kids on my own, going to college, and trying to make a name for myself in my community. My job is literally hands on so there were plenty of times when i was beyond broken but I had to smile,talk, joke,and laugh like all was well when it wasn’t. There were even times when I lost court battles and lost my kids and had to turn around and pay thousands to hire lawyers and fight to get them back. Working through those times actually kept me going. It may sound crazy but creating beauty and art when I felt the complete opposite on the inside pulled something out of me that I didn’t no was there. Resilience. I’m the type of person that refuses to let anyone other than myself dictate the outcome of my life or who I am as a person. I’m a fighter and a survivor and overcoming obstacles is what I do.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Doing quality work is a no brainer when it comes to building a clientele but personality goes a long way as well. I’m big on respect and treating people the way I want to be treated and I think clients appreciate that and what I bring to the table. I think society has slacked off on customer service and professionalism when it comes to businesses and I keep both at the forefront of mine. I love the clientele I’ve built and many of my clients are like family and have been a major support system to me and I’m grateful. They take care of me therefore it’s a priority to take care of them.