We recently connected with Nickole Ashlock and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Nickole, thanks for joining us today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?
When it comes to tattooing, especially when you first start out, it’s really important to have friends and family to support you. Who better to do your first tattoos on than the people that love and support you already and know that you probably won’t be brilliant straight out of the gate. To those people, even though the tattoo may not be the best, it will always be a token to look back on and see how far you’ve come later on in life. I have plenty of family and friends that I tattooed in the beginning who love those tattoos and love to compare to my current work. It truly is really cool to see how much I’ve personally improved over the years.
Nickole, 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?
I am a 32 year old sphinx cat mom, gamer, and anime/manga lover. I got into tattooing via a family friend when I was around 13-14 and became an apprentice when I was 18, almost 19. I tattooed in North East Arkansas for a decade before moving to Houston in 2021. I do many styles of tattooing such as painterly, blackwork, realism, and neo-traditional. My favorite subjects to tattoo are florals and faces (portraits, lady faces, animals, that kind of thing.) I also offer permanent cosmetic tattooing: powder brows, lip blushing, eyeliner, and areola restorative tattooing. I offer free areola restorative tattoos for cancer survivors! I have put a lot of money into continuing education courses, so I am very knowledgable in my craft and I feel it’s important to keep learning in this industry since the tech is constantly upgrading. I’m very proud to offer a safe space for LGBTQIA+ people to come and get tattooed. Being kind and welcoming people of all types and backgrounds is something I was taught from a young age and I’m very happy to do so for my clients! I think of a lot of my clients as friends and sometimes even family. Every single person who comes in to my studio is just as important as the last and I give all my attention into doing the absolute best tattoo for each client.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Word of mouth/ referrals work really well still and I think it’s an undervalued way to get new clients. I recently have started trying out a referral program. A current client will get a gift card to use on future appointments for every new client that comes in to get tattooed. So far it is working really well and bringing in a lot more new clients than I was having through ads online.
Have you ever had to pivot?
About a year after I was done with my apprenticeship and had begun tattooing as a fully licensed artist, I quit the shop I had been working at for personal reasons. Due to a clause in my contract with them I was not allowed to start working at another shop within 50 miles for another 6 months. So for those 6 months, I got a different job to pass the time until I could return to tattooing. It was a long 6 months, but it beat going to court over something silly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tattoosbynickole.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tattoosbynickole/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alethatattooatelier
