Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Olivia Minamyer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Olivia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?
The short answer is yes! I step away often. The long answer is everything is a balance. I’ve never been a fan of the statement “your business follows you everywhere” so I’ve chosen to have an interpretation of that instead. As I’ve grown into my business’ and gotten a little older I’ve learned that I deserve the opportunity to have a personal life and the autonomy to be able to separate myself. Owning businesses doesn’t make you any more or less of a human; and I live my life that way every day now! Taking vacations allow my to step away from the hustle and chaos so I can rest and continue being an objective thinker. I also look at vacations as opportunities; opportunities to meet new people, see new places, create unique memories and interpret them all into new inspiration. When I go on vacation I compartmentalize everything. I run my businesses pretty much myself, so I have to decide whats truly a “right now” issue vs something I think might* become an issue. For example, I run my business on appts, when I’m on vacation I send out information to clients saying Im out of office and will respond to booking texts when I return. I have an online booking platform but at the end of the day booking appts for a future date (most likely weeks from that moment) is not a right now issue. On the flip side I was on vacation once while my nonprofit was preparing for an event; I left my team in charge of getting a lot together but any large decisions and content that needed made regarding that event I took care of immediately. It took me minutes and was critical to a time frame that allowed my team to continue keeping things running. I feel like my advice would be a question – Who’s telling you that you cant step away? If you’re like me and most people who care so much about their businesses then I’d wager a guess you tell yourself you cant step away… for whatever reason, but that vacation might be the best thing you do for yourself and your business.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Olivia, my friends call me Olive, and I’m a 29 near old business owner in Columbus, OH. I founded a 501c3 organization, called Art is to Live, in 2017 and opened a single studio, Branch Beauty Studio, as an independent hair stylist in 2021. Within this interview I’m calling myself an entrepreneur but in day to day life I call myself a creative. I’ve been creative and relatively artsy since I was a small child, and resonate more with that side of myself. I can’t deny though that since a young age I’ve been independent, strong willed and interested in creating impact in any way I can – all the traits that have driven me to own businesses. I can honestly say I knew what I wanted todo from a relatively young age. I changed around some, yes, but I always wanted to be some type of professional artist who owned a business. All through high school I was very interested in pursuing the beauty industry. I’m not someone who likes to dwell on the past, though it might be perceived as a juicy story, I think dwelling on the past opens up the door to anxiety and unhealed trauma… not my gig at this stage in my life. The condensed form of my late teenage time is I grew up in an area that wasn’t arts forward, and thought my job was a “cop-out”. A person of authority within my high school had actually told me that it was disappointing I was wasting my life. Living in an area where you’d generaly watch people who do my job struggle, it wasn’t my families first choice as a career. For them they looked at it as a possibly very difficult life and much preferred the college way.
I pushed through those initial struggles and went to cosmetology school then moved to Columbus and started apprenticing. In my early years I had taken a piece of education that talked about the impact you make on the world and the “legacy” you leave behind you. It was long after that I founded the nonprofit. I took the opportunity to heal from my passed struggles and use it make positive impact on others. My nonprofit serves future career artists in a near by under privileged school by mentoring them through our 4 core values of success, self evaluation, breaking stereotypes, collaboration, and financial literacy. One student receives a monetary scholarship that has risen to $2500.
A few years later I started to think about what I want my career life and personal life to look like. I made some choices financially to set myself up for that opportunity. I opened my independent studio so I could start making choices that bettered my career and allowed me to learn and function outside of the box of someone else’s business. While on my own I started a concept studio specializing in color services, growing my extensions applications and portfolio, getting certified in spray tanning, converting to be a gratuity free service provider and becoming an educator within the company Davines.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
I needed to make a huge pivot in late 2020 early mid 2021. In all my life really. I was trying to figure out how to grow professionally and pretty much forgot I was a person. Two weeks before the Corona Virus outbreak I had closed on my first ever mortgage… way to celebrate right, hahah. I had bought a place in desperate need of renovation to which never went to plan. I laugh about it now, but what a train wreck, haha. Simultaneously with renovating my condo (and I mean my mom and I did 95% of it) I was growing my nonprofit to raise more money, start throwing events and move locations, while also changing my salon work schedule to which had actually made it so I had more than 40 hours of open booking time. I sustained this crazy life for over a year. To say my mental health was in the gutter is an understatement. I started dealing with panic attacks, dissociation and night terrors. Unless you were very close to me, its safe to say you’d have never known… most people thought I was riding the high of excitement and change. Really though I had driven myself to a point where I had emptied my tank on others with no ways to fill it back up. I had become so focused on growing both my businesses and renovating this house (all while dealing with covid regulations) that I had ignored all the beginning symptoms of poor mental health. I feel so fortunate that I have an uncle whom is an incredible mental health counselor that I could lean on for advice and helped me look for professionals to seek therapy from. After starting therapy I started making changes to my life. I started to take back control of my time and pivot my thought process on how I run my businesses. Its scary to think about changing things but in the end I had to look at myself and say “If i dont help myself first for once, everything I worked so hard for will cease to exist.” That pivot was the best choice I ever made for myself and my businesses.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Each business had very different starts. My nonprofit, truly, was a bit lucky. I was very young, 23, so some people admired the mission and helped me pro bono. To this day my accountant has been one of my longest running clients and the person to help me start the nonprofit and my studio. Shes truly made an impact on my life. Once the nonprofit was up and running I self funded the first scholarship I gave away. In the years to come I was able to collect some reoccurring donations and after I was settled in I started throwing events! As for my studio I had wanted to open a salon my whole life but I wanted to take some time for myself after everything that happened. I knew I needed something by myself for a good while so I could develop my own beliefs and work style. I ended up selling my condo, paid off all my debt and invested some into a mutual fund. After about 6 months i was able to save money and liquidate the mutual fund and open my business in cash.
Contact Info:
- Website: branchbeautystudio.com
- Instagram: artistolive
Image Credits
Gianna Nicolette Photography