Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sasha Parrell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Sasha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

A lot of smaller businesses and people I know personally have brand names that they get sick of over time and end up rebranding every few years, so I wanted something that would hopefully not give me the “ick” in just a few years, so I went with Parrell Ink. I love a good play on words! Parrell is my last name, and Ink serves as a play on tattoo ink and ‘inc.’ from “incorporated” since I do other services as well like branding and advertising, and then on the side just for fun I write blogs. It’s been fun to tell people my brand name and see the light bulb turn on for them when I say, “Ink like tattoo ink”.

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 Sasha, I’m 29 years old, and I live in southern Ontario in Canada! I grew up a military brat and moved around a whole bunch until my dad retired, but now I have a permanent travel bug. I couldn’t choose a favourite pastime between travel and live music, but they’ve both been ingrained in me since birth! My parents both love live music too, and since the age of seven, I’ve seen over 62 concerts and counting (don’t even ask me how many artists!).

I’ve always been a creative person. I learned Photoshop in my early school years, and with those skills my parents convinced me to enrol in an Advertising and Marketing course for college, and the rest is history. I fell in love with branding, especially after obsessing over Mad Men, and it’s now all I really care about. I’m not the best saleswoman, but I do have a great eye for detail and creating content that reflects the business owner and standing out from the rest.

Speaking of creativity, I got my first tattoo when I was freshly 18, and now I have 14! In 2020 I came across Jody Stoski and Shay Danielle on Instagram, two incredible Canadian paramedical tattoo artists, and their before and after posts really made me fall in love… and I took the leap in January 2023 to do all I could to be just like them (it’s a long road, but I’m having the most fun!). Paramedical tattoos consist of stretch mark revisions, scar and burn camouflage, radiation marker camouflage, scalp micro pigmentation, areola restoration, and so much more! I love tiny tats and it’s been a great place to start for my first couple years, but I’ve recently been working with some great locals covering up dark scars and doing an inkless revision of stretch marks to help them disappear. I’ve always wanted to find ways to help people, but don’t have the stomach to be something like a surgeon, nor the mental capacity to be a therapist… Paramedical tattoos is a great marriage between all the things I relate to, and I love to help people gain confidence back in such a cool, creative way.

As an entrepreneur, businesswoman, tattoo artist, whatever you want to use to label what I do – I’m still Just A Girl! I really want to continue to build a relationship with both my business and tattoo clients where they feel that I am humble, approachable, and where they trust me to always bring a no-bullshit, no-fluff approach to whatever they need from me, and love me for who I am, not what my “mission statement” says I am. I want to build these bridges with people and keep them. Us small business owners need to stick together, and the people I connect with the best have the same values as the ones I try to emulate.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

If we’re being so real and brutally honest, both side hustles (my branding business and Parrell Ink) are both still side hustles. Have you seen the economy lately? Being self employed is not for the weak! I have a full-time administrative job that takes up most of my time and basically funds both my business streams. I’ve put in thousands of dollars into both of my brands, and that would not have been possible without this unrelated admin job. Time-wise, Parrell Ink takes a back seat to my full-time job, but mentally it owns me. I have to constantly remind myself that Parrell Ink is *just* over a year and a half old, so I can’t be too hard on myself. Insurance is expensive, supplies and shipping are astronomical right now, and I’m doing it all myself. I don’t have someone doing my website or social media for me, I film all my own content, order my own inventory, and do everything solo.

In Ontario, you don’t have to complete an apprenticeship to become a tattoo artist because of how it’s (not) regulated in the province. So, the biggest thing I did after months of practice on fake skins and taking all the online courses I could was to tell my friends and family about Parrell Ink. I was upfront that I was just a newborn tattoo artist and had never touched another human being with ink before, and I was so touched to see how many of my loved ones came out to support me. In under a year, I tattooed so many family members and tons of friends, and friends of friends/family. That was, and is, the biggest thing to me. It’s so scary to start something new career-wise, especially in your late 20s, and impostor syndrome really did a number on me.

Another major milestone, thanks to friends and family, was landing as “Top Pick” in my local Community Votes in 2023. The community votes for their favourite local brands and businesses, and I kept advancing to the next rounds. While I didn’t “place”, just having Parrell Ink up there at all with so many other locals that I love was so encouraging. All I did was submit myself in the beginning and tell my circle about it, and they did the work to keep me there. It’s little things like voting in free competitions, following on social media, liking posts, and sharing their work that helps support small businesses even if you can’t contribute financially. I’m so lucky that have such an incredible support system.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

We’ve all heard that networking is key, that it’s about “who you know”. That’s definitely true to a point. I only have a few hundred followers on my personal social media, and a fraction of that Parrell Ink right now. The audience I do have is mostly my support system, but thanks to them sharing my work and interacting with posts, tagging me in others’ searches for artists locally, that all makes a difference. I also decided early on that I wouldn’t follow anybody just for the sake of following them. I only follow other artists that inspire me, my mentors, local artists and businesses that I look up to, and my clients. It’s not about the number, it’s about the connection you have with them! What’s the point of having 2,000 followers when 50% of them are bots or never interact with your content or support you? I always try to interact with the posts of my mentors and make connections with people associated with them – their staff, students, etc.

I also belong to a massive group chat (of now over 700 people) from a course I did under Shay Danielle, and we all share milestones, questions, advice, and follow and support each other on social media. Putting yourself out there is so hard and literally terrifying, but it’s worth it. Building a foundation on trust and support of the local community you’re serving is so important, and I’m actually still learning how to deal with impostor syndrome and worrying what others think about me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sashaparrell.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parrell.ink
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parrell.ink
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sashaparrell/
• Other: Feel free to also follow my personal instagram! www.instagram.com/parrell.ly

Image Credits

Sasha Parrell