We recently connected with Shannon Wages and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shannon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, let’s take a stroll on memory lane, back to when you were an apprentice or intern. What’s a memorable story from that time that you can share with us?

I’ll never forget my mentor telling me with her eyes to shut the hell up. I was in the middle of explaining to her client how amazed I was that her hands could shake so much and her lines would still come out clean, and I saw her dart her eyes at me in a way that told me to close my mouth immediately. Later she gently reminded me that apprentices were to be seen and not heard.

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’m more of a natural business person than a natural artist. I fell into tattooing at my first tattoo. I remember the artist, and my future boss, telling me that they needed a counter person. I jumped up in my chair, and tried my best to convince him, telling him I’d sell tattoos by being flirty and wearing low cut shirts. I immediately found that my crass brand of humor and bluntness went far with the tattooers, as well as with the tattoo clients. Granted, this was 2003, so things were quite different than in my shop today. We had guns, we had knives, we had a code word that I was supposed to yell back to the office in case a client up front got too harsh or handsy, and I had to use it more than once.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Around year 10 of being in the tattoo business, I finally had to leave my “tattoo family,” the artists I had been working around since I had started tattooing. I had gotten an offer from one of the more notable tattooers in town to come booth rent at his new “speakeasy” style shop, and I knew it was time to go. At the time I thought it was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my career. Little did I know, it would prepare me to strike out and open my own shop in a few more years.

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

When I started building my social media presence, I followed the advice of a few musicians. Both of them were around during the time of MySpace, and each had a different part of a bigger social media story. One had resisted MySpace in its infancy, insisting on touring and merchandise expansion instead. His band was still together, though they hadn’t advanced much in their 20 years. The other had taken Facebook on by storm and had employed as many social media marketing skills and ads as they could. Their band was well known and toured for 4 years before fizzling out. I thought to myself that there had to be some in-between; a combination of hard work on the basics, but at the same time paying special attention to a changing relationship with customers.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Instagram.com/shannonwagestattoos
• Facebook: Facebook.com/shannonwages
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/shannonwages
• Twitter: Twitter.com/shannonwages