We were lucky to catch up with Tiana Marie recently and have shared our conversation below.
Tiana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
To me – Being successful is being proud of what you do. I believe success is a personal measure of making the best out of everything you put your mind to. Following your passions, taking risks and staying true to what makes you happy!
I started my business from the ground up in California, and over the years it became very successful. I was making a profit, I had no debt and I was fully booked every month. From an outside perspective, one would think I was successful, but my personal success was lacking. I wanted more for my life and my business. Being fully successful to me meant feeling 100% fulfilled in my personal life as well as my professional life endeavors. Living in California, I felt my personal and professional life were struggling. Living expenses were getting out of control after Covid, even the smallest things felt so far out of reach. Salon rent was outrageous. You made money just to spend it, saving was nearly impossible and it wasn’t just me struggling either. I watched my friends, my coworkers, small business owners, and families struggle to make ends meet. I knew even though I had a profitable and “successful” business, something had to change.
I decided early 2021 I wanted to focus on personal life goals, which encouraged my decision to move to another state. The reason for the move to Colorado was to gain that missing success in my personal life. I love the mountains; to be outdoors, to hike, go camping, to be in nature, to have the opportunity to afford a home. I knew if I didn’t leave California I would never achieve personal success, and it was time to make a change. In California I felt limited, like there was a cap to my personal fulfillment. But in Colorado, I felt liberated, like I could achieve my personal life goals there! My biggest obstacle wasn’t going to be leaving California, but starting a new business in a new state. I knew I could do it, and it was worth a chance if I would have the opportunity to be successful!
Leaving my business in California behind was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. It was a huge risk to leave a steady income and years worth of clientele. I would be starting over completely and I knew it would be a long journey toward success in my new business in Colorado.
Since the move to Colorado in July 2023, I have never felt more successful in life. Although my business is off to a slow start, I know I will make it! I have an army of support from clients/friends and this encourages me to work hard every day. I feel beyond successful in my personal life endeavors, and that energy is pouring into my business. It is a slow process, don’t get me wrong, but it will be successful. We all start somewhere! I chased my happiness not ‘success’. I stayed true to what I wanted – I want to help others, I want to live this life, I love working with people, I didn’t let the fear of not having success stop me! And because of that, I am successful!
In my opinion, to be successful in life and in business, you have to find what makes you happy and chase that happiness! Life is full of ups and downs, and there is no reward without risk! Be proud of what you do, and how you live your life and I promise you will be successful in anything you put your mind to!
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 Tiana Marie, Owner of T MARIE PMU. My business specializes in Permanent Make-up and my goal is to make you feel good! I originally got into permanent make-up while being a student in a Radiation Therapy program in California. Almost every patient undergoing treatment lost their hair, and not only the hair on their head, but facial hair as well. My passion of helping people, along with personal life experiences, led me into my career of Permanent Make-up.
A lot of my clients struggle with hair loss, specifically on the eyebrow area. Wether my clients experience hair loss due to postpartum, cancer, alopecia, hormonal shifts, or shaving their brows off in the early 90’s; having the ability to give them their eyebrows back is what makes my career so special. Although my business started with the love of eyebrows, my true passion is helping others. I want to help people feel good and feel confident!! I started a new technique of Lip Tattooing, known more commonly as Lip Blushing. This was a huge breakthrough as so many individuals struggle with lip appearances as well. Lips can lose fullness as we age, postpartum/hormonal shifts can change the shape and definition of lip tissue, lips can also develop Hyperpigmentation causing them to appear brown instead of pink. Recently I have done so many Lip Blush transformations that, like eyebrows, have changed my client’s life! It’s a small, subtle change in the grand scheme of things. However, for some of my clients these cosmetic procedures truly change their life, give back their confidence and make them feel GOOD! My goal within my work isn’t to change how you look, but to give you back what you may have lost! I want to help you feel good in your own skin, to have you leaving your appointment feeling more confident than when you walked in! To enhance your individual beauty and make you feel even more like yourself again!
How did you build your audience on social media?
In the world we live in now, social media is king if you want to gain traction for your business, and it is perhaps the single most difficult part of my career. I am still actively building my social media presence, it is a full time job in itself! Although a social media following is important and tends to lead into paying clientele for your business, I think the biggest misconception is that you need 100K followers to be successful. You can be a fully booked artist with a humble amount of followers; it’s about quality not quantity. The difficult part is when artists have to become content creators to be competitive in this quickly growing industry of beauty professionals. What I have always done, and will continue to do, in order to gain real, organic followers is to be REAL. My work is never filtered, it’s raw, and I think that is what draws potential clientele to follow my page instead of social media followers. Clients want to know what to expect when working with you, they want to relate to the people they see on your page! If you’re only posting unrealistic models with filters and blurring out every imperfection- it becomes intimidating to real life people. Keep it real, keep it fun and you will build an audience of organic and interested individuals, which will eventually turn into real appointments in your books! My biggest obstacle currently is putting myself out there on social media. Aside from showcasing your art, you need to also showcase yourself as the artist. I have learned over the years how important it is to show your face, and let your audience get to know you!! It feels awkward, uncomfortable and sometimes intimidating to put yourself out there. But I have found 9 times out of 10 if I create content involving myself, people love it AND I start to notice more bookings! Just know, we all start somewhere, and the biggest component of your business is you. You reflect your brand, you sell your service and the people want to know who you are.
How’d you meet your business partner?
When I first started doing Permanent Make-up I was working in a tattoo shop with tattoo artists. This was an incredible experience for me and I made life long friendships there. However, as I started to grow, I knew I wanted to start working around other professionals in my industry. I reached out to an incredible PMU artist Taylor (the BROWFAIRY) and asked to rent a spot at her salon. After working together now almost 4 years, opening a new salon together in another state and becoming great friends; I now realize the best move you can make professionally is to create a team. Create success for everyone around you, and in turn you will also be successful! Why do it alone when you can build an army of likeminded individuals, supporting each other and helping each other grow! Not every partnership is successful unfortunately, and this is why I would never suggest having a true business partner. Instead, what we did was work together as partners, while keeping our businesses separate. By maintaining your own business, managing your own schedule and making your own money- there is never any aspect of competition. As partners, you still get to support each other, you work towards goals together, give suggestions on what’s working for your business/what’s not working, bounce ideas off each other, and ultimately create a successful community! I feel more driven and ambitious in my career surrounded by a team of other PMU artists than I ever did working alone. We have a growing community of multiple artists in both California and Denver- all of us own our own businesses, but we work as a team to help everyone succeed! It’s the best of both worlds and a great decision for your growth to share with others!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tmarie-pmu.square.site/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tmarie.pmu/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tmarie.pmu
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/t-marie-pmu-san-diego-2
- Google Reviews: https://www.google.com/search?q=t+marie+pmu&sca_esv=592593278&ei=hT-DZeamKr_x0PEPrvukmAs&ved=0ahUKEwim_ZaA356DAxW_ODQIHa49CbMQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=t+marie+pmu&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiC3QgbWFyaWUgcG11MgUQIRigATIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABMgUQIRigAUj1JFC2AVimInACeACQAQCYAYQBoAHmD6oBBDAuMTi4AQPIAQD4AQHCAgcQIRigARgK4gMEGAEgQYgGAQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#lrd=0x80d953839f4e16fb:0x29ad3b3e7df5b2e4,1,,,
Image Credits
Erick Martinez @xconermartzx