In this episode, we sit down with two trailblazing entrepreneurs, Holly Tanella of BOHO Alternative Med Spa and Amber Johnson of Facial Lounge, who candidly share the highs and lows of navigating the aesthetics industry. From unforgettable client stories to the challenges of building their businesses, Holly and Amber reveal the realities of their journeys. They also explore the transformative power of collaboration and how fostering a supportive industry can help everyone thrive. Tune in to hear these inspiring leaders share their wisdom, passion, and the valuable lessons they've learned along the way.
Holly Tanella: So one thing that I would really love our industry to change is that I think estheticians need to support estheticians and brands. I have my skincare line that I'm starting. You have one. I want to start carrying your line because I don't want to support big lines anymore, and also a lot of these lines are owned by men, and the men do not treat us very well in this industry, and I'm extremely passionate about it. Why is this a female dominant industry and we have men still above us?
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Skya Jones: I feel like we should just jump in and tell everybody that's listening how many years of experience between all of us that we have.
Holly Tanella: So I have 15 years actually. I did makeup first. Funny fact: I can't do my makeup anymore.
Skya Jones: I did makeup in a department store in the beauty department when I was 15 and I can no longer do my makeup either because I just don't wear it that often.
Holly Tanella: Oh, I love that we just trauma bonded together.
Skya Jones: We trauma bonded over doing other people's makeup and now we can't.
Holly Tanella: And then I've been doing aesthetics, like facials, for 10 years.
Skya Jones: How about you queen?
Amber Johnson: I have been in skincare a little over 30 years. And I've been an esthetician for 24 years.
Skya Jones: I have been in beauty for almost 10 years. I started in makeup as well. So I started at 15 working in a department store doing makeup and then transitioned into medspas.
Holly Tanella: You don't look like you have that much experience.
Skya Jones: I mean, it's a good industry to be in. We age very well, luckily. It's a really good retirement plan, not speaking in financial terms, but age wise, I feel like we're going to do really good.
Holly Tanella: Yeah, absolutely.
Skya Jones: Okay, so I think that It would be really fun to hear from you guys what your biggest client horror stories are. Or, if you had to think of one time that you were like, oh sh*t with clients, what would it be?
Holly Tanella: I had a client who, the whole time, tried to tell me how to give a facial. The whole time.
Skya Jones: Backseat driver?
Holly Tanella: Yes, yes. And then at the end she said that I didn't clean her face good enough. She came out and told me this outside the room after she got dressed. She had a 4x4 in her hand and she goes, ‘look, you did not clean my face.’ I'm like, ma'am, that's your tinted SPF.
Like I put that on you. And then it turns out at checkout, she's never had a facial before. Oh, and also wanted part refund because it wasn't what she thought it was going to be.
Skya Jones: Yeah, didn't want to pay for it.
Holly Tanella: Excuse me, ma'am. But, wanted to book her next appointment.
Skya Jones: Oh, well, at least you did a good job. It was good enough, she wanted to come back.
Holly Tanella: But she wanted a refund.
Amber Johnson: Hilarious.
Holly Tanella: But then wanted to rebook.
Skya Jones: That's a fired client.
Holly Tanella: We said, ma'am, you probably need to look at your schedule, get back with us. Then we put her on the blacklist [because of] Boulevard. I effing love.
Amber Johnson: I love that too.
Holly Tanella: I love that I can do my own emojis. Okay, guess what my blacklisted client is. It is literally the middle finger emoji.
Skya Jones: That's perfect.
Amber Johnson: And then they can't book online. You can make it so they can book online. Very seldom has that ever happened at Facial Lounge, but there have been a few people that were just not appreciative and they didn't do anything horrific, but we just made it so, or we didn't want to book them with a different esthetician because they were so rude. And so that entitled rude, you don't need it.
Holly Tanella: My rule of thumb, if you make my estheticians cry, I'll show you the door. Goodbye. No, there's no need to be that rude.
Amber Johnson: Yeah, it seldom happens to us, seldom, but it's shown up. And I do love that that Boulevard lets us block and we're able to keep notes. Or, people who've we've done refunds for because we were running behind or whatever. We know if they're repeat offenders because we can look at their notes and see if they've done that before.
Holly Tanella: All of our client charting or tagging people is all done through the emojis. And we love it. Right next to their name you can see all the little emojis, like if they run late, we give them a little tortoise.
Skya Jones: So, you know, they're slow.
Holly Tanella: If they cancel, we already give them a no-show fee. We do a one time get-out-of-jail free card, and then we put a little police officer on there so we know they've already had it done once.
Amber Johnson: I love that. I'm actually going to steal that one. Just letting you know, that is being stolen.
Holly Tanella: Do it. It's so good. It's so good.
Amber Johnson: I'm taking notes.
Skya Jones: When you guys have had to have those clients that cause issues and they're a problem, how have you guys gone about firing them?
Holly Tanella: That's a great question. Do you want to take this one first? I would love to hear it. 30 years.
Amber Johnson: So, I am not a very good fire-er. I make a joke that I'm fired from hiring and I'm also fired from firing because I kept some clients that I shouldn't have for a long time. I will tell you with the Boulevard system and being able to block them was my favorite thing.
Sometimes just saying I'm booked and that I was too busy and putting them with a different esthetician, because sometimes it wasn't a good fit for me or for another esthetician. I learned to pair them with someone else and sometimes if they couldn't have that person, it was like a power trip. They just no longer show up. So, it's like I said, seldom, but it's happened.
Holly Tanella: Yeah, I think for me it just depends on the situation. So, I don't like treating acne. I will treat acne, but it's not my favorite thing. I love pigmentation and aging. So when people come and see me, I will just tell them at the end, ‘hey, I loved treating you today, but I really love aging and pigment and you're at more acne. And so you really need to go see my acne specialist. And I think they're going to take really good care of you.’ Sydney [or] whoever it is. I get them to meet them at the end and it transitions pretty smoothly. And a lot of times acne clients are younger so they don't have the budget as much for me. I am at a higher price point. And so when I tell them, ‘hey, you need to come more often. You're gonna save some money, too.’ They're like: sold. Now, if it's a spicy client, I'm a scorpio, okay? I'm a scorpio, so I have no problem telling you that we're not a good fit. And so, there's been a couple times of just saying, ‘hey, you no-showed multiple times, we've given you so much grace, and we're doing [this] on our end, but you're not valuing us.’ And so there's, actually, are you ready for some tea?
Skya Jones: I love a good tea.
Holly Tanella: There's a dermatology clinic that moved in downstairs. We've had a lot of drama with them, not with us but with them trying to steal our clients. They put out a sign downstairs with all these big signs like come see us. My clients have to walk past this. This is annoying, like come on guys be classy. Then we asked our landlord if we could put up signs ourselves. Our signs were better. So then they asked our landlord if they would make us take down the signs. But then before they did that, my clients would look at it and, just look at it and be like, ‘oh my god, look at this sign.’ And then the dermatology would come out and say, hey, are you looking for blank dermatology? And they would say, no. They're like, are you sure? They're like, yeah, I go to Boho Med Spa. They're like, okay, if you ever change your mind, we're down here. So unprofessional. And so now, we send all of our reject clients down to them.
Skya Jones: You're like, we'll give you a referral.
Holly Tanella: Yes. So that's what we do, is we say, ‘hey, like, we just don't feel like we, we don't have the expertise that your skin needs. Really, you need to go see a dermatologist. They're right downstairs.’
Skya Jones: They're great. They'll take care of you. Head on down there right now.
Holly Tanella: And it's my own little evil karma that I'm just sending them all the problem clients.
Skya Jones: And they probably are like, yeah, come in. Come in. We'll take care of you.
Holly Tanella: So, that's the easiest way to fire a client, is just to refer them out to somewhere else. Just say, ‘hey, I just really can't take care of you in the way that I feel like you need to be taken care of, or that you want to be taken care of.’
Skya Jones: Yeah, and they can't be mad at that. I think it's really, it's the nicest way to go about it. It’s professional, but also like, hey, we can’t continue this.
Holly Tanella: The dermatology one is really good because I'm not a doctor. So it's like, ‘oh, no, you need to go see a doctor.’
Skya Jones: You're like, you literally need to go see a doctor. Yeah, you need to go see a doctor.
Amber Johnson: You don't need us.
Holly Tanella: So you need to find a good clinic to refer out to another dermatologist. So you can do the same thing.
Amber Johnson: That's actually genius. It really is.
Skya Jones: You guys have created an amazing base of clients and they're all, they come to you guys as experts in the field. How do you feel like you guys have gotten there?
Holly Tanella: First, you have to decide what is your perfect client? Is it the type of skin that you're working on? Is it that they actually value you as a person? Do they take your recommendations or are they gonna say, ‘well, I read on Google’ or this other person said this. ‘What do you think about that?’ Or, ‘my dermatologist…’ How many times have you heard that and you're just like, please go to your dermatologist. I have had clients that are first time and they keep like, ‘no, I don't know if I want to do that. My derm, they do it this way. Can you please do it the same?’ I'm like, you honestly need to go see your derm. Okay, because no, you're not going to tell me what to do. Again, scorpio, don't tell me what to do. And also energy is huge for me. I want to have fun with my clients. I don't have a lot of time. I'm so busy. And so the people that I do spend my time with, I want to have a good time. I want to have fun and also help them achieve their skin results because if they're not getting results for me, they need to go somewhere else, too. So I want it to be a very much mutual relationship.
Amber Johnson: I totally agree. We love what we do. We're attracting people who are looking for it. As many people as we see, very few are problem people. We get a lot of referrals. So someone loves you and when that referral comes in, they're already welcome. I remember when I was starting being an esthetician, half of my clients would stare at me the whole time. They're scared. And I was new and there's like awkward thing. And I just remember one day going, no one looks at me anymore and no one looks at my teeth. They're safe. And they know that I trained them. So they go in and lay down. And I thought, I forgot how that feels. A lot of estheticians who are new, who work for us, they'll never feel that, which is kind of awkward. They don't really, people aren't questioning them because they're in a safe place. So it feels good to know people can just lay down and be safe. But that takes a lot of and then that's our energy because when we're an expert we know, or like lay down we got this. They do but I think when you're a new esthetician, if you're a little wonky or you're a little off or anything and someone picks up on it and that's her face, no, they are not gonna relax.
Skya Jones: I remember the first time I ever did CoolSculpting. I was brand new, had done the training modules, but you just get thrown into things sometimes and you just have to fake it until you make it. I remember sitting there and being like, ‘holy sh*t what am I doing right now.’ But you just act like you're confident and your clients totally pick up on that confidence.
They're like, ‘I'm fine. I'll just, I'm going to sit here and get my treatment’ and are totally comfortable. And that same client that I did the first treatment on was one of my top spending clients for four years after that and came in, and referred people all the time. And I think back to it, I'm like, I took forever to do your treatment ‘cause I couldn't. I was so unnatural and uncomfortable.
Amber Johnson: But you have the confidence. And I think that the words we use and are not using. Being very confident in our words and very clear and giving someone a safe space as art. And when we do, they know they're in good hands. You don't have to worry about it.
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Holly Tanella: In your treatment room, what is the etiquette that how you present yourself to gain your clients?
Amber Johnson: Like once they're in the room?
Holly Tanella: Yeah, what are your esthetician tips for whenever you're trying to wow your clients. For example, we know we're not gonna be a chatty Cathy. We were talking earlier outside of here [about] mirroring your clients. I would love for you to share more about mirroring your clients because that's such a big, big thing.
Amber Johnson: Yeah. And that's something we're training more. And I think my girls organically do that. A lot of our front desk people become estheticians. They decide to go to school, which is really fun. So a lot of the girls that are now estheticians work for us for maybe a year or more. So they got to kind of organically learn it, which is really cool for us.
They understand, they heard the complaints. They got the feedback. When things work, they come in excited. When they're buying another cleanser or another moisturizer, they get to hear the stories or return and they knew that that was too strong in the beginning.
You know, sometimes we have exfoliants. We don't want to start with that. Like once I get to know your skin and you're hydrated, then we want to. So, they get to learn the process organically, but, something like mirroring is so important really. Listening to the client, finding out what they need.
Sometimes people come in there and they just want extractions. I love acne. I truly do. All day long I do free acne facials. If someone has acne and they can't afford it, I'll do it cause I love it; it's like my favorite thing.
Finding out what their needs are, and that's also during the cleanse. What are they looking for? You can kind of mirror them. So sometimes when they're talkative and they're going through a lot and they need a friend, it’s being that safe place. But learning to listen. My favorite thing is when they go, ‘I've had such a hard day.’ That is a co-word for shut the f**** up. When I'm doing massage, especially in the beginning, give me a couple of deep breaths. Right? And I just let them relax and give them that space. But, we need to be really observant of what they need.
I also look, this is a silly one, but I also look for a lot of chest breathers, right? So that's like fight or flight. And if I notice they're just kind of breathing in their chest and they can't relax, I actually will slow down and just say, can you fill up your belly and get your belly nice and big? And I just hold their chest and I just drop their breath into their chest. I kind of dropped their body. And, that really gets someone like that. You could see their hands almost go up. Yeah, just go back and they're like, you know, that's the place I need people to be and that's not everyone. That's when they need it. Some people want their pimples popped and don't give a f**** about the massage. Yeah, and they're like, you know, what do I do to clear up my skin and we talk the whole time?
So just really finding out the needs ‘cause someone's gonna leave, and I did a ton of extractions, I knew I did a good job, but I didn't do the best massage. They're mad. Where I massage and I get you all jizzy and I get your body out and that's so good for your adrenals and your body, but you are pissed I missed a pimple here. You know? So learning to ask questions on what they're looking for and what they want and if that pimple is gone when they leave, they probably didn't care what else you did. Their hands were massaged. That was what they were here for. And my favorite is these ones I don't see because I'm laying down are here. So when we're looking down, I always have to make sure to check the ears or lift the head up.
Holly Tanella: That's good advice. Or maybe even like standing up and looking over.
Amber Johnson: Yeah, I do that too.
Skya Jones: Seeing all the different angles.
Holly Tanella: The things that you just said were like liquid gold just pouring out of your mouth. I get a lot of business women who are going, going, going all the time. And they do not know how to relax and so I take it upon me to, I told you earlier I love to melt your a** to my table. And so what I do is, if they're chatting and they can't stop and I'm like, you know we're gonna give you a free lip and eye mask today. You got to keep your mouth closed. And then they're forced to relax. I'm like a helicopter skincare mom. I'm like, okay, I know what you mean. And that is when I know my clients.
Amber Johnson: I'm the client who will talk. But if someone gave me space to be quiet and relax, I appreciate that. But I won't ever do it. Mirroring them, but also helping calm them down or give them something that they want. So sometimes people are so hyper, and sometimes they need to get things off their chest. So it's really an interesting place.
Holly Tanella: Sometimes you just let them talk a little bit and you're like, okay. Yes. Now we're gonna do this. Now we relax. Or, if you're in a space that you don't have free lip treatments that you can give, you can just say, ‘hey, I give you full permission to just melt to my table and relax. I want you to fall asleep.’ Sometimes they feel like they have to talk with us and engage. They feel rude or they're excited to catch up with you, but you're like, I know you need this time. This is the only thing that you do for yourself. Don't worry about me. It'll be fine. Relax.
Amber Johnson: And they love it so much. And I learned that the hard way. There's a lot of times I didn't give people that space. I didn't know. And once I had kids and their moms come in, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I didn't realize you need a nap. Good night.’ You're like, I feel you. I will make your skin look amazing. I will do your brows. Go to sleep.
Skya Jones: Take a nap. You deserve it.
Amber Johnson: What else do you want? Dermaplaning ? Perfect. Okay. Go to bed. So, yeah. I love that.
Holly Tanella: Can you do dermaplaning here in California?
Amber Johnson: We can now, yeah.
Holly Tanella: That's awesome!
Amber Johnson: Yeah, for a long time we couldn't.
Holly Tanella: Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, I don't know how I could live without dermaplaning.
Amber Johnson: California is probably one of the strictest states.That and Florida. There's a girl named Wendy. Thank her. She lives in San Diego. Shout out to Wendy. She actually went down to Sacramento. I was supposed to go with her and I didn't, but I was invited. She took a bunch of estheticians who are licensed 15 plus years to explain why certain things should be legal for us.And the last time that was done was in 1974. So yeah, she did it during COVID. S She was doing it before COVID, but everything shut down. So she's kept going with the fight. I think it was 2021 when it got passed, but the last time. They got rid of it because of barbering.
Skya Jones: Yeah. That's what I was going to say from straight razors. Right?
Amber Johnson: So it was silly. So, yeah.
Skya Jones: I think as we wrap up today, is there anything, advice, or anything you want to leave with the listeners?
Holly Tanella: Can I actually ask you another question? I actually have two. I'm so sorry. Is that okay? If it's not just cut me off, okay. I would like to know, since you've been in this industry so long, you've seen it evolve so much. What has been the biggest evolution in the skincare industry that you've seen?
Amber Johnson: I was talking about this earlier. It's such a great question. So I was born and raised vegetarian and I worked for a dermatologist, Dr. Fulton, who was a co-founder of Retin A and benzoyl peroxide and mandelic acid. He has a line called Vivant, so this is in the 90s. I worked with him and I was so excited because benzoyl peroxide cleared up my skin, but it was always red and irritated.
And then I was also working in a little health food store called Mother's Market, which is all vegan and organic and clean. But those products weren't studied. And so I remember people saying, no, I want products that work. And I found out about the medical stuff. All his line was animal tested. The first ingredient is his BP scrub was red dy and propylene glycol and parabens.
Holly Tanella: This is a doctor?
Amber Johnson: Yeah. And so this is in the 90s too.
Holly Tanella: Okay. Yeah.
Amber Johnson: But what I did have is, I had this little book of ingredients to avoid that mothers kind of curated that was really picky on clean stuff. This is like the Whole Foods before Whole Foods. Whole Foods didn't exist. There was nothing. People came from all over for this little store in Costa Mesa. It's a really cool story. So I found that natural products were kind of frowned upon and the chemical products were really kind of looked upon but I knew how dirty and ugly, and the ugly the animal testing and the ugly ingredients. So curating skincare, I started working for a lot of skincare lines and I wanted to clean up Vivant for a long time. I would get in fights all the time saying I can make this line. Truly, I would have loved to work for them and if they would have cleaned up but no one wanted to listen to me so I started curating my own skincare, but very small. I mean, this is really, really now it's bigger.
Holly Tanella: Do you have your own skincare?
Amber Johnson: I do, I do.
Holly Tanella: Really?
Amber Johnson: Yeah, it's not big but it's big in my little world. It's not a national brand, but we ship all over the country. We're not the world. But yeah, it's pretty cool. So we do have a cleanser, like a pore clarifying cleanser that's an acne face wash, but it's not drying. It's not all the things, it's great. But my point is, I'm watching the world get cleaned up. So I have a guy behind the scenes and he was doing a lot of search engine words and things that he was trying to help with my company. After about two years, he goes, you know, all these companies are now fragrance free, paraben free and vegan and, clean beauty.
And, he thought I'd be mad, non toxic and all these things and big companies that I was really frustrated with and I had meetings with over the years, years and years ago. And so he thought I'd be mad. I was. I remember almost crying and I was like, really? I was like, this is such good news because these labs wouldn't listen to me.
I remember leaving, I got in a huge sunscreen fight twenty years ago, and that same ingredient, those same people are getting sued right now for having sunscreen that causes cancer, and they knew that then, because we had the information then. So watching the industry actually listen to the consumer, and the consumer educate themselves, And really understanding.
And there's some things that are silly. Like I tell people it could be water. Was it water from the toilet or is it filtered water? So just because it has an ingredient mushroom, is it lion's mane? There's a layer of it. It's like some people look for natural and clean, but I'll take it. I'll take that. It doesn't have some of the stuff that we, people were growing up on. And there's so many cancers and so many health issues are from the skincare. I mean, deodorants alone, if I could go back in time and tell people, get rid of one ingredient, it would be aluminum deodorants and the fragrance and the stuff that we're putting in our lymphatic system.
Really, really scary. And I'm really lucky. I knew about it. I also was really stinky for a long time in high school because I couldn't find anything that worked.
Holly Tanella: We're cancer free. We’ll take it.
Amber Johnson: Yeah, but I definitely feel like I am very lucky, but I do know that like that was a problem and there's so many good sunscreens out. I just bought this little one. I don't know. It's a yellow tin. I just bought it on TikTok and it's awesome. And it was all the hype. I don't know the brand.
Holly Tanella: So what would you like to see the industry evolve to next?
Amber Johnson: I would like to continue to see people looking for a natural approach, things that work [including] lifestyle. There's so many things out there that are affecting our body and from air fresheners to the fabric softeners to fabrics, I mean, truly there's fabrics that can heal us. I mean, a hundred percent linen is amazing for our body and there's synthetic fabrics that really affect our hormones and our body.
So we're really diving in some deep, weird stuff. And I'm learning that the sun isn't the enemy. It's kind of what we're putting in our body.
And sunscreen is great. Like a zinc oxide is amazing. I'm not anti-sunscreen, but the actual sunscreen industry, we knew what they were doing. So there is sunscreen out there that's great, especially for light eyes. So someone like you with light eyes. It's really, really important. That's another thing. Genetics. So my father's an epigenetics scientist, and this is a very, hocus pocus science 20 years ago and it's amazing and he knew it.
So knowing our genetics and what we're eating, how it affects us is really cool. So, I think that epigenetics for skincare and knowing what we're dealing with and how to have a lifestyle for that, not just a bandaid.
Holly Tanella: Is your brand primarily acne, like acne geared?
Amber Johnson: No, no. Anti-aging.
Holly Tanella: Do you do wholesale for estheticians?
Amber Johnson: I do.
Holly Tanella: Okay, so one thing that I would really love our industry to change is that I think estheticians need to support estheticians and brands. I have my skincare line that I'm starting. You have one. I want to start carrying your line because I don't want to support big lines anymore. And also a lot of these lines are owned by men and the men do not treat us very well in this industry and I'm extremely passionate about it. I actually didn't want to sell to estheticians. I wanted to be like a tool. I'm like, I just want to sell to the general public. But the more and more I started to look behind the curtain of these lines and also with my own experience with men in our industry and I'm not a man hater. Okay? My husband's my CEO and I love him and he's amazing. But, I just realized, if there's going to be a change in our industry, because why is this a female dominant industry and we have men still above us? And in order for it to change, there has to be women who are strong enough to step out and be that change. And so that's where I realized, like, Holly, you can't just keep complaining about this. You have to freaking step out and be the change. And so that's what I'm called to in this season and that's where my next thing is, is skincare to help really link arms with my estheticians. And no more do I want to go with big companies so much. I really want to find more small mom and pop like my esty besties and like let's like arms and really make a skincare revolution.
Amber Johnson: Yeah. My acne cleanser is one of my best sellers and so it's so neat that like you might have something like, there's a lot of things. We don't make a lot of body products, there's a lot of things we don't have. I love curating or you might have a moisturizer that goes great. Like I love putting it together.
Holly Tanella: I don't want to make a whole line, but I just want to have my little niche products, right?
Amber Johnson: That's exactly what we are. And I've watched being in this industry so long, there's a bunch of companies that went out of business. I used to work for a little company called Jeremy Rose and it had refrigerated.
Skya Jones: I remember that. I've used it.
Amber Johnson: They would get moldy and they went out of business because people were refrigerating it. Now refrigerators are like skincare fridges.
Skya Jones: Yeah, it's a TikTok trend.
Amber Johnson: Yeah, they would have flourished now and it was just a beautiful little line. It was so cute. It was a lot of little natural stores, especially around here. And, I worked for Zia Cosmetics, which was an amazing line. And she made a papaya mask to this day. It's like one of my favorites. It was like four ingredients. I still have not been able to recreate it. Um, Biomedics made a papaya that I loved. There's a lot of companies, but I wish that knowing what I know now, supporting people and saying these are the things I like, so people can find it is so important. And you're right. The majority of the skincare is all male or corporate and there's no heart. My company is all women. I think there's maybe a little more than 40 of us. There's one male and that's my business partner. But the reason why we're so amazing is he is there to support me and he loves my vision and there's none of this like male. He loves what women do. He wants to support that. And his wife is like the coolest girl ever. She is actually in leadership and she does amazing things for everybody, but a lot of times for women's voices. So it's so important for women to support each other because it's super easy to tear each other down. But when we build each other up and we start supporting each other, this is a huge industry and we could dominate. I mean, I watched some of these big companies behind the scenes. They don't give a s****. That's all about numbers. And the TikTock trends go in and everyone's buying them.
And we are making things that are much better, but no one knows about it. So supporting each other is super important.
Holly Tanella: Yeah. And also like changing the industry of like, there is a mean girl industry like estheticians. I can't find any esty friends. Actually. No one wants to be friends with me. It's the wildest thing.
Amber Johnson: Really? You're the nicest person.
Holly Tanella: I will reach out to people on Instagram. Just be like, ‘hey, like I'm lonely.’ And people will not reply to me or they'll see it. So I'm in a season where I'm finding my tribe.
Skya Jones: You're building your tribe.
Holly Tanella: But I also want to link arms with women who can build me up, too, because the people I've been around and past are people that every time I'm successful, they tear me down.
And I realized like that is not a friendship and that's, that's toxic. And so I've actually cut a majority of my friends out of my life. And literally I just focus on my family and it is lonely at times, but I'm like, my friends will come, like people that are meant to be in my life will come and support me. So to those of you out there who don't feel like you have a tribe, like keep reaching out because it'll happen and, don’t surround yourself with toxicity just to have friends.
Amber Johnson: Yeah. It's very true.
Skya Jones: And you have to build each other up.
Holly Tanella: That was for me and for y'all.
Skya Jones: I feel so lucky to have you guys and talk with you guys because it is so inspiring to hear women that own businesses that are entrepreneurs that are so innovative in the industry. And it makes me excited to see the shift and the change in dynamics to where we can have people like you leading the forefront of things.
So, thank you guys for coming and sharing all this information. It's so insanely beneficial for people to be able to hear whether they're just starting out. Maybe they don't know if they want to be an esthetician or if they want to go into something else. They want to start a business. So, this is huge.
Holly Tanella: Thank you. It's been so much fun. I know I loved learning from you, Miss Amber.
Amber Johnson: Yes, I loved learning from you. This is great. Now we have new esty besties. So I get it. And listen, as you work on yourself and you elevate, sometimes you outgrow people. Absolutely. And they don't understand it. And sometimes you don't understand it. But when you grow, you blossom and you make new friends. And sometimes you have to shed the old ones.
Skya Jones: Just like skin.
Holly Tanella: Yeah, just like skin. Shedding off the old skin cells.
Skya Jones: Yep, fresh and new.
