Issue link: https://www.ascpskindeepdigital.com/i/108113
your niche Product Entrepreneurs Estheticians make it big in manufacturing by Rebecca Jones Lisa VanBockern didn't get her esthetician's license until she was 40. Trained as an accountant and business analyst, she decided she'd had enough of office life, and within a year she was lead esthetician in a medical spa. After finding herself unhappy with the products available, VanBockern created her own product line and launched a company to sell it. Today, she no longer even has time to give facials. The seed was planted for VanBockern at a networking luncheon where she heard a woman talk about calling a chemist to turn her ideas into products. "I couldn't believe it could be as easy as that," says VanBockern, who lives in Tempe, Arizona. She looked online to find a skin care chemist and spent a year devising a list of products, evaluating ingredients, and testing the results. A $100,000 home equity loan financed the launch of her company, Skin Script, in 2007. While the line was popular with her existing clients, it was a long time before it became profitable. "It took about three years," she says. "If you're just trying to market by going door to door, you won't make it past the first year. And if I hadn't had a degree in accounting, I don't think I could have built this business. Yes, my passion is esthetics, and I spend a lot of time studying ingredients, but it was business skills that made me succeed." Another esthetician who made the successful transition to CEO is Christine Heathman, who launched GlyMed Plus more than 20 years ago. The company, based in Provo, Utah, has grown 30 percent in the past five years, and success has been sweet for Heathman. Her son, Jon McDaniel, who has an MBA and previously worked for a Fortune 500 company, has now joined the company as vice president of business operations and is working to get his esthetician's license. "When my mother got into product development in 1989, she did it by taking on every single menial task that others would scoff at," McDaniel says. "She scrimped and saved. We were not well off, and she was working from nine in the morning until seven at night." Unlike VanBockern and McDaniel, Katherine Goldman didn't have any formal business training. She did have real-world experience, though. Goldman, an esthetician for 11 years, is the owner of Stript Wax Bar, a chain with six California locations. She has also developed three product lines: mineral makeup, vegan soap, and a treatment for ingrown hairs. At first, product sales were all from her salon clients, but dedicated marketing has built demand to the point where Goldman is preparing to stop seeing clients so she can focus on sales. The soap line has now outgrown Goldman's original manufacturer, a crafter who brewed up the bars in her home kitchen. "It's always challenging," Goldman says, "but I would tell others to just follow your dream. If it's something you believe in wholeheartedly, do whatever it takes to get your product out there. We hope to have a shopping cart on our website in the near future, and we're working with a manufacturer who can develop the quantities we need." Estheticians Katherine Goldman, Christine Heathman, and Lisa VanBockern have become successful product manufacturers. Katherine Goldman Christine Heathman Lisa VanBockern VanBockern says she made some costly missteps along the road to success. She tried designing her own product packaging—not once, but twice— needlessly spending a lot of money on things that didn't work. "The third time, I hired a professional." For estheticians who look at the products they are using and decide they could make something better, the challenges are significant, but not insurmountable. "My mother didn't get into this for self-gain," McDaniel says. "You have to do it to help other estheticians and their clients. That's really the key to success." Rebecca Jones is a longtime newspaper reporter and freelance writer based in Denver, Colorado. Contact her at killarneyrose@comcast.net. Get connected to your peers @ www.skincareprofessionals.com 11