Her Story
About Stephanie
I started in the aesthetics industry almost 16 years ago when I was very young, jumping right into a med spa where I quickly learned what I didn't want to do by working with the wrong people. I went back to school, got certified in everything, and started my own businesses in solo suites. About 3 or 4 years in, I met two women who took advantage of me and brought me into a huge med spa on Long Island in Nassau County. I didn't know the first thing about business or protecting myself, and they used my youth and appearance to their advantage. I walked away from that and spent 5 years taking care of my grandmother who had Alzheimer's. During that time, I was called back to teach at the school I attended, and I saw there was a very big miss between business and education in all the schools. That's when I started my business as a New York State instructor, doing on-set training and accrediting people in dermaplaning, microneedling, and other certifications. I would build this into their job applications or help them move into solo suites, creating their entire menus and becoming their operations support. This evolved into building them into storefronts that turned into med spas with full staff. Now I work alongside major industry leaders to build out practices as primary care facilities and wellness clinics, especially as the industry shifts into wellness with GLPs and weight loss. I'm a catalyst and strategist who handles everything from front to back operations. I help solo providers who are making $50K to $100K a month by teaching them their numbers, emotional psychology, and sales, rather than convincing them they need expensive lasers and devices. I recently relocated to Florida from New York within a month, and I've designed a life where I can travel anywhere and work with global practices.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Stephanie
01What do you attribute your success to?
When I was young, my real father didn't really want me - a parent abandoned me. My stepdad came into my life when I was young and took me in as his own and adopted me. I think his work ethic and how he just loved me and my mom, watching him wake up every day at 3:30 in the morning and bust his ass as a lineman and just provide, really contributed to my success. Seeing someone come in and fully take you on as their own when they didn't have to really gave me that 'if you want to, you will' type of energy. That's my tagline - if you want to, you will. He did, and he didn't have to. It's a choice. Working with my business coach Billy has been huge too. Some of the best business advice I've ever gotten is from a man who's never been judgmental and doesn't even work in the space of beauty, but he has really helped me get out of my own way mindset-wise and taught me so many things. I don't think I would be where I am today without him, without therapy, and without my friend Jenna, who's a mindset and meditation guru. She's helped me reset my nervous system in a way where I was always go, go, go, go, go with crazy high cortisol, looking ran down, never taking off, never even sitting and eating dinner. They've completely shifted my life. Seeing my dad now retired and him seeing me build this business, and my mom too was a really hard worker - I think seeing that really gave me the drive.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The industry has obviously shifted over the past couple of years, where it's going way more into wellness, with GLPs and weight loss and all those other things. Now I'm working alongside huge people in the industry to build out these practices as primary care facilities and wellness clinics. A lot of people are told in the industry you need to go get all these accreditations to open a business, and then you have no clients and no one knows their numbers. The economy makes people think they need all these lasers and microneedling devices, but I have girls in Connecticut right now literally making $2,500 a day just waxing and lashing. I have solo providers making anywhere between $50K and $100K a month. I'm feeding them properly by showing them how to not attach societal beliefs through mindset shifts. Social media is a whole other thing - the comparison game and the mental health toll that it takes on everybody keeps everybody stuck. People end up buying so much different tools and the hottest latest trends, but they're sitting there collecting dust. There's a very big miss between business and education in all of the schools. They only teach you the basics, so then you have to go and do all of the accreditations, the continuing learning, but then they don't teach you about the real-world aspect of the field.
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