Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Berry.
Melissa, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I graduated college in 2006 with a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Human Resources. I quickly went to work for a large financial firm managing employee benefits. I thought this was going to be a wonderful job where I helped so many people have better and easier lives. And I soon found out that I absolutely hated big corporate life and I was helping hardly anybody and I was typically making people’s lives much more difficult. I burned out after about 4 years and decided that I needed a complete change of careers.
After doing a lot of research, I ended up going back to school to be an esthetician with the desire of opening my own skin care facility in the future. I ended up absolutely loving my career choice; it was more fulfilling than I ever dreamed it would be. I worked at a couple of different spas for about 6 years and then started really getting serious about stepping out on my own. I made a plan to save all of my tips until I had enough money to make the transition. After 2 years of depositing so many ones and fives and tens that I’m pretty sure the bank thought I was a stripper, I finally had enough money to create my dream.
When I started looking at facilities, I looked at the typical places such as salon suites and I really was disenfranchised by the atmosphere of those facilities. It was so loud, and so bustling all the time; it really did not suit the presence of wellness that I wanted to bring into my workspace. I started getting frustrated because there was no place like a salon suite for wellness providers. So I took a couple of steps back and decided to readdress what I had planned. I decided I wanted to create a space that was similar to the way that salon suites functioned, where you had individual business renters, but cultivated a space of peace and wellness. I found a spot that I thought was perfect but it needed a lot of work. It looked like it had been left in 1984. It had the orange and brown parquet vinyl stick flooring. It had so many phone jacks, if anybody even still remembers what those are, and we had to move some walls around. The landlord had assured me that it would take about two weeks to do the entire build out. He was incorrect. It ended up taking 3 months! But a lot of hard work and a lot more cash infusion than I had expected later, we were able to open for business.
Unfortunately, about 3 months after we opened COVID hit and we were immediately shut down completely for a couple of months. That definitely set me back from my expected timeline. Not only did that put me back building my own clientele as an esthetician, but it caused so many solo practitioners to have to close their business, making the pool of possible renters smaller. But I kept on plugging, because I was not giving up on my dream. Now we’re a little over 2 years in, and we’re in a different building that actually allows us to have classes and drop in practitioners that are able to build their business with a daily rents instead of having to commit to a full-time lease right away.
Besides myself as an esthetician doing skin care, we also have two massage therapists, a registered nurse who does injections and cosmetic treatments, plus we offer yoga classes, and meditation classes. It really has evolved into what I had intended it to be as a wellness facility that allows highly educated and kind-hearted solo practitioners to serve the community with their talents.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would say some of my largest struggles have been choosing a first facility that did not meet all of my needs and desires. And of course, COVID shutting everything down and putting a stop on all of that initial opening energy. There were so many practitioners that left their practices because they just were not able to stay open during that time, and there were so many places that had to shut down because people were scared to go out and receive one on one services even after we opened back up. It took probably at least a year before the momentum had come back up and the majority of people were going back to their typical appointments.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As an esthetician, I specialize in integrative skincare. There are not a lot of integrative practitioners out there in the skin care field. What this entails is not just giving a facial, but truly analyzing a client’s diet, lifestyle, stress levels, topical product usage, and genetic predispositions to create a complete skin plan to truly transform their skin. I think it’s important that a facial not just infuse nurturing ingredients into the client’s skin, but also address what is going on beyond the treatment room so that clients get real results. I’m all about education and teaching clients what the current conditions of their skin are, how they got there, and what to do to make the changes that they are seeking.
I love utilizing alternative therapies such as crystal healing, marma point therapy, Gua Sha massage, and reiki, in addition to traditional therapies like microdermabrasion, peels, and microcurrent. I am most proud of the treatments that I’ve created because they’re not like treatments that you will experience at a run of the mill facial spa. I truly delve deep into what my clients are looking to achieve and create an entire system to get them those results. I love when a brand new client lets me know that this is like nothing they have ever experienced before.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I feel that understanding and kindness is key to the success in my business, both as an esthetician for my clients and as an owner for the practitioners that rent for me.
Contact Info:
- Email: ondaserenawellness@gmail.com
- Website: www.ondaserenawellness.com
- Instagram: @ondaserenawellness
- Facebook: @ondaserenawellness
Image Credits
Jacki Stambene
