The journey to opening my first nail academy – Part 4
By Erica Turley | 06 June 2019 | Business, Feature, Tech Talk, Training
The work on the academy is coming on extremely well and everything is coming together rather quickly. I think that because so much time and effort has been spent in doing preparation work of the building, it was hard to see the wood from the trees!
We are now upstairs in the training room, and the new floor is about to be laid and I’ve kept the same colour scheme throughout. The electrics have been re done downstairs where the shop part will be, and the electrics are being done in the training room also with floor points and lower wall points. All electric points have been replaced with industrial style units with USB points built in. We had light switches and light pull cords that turned on lights in different rooms with a mixture of strip lights, LED lights and pendants all over the place so this has been a time consuming job. We are so fortunate that my husband and my brother in law have the skills to do all of these jobs which cuts down on price, yet it takes longer as we all work many hours as it is.
External signage is all ordered and it will be up within the next two to three weeks, including window frosting. My car signage has also been completed and my Mini Cooper, aka Beanie (and now The ETA Mini), has my branding on it. I’ve set a competition for those who see it anywhere: those that take a selfie with it, post it on social media and tag me in the post can be up for winning an Akzentz gel polish mani at the end of each month!
Money wise, my hope of being able to judge the cost of a project has flown out of the window. The money I had placed aside for stock has now been spent on materials, so I’m using my month by month income to keep aside for this, and as there is still plenty of work to do I think I should be ok.
Sourcing stock
Becoming a sub distributor for Hazel Dixon covered most products, however there are a few more items I want to stock such as some basic salon essentials and loose glitters. I found a company that was able to supply me with large volumes of acetone with the option of having my own label placed on the bottle for free. I loved this idea – however after some wise words from my mentor, it appeared to be less simple as I thought. What I didn’t realise, is that although the products came with a SDS and were registered on the CPNP, with my own label that all became void. Having looked quickly at the process, I would have to pay to get another SDS done, at a cost starting from £180 per item, then start the registration process on the CPNP. Every bit of time and money I have is being invested into renovating the property, and at the minute I don’t have much of either left over so I decided against own label chemicals.
Another supplier I have is a company I first met at Manchester Central as they came to see my seminar on The Power of the Blog in 2017. We’ve stayed in touch ever since, I’ve done a product review for them in the past also and I use their products on my clients to this day. I’ve watched them grow and I’m so proud to see them featured in Scratch and have their own stands at trade shows up and down the UK. Following a meeting up in Chesterfield, I’m super excited to be the first stock list for The Unicorn’s Den! Everything from glitters, chrome flakes to crystals. The Unicorn’s Den is such a professional company with a wealth of nail tech experience behind it and I’m really looking forward working with them.
I’m sure there’s loads more I’ve forgotten to mention, but all in all, a very productive few weeks! I can see the end in sight which is very exciting.
I will update you all in a couple of weeks’ time!
Erica