15 minute read
Diana JennerRedefining the Beauty Industry
Everyone deserves to feel great about the way they look. It was this belief that led Diana Jenner to found Orchids Retreat.
Diana turned her passion for beauty into a boutique Beauty Salon that genuinely cares about the wellbeing of its clients. From starting her career by working in a Spa to running an award-winning salon, she has come a long way. At Orchids, she creates tailored programs to suit each client's individual needs of Chemical Peels, Mesotherapy, and Customised Facials to promote and maintain healthy skin.
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Inspired by her urge to take beauty industry to the new heights, we at Insights Success caught up with Diana to learn more about her journey and Orchids Retreat.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
Brief our audience about your journey as a business leader until your current position at Orchids Retreat. What challenges did you overcome to reach where you are today?
My career in the beauty industry began working in a Spa at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas whilst attending University Nevada Las Vegas. I always wanted to own my own business, and as a lifelong passion for beauty, I wanted to have my own salon.
My Dad told me that I couldn't go to beauty school as I needed a formal education not just to learn a trade skill; he wouldn't even let me attend an evening massage course whilst at university. Instead, I got a job in the spa whilst studying at UNLV to gain hands-on experience. Fast forward a few years, and I moved to England to be near my Mom. In Europe they offer Beauty Therapy courses that teach you a variety of skills, so I enrolled in every course possible. For a year, I attended holistic, beauty and advanced courses full-time during the day as well as evening and weekends, so I completed three years of courses in one year.
Now it was time to gain some experience in the industry. I started my own business called Orchids Hideaway and set up a treatment room in my bedroom at home. This expanded to a two bed house with one room just for salon use; while building up my own clientele, I was working in a salon and managing a bar and restaurant to make ends meet. I then took a job with Virgin Atlantic to see the world and visit spas and salons around the globe. In 2008, I gave up my wings and bought my first salon on the top floor of a hair salon. I was enjoying training and sharing my passion as I grew the team, so I gained my teaching qualification from Greenwich University to enable me to teach beauty. Teaching, running a salon, and growing a family proved to be too much to juggle, so the next chapter was to be a solopreneur.
I kept a treatment room on the coast and took up a residency at the Soho Hotel in London, which gave me the opportunity to host seasonal skincare events for beauty magazines, bloggers and treat celebrity clientele. It was a fantastic experience, and I'm so grateful to Kit Kemp for the opportunity.
The pandemic proved difficult for many, but with grit and motivation, I was determined to swim upstream and provide wellbeing for the community. Last summer, I opened a sixtreatment room beauty and wellbeing clinic. And, we now have a team of twelve to offer beauty, holistic, wellbeing and advanced aesthetic services.
Tell us something more about Orchids Retreat, its mission and vision.
Orchids Retreat's mission is to help others put their best face forward. To educate our team and clients about how to care and maintain a healthy body and glowing skin all year
round. We pride ourselves in offering a high standard of treatments, customer service and client care.
Enlighten us on how you have made an impact in the Aesthetic Facials niche through your expertise in the market.
With over 20 years of experience in the Beauty Industry, I still have the same motto - put your best face forward. Healthy glowing skin naturally is about looking after your skin. We're only given one body in this life and you've got to look after it. As one of the first UK Brand Ambassadors for Dermalogica and an Advanced Skin Expert, I created the Youth Boost facial along with a trio of others to focus on clients' specific skincare needs. We use Dermalogica Professional Skincare, mesotherapy, micro-needling and Bio Therapeutics technology to design bespoke facials for each client.
If given a chance, what change would you like to bring in the Body Massage industry?
I think teaching therapists how to save their hands and look after their body's is crucial to a lifelong career in this industry. At Orchids Retreat, we welcome apprenticeships and college students to join our team as junior therapists. I host monthly masterclasses for our whole team to further develop their skill set and am amazed how many do not know hands free or trigger point techniques that can be used to save their hands from repetitive strain. I believe the industry should offer this training as part of therapists initial course content.
Where do you envision yourself to be in the long run and what are your future goals for Orchids Retreat?
I have so many goals and aspirations!
During the pandemic, I obtained a distinction in an aromatherapy course and used my years of product ingredient knowledge to create my signature scent and formulate my own bodycare range to help clients refresh, relax and restore at home. I would like to be a household name one day and to advance Aurum D to being stocked and sold in high end retail stores, not just at Orchids Retreat.
The British Association of Beauty Therapy and Cosmetology asked me to help the government write the guidelines for our industry to be covid compliant. I was delighted to help the Department of Business and Industry Strategy (BEIS) and to share my knowledge and experience with others in this sector I set up Signature D coaching and consulting.
Going forward, I would like to share my passion and combine features from all three companies to franchise Orchids Retreat around the United Kingdom and launch our Beauty and Wellbeing Clinics globally. Offering a 'Beauty Business in a Box' with advanced coaching, policies, procedures, business set up, marketing materials and ongoing support.
What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the business sector?
What, according to you, could be the next big change in Skin Therapy industry? How is Orchids Retreat preparing to be a part of that change?
Just go for it! You'll never be completely ready; there is no such thing as failure, just lessons learnt. I learn new lessons every day, and it helps us all to grow, develop and blossom.
I think the next big change in the industry will be people trying to undo the effects of having too many fillers and enhanced treatments. Advanced aesthetics are a growing market, but it is important to maintain standards. I think it's also vital for professionals to only recommend what is needed and advise when to put the brakes on and educate their clients about the need to look after the canvas not just continue to plump out the lines artificially. You can't turn back the clock you have to look after your skin.
Door to Success
Leaders
that We Need Today
Life is a struggle that revolves around personal and professional challenges. And, when you are struggling, seeking advice from genuine friends always helps you. But instead of following people and their advice, create your own opportunities that help you find your own path. Because fate is by far the greatest mystery of all, and you can never know where it will take you. But the real question is there an alternative to all of this? While everyone speaks about these complicated things, let’s discuss the solution through this article.
Our lives are connected to technology and social media, as they play a key role in today’s modern world. As business leaders, we have to accept the fact that the vision to bring change in the lives of the people and transform the world is possible with technology. But, promoting compassion and wellbeing among the people is also equally important. Understandably, everyone wants to create their identity and influence the world. But developing leaders just for the sake of business output and profits will degrade the quality of the leadership. And, we don’t want such leaders, especially in tough times like today.
We want leaders who can get the best out of their team, which is possible only without the fear of judgment. It is a great way to lead, discuss, guide, and help each other in crucial times. A ray of hope is all people need, and leaders can bring that hope through these sources. For example, if any employee knows that he/she does not have to face the issues alone and there is someone to talk about it, it gives hope to that person.
Yes, that’s the alternative for a leader – to connect - to help those who feel down and try to bring the best out of them. That’s what the leader should be recognized for, and this is the shift leaders need to bring currently. As an organization and as people, we should develop compassion and ethics that reflect our outlook on the world.
It is only with this approach we can make it possible to sustain and impact lives for longer, creating a better world for all. This is a much-needed alternative in today’s pandemic situation – promoting compassion and well-being among the people. Now that we have got the alternative solution for the leaders. The next question is, how do you recognize that you need help? Most of us today are too busy making a living. We exist only within our daily routine, as we are preoccupied with massive responsibilities in many aspects of our lives, like academic, financial, career, household chores, etc. And due to this, it becomes too late to realize that you are already struggling – emotionally and mentally. We no longer listen to our body & mind, and finally, we do not appreciate our actual/real life.
There appears an absence of self-care. Taking care of yourself can be overlooked against all the professional pressures of our life. But it is important to take time to care about your physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental health.
Before you extend your compassion and authentic care for people, you must first practice self-care. Why? Because you can never give what you do not have.
Below are things that can help you in practicing selfcare: Ÿ Start your day doing things you love the most and boost your mood. Ÿ Be grateful for things you have, no matter how small or big it might be. Ÿ Have sufficient sleep, healthy food, and exercise regularly Ÿ Do activities and interactions add value to your life
There are much more things that you can discover yourself to practice self-care. After following all the things, you will appreciate your life, even more, resulting in a healthy work-life balance. With peace of mind, you will achieve your life goals. You will know yourself better – see a better version of yourself and attract positivity in your life.
Elissa Weimer
Training Your Dog to be PAW-SOME
If you are a pet owner, you may understand that the bond between a dog and owner is impeccable. You might have come across several videos on social media where a dog is happy, carrying out his shenanigans, spreading smiles on millions of faces. However, many efforts go into training these dogs, considered as an essential part of canine companionship. ElissaWeimer takes dog training to her heart to deepen the bond between the owner and the dog to widen their smile.
Elissa is the Owner of Paw & Order Dog Training and is a ProfessionalTrainer, with numerous certifications to her name. Through Paw & Order, she offers professional, balanced, dog training and behavioral problem solving throughout the Pittsburgh area. Paw & Order recently expanded its reach to Southwest Florida, Houston, TX, and Central Ohio through franchising.
Insights Success caught up with Elissa in our endeavor to find “The 10 Most Successful Businesswomen to Watch 2022” and talked about how she is instilling pride in dog owners, as well as making dogs safer in the community as a whole!
Below are the highlights of the interview:
Brief our audience about your journey as a business leader until your current position at Paw & Order Dog Training. What challenges have you had to overcome to reach where you are today?
I joined the military right out of High School. Being a Military Policewoman led me to the path I am on now. During college, I acquired a paid internship with the Attorney General’s office and later with the Federal Bureau of Investigations on their Violent Drug and Gang squad in Philadelphia, PA. After two years of interning there, I applied for a Special Agent position, but quickly realized that just was not what I genuinely wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to help people and wanted people to be excited when they saw me arrive at their homes—a different feeling than seeing an agent or police officer at your door.
I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I did not know where to start. I spent a long time figuring out what I was good at and realized I am good at teaching people. I just had to decide what I would be excited to teach! I realized that I love animals and that they had the power of making people feel good in so many ways. I realized that so many people have dogs, so I decided to shadow many other dog trainers and attended a ton of schools to learn as many techniques as possible to help people ENJOY their dogs. To this day, I continue to learn and better myself and my team of trainers to help as many people as possible. We not only continue our education with behavioral problems, but also
with other areas of dog training such as trick training, Therapy Dog Training, Canine Good Citizen, agility training, large field socialization classes, and K9 Detection training (my Belgian Malinois and I won 1st Place Narcotics at last year’s Police K9 Competition in Kentucky). We realized how much we have to offer and how unique our company is that we decided it was time to franchise in 2019!
Tell us something more about your company and its mission and vision.
Paw & Order’s mission is to improve the lives of as many families as we can by providing quality and effective individualized dog training. Our vision is to continue spreading Paw & Order nationwide and have an amazing training program to ensure that the quality of our local Pittsburgh market is mirrored in every major city in the United States. We train our trainers to the highest standards and treat our employees like family. All our trainers are extremely valuable to us, and we make sure that they are well taken care of. It builds their loyalty to our brand, making them want to work even harder to ensure that our clients are happy and excited to refer us to their family and friends.
Enlighten us on how you have impacted the training niche through your expertise in the market.
Our training is unique to each dog and family. We have also made training simple and effective for families and dogs. So often, we hear that “my dog will only listen if I am holding treats or the leash/some other piece of training equipment.” Or a client will say that their dog knows all basic commands (sit, down, come, stay) but will not do it when there are other distractions around or the environment does not look the same every time for the dog.
Dogs do not generalize things well and need hundreds of repetitions in as many situations as possible to reliably understand what you are asking them to do. We have mastered our communication with dogs and their owners to train SIMPLE. We have found that overloading our clients with a bunch of training jargon that means nothing to them is not helpful. Dog owners want their dog to be a good family dog they can trust and be proud of! They are not competing in shows with their dog where they need to learn fancy tricks and unrealistic positions to their family situation (there is nothing wrong with competitions, but most pet owners do not care about that). Most people do not have perfect timing when it comes to communicating with their dog, so we use methods that allow a delay between rewards and consequences once their behavior, like/dislike, has been identified. This helps tremendously so that their dog will listen even if their owner does not have food or a leash in their hand.
We pride ourselves on solving behavior problems and teaching good behaviors for the long term, not just for the moment. Our clients have lifetime access to our trainers and they have access to a free private adventure group after their training is complete to make sure that they continue to be successful. It introduces them to an amazing community of other dogs and owners to experience fun things with. At least once a week, we meet up at trails, parks, stores, lakes, bars, etc., and go hiking, camping, kayaking, or just enjoy a nice day outside with our dogs and a drink! We want people to experience how life-changing our dog training programs are. Once your dog is well trained, your world becomes more fulfilling and exciting!
Where do you envision yourself to be in the long run, and what are your future Paw & Order Dog Training goals?
We recently started opening new locations nationwide and want to continue doing so. We strive for the QUALITY of our trainers instead of quantity. Paw & Order is my “baby,” and we will only expand with individuals that match our integrity and motivation to work hard, be proud of what they are doing, and continue to improve the quality of the business.
Elissa Weimer
Owner & Professional Trainer
