Why Education is Important to me

By Nancy Abdou

For those of you whom I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting or training, my name is Nancy Abdou and I am the founder & CEO of The Australian Dermal & Laser Institute and Skindividual Functional Skincare. However, this article is about where I came from, not where I am today.

I started my aesthetic training journey 10 years ago and have been in the industry for almost 20 years.

Like so many passionate skin therapists, my interest in skin was born from my own battles with self-esteem damaging skin conditions. I developed eczema as a toddler and still suffer from it today when I don’t keep on top of the internal and external triggers I have pin pointed. In my late 20’s, it was a hormonal imbalance that lead to acne and further unwanted excess hair growth.

From a young age, my family instilled the importance of education in me and having had such influential and inspiring teachers of my own, I completed my Bachelor of Education, where I first discovered how rewarding education truly is. Watching a students confidence grow before your eyes and seeing them complete a task independently because of your teaching, is one of the best feelings!

In my early 20’s I successfully opened and operated various retail stores in other industries, where I was able to implement the skills I had learnt at university, by training my team - my way, to ensure my businesses were successful and customer service was on point.

Having an Egyptian-European background, meant I had olive skin and some serious hair issues too – thanks mum! My sister Nevine introduced me to IPL hair reduction treatments, and it seriously changed my confidence and my life. Several treatments later, I was loving my silky-smooth skin, but not loving the level of service we experienced, we saw a window of opportunity which we took and ran with!

We purchased the very first Palomar Starlux in Australia and positioned ourselves in a treatment room in Collins St. Training on the device was thorough, but it was device specific and challenging to get more training outside of the set protocols. We wanted to know how we could push the boundaries safely, especially on olive skin. This is when we realised that device training alone was not enough for the standards that we were setting in our clinics and the results that we wanted to achieve for our clients and why we made it our priority to formalise our interest in aesthetics by furthering our studies in the industry.

The formal education we received back then was just enough to get by, and I made it my mission to train our team members in our specific and high standards. As our business and reputation grew, so too did the team and clinic locations. At one stage we had 15 locations: 2 main clinics, 3 licensees and 10 satellite locations across Melbourne. Excellent, consistent and relatable training and education are key factors to the success of any business, but as it was hard to come by, which is why I had to develop my own training.

After perfecting our business model over almost 10 years, we sold all of the clinics and I decided to follow my passion of education full time. I contracted my training services out to the Global Beauty Group for 7 years, where I wrote all of their training manuals and device protocols from scratch and delivered it to hundreds of clinics.

During this time, I took over The Australian Dermal and Laser Institute (TADLI) and over time employed 10 trainers across Australia. 3 years ago, I decided to leave Global to become independent and train for several manufacturers, in addition to providing bespoke education both on-line and face-to-face.

Unfortunately this decision almost meant the closure of TADLI, after one manufacturer we contracted for went into liquidation, leaving my company $200k in debt and hundreds of clinics across Australia & New Zealand in serious financial hardship. This was my cross roads, I had to decide to either start over and forge on ahead or close our doors. So, only months before Covid hit us, I decided to rebuild.

When covid lockdowns were first introduced, I naturally was concerned that my rebuild would be put on hold, or possibly even fail, but they turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me. This time gave me the push and opportunity to get myself back out there, get in front of clients on-line and really pivot my business to be able to survive in our changing world. I provided paid and free on-line education, interviews, workshops and collaborations.

Looking back now, it was such an incredible period of growth for TADLI and I. away over $250,000 worth of education to those affected by lockdowns, floods, fires and other disasters. We developed Safe Clinics and worked alongside politicians to advocate for the aesthetic industry, in order to reopen our clinics and be recognised for our commitment to safe practices.

After so many years of speaking to clinic owners and therapists, it is more evident than ever, that education is one of the key factors to the success of a business. So many therapists have expressed that they have amazing devices, but don’t know how to get the most out of them. Some have purchased second hand devices and don’t know how to use them safely or effectively.

Therapists often don’t know how to combine modalities safely to achieve even more profound results for their clients and increase their overall profit. These are the areas that TADLI focuses on, because I truly believe that the more education you have, the better your business will be, the better you will be and the better your clients will be for it!

It hasn’t been an easy road, and I have learned many lessons along the way. I have come close to packing it in a few times but the absolute joy I get from training therapists, and watching my trainers have an impact on so many of you, always keeps me going! So to have been awarded ABIA Educator of the year, twice and during such trying times, has been both humbling and rewarding.

I look forward to being in your space, imparting my experience and knowledge in hope that you too, succeed and also feel the pride that I do.