salon profile
MAFS’ Melinda Willis
OPENS UP ON BEAUTY BUSINESS OWNERSHIP SELF-DOUBT AND SUCCESS
When it has come to establishing and solidifying her own beauty businesses, it’s often been a case of one step forward, two steps back for Melinda (Mel) Willis. The Australian reality TV star sat down with Hannah Gay to relay the countless obstacles that have come her way and ultimately set the stage for her success. Melinda, share with us your background in the beauty space and what first drew you to the industry. “It was 2009 when I enrolled into my first beauty course - a Diploma in Beauty in Brisbane. At the time, I wanted to just learn a few things for myself… I didn’t actually think I would end up in the beauty industry at all! But once I had finished the year, I absolutely loved it. We were told that one of the dream jobs for all beauty therapists was to work on cruise ships because it gets you straight into that five-star spa experience. They had sold us the dream of flying to London, living in London for a few months and advancing your diploma. We’d go from there to embark a cruise ship sailing anywhere in the world. So it’s that [life of] travel, luxury and beauty all in one… coming out of a diploma fresh into something like that was otherwise almost impossible, so everyone wanted it. They had trainers come in and go through the class for rigorous interviews. And only one got it… it was obviously me [laughs]. So in 2010, I went over to London to study my Advanced Diploma in Beauty, embarked on my first cruise ship from Miami with Steiner, and was there for a year before returning back. I took a break from beauty after that, doing bits of beauty from home; I was always back-and-forth.”
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Fast-forward to 2018 and you founded your own beauty brand Feather Sisters. “From a young age, I would sit the family around the dining room table, that would be my boardroom and I’d be drawing up business ideas on a white board. I’ve always had a passion for business. At 28, I was working as a flight attendant and had quite a severe work injury and was deemed unfit to fly; it was a massive hit. I fell into this depression and thought, ‘what now?’ I started spending a lot of time online in desperation mode, searching ‘how to get rich’. One business idea really resonated the e-commerce space. [At that time], it was this exciting new space that still had so much room in it for everyone. Through research, I found something along the lines of what our number one product is today our microblading brow pen. From that idea, I reached out to a supplier, spoke colors, spoke design… everything I wanted for it. My first order was with a private label. I also had to learn to build a website, and realised that while there were makeup stores on the ground, there was not much in the way of innovative cosmetic products online, especially in Australia. I chose to stick with cosmetic products that were hard to find in a store and were an impulse buy. [The brow pen]
did so well - it still sells out four times a year and we now have eight products in the Feather Sisters Collection. It was hard for us [during COVID] because we were rebranding and we were trying to expand this business, but all the shipments were delayed… it was taking months. I think we did our first $100,000 in ten days, but then we ran out of stock and couldn’t get the shipments over fast enough. People were angry because their post was taking two months. It was one big nightmare and learning curve, but that’s all we had to deal with whereas others were dealing with the beginnings of ‘how do I build a website?’... that kind of thing. Having that knowledge of beauty behind me was really powerful so it super-seeded everything else. I’ve been in beauty full time since… I will be forever.” I understand you had been running a personal beauty bricks-and-mortar for three years prior to appearing on TV. “From January 2021, I started my own lash business from my apartment, so I was juggling both that and Feather Sisters. I decided I loved lashes out of all the beauty treatments possible; it was my therapeutic getaway from the stresses that came from
