Founded in 2015 by Jade Spehr, JadeStart is owned and operated by both a husband and wife team who have been together for over 14 years and bring their knowledge to the beauty and aesthetics industry as a dynamic duo. They chat about their mission to see businesses thrive.
Tell us the goal of your business.
“We are an award-winning, international business coaching and consulting firm exclusively for the aesthetics and beauty industry. We have worked with over a thousand beauty businesses across 15 countries around the world, helping them generate tens of millions of dollars of additional revenue through our 1:1 and online group coaching programs.
In short, we help beauty businesses grow to be multiple 6 and 7 figures without burning out. At the core of our vision is helping aesthetic and beauty business owners achieve freedom, however, it looks for them.”
What does freedom mean to you?
“For us, freedom means spending time with our children throughout the day and being present as parents without having to spend time away from them to work. We designed a life to be there for our kids, and we want to help our members do the same.”
Tell us about your backgrounds.
“Jade is a qualified lawyer, an undergraduate accountant and has post-grad studies in insolvency. She has worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers as a Manager and Deloitte as a Senior Manager, coaching seven and eight-figure businesses and turning businesses around in insolvency.
I, Aaron Spehr am a business strategist with a Masters in Business and is the founder of two internationally recognised businesses, including sales coaching and eCommerce.”
What led you to start your own business?
“Jade launched the business over eight years ago after seeing a gap in the market with helping startups launch their business the right way. It started as a University assignment leading to a High Distinction, and her University professor encouraged her to launch the business, so she did. While studying Law full time and working full time as a Paralegal for a property developer on the Gold Coast, she launched and had clients from the very first day of launching.
At the time, the company Jade worked for as a Paralegal was a high-profile property development that had gone into Receivership. She later joined PwC to continue this work in insolvency, and during those nine years, she learned a great deal about insolvency and how to help businesses avoid failing.
Jade’s passion for getting the business off the ground then, and still is her passion today, was tied to her huge compassion for people and wanting to help as many as she could avoid losing everything through insolvency.”
How did her work help her to start her own business?
“Jade really felt it when she dealt with a client’s liquidation or administration files. The impact of a failing business is not just felt by the person losing it all. It’s felt by their customers, their suppliers, their families, and so many more stakeholders.
A lot of this loss can be avoided by making the right decisions and doing the right actions, and implementing the right strategies so that quickly became Jade’s fuel in life.”
Give us a little overview of your programmes available.
“We help businesses in two ways:
For businesses earning under $250k AUD, we work with them inside our intimate monthly group coaching program, Aesthetics and Beauty GrowthPad. Inside this program, we coach the strategies to double, triple or more their income. We have had members go on to 5 times their income within the year of completing this program.
Typically members inside this program are solo operators or have one staff member. The program delivers proven strategies to increase their revenue in a long-term, sustainable way through coaching. Coaching is where we teach our members the strategies and they implement these strategies into their businesses themselves. We do it through online members area full of resources, videos and tools and in-person coaching with us weekly.”
What about businesses over this threshold?
“For businesses earning over $250k AUD, we have a 12-month membership program where we perform consulting services on their businesses. This means that we roll up our sleeves and do the work for the business owners when it comes to setting strategies and coaching their teams.
During this 12-month membership, we are working alongside the business owner and their teams to create better systems and processes for efficiencies and to create more profit, build strong culture amongst their team and their clients, create more profitability within the business to provide the owner with more financial freedom, build their reputation and branding in the marketplace, help them get more clients and keep those clients, solidify and secure business structures for long term success.”
What have been some of the challenges?
“For us, the biggest challenge has been trying to find a balance between the business and switching off. We are both natural givers and give everything to our members to ensure their success. We love what we do so much that we find it hard to switch off and take time away. As they say, when you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life!”
What’s your best advice for first-time Aesthetics & Beauty business owners?
“Don’t waste time and resources trying to figure it out alone. That’s time you’ll never get back and money you’ll waste only to wish you did it right the first time. You also lose potential revenue when you try and figure it out alone because you CAN be successful and profitable in your first year of business WITHOUT discounting. The second piece of advice is don’t discount. It damages your brand and sets you up for long-term failure.”
Why did you choose to help beauty businesses?
“The beauty industry is full of people who are just like us, underdogs who have big hearts and want to serve others. They are in the industry to help people look and feel their best. We are in this industry to help them thrive so they can help more people look and feel their best.”
Why should beauty business owners work with you?
“When it comes to choosing a business coach/consultant, it’s important to do your homework and find someone who is:
- Qualified
- Has proven results with businesses just like yours
- Aligns with your values and energy
- Cares about your results.
We aren’t going to be the right business coach for everyone, and we are okay with that. We don’t just work with anyone. We have a discovery call with everyone who contacts us before accepting them into our programs to ensure that we are going to be the right fit for them and they are going to be the right fit for us.”
“Don’t discount. It damages your brand and sets you up for long-term failure.”
What is it that inspires you?
“For us, it’s not about the money and never has been. We are fortunate enough not to be in debt and in a position to show up and serve our members without any ulterior motives steering our decisions.
We give everything to our members because we truly care about them. We have built a community of kind-hearted, driven beauty and aesthetic business owners who all help one another, and it’s that kind of culture that we are striving to grow.”
Do you offer one-on-one coaching through webinars or in person. How does it work?
“We do occasionally do group webinars on particular topics of interest where demand for a topic arises. We also do regular Instagram lives on our Instagram platform to help educate and inform business owners. We are very conscious of ensuring that we give a lot of resources and information to people to help them on their journey, even if they don’t join our programs.”
Do you have plans to travel around Australia for business seminars?
“Yes definitely! We plan on doing some travel in 2024 around Australia to hold some seminars. We also do speaking engagements at events where the opportunity arises. We recently did one for the PCC conference in Brisbane and have one planned with Timely in Brisbane.”
What sets you apart from other coaches for beauty businesses?
“Our unique set of skills and qualifications really sets us apart. We also are very well known for how much we care and go above and beyond for our members and community. You can see this on our Google reviews and by word of mouth in the industry. I haven’t met another business coaching business with that combination yet.”
What are your future goals for the business?
“We are continuing to expand across Australia and the world by way of members inside our programs and in 2024, we are launching our podcast and will be doing more thought leadership work within the industry. We are growing our team inside the company at the moment and will continue to do so in the future. Our members will never lose the personal touch they receive with us, though. This is something we are passionate about maintaining.
A longer-term goal is to release a book that will be packed full of value and will help business owners achieve freedom in their business.”
What’s your advice for solving the problem that clients are not booking in as frequently as they used to?
“Changes to behaviours amongst clients due to economic factors are something that is impacting a lot of businesses around the world right now. However, our members are posting a minimum 20% increase on last year with their sales and significant improvements in rebooking percentages.
People still spend money and there are plenty of people who aren’t doing it tough in these economic conditions. We help our clients articulate the value of their services and implement processes that ensure their clients are coming back repeatedly, despite these market conditions.”
What do you hope to achieve with your clients?
“At the moment, our focus is to have all of our members in a cash surplus position to weather any potential recession. How they are achieving this is through the implementation of our strategies across sales, marketing and finances. If our members can thrive during a downturn turning economy, we will be very happy business coaches!”
What are some proven tips for business owners to grow faster?
“Stop discounting, start adding value, become a better communicator with your clients and implement organic marketing strategies that have proven long-term growth effects. Unfortunately, the quick fixes also come with a downside which often do damage to the business long term.”
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2024 print issue of Professional Beauty.
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