Beauty entrepreneurship is a highly competitive space, and success depends on the understanding of the subject as well as the role of mentorship in promoting success amongst the students. Diana Richardson, the recipient of Global Best Business Mentor at the Global Women Leadership Conference in Dubai, has remained a prominent influential icon for budding business leaders. Having been an x8 Founder + CEO and being awarded the Best Business Strategist 2024, Diana has a lot to offer to anyone trying to navigate the beauty business from start-up to scale and exit strategy.
Today, we are pleased to interview Diana Richardson and learn about the beauty industry and her mentorship work.
1. As the Best Global Business Mentor, in your opinion, what are the most critical skills for success in today’s beauty industry?
When I think of skills I think of the professional treatments and services we provide for our clients. The skillset that requires 10,000 hours of practice to master our craft. Whilst students are obtaining their experience both in and out of a classroom environment one aspect of the beauty business that’s not touched on much is business acumen.
“you have to have 10,000 hours in a subject to be an expert” is a quote stated by those who’ve not read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success (sold on Amazon if you want to read it!) Outliers: The Story of Success https://amzn.eu/d/4O3KVWV He actually explains the 10,000 rule as an industry superstar that stands out amongst their peers, elevates above the elite… becomes the 1%“ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything,” states the neurologist Daniel Levitin (on page 40) The book Outliers, is about people who do things that are out of the ordinary – rockstars, business tycoons, those who are extraordinary!
The gap in the market for our industry is where business mentorship comes in. Sharing expertise in pricing for profit, building a client base, 5-star customer service, maximizing time management, and success mindset shifts.
2. Your mentoring style is incredible. Can you tell us how your mentoring style changed when you were mentoring for the first time?
Thank you! When I first started mentoring it was back in 2009 whilst teaching. I wasn’t charging for my time, I was just sharing my experience and expertise with students, it was just part of the way I taught my classes. Naturally in my delivery, I would talk about the cost of materials, overheads, etc because I was a business owner.
Then as a Tutor, several students wanted to be entrepreneurs and I helped them write a business plan, treatment menu, price for profit, ideas for marketing and branding their business, etc. My guidance was all about offering them ‘bootstrapping ideas’ for their start-ups so that they didn’t take on debt and could be profitable from the beginning. I also mentored other teachers who joined our team at Southampton City College because I had been awarded an OFSTED grade 1, and those with real industry experience would be a wealth of knowledge for the students.
Fast forward a decade and after helping hundreds of people become self-employed entrepreneurs and set up businesses, my husband suggested I ‘monetize all this expertise I was sharing for free’…at the time I literally was having acquaintances take me out for coffee to pick my brain, and he was like ‘D your brain and almost two decades of industry and business experience is worth more than a £5 coffee’. The free advice was starting to take away from my time in my own beauty salon because I helped others with their success strategies.
My business name ‘Signature D’ was manifested during one of my long marathon training sessions… I was listening to a podcast about branding and I thought… I’m sharing my passion and each client conversation is creating a customized and bespoke business plan… the Signature D approach to scale your success and shatter your own glass ceilings.
3. What are the challenges you notice beauty entrepreneurs experience often, and how do you assist them in overcoming them?
Interestingly you’re the second person to ask me this today! Our business strategy sessions often start with a business plan creating a 1, 3, 5, and 10-year vision to ‘design your destiny’ Next, we discuss the finances and pricing for profit… one big challenge I come across is beauty business owners not knowing their worth, many haven’t put their prices up in over a decade which is cutting into their profitability BIG time, so we put a pricing structure and strategy in place with incremental increases.
4. What led to the development of the “Glowgetter Beauty Entrepreneurs 101” podcast and how does it align with the consultation services?
Oh my goodness, being a podcast host was a bucket list dream of mine! I had listened to other podcasts and Ted Talks (that’s another item on my wish list!) on my long drives, marathon training runs, etc. I literally was like… one day I’d like to have my own show.
Then the universe aligned and answered with a suggested podcast about ‘how to create a podcast’ – amazing!! This guy was doing a 3-day guest series on a property podcast I listened to regularly called Progressive Property Podcast. Every morning that week at 7:00 am this guest guy presented live, he would start with a ‘how to’ session and then open up for Q&A. The themes were about what to name your podcast, topics to discuss on your show, etc. I actually wrote in to him about the potential names of mine and he chose one that he thought was good but suggested I add a little something extra to make it more memorable…
That got me thinking and when I attended UNLV we took university classes such as 101, 102, 201, 303, etc depending on which year and level of courses we were studying. So I added 101 on the end to form the title ‘Glowgetter Beauty Entrepreneurs 101’ I wrote in again and the host gave me a thumbs up and thought it was a great name. Step one is complete! The next challenge was how to record and upload an episode and what platform to host on, it took me a few days to figure out, and then in March 2023 that was the birth of my very own show!
It aligns with the consultation services I offer because I use topics for the podcast that have been inspired by client conversations, consultations, constraints, and concerns to help empower other entrepreneurs. Here’s the link to the show if your readers would like to listen. We air weekly at 9:00BST on Thursdays, we have guests from the industry staring their stories and a few nurturing nuggets from me. https://bit.ly/Glowgetterbeautyentrepreneurs101podcast
If it’s useful please leave us a 5-star review and if it can help someone in your network, please share. Thank you.
5. How can one be able to manage different businesses and at the same time engage in the act of mentoring?
I’m all about time blocking, literally blocks of themed time on my calendar to create and achieve. These time blocks are set at the beginning of the year and can be adjusted or adapted if needed but then the space is held to work on my goals, targets and different business requirements. I even hold space for personal, family time and a weekly date night with my husband. The space is held and in each themed time slot tasks are added in but it allows me the capacity to create cadence in all aspects of my ACTion Plan ~ Accountability, Cadence, and Time management.
