Because I’ve dealt with over a thousand business owners and put their stories on our Making It TV show, people ask me many questions. One of the most common questions is “what business do you think I could succeed in?” Then I usually begin asking that person questions about their passionate interests’ hobbies, and what they love to do even without being paid for it. Sometimes, it comes down to something that they frequently do for themselves, to feel better about how they look. The business of looking better has given birth to more than a few billionaires!
Recently I noticed a People Magazine story about a young immigrant mother from Romania who didn’t speak English, but she showed up in Los Angeles with “The American Dream” in mind. Anastasia Soare like many non-English speakers began to learn the language by watching hours of television. In her case it was what she called “the woman show” better known to you and me as the Oprah Winfrey show! The People story said that Anastasia told her husband that she would one day be a guest on that show. How could that happen? Over time and with hard work, Soare developed her own eyebrow shaping technique which she became famous for.
In art school back in Romania, she had learned that in painting a portrait, the artist could shift a person’s emotions by changing their eyebrows. Soare developed her now patented way of combining science with beauty in shaping people’s eyebrows, especially women. With my decades of living in Los Angeles near Beverly Hills, I’d think that specific service could have some value in the beauty business! She did work very long hours and developed a customer following that included Cindy Crawford, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Naomi Campbell. As you might suspect, publicity counts in a major way to develop a successful service business. For Anastasia Soare that break came with an article in Vogue magazine. Her appointment book became very crowded and in 1997, she opened a salon in Beverly Hills. The path to her own version of the American Dream quickly became much wider and very prosperous.
In the year 2000 she launched a product line which has been one of the secrets of success for many in the beauty business. Soare and her daughter Claudia went on the road to visit department stores such as Nordstrom to teach customers how to properly use their products. Claudia turned her mom onto online marketing possibilities with Instagram which was then a new app. Soare says that with her first social media post, “everything exploded.”
Like other smart entrepreneurs who’ve grown a small business into a much larger enterprise, Anastasia Soare has often expressed her gratitude to the people who have been supportive and helpful along the way. When they had a party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the business, supporters such as Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Lopez were there to applaud Soare’s accomplishments. With this blog I’m reminding you that expressing gratitude is an important part of the secret sauce for success!