Beauty Entourage LLC, Ashley Stone
My successes over the years have ranged from various awards and recognition the business has received to overcoming obstacles of day-to-day growing pains. I honestly look to what most would perceive as failures as my best successes because I always grew and learned so much more that inevitably contributed to the overall success of where we are today. I'm proud that I began this journey as a hair stylist that observed a problem and navigated to the place I am today: a businesswoman that understands both sides of my business. That is my biggest success. That success allows me to continue to grow a more sustainable business while at the same time solving the problems our clients have and the issues our artists deal with in the freelance community.
Added March 2017: Ashley Stone of Beauty Entourage won Young Entrepreneur Small Business of the Year! We're so proud!
I have been in business now for 11 years and the growth was exciting but terrifying! Meetings with SCORE cover a multitude of things that help me grasp a better understanding of various aspects of the business or see things from an outside perspective. This has been one of the biggest benefits that have helped me.
We grew organically which limited my need to ever really need to understand my finances, marketing, or the basic running of a business that does a revenue as high as we were getting to. I knew our growth would continue but, I also knew I was ready to work on the business full time to grow it beyond organic word-of-mouth referrals. SCORE was involved with the DSDA (Diverse Supplier Development Academy) which helped small businesses such as mine with a crash course on financials, marketing, etc. By being a part of the program I had the opportunity to work with 2 SCORE Mentors and I have since kept in close contact as I navigate through the growth.
What is great about my mentors is the experience they have that helps me understand the operations of my business at a higher level. They have helped me track and analyze various aspects to better project an outcome or better plan my budgets. They have also helped provide additional resources that led me to secure my first line of credit.
Planning your beauty needs for a wedding or any other big event can be stressful. Beauty Entourage provides on-location services in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. On the date of your event, you can trust that Beauty Entourage will give you that picture-perfect look that you will cherish for a lifetime.
I began my business as a freelance hairstylist traveling for clients that requested me for weddings. After realizing the demand growing on strictly by word-of-mouth I created the name, Beauty Entourage, and set out to advertise my newly formed business on MySpace. That included mostly chatting it up with women that were engaged and sharing pictures of my work and what I do! Each year our engagements grew from 25 weddings the first year to 50 the following, and so on at the same rate. I grew my team as I needed to support all of the inquiries. In 2007 I opened a hair salon to give us a physical location to handle consultations and trials during the week and strictly travel for events on the weekend. (photo by Sassy Mouth Photography)
I have the expertise to help our clients with problem solving in the following disciplines:
Loans...
Entrepreneur, franchise expert, business funding and financing. Including using qualified retired...