Notes from the Road | Reflections and Updates
I miss you all MBH Fam!
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a personal reflection and professional update. There are so many reasons for this and honestly, I am still struggling as I write to find the words I want, so I guess I’ll just start with the obvious. Wow, it’s been a crazy few years.
Brief recap on last year in business. I was faced with some tough decisions with Midwest Beauty House last January. We made it through the pandemic financially with the help of state and federal financial aid. However, as many small business owners know too well, it didn't solve everything. I was also presented with an opportunity to expand and had choices (which I am so thankful for), however, none of the options felt easy and any way I looked at my professional and personal life, my choices were going to involve risk, some hard knocks and more sacrifice. I discussed the options with the MBH management team and we decided to go for the expansion. MBH has never backed down from a challenge or the opportunity to grow and get better.
My northern star has been my mission and vision throughout this whole journey with MBH. Almost seven years later, I still strongly believe in that mission. I also looked at my beautiful team at the beauty house on Atwood and they were definitely worth betting my money on. Lots of things worked last year and some didn’t. I am ultimately happy with where things landed. As most of you know already, we did expand our Atwood location and it is beautiful. I also made the tough decision to let go of our original location on Winnebago, which was a hard thing for me to do. It just wasn't the right timing for the things I still hope to birth and grow out of MBH. The words of the song “The Gambler” explain it better than I can at the moment:
You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em
Know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run
You never count your money
When you’re sitting at the table
There’s time enough for counting
When the dealin’s done
This pretty much sums up my feelings about last year. It was all a gamble. Thankfully, the dealin’s done and maybe that song came to mind because I am (no joke) on a Tennessee cabin porch taking a look at my wins and losses as I write this.
Good news…the win pile is way bigger than the bets I lost. The future of Midwest Beauty House is VERY bright and I am excited!
This brings me to our Big News for 2023…
The MBH management team is working hard to make our already great thing even better. This may look easy from the outside, but we are doing a lot of big work to improve all of our systems and business structure this year. We want your experiences at MBH to be the best they can be, and because people are the most important part of our business, this work is vital to ensure that our staff and all our beautiful clients are taken care of in the best way possible.
We are so excited about is the official launch of Oway USA!
Our main product and color line out of Italy went direct in the U.S. as of this year and that means so much opportunity for education with our team and building a solid relationship with a company whose values we really believe in.
Low impact and organic products are a very important part of our better beauty culture.
What this means for you is your beauty operator being excited and ready to try new skills and products on you as we focus on education this year (in the biggest way we’ve been able to since the pandemic) and work to strengthen our organic and holistic approach to beauty. We will always continue the work to move towards a goal of the most sustainable practices and products out there. Holistic beauty means we continue to have not only an external but internal focus as well to our beauty offerings. We are committed to this as a huge part of our mission and some great things are going to happen this year as we partner with Oway to provide you with the best services and products to support building a beautiful life that's good not only because you are leaving with that rad ass haircut, but also because you can purchase products that are good for your body and the earth.
I’ve got a lot in the works for the future, but I think it’s finally time to announce an arm of the business that needed its own title because it is a unique part of our brand. Midwest Beauty Health is now a tab on our website and will be a huge part of the new and exciting things coming from MBH this year. So far this consists of adding our beautiful practitioner, Nico, with their somatic experiencing services over at our offices and private practitioner space, located at 1967 Winnebago St. (upstairs from our original 1969 Winnebago location). Look for more and more offerings and services that support our internal mission with beauty this year as we roll into the second and third quarter. I am so excited to be able to expand the scope of what supporting internal beauty means. Welcome to Midwest Beauty Health!!!! Still MBH, but expanded and even better with more offerings for you!
Ending on a personal note, I am happy that MBH has grown to such a place that my voice is no longer the main voice of the business. This is part of the reason that you have heard from me less and less on this platform. With my personal growth and shifts career-wise, I have realized that my biggest task at hand is to put myself first. I strongly believe in my mission statement for the business and the MBH team, but this year my biggest goal for myself is to make sure that I am making choices. personally and professionally, that support all the things that I feel so strongly about in my business mission. To my regular clients and all the lovely patrons that have supported me and MBH throughout the years and even now by walking through the doors of our beauty house, thank you and I love and miss so many of you so much. For anyone that wants to keep up on the ‘crazy adventures of Alice’ and both personal and professional updates, please follow my personal professional Instagram @aliceezrow and check out my newly relaunched freelance website at www.aliceezrow.com!
Love to you all and here's to an exciting happy 2023 at MBH!!!
Alice