The Power of the Podcast: Unlock Your Brand's Marketing Potential

🎙️ From Nail Tech School to Manufacturing: Lachelle Bender's Journey of Tenacity & Big Dreams

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Join Josh for an inspiring conversation with Lachelle Bender, a fearless entrepreneur who built Ohio's first nail-only beauty school and is now scaling her business into manufacturing! Lachelle shares her incredible journey, revealing the importance of trusting yourself, even when things get tough. Get ready to be motivated by her story of resilience, passion, and her unique approach to marketing.

Discover:

- Lachelle's secret weapon for cultivating self-trust: Making lots of mistakes!
- The power of staying true to your vision and embracing failure as a learning opportunity.
- How to connect with your target audience through authentic conversations, not just marketing campaigns.
- Why a strong network is key to business success, and how to build one that empowers you.
- Lachelle's powerful advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: Start strong and finish better.
- The exciting next chapter in Lachelle's business journey: Manufacturing her own professional nail care products!

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When you combine tenacity and a big, big personality. You've got my next guest. Lachelle Bender has run a successful school that teaches nail technicians and is now pivoting to also cover manufacturing. Her experience through it all has given her a ton of lessons in business and in marketing. And you're probably going to want to listen to those. Stay tuned. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. You mentioned that one of your biggest lessons was the trust yourself. How did you cultivate that self-trust? Especially, like. I mean, as a business owner, there's challenges. How did how were you able to cultivate that self-trust to be like, I got this. Honestly, making a lot of mistakes. I screwed this up this up this afternoon. That means I know how to do it now, so I trust myself to do it. Yeah. I think over time, when you make decisions and things actually look like they working out, you're like, oh, man. Like, oh, okay. This one here. How do you get from this? It's like doesn't get it up against the. Wall a little bit. That's probably a little more calculated than that. But over time, like you figure out what works and what doesn't work for your business. And so obviously you want to do more of what works. Right? So you get the best results. But trusting yourself, I think, is something that you are. It's it's hard to explain, really. I think wisdom over at the really think is wisdom over time. Sure. You know, and it is a combination of events and experiences and patterns and, really messing up and saying, even if I mess up, it's all right. Like, it's okay to mess up. So I'm a big believer in, like, a fail forward. Like fail fast. Hurry up is screwed up. So you can hurry up to fix it so you can get on the right track faster. I used to beat myself up a lot when I thought I screwed starts, you know, screwed up, screw things up. I didn't know all the answers. But the truth is, you. You don't know the answers. That's why you're on the journey, right? Like you're on the journey to find the answers. And so you want to make wrong turns. There's going to be roadblocks. There's going to be setbacks. And through all of that, you're gathering information, right, to know how to strategically move later on down the line. And so I think trusting that I'm doing the right thing, that I have pure intentions, that it is making the type of impact on the people that I serve. I think that's was taught me to trust myself, my students, they've taught me to for me to trust myself because I know inherently how it feels when I don't trust myself and when I doubt myself and when I don't think that I'm doing a good job. So the opposite of that is girl believing yourself like you got this. Like you doing the right thing. Like you doing it for the right reasons. Like the right people are going to be attracted to your light. And so I think that's how I learned how to trust myself. Interesting, interesting. It's funny to me because with that, it's it's that taking that first initial leap and you've had no issue with doing that, knowing that you're like, I can I can fix this. Well, and I think originally it was more it was really a faith job. It was like, oh, listen, I ain't really got nothing to lose. I already know had nothing. If you're at the. Bottom, the only place to go with that. Yeah, sure. You know, and so I was in a place in my life where I felt like my life didn't fit, where I thought it was supposed to be going. My life was hurting me. I was literally in physical pain from looking at my life. Look, raggedy, like it was looking like it was like, I just get started. I'm 19, where my life. I look like it's going down the tubes. You know what I mean? And so I think I wanted to see if I gave it all I got, what I get. And you've done well with that for sure. That's. That's what I did. You've done I mean, a variety over I mean, we talked beforehand a variety of different marketing things. You were initially resistant to social media, which I mean was probably a blessing in many ways. How did you balance, like, with marketing, looking at, okay, this is reaching out to people. This isn't reaching out to people. How did you how did you figure out what was working when it came to that? Okay. So I'm going to be honest, full disclosure, I do have a degree in communications from the Purdue University. That that comes in handy. But I did get that after failing at my first business. Sure, I went back to college after I opened my beauty school and, the economic crash of oh eight. I blamed myself for my business shutting down, not thinking about the economy was a factor in the housing bubble, and the bursting of all of that impacted my business. And I was like, maybe I need to go to school and figure out what I'm actually doing before I try to do this again. And so I did that. And so I was a 35 year old college student. And by then, social media was the way of the world. If you didn't have a social, are you even really a real business? Do you. Exist? Do you exist like no Facebook page? I suspect it. Must be a scam. It must be a scam. Scam? Likely. And so that helped me be able to understand, the dialog that you have, I guess, with your audience like that, the transaction comes from people knowing, liking and trusting you. And what your how your messages, I guess connecting to something that they feel about whatever stage of life that they're in or whatever the services that you're offering. So I think being able to, like, fire those, kind of images in my brain about, like, oh, it's really a conversation with your customer, like trying to understand their needs versus just pushing my product off on them and saying, come paint these beautiful nails. You know, there are other challenges that paint. Why are they wanting the freedom and independence and all of the things that come with working for yourself, because that's what I'm teaching them how to do. Be independent. Right? Work for themselves, earn a living, not punch a clock. Have flexibility, you know, be able to, life that you love and dreams that you imagine and not build somebody else's dream. Right? And so I think that's narrowing the message down to actually speak to the, like a person and not like a ad, I think was the most important part. It's interesting you say that because Lindsay, when she was on here, talks about empathy. Do you feel like you were able to empathize with the, I mean, the people that you're bringing in as students. I am the people that I'm bringing in as students. I see a lot of like the characteristics that I had as a very young person. And a lot of my students, they're tenacious. They're they're. Ambitious, they're goal driven, and they're hungry to have something of their own. Like, they don't want to work at companies that don't value them. They don't want to work for people that don't, appreciate the work that they put in for them. They want to build something that has their name on it, right? A lot of them have challenges, from personal challenges to socio economic challenges. You know, just trying to figure out how to navigate life. And so I think it goes further than empathy. If if you can go further than empathy. There's an association there. Yeah. Like I feel really connected to a lot of them because I understand exactly the space that they were in because, you know, I was also in that space. So in some pre questions. You're like oh he's going to those. You mentioned follow up his big and then and in some cases that you missed on follow up. We all have. Probably missing a day. It doesn't matter what day people are listening to this. We're probably missing follow up on that day 100%. I understand this. I'm assuming you've corrected some of that, or at least taking some corrective action on that. What's been a big help for you in correcting and making sure that you are getting that follow up with them? Being honest and being transparent as much as possible. I don't have a huge team or staff, so a lot of things that I do do, I have to do, which means, you know, more hours at work, following up. Email is big. Sometimes I just reach directly out, or I'll place phone calls to individuals who want information. Depending on, you know, how I think it might fit into what we're doing right now, the urgency of the person. They might say they want to class six months from now. That that. Might not get an immediate call, but she'll get an email that she'll get a follow up at some point. But somebody who say, listen, I'm ready to start in the next class. What I need to do. We all follow up. So, I mean, you've pretty well done the marketing on your own from day one, haven't you? Yeah. You've encouraged others to get help with marketing? Yeah. Why? What do you think? What do you think? The biggest reason for some people to get help with it would be. You save yourself a lot of money, so. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. A lot of pain and heartache when this stuff ain't fire, right? Because let's just be for real. Like you, you know, especially in the service business, you know how to perform the service. You may not know all of the business type aspects. And so this the marketing is something that you can pay somebody to do. You can even barter. Maybe you ain't got no money to give them. Maybe you can work out some other kind of, you know, exchange name services or something. Even if it ain't that, maybe you do something else really well, maybe you do graphics, but you're not good with, you know, people have in this, in this world, you got to have more than one kind of skill. Let's be honest. So I do encourage people to get help with the marketing because you can, over like you can step over a lot of the mistakes and get a clear line like you, you don't have to waste so much time trying to figure it out. Just trying to do it yourself. Through trial and error, you can get somebody who can read the data, who can tailor the message, who can, you know, target the audience that you're looking to capture their attention. And so somebody who's well versed in that part of it is going to ultimately generate revenue for you, because that's the whole point of the marketing, and that's how you can attract the people who want the services that you are providing. So I wish I would have listened really early on my career. On the social media side, I was, you know, hesitant. That's a kind way of putting more stuff in. But by the by the way, you looked at me when you said that, I'm like, I believe she's using the polite term. Yeah. Yes. I didn't have any experience. Like, I know what I know now because I did spend four years in college studying marketing and communication and how we communicate effectively, with each other. So I feel like a lot of mistakes I made was because I didn't know what I was doing. So you might as well find somebody who knows what they're doing, pay them the money. They deserve it. I give them the money and get what you want in return. Which is more satisfied? Customers. And they found you right away. Instead of having to look through a needle in a. Haystack, it's interesting because you kind of remind me of the old story of there was a ship that the engine wouldn't start. They called in a bunch of different mechanics that all looked at it and said, we can't figure it out. They brought in another mechanic. Another. Story. You know where I'm going like this. He hit it with a hammer and it started and they're like, what's the bill? And he goes, $10,000. And they're like, well, that's not worth it. And he goes, right. He goes, okay, so it's $10 to hit it with a hammer, and it's 9990 to know where to hit it low. And yeah, knowing where to hit it. Knowing that knowing that. Yes. Yes it does. When it came to promotion for your business. And I mean, well, first off, let's talk about your business for a second. You're teaching people how to become nail technicians, correct? Correct. You were the first school in Ohio to do this. Absolutely. So that's big. And it is. It very much is. Don't play that down. It's a big thing. What was. Initially difficult in the promotion of that? And now we're I mean, you've been at this for more than three weeks. So what was the initial. Difficult pieces and what are the different pieces years later? Now? I like that question a lot. The initial difficult pieces were getting people to understand what I was doing and why I was doing it. So when I started that if had the first, there was no other school that did what I was doing. So there was no reference point for me to be like, look, look, see, look, it's going to be like this. So people had to come on the journey with me. They had to take a walk inside my imagination. Yeah. This is the way. Come on. I won't lead you wrong. There's I no, there's no path here. This is where we're supposed to go anyway. Build the path on the way. So that was probably the most challenging part. However, even in the challenge, once I figured out how to explain it, people were like, oh, this sound like. It's pretty cool. Yeah, sure. We'll give you some couple startup dollars. All right. I entered a couple business plan competitions, came in the top final, like finalist panels and different things. So I was just. I was on this wild ride, and it was fun. I didn't know what the hell was going to happen, but I didn't want to stop. Like, I wanted to see what was actually going to happen if I didn't quit. And so that was probably the biggest part. Like not quitting because like, face it, if your entrepreneur people tell you no for breakfast, like, no, we're not interested in that right now. It yeah, we hear it all the time. You hear no a lot. It takes one. Yes, it takes one. Yes. But you got to live through the 7500. No. Yeah. And so after you hear a dozen no's and, you know, it can be discouraging if you don't have thick skin, if you're not really built for it, if you really question and and doubt yourself. So I believed in it before I even saw it. So I was able to explain it to people. And it wasn't until I went through all that the I got to build and, you know, got the funds, I bought the equipment, made sure all the lights and stuff was on. I submitted the application and I went and got the application and she said, oh, well, your your school has been approved. And she caught me on the phone and I said, really? She said, we're going to put your license in the mail. I said, can I. Come pick it up? Say, sure. And I hopped in my car. And I drove to. Columbus. I was like. This girl, this guy, I'll be like, we. Got our license. I was like, oh my God, it's so amazing. And so when I got there, she handed me my license and she said, did you know you're Ohio's first nails only beauty school? And I was like, can I use that on my marketing? It's like, I don't see why not. And that was it. So once I and it took me even after that, a long time to use it on my marketing. Like it probably took me ten years after that to like, outwardly say it. And so the biggest challenge in the beginning was like, not quitting because it's easy to quit when you're the only person who sees your vision. You know, you don't have to share it with anybody. You can fail in private. You can. You can cry all to yourself. And nobody ever noticed you was working on this big, beautiful thing, right? Yeah. And so now the biggest challenge people have seen me doing the thing, right? Like I've been doing the work for many, many years. And so the challenge now is, Making it bigger, making it better. Building something that could possibly be around even after I'm gone. So that's probably the biggest time people don't come get their nails done. People go and want to learn how to do the nails so they can make the money so they can be you know, financially free. So that's probably not the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is probably access to resources. Sure. You know, as a small business, we don't get to pick out a letter. You know, they're not just handing out money to us. It is not been raining. Yeah. No, no, it's making a rain for me. And I'm waiting on a day. I will be I'll be the first one to like. Oh, so you know. But I will say this about that. Even though they're not just, you know, doing it for the 99 and the 2000, like cash money, there's lots of resources now that are not monetary, right? Like, so 20 years ago, we didn't have SBA. We didn't have manufacturing works like we didn't have or organizations that would help you build your business, help you navigate the landscape, help you connect you to people. Just a connectedness along. If it weren't for SDK, I wouldn't even know you. Yeah, right. Yeah. And so I was talking to my girlfriend and she she's a lot of my friends are entrepreneurs. She owns a transportation company. And she listens. She looks complaining. And I said, listen. Your money is in your network. The money is the resources. And the money and the connections are in there. They're holes in your network. Those are the people you need to be speaking with and talking to. And, you know, having coffee with whatever you need to do because they have information that you don't have. They know, you know, systems and strategies and different things that help them get where it is that you see that they are now. So I'm always being referring people to agencies and organizations that have assisted me because my list is long. I would be lying if I said I got here this far all by myself, just to my tenacity. That would be about-face lie. There have been lots of people who have lifted me who have pushed me, who have carried me, who have listened to me whine and moan and complain. Right. Like we do. That. Yes, yes, yes. Even if we don't want to believe we do. Because it gets heavy. It gets hard. You get tired of fighting for things that you feel like. You like kicking against the brick. Like it's not moving. It's not. I'm not seeing the problem. Like I know I can be further than this. Why is this. Not? Why I came and. That comes back to those earlier mistakes. Yeah. And so there have been people who's like, let's show you can't stop because at some point you realize that is is bigger than you, right? Like it's bigger than this little dream. I had a happen this little beauty school and just being able to work for myself. Now there are other people attached to that. Not just seeing it thrive is succeed, but their dreams are now a part of a dream. You had. Their goals are now you know, attached to where it is you're driving this thing to. And so now it becomes more important to you to do the things that you need to do, to make sure that you, you know, are crossing oddities and that not others like that you have done all that you can to grow your business. So a sustainable so is impactful. And so that it means something to other people and not just to you. And so the lights come on tomorrow. Yeah. What is I I've got a couple of good kind of personal ones for you. Okay. What's your favorite thing about running your own business? Hey, can't nobody tell me what to do. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. It's your choice. Yeah, like I was born to be a boss. I, I that, I think is apparent. Yeah. It took me a long time to figure out. I'm not a long time. But, you know, when you. When you were a girl, they're like, oh, she's bossy. She wants to tell everybody what to do. Like I was, I was like the line leader. Like, I made up all the games and I was the tallest one. I said, when you're the tallest, they want to make you stand in the back of the line. Like, you gotta be in a shortest, the tallest, or you got to be in the back of the pitch. I'm always going to be in the front like I don't care about them being short. Tell them to move over like I wanted to be in the front. I know how this goes, even if I really don't know. Trust me, I love it. I love that. Wow. Yeah. So I've always been this person. Like, I didn't just wake up and decide I was going to run my own business. I've been running. What? It's interesting because it kind of comes back to me because. And see if you can associate with this, too. I had gone through a number of jobs in not rapid succession, but more quickly than I thought because I just didn't fit in. That was on the phone with my dad and I said I'm the problem. I'll figure that out. No. No. And all three of these positions I have been the problem. If you, if someone says, hey, I'm thinking about starting my business. What's one piece of advice? Just one piece of advice that you would give them on doing that? Can I ask a question before I answer that? Go right ahead. Well, does it matter what kind of business or is it just any kind of business? Okay. If there is universal business, like I'm not going to start a nail salon. I'm probably not going to do much with nails as you can see. The fact that you close your eyes and I held my. Hands up there. Okay. That's very telling. Stop. So what's that one piece of advice that you'd be like. This is something that I messed up that you don't want to mess up. We can come back to this if we need to, you know? Just say it. You have your paperwork like a license, saying this structure. Get your order structure. Your business is important to start. If you start well, you'll finish better. You. Oh, I like that. You can. You can start jacked up. I know, like you say, you start with missing pieces, broken crayons. And you can use them, you know, broken ground steel color. Like you could do a lot with a little bit. This is the story of my life. You can do a whole lot with a little bit, but if you start well, you'll finish better. And I say that because, you know, you you get in business, you ain't thinking about the accounting and the paperwork and the financials, and you're not thinking about all of the things that it takes to actually run a business. You just want you happy to be running your business and living your dream and doing your thing and doing it well. Right? Yep. But, you know, you got to pay your taxes. Maybe, and you. Got to have your financial house in order, right? You got to separate your personal finances from your business finances. That's probably the most significant piece of information I would give somebody. Make sure you have all your documentation, make sure that you set your business up well so you don't have to try to go back and fix it later on, because that can be a very daunting and like, rigorous process. Like you don't want to have to try to fix it on the way. Make sense? You have something exciting coming up here that you're working on. And so I want to. Bring it back over. Because it's so. And to me, so to to give anyone that does not know you some background. You started the school where you're teaching now nail technicians. You started that approximately. 2000 and. Five. So we're under 20 years. But we're darn close to it. It's saying 20 years. Sounds tough, doesn't it? No. Because, so my daughter is. She'll be 21 in January. So you started this with the one year old? Well, my son just turned 22. I wrote the business plan while I was pregnant with him. And then I had him, and I started working at a beauty school. Then I got pregnant with her, and I was like, I'm never going to get this thing off the ground. I was like, what. Is actually going on? And so I already had a business plan. And then I got pregnant with baby number four, and I was like, okay, maybe I ain't doing something right, like the math and math and I don't know what's happening. And I got my I got the funding I needed and the building that I was looking at like. Right after she was born. Wow. And she's going to be, as I call her, my dream baby. Yeah. So then you've done I mean, you've taught 20. It's been over 20 years. Hundreds. Yeah. Of nail technicians. The best in the city. What's next? And give it give us the give us the brief. The the brief on this. This is I mean, it's pretty cool. This is an exclusive. Yeah. Yeah. I feel special. Well, you are special regardless, but. Right. Yeah. This in my own special way. You. Okay. What's next? Yes. Well, so we've been nailing the land, as I like to say. Love it. We nailed the land. Now we're going to nail the world. Love it. We're scaling our products division into manufacturing in-house. So we'll own all our own formulas. We will wholesale in bulk to other salons and individuals who will be wanting to, scale their own individual businesses and carry their own line of professional products. That's so I mean, you are really going holistic front to back. Yeah. I mean, you can take care of them as they start. And as they continue. Yes. So that's always been the vision, right. To take someone from a student to, licensed professional to an owner of their own, whatever. That's always been the path. That's amazing. Yes. It's pretty cool, actually. I think I'm pretty smart, but I don't know if I did this all by myself. As business owners, we've never done it all by ourselves. Yeah. But we've been out there. Yeah. I think I'm just. I'm willing to, like, take the hard blows. Like everybody. It's like everybody can't be a boxer. You gotta be willing to get hit. Maybe if you get in the ring, like, if you go fight. You gotta be willing to get hit. One of my favorite sayings lies from Mike Tyson, where he says, everyone shows up with a plan that goes out the window the first time you get punched in the face, and that's exactly how that goes. Yeah. Like, I'm willing to sacrifice what needs to be sacrificed in order for me to see my thing and the now, like in reality, like manifested. I want to turn the door and, walk in and be like, this is cool shit, like I want. Yeah. You have. Let's. This is one question that I don't ask too many people, but I want to ask this to you because you've had such a I mean, your path has been broad. I guess I would say. Right. Kind of all over the place. A little, a little. Some rough seas at times. You get the chance to say one sentence to your younger self. What is it? That's, Wow. That's really. One. Yeah. I mean, I have to ask difficult questions. Yeah. You did not think I was going to come in here and lob a bunch of softballs at you for free to knock out of the park. That is not what I do. I was looking forward to, like, you giving me this look of like you are now, like, seriously. This is. Asking me. So. Keep going. You deserve it all. Love that. Love that to me. That is an awesome, awesome, awesome place to. People feel like you don't deserve it. Know you deserve it all. Put the work and you deserve it. For the work. And you deserve it all. I love that. Thank you for coming on. I really appreciate. It. This was so much fun. It definitely was. Can I come back when I, For sure. And I invited for sure. I think the people are going to want you back. That all being said, to me, I mean, I started out by saying tenacity. There's some consistency in there. And as you guys saw, she's obviously got a big personality to back all this up that works really well and envisions just things that are so great top to bottom, front to back and gets them to work. That being said, do me all the like favors. The comments are like subscribe in that. Make sure you take care of yourself and if you can, take care of someone else too. I will see you soon.

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