Today we’d like to introduce you to Anna Hirata.
Hi Anna, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Let me start with this: That was a lot of tears, despair, disappointments, and sleepless nights. In 2017 my husband (at that time), my two-year-old son, and I moved from Savannah, GA, to Jacksonville. A lot didn’t work out between us, and two months later, my husband and I split.
What I have: My son and a tremendous desire to change our lives for the better, and that is it.
At that time, I knew to have freedom and a flexible schedule, I had to have my own business, and I decided to buy an exciting business so I could be more an investor than a manager and set my schedule. How naive I was. My plan to have flexibility and freedom crashed in the first two weeks of owning the business. I worked 80 hours a week in the first six months. I came home; my son was already asleep. I woke up in the morning. He was still sleeping. If you’re a new entrepreneur, you’ll have a few unique obstacles you must overcome: you must put a lot of hours into the beginning of your journey, be patient, and have risk tolerance.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Some of my struggles were feeling anxious about our future and having trouble finding good employees. This year Spa Me is turning 5 years old. It is 5 years of hard work, challenges, tears, growths, joy, and a lot of joy of being able to affect people’s lives. Despite all challenges we had to face our profit grew year after year. I’m blessed with my support system, family, friends, amazing Spa me team, and incredibly supportive community! My team is the biggest asset of the company.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
At Spa Me, we aim to provide high-quality services and results at an affordable price. Its well documented that frequent massage is truly an investment in your health, and clearer skin is a natural result of professional exfoliating regularly.
We offer a wide variety of services:
- Therapeutic massages
- Lymphatic drainage massage
- Clinical facials
- Chemical peels
- Micro-needling
- Microdermabrasion
- Dermaplaning
- Waxing
- Permanent makeup, and more.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
Lessons I’ve learned during Covid:
Lesson #1: You aren’t in control of everything. Yes, it’s your business, but you can’t be in full control. Everything can change quickly.
Lesson #2: Create more revenue streams. I had to be creative and find new ways to generate income during the lockdown. I came up with Spa Me skin care subscription boxes.
I’ve learned a lesson if you would like to accomplish great things in your life, you have to be open to taking risks. You could achieve more than you could ever imagine. It could be easy to give up on your dream because of the fear of failure. I hope small businesses worldwide will take what they learned from 2020 and better equip themselves to deal with future scenarios.
Pricing:
- 50 min massage $79
- 85 min massage $109
- clinical facial $99
- microneedling $150
- brow permanent makeup $400
Contact Info:
- Website: https://spameonline.com/
- Instagram: www.intagram/spame_stjohns
Image Credits
my personal pictures credit goes to martynenko.photo ( at the beach) my work pictures credit goes to oxanaroxphotography
