From Solo to Squad: Forming a High-Performing Team in Your Self-Care Business

Facial Lounge founder Amber Johnson talks about how to hire and retain a great team that’s ready to keep growing

Maybe you’re a solo practitioner whose client list is getting too long to handle by yourself. Maybe you’re part of a small group that’s ready to start growing after striking out on its own. Either way, you may find the skills that helped you distinguish yourself as a self-care service provider don’t necessarily translate to building and retaining a great team of employees.

Want to know one of the best ways to grow as a leader? Listen to leaders who have gone through the same transition as you, who have already made some of the mistakes you may be likely to make, and who are now proud to lead growing teams full of skilled professionals who love where they work.

In our podcast, Last Client of the Day, we spoke to Facial Lounge founder and celebrity esthetician Amber Johnson. She told us how she’s grown her business to a team of 40 while ensuring each staff member has the support and structure they need to do their best work — and how she plans to keep that commitment alive even as she eyes multiple new locations.

What to consider before hiring

Your first step before hiring should be to throw out whatever image you may have of what the perfect hire looks like.

Amber’s dealt with acne all her life. She knows that even great facialists come to work with a pimple now and then. In fact, the personal experience of dealing with those kinds of issues could turn out to be your new hire’s self-care superhero origin story.

“You don’t have to have perfect skin to be an esthetician,” Amber says. “You don’t have to have the most beautiful hair to be a hairdresser. Whatever you’re doing, your experience makes you better, so don’t have this image in your head. To love and enjoy the process is the most important thing.”

Another important consideration: the strengths that have carried you through other parts of your life may be less helpful in the hiring process. Amber confessed that her tendency to see the best in everyone led to her being “fired from hiring” new Facial Lounge employees.

In other words, one of the most important qualities for a leader is to know your own strengths and weaknesses. If you have a tough time telling who will be a great fit and who’s likely to flame out, consider tagging in someone you trust for help.

Nurturing your new members

You have a growing team — now the trick is learning how to help each member fulfill their potential without neglecting the rest of your business. Start with something fundamental: communication. 

Every Facial Lounge employee completes a DiSC profile (basically a business-minded personality test) to help the rest of the team know how best to communicate with them. Amber was hesitant to use the profiles at first since she “didn’t want to put people in a box.” That changed when she realized it was really about finding the “love language of understanding people.”

DiSC profiles help Amber and the rest of the Facial Lounge team find the best way to communicate. Your business may benefit from a similarly formal approach, or smaller teams that are already tight-knit may prefer more informal methods. The important part is reducing communication trial-and-error for more team cohesion, fewer misunderstandings, and less stress or resentment.

Speaking of hot tips to ward off bad vibes, Amber says leaders who want to build better teams should start practicing active listening ASAP.

“You have to make sure to slow down, ask questions, and get curious. If something doesn’t make sense, I don’t get mad. I’m like, ‘Why did they think that way and make that decision?’ And once I get curious, I find it almost always made sense on their end. But had I walked in and gotten mad at them and assumed, which is what I used to do, I would have shut them off. I would have never found out why.”

Scaling up with less stress

Your team is growing, your employees are communicating, and the future’s looking bright. Naturally, you’ll want to keep your momentum going with further expansion: bigger teams, new roles and responsibilities, and maybe even an all-new location.

Don’t hit pause on those ambitions! But do put things in slow motion for a hot minute. Before Facial Lounge embarks on expansion plans, Amber says she’s learned to ensure her business has the right systems in place to support that growth — and to ensure everyone understands what their roles during and after the transition will be.

As responsibilities shift, more and more duties may fall on certain employees. Yet piling too many demands on at once is a surefire way to turn your most promising staff members into burnout risks.

You can reduce some of that risk by going over your new org chart with a fine-toothed comb and ensuring everybody’s on the same page. But as your business grows, you’ll inevitably have less insight into each team member’s workload and how they’re holding up. That’s why Amber says it’s mission-critical that they know they can turn to you when they need help.

Do lots of check-ins. Be active and sincere when you ask your team if they’d like you to lend a hand. Make it clear that you support employees taking mental health days when they need a moment. Honor that space, and they’ll feel secure in taking on new responsibilities — because they know they never have to go it alone.

After 30 years in the industry, Amber has found that stepping into a support role and listening to what her team needs is what leadership means to her: “A leader is someone who wants their team to win. Before, my ego was so big, and I wanted my way. Now I want my team to figure it out, and if they don’t get there, I’m there to help.”