SMME EP438 Building a Million-Dollar Waxing Brand with Integrity and Impact: Candice Johnson’s Story
10:02AM Jun 11, 2025
Speakers:
Daniela Woerner
Keywords:
Spa marketing
spa ownership
business growth
leadership skills
esthetic professionals
million-dollar spa
franchising
customer experience
employee pay
business profitability
COVID impact
business systems
entrepreneurial journey
community service
personal goals.
Welcome to spa marketing Made Easy A podcast for spa owners who want to step up their leadership and business skills and step into the role as spa CEO. I'm your host. Daniela Woerner, CEO of Addo esthetics and founder of the growth factor Framework Program, where we teach, coach and guide spa owners in scaling their spas to the next level of growth and unlocking freedom in their life and their business. I'm so glad you're here now. Let's dive into the show. Hey, Daniela, here and welcome to the spa marketing Made Easy podcast. Now, if this is your first time tuning in, welcome. I'm so happy to have you here. Our primary focus for the show is to provide inspiration, education and bring massive value for esthetic professionals who want to build a profitable, systemized spa that generates a minimum personal income, your take home pay minimum of 100k per year without sacrificing family Time are burning out. That is such an important caveat. Now in today's episode, it's going to fall into the inspiration category with, of course, some education sprinkled in. I'm interviewing Candice, who's a longtime spa marketing Made Easy listener and a million dollar spa owner. She's sharing her behind the scenes story of how she built such a successful brand, what she visualizes for her future, and what advice she has for spa owners who want to build their own million dollar business. It was such a fun interview for me, because I just love being able to connect with our listeners on a whole new level. And of course, I was inspired by candace's spirit and her drive. Okay, I'm gonna just do a little snippet of her bio, and then we're gonna jump into her story so you can hear it from herself. Okay, so a proud Dallas native, Candice became a licensed esthetician in 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia, with a diverse background and specialty in waxing and skincare. She held roles as a marketing manager, corporate trainer and location manager until 2015 Candace, then I'm going to just summarize this part for you here, because I don't want to give away the whole story, because she goes into it into the in the interview. But essentially, after 2015 she launched her business candy skin in 2016 had a whole rapid influx of clients. She transitioned herself out of the room and into the CEO position where she was able to maintain over a million in sales and has grown her team to 20 employees, all while staying committed to her mission of empowering and elevating skincare experiences for all so her goal, as you're gonna hear in this episode, the next stage for her, is franchising candy skin. So super excited about that, and I don't wanna give away everything, so I'm gonna leave it just as there. But incredible, right? I love sharing stories of incredible women that are doing big things, because it's just even more proof that your dreams and your desires are possible. Okay, without further ado, let's go ahead and play that interview. All right. Candace, welcome to the spa. Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I'm so excited to share your story. I was so you know, when we get pitched, because you had reached out to us and said, I'd love to share my story. 99% of those pitches we turned down. We really do, and Christy, Christy handles all of them, and it's, it's because for me, it's very, very important on this show that we spread positivity and that we spread education for esthetic professionals in our industry. And those are two really, really important pieces. And when you sent your pitch over. It was so just normal. You were such a normal person in the good way, not like, here's this like salesy thing of how I do X, Y, Z. It was just like a regular person. And I loved that. And your story, you know, is incredible and very valuable, I think, for people to see and be inspired. So why don't you take us back and kind of let us know how your journey in esthetics started? Okay, you know what was your vision? And then we'll kind of walk through to what you've created today. Okay,
well, thank you for having me number one. I started my journey as an Aesthetician 1516, years ago in Atlanta, Georgia. My first time hearing about esthetics was when I lived in Florida and I was picked up by a modeling agency, and I was like, What is esthetic. So I've never even heard of this before, and they explained it, and I was like, oh, you know what, I'm kind of interested in this. So once I got to Atlanta, I went to school, and immediately after graduation, I went to, want to, kind of wanted to be more the medical esthetics industry. I really didn't get any great feedback from that, or any opportunities from that. So I was like, You know what? I really loved waxing, so let me kind of go down that avenue. So I worked in the waxing industry for some of the most major companies that are out there. I did some skincare as well, too for a private company. And I was like, you know, one day I'm gonna have my own business, I decided to learn all the ins and outs. I was management, I was marketing coordinator, I was top in sales, and I was like, You know what? I'm going to use all these tools to and apply them to my own business one day. Fast forward. I moved back home to Dallas, and I was working for a major company, and I ended up getting let go. And I was like, Well, what am I going to do? I don't know what I'm going to do. And I was like, You know what? I need to just follow through what my dream was and what I wanted to accomplish. And that was opening up my own business. It
was like the universe's plan to say, yeah, yeah, it's your time exactly when you went to esthetic school. This is something I always am really interested in, because I feel like one of the bits of feedback that I get is that, well, they don't, they don't prepare you for business, but it's not their job to prepare us for business. It's their job to teach us how to do a facial exactly just that so many providers go into starting their own business as a solo or whatever that may look like. Before you went to esthetic school, was there any part of you that felt like you were going to be an entrepreneur or start your own business. Did you have that entrepreneurial spark?
Yes, I did. My previous marriage, my he was into business. He was an entrepreneur, so I definitely worked with him in that aspect. And I was like, You know what? This is behind the scenes? Yeah. I was like, this is something I think I would definitely want to do in the future. I didn't really know exactly what it was going to be, what industry it was going to be in, but I knew at some point I was going to be doing something for myself.
Yes, and so then you go to esthetic school, you're getting the experience. How long are you working for these bigger companies?
Actually, I worked for about five to six years, just so you
really, I always recommend that new providers, just out of school, they work for about three years before they go on their own. Yes, there's so much. I mean, when you go into entrepreneurship, you don't know what. You don't know. There's so much that you're like, Okay, this is a whole other thing. So really understanding your craft and being a master at your craft is going to be it's going to just make your life so much easier than definitely trying to run the business and trying to figure out what it is that you're actually doing to be able to get people results.
Yes, yes. I totally agree with that. And that's exactly the mindset that I had. I was like, You know what? In order for me to learn and know how to run my business, I have to work all aspects of it in someone else's business. So that's where the management and the lead, the training and all that type of stuff came into play. I did all that intentionally just to make sure that I had some of the tools. Of course, it wasn't going to be perfect, but some of the tools in order to be able to effectively run my business, that's
very strategic thinking. So okay, so you open your spa, tell me about that season. What was that like? What were, what did you think it was gonna be, compared to what it actually turned out to be?
Well, of course, in my mind, I am, I'm a positive thinker. So I was always like, you know what? I'm gonna, you know, make all this money. I'm gonna do so great, I'm gonna have all these clients, and essentially starting out that wasn't the case, right? So I had a plan. And, you know, some days I did zero, and then some days I did only $200 and then eventually it just started to build over time, and it was like, Okay, I hit my first $500 in a day, that was a win. Oh, I hit my next I hit my first 1000 in a day. That's a win. And then it just got higher and higher, and it just drove me even more to keep pushing. And eventually I had to, within six months, actually, I had to find another facility to be in. Be. Because I needed help at that point. So I went very hard with it.
It's, it is a skill to be able to stay positive when there's $0 coming in for the day. Yes, it's, you know, we were talking about that right before we started recording. Is like you can either go in this downward spiral and think about all the things that are wrong, or you can stay positive, yes, and but it's, it's it's hard, it's hard to stay positive and not be fearful of, like, Hey, I've got money invested in this. I've got time invested in this. This this is how I'm going to put food on the table. You know, if you have kids that you're trying to take care of, I mean, there's, there's a lot of aspects of just life that goes into that. So what do you do to stay positive? Even in were you in business during COVID? Yes. Okay. So during COVID, what were you doing? How were you staying positive during that time? Well,
by that time, I had a staff, so we tried to prepare, you know, by making sure that they were okay. First, we did understand that the government was going to be giving out, you know, money for them to sustain their life to a certain extent, but we kind of went that extra mile. We also provided things for the clients, you know, such as retail, to make sure that they kept up on their daily regime. For skin care, some of our clients actually, surprisingly, and I'm so blessed, they bought packages during that season because they felt like they wanted to contribute to our business. You know, some businesses didn't survive during that time, but I'm a faith based person, so I definitely stayed positive by just praying and focusing and you know, I definitely took the time out to really find ways to improve so, you know, having better systems when we returned, you know, studying different things, you know, that we could implement into the business that made the customer experience better and also our team's experience better with within the candy skin brand. And that's what I did during COVID. I kept my focus on how to be better.
I love that I was I had a baby, my son with baby and COVID Baby, he was born April of 2020, and so I was like, very pregnant leading up to it, and then I was like, getting ready to go on maternity. And then every spa in the world shut down. But you know what it was, we made it work. And for us, we actually doubled that year. And a lot of, I know a lot of businesses doubled that year, and you look back and it's like, wow, that was one of the most like, I don't know how I did that. I don't know what I was doing every single day, and how like, for anyone that has children and understands that, like, the first three months of insanity with a newborn of like, zero sleep. And if you're a mom that chooses to nurse and goes through the nursing, and even if you're doing formula, still feeding in the middle of the night. I mean, there's so many demands based on, you know, it was just a crazy time period, but it was, I feel my kind of approach now is like, if we made it through COVID, we can make it through anything. Yes,
most definitely.
Okay. So tell us about your business now, like, Who are you serving? Tell me about your team. What is your like, your brand that you have
so candy skin is a waxing and skincare brand. We are known for our waxing. That is what we do. That's what we provide. Our typical customer is your 35 to maybe 55 year old woman, working, woman in the workforce. And we have been a company. We've been open almost 10 years now, and we have grown so much. We have I have about 16 employees now. Over the course of the 10 years, we've become a million dollar store, and we're just big on serving our community. We're big on involving our team and serving the community as well and making sure that they're good. I've been always, especially with working in the industry before, you know, I've really always been about making sure that my employees could actually make a pay that was reasonable, where they felt like they could be stable in their life. Mm. Mm hmm, because I didn't really experience that, I felt like I had to work like above and beyond in order to receive a certain amount of pay when I was in the industry. So I wanted to actually, you know, turn that around for my group of employees that were coming through me. So we pay commission, and they do very, very well. They're able to, you know, do the things that maybe a normal person, you know, with some of the other types of pay structures wouldn't be able to do, and that makes me happy, that in that I just get overjoyed by seeing them being able to provide for their families and take vacations and all that type of stuff without having to overwork in a sense, you know, the hustle and bustle. I just wanted to make sure that they were comfortable. So that's where we are. Now, how
do you when you're looking at so zoom back to saying, Okay, you thought that you wanted to get into medical and then you decided, no, that's not the path that I'm being taken on, like waxing. How much of the the really looking at the numbers and understanding the profitability that is present with waxing, versus focusing on skincare, which can also be very profitable, but if you can do a 15 minute Brazilian and
yes, yes,
yes, so to and to be able to pay your staff. Now I, I am personally a believer that your payroll should never go over 40% to be able to operate a healthy business and be able to cover overhead and taxes, and for you to be able to compensate yourself and all of those things, but getting you know like you number one, have to be comfortable with numbers to be able to do that. So I want to hear about your relationship with numbers and like, Were you looking at profitability before you started your business?
No, I was be honest with you. I was horrible at numbers.
Okay, but you've built a million dollar spa. Yes, I was horrible
at numbers. How did you learn honestly my husband, who is now our CFO, he's amazing with numbers. Okay, so he actually jumped in. And I'll tell this quick story, because this, I believe this will help someone. I actually ended up one of my payrolls. I did. I did not have the money to pay, and I was freaking out, and I was like, What am I going to do? And he just jumped in. He saw that I was kind of drowning, in a sense, and it's comes from me not knowing my numbers, not understanding numbers. He jumped in, and he started to kind of teach me, like, this is everything you just said. You know, 40% of your payroll. This is what you want to be doing. And, you know, making sure your inventory costs are down. What are you paying your people? All these things are important, you know, I just wanted to make sure that they were making money. So I was at the high end of what I was paying them, because I wanted them to stay and, you know, all that, all those things. And so, yeah, I had a horrible time with numbers to start off with, but over the years, I've learned, and we're in a totally better place, as you stated, a million dollar store, and I've been able to make sure we, you know, stay each year, just climbing, climbing to a new number.
Yeah, and I there's a couple of things there. I love talking about numbers, and I love women getting comfortable talking about numbers, because so often we go into, well, I love this treatment, or I love this thing, and it's like, it's we want you to love what you're doing, but you're also running a business that you need to be able to pay yourself and pay your staff. So understanding profitability is hugely important, and not being afraid. You know, I've worked with spa owners that it's like October, and they're just looking at their numbers for the year for the first time. And because it's it's fear, it's fear, it's shame, it's a variety of different things. And so there's that piece, and there's also the people pleasing piece, where I don't want to upset my staff, they're going to leave me if I don't pay them this amount of money, everything's going to crumble if that one person goes I think these are all like normal feelings that entrepreneurs go through, but they don't have the words to put to them, because it it when you say it out loud, it almost sounds silly, like it doesn't sound rational, but that's what's actually going on if we start to talk about it more, you know? And and letting getting comfortable around understanding profit margin payroll. Hey, I want to pay you as much as I possibly can, but here's my limit, 40% payroll. I can get you a raise as long as our revenue goes up to that point, or I can get you or whatever. But here's the limiting criteria, here's the payroll band, and here's what I need from you, you know, and really teaching them to get involved as well. And I, I'm curious. You know, in the past couple of years, we've had some inflation, and, you know, different issues like that, that our employees are feeling like they're getting paid less and less because of inflation. Yet our business costs are going up and up, so the margins are, you know, far less there was, there was something I did a training last summer, and Bankrate had released this report that said, like it feels like, in terms of our dollars, that prices of everything have gone up 20% and so how do you work through that with your team? Sounds like you have a great leadership and great connection with your team. But there's also these other pieces going on. So are you transparent with them about the numbers, like, how are you having that culture within your spa? Yes, we
have created a space where we are extremely transparent with our employees. A lot of sometimes we actually ask them for their, you know, opinion, you know, what they may think about. You know, some of the things that are going on, we do create a platform to where they can, you know, come to us about some of their concerns, especially when it comes to, you know, what's going on in the economy, because some of them don't fully understand how business works, so we don't mind explaining that to them. And one of those things is, you know, that they feel like that they get paid less because of what's happening on the back end with the economy and the rising prices. And so we have, we just continuously encourage them. Number one, we went up on our prices because, of course, if our back end has gone up on, you know, how much things cost for us to purchase, then we have to then raise our prices up, which helped our team as well, too, because now they can make, you know, more money off of that. It's the same, you know, percentage, but they can make more money, in a sense, off of that particular those services and we've provided them with things like tippy. We've been on that for almost a year now. I love tippy. Yes, it's trying to trying to help them to feel like they're getting the bulk of their money and that we are as a company, are trying to provide things for them that can help them in that area. Today, I actually just spoke with someone for the child care tax credit, just, you know, trying to provide child care for some of my staff at a lower cost, so they don't have to pay out as much I did that call today, and those are the things that we try to do on a regular basis to kind of help shrink things for them, so they feel like we actually care, you know, and then we are listening to them, and then we do understand what's going on here in the world. And this is how we can help help you with your concerns.
So what was the feeling for you when you crossed the million dollar mark? Did you feel exactly the same? Or did you,
you know what? Um, yes, I felt great, but it literally, and I'm being totally honest, it lasted for a moment. Yeah, and I was ready to hit the next mark.
Was your next mark? 10 million or 2 million?
Honestly? Yeah, 2,000,002
okay. For some reason, after I crossed the $1 million mark, I was like, All right, 10.
Well, in my in my mind, of course, I would want to go there. But in my mind, I was like, okay, realistically, let's to me. In my mind, I'm like, Okay, let's get to 2 million next.
That's that's probably a better goal.
Yes, we want to be at 10 million. But okay, let's get to the let's get to the just the next mark. 2 million sounds great.
What do you visualize yourself? Where do you visualize yourself in the next five years, like, how, how are you feeling? What are you? You know, do you visualize that far out? And how are you? Yes, okay, you're saying, Okay, here's where I want to be, and here's the steps that I'm going to take to
get there. Again. Surprisingly, that we're speaking about this, I had another call. Today, and it was with the women's Franchise Association, I am trying to move into that realm of franchising. We know that our concept works, and you know it's definitely franchisable our business, and we want to make sure that we're able to expand so that those are the next steps for candy skin, I understand that it takes some time, and I'm learning everything the business structures and all the business structure for sure, learning everything I need to learn about it. I'm actually going to be a moderator at an upcoming event for the women's Franchise Association so that I can learn more about it and get the connections that I need to have in order to, you know, get started with that process. And that's definitely what I see myself doing in five years, as well as, you know, on a personal side, traveling and more investments and just, yeah, enjoying life and taking care of my family.
Where would you go? What's on your list?
Oh, wow. I definitely want to go to, I know there's, it's very broad, but I would love to go to some part of Africa. That's one of the things on my list. Greece is actually on my list for next year. Oh, good. And so those, yeah, those are two places that I'm looking forward to traveling to, and I just came from Dr. I've been there a few times, but just came from Dr on Sunday. So just putting more travel into my life and enjoying life and seeing things and seeing the world, experiencing, yeah, because I didn't do that, you know, for my first, like, eight years of business, I didn't go anywhere. And now I'm like, You know what? It's time to start living.
Yes, yeah, time to start living. I love that. All right. So what advice do you have for the business owner, the esthetic professional right now that is feeling overwhelmed, that's feeling mom guilt for working, that's wondering if this is even going to work, because she's a pen and paper kind of gal, and she doesn't know her numbers, but She's driven and she's smart and she's an action taker, but it's hard spot like, what advice do you tell that person?
I would say to definitely be open to advice. Always seek advice from those who are doing you know in a better position than you are. Don't be afraid that you know or feel inadequate that your numbers aren't there. Take the advice, use it and apply it to your business so that you can start to see the changes that you want. That's the main advice that I would see. Whether it's a mentor or I haven't even gotten advice from my bank, my bank that I bank with, you know what I mean, on how to, like, improve my credit at the time, it wasn't great. I didn't really know what to do. I was afraid. But, you know, once they gave me the information on how to keep moving forward, I applied it and it worked. And that's that's something that, that, that I would definitely give them advice on, is just to, don't be afraid to talk to someone. Outsource information, Google, study everything you know, chat, GPT right now you know everything. Just learn what it is to help you prepare your business and just keep moving forward and stay positive as you're doing it.
I think people are afraid to ask because of that feeling of inadequacy, and really like when you get asked a question, if someone's coming to you, you're not going to judge that person. You're going to just help them in the best way that you can, you know? So it's great advice. Where can people find you? Follow you, stay in touch with you.
All right. So you can follow candy skin at Candy skin spells, c, a, n, d, e, s, k, I, N, you can also follow me at Candice M Johnson, I'm on all platforms. The same thing with candy skin. We're on all platforms, Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all the things. We're on everything, and we're right here in DeSoto and serving the DFW Metroplex. We have clients that come from everywhere. So all all are welcome, wonderful.
I love that. Well, thank you so much. We're going to include those links below this episode. I appreciate you sharing your story and your positivity, and I can't wait to see what comes next for
you. Yes, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time, and I look forward to speaking with you again. You.