Lori Sartain, Multi-Passionate Nail Artist & Entrepreneur, Credits Sobriety as Her Superpower

Books on abstract art at local bookstores, or colorful prints on dresses from her favorite vintage stores, are just a few of the places nail artist, Lori Sartain, draws inspiration for her extraordinary work.   

Lori is a master at her craft. In cosmetology school, while taking the nail portion of her curriculum, she knew right away that it wasn't hair she wanted to pursue, so she withdrew and headed straight to nail school. After employment in several high-end salons and spas, she snagged a salon suite in her favorite space, IMAGE Studios Foothill, where she opened Crow Nail Studio in October of 2021. 

In March of 2022 Lori had her last drink. She is on track to hit a six-figure income in 2023, and credits her sobriety for her clarity and sense of purpose. She has since hired her first employee and launched another business, SPARX Permanent Jewelry. "I am beyond amazed with how far I have come in just the last year and cannot wait to see what the future holds." 

Follow Lori on Instagram @crow_nail_studio

Transcript

Matthew Landis: 0:00

Welcome to the VIP Suite, the podcast exclusively designed for independent beauty, health and wellness professionals, brought to you by IMAGE Studios, the luxury leader in the Salon Suite industry. I'm your host Industry Expert and certified business coach, Matthew Landis. Each episode we will bring you insightful interviews with solo entrepreneurs who forge their own path to greatness. From sharing inspiring stories of triumph to practical tips and strategies for growing your client base and building your brand, this is the place to thrive and take your business to the next level. Joining me today on the VIP Suite for IMAGE Studios is Laurie Sartain, owner of Crow Nail Studio and Sparx permanent jewelry. She has been independent for five years now and has been with IMAGE Studios for a year and a half at our location. Welcome, Laurie.

Lori Sartain: 0:52

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Matthew Landis: 0:53

No, I'm so happy to have this conversation. You and I have done a little bit of coaching together and we've had some great conversation and I want to share a little bit about that with our listeners, some of your success and what got you started. The first thing I want to ask you is Tell me a little bit more about your businesses because you you do two different things within your studio. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Lori Sartain: 1:15

I started Crow Nail studio when I moved to IMAGE a year and a half ago and about a year ago I hired an employee to work when I'm not there. I'm just there Monday through Thursday, nine to five and then in October I got a crazy idea at a botox appointment. They were doing permanent jewelry and I decided that would be a great addition to nails. So I started Sparx permanent jewelry.

Matthew Landis: 1:42

That is incredible. Now I've seen on Instagram a lot of your really truly artistic and incredibly innovative nail design. So tell me a little bit more about the permanent jewelry.

Lori Sartain: 1:53

So it's a pretty new thing. I think it started at Catbird in New York about five years ago, they were the original people to come up with it, but it's just you pick either 14 karat gold filled solid gold, or sterling silver chains, and I size it i custom size it to your wrist. And then it's just a little spark flash for the weld and you have your chain on forever or as long as you want it. You can shower with it, workout with it, swim with it. And if you need an MRI or surgery, you just snip it at the jump ring and I put it back on for free.

Matthew Landis: 2:26

So cool. You have been hugely successful and I just have to applaud you for that you've achieved great success. And so I want to know what your secret sauce is. What is your secret?

Unknown: 2:38

My personal secret sauce is staying off the sauce—sober about 14 months.

Matthew Landis: 2:46

Oh, congratulations!

Lori Sartain: 2:48

I guess I never realized my potential. I've always been kind of functioning and always done well with with my now business. But as soon as I quit drinking, it just took off to a whole nother level. I didn't drink every day I would just drink on weekends. But then my clients knew never to book a Monday appointment because that was the day I would cancel from Sunday funday I took care of my mom since I was about nine years old. And she passed in October of 2021. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to quit drinking when she was sick. It was kind of what got me through everything. And so after she passed, I decided to sober up and my husband also sobered up with me. So I have his support, which has been really nice. And from there, I just was able to think clearer exercise, eat healthy and plan a future.

Matthew Landis: 3:32

Thank you for sharing. I'm really sorry about your mom.

Lori Sartain: 3:35

Yeah, it was it was hard. I'm doing good now. Therapy is a miracle.

Matthew Landis: 3:41

Hey, I've had therapy a few times I can attest to that. So you gained a lot of clarity. It sounds like and there's a lot of love in your life and a lot of support. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Unknown: 3:54

My husband has been super supportive of everything I do. He doesn't always know how it's gonna turn out. He just kind of takes my lets me take the lead. I took a risk starting the permanent jewelry it was kind of an expensive investment I had just no you can't really you have to take that risk to move up and there's only so much money I can make doing nails. And while I love it my my back my shoulder and my wrists and my neck are getting shot from 16 years of full time to 60 hours a week and so I've kind of cut back a little bit on doing nails to more of a part time and I'm doing the jewelry full time so I've been doing different events and I'm doing the Pride festival Craft Lake City did a music or music festival this last weekend it's been really successful and then I also offer private appointments in my image studio

Matthew Landis: 4:42

Sounds like you're multi passionate.

Lori Sartain: 4:45

Yeah, it's been fun. Yeah, anything creative I like.

Matthew Landis: 4:48

I think that's a pretty common I don't want to say affliction but that's a pretty common thing with a lot of creative people. We like a lot of different things and have a lot of different interests or values that Image studios are creativity, freedom, and success. And this is a perfect segue over here. It sounds like you've had a lot of success with your nail studio that has given you the freedom to explore other things. Tell me more about that.

Lori Sartain: 5:13

Well, having an employee helps. So I pay her commission, but that basically covers my rent and my product. And then I also got my education license in January of last year. And so I've been doing one on one teaching getting over or working towards getting over social anxiety so that I can hold bigger classes. But yeah, so that's brought in enough money that I I'm able to just kind of explore other options, but now it's, it's definitely it's a part of me. I mean, I've been doing it for so long. I love doing now our I love the clients that I've met along the way, I will probably always do something with nails, whether it's education or part time clientele. I'm also an affiliate for the brand blog, so polish with them a little bit too

Matthew Landis: 5:58

fabulous, where there are a couple things in there that I want to touch on. One is when you say education license, what do you mean specifically about that

Lori Sartain: 6:06

I got my instructors license, I guess is how its worded. To teach nails. I worked at the Carmel school a few years back, I kicked myself for a long time for not finishing the course I was I worked as a receptionist there. Now I just kind of have that I guess I can fall back on later if I need to. But right now I've enjoyed teaching people one on one, there's just not a ton of nail education out there. There's not a lot of continued education for it. So I think it's a good thing to have. And I love to share my knowledge with other people.

Matthew Landis: 6:38

You're an artist after my own heart I you know, I hate to be like, Oh, that's like me, but I'm multi passionate, I love education. I love training. And you know, you said nail artistry will always be a part of you, you know hairdressing I'm a hairdresser by trade will always be a part of me. So I can absolutely relate to that. You know, I think a lot of our the people listening are in the same boat as we are you mentioned the physical toll that our passion takes on our bodies. How have you dealt with that? What are some things that you have done to work through that or deal with that?

Lori Sartain: 7:12

For a lot of years I definitely undercharged or I overworked and with some of your help through private coaching, I have learned to charge my value and my worth, I didn't raise my prices as often as I should have. So right now I try and raise something or a couple of services $5 every eight to 10 months been nice, because I mean, I was working 60 hours a week for about 11 years, most of the time, six days a week. And I still felt like I never had enough money. And so as I've been able to raise my prices, I've been able to cut back my hours and buy some nice things for myself, which has been really good. Yeah, you

Matthew Landis: 7:53

Wow, that's incredible. I don't I thank you for sharing that. Because I don't think that many people really would make the correlation between their prices and their physical and mental health. So thank you for sharing that I was actually thinking about that this morning. In the shower, it just, you know, thinking about raising prices, because this is a big passion of mine is to really encourage people to charge what they're worth and to get paid what they deserve. Because even with inflation, if you haven't raised your prices in a year, your the every dollar that you're bringing in is worth less than it was last year. So in order to make up the difference, you have to work harder. Thank you so much for making that correlation because I don't think most people would that your physical and mental health, they're affected by your prices.

Lori Sartain: 8:43

Yeah, it's made a big difference. Also, this is an optional service. It's a luxury service. I'm not a doctor, you don't need to come see me. And unfortunately, with raising my prices, I have had clients obviously drop off that couldn't afford to but several of them were clients that were with me from the beginning, I was not in a good place. When I started doing nails, I was very negative, just a very bitter person. And therefore I attracted the same kind of clients. So it was kind of nice as I raise my prices, I got clients who respected me and kind of got rid of the ones that were just negative and just really emotionally difficult to deal with.

Matthew Landis: 9:23

Laurie, I love hearing this. I think this is gonna be really powerful people because so many of our professionals, they're afraid to raise their prices because they're afraid of pushback. They're afraid people are gonna leave. But that's not that's not necessarily a bad thing. No. And I

Lori Sartain: 9:37

also I Learned to Stop apologizing for it. I used to I'd have a whole breakdown on my social media, I'd have a whole excuse as to why I was raising them written out in my studio and then I would also explain it to each client during their appointment and they would laugh at me and mock me now I just say these are my prices. If this doesn't work for you, I can try and refer you to To someone else that charges a little less

Matthew Landis: 10:02

Gosh, it just seems like you're you're just really crushing it. And so yeah, I'm really glad. I'm glad I'm having this conversation because I think it's so important.

Lori Sartain: 10:09

And honestly, each time that I raised my prices, I maybe only lose one or two clients a year. And that's I'm raising them twice a year. Basically, at this point, I very rarely lose someone that I don't want to lose. I did lose a good friend the other day, but, and that's understandable. I just couldn't do the homey hookup anymore.

Matthew Landis: 10:30

That's really incredible. So you're you've lost a few clients one or two, but you're making more money. And now you have more time. That's a big factor, right? So people often don't think about time, because you can always make more money, but you cannot make more time well,

Lori Sartain: 10:45

and when you are working all the time, you're not eating right, you're not exercising, you're stressed. And so I actually with cutting back, not only am I making more money, but I'm not spending as much money on fast food. And I still feel like I'm saving money even though I'm charging more and working less.

Matthew Landis: 11:03

Let me ask you a couple more questions. So because you are such a creative person, what inspires you,

Lori Sartain: 11:10

I have followed quite a few women in my life. And I guess women owned businesses, I love to see that the company that I'm going to feel it for Alexa polish is owned by a woman named Leah and I have loved watching her grow since the beginning of starting Luxa. Polish, she treats her employees really well. But I've watched her move into a big beautiful house and I just I just envy that. I love to see Women Crush the world. My mom always worked really, really hard. But back when I was younger, no matter how hard you work, you didn't get paid much being a woman. And so I have a great work ethic thanks to her, but I wanted to take a different path than she did, I guess,

Matthew Landis: 11:48

you know, I think it's really important to have mentors and role models in our lives to help inspire us and something to aspire to, but also inspires you what else

Lori Sartain: 11:58

I love to travel. So I work hard to travel. That's kind of my own personal inspiration. I just I love to go i That's why another reason I love to work for myself. And I always I try and book my trips far enough out that I can work clients in and around doesn't always work out that way. I feel like I love to travel. So that's my biggest inspiration

Matthew Landis: 12:20

for now. Do you ever feel like creatively blocked?

Unknown: 12:24

I do. And that's usually about the time I need a vacation.

Matthew Landis: 12:29

I was just gonna ask, what do you do when you hit those roadblocks,

Lori Sartain: 12:33

I actually like to go to bookstores and look at art books, minimalist art and abstract art books to kind of get ideas or even vintage shops and check out the prints on dresses for different colors and designs. But my biggest art block usually comes with my seasonal depression. I feel like from like October through January, it happens every year. So luckily, there's so much going on. Usually clients have plenty of inspiration saved, I try not to duplicate anyone's design. But sometimes if I do get that block, I'll just take it and spin with it and give the artist the original artists credit.

Matthew Landis: 13:11

I think that's so powerful. Knowing yourself being aware of when that happens. And for me it's like I can totally relate again, recognizing Oh, why am I feeling this way? Oh, this is why I'm feeling this way what can I do about it? I think that's really powerful. Thank you I you know, I it hits me about that time of the year and I'll just share with you some of the things for me like in December for example, I don't necessarily in December I don't have a lot of creative energy. So one of the you know, I put policies in place with my clients that I said look no makeovers in December. No new clients no makeovers, it's just Greatest Hits. That's all that's all we're doing in December because I get so overloaded and I just can't keep up and so you know recognizing what works for you I think is really cool.

Lori Sartain: 14:05

I would love to just take December off every year but I would have some pretty much going on with the events and parties and Christmas itself and yeah, every we all just have so much on you know end of year and taxes start to come to mind. And so yeah, I definitely have a creative block in December. I'm like snowflakes for all everyone.

Matthew Landis: 14:30

Here's the five option let's I'm just so excited for you. I'm so so excited for all the things that you've been doing and that you've accomplished and you really inspire me. That's why I really wanted to have you here. The last thing I want to ask you is what what does the future look like for you?

Lori Sartain: 14:48

I love being an image. I go back and forth on opening a salon and just staying at image and maybe one day being able to move into a bigger room because I love everything about image I love, I love the people who work for corporate, I love the structure of everything, the design, everything is just beautiful. I've never been so happy before, I think I'm just waiting out for someone to leave in a bigger room so that I can just expand in there. Because it just is easier than I don't have to worry about anything, and possibly take on one more employee and then go from there. Because with the jewelry I don't I do take the private appointments in studio, but I do a lot of popups and events as well. So I think I can get with a little bigger space. I think I could make room for one more to my team.

Matthew Landis: 15:35

That's incredible. That's one thing you know, in the conversations that we've had with you is you have such incredible vision and focus. And that's something I really admire about you. What about for yourself? What about beyond your business? What do you see like,

Lori Sartain: 15:48

well, we're buying a house in a year. So we've started saving for that. So I look forward to that. And then I have well I love to travel. I haven't been to Europe or South Africa, which are some places I want to go. So hopefully more travel and maybe more travel and more educating I think,

Matthew Landis: 16:05

well, you are certainly a beacon of success and you embody our values, creativity, freedom and success. I mean, you have nailed all three of those and kudos to you.

Lori Sartain: 16:15

Some of that is from the help of you as well with your coaching and the videos that I've watched. Thanks for having me.

Matthew Landis: 16:21

Thanks, Lori. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The VIP Suite. I'm Matthew Landis and I hope you found the insights and inspiration share today truly valuable for your journey as a solo entrepreneur, and independent beauty, health or wellness professionals. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram and image Studios 360 And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe to the VIP suite on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an opportunity to connect with our vibrant community and to discover more incredible stories and strategies. We love hearing from our listeners. So if you have any questions, topic suggestions or want to share your own success story, feel free to reach out to me at Matthew at image studios three sixty.com Remember dear listener, you are the heartbeat of the beauty, health and wellness industry. Your dedication and passion make the world a better place one client at a time keep shining, keep growing and keep making a positive impact. We'll be back with more engaging conversations and valuable content in our next episode. Until then take care stay inspired and continue to create your own VIP suite. For more information about becoming a part of the image studios luxury Salon Suite community, visit our website at image studios three sixty.com