Good Neighbor Podcast for the Greater Chattanooga Region

Becky Quimby: From Adversity to Empowerment in the Beauty Industry

August 23, 2024 • Scott Howell

Share episode

What if a beauty salon could be more than just a place to get a haircut? Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as we sit down with Becky Quimby, the powerhouse behind Luxury Arts Beautique in Cleveland, Tennessee. Becky opens up about her inspiring journey from a difficult upbringing to becoming a successful business owner, all while juggling a bustling family life with her husband Daniel Graham, owner of the Chop Shop barber shops, and their four energetic kids. Discover the story behind the unique name "Beautique" and how it encapsulates a wide range of beauty services, including haircuts, colors, spa treatments, facials, brows, waxings, and eyelash extensions. Plus, Becky shares the convenience of their online gift cards, perfect for occasions like Mother's Day.

Listen in as Becky sheds light on how her business is built on the principles of empowerment and community support. Her vision extends far beyond providing beauty services; she aims to create a sanctuary that uplifts and supports everyone who walks through its doors. This episode also underscores the importance of supporting local businesses in Cleveland and the greater Chattanooga area. We express our heartfelt gratitude for your continuous support and remind you that you can nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the Good Neighbor Podcast by visiting GNPCleveland.com. This is Scott Howell, urging you to make today truly remarkable.

Good Neighbor Podcast Show Media Accounts
Good Neighbor Podcast
https://www.friendsandneighborsgroup.com

https://www.facebook.com/FriendsNeighborsGroup
https://www.instagram.com/friendsneighborsgroup (COMING SOON) https://www.pinterest.com/FriendsNeighborsGroup (COMING SOON)
https://twitter.com/f_n_group
https://www.linkedin.com/company/friendsneighborsgroup/about/
https://www.tiktok.com/@friendsneighborsgroup (COMING SOON)
https://www.youtube.com/@FriendsNeighborsGroup
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/good-neighbor-podcast-for-the-greater-chattanooga-region/id1739303534
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-good-neighbor-podcast-for-156268559/
https://open.spotify.com/show/5YYkezp741rmU6Bmjzme5A
...

Speaker 1:

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Scott Howell.

Speaker 2:

Hello good neighbors, and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Friends and Neighbors Group of Cleveland and the greater Chattanooga area. Again, my name is Scott Howell and I'm your host. You know, for all you first-time listeners out there, the purpose of the Good Neighbor podcast is to bring awareness to the residents of our communities regarding locally owned and or operated businesses in Cleveland, chattanooga and the surrounding areas. Small local businesses are the backbone of our communities and they need our support. And joining me today is our good neighbor Becky Quimby of Luxury Arts Beautique. So thank you for being our special guest today on the podcast, becky.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Looking forward to it. You know, I want to learn more about Luxury Arts, beautique and let our listeners know what you offer them out there. But before we jump into that, let me just ask a quick question Would you like to share anything with us about yourself and your family?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so I'm a mom here in Cleveland, tennessee. My husband he's a barber and we have four kids so we stay very busy but we're always involved in our kids' sports and school and things like that and you know we're all the time just doing things in town and enjoying our little family and enjoying all the things that Cleveland has to offer and local businesses. So I was really happy that you asked me to be on here, because I think what you're doing is so great for small businesses.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, thanks for the shout out. We really enjoy it. It's our opportunity to give back to the community that's been so good to us and we sure enjoy doing it. And it sounds like your husband's a barber. You're a stylist, so y'all are keeping the hair in the family, right? Yeah, it just kind of happened that way, so does he work in the same place you do, or does he have a separate place?

Speaker 3:

He does. He owns his own barber shop, the Chop Shop. He owns both of those locations in Cleveland and you know people always ask why don't we work together? And I'm like, as much as I love him, I don't know that I want to see him 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So he has his building and I have mine and it's great, and we see each other on our lunch breaks and we see each other at home and that's good enough for us.

Speaker 2:

So there you go. I love it. Becky, just be blunt, honest, right. What's his name?

Speaker 3:

his name is Daniel Graham.

Speaker 2:

Daniel, sorry, buddy, but she just told it like it was. It's true I.

Speaker 3:

I love him.

Speaker 2:

He's great, but I'm sure he probably feels the same way, sometimes, things apart, and makes things a little bit better. Uh, and you said you got kids, so I know that you got kids involved in sports. You don't have much free time, do you?

Speaker 3:

That's, that's for sure, on our days off we're, you know, golfing or we're doing cheerleading or you know all kinds of things.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome, but tell us about Luxury Arts Boutique. And first of all, I want you to start off and tell me about that the name Boutique How'd you come up with that?

Speaker 3:

Well, I was looking when I had to name it, I was like you know, I don't want to run into a trademark issue. It has happened with small businesses you get a change that comes in and sues you for your name. So I was like I need to come up with something unique, but something that's not going to get me in trouble and still doesn can put themselves in a box when they say you know hair, nail and then you don't know that they do all these other services.

Speaker 3:

So I wanted something that you know didn't put me in a box, but really got the point across that we do. You know, beauty, beauty, salon thing, all the things. So boutique instead of boutique because we're all about the beauty things. So boutique instead of boutique because we're all about the beauty things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love it. When I was talking to Becky before we started recording, I mispronounced it. She corrected me and then I looked at the name it's B-E-A-U-T, just like you're going to say beauty, right? B-e-a-u-t-t-i-q-e. So it's not boutique, like I mispronounced it, it's beautique. So I love it.

Speaker 3:

I think it's awesome I tell people just to call it the lab, because lab that makes it simple, it's lab.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I love that even better.

Speaker 3:

That's awesome yeah, I try to make it easy, butury arts boutique at the lab.

Speaker 2:

I love it. Well, becky, you said you didn't want to put yourself in the box, so kind of share with our listeners all that you do offer.

Speaker 3:

So we offer hair services. We have stylists that do haircuts, colors, most of the hair services trims, color corrections, shampoo, style. We also offer spa services. That includes facials. We do brows, we do waxings, eyelash extensions. So we definitely have a wide range of beauty services that we offer.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it sounds like it. Wow, a lady can come in there and pretty much get all those those basic needs taken care of.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, All the things, and mother's day is coming up, so it's a an easy gift card.

Speaker 2:

There you go, Do you? So you do sell gift cards.

Speaker 3:

We do. We have online gift cards, which makes it really simple because you can just go onto our website and you can actually create your own custom little card.

Speaker 3:

and then you can just go onto our website and you can actually create your own custom little card and then you can email it to whoever you want to send it to. You can choose which date it gets sent to them and everything. You can pick your amount. It's really simple. But we also do have gift certificates at our shop if you actually want a piece of paper in hand, because I know some people are not great with technology, so we do have them at our shop as well.

Speaker 2:

some people are not great with technology, so we do have them at our shop as well. Well, there you go, all the listeners out there. If your mom needs a mini makeover, your wife or mother well, I said mom, mother, but your wife or your grandmother, whoever needs a mini makeover get on the website. She'll tell you about that in a minute. Get on the website and buy a gift card and send it to them. Surprise them for Mother's Day. That's a great idea. Tell us about your journey. I'm sure when you're a little girl, nobody come out of the womb deciding what they're going to do for a career, right? So at what point in time did you decide this is what you wanted to do?

Speaker 3:

I kind of got into it because of my husband. It was kind of an accident, but I saw he was a barber before I had ever even started doing this and he loved it. He was super passionate about it. He made great money. I was like you know what? That can't be that hard, let me try this. But I started looking into being a hairstylist and I kind of realized that it really just wasn't for me, kind of realized that it really just wasn't for me so.

Speaker 3:

I actually don't do hair, I do the spa side of things and I thought you know I could be a makeup artist. Makeup artists don't actually have to have a license, so I thought I was going to take the easy way out yeah, you don't technically need a license to be a makeup artist. So I was like I'm just going to watch YouTube videos and become this makeup artist. And my husband now he's like no, you should really look into going to school and getting a license.

Speaker 3:

and so I went to school to technically be a makeup artist, but they teach you skincare and they teach you spa training, how to take care of people's skin and I fell in love with it because my first client that I ever got, she had cystic acne and we did 11 treatments on her and we took her from point A to just a completely different.

Speaker 3:

You know it changed her quality of life.

Speaker 3:

She was so grateful that we had really changed the way she lived her life because before she couldn't go out without makeup on, she felt very insecure because of her cystic acne. And you know that was the moment I was like, wow, I actually get to help people feel good about themselves and that is the greatest gift. You know, not only do I get to make people feel good about themselves, but I get to make money doing it. And so it was kind of like an aha moment for me and I was like you know what? I'm going to open my own salon so I can support other women owning their own businesses and making other women feel beautiful. And as a mom of four kids, like I know what it's like to you know, kind of put yourself on the back burner and I'm like if I can bring that you know spark back to you know, other women and and other men too I mean men need to take care of their skin just as much as women do, but just to make people feel good about themselves.

Speaker 2:

Because that's a good tagline when you look good, you feel good.

Speaker 3:

That's a good tagline.

Speaker 2:

You know, you mentioned, you know support other ladies in business. A lot of people probably don't know, but a lot of times in a salon, a boutique, the people are, even though they work in this building and you're the owner of the business. They're kind of self-employed, right.

Speaker 3:

Right yeah, they can offer. Right yeah, they can offer their own products. They can sell their own products. They can build their own brand. It's still under our shop, so I still pay the overhead. But they really get to run their own business. They get to set their own schedules. They get to spend their time with their families that they want to spend. They don't have to, you know, request, you know, have a crazy schedule made by somebody who doesn't know what's going on in their life. They get to really, you know, choose their hours, choose their clients and do things the way they want to do them. So it makes it very convenient for the people that work there.

Speaker 2:

So you set up a place. Not only can people you know, I guess, the majority of your business- is probably ladies.

Speaker 2:

So you know, ladies can come in, gentlemen too, as you said can come in and get you know the services that you provide, but also you've also created an atmosphere where maybe other women whether they're single mothers or not they can come in and have a place to set up their own schedule so they can be there for their kids when they need them sporting events or school activities or whatever but at the same time, you provided a place that they can provide for their own families, and so I think that's awesome. Becky, congratulations, great kudos to you.

Speaker 3:

As a mom of four, I know how important it is. I think that's what I struggled the most when I worked, you know, in corporate America was not being able to, you know, do the things that I wanted with my family, and so yeah being able to provide that to other people too. Is, you know, such a great?

Speaker 2:

gift to kind of set her own schedule, especially when you're a mom. I mean, come on, especially when you're a mom. So you got all these kids. You told me about your four children. They're in sports, so I'm not even going to ask you to answer a question. What do you do for fun? Because everything's wrapped up around your kids, right? You said you're on the golf courses.

Speaker 3:

Are your kids involved in golf too? Yeah, my oldest son. He is on the golf team at. Lake Forest so we do a lot of golf with him and then the other kids. They like to go to top golf, so we try to make it a family affair.

Speaker 2:

You tell him, when he becomes the next Jack Nicholson, he better not forget his mom. Right, yeah, exactly yeah, and he better not forget his mom, right, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, you know, becky, as a fellow business owner and business person entrepreneur for most of my adult life a lot of times there's hardships and challenges that we go through that a lot of people don't know about. You know, don't know behind the scenes. Can you describe a hardship or maybe life challenge that you went through and since you've rose above it, looking back, you can now say you know, hey, I'm better and stronger for that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think for me. I know, me and my husband, we both kind of grew up in poverty. So, you know, raising kids and owning your own business, I think, having grown up in a situation where you know there were times where we didn't know where our next meal was coming from, we didn't know if we were going to have a place to stay that night. Um, and then you know, now, being an adult and raising kids and trying to, you know, build a business and know that my kids will never have to, you know, know what that's like and being able to provide a life for my kids to where you know they don't have to worry about grabbing what they can.

Speaker 3:

And then, you know, trying to find a place to sleep that night and just overcoming the things that I grew up with and being able to, you know, use that as motivation to pursue my dreams so that my kids can have. You know, the life that I grew up with and being able to, you know, use that as motivation to pursue my dreams so that my kids can have. You know the life that I couldn't have growing up is is probably one of the biggest things that I've definitely overcome and proud that, you know I can say, you know I did this for my kids, even though I went through, you know, growing up. That way I was able to pull myself up and do it, you know, with my husband and being able to just overcome, you know that growing up in poverty and being able to own our own businesses and give a life for our kids.

Speaker 2:

Congratulations, I mean, all the listeners out there. Did y'all hear the change in her tone of voice when she started telling that? I mean, that means everything to her, and that's the type of people I enjoy doing business with is the people that can really appreciate me as a customer, as a client, because they know where they came from and they want to provide the best quality products and service they can, so that not only I'll keep coming back and you'll keep coming back, but also that they can continue providing for their family, and that's amazing. I love that. Thank you for sharing that with us. I know that's probably not easy I saw you peer up a little bit there and it's but it's okay. Thank you for sharing that with us. Getting back to the business now, if there was one thing that you wish our listeners knew about your business, your company, that they probably wouldn't know unless you told them, and so you had a chance to just shout it from the rooftops, like you are today, what would that be?

Speaker 3:

I think the biggest part about our business is because I did grow up in poverty. You know we're all about giving back. I try to have other business owners inside my business who own, you know, who make cups, who have boutiques, who sell different things. I want to see everyone win and that's like the biggest goal for my business is. Yeah, you know I have to feed my family with the money it makes, but at the end of the day, I just want everyone to win. We want to see everyone succeed in our business. Our business is really about helping others and that's why I got into it is because I wanted other people to feel good about themselves. So I think, you know, you see a beauty salon and you just think, oh, someone's trying to, you know, cut hair to make money. But it's really more than that for us. For us, it's all about, you know, helping other people succeed, making other people feel good about themselves and giving back to the community.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's, that's a. You know it's a blessing to know that there's people out there it would be so easy for you, just to, you know, want to take care of just you and your own, and nobody would blame you for that. Nobody would ever blame you for that, cause that's what. That's what your business for, your family comes first. But just to know that you care about other people and trying to help them succeed, giving them a place that they can succeed, to that that's. That was a wonderful answer. Couldn't given a better answer to that question, and you'll know this is rehearsed. I don't ask her to write down your answers and make sure all this is coming just from her heart, and so I really appreciate that.

Speaker 3:

I really do. I think it's important, especially, you know, growing up in poverty, you know you can see where opportunities are lacking. So being able to give others those opportunities that you didn't have growing up is such a huge blessing that I've been able to come to this point, to be able to do something like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a lady in Udawah that I interviewed. She owns a floral shop and she was the same way. She's trying to give a platform. She not only has a floral shop, her business but she tries to offer shelf space for other people to bring their products and things in so that they can get recognition. They can be, you know. So I just applaud you for that, becky. It's. That's wonderful, that is amazing. So, online or offline, how can somebody find out more about Luxury Arts, beautique, the lab? I can't help it. I like that, the lab. How can people find out more about that and also how to contact you to take advantage of your services?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we are on Facebook and we are on Instagram. You can just look up the Luxury Arts Boutique and you'll find us pretty easily. We keep a lot of updates on there pretty regularly. We also have our website, theluxuryartsboutiquecom. You can find the link on our Facebook page and Instagram page or you can come by. There's actually a carnival in our parking lot right now. Yeah, there really is. So come get some cotton candy and come see us. We are in the Starview Plaza. It's kind of across from the Village Green Plaza. It's on 204 Grove Avenue, right next to the.

Speaker 3:

Family Dollar, so it's a pretty big parking lot. We've got pretty good parking when there's not a carnival in the parking lot, but we're still pretty easy to get to. But you can always come by and check us out. We've got plenty of cards and things like that that you can take home with you and look at our website. So all kinds of different ways to get a hold of us.

Speaker 2:

Did you give your phone number or did I miss that?

Speaker 3:

I did not, and I don't know it right off the top of my head, which is probably really bad. So let me.

Speaker 2:

Well, you never call yourself, right? I mean, you know, that's what I tell people. What's your phone number? I know my phone number. I never call myself.

Speaker 3:

No phone number. I know my phone number. I never call myself. No, my husband. He's had the same phone number for as long as we've been together, but I'm like I have it saved. Why would I memorize it?

Speaker 2:

I totally understand. Well, they'll find it on your website. If you don't have it, did you find it there?

Speaker 3:

I did find it. It's 423-790-0765. And that is our shop phone number.

Speaker 2:

Give it one more time. 423.

Speaker 3:

It is 423-790-0765.

Speaker 2:

There you go, all right. Well, hey, becky, it has been my pleasure to meet you and get to know more about Luxury Arts, beautique and Becky Quimby. And tell your husband we said hello and your children. I hope they do well in their sporting events this year. And just again, thank you for stopping by today and being with us.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. It was so great to be a part of this and I appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. And to all the good neighbors of the Cleveland and the Chattanooga area. After meeting Becky and learning more about the Luxury Arts Boutique, I know that she hopes you'll take a moment to consider all they have to offer the other businesses that she's helping inside her shop. All they have to offer as well, and remember them when you need or want the products and services that they provide. Don't forget about Mother's Day coming up. She has the on her website where you can go online, buy a gift card and email it to your mom or your wife or grandmother, whoever it might be special lady in your life. And before ending this episode, I'd like to thank you, all our listeners, for taking the time out of your busy day to visit with us at the Good Neighbor Podcast. Always remember to support the locally owned and operated businesses in Cleveland and in the greater Chattanooga area. This is Scott Howell of the Friends and Neighbors Group. Everyone, go out and make this a remarkable day.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPClevelandcom. That's GNPClevelandcom, or call 423-380-1984. Thank you.

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.