Kate Browne - BeU Beauty Clinic
Tuesday 23 April 2013
As we all know, retail and other small businesses have been decimated over the past few years through high rents and the drop in spend. In February 2011, Kate Browne of BeU Beauty Clinic in the Dublin suburb of Kimmage was also battling hard to keep her business going and her staff in employment. The soft soothing image of the beauty business also conceals a steel core of competition for survival. Kate spoke very frankly back then of how she was coping with the taxman and the sheriff, and how she had arrived at that stage.
Kate inherited her sense of humour and her business get-up-and-go from her mother, Margaret Browne, who tragically succumbed to ovarian cancer on St Patrick's Day 2010. Margaret had been a former Housewife of the Year and Eurotoque chef, who for many years ran her Ballymakeigh Country House in East Cork, before launching the Green Barn Lifestyle Store Garden Centre and Restaurant at Killeagh on the N25 near Youghal. Margaret was a familiar voice too on RTE's Mooney Show as Derek Mooney's 'Domestic Goddess' providing old-style recipes and recollections of yore.
Kate didn't go straight into the beauty business on leaving school. Being from a farming background, and a successful horsewoman and eventer, she went straight into the horse world, attending Kildalton Agricultural College in Kilkenny and got her Green Cert. She then went to England to Ingestre stables, a prestigious equine training centre.
"We all lived above the stables, worked and trained long days, and did our stages there to qualify as riding instructors," says Kate.
After three years she came back to Cork where her dad set up a beautiful equestrian centre at Killeagh but, having had a lot of falls in England, Kate decided to change career. Although Kate describes herself as a complete tomboy, she had a secret passion for the beauty business, but she was not ready for that yet. Over the next three years she took a degree in psychology and psychoanalysis, and went into human resources.
In 2006, she decided to follow her heart's desire and open a beauty salon. After much searching she spotted a vacant rundown building in Kimmage. It took her almost a year to create her fabulous sleek beauty salon BeU which was awarded five stars by the UK-based Good Salon Guide. She loves the people in the area, "they are so friendly, fun and helpful", but she has a regular clientele also who travel from all over the city to be beautified at BeU.
Back in 2006, the Celtic Tiger was still roaring and "customers were in three or four times a week waxing and tanning, skin rejuvenation, the lot, no expense was spared". However, in 2009 and 2010, Kate began to see a significant drop in business with a lot of younger customers having to move abroad. "Every day became a struggle both financially and mentally because mum, who also looked after the BeU accounts and paperwork, was in the latter stages of ovarian cancer," says Kate.
Kate travelled with Margaret to America for treatment and also spent time at home in Cork caring for her mother which meant she was missing from BeU and understandably the paperwork went on the back burner.
Kate found that added to the drop in business due to the recession and her enforced absence, she suddenly had to contend with a deluge of letters from the Revenue Commissioners and visits from the City Sheriff.
Kate said at the time: "It is a horrific experience particularly for someone who always pays his or her bills and is not used to this sort of thing. I for one am not going to let them send me, or my employees, to the dole queue."
Someone with Kate's feisty equestrian spirit and psychology training was not going to let her business go down easily and, true to her word, now fully tax compliant, and working as hard as ever, BeU beauty clinic is flying. It was not easy to achieve this. Amongst other things, she had to give up her apartment and move in temporarily with an aunt in Dublin to save money to pay outstanding VAT, but she has retained her dedicated staff throughout, and this resilience has to be admired.
Now in 2013, Kate says they are really busy. "It started to pick up when I went back into the business full-time again, having been away from it for a year on and off.
"My three girls have been with me five years and are very good," adds Kate.
"What people want nowadays is quality at a good price. You have to give value for money and it has to be of a really, really, really good standard. People do look for discounts, and they do look for value for money, and they expect a really good service, and if you are not giving it, they will not come back. Every customer has to be treated really well, and really well looked after. If we get one complaint out of a hundred people, I am not happy.
"People want continuity too, they want to know when they come into the salon that it's going to be the same girl looking after them, standards are not going to change, and they feel comfortable. Very many salons had a lot of changeovers in staff, people leaving, a lot of part time workers, and that just doesn't work. Getting beauty treatments done is personal and you want to feel you can trust the girl you are with. I think that's really important, as well as value for money and not overcharging," says Kate.
"People are gone back to looking after themselves in a more inexpensive way, like getting glycolic facials, getting their eyebrows tinted. HD (high definition) brows are very popular at the moment. It is one of our most popular treatments, along with Shellac nails. No matter what happens with the recession, people want to look good, but it can't cost them too much, so when they do spend their money it has to be perfect. So, they like good nails, natural looking tans – everything needs to look natural but it's not natural," she jokes.
From November last there has been a big increase in massages and facials. "We do really good facials – you come out feeling good and your skin looks better. People say now they are tired of not treating themselves and they want to have an hour once a month, or once a week, to themselves. They should be thinking, 'that didn't cost me too much and I feel really good after it'."
Kate is not a believer in discount deals from companies and websites. "I think do your offers in the salon yourself, these various deals on websites are not good. The salon ends up with virtually nothing, and also ends up with an influx of very unhappy voucher-holding customers because you can't take them when they want to be taken. Your own regulars suffer, and salons are trying to speed up treatments. I believe in doing my offers in the salon and listening to what people want, instead of telling them 'that they want a tan and nails'."
BeU has also introduced pregnancy massages. "We are doing these because I have found over the past five years that nearly 50 per cent of my customers are pregnant! This requires specialist training because you have to be very careful of your pressure points," explains Kate.
So girls, pamper yourselves, you will feel all the better for it, and it won't cost you an arm and a leg. BeU offers 20 per cent discount off every treatment over €20 from 9am-3pm Tuesday to Friday. Form a queue – I'll be there!
BeU Beauty Clinic, 173 Lower Kimmage Road, Dublin 6. Tel: (01) 492 5181 www.beu.ie