Maria Martinez
María, tell us about you and your family background and about reaching out your challenges?
My family and I are from Zacatecas Mexico, I have two brothers and four sisters. I was born in Zacatecas but grew up in the valley of Sullivan, Texas. In 1995 when this state of Michigan had a thriving economy, my whole family moved to the Grand Heaven area in search of job opportunities.
I graduated from Grand Haven High School in 1997 but before graduation I was enrolled in beauty school. I was blessed because I was able to attend both schools. I wasn’t easy, for half of the school year I had to split my weekdays into high school and beauty school. And because of my good grades in school, I was able get a grant to pay for cosmetology school.
At the age of 19 I landed my first job and right away I felt in love with this industry. I’ve been in this field for 13 years now and thru all these years I’ve continued to stay up to date with this evolving industry. It takes a lot of seminars, classes and cosmetology conventions to keep up with the latest.
In 1999 I moved from Grand Haven to Detroit where I worked in many salons around the south west area and eventually in the Detroit suburbs as well as in the shopping mall salons.
How do you come up with the idea of founding Nueva Imagen Beauty Salon & Spa?
After several years of working in all these different salons, I decided it was time to open my own salon in southwest area witch. In 2005 I opened my 1st salon. I stared by myself and had great results. Two years later I was able to employ four stylists and eventually I out grew the building where I was and was forced to move into a bigger building. That’s where Nueva Imagen salon was born. It was a great accomplishment to expand and serve my clients and employees. It was a great satisfaction to see them comfortable. It was then when I realized that not only I was a business owner, but that I was giving back to the community by employing people and providing a service for the community. I was and still am part of what moves the economy, in a small way but I’m doing my part and I feel proud. Nueva Imagen beauty salon is the name of the business because we all need a new image sometimes. The name speaks for itself. I want my clients to know that when they leave my salon, they will have a new image.
How many employees do you have at Nueva Imagen? How many have been promoted?
I had six employees and recently two have left to open their own beauty salon. I feel very proud of people realizing their dreams and I’m glad I was able to inspire others to be business owners and live out their dreams.
What are your plans to grow your business in the next 5 years?
As for my future plans, I would love to pursuit my instructor licensed so I can continue to inspire other in a different level and again give more to the community. I’d love to teach the younger students and guide them thru this wonderful field of cosmetology.
If you can change one thing in Michigan, what would this be?
The only one thing I would like to change about Michigan is its suffering economy. A better Michigan would be one full with opportunities for entrepreneurs, filled with loans to small businesses. In the mean time I’m doing my small part in getting there.
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