By Kadeem Joseph
In an era where many businesses are facing major financial difficulties, and some are shutting down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, one young entrepreneur is taking a bold step forward and is encouraging others to do the same.
Daveile Payne-Abbott, who has been a makeup artist and skin care specialist for the past five years, and is the owner of a new organic studio called Glam Lounge, is encouraging individuals desirous of starting their own business to “just do it because the best investment you can make is in yourself”.
She explained that the only way to know if an idea will be truly successful, is working to make it a reality.
“I often tell people that life is not about money, but we need it to survive; you want to be worth something more than just sitting at somebody’s desk every day and make their business grow,” she said.
“If you feel like you have a skill … anything that you love that you can tap into to make yourself wealthy, to make yourself worthy, to make people respect you, I think it is something that you should definitely go for.”
Payne-Abbott said, however, that the development of a new business is not an easy task, but employing a positive attitude and keeping the end goal in mind is critical.
“Even for me, during this process, there were a lot of times I wanted to give up, a lot of times I said, I don’t think I can do this,” she added, noting that as the days passed, things got better.
“As the days went by and I changed my mindset of how I wanted the outcome to be, you have to see yourself at the end of that tunnel winning, and once you do that, the sky is the limit,” the beautician explained.
Payne-Abbott, who is in her early 30s, also believes that aspiring entrepreneurs should take advantage of the resources available to them to achieve their goals. She explained that while much of the financing needed to start the business was her personal investment, support received from the government’s Entrepreneurial Development Programme (EDP) provided a much-needed boost.
She added, “Sometimes you may have a skill, but you may not necessarily understand the business world and that’s what the EDP taught me.”
Payne-Abbott is also encouraging women to be mindful of how their gender may impact how they are treated in the business world, especially in the male-dominated construction industry.
She said that as she renovated the space that now functions as the home of her beauty outlet, she struggled to gain the respect of those she contracted in the initial phase of the project.
“I can say first-hand that I believe women are taken a little advantage of just because of the fact people think that we are women, and we may not know about construction or plumbing,” she explained.
Payne-Abbott is urging women to educate themselves about this aspect of business in order to avoid major pitfalls because “it will be worth it in the end”.
The Glam Lounge offers nonchemical beauty and grooming services for both men and women in a relaxed environment.
The business provides makeup, male grooming, hair care, skin care and nail care among other services, in private suites that the owner said provides adequate distance between customers, considering the present pandemic protocols.