At 32, Natasha Goodman is a cosmetologist who is aiming to go places. The roots of the personable young woman are in Mabaruma. That is where she was born and raised and her prolonged exposure to what we loosely describe as ‘city life’ has done nothing to dim her obvious pride in her Amerindian heritage. These days, she says, her fast-rising business, NG’s Sensation Beauty Salon on Brickdam does not allow her to visit family and relatives “back home” for more than “a few days at a time.” She is, nonetheless, a woman who understands where her roots are.
She moved to the city in 2001 and after she had completed a one-year diploma in Industrial Relations at the Critchlow Labour College she had toyed with the idea of entering the University of Guyana or the Cyril Potter College of Education. As it happened what had initially been an interest in hairdressing became an obsession. Ever since she was a child at Mabaruma, she had been the family’s unpaid hairdresser, pitching in on special occasions, weddings, parties and the like, to help ‘turn out’ the revelers.
An eight-month cosmetology course at Hair Tech International in 2007 set her feet on a path to an eventual career. The course took her beyond the hairdressing pursuit of which she had long dreamed and into a number of new areas including the theory and nails and skin care. At the end of the programme she graduated as the top student and the institution was sufficiently impressed with the quality of her work to recruit her as an instructor. However, her mind was set on building a business of her own and by 2009 she had created NG’s Sensation Beauty Salon. It started, she said, in her Guyhoc Gardens home, her earliest customers comprising patronizing friends and persons in the neighbourhood whom she had leafletted immediately prior to the launch.
Three years later, she had developed a vision for business. Her new expanded understanding of the business of cosmetology caused her to begin to better appreciate the importance of what she calls “customer education.” These days, the quality of service that she offers has assured her a 95 per cent client retention rate.
More recently her career arrived at another juncture when she attended a trichology (the scientific study of the hair and scalp that involves diagnosis and non-medical treatment) training course, a branch of the wider cosmetology discipline in which she now seeks to specialize. Again, she regards hair education as another string to her bow that has allowed her to broaden the base of the education which she provides to her clients.
These days, NG’s Sensation Beauty Salon is comfortably located in the Brickdam complex owned by Geo Tech Vision. Its operations comprise two work stations that offer hair and nail care and massage-related services, respectively.
Conscious of the need to stay abreast of market demands Goodman has extended her enterprise into the weave business, responding to what these days is a global demand for hair extensions that has grown into a worldwide multi-billion-dollar industry. Weaves also are sold in varying lengths, colours and textures to suit the specifications of the buyer and clients are charged separate rates for hair colouring, weaving and stitching. When account is taken of these various services added to the cost of the acquisition of hair, Goodman says, some clients spend amounts in the region of $100,000 on a hairdo, a remarkable investment in fashion in a low-income economy.
NG’s Sensation currently employs four persons though Goodman says she feels the need to recruit technically qualified staff in order to allow herself to better oversee the growth of the business. By that she means better positioning herself to recognize niches in the market and to better take advantage of those. Her success with hair extensions, for example, has caused her to give consideration to having NG’s offer the packaged hair directly to her own clients though she concedes that such an initiative would require a significant investment.
In the immediate term her focus is on growing the massage parlour end of the business, an immediate promotional pitch being her offer of a “massage special” in April.
Part of her focus, too, is on further strengthening the feel good side of her business. She wants NG’s to become renowned, equally, for its professionalism and quality of service as for its treatment of customers. Her philosophy, she says, is that a client is not just a customer.
