The nail business challenges I’ve faced throughout the Covid-19 pandemic
By Guest Writer | 11 November 2020 | Business, Feature, Tech Talk
Hannah Garbett, MD & director of education at Staffordshire Nail Academy, shares an honest account of the business challenges faced during the coronavirus pandemic…
Where on earth do I start? This year has been one of immense anxiety and stress along with sheer grit and determination.
Our year started with optimism – organising moving our business to a brand new premises and winning Nail Educator of the Year 2020 in the Midlands back in February.
My husband and business partner, Andy, and I finally received the keys to our new ‘home’ – a new site for training and distribution in which we and our twin girls seem to spend most of our time – on 16 March. We knew it would be testing times, but we didn’t know how testing and then, bang, we were locked down.
Many sleepless nights ensued. How were we going to pay our bills which had quadrupled? We had already taken out a large loan to help furnish, stock and develop products for the new premises. What little cushion we did have was going to be swallowed extremely quickly. A business – our business – that we had worked so hard over 12 years to build could be gone in a matter of months.
We breathed a sigh of relief when Rishi Sunak announced the help for the retail sector. We thought we may just manage to navigate this nightmare.
However, our local authority did not deliver through on the promises from the government and a battle has ensued with them. They even tried to change the classification of our premises to exclude us from the rate relief we are entitled to.
We quickly realised that it was only by continuing to be positive and proactive that we would get through this.
We ploughed everything we had into completing our Quick Tips product line and launched in April.
Throughout the lockdown period we also wanted to add a little humour and lightheartedness to our social media. The ‘Gnome That Programme’ game was so much fun.
Before lockdown, I had purchased seven chalkboard gnomes from my favourite shop, TK Maxx. Andy thought I was crazy and he even asked ‘when on earth are you ever going to use those?’ Well he had to eat his words.
Each week, we named six gnomes with their names written on their chalkboard. These names were all from a tv programme. We shared a gnome each day and encouraged our followers to message us on Instagram with their guess of the programme.
All correct guesses went into a draw and when we announced the programme on the Sunday we picked 10 winners. They all won a little goody envelope that they received via the post. We had so many messages to say that it was the highlight of peoples’ weeks and they got all the family involved at guessing.
With such a positive response, we have brought it back for lockdown 2.0, this time with ‘Gnome That Film’ game and a larger prize to be won on 3 December.
Lockdown also led to new friendships with other amazing small business owners, which has resulted in a training collaboration with the fabulous Nat from Yorkshire, and an exciting product collaboration with Kirstan Hart of NailHart.
Quick Tips along with the full cover gel extensions training has saved our business. It has given Andy and I a positive focus in these truly testing times. Demand has enabled us to grow our team and employ three amazing new members of staff.
Andy & Hannah Garbett, owners of Staffordshire Nail Academy
We cannot thank our phenomenal customers enough for their support of our family business. We love you.
Lockdown 2.0 is underway. I have shed many tears and I’m not ashamed to admit it. At times I have felt like giving up. There are more uncertain times ahead, but we have navigated our way through the first, we can do it again. We’ve got this!