I’m Just Trying Not to Trip: What Building a Business Really Looks Like

There is a funny thing that happens when people look at a successful business owner from the outside.

They see the brick-and-mortar.

The employees.

The clients.

The years in business.

The growth.

And somewhere along the way, they make the assumption that this person must have figured it all out.

Then Mallori Duvall, owner of Beauty Rituals, came onto The Seed and basically blew that idea up with one sentence:

“I’m just trying not to trip.”

And I loved it.

Because THAT is entrepreneurship.

Starting With Zero

Mallori’s story didn’t begin with a beautiful space, an established clientele, employees, or thousands of Instagram followers.

It started with education and a dream of working in a beautiful spa.

After moving from Ohio to Florida at 19, Mallori enrolled in esthetician school. Her original vision was pretty simple: work at one of those gorgeous spas inside a fancy hotel.

Instead, she ended up in a salon where the previous esthetician had left—and taken her client base with her.

Mallori walked into essentially nothing.

No clients.

No established network.

No social media.

And not exactly a welcoming committee.

She gave free hand and arm massages. She introduced herself to people. She talked about what she could offer. She found ways to meet women and build relationships.

And she made basically no money while doing it.

That’s the part of starting a business we don’t talk about enough.

You can get the education.

You can earn the license.

You can become incredibly talented at your craft.

And then you still have to figure out how to build the actual business.

Nobody Hands You the Business Part

One of the conversations Mallori and I kept coming back to was education.

Whether you’re an esthetician, real estate agent, consultant, coach, creative or just about any other kind of entrepreneur, learning your profession and learning how to operate a business are two completely different things.

You can know how to perform the service.

But do you know how to find clients?

Retain them?

Market yourself?

Price your services?

Manage people?

Build systems?

Lead?

Make decisions when there isn’t a textbook telling you which answer is correct?

That education often comes from doing.

And sometimes doing it badly.

Mallori talked about how every failure—or, as I prefer to think of them, every lesson—helped her make a better decision the next time.

That’s business.

You learn.

You adjust.

You build something stronger.

And you keep going.

There Is Enough Business to Go Around

We also talked about something I think far too many entrepreneurs experience: competition.

Not healthy competition.

The weird kind.

The watching-everything-you-do kind.

The targeting-your-clients kind.

The “why are you suddenly following my best friend who doesn’t even live here?” kind.

You know what I’m talking about.

Mallori has experienced it firsthand in the beauty industry, and I’ve experienced versions of it throughout my own career.

But there’s a huge difference between understanding your market and obsessing over everyone else in it.

Knowing what’s happening in your industry makes you educated.

Constantly comparing yourself to someone else makes you distracted.

Mallori put it perfectly: when you’re so busy watching everyone else, you stop seeing what’s underneath your own feet.

And that’s when you trip.

What If We Helped Each Other Grow Instead?

What I especially love about what Mallori has created at Beauty Rituals is that she’s taken those experiences and intentionally built something different.

Beauty Rituals includes employees and independent renters.

On paper, those people could compete with one another.

Mallori doesn’t want that.

Her philosophy is much closer to iron sharpens iron.

Someone might know something you don’t.

Someone may be further ahead in a particular area.

Someone can answer a question when Mallori isn’t there.

And when one person becomes better at what she does, the entire business becomes stronger.

That’s an incredibly important shift in leadership.

Instead of asking:

How do I make sure everyone needs me?

Ask:

How do I create an environment where people can help each other succeed?

That’s how you build something bigger than yourself.

Growth Sometimes Means Taking Yourself Out of the Room

Mallori also shared something every entrepreneur eventually has to wrestle with.

There comes a point when you cannot be the person doing everything.

As Beauty Rituals grew, Mallori had to intentionally change her own schedule. She condensed her client days and created space for other estheticians to grow because she also needed time to actually run the business.

That’s harder than it sounds.

Especially when you’re really good at the thing that originally created the business.

But there is a difference between working in the business and creating the space necessary for the business—and the people inside it—to grow.

Sometimes leadership means stepping forward.

Sometimes it means stepping aside.

You Can Be Successful and Still Be Figuring It Out

This might have been my favorite part of our entire conversation.

Mallori has been doing this for more than two decades.

She has a brick-and-mortar location.

She has employees.

She has renters.

She has loyal clients.

She’s thinking about expansion.

And she’s still trying not to trip.

I think more entrepreneurs need to hear that.

Because there isn’t some magical revenue number, anniversary, employee count or business milestone where someone hands you a certificate saying:

Congratulations! You officially know what you’re doing now.

We’re all still learning.

We’re still making decisions.

We’re still occasionally falling flat on our faces.

The difference is that experience teaches you how to look at what’s ahead, adjust faster and get back up.

Mallori’s Seed of Advice

At the end of every episode, I ask my guest to leave listeners with one seed of advice.

Mallori’s was beautifully simple:

Focus on what inspires you today.

Get better at your craft.

Keep educating yourself.

And make your foundation as strong as possible.

Because you don’t necessarily know where tomorrow is going to take you.

You may build up.

You may expand sideways.

You may change directions completely.

That’s okay.

You don’t have to have the entire path mapped out today.

You just need a strong enough foundation to support wherever you’re going next.

And maybe keep an eye on the cracks in the sidewalk.

Just in case.