Today we’d like to introduce you to Josie Russo.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Josie. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I began my journey in the beauty industry 20 years ago when I started working for the Mario Tricoci franchise right as I was finishing up high school. I was to begin cosmetology school in the fall, and wanted to get my foot in the door of a prestigious salon as soon as I could! MT requires an additional year of training to specialize in the area you are strongest in. You can begin that once you are about halfway to receiving your license. I chose to be a Stylist and Chemical Specialist (over Colorist). Once I began my MT training, my job duties consisted of personally assisting the head Stylist and Educator. I welcomed his clients, shampooed them, watched and learned while he created personalized cuts and styles, then I performed blowouts on each of them. Once I completed my training, I worked behind the chair, servicing and building my base clientele for 3 years. After almost 5 years total with the company, I followed the Stylist I originally assisted to his new salon venture on his own. During those 3 years with him, I began my career as a Makeup Artist. I learned that being both a Hair Stylist and Makeup Artist was rare, and I started booking on-site weddings for my clients and their referrals.
It was then that I realized I had paid my dues, and it was time for me to begin my career as an Independent Contractor and launch my own business. That’s when Beyond Beautiful was born. I rented salon space at a small salon geographically located between the two previous salons I worked at, so I could maintain as much of my clientele as possible. It was at that time I decided to add more tools to my belt. I took classes with Redken for 4 months to add being a Colorist to my title. At that time, I auditioned and became a MAC Cosmetics Freelance Artist. I was also asked to join the freelance team for a marketing firm that hosts press tours for TV and Movies through Paramount Pictures. During the next 10 years, I worked behind the chair, glammed weddings on site, freelanced many photo shoots, runway shows, and groomed many celebrities that were in town promoting their latest work.
A friend of mine opened a beautiful new salon within a few miles of where I had been, about 3 years ago, and I’ve been renting space from her since then. Along with all my behind the chair clients, and freelance gigs, I developed a strong passion for a healthy and chemical free lifestyle when I was introduced to Young Living Essential Oils. I became a distributor and educator for the company and began teaching classes regularly on how you can replace the abundant chemically filled products we use daily with YLEO products, to promote, support, and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I also became a Brazilian Blowout trained specialist. Changing the lives of my clients who suffer from frizzy, unruly, dry, damaged hair. I pride myself on knowing I’m making my clients daily hair styling routine quicker and satisfying when I can help them achieve smoother, healthier, shinier, frizz-free hair in half the amount of time they used to spend!
As of just recently, a new fire was lit within me, and I am also now a Beauty Consultant for the #1 Skin Care company in all of North America, Rodan + Fields. I had been using their products for 6+ years and was loving my results. I received compliments on a daily and was asked for skin care recommendations from my clients, friends, and family on a regularly. I was sending all those referrals to my own personal Consultant on a weekly basis. She saw the potential in me and asked me to join her team more than 10+ times! I believe that timing is everything, and it wasn’t until a few months ago, that everything fell into place and I saw for myself how this was what my next career path needed to be. I feel that the client base, and a network of people I have built and created on my own, was leading up to this incredible opportunity to launch my business on a completely different level, but still staying true to helping my network achieve health and beauty from the inside out! Over the years I’ve prided myself on being an Artist, and not a “sleezy” saleswoman. My family, friends, and clients can attest to the fact that I’ve never pushed them to purchase products just to make a sale and I only recommended them what they truly needed. They all trust me and know, that if I’m raving about this skin care company, it’s because it genuinely works! It has changed my skin, lashes, eyebrows, and self-esteem! I suffered from acne issues for years. Being a Makeup Artist, I knew how to conceal and cover my facial imperfections daily. It was time-consuming, and in turn, clogging my pores even more! R+F’s products cleared up my skin, filled in my “bald spots” in my eyebrows, and gave me fuller, longer, and darker looking lashes, cutting out all my BB creams, concealers, foundations, and mineral powders that made my acne worse and took way too much time to daily apply! My confidence was back, and I want to share this feeling with everyone I encounter! I feel that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be. I believe that this opportunity is what I’ve been building my network for my entire career. I’ve been an independent, one-woman show, for quite some time, and I just know that this is the next step that’s going to help me build the empire I’ve been fantasizing about, so I can live the life I’ve always dreamed of!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing great ever comes easy!!! I definitely learned that over the years. Although I feel truly blessed for my career to have so many positive attributes, of course, there’s been rough patches. Sometimes, business is slow or important fork-in-the-road decisions need to be made, needing to believe in your self worth and not allowing yourself to be taken advantage of, gaining the strength to know when it’s time to fire a client/colleague for their lack of respect for you, being picky on whom you allow to work alongside of you, learning to balance your budget and your business expenses, getting used to not receiving a paycheck and changing the way you file your taxes, making sure you seek out the required continuing education that will benefit your skill set and not just taking random classes “just to get the hours needed”. I’ve been pretty lucky to have surrounded myself with industry veterans that have guided me, taught me many things, and have been there to help me find my path on my own journey, because everyone’s journey is different, and no two timelines need to coincide.
My advice to other woman starting their journey is to work hard now, so you can play harder later. Building a name for yourself and your own brand doesn’t happen overnight or within a year even. No matter how hard of a day you’ve had, never throw in the towel. Reflect how you would have wanted the situation to have occurred instead of the way it did. Eliminate the excuses and come up with possible solutions to 1. Resolve the issue and 2. Figure out how to avoid it happening again. Surround yourself with people that inspire and motivate you, and don’t feel bad removing the ones that don’t! Envision who your own Dream Team would consist of, and never give up seeking for those individuals that can help you make a difference. Keep sharing your passion with others even if they might not seem interested at the moment, if it’s meant to be, your timing will line up eventually. Plant seeds in your networks heads of your visions, passions, and knowledge. Eventually, those seeds will flourish, and grow when that person is in need. Don’t worry so much about what other people think about you and your decisions. It’s none of your business what they think! Just be true to yourself and your beliefs. Be honest, be loyal, be inspiring, be motivated, continue to always be learning new things, never doubt your gut feeling, never lose faith, believe in yourself, believe in your dreams, and believe beyond! There is only one person in this world you can control, and that is yourself. You have the power to create and live the life you’ve always dreamed of. But to achieve that, you must accept that you have to always be willing to continue to learn, grow, and balance all aspects of your life, not just your business. From your career to your friends and family life, from your finances to your health and fitness, from your personal and spiritual beliefs to knowing when it’s time to have some fun. Everything must balance in order to be truly successful and genuinely happy! Keep learning, keep growing, and keep the faith. Hard work pays off. Every single time!
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Beyond Beautiful – what should we know?
So, I’ve grown to wear many different hats in the beauty industry throughout my career. When working behind the chair, I’m a senior level Hair Stylist, creating personalized looks for men and woman of all ages. I am also a Color and Chemical Specialist, maintaining the integrity of the hair is my number one priority, I perform luxurious straightening and smoothing treatments, along with classic and trendy hair coloring and lightening services.
As much as I love the relationship and report I have built with my clients and fellow beauty contractors behind the chair, stepping out on freelance gigs is what ignites my passion. When freelancing, I could be providing my hair styling and makeup services by glamming entire bridal parties on site, or photo shoots for print, runway shows, or my favorite, grooming celebrities for their on-camera photos as well as taped and live TV appearances to promote their most recent work. I’ve worked with some amazing talent like Al Pacino, Chris Hemsworth, Paul Rudd, Jerry Seinfeld, John Legend, Jason Segal, Andy Samberg, Donnie Wahlberg, and Ethan Hawke.
I’m very passionate about living a healthy lifestyle by eating clean, regular physical fitness, learning about the harm that the chemicals we are eating, breathing, and using do, and continuing to bring awareness of it to the people I touch on a daily basis with my knowledge of Young Living’s 600+ all natural, plant-based, and chemical-free essential oils and products. Once I became aware and educated, I’ve felt an obligation to the human race to share what I know so we can all maintain our health and youthfulness together.
Speaking of youthfulness, that’s the foundation of my most current passion and career venture. I became a Beauty Consultant for the #1 skincare company in North America, Rodan+Fields because of how their products transformed my skin and my self-confidence. Not only have I noticed my personal fountain-of-youth-like results, so were everyone I touched daily! Dr. Rodan and Dr. Fields are the two Stanford-trained, female dermatologists who created the billion-dollar brand Proactive in 1994. (Which worked for me and I used religiously!) Although it’s extreme success, they knew that acne wasn’t the only skincare concern. They wanted to bring clinical skincare and dermatology to the masses. Your skin is our body’s biggest organ and the first thing we see when looking at someone’s face. Having acne, or rosacea, eczema, psoriasis or skin discoloration from acne scars, sun damage, melasma causes insecurities we all have faced one time or another. And the other hard fact is that we all have skin, and we are all getting older! Nobody wants to see their skin start to wrinkle and show signs of aging. I have seen hundreds of incredible before and after results from all those issues I listed above and seen how its changed people’s lives. Because once that skin issue is gone, it’s only natural that your self-confidence strengthens! And that rewarding feeling I get when I get thanked for how these products have transformed my preferred customer’s appearance inside and out makes me so proud to stand behind, and help grow this industry disrupting brand!
My dreams and aspirations for my business and brand are to build my networks awareness and their self-confidence by sharing my talents and knowledge to make them healthy and beautiful from the inside out!
What sets me apart from others is my genuine integrity. My family, friends, clients, and customers know that with me, the truth ALWAYS comes first and the sale comes second. No matter what. I have never persuaded a service or product sale that will not benefit their personal needs. It’s hard to trust people in the world we live in where it’s usually every man for them-self. I take pride in knowing that the posse I built around me trusts my motives, my word, and my every intention.
What’s the most important piece of advice you could give to a young woman just starting her career?
I can promise you, it will NOT be easy. But I can also promise you that it WILL be worth it!! Work so hard now that you will earn the ability to play even harder later. Work on bettering yourself every day. Learn from as many people as you can. Accept that you WILL make mistakes. But know that it’s completely up to you to learn and grow from them. Don’t let anyone tell you your dreams and goals are unachievable. Give them something to talk about and make it your motivation to prove them wrong. Never give up. Never doubt fate, believe in dreams, believe in yourself, and believe BEYOND!
Contact Info:
- Website: JosieRusso.com & JosieRusso.myRandF.com
- Phone: 708-945-8387
- Email: BeyondBeautiful@JosieRusso.com
- Instagram: the_jojo_show
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/JosieRusso
- Twitter: thejojoshow
- Other: https://m.facebook.com/BeyondBeautifulByJosieRusso/
Image Credit:
Red Eye Chicago
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