Young local business owner, Bree Martin, from Envy Beauty, has been nominated for the Western NSW 2022 Business Awards, delivered by Business NSW.
The awards recognise growth and entrepre-neurship and also celebrate business success across the Central West, Orana, and Far West regions.
Bree has been nominated in the Outstanding Young Business Leader category which recog-nises an inspirational business leader aged 35 or under who has demonstrated a commitment to their workplace, industry and the community through leadership.
At just 17 years of age, Bree may possibly be the youngest entrant in the category this year.
Bree said it’s definitely been a challenge set-ting up and running her own business, especial-ly since she’s still studying fulltime to complete Year 12 at Cobar High School.
Then if you throw in all the extra hours she’s also spent on working towards her Certificate IV in Beauty Therapy through TAFE NSW, Bree is one very busy young lady.
It’s her passion for ensuring her clients have the best quality skin and look their best that drives her.
In her fledgling business, she does everything herself—from providing a range of beauty ser-vices and undergoing further training, to creat-ing a website and managing her social media.
She also created and designed her own studio space.
“Being so young and running my own busi-ness in such a small community comes with some ups but also downs,” Bree said.
“It is very hard to prove that at such a young age that you can do things independently and be successful, such as finance, knowing in depth each treatment and risks and dealing with negative customers.
“Luckily for me, I rarely have customers unhappy with their treatments, but when I do, I try and resolve it as quickly as possible,” Bree said.
“Another challenge I have faced as a young business woman is trying to establish myself in an already competitive market.
“As is the nature of fly-in-fly-out mining communities, most residents choose to travel away to more populated regional cities for per-sonalised services.
“The challenge has dually been to find my place among more established businesses by offering a range of beauty services at a compet-itive price point, in addition to changing mind-sets that these services can be found locally at the same quality,” Bree said.
“I believe I have achieved this first through good word-of-mouth and customer feedback, and by thoroughly researching my client base to develop tailored marketing strategies to help promote my business.”
For someone so young, Bree is definitely not naïve and has well and truly done her research into running a small business.
“Small businesses face huge obstacles in today’s society, particularly given the uncertain economic climate, and I believe being open to understanding my clientele’s needs and how they want their services delivered, has helped me become more adaptable and able to meet the challenges of the marketplace,” she said.
The winners of the Western NSW 2022 Busi-ness Awards will be announced next month at a gala dinner in Dubbo.
