Nomfundo Khanyile

What does your company do?

Uzuri Nail and Beauty Lounge is a semi-premium beauty salon that specialises in nails, lash extensions, eye brow treatments, waxing, hair, as well as make-up services. We offer a comprehensive range of services tailored to enhance our clients' natural beauty and provide them with a pampering experience like no other. At Uzuri, we pride ourselves on being the epitome of the beauty industry in our area, especially with regards providing exceptional customer service as well keeping abreast of industry trends across all our treatments Our highly skilled and passionate team of professionals are dedicated to delivering exceptional results, ensuring that each client leaves feeling confident, rejuvenated, and utterly satisfied on each and every visit. Our salon isn't just a place for beauty treatments; it's a sanctuary for rejuvenation and self-care. From the moment our clients step inside, our goal is to create an environment where they can unwind, relax, enjoy a bit of down-time from the reality of life, and fully indulge in the #UzuriExperience.

What is your biggest success?

The biggest blessing that any service provider can ask for is to start a business and provide a service that people will continuously and wholeheartedly chose and buy into. The 'cherry-on-top' is having those people chose your business/service over and over again until they call it HOME. In a space of 15 months, Uzuri has been able to build a community of loyal clients who authentically chose our salon repeatedly for their treatments and actually call Uzuri their '2nd home'. That is a success story that we look forward to harnessing and growing to even greater heights. Moreover, Uzuri is further cementing 'her' place in the Fourways beauty space by providing training classes to young, aspiring nail techs who are just kick-starting their careers in the beauty industry. Once the trainees graduate, we put them into our incubation program where they get to intern, shadow and gain relevant practical experience at Uzuri for a period of 1 month. This not only gives them practical experience, but it also allows them to be employable almost immediately after graduation (which is very difficult in the beauty industry), giving them a competitive advantage and an extra step above their peers.

What has been your biggest hurdle?

What I have learned (and been able to repeatedly prove to myself) over the past year is that every hurdle that one faces is only a stepping stone and opportunity to think of new ways of doing things effectively in order to drive business growth. The biggest hurdle I have faced to date is putting together a team of well-rounded staff who understand and see the bigger goal and vision for the business. Staff turn-over in the beauty/salon industry is very famously rapid, and as a small business entering the market last year, we struggled to find staff that were willing to grow with the business. However, over time, I was able to learn the various tricks of 'people management' and also provide relevant training for employees as a means to keep them motivated and willing to grow with the business. Furthermore, being in a highly saturated and competitive industry, we have had to find different ways of standing out against competitors in the area. Although that has been challenging, it has also been the most rewarding part of the whole process for me.