I had my very first interviews with some really great manicurists. The crazy part about all this is I have never been in management before in my life, so this was a completely new experience for me. When I knew I was going to move I had a conversation with a couple of people about it, and found I had a very limited perspective of how to hire someone.

So I decided to have a panel of people with different experiences and views do the interviews with me. So I had a client in management in a large corporation, a client in the beauty industry, and my oldest client who's seen me from the start to now. I was concerned it would be a little intimidating, but I have to cover my bases. I've chosen to do booth rental starting out because I just don't have the experience to handle employees, and I have to get an accountant to handle that part of it. I can barely handle myself much less two more incomes. So for now, I'll just stick to letting people run their own businesses.

When the first applicant came in I was thoroughly impressed by the way she looked. It's very important to me to look the part when you're interviewing to work in a salon. The basic black normally doesn't cut it for me, although I will probably require them to wear mostly black, maybe. She handled the questions very well and was very sweet. I think she's a little underdeveloped professionally, but not by choice; she'll eventually learn. I was considering an apprenticeship, but the follow up with her skills assessment didn't go very well, so I'm thinking about just moving on.

The second lady interviewed very well. She has a lot of personality and has a very sweet spirit. Her style was not my general idea of someone who would work with me, but she was very presentable and I could see she does care about her appearance. She's seems like she'll be a great fit overall, and I'm looking forward to seeing how her skills assessment goes. She specializes in acrylic services and nail art. The most important thing at Graffiti Nail Bar is that everyone can do basic mani-pedis sufficiently because gel-polish has taken over, and new people who come in are most likely looking for basic services now. The nail art thing is good because that's the reputation the salon has.

So now I'm going to continue to interview and set up the second young lady's skills assessment and hopefully we'll have a signed contract by the beginning of October. I'm so excited about getting new people in to work with me, I'm starting to develop the reputation that Graffiti Nail Bar is too booked, and you have to wait two weeks just to book. So this will hopefully relieve some pressure.

— Lauren, Graffiti Nail Bar, Memphis, Tenn.