In Her Own Words: Lisa Ennis of Eccentric's, The Spa Sanctuary

Lisa Ennis is owner of , located at 1215 Annapolis Rd. in Odenton.

She has owned the business for 18 years and has been located in Odenton for nine. She has six part-time employees.

Here's what Ennis had to say about her business, in an interview with Odenton-Severn Patch.

--

We specialize in hair replacement and hair weave services. We also do natural nail services, and regular beauty services, like blow drying, haircuts and other hair services.

Our staff is trained in weaving techniques to make it look natural, not just putting hair in.

It's so funny, because with all the new people moving in, we've had five people walking in asking for massage and facials. We don't do that anymore ... before the influx of people, we were taking a loss on that space. In 2009, we closed that down and said 'OK, we're going to start doing hair weaving and hair loss services in a suite.' That's an advantage because not everyone can do hair weaving services in a suite. They do it out front and out where everyone can see it and not every lady likes that. They like the privacy.

I don't really feel bad for taking out the spa services. It actually helped growth. I don't have to worry about hiring an esthetician—estheticians and hairdressers are totally different people. We don't have to worry about hiring massage therapists. I don't have that stress.

We've increased revenue, because we've added a service that we hadn't been concentrating on providing. We learned to work smarter, not harder.

We start from $400 to $500, because we use human hair. A lot of women are natural, so we order hair from overseas. We charge them for the hair we're ordering and for our service. It's a specialized thing.

If we were in Washington, DC and Prince George's County, people would understand we're using nice hair. Here, people are doing it for like $100 or $50. [At Eccentric's], you're getting private service, you're getting a movie, you're getting specialized service. We bring in drinks in here. It can take two to two-and-a-half hours. It's like a spa service for their hair. And women want good hair.

We've noticed an increase of people finding us online. We've had to hire a couple of new people to service the influx.

I would like to hire more people. I would like to have my stations where I have two people to a station. But you have to have money. I'd like to pay them salaries, build them and bring in a new one. We can't do that yet.

We pay commission and salary. Most hairdressers are renting stations, so it's hard to find people who don't mind being paid a commission. I don't like working commission, because there's no unity. Everyone's an individual. So that's what make it difficult. Here, everyone works for Eccentrics.

I have another company called Visions Consulting Services. It's a development company on beauty professionals. I teach them how to set up systems in their salon. I teach them how to set up a compensation scale, I travel to various trade shows around the country. I'm actually about to do my first conference to teach people how to set up systems, how to hire, how to staff.

Right now, I'm working on a business plan for a salon owner in Annapolis. We're working on a strategic marketing plan to help him get stylists back in the salon. I helped him with his resume. Hopefully good things will happen.

Eventually, I want to have my people working here and I don't have to stand on the floor, and I can do Visions Consulting part of the week. Right now, I just do Visions Consulting on the weekend.