The Future of Beauty: Michael Blair and Marcus Slater of Deka Lash On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Beauty Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Accessibility. Especially the option for virtual try-on, this can help consumers to feel confident about their decision in products and services because they are able to see exactly what different looks will look like on them individually. There is also so much convenience with being able to do things from your phone, interacting where you want, how you want, when you want, and on your preferred platform.
As a part of our series about how technology will be changing the beauty industry over the next five years, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Blair and Marcus Slater.
Michael Blair is the Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Deka Lash, leading overall operations and technology strategy in order to advance the strategic goals of the enterprise. Marcus Slater, Chief Marketing and Technology Officer at Deka Lash, is an award-winning digital marketer and technology developer with over a decade of experience using marketing and technology to bring record-setting year-over-year growth to companies in almost every industry.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Michael: I’ve been an entrepreneur for most of my career, but my wife Jennifer is ultimately what led me to Deka Lash and the beauty industry. She got into offering lash services and I started to see the similarities between the beauty industry and the technology sector, which is where most of my expertise lies. Specifically, there is this recurring aspect to it. In software and SAAS companies, it’s completely normal to see recurring monthly offerings. In beauty, it’s the same because clients need to be coming back in for their upkeep. In lashes specifically, it was like clockwork seeing our clients come back in every couple of weeks for their fill services.
At the time when we started Deka Lash, the cross between beauty and technology was non-existent. Appointments were written in books. You had to call to schedule, reschedule and cancel appointments. I saw so much opportunity to bring technology into the space as a way to benefit both beauty companies and their customers and suddenly Jennifer and I knew we were onto something that could truly make a huge impact on the industry as a whole.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Michael: We started out completely self-funded. We would go into investor meetings and I honestly felt like I was being laughed at. We would get asked questions like, “how can you have a single business providing solely services on eyelashes?” Investors and other beauty professionals didn’t see the need to specialize in one area, especially one like lashes which weren’t mainstream whatsoever when we were first starting out. We chose to ignore the hesitation and critical comments and stay in our own lane with our vision, and that was our biggest driver to success.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
Michael: Our biggest tipping point was definitely our decision to franchise. We had this Pittsburgh-based beauty company that was already doing quite well with four thriving locations. Pittsburgh isn’t exactly a beauty capital by any means, so deciding to franchise led us to growing from a local name to an international player in the lash and beauty space.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Michael: Jennifer is my rock. She and I are supportive of one another and we help get each other through tough times, through the natural highs and lows, and we keep each other motivated to always keep going. Business ownership is definitely a roller coaster ride, and I love that my life partner is also my co-founder and the one who is able to help me up when things get hard and celebrate with me when things are going great.
Ok, super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. The beauty industry today has access to technology that was inconceivable only a short time ago. Can you tell us about the “cutting edge” (pardon the pun) technologies that you are working with or introducing? How do you think that will help people?
Marcus: We have a perspective that we are more of a tech company in the business of beauty and lashes. Before technology was really available, you had to call into a receptionist to schedule your appointments and they would write it down in a book. We have a model that operates without a receptionist — you can book your appointments with a single click on our app or our website. We have a centralized Customer Experience Center that takes care of clients who have questions or are needing help and most recently we are introducing dekaAI. dekaAI is taking the technology we already have in place and amplifying it — allowing customers to text us day or night with their questions, with scheduling and rescheduling requests, and more. This allows our Customer Experience Center staff to focus less on incoming calls and questions and more on creating an even better outbound experience for our customers — making sure our current customers are happy and seeing what we can do to improve our customer experience in order to win past clients back. We’ve gone from a time where every appointment needed to be called in and written down with pen and paper to a more automated and digital process where we can incorporate personalization and efficiencies to every touch point in the customer journey.
Michael: Everything we have implemented has come from the same core question that we constantly ask ourselves: how can we create a better and more efficient experience for our customers, lash artists and our studio owners? We put a lot of emphasis on the scheduling experience since that is the most used feature within the customer journey — it is used for scheduling not just initial appointments, but all follow up points in order to maintain their lashes. By incorporating more technological efficiencies into this process we are making it easier for our customers and saving time for our studio owners and lash artists who are then free to focus on creating an amazing experience for their clients while they are in the studio getting their services done. Since my background is in technology, I knew all of these optimizations existed, we just needed to bring them into the beauty industry which is exactly what we did. We are constantly re-evaluating and looking for more ways that we can consistently improve the customer experience using technology as well.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Michael: One of the biggest potential drawbacks is becoming overly reliant on technology for consumer communication. It eventually creates a barrier between you and the consumer. There needs to be human interaction as well so that the brand doesn’t become too disconnected from the wants and needs of the consumer.
Additionally, beauty standards have been a hot topic. In the beauty space, technology has allowed for augmented reality in ways that completely change the way a person looks. Our focus has always been on giving women confidence, and filters these days are starting to provide women with unrealistic beauty standards that are literally unattainable — changing the size of a woman’s eyes, or thinning out her jawline. Our services are meant to help women feel confident about their appearance in real life, whereas these filters have started to make many women feel terrible about their appearance in real life.
One last one that I can see that is already beginning to be addressed on a national level is the standard around privacy. Nowadays though we seem to be moving in the right direction that encourages transparency around what information a company can access while providing the option to decline providing that information if the consumer chooses. This hasn’t always been the case — many people joke that “Facebook is always listening” based on how spot-on ads that pop up can be, but in reality this is because of this issue exactly, tech is able to pull data on what a consumer has been looking at and this was never previously disclosed outside of the fine print.
Can you share 3 things that most excite you about the “beauty-tech” industry?
Michael:
- Accessibility. Especially the option for virtual try-on, this can help consumers to feel confident about their decision in products and services because they are able to see exactly what different looks will look like on them individually. There is also so much convenience with being able to do things from your phone, interacting where you want, how you want, when you want, and on your preferred platform.
- Transparency. The ability to look comparatively at beauty services and products and access consumer reviews on-demand is game changing. More and more people rely on the reviews of others and their experience with a company. This also naturally encourages businesses to operate honestly because of the potential of one wrong move going viral on social media. Social media can provide excellent social proof around the quality of products and services that a company provides, but it can also expose companies who aren’t living up to the standards that consumers expect of them.
- Ability to scale. Tech allows brands big and small to scale much more easily. Not only does the social side provide an opportunity to reach a broader audience, but it also provides the opportunity to automate and create efficiencies within the business and the chance to build high performing remote teams. Unfortunately over the years we have seen that those who didn’t adapt as willingly to technology fall behind. Those who adapted have grown to a place beyond anywhere they could’ve scaled before, helping even local businesses like our own reach audiences on a national and even international level.
Can you share 3 things that most concern you about the industry? If you had the ability to implement 3 ways to reform or improve the industry, what would you suggest?
Michael:
- On-demand accessibility taking away from the experience or disconnecting too much from other people. What used to feel like a getaway in a day spa has now become a very in-and-out experience for most. For many this is a convenience and allows them to get back to their lives, but the relaxing atmosphere has definitely undergone a major change. I think it’s important that we make sure that the customer experience within the studio is still highly personalized so that they don’t lose touch with that lux experience that was once the expectation when getting these types of services.
- Exclusively relying on tech — companies need to find a balance. Too much disconnect from consumers dehumanizes the brand, so it’s important to make sure that there are still enough human touch points with people that the customer feels connected and the company can stay aligned with what the customer is wanting and needing. When finding automated or tech replacements for different processes within the company, our approach is to find new ways for the people who used to manage those processes to still be involved in the customer journey to ensure that our customers are still receiving interaction from humans, too.
- The newly developing standard that a woman should be all glam all the time. With apps like Instagram becoming such a key part of many women’s day to day lives, we are constantly seeing photos of women done up in their makeup, hair done, and dressed up. While we know some women do prefer that look the majority of the time, we also offer more natural looks that remind women that it’s okay to not look red carpet ready all day, everyday and that there is beauty in a more natural look as well.
You are an expert about beauty. Can you share 5 ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Michael: We decided for this one it would be best to get input from my wife and Co-Founder Jennifer Blair. Here are the suggestions she gave us.
- Drink plenty of water. Water leaves you feeling good both inside and out and leaves your skin absolutely glowing.
- Do something simple that makes you feel more “put together”– maybe that’s wearing your favorite color of lipstick or using a hair mask to hydrate your hair.
- Exercise! Try new workouts that feel fun for you– exercise doesn’t have to be about trying to change your body as much as it should be taking care of yourself and celebrating your inner strength!
- Practice mindfulness activities– taking up activities like meditation or journaling can help you to turn inward and serves as a great reminder that true beauty starts within!
- Don’t skip your sleep– there is a reason they call it beauty sleep! When you are well rested, you look more energized and you feel much more clear-headed and productive.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Michael: Changing lives has always been part of our vision. We use our company to help people achieve business ownership and lifestyle entrepreneurship — and tech is a big part of helping us to accomplish that. By introducing technology and different efficiencies within the business, we are not only impacting our business, but the businesses of all of our franchisees as well.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Michael: “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress. Working hard for something we love is called passion.” — Simon Sinek. Focusing on the why behind the business and making sure that the business is something you are passionate about are always major factors on whether or not a business owner will achieve success. When you are passionate about your work, it’s easy to keep going through good times and bad.
How can our readers follow you online?
LinkedIn:
Michael Blair — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-blair-6798402/
Marcus Slater — https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusslater/
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
The Future of Beauty: Michael Blair and Marcus Slater of Deka Lash On How Their Technological… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.