Even now, five years after the world shut down and everyone headed home for a good, long while, industries are still dealing with the effects of the pandemic. When we all re-emerged to head back to our lives, a lot of us assumed we’d be heading back to normal. More than that, we all thought that normal would look the way it always had.
We were wrong.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we became remarkably good at maintaining our distance—perhaps a little too good. Now that we’re no longer housebound, we find ourselves needing to learn how to come together again. A lot of brands moved their networking online as the only industry events circumstances would allow at the time. After all, everything we do at a trade show can be done over the internet, right? Online courses for learning, online forums for discussion and Facebook groups for whatever passes for community these days. It’s true that these tools are incredibly helpful for staying in touch and granting access where otherwise none may be possible, but while our devices help us stay connected, they can’t replace a crucial element of connection that sits at the heart of the industry, something that our beauty and wellness professionals understand intimately well.
As a result, industry events have had to re-evaluate their methods and re-learn what it means to become fluent in connection. One such brand that’s found success is Endure Beauty. With their retreat earlier this year, the goal was team bonding—a lofty goal, but not the biggest obstacle, which Endure Beauty’s founder, Nikki Huebner says, is finding a date that works. It’s also crucial to find a place that works well; partnerships with other businesses are important, and finding synergistic places to stay and eat makes hosting a successful event, a sort of grand experiment on experience.
“Community in the beauty world is an absolute necessity,” says Huebner. “Hence the team bonding at the retreat, something we’re planning on doing more often. Artists learn from one another, they grow together, make mistakes together. There’s only so much you can do to hone in on your skill or craft if you’re only learning or communicating online.” It’s in the connections we make that we glean new facets of ourselves and each other. Industry events were a valuable way of acquainting each other with these facets to further our crafts, trades and livelihoods. Endure Beauty knows this intuitively, demonstrated by Huebner as she goes on to say, “To me, the number one way an artist can distinguish themselves in the industry is just to be authentic. Why are you here? What drove you to this industry? What are you good at? Tell that story–don’t worry about competing with the artist down the street.” If connection is so crucial in the industry, then it’s the individuals forming those connections that make them so compelling.
Huebner reflects on her own story and her work with Endure Beauty, which honors her late daughter. “Endure was built on tragedy and heartbreak and wanting to help others. I’m lucky I’ve got a very talented team when it comes to the artistry and the formulas, but at the end of the day, I showed you me. My pain, my heartache, my mission and my drive.”
The intimate and emotional work that beauty professionals do is what makes connection so important. Getting to know the nuances of the people making the industry requires spending time together—the same premise that allows a professional to build trust with their clients. In an industry run on connection, all the DMs, webinars and Zoom calls in the world can’t replace industry events or make up for the fact that we’re in this together, so it’s important that we actually come together.
