BeautyLynk Founder Rica Elysée on How to Delegate at Home, at Work and to AI

Transcript: S7 Ep 108, Rica Elysée

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:00)

Are you working a lot still?

Rica Elysée (00:02)

I am working a lot, theoretically. It, the, the interesting part about being a business owner is that you want to turn everything off, but sometimes people need to check in.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:14)

Yes.

Rica Elysée (00:14)

So it's been one of those things of, like, hey Rica, can I just, can I ask you this question? I'm like, are you sure it's not in the systems and operations deck that we made sure to put together before I left? So it's, it's, it's been one of those things.

But I don't work as much as people think I do.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:33)

It's all one more thing, one more thing.

Rica Elysée (00:36)

Yeah, for sure.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:37)

What's business looking like for you now? I see that you have a few projects and brands. What sort of team do you have at this point?

Rica Elysée (00:47)

So I have three different distributed teams. Yeah, so what I've learned is that you can't do anything alone. So for the individuals that are soloists, I, I don't know how you do it, right? Teach a class. I wanna know. But for the most part, I have, I have, I have a team for everything that I'm working on. So Care in the Chair has a team, BeautyLynk has a team.

I even have my own team for my personal brand. So it's one of those things that you just need to learn how to manage people in order to reach the goals. Even when I think about what it's like to be at home, I still have a home manager. Like, I, I literally have someone who's dealing with the things that I can't touch. Hey, is everything in place for the garbage to go out? Is everything in place for,

you know, the babysitter, the, the pickups, the, all of that requires systems, operations and people.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (01:52)

Let's look at, I'd love to talk a moment about all your brands. But first, the house manager role. A lot of people don't even think to bring that into their lives. Let's look at what that involves and how you got started having one of those.

Rica Elysée (02:12)

Yeah, you know, I had to learn that I couldn't do everything. I wanted to be able to wake up, pack lunch, do laundry, take out the trash, clean the bathroom, right? Take care of myself, go to all my beauty appointments, go shopping, go, i— I just couldn't manage everything, and I just needed to be honest about what I was really good at, and what I was really good at was managing teams. So I had to

think about what I was willing to delegate. And I was like, okay, I am going to delegate walking the dog. I am going to delegate taking out the trash. I am going to delegate getting someone that knows how to use a screwdriver to use it, versus me figuring it out, right? Just making those decisions of delegation made all the difference, and also made me realise I needed one. 'Cause when you think about being a child, right? At the end of the day,

your mom is the house manager. Your mom dictates the schedules. Who's doing what? What you experience in your childhood is based off of how it's managed at home. So it's like, okay, guess what? I know what I'm really good at. I'm good at managing people. I want my kids to have a great experience, but I don't want them to see me when I'm drained. And I don't want to see them, I don't want them to see me when I'm burnt out.

Right. I need to be thoughtful about what it means to take care of myself in that process.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:41)

You say kids. For those who are listening, before I clicked record you had your six-week-old little tiny baby with you.

Do you have—

Rica Elysée (03:50)

Yes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (03:50)

—more kids?

Rica Elysée (03:52)

Yes, I have twin three-year-olds. S— yeah. Yeah. I was, I lucked out this time by having one. I lucked out. It was definitely really rewarding. But, I mean, for anybody who's a mom, being a mom is just being a mom. Doesn't matter how many you have, so—

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (04:14)

Interesting. Interesting. That's something to keep in mind. Everybody has an opinion on what it's like at different ages, stages, and how many, but, but family is family. What's, what's looking amazing from this end is that you've delegated so much, and that is looking like the way that you're able to maintain multiple brands when you have

tiny little kids. That's, that's such an achievement. The delegating, I know that so many people are reluctant to delegate. Or, we've looked at the house management delegation. That is something we all need more. And the, the equivalent, I'd say weeks ago, for me, is I had to, on some days, choose between

doing a proper home dinner at a particular time or going to an evening yoga class. We can't do everything.

Rica Elysée (05:18)

I totally agree with you. And that's, and I don't wanna feel the guilt for making the decision of what required me to have peace.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:27)

I'm impressed. I'm so impressed. So now, know I'll be just as impressed looking at your brands. Let's just look at the journey and what it all is. Which brand formed first? How did this all happen?

Rica Elysée (05:44)

Yeah, I went from balls to blow dryers. I was working in prostate cancer first, and then I needed to help out a family member who needed services at home. So I called a hairstylist, and she was gracious enough to come to the house and, and perform the service. But she also made me realise that hairstylists are available during the day, because most of the customers that are inclined to pay them are

either on the weekend, on the weekend appointment or an evening appointment. So during the day they still had a lot of flexibility. So I was like, okay, cool. Let me just try to figure this out. And I built out, I don't even know if people really even use it for that anymore. I built out a WordPress site in order to start. And it had no automations. It was so manual. Right. But it taught me a lot of my lessons in order to get to a place where we could automate.

And I think the website was up for, like, maybe two or three months, and then it ended up making sixty-five K with no, like, marketing. It was just online

and other people used it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (06:56)

When did this,

when did that happen?

Rica Elysée (07:01)

I'd say twenty seventeen. Twenty seventeen was when that sta— that, that happened. It was, it, we're about to hit our ten year. So it's really interesting. We've been through a journey of deciding what product-market fit looks like. And making all the mistakes and then finding our way. 'Cause right now we are exclusively for multicultural brides. So getting to be for a place where we're, hey, we're for everybody. We do everything.

To, no, we figured out our problem, we figured out our niche, and we figured out where our revenue comes from, and this is where we're staying. So that was a 10-year journey, but also understanding that you can't be everything to everyone. And there's no guilt in not being able to service someone. There's guilt when you can't make payroll.

So you have to make the decisions on where you really want to deal with the stress, and saying no to a customer because it's just not possible is cool. Saying, no, I can't pay you and you've worked for two weeks, is just not a negotiable. It's just not something I would be willing to do. But that's where we started.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:07)

Absolutely.

And the bills, the general bills as well, right?

Rica Elysée (08:11)

Yeah. Even though they've come down—

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:13)

How do you—

Rica Elysée (08:14)

—a great deal because of the way tech is charged now. Like, I remember when we first started and we were spending so much money on text messages and emails, and it's definitely come down in cost, but that's something for a different day.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:29)

So the cost of tech has gone down. Let's dig into that, because maybe some people don't even realise just how inexpensive it has been compared to how it was, or people think money is a barrier even though tech is becoming so affordable now. What has been your experience with what it

was then, internet?

Rica Elysée (08:48)

Well, you know, I've,

I've really enjoyed how technology has advanced so much and changed things progressively. I mean, ten years ago you needed to have venture capital in order to build out something that was scalable. Now you need to have a laptop and AI to build out your army of team and to pay out the bills that are even smaller than you think they are. Like, hey, if you have

a team of bots and you have two or three emails that you're paying from Gmail. Guess what? You have everything you need in order to function. Okay, you don't know how to build a website, guess what? Now you can type in a sentence on Lovable and get a starting based on what it means to get a website, instead of having to spend 30, 40, 50 K on automations and APIs. You have a much easier route to get things done today

than you did ten years ago. The question is, do you have the grit and the ambition to do it, knowing that team is no longer the issue and money is no longer the barrier? It's you deciding that this is what you want to do.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:02)

It sounds like you still have some human teams, right?

Rica Elysée (10:06)

Yes, for sure. I definitely do. But it's, it's one of those things of, like, learning how to give the human the team, right? So I have one person on my team, Maeth. She's super awesome. She has a team of five of b— like, five bots underneath her, and she knows how to navigate, build, and that's great. You know why? Because that means she gets all the support she needs in order to look great at doing her job. And

it allows us to make the revenue we need without me having to breathe down her neck. I don't want to breathe down anybody's neck. I am not a micromanager, but I do understand why those situations do happen, especially when you're not making the revenue and you don't understand why. You're like, hey, this person's punching in and out, but we're not making any revenue. But they're, you know, a revenue driver in our business, because this is their job. This is their function. What's happening here?

That's no longer a thing for me to think about. It's me thinking, I'm so excited that you're here. Tell me how you did this month in terms of revenue. You need support. What type of support does that look like? Well, I need someone to be, you know, more on call to do design work for me. No problem. How about we put together, you know what I mean? Like, there are all these different solutions now, and you get to cut down on costs, but you don't get to cut down on

the ambition and the ability to get things done, you just have to make the decision on painting with a different brush.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (11:37)

Painting with a different brush. Do you mean using the tech in a different way?

Rica Elysée (11:42)

Yeah, using the tech in a different way. Sometimes people think that the only way for you to paint a picture is just by picking up one brush and being done, right? But if you take a look at some of this intricate work, the amount of brushes that they have to use to build every stroke that they have looks completely different. Right? So we have to think about tech in that route too, right? We have to think in our, our ambitions in the same way. So whenever I think about, hey, I'm gonna do something.

I'm gonna use this thing. Great. I used it like this in twenty seventeen, but I had to pick up a different brush in twenty twenty-six, and this is what it looks like. It's more nuanced, there's more depth, right? You just have to look at it that way. You're painting a beautiful picture that requires multiple brushes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:32)

Absolutely. It's amazing you're doing that. I've seen in Australia mixed opinions about AI. I'm wondering, have you been bringing in new people in your teams recently, or do you have people who have been there a long time? And I'm wondering how they made the shift onto AI and the new tech, whether it was comfortable and easy or a bit of a, a, an adjustment to change.

Rica Elysée (12:59)

I think that, you know, yes, we have people that have been with us for a long time, but we've also lost people that have been with us for a long time due to AI. When I had a good handle on things, I had to deal and do an audit. And doing an audit dictated, wow, I actually realise this person's not doing what they need to do. And then there were the competitive moments for me where I'm like, it's them versus the AI. Who's going to do it? Who's gonna execute better?

Right. And understanding that there are great jobs for AI when it comes to data, right? When it comes to calculations and things of that, it's a great job for, for AI. What isn't a great job for AI is one-to-one customer service. Right? Someone wants to hear a voice. They don't want to just get an email. They want to be able to know there's someone on the other side.

And because we're in beauty services, person-to-person communication is key. And so those jobs are still always secure. There's no problems there. But a lot of the repetitious jobs that we were hiring for, for reporting purposes, are no longer things that we do. But the people that have stayed, it has been a journey of learning AI. So some people

are still using AI like a search engine. So I'm not gonna even, you know. Then there are the other ones who are like, hey, I, I get it, but they can't use Claude Code. They know how to use the automations, which is, like, cool, right? I'm like, okay, that's great. Then you have the other person who is totally advanced, understands how to use Claude Code, Codex, and is like, hey, throw anything at me. I got it.

It may take me an hour or two, but once I get the, the swing of things, I'm gonna have a bot. And I'm just like, okay, that's great. That's great. But you just have to allow people to figure out what works. But on my team as well, age isn't what dictates what, what you're gonna do. It's really your ability to decide that you wanna do that thing. So it's been rewarding to watch people grow, for sure.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (15:17)

Absolutely. It's interesting seeing that some people are learning some parts of AI more than others, more easily. I, I would love to dig into, one day, the types of brains that are adapting, whatever it is, because for me, I, I got really comfy with Claude Code really quickly. A couple of my websites, I just redid them over a couple of hours or a couple of days.

And then I saw the savings, the cost savings in that. And I just talked to it like a person, it churns this out. But I'll show it a screenshot. I got the hang of that. I mean, it's not perfect, and I need to tell it, look, hold on, I needed this. But the thing that I personally had to wrap my head around was the automation. The only thing that has worked for me is I told Claude, at 5 p.m. check if this has happened. If not,

then we're going to do this. And it got to the hang of that, but I'm wondering, how did your people learn the automation? How did they figure out what was easy or difficult?

Rica Elysée (16:28)

We hosted a lot of, like, learning circles within the team. So that way everybody could show each other what they did really well. And that ended up helping in pretty much pushing people to learn, you know, hey, wait, what did you do? Yeah, I don't use Claude Code, I use Claude Cowork. Okay, that's great. All right. And then someone else would be like, hey, I don't use either of those. I use Grok. Right? And you're just like, okay.

Different tool. All right. What does that feel like? How does that feel? And right now we're all learning about dots, right? We're, we just had a learning circle around dots. So I think it's OpenAI's newest launch. So, you know, as much as you wanna think that you could do everything by yourself, being able to be a community where you can learn, especially teams that you can learn from each other, is, is important. So

we wouldn't be the team that we are if we weren't continually upskilling each other with the specialties that we have.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (17:33)

Learn together. I love that approach, and that's possibly counter-cultural, but it's definitely something everybody needs to do more, because so many of us become solo at our laptops. There are lots of solopreneurs, or even, there are some organisational cultures where people are just staring at their own screens instead of connecting and chatting. You have created something truly collaborative.

Rica Elysée (18:01)

Thank you. And I think even individuals who are soloists and using AI for their opportunities are still learning how to build an organisational culture, because their bots are exactly the type of organisation they're building, right? So you're building that voice, you're building the cadence. It may not be physical people, but you need to think of them as your team, because they are showcasing you to the world at all times.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (18:28)

They are. They are. So looking at the niche, to pivot a lot for a moment. You talked about how you needed to decide which customers you're going to serve and how to focus your niche. Was it ever tempting to want to help everybody? Even though we know that we can't be everywhere for everybody. How did you, how did you navigate that part of

growing, especially early on or later?

Rica Elysée (19:00)

I, I think that, you know, after I built out the company initially, I didn't understand how large of a problem I was, I was solving. And having conversations with a lot of different accelerators and looking at what it means to be venture backed, right? It, it boggled my idea of, like, what I was doing, right? I originally started this because I wanted to help one person. And that was authentic and intentional.

And then I started hearing more about revenues and dollars and growth. And then my idea changed. I was like, I want to help everyone. Everyone deserves this. And then I had to be brought back down during COVID and think through what type of person I wanted to be remembered for. If I wanted to be the founder that pushed through and made everybody go to other people's houses and get sick, or

deal with the delay of revenue because I wanted to make sure people were safe. And I was the latter, right? So I decided to make that decision. And that allowed us to have a recalibration of, like, hey, we don't have to service everybody. We just need to look through the data and look through where we've always really done well. And that was weddings. So that's when we had to make that decision of, like, hey, we, we can't do this anymore.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (20:25)

Fascinating. COVID played a part. Do you ever think about more growth now in the post-COVID era? Or are there other things, like the economy or other factors, leading you to keep that focused?

Rica Elysée (20:39)

I mean, I love the focus that we have right now in multicultural weddings. I think we have expanded a little bit because we've realised that there are beauty deserts a— around the world that don't have beauty pros, right? So think about being part of a small town and you have to travel maybe an hour or two out to get your, your beauty services. We're learning about those individuals and trying to decide if that's another pocket that we wanna, you know, dive into.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:08)

Love that, especially because wedding venues can be anywhere. Over here, I trust there would be an equivalent in America. Over here, a lot of people love to go to a barn out at a farm or at a winery or the coast, wherever, a random spot for their wedding. And I always wonder how the practicalities map out in things like that. So the distant locations.

That's very relatable.

Rica Elysée (21:39)

Yeah, it's been really interesting. I mean, we have a wedding tomorrow that's in the outskirts. I think the, the stylist is travelling maybe an hour and a half out to be able to service just the bride. So yeah, it's a lot.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (21:56)

It is, it is. What were you doing before you did all this?

Rica Elysée (22:02)

I was raising money for prostate cancer research. I went from balls to blow dryers, right? I, I knew so much about the prostate, and then I did this random thing, and all of a sudden I had to learn about blow dryers and how they function and where they need to be plugged and how to really do on-location appointment. It's been a learning process, for sure.

The past decade.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (22:27)

Right, I was going to ask about fundraising and capital, but you were saying you needed to learn about blow dryers. This shows my ignorance, because I've been cutting my own hair since COVID, and, and I just, I use the cheapest shampoo because it's natural, but I would love to go do those things. I'd love to get a treatment for the first time in forever. But what I'm asking there is,

what sort of learning curve happened with blow dryers? I have no idea. What were the surprising product knowledge learning curves that you never expected?

Rica Elysée (23:05)

I mean, to realise how many people didn't actually know how to do services for themselves at home was a very big thing. During COVID, we were actually doing virtual classes for people. So they were learning how to use their curling irons, right? And learning how to properly blow dry their hair or detangle their hair or fill in the, the, the thin spots.

Right, because they wanted their blowout to look as full as possible. It was, it was a lot. And learning that people resonated more with stylists that were actually doing it on themselves, versus having a model, because they wanted to feel like someone commiserated with them when they were trying to put the, you know, the, the curling iron in the back. I can't see, is it working? Like, they wanted that type of experience. So it was, it was really rewarding to be able to see that and,

and go through that, but capital is a thing, for real. And I do think that there are opportunities to get capital for any business that you are building, but knowing the difference in what capital will actually mobilise you is extremely important, right? And that was also a learning process. We can get into that a little bit deeper if you want to too. But when it comes down to the beauty space, man, listen.

It's very difficult, not only when it comes to the styles, but also when it comes to the tools, right? On what you can actually do. But the fun part is, is that if you have a stylist that you can trust, if you have a stylist that you can trust, then it becomes a balance of, hey, I'm doing my hair at home today, but I'm going to her in six weeks to get a haircut. Like, learning how to, to build that, right? It's the, it's the home manager thing, right? You could do some, but you can't do everything.

Learning to delegate what you're comfortable with.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (24:58)

Okay, delegating. That's a great way to put it. It's going back to that delegation of the home life and the trust issue. That's something a lot of women can relate to. Maybe both genders as well. Everybody has had an experience or heard a story where someone went to the hairdresser and walked out feeling a bit different than what they expected. But then there are also the success stories where something turned out even better.

Is that a big part of this, building up the trust, but also socially and emotionally?

Rica Elysée (25:34)

I think that the building up the trust is extremely important, right? I think in all the interactions that we have with people every single day, it's bound on trust. Right? I mean, you and your mom meet when you come, when you come out, right? And from that moment on, it's a journey of trust, right? You're trusting your mom in the sense of, you don't know if she knows how to take care of you, but she has you.

And your mom's looking at you as, like, I'm going to trust you to be this beautiful little human that I, I think I've made, right? So you guys are building this trust. The, it, it just, it's something that you, it's innate. It's something that happens from the beginning. Every single relationship you have throughout your life is based off this trust. You go into school trusting the teacher to teach you something you don't know. You go into the,

let's say, the supermarket and hope that the person baking your cake really did a great job at it, because you know this, this is gonna come, this is gonna be this experience for you. You're always gonna remember it. So trust is fundamental. However, when it comes to beauty, I think what a lot of people don't get is that every single thing someone does in the beauty space requires them to touch you.

It requires them to touch you. And because it requires them to touch you, the, the level of empathy and the level of care, right? And the level of communication that comes through there, the trust is already set up in place. And it's one of those things that I had to learn and realise sets up for a lot of the stress that beauty professionals have to carry on their shoulders, right? Because

the most trusted place that most women feel that they have is in that chair. The chair of when they're getting ready. And when they're getting ready, they spew out all their secrets. I'm getting divorced. I, I got a new dog. This, that, whatever. All these things come out. And then the beauty pro has to carry that with them. Either it's going to be a joyous or a negative experience. And that can impact your hair service.

Right? What if you tell them, hey, my boyfriend's beating me up, and then all of a sudden their, their hands are shaking while they're cutting your hair? Because now you've passed on that trauma to them, and now they're worried because they don't know if your boyfriend is coming to pick you up.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (28:12)

Wow, I never thought of that, that thought that could go into it. Those elements of holding space, that's a phrase that's used a lot. Sorry, I'll start that again. I'll edit that. That holding space, which is a phrase the yoga teachers use quite a bit. It, it's an emotional experience that people get very little training on, because

we know that a psychologist will be holding emotional space, or other types of therapists, doctors, but someone who is having their hands on someone for a beauty, for a hair, that holds emotional weight. And what you're describing, people can learn from this when they are listening, if they work in, goodness, hosting retreats, hosting any sort of wellness things.

They might be hands on or hands off. But there's the emotional weight, we need to talk about that. Because I even found, hosting the podcast, I had studied journalism, but not everybody does. And I don't think it prepares anyone fully for, on this show people

have

gone in every direction. We've covered anything. There are some things I didn't publish because I thought, is this going to be a bit more trauma than, you know, is this beyond what a trigger warning can cover? What, how do you guide your professionals in holding that emotional weight?

Rica Elysée (29:56)

You know, it's one of the new ventures that I'm, I started, called Care in the Chair. And Care in the Chair is a trauma-informed training on the ground for stylists to take. And so we're doing our second one, our second annual one, in partnership with the City of Boston. And I have to tell you, we equip them with the, the scripts, right? And the tactics.

To be available to share the resources, but not take on the hero role, right? And not take on the therapist role. That is not what the, these situations are for, right? And there are some pros that we've even instructed, hey, charge an extra rate. If they want to be able to tell you about something that you feel you're gonna carry and it's gonna hurt you emotionally, charge an extra rate.

Make them make the decision that they want to spend on doing this. Why? Because they spend on doing this with a therapist.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:02)

That, a lot, because sometimes a professional needs that moment afterwards to, however they do it, lift that emotional weight off them to then keep going through the day. Is that what you've seen, or what are the other ways?

Rica Elysée (31:18)

I've seen that, but I've also,

I've also encouraged boundaries, right? Just because you're in a service space doesn't mean that you do not have boundaries in what you're willing to hear and experience for yourself. And you have to be very clear of that with your customers as well. Like, hey, this is my personal boundary right here. I, I don't think we can talk about that. I'm, I'm not comfortable talking about that.

I'm,

I'm happy that you feel safe with me, but I don't think this is the time and place. Or—

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (31:55)

Absolutely.

Rica Elysée (31:56)

—here's, here's someone who can help you. And, you know, maybe it's not necessarily like, hey, let me just pull out my phone and give you a phone number. It might be, there's a QR code on my mirror. And that QR code will direct you to the place that you can get the support and help that you're looking for. And that's it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:15)

QR codes are great, because a website or a bunch of websites can help more than a phone number. Yes, sometimes you need to reach someone directly, but something online is where it's at, for sure. And the phrase that someone that I trust has been using is that some particular issues are not that person's specialty. And it's totally fair. We're not an expert in everything.

Rica Elysée (32:41)

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that, you know, that's where I, I come in with the, I'm gonna use, I've used this word so many times today. You have to be willing to delegate to where you're not, you know, where you can't, can't run the world, right? Like, hey, I want to be able to say I can do all things, but the reality is, is that I don't have a PhD, right? I did not take

any type of, like, training to understand how you do things. But what I do have is the empathy and the compassion to tell you, I want you to find that help. I just can't be the person to give it to you.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (33:24)

Absolutely. You need, sometimes people need more than one person. And it is very sweet when, when customers trust someone that much. But also, I'm wondering where you are, if community, any sense of community, helps the people you're dealing with as well.

Rica Elysée (33:45)

I do think that there is a sense of community that supports it and helps it, for sure. But right now I'm at ground zero. And ground zero is not necessarily about community, right? It's about education first. Like, did you recognise this? Why or why not? Right? Are you feeling safe? Why or why not? It's really about establishing that question,

that question in education, right? Because right now where we are is that we need to be able to ask the right questions in order to engage.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:25)

People need to know what to say, especially when they're so new to all of this, because your hairdresser is, they would have mainly learned how to cut hair, right?

Rica Elysée (34:37)

They, they do learn how to do the art of, you know, beauty services, whether it be hair, skin, right, makeup, nails, even barbering, right? You have to look at all these different service industries. They learn how to do something that we all appreciate for our, our own vanity, right? However, there are a lot of things that they don't get to be trained on because the skill set isn't valid.

Right. So, like, think about business, right? Some don't have what they need in business acumen in order to do what they need to do next. Some of them don't have the proper customer service skills, web building skills, right? Like, hey, this is where Square.com ends up being, like, a win, right? A lot of these beauty pros, hey, I need a website. Where am I going? GlossGenius, Square.

Right? Where are these different locations that you can actually go and, and make it work? But at the end of the day, when I think about the beauty pros and the way that they're trained, I think they were trained for an industry that was still extremely manual. And now, with the influx of technology, things have changed. Right?

So you're looking at web booking, for example, for beauty appointments of, is really, what, only twenty years old. But yet the science of the curling iron, you know, it's been so long. But now we're starting to see it change as well. So I'm just excited to see what technology is doing. I don't think robots are gonna be able to take over, but I do think that

robots will be able to assist in changing how the physicality of the industry impacts people's bodies, though.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:35)

Tech will change the physicality. How?

Rica Elysée (36:39)

Yeah, I mean, when you think about the level of carpal tunnel and, like, some of the things that people are doing, right? With the right tool they won't be using as much of their physical force to do it. But they'll still be able to make sure that things are executed well.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (36:56)

If it's okay, if we can get a few examples on that, what sorts of things are a bit more manual now that might not be later?

Rica Elysée (37:03)

Braided extensions.

That might change.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:06)

How would that work? Maybe—

Rica Elysée (37:08)

Robots could start or finish braids. You have machines that are already starting to do lashes. Yeah. And then you have them doing colour nail polish changes.

So there are a lot of different things that technology's actually taking a part of, but there are a lot of things that just haven't been figured out yet, right? We're not in the age of the Jetsons, where you could just put something over your head and pull it up and your hair is styled. But I think we're gonna end up going there eventually.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (37:42)

This is, this is very eye-opening. Doing okay?

It's very eye-opening, because a lot of us think about the automations of, as you mentioned, the website. On my end, the scheduling is a game changer, but you're saying the physical work is going to get a tech change as well.

Rica Elysée (38:03)

Yeah, I do. I do think that it's going to change things, for sure. And I do think that there are opportunities for us to reimagine it.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:13)

Reimagine.

Rica Elysée (38:13)

But that we're not there

yet. Yeah. We're not there yet. I think that there's some things coming, but that we need to reimagine it. Because at the end of the day, when I think about doing hair from home, some people are thinking about having a phone or a laptop in the bathroom, following a YouTube video. I also think about being able to use a smart mirror that is literally helping you style.

And talk you through it where you're watching, yeah, right? If your bathroom's going to be your, your classroom, it might as well be something that you can use, that you use every day. And that's where I think that the, the manipulation of the mirror is going to happen very soon, because the mirror is part of our everyday lives that isn't doing enough work.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:03)

Love that. Because then you can see what you're doing now and get ideas on how it can work better. People need these sorts of things so much.

Rica Elysée (39:14)

Need, I need, like, a,

I need, like, a five minutes.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:18)

We can wind up for a few minutes with any sort of call to action on just what the listeners should take away from this. So maybe a CTA for anyone who's listening who's in a care industry, be it beauty or something adjacent, and something that someone can take away from this if they are

looking for services like yours or a similar, or looking to trust particular services. Or yeah, we'll leave it at those two things.

Rica Elysée (39:49)

Okay. That sounds good. I could definitely do a CTA to that, at the end of this. I also, you know, d— I'm not sure what you're gonna call the episode. Do you have a label or a title that you wanna make sure that we ring through?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:05)

I don't have a title, AI normally feeds the titles to me, but you're welcome to suggest one if you have a preference.

Rica Elysée (40:11)

No, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. I just wanted to be sure, in case, you know, that we could rally for that.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:19)

I think the theme that has emerged has been delegation and tech, delegating to humans and technology. And I love how I didn't know what theme was going to thread through, but that became it, which is cool.

Rica Elysée (40:38)

Okay, awesome. I really hope it resonates with your audience though. 'Cause I, I know for me, being able to delegate is one of my superpowers. That's why I have a team. But it took me a long time to get there, to learn how to, like, trust people without feeling like they were gonna fail me. Right? It took a while. So—

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:06)

Okay, did it take months or years to, did it take a long time to trust people to delegate?

Rica Elysée (41:14)

I think it took me a couple of years to get there. It took me a couple of years because, you, the, the hard part about, like, working with others, especially when you're starting to work with mentors and advisors, is that they already feel that you're not capable, right? 'Cause they want to be able to help you. Like, hey, you know, there's something that, there, that I can really help you with.

And then you have to realise that, guess what? Everybody's gonna have an opinion, and it's gonna take your mental fortitude to decide what is required of you. Right? What are you comfortable with? What are you okay with? And it takes time. It takes time for that. Not everybody tells you that, though.

'Cause I've felt the betrayal with mentors and advisors where they wanted to take over the business. That's, that'll be one of my memoir stories, for sure. But there's also those situations where they were the godsend that helped me review the technology. You know, before AI, and you were not technical and you had a CTO, you didn't know what the tech was really telling you

or doing for you until you had someone else technical go through it for you. I was like, it was interesting to see that they were writing jokes inside the code to each other. I had two developers. Yeah, they were writing to each other through the code. Just, like, it was, it was cool. It wasn't clean or whatever, but it, it was cool. But when my, my advisor went to go read it over, and he was like, wow.

They're, these guys. And I'm just like, okay, what, what am I missing here? And, you know, it's the thing of, like, I'm never gonna be able to read the code, but having someone who can will definitely help, you know.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:20)

That's quite a story in itself.

Rica Elysée (43:22)

It's for another day.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:24)

Absolutely. I know.

It's showing me that people do things and you won't, you won't know everything that people are doing. So trust is a big component with the delegation as much as receiving a service.

Rica Elysée (43:39)

Yeah, for sure.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (43:40)

We've learned so much. Rica, thank you so much for talking, and clearly a busy time of your life. Thanks.

Rica Elysée (43:48)

Yeah. I, I just wanna thank you so much, Melanie, for having me. Sorry for the miniature hiccup. But, you know, this was something that I really wanted to be able to share with other people, is the power of delegation, right? And that we shouldn't be scared of tech. We should be embracing it and learning it together. If anything, learning circles are imperative for us not to feel the fear.

But more or less to encourage each other where our strengths are. And, you know, my hope is that someone hears this and they feel the same.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:27)

Awesome. That's, that's a great lesson for everybody to learn from. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Rica Elysée (44:35)

No problem. I hope that everybody can reach out to me. I'm Rica the CEO on Instagram and on Threads, and also my business, BeautyLynk. We're out there trying to help multicultural brides, for sure, but you'll find us in the nearest beauty desert soon.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:55)

Awesome.