Whether you’ve been a military spouse for 10 weeks, or 10+ years, there’s one challenge that all career-focused military spouses, regardless of how seasoned they are, have to face, and that’s finding the right job fit that supports your family’s need for flexibility.
There’s no shortage of “work from home” jobs in the marketplace, but even with the ability to work remotely, many companies have state-based location restrictions or require you to be “at work” at specific times that don’t coincide with your time zone or day-to-day schedule.
As a military spouse-owned and -operated business (our CEO is a 10+ year military spouse in addition to several of our key team members, teachers, and support staff here at Addo Wellness Institute), we believe that one of the best career opportunities for military spouses lies in working with small business owners who are in need of support to help grow and nurture their business, but can be flexible on how and when that support is delivered.
Enter: spa owners
CEOs of brick-and-mortar spas, salons, and other aesthetic industry and wellness studios are in heavy need of extra support, especially in the realms of virtual assistance and social media management where someone can take what is often high time-intensive tasks (for them) off their plate so they can tend to the high-level tasks of supporting their team of service and treatment providers and growing their business and profits.
Beyond the ideal nature of remote flexibility the aesthetic industry provides, here are a few more reasons why the aesthetics industry is the perfect fit for career-focused military spouses:
1 – You Understand the Average Aesthetic Consumer’s Mindset More Than Most
You may not have any experience within the aesthetic industry, and we’ve got good news: you don’t need it!
Anything you need to know about the in’s and out’s of a spa and an aesthetic brand are things you can learn through industry-specific skills training, but one element that you can tap into more than the average virtual assistant or spa social media manager is that you have a deep understanding of what potential spa clients need and want out of their experience at an aesthetic practice.
Think about it, if you’ve gone through even one or two PCS moves, you know the struggle of starting all over in a new neighborhood, which means finding a new hairstylist, esthetician, nail technician, baby- and pet-sitters, the list goes on.
“It takes a village” has never felt more accurate than when you have to recreate that village every few years, which means you’re very in tune with knowing how to look for and vet your new service providers.
Hearing about others’ experiences (client testimonials), seeing results, quick response times and high-touch customer service, ease of entry (i.e. – can you book a new service easily and efficiently?); these are all things you routinely have to navigate when you’re moving every 2-3 years as opposed to the average person who doesn’t move to an entirely new state or part of the country nearly as often, if ever.
And it’s this experience that you have the advantage of being able to draw on, allowing you to truly harness the skills needed to succeed as a spa virtual assistant or spa social media manager.
When you can deeply empathize with the spa’s clientele, you can’t help but provide top-notch customer service and support, or produce content that speaks directly to the desires of a potential client, because you can slip on those potential client’s shoes a little easier than most.
2 – Opportunities for Deep Diversification of Your Skillset
Falling behind in career-focused skills development is often a by-product of being a military spouse who has to stop and start work over several, if not many years.
This can make it difficult when rejoining the workforce either because you’re back in a location with more job opportunities or your spouse is retiring from the armed forces, and often leads to further career opportunity decline due to the need to re-educate in a new field where there are current opportunities.
As a company with a team consisting of military spouses, we’re advocates for keeping your skillset sharp through a variety of avenues, particularly ones that get you paid.
One of these avenues is being an online service provider, for example, a spa virtual assistant or spa social media manager, because not only does it allow for flexible working hours and location, but in these roles, specifically, you get to utilize and develop an array of skills that can be applied to nearly any career field and job role should you ever choose to return to the more traditional workforce.
( Warning: there’s a high chance you’re going to fall in love with the remote and digitally-based aesthetic working world, and what you may think is a filler role until it’s time to move on from the military becomes your family’s bread and butter income source — don’t say you weren’t warned!)
Whether it’s becoming well-versed in tech and software, building out systems and processes, branding and messaging strategy, media production, or copywriting and design, becoming either a spa virtual assistant or spa social media manager requires dabbling in a variety of daily activities that truly allows your skillset to flourish while you continue to keep your resume’s work experience up-to-date and keeps deposits coming into your bank account on a consistent basis.
3 – A Place to “Bloom” with Room to Grow
A little more word to our warning above, one of the other reasons why aesthetics is an ideal industry for military spouses is the opportunity for upward mobility.
When you’re struggling to maintain employment as a military spouse, sometimes a job is a job and that’s enough (and if it is, that’s wonderful!), but it’s okay to want more than “enough.”
It’s more than okay to want more — more flexibility, more time, more money, more opportunities to go further on a chosen career track than hitting the reset button on your career every few years.
Now we don’t have hard and fast statistics, but we’d venture that at least 90 percent of career-focused military spouses have had to shift or press pause on their desires for their career at one point or another.
As a group that’s often given the advice of “bloom where you are planted,” it can be discouraging when it feels like you’ve finally got some roots down only to be ripped out of the soil a short time later.
Thankfully, the aesthetics industry is extremely multifaceted, which again, allows for amazing skills diversification, but it also gives you ample room to grow.
Many spa owners who are working to expand their aesthetic practice will scale their businesses by adding in an e-commerce store as a revenue stream, or begin providing education and aesthetic trainings to other professionals, franchise or open additional brick-and-mortar locations, or even develop a separate personal expert brand where they branch into speaking, coaching, or consulting.
When you act as a solid member of that spa owner’s support team as their spa’s virtual assistant or social media manager, you’re in a prime position to be promoted as your skills develop and the spa owner’s business scales.
Interested in learning more about the aesthetics industry and our certification programs specifically tailored toward becoming a spa virtual assistant or spa social media manager?
Whether you’re simply curious about starting on a new career track, or you’re determined to find a remote role that provides you with work you love and a lucrative path forward, remember that it’s never too late to dream a new dream or set a new goal.