‘What’s the worst to happen?’ Buff Day Spa co-founder on taking risks

In 2002, Marsha Abrahams, a qualified CIMA accountant, identified a gap in the market when it came to the availability of city-centre spas.

Having known from a young age that she would like to own and run her business one day, Marsha co-founded the Buff Day Spa on Dublin's South King Street which she helped to develop into a thriving business with 20 staff and €1m annual turnover.

However, following a trip to Greece in 2015, the course of Marsha's already stellar career took somewhat of a turn.

Finding herself hugely impressed with a Juliette Armand treatment during the trip, Marsha made the decision to sell her half of the Buff Day Spa business and concentrate 100% on distributing Juliette Armand in Ireland.

Since bringing the brand into Ireland two years ago the unique skincare range is now stocked in nearly 100 salons nationwide, her target is to be in every county in Ireland by the end of the year. With only five to go after chatting with her I’m sure she will achieve this.

As part of our Ladies Who Launch series, Marsha, who won the Dublin City LEO Female Entrepreneur Award in 2016, sat down with SHEmazing for a chat about business, backpacking and babies.

Marsha, can you remember a distinct moment when you decided the business route was for you?

"From the age of 13, I helped dad out in his business – hairdressing. And I watched his business fail.  He was too nice and wasn’t prepared to put the prices up when he needed to. I knew at that age I wanted to run my own business and make a success of it.

It was in the back of my mind and I decided to become an accountant.

Having co-founded an incredibly successful city-centre spa, you essentially took a gamble on Juliette Armand, and may have come up against negativity or reservation from concerned colleagues and family members. How do you generally deal with that?

I cannot begin to tell you how supportive my husband was through all of this. He really did put his faith in me and this product and would like to thank him publicly for his support (if that’s OK!), he is the most important person to consider.

 We are in a partnership and work together really well, outside of that I listened to what anyone had to say, nod politely and get on with it!

You have mentioned in the past the impact your father’s salon had on your career aspirations growing up. Do you feel you learned more from his triumphs or his pitfalls?

"I wouldn’t say it was either, what I saw in my father was someone with an amazing work ethic, who would do whatever it takes to make sure there was a roof over our heads and food on the table.

"The failure of his business was due to him not wanting to offend anyone but he closed the business down leaving no one out of pocket apart from the tax man.

You acknowledged that your brain is always ticking over with new ideas and potential development plans, do you think that kind of mindset is a given for any entrepreneur?

Any other entrepreneur I have spoken to says the same, especially as a new start-up you have to be able to juggle several things at once to make sure everything gets done. 

I also think that’s why the phase serial entrepreneur came about, we can’t just sit still with one thing. With being a distributor it gives me the opportunity to be able to look at other avenues without affecting my core business.

Having ‘done the backpacker thing with a vengeance’ but also worked three jobs at a time, were there points in your career when you longed for the carefree days of travel? How do you balance work and leisure?

Before I had children, there was many a time I wanted to just pack the bag and head off, I planned my holidays right and got to spend three weeks doing small breaks to places I still wanted to visit.

I don’t have a formal structure to my work week. With having my daughters with me in the office some afternoon, if the weather is nice I don’t have to ask anyone if I can leave early, I just close up and go to the park.

With today’s technology I have the freedom to do this by having my phone on me I can still respond to calls and emails and I can always come back and work in the evening once they have gone to bed if there is anything urgent.

You speak highly of the Plato Business Development Programme, can you give our readers an idea of how it affects both your personal and professional outlook?

I would highly recommend Plato to any small business that is going on to the next step, they help me get focused, put plans and objective together. There is peer to peer support and accountability.

Even when you have a team of people beneath you, running a business can feel very lonely and the group is great for giving good honest advice on tough decisions.

You say ‘timing is everything’; is this something you believe budding businesswomen should take into account when navigating their own career paths?

My personal motto is ‘what’s the worst that can happen?’ There is a reason things happen and a reason for everything.

So if it’s not going to kill you why not have a go? It brought me to where I am now.