Light touch

Helen Quayle, owner of five-strong clinic group LaserHQ, tells Eve Oxberry how she built up her specialist business so fast and why her team are experts in hormonal health

How did you come to set up LaserHQ?

“I’m actually trained to be a PE teacher but when I left university, I knew that business was more my personality so I did a business apprenticeship then went into a beauty company as an operations manager, which is how I got into the industry.

“I wanted laser hair removal but when I was looking there was no reliable, recognisable brand offering it. It was always in a salon or spa environment and was either really expensive or it might be cheap, through an online deal, but unreliable.

“I started researching more into it and decided I wanted to build an affordable and reliable laser brand. When I first started, I was in a tiny room in a salon in Manchester, but fast forward seven years and we’ve now got five locations, including one in Harvey Nichols, and we’re the only brand in the UK to have bespoke machines from Sinclair.”

How did you grow the business to five sites and an academy?

“I’ve never had funding so it’s all been organic growth. My mum gave me £50 for my logo when I started, and that’s the only support I’ve had!

“We’ve always invested back into the business and grown that way. If I need another therapist, I’d always invest in another machine then wait for that to build up, then invest into another clinic and wait for that to grow, so it’s all been us.

“I opened my Liverpool site six and a half years ago and people were traveling from all over because of the results, the rapport, the affordability – everything I’d wanted to put out there. I opened my current Manchester site five years ago and that was a big one. People were traveling to us from Leeds so I set up a clinic in Leeds because I could see there was demand. Then people came from Newcastle so I set one up in Newcastle – I’ve always gone where people have travelled to us from. We’ve even had people over from Dubai.”

How do you select which devices to use?

“We changed supplier in 2021 because the old machine company wasn’t supporting us. I was having meetings with different companies and went with Sinclair because of the technology behind the machines.

“It wasn’t just about the cheapest deal for me, it was more about the science behind the machines. I call them my little workhorses because they run back-to-back from Monday morning until we shut on Saturday night and it’s very rare that we’d have any kind of problem.

“We have the Elysion Pro machines and they have a sun-safe setting too, which means my business can run through the summer, whereas a lot of laser devices struggle with that.

“When we made the switch, I had two machines from my previous supplier in Manchester and one in Liverpool so it was an investment to get three new machines at once but I knew I needed better support because if a device were to break and I had to cancel a day, I couldn’t fit those clients back in. I needed people who could come out and service machines if there was anything wrong with them. I needed that support network around me to grow, and I’ve just gradually built it up, so for Newcastle we got another machine, then another one for Leeds.”

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced while growing your business?

“Covid was really hard. I’m very cautious about saving and investing in things at the right time but Covid was like a breaking point. In 2021, I thought, ‘if I’m going to invest in these machines now, and we don’t open in April, I don’t know what I’m going to do’. But we had to take that risk. Before the lockdowns, I was so busy working in the business, whereas Covid taught me to work on the business.

“So, I did my own website – I learned how to do that – and we actually employed more staff during Covid and did training. So, I invested in the business because we had time, and then once we opened, I had new staff, new machines, and then that’s when we grew 400% within the year after reopening. So, I always try to turn a negative into a positive. A lot of that growth was also down to better laser machines – because we can fit more people in and do treatments quicker.”

Having grown so quickly, how do you maintain the ethos of the business?

“Obviously it can be hard to be hands-on with all the sites but we have an amazing team. I’ve got everything in place with area managers, and the training the team go through is really intense.

“They do four months’ training, including a VTCT course. Then, once they have been accredited, we teach them the core of the business, what we stand for and the campaigns we run.

“We also have a hormonal health course, LBGTQ+ training, domestic violence awareness training. Even skin cancer training, because we see places that clients wouldn’t normally be able to see; for example, if we’re lasering their back.”

Can you tell us about the campaigns you have launched?

“A lot of women that were coming in would say how much more confidence the treatments gave them – like they didn’t need to wear scarves anymore because we’d removed the hair on their face.

“I absolutely loved being able to help change people’s lives so I started investigating more about women’s confidence and what it can do for them, which led to us launching campaigns around hormonal health, PCOS and endometriosis. A lot of women were coming in with hair on their face and thinking they were the only one so I needed to get the word out there that they’re not alone.”

What are your plans for the future?

“To carry on expanding with more clinics in the UK and especially to grow my partnership more with Sinclair and get their machines out there even more. Then, hopefully, world domination – I’d like to be in Dubai, Spain, everywhere. I want to grow the training academy as well. We are all set up for VTCT-approved training and I think that’s only going to become more important with the expected changes in regulation.”