(energetic music)
- I'm Lea Woodford, founder and CEO of SmartFem Magazine.
I'm on a quest to meet
some of the most influential people in today's world.
I'll be talking to women and companies that understand
the fierce brand loyalty of the female consumer.
We'll get a behind the scenes look
at some of the risks, challenges, and successes
of today's most influential people.
(energetic music)
Hi, this is Lea Woodford with SmartFem TV,
and I am in beautiful Las Vegas
with Sean and Thora Dowdell of Club Tattoo.
Hi guys, how are you?
- Hi Lea, thanks for having us.
- Oh, thanks for having us.
This is beautiful.
- [Sean And Thora] Thank you.
- So, I'm gonna get right into it guys.
How did you guys get started in the tattoo industry?
- 1995 I was in the music industry as a drummer
in a band called Grey Daze.
We were touring quite a bit,
the band was getting a lot of regional fame
and doing quite well, however,
personally we weren't making a lot of money.
So we came up with the idea to open up a tattoo studio,
so that we could actually make a little bit of money
when we were on the road
so we didn't come back to piles of bills.
(laughing)
That was really the inspiration for
(laughing)
how we started.
- Now Club Tattoo, it's beautiful,
but how are you guys different from other tattoo parlors?
- Well, first of all we don't want to be called a parlor.
We've elevated the industry to recognize
tattoo and piercing businesses as studios,
or stores or shops.
Parlor is a bit seedy, a bit underground,
not so female friendly,
so we'd prefer to be called a studio.
- Some of the aspects that make our studio
specifically different would be
the interactive tattoo software program
that we have at all of our store locations.
That is an interactive touchscreen software
that helps the client find the images
and look through the tattoo portfolios
and do a whole virtual texting keyboard.
There's a lot of other factors
as far as the body jewelry selection we carry.
Tens of thousands, literally hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of body jewelry, and gold and diamonds.
We've really elevated the look
of the tattoo and piercing industry, not only aesthetically
but the actual services that you receive.
The experience for the client is completely different
than any other tattoo parlor.
- Well, and you guys have really embraced technology.
- Absolutely you have to.
- Well, nobody else has though.
I mean, you have really have taken it to the next level.
Can you elaborate about some of your technology?
- So I'll start with the interactive tattoo
touchscreen software that we developed back in 2008.
We wanted to get away from the look and feel
that any of the other tattoo parlors have.
If you walk in, traditionally you'll see
tattoo art on the wall, it's called flash,
or you'll thumb through books or folders.
That experience is missing for the client,
is they don't see photos,
so when somebody wants a hummingbird let's say.
They come in and they say, "Hummingbird."
You've got to point them to a wall and kind of throw a dart
and try to find a hummingbird.
We created an experience where
if somebody wants to find a hummingbird,
they come in they hit the letter H
on our interactive touchscreen.
Not only do they get instant access to hundreds
or thousands of images for the specific category
that they're looking for,
but they get photos, they get paintings,
and of course there's some integrated
tattoo flash within that,
but the experience is far and above
what you would normally see in a tattoo parlor.
- Well, and also for us girls
that need to put the outfit together for the tattoo,
the interactive tattoo software
allows you to put together your own design,
which correlates directly with the artist consult bar,
where they will go in and actually have
all of the pictures together
to create the compilation of the tattoo.
- Wow, love that.
Now, what was your biggest challenge?
- Working together.
(laughing)
- As a married couple it's definitely hard to work together,
and those create some very interesting
and original challenges.
- I joined the business about three years after we met,
and we got married very quickly.
We knew each other for 10 days,
a year later we were married.
- Now, tell our viewing audience
just how long you've kept it going?
- 21 years.
- This year is 20 year wedding anniversary.
- Wow.
- We've been together for 21 years.
- And you work together?
- Yes, day in and day out. - Yes, every day.
(laughing)
- Now, how has the industry changed since you got into it?
- We changed it.
- We've definitely been a spark that has pushed
the industry in a forward thinking direction.
We've gotten away from the grimy biker type attitudes.
People see it as an elevated industry at this point,
and you see retail structures,
retail businesses all around the world
in the boutique areas struggling quite a bit.
We bring a different aspect and perspective
for a lot of the landlords around the world.
So they're starting to seek us out
in elevated positions, which is great.
One of the ways that we've changed the industry
is the visual aesthetics.
Thora actually does all of the design
in all of the tattoo studios,
and she's just made it look amazing,
so we've changed the industry,
people copying what she's brought to the table.
- Well, and we are a women owned,
women ran company so across our six studios,
we hire women to manage our stores and to be our employees.
So it's really great to kind of bond together
in a female friendly environment,
managed by females to bring the women in
who spend their money.
- Absolutely.
- Now you guys identified
an untapped target demographic, women.
I mean in the tattoo industry,
I mean not everybody had tattoos.
It was pretty much men for a long time.
- In 1995 it was certainly frowned upon,
I'll tell you that and it's definitely become mainstream.
- It has become, but everybody has 'em now.
- You're a minority if you don't nowadays.
- Exactly.
- One of the things I think that actually brought
piercings to the forefront as well,
is when you turn on the television
and the Victoria's Secret angel show comes up
and they're wearing navel jewelry,
and now you see it in print ads
for other brands and things like that.
So a lot of the media has really brought tattooing,
some of the major designers now are using tattooed arms
to display their designer shoes,
a lot more tattooed models in mainstream advertisements,
so it's really making middle America and us normal people,
feel normal with tattoos.
- Well the artwork has gotten so intricate now,
I mean it's not your grandpa's tattoos anymore.
- The quality of inks.
- Exactly, and something that we're missing in this part
of the conversation isn't just the tattoos,
but it's the body piercing jewelry.
For years it was very run of the mill,
very cheaply made, mall style jewelry,
and now we've really elevated the industry
not Club Tattoo specifically,
but the industry has been elevated with the integration
of these really beautiful pieces of fashion jewelry
that happen to be body jewelry now.
You're starting to see a lot of gold, and diamonds,
and sapphires that are part of everyday wear
in the body jewelry industry that didn't exist 15 years ago.
It just wasn't around.
Now you're seeing these very delicate,
ornate pieces that are quite expensive.
Some can be two, three, four thousands of dollars,
but you're seeing the women that appreciate fashion
really drawn to the body piercing
side of our industry as well.
- Now, you guys have helped make it safer too.
Can you elaborate that for our viewing audience?
The piercings.
- One of the ways that we've made things safer
is we saw a need in the market for a skin antiseptic,
so we developed a product called E to T
and it helps with the cleansing
and antimicrobial bacteria that is on skin cells
and we have pushed that in the industry.
We've also helped push laws in the state of Arizona.
We've helped push laws and helped write laws
in the state of Nevada,
so we've done a lot of community outreach.
- So Sean and Thora, you guys were mavericks
when it comes to being an entrepreneur.
Can you just kind of give some advice for new entrepreneurs?
- My first piece of advice, have a strategy, expect failure,
and keep going no matter what.
- Thora and I have actually started another company
to help young entrepreneurs with their challenges
that every entrepreneur finds.
It's called Business Game Changers
and it's something that we want to do to give back
to the other young entrepreneurs and help mentor them.
- What was one of the biggest lessons that you learned
being an entrepreneur, the two of you?
- Oh.
- Failure is a part of success,
and early on you're really ashamed of failure,
at least I was and you really don't know
how to admit it out loud.
Now as far as the way Thora and I operate together,
we try to recognize failures early,
and either how to correct to get out of the failure,
or to recognize, stop the failure and move on
to another path to success. - Quickly.
If you're expecting the failure to come,
you can rebound quickly through the process
and if you have a good process and a streamlined system
in place for whatever it is
you're trying to achieve within the business,
coming from an operational standpoint,
because I operate all the businesses, I'm the COO.
Really making sure that throughout that process,
if you're expecting a failure along the way,
you can reroute and get back on track very quickly.
When you don't recognize failure as part of the success,
it will slow you down and possibly stall you out,
and make affordable mistakes.
(laughing)
- Oh, I love that.
- Affordable mistakes.
- Affordable mistakes is a great point.
You see a lot of these motivational speakers
sometimes that'll act like everything is peachy
and everything's a hundred percent positive,
there's no such thing as a failure.
If I hear that one more time,
I'm gonna laugh out loud at the person who says it.
Of course there's failures,
and when you don't recognize them as failures
it's simply called denial.
- Who inspired you, and what is it that keeps you motivated?
- I'm sure that answer's different for both of us.
Who inspired me, there's a long list of people.
Early on it was my father, my grandfather,
my mother, my grandmother.
I had a really strong connection with my family.
As far as business, I had a business mentor
named Kerry Rose that really helped me understand
in my late 19, early 20 years old
how business really operated and how to look at metrics.
So, he was a big inspiration for me.
- How about you, Thora?
- Well, it starts with my grandmother.
Her name was Thora also.
She owned a business as well.
- That is an amazing coincidence.
(laughing)
- I know, isn't it?
- She was an entrepreneur in the '40s and '50s.
- Oh, she was a maverick.
- Very much so, and really just watching
the work ethic from my mother.
So I get my work ethic and my drive
from my parents and my grandparents.
My inspiration now is my husband,
my family, and my business.
Knowing that after all these years,
and having hundreds of people that work for us,
it's a big responsibility
and it keeps me inspired every day.
If you love what you do it doesn't feel like work,
it just feels like let's do better, we can change things
and so that's really my inspiration.
- I work with a bunch of millennials.
Do you find that the work ethic
is sometimes hard to find in the business?
- Very much so.
- Millennials tend to have a different thought process,
and it's trying to understand the thought process,
that's one of our biggest challenges.
But understand, it's not that they don't want to work.
They really haven't been taught
the value of work and what you get out of it
because we have such an instant gratification
society right now.
They want to see a picture of something,
they go on Instagram, they go on Google and it's there.
When I wanted to find research material on anything
I was doing, I had to go to the library.
- Google didn't exist. (laughing)
- There was serious effort involved in getting a result,
and I think that that is the disconnect
between our generation and the millennials.
They see it as instant gratification.
I want to make more money, I should make more money now.
It doesn't quite work like that in the real world,
so we view ourselves as mentors in that aspect as well
where we're trying to teach them the value
of what you put in is what you're gonna get out later on.
- So important, so true.
What are the key three things
that every entrepreneur needs to know?
(upbeat music)
- Well I already stated, have a strategy first of all.
Expect failure, and keep going
the extra mile no matter what.
- I would say take the first step.
Many people are paralyzed by analyzing.
Paralyzation from analyzation is a problem for a lot people.
They never start.
They're gonna talk about the I'm gonna or I'm about to,
let's talk about what you're doing, so take the first step.
Second thing, find somebody you can relate to
or somebody that can teach you something.
The more you surround yourself
with either teachers or mentors,
the better off you're gonna be and write your goals down.
You have an 80% greater chance of succeeding
at your goal if you simply write it down.
- So true, so true.
Now, can we talk about your friend
and business partner Chester Bennington?
- Absolutely, I love to talk about Chester.
What would you like to know?
- Well, why don't you tell our viewing audience
about your history with Chester?
♪ In the end it doesn't even matter ♪
- So Chester and I spent many years
in the music industry together.
He was the singer for our band
called Grey Daze from 1992 to 1998.
We started playing together in '91
in this small other project,
but basically we put out a couple records,
had a couple record deals,
and eventually the band broke up in 1998.
Chester went on to Linkin Park.
Within a couple of years he was calling us
and saying, "I want to be involved in Club Tattoo."
Because he was there in the early years,
and really loved the brand.
He was there laying vinyl tiles on the floor from day one.
He really was.
He helped me paint the original studio.
We were the best of friends,
so it was a natural integration for Thora and I
to take him on as a business partner
and he was a business partner in Club Tattoo
up until the day that he passed.
He was a great inspiration.
He was one of the kindest
most selfless human beings I've ever met.
He made me want to be a better person
every time I was around him.
He was just a great guy.
- What about you Thora?
What are your thoughts on Chester?
- Well first of all, I miss him.
I want everyone to know that he was more
than just a rockstar singer.
He was a dear friend.
He was an astute businessperson.
We had lots of fun together.
- Yes we did.
- My children looked up to him as man, not as a rockstar.
So I like to recognize his achievements for his benevolence.
He gave back a lot. - Yes he did.
- He did a lot service work in the community.
He was a philanthropist.
He gave a lot of money to a lot of organizations.
He inspired children.
One thing that he taught me is that fans
and people that look up to you for something in their lives,
need to be priority over anyone
that is giving you false adoration.
- He was one of those guys that would sit around
for hours after a show and sign autographs
and make sure that he was giving 100% back to his fans.
I've never seen somebody that was as grateful
for the opportunity that he had,
and that really was a lesson for me.
Sometimes our egos can get in the way,
and he rarely let his show.
He was one of the just, most incredible persons
and other than giving money,
which is easy to do when you have money, he gave his time.
And time is a seriously valued commodity
when you're as busy as somebody like him.
He would give it very willingly.
- Now, after reading your book you guys
were really close together and you were close,
but you were like the big brother.
- He was like my little brother.
Yeah, I was the big brother and even up until--
- It's because Sean's meaner.
(laughing)
- I'm very protective.
I was very protective of Chester.
He was like my little brother and you know,
early on he was this scrawny little kid.
He was in the drama program at school
when he was in high school,
and he was a singer and he was awkward
and to me awkward is special.
I love awkward.
Awkward is what his greatness is pulled from,
so I saw that early on.
There was some bullies and stuff around him
and I made sure that he was protected.
- The meanie.
- You can call it what you want,
but he was like my little brother,
and I definitely miss him and he was a great guy.
- Now, can you tell our viewing audience
where they can visit a Club Tattoo?
- We have six locations.
- We have four in Arizona and two on the Las Vegas strip.
One at Planet Hollywood Miracle Mile shops
and at the LINQ Hotel & Casino.
We also have a store at Harley Davidson of Scottsdale,
and one in Mesa, and Tempe by ASU campus,
as well as Old Town Scottsdale.
- And hopefully there'll be one coming near you soon.
(laughing)
- Thank you guys so much.
- Thanks for having us.
- Appreciate it.
- No, thanks for having us.
This is such a beautiful studio, thank you.
- [Sean] Thank you.
- This has been Lea Woodford with SmartFem TV.
Thanks for watching.