Exploring Life & Business with Hayley Rose of Harborside Bath & Body

Today we’d like to introduce you to Hayley Rose.  

Hayley, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in the Northeast tip of the Mitten, in the small town of Rogers City, which was a great place to live and grow up. But like many 18-year-olds, I wanted to explore and see what else was out there, so when I graduated from high school, I moved to Oklahoma where I attended in the University of Oklahoma. Upon graduation with an engineering degree, I started working for a company, which grew to become a Fortune 200 company and built my career. In 2013, was promoted to Vice President of Commercial, which had responsibilities for negotiating long and short-term agreements with our customers in our market area, which was located in the middle corridor of the USA from the Canadian border to the Mexican border. In 2019, I retired from this position when I was 50 by choice. While I still enjoyed the work I did and loved finding solutions for our customers, the job itself wasn’t as fulfilling as it once was. Having a significant health scare in 2009, when my kids were 8 and 5, and I was newly re-married, really put my life and what I value most in life in crystal clear perspective. Spending time on anything that wasn’t fulfilling wasn’t on my list. My youngest child graduated from high school in 2021, and I knew that when he graduated, I wanted to do something that would challenge me intellectually. I was still serving on non-profit boards in the Tulsa area but missed the critical and strategic thinking that I had in my career. About this same time, my hometown of Rogers City, Michigan (my husband and I built our retirement home there) was actively pursuing the Michigan Main Street designation because it had seen a steady loss of population over the last 30 years; Michigan Main Street is a program, that if selected, the state would provide a number of consultation services for revitalization efforts in the town’s downtown district. I absolutely love my hometown and was thrilled Mayor Scott McLennan had been leading this initiative. Rogers City borders along the beautiful shores of Lake Huron has more miles of public beach in our county than any other county in the state, has the only natural waterfall in the lower peninsula, has fabulous parks and trails, and has a great sense of community. As my kids were growing, we took many vacations to RC, which provided great memories of coming up north, enjoying the relaxed pace, and soaking in all of its natural beauty. I started participating in the volunteer efforts to build momentum for the Main Street application process and thought I needed to put my money where my mouth is and open a business in Rogers City. I believed doing this demonstrated my commitment to my hometown and that Rogers City, a true gem in our great state, has tremendous opportunity to shine brightly again. It also would give me the creative and strategic outlet I was looking to build back in my life, especially since I was nearly an empty nester! 

Deciding what type of store to open took a bit of thought, but my grandparents were very instrumental in my life, and my grandma, who was a beautiful woman inside and out and had a fabulous sense of style, instilled a love of skincare in me at a very young age. She always talked about the importance of taking care of your skin. Even in her late ’80s, she talked about the importance of moisturizing, and she never left the house without her earrings, necklace, lipstick, and her face powdered. Then, in 2020, my sisters and I took a weekend trip to Traverse City and stumbled along an organic bath and body shop that made their products in-house. I thought their products made wonderful pampering gifts, and from there, the idea of opening an expanded organic bath and body shop started to emerge. My goal was to curate fabulous organic and botanical products in skincare, bath and body care, makeup, nail care, and hair care from leading women-owned businesses in Michigan. Harborside Bath & Body did a trial run from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve in 2020, and based on those results, my goals became a reality as I opened Harborside Bath & Body full-time on March 27, 2021. What a wild and fun ride it’s been in these two years!!!

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
This question made me laugh. There have been so many struggles, but I can honestly say it is all worth it. For one, even though I worked in Corporate America for 27 years, running a small business was a whole new game. I didn’t really know what I was doing at first, and I still have so much to learn, but I have an amazing team that make this way more fun than it is work, and that’s a good thing because there is a TON of work in owning and running a small business. 

The biggest challenge I faced taught me a lot and strengthened my resolve to continue with Harborside Bath & Body, and it came when I made the decision to walk away from my investment and relocate my business within the first year of operations for reasons which I won’t get into. I will say that for me, personally and professionally, it’s critically important there is a strong alignment between words and actions. As a result, I made a business decision to find a new location, walk away from our investment and essentially, start over. It was a very difficult and costly decision but was absolutely what needed to be done. So, the hunt began, trying to find a new place! Thankfully, after looking for months, we finally did. Once again, we did renovations to get the boutique feel I wanted Harborside Bath & Body to offer it’s customers. Its customers, as often happens, the change in location did hurt us initially, but we’ve turned the corner on that! Our new space is bigger and allowed us to expand into the classes which was in my long-term plan, as well as expand into new product lines; as the saying goes, there is a silver lining in every cloud! 

There have been other challenges for sure, such as learning inventory management, learning how to create an electronic newsletter for our customers, getting trained and training staff on new product lines, marketing on social media (my nemesis, lol), and of course, all the issues that came with Covid, including how to protect our customers and offering delivery options during the time so people who couldn’t leave the house but needed something could have their products delivered. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Harborside Bath & Body?
Harborside’s core product lines are curated in skincare, hair care, bath and body care, and nail care. I wanted to not only bring quality, luxury, pampering products to the northeast side of the state but also promote leading Michigan-owned businesses that were led by females. My goal was to be an organic Ulta of sorts, featuring the best of the best beauty care businesses in Michigan. Harborside Bath & Body also offers complementary products, such as luxurious MonarchCypress robes, pajamas, slippers, Michigan-made jewelry, clean burning candles, and Life is Good apparel, along with a selection of fantastic organic men’s grooming products. 

Additionally, not everyone loves skincare or makeup or nails, like my team and I do, so we recognize that part of our job is educating customers how to use the products. In the last year, we began offering classes on 1) Skincare, where a skin type assessment is conducted, and the customer is given samples to try as we walk through step by step a DIY facial experience; 2) Makeup Application with step by step instructions on how to apply makeup that enhances a person’s natural beauty, and 3) Manicure – a step by step guide on how to give yourself a salon-style manicure. 

I think what sets us apart from other Bath & Body stores is we have all organic products, which are healthier for you, and we have a great selection of complementary products, so you can really go to one place to shop for self-care and find everything you need. However, if I had to name one thing, I would say our secret sauce is our customer service. I learned at an early age when I was waiting tables through high school and college, that there is value in providing great customer service. Taking customer service to heart is something I am very passionate about, and I’ve carried it with me throughout my career, as I’ve used it in every position I’ve had, corporately and now as a business owner. The key to great customer service, in my opinion, are the people on my team who work with our customers day in and day out. They want to create a great experience for our customers every time they walk through our door. We want every customer to feel that they are valued and appreciated and we are here to serve them. Everyone on my team genuinely cares about people and cares about the service we provide. We train on what good customer service looks like, but honestly, if an employee doesn’t truly care about the customer or the experience the customer has, then customer service will be average at best. Finding the right people is key!!! I have the absolute best team, and they make owning this business a blast! They are knowledgeable, they truly care about the customer, and they want to make the customer feel their best in the skin they are in; they step up every time I need them to, and without my team, I could not do this business. I am so incredibly grateful for each and every one of them. 

For customers that shop online, the goal is to have an enjoyable experience with an ease of finding what they want, We are in the middle of updating all of our photos on our website, so it looks a bit disjointed right now, but that will be fixed in the near future. Our website primarily carries our core lines, but if a customer saw something in an ad or on social media, we are happy to accept payment over the phone, or through Venmo or PayPal. Our goal is to make it easy on our customer. Additionally, local customers that are short on time can order online and pickup within 24 hours, and for customers that join our newsletter, both the ones that shop online and in our store, I regularly offer discounts as a way to show my appreciation for their continued business and support. 

What makes you happy?
There are a lot of things that make me happy. My family is so important to me, so spending time with my family makes me happy; helping others and giving back makes me happy; traveling and being outdoors makes me happy; achieving my goals and learning new things makes me happy, and of course, a luxurious bath and skincare makes me happy! 😊 I believe genuine happiness comes from being fulfilled in life, and fulfillment comes from focusing on what you have and not what you don’t. Cancer is a terrible disease for sure, but there are always blessings that come in the midst of life’s deepest trials. The greatest gift breast cancer gave me was the reality that life is short, it is a gift, and it’s not to be wasted. I try to live my life with purpose every day, and I consider myself very blessed because I lead a life that is very fulfilling to me. I have a happy life. It’s not perfect, but I choose to focus my energy on the blessings rather than the difficulties. It’s not always easy to do, but it’s a choice I try to make every day, which to me, making that choice really is choosing to be happy. 

Contact Info:

• Website: https://harborsidebathandbody.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/harborsidebathandbody
• Facebook: facebook.com/harborsidebathandbody

Image Credits
Heather Mertz Photography