With Spa comes alluring Dosoo

The beauty industry in Ghana has grown in leaps and bounds in the last decade, yet there is still more room for improvement. Ama Amankwah Baafi writes
 
Just like any other service industry, the wellness and beauty industry in Ghana thrives on standards and education. That is what a beauty therapist, Mrs Dzigbordi K. Dosoo is advocating for.

Mrs Dosoo, who runs a spa is advocating for a high ethical standards in the industry and already, her effort is yielding results, she said.

She told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in Accra that, “We have been advocating for a while and we have been seeing some changes and expect it to get better and better.”

She started in 1997, when there were very few players in the industry. Today, many individuals have ventured into the business in micro, small, medium and large ways and are making an impact in communities all over the country with their services.

The Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Allure Africa Group, emphasised that image was indeed everything and that one is judged first by his  or her appearance, behaviour and communication. Therefore, it is important for people to invest their resources into making it the best way possible.

She prefers to be referred to as a lifestyle coach, talk show host, entrepreneur, and chief business consultant and said it took faith in God, passion, risk taking experience and education, to become one.



HER MOTIVATION

Her passion, experiences and entrepreneurial spirit combined serves as the source of her motivation. Being an entrepreneur, the drive to do something unconventional was what initially led her to her chosen path after being in banking and finance for 10 years.

“I realised it was time for me to prioritise my life’s direction by aligning my passion with my career. My experiences of being a wellness, image, lifestyle and business expert, I realised my story could influence others to also be well on the inside and out, and make them look and feel good,” she said.

Generally, seeing people well put together in appearance, behaviour, and communication fascinated her and those that were not, provoked her to help them make a change in their lives. This passion to see people transform their lives took over and the entrepreneur in her took the leap. 


HOW SHE STARTED ALLURE
Allure started as a two-person salon in a living room in Osu. She chose to start that way realising that the concept of Spa was nonexistent at that time. Gradually, she grew with it, educated her clients until they were ready for the Spa concept.

Eventually, through her grandmother she acquired a shop in Adabraka in Accra where she began Hair Solutions in 1998. She employed six staff with hair care, nail care and barbering. Within four months it transformed into a sole proprietorship shop and another shop opened in Labone in 1999. 

“Our client’s wanted more than just hair services. The salon industry in Ghana was evolving to embrace beauty therapy so we offered hair in Adabraka and beauty therapy in Labone. With the new branch came a new inspiration and a new name ALLURE. In 2006 we then established Ghana’s first Day Spa, with Global
Standards Allure Spa in the City,” she recalled.

Allure Africa is an award winning Lifestyle Group with its Headquarters in Accra, and an office in Washington DC in the USA. Its brands are Allure Spa In the City- Day Spa which focuses on wellness and grooming services and Allure Sales and Distribution Company which focuses on product distribution and beauty and spa resource.

Allure College is focused on education and training in wellness and beauty image. She disclosed Allure had always been perceived as a luxury brand, because of the global standards of excellence it delivers across all brands. Allure delivers premium services to all clients and is able to meet the needs of all budgets.

Allure has trained hundreds of people who are professionals in different fields of endeavours, entrepreneurs, and intrapreneurs within the Allure System.

ALLURE’S ACHIEVEMENTS

Those that stand out to them are the ones that  make impact and touch the lives of people such as its Iyaba Conference where over 1500 participants were trained in beauty and wellness for free, raised money for Cancer, or give public school girls hygiene training in the rural areas. “For us our success stories are when we make an impact and transform lives. It makes us proud,” she said.

Mrs Dosoo has been recognised as the CIMG Marketing Woman of the Year 2009, Global Leaders award for Entrepreneurship 2010, and recently voted as the only female and No. 7 Most Respected CEO in Ghana 2012.

She is also the Chairperson of the Spa Association of Africa.  Allure’s awards include West African Hospitality Award and Winner of the International Star Awards for Leadership in Quality in the Gold Category.

She is inspired to continue what she is doing because it affects impacts and transform lives. “My calling is to inspire, inform and impact lives and I’m doing just that through my coaching, speaking, TV Show and brand businesses,” she said.

She has no regrets at all venturing into the wellness sector because that is how God intended it to be. She said, “We have accelerated through the natural stages of growth very quickly. And it has been both exciting and satisfying to watch Allure Africa mature. We are now a fully-fledged premier Lifestyle Group; spreading its wings all over the African industry. Our milestones give us the strength to keep going”.

She said challenges are basically opportunities for businesses to assess their weaknesses and identify their cracks and work on them. Theirs are mainly centred on ensuring that standards match with the client experiences both internally and externally across all Brand Businesses.

Allure deals with them by continuous proactive assessments, filling the cracks and being flexible enough to adapt to the evolving needs of our internal and external clients.

Just like its logo, the butterfly, Allure Africa continues to metamorphosise, and they are excited about the future.




FAMILY BACKGROUND AND HOBBY

She has seven brothers and is the last and only girl. She is married with a daughter. She loves to play and watch tennis, and listens to worship music.

She said the younger generation is blessed with so many opportunities that there is no excuse to fail. She advised they learn from the failures not just the successes of trail blazers, focus on being a positive example, study and serve their way up and follow God’s leading in all things.

To those desiring to be like her, she said “Discover your passion and work at growing and maturing in everything you do, learn a lesson, every day. Develop yourself through experience or education and focus on making the world a better place. Above all, let God direct your path and you would have no regrets”. GB

writer’s email:
ama.baafi@graphic.com.gh