SUCCESSFUL WOMEN
Salon owner in Novi takes risks, succeeds
By: Maureen McDonald - The Detroit News

NOVI - Perched on a makeup chair in a brightly lit salon, surrounded by a bevy of beauty operators and massage therapists, the pixie-sized Nadwa Yono tosses her raven hair back and forth and beams confidently.

"The hardest step in my business was getting a loan, even though I was turned down seven times before Franklin Bank approved us," Yono said. "The hardest step was getting beyond my family to become a hairdresser."

Yono, the owner of the sleek 5,000-square-foot, Salone Nadwa and Day Spa, with 50 employees under her wing and $3 million gross revenues on the operating report, recalls the battle she waged with her father and brothers over deciding her destiny.

"We came to America from Telkif, Iraq, for political freedom, but we were a strict ethnic family," Yono said. "Women seldom worked outside the home, except in the family business."

At 8, Nadwa Yonon begged her older brothers to let her work at their party store in Romulus and continued to work nights and weekends during high school. But rigid goals her family set forced her to lie about the classes she took at vocational school. An older sister signed her permission slips.

Her parents did an about-face once she graduated and received accolades for her hairstyles. They offered to buy her a small salon in the Chaldean community. She turned them down, opting instead to work the next 14 years for the top cosmetoligists in the business.

Last month, her father was among the 400 well-wishers at Yono's five-year anniversary party with high-fashion models, strolling caterers and live entertainment. "He is so proud of me," she said. Her customers echo the sentiment.

"She does a perfect cut; no one else can compare," said Kimberly Tiberia, a West Bloomfield secretary who has followed Yono since 1987 to a string of salons. "She has this unstoppable energy. You want to be around her."

Yono exudes that magnetism as she described the business plan where business and professional women could pamper themselves in a multitude of ways.

The salon offers everything from a $25 French manicure to a $70 enzymatic sea mud wrap, all the way up to a seven-hour spa treatment for $375.

She scoured trade magazines, conversed with vendors and visited top salons to choose color schemes, services and décor. To recruit top assistants, she began offering a 401(k) pension plan and paid health care. Each employee is required to attend three classes a year, whether in Thailand, Chicago or Detroit. Employees are reimbursed upon completion of the classes.

"Nadwa expects the best out of us and we want to do that for her and for ourselves," said Jamie Myslewiec, a stylist who joined the salon just after it opened. "She takes a chance with people fresh out of beauty school and brings them along."

In a few months, Yono hopes to break out one wall of the salon and grow by 1,000 square feet. She will offer a meeting room and catering service for corporate and bridal parties and being marketing a line of software for the salon and spa industry.

"My Chaldean customers tell me I am an inspiration for them," Yono said. "They can do their dreams if they are willing to prove themselves. I keep trying to prove myself. It drives me forward every day."