ABOUT THE DAWN COLLECTIVE
Built From Experience.
Created for Beauty Business Owners.
The Dawn Collective exists because being talented at your craft and knowing how to build a healthy company are two completely different things.
Beauty professionals are expected to understand profit, pricing, leadership, hiring, systems, team culture, marketing, growth, and everything in between — often without ever being taught how.
We’re here to help change that.
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THE BUSINESS BEHIND THE BEAUTY
Beauty School Taught Us the Craft.
Business Ownership Asked Us to Learn Everything Else.
Most beauty business owners don’t start out thinking, “I want to become a CEO.” We learn the craft. We build clients. We get busy.
Then one day we’re leading a team, managing payroll, watching expenses, making hiring decisions, solving problems, and wondering why something we worked so hard to build suddenly feels so heavy.
The Dawn Collective was created to help beauty business owners understand the business behind the beauty. We focus on simplifying the areas that make the biggest difference:
PROFIT
PEOPLE
LEADERSHIP
SYSTEMS
STRATEGY
GROWTH
“A busy business isn’t always a healthy business.”
MEET THE FOUNDER
Misty Dawn Smith
Founder • Business Strategist • Beauty Industry Educator
"I didn’t learn business from the sidelines.
I’ve spent more than 23 years inside the beauty industry and entrepreneurship — behind the chair, serving clients, building teams, teaching professionals, managing businesses, and figuring out what works the hard way.
I’ve experienced growth and success. I’ve also made mistakes, trusted the wrong people, lost money, learned expensive lessons, and had seasons where the business felt much harder than it should have.
Those experiences changed how I see business. I realized that many talented beauty professionals aren’t struggling because they aren’t working hard enough. They’re struggling because no one ever taught them how to think like the owner of the company they accidentally created.
That’s the work I love now. Helping business owners see what’s really happening, simplify the problem, and make strategic moves they can continue making long after our work together ends."
The goal isn’t dependence.
The goal is clarity.
THE DAWN COLLECTIVE APPROACH
Keep It Simple.
Make It Sustainable.
Good strategy should make your business easier to understand — not give you another 47 things to do.
SIMPLIFY
Turn complicated business problems into something you can clearly understand.
STRATEGIZE
Identify what matters most and decide what deserves your attention first.
SUSTAIN
Build stronger decisions, systems, and leadership that continue working long after the conversation ends.
Good strategy should make your next decision easier.
Experience From Inside the Industry.
More than 23 years in the beauty industry and entrepreneurship
Salon and beauty business ownership experience
Beauty industry educator
Permanent makeup industry experience and advanced certifications
Team leadership and business operations experience
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses graduate
Business strategist and consultant
Speaker and podcast guest
Media features and industry recognition
“I came to Misty stuck, confused, and overwhelmed in my business. Misty has a way of making even the hard things—like finances, systems, and strategy—feel clear and doable. Through her coaching, I stopped procrastinating, put my back-end systems in place, and gained the clarity and confidence to grow my business. The biggest shift of all is that I now take myself seriously as a CEO.”
— Hannah Joslin
Brand & Editorial Photographer
Built From One Story.
Designed to Become Something Bigger.
The Dawn Collective began with Misty’s experience, but the vision has never been to build something that depends on one person.
The goal is to create a trusted place where beauty business owners can access smart strategy, practical education, meaningful conversations, trusted experts, and resources that help them build stronger companies.
Over time, The Dawn Collective can grow to include:
- Guest experts
- Educators
- Business consultants
- Workshops
- Expert conversations
- Industry collaborations
- Business tools and resources
- Community
- Live events
- Future Dawn Collective instructors
This is about building better businesses — together.