Doing business in beauty field in early 2010, after 6 years, Ms. Dang Thanh Hang currently has 2 large-scale facilities in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi City. Annual revenue growth averaged 15%, reaching USD 10 million last year. Each branch has about 1,000 customers a month and is a favorite destination for many celebrities in showbiz. 

Female CEO has offered start-up suggestions for those who intend to set foot in the marketplace.

Ms. Dang Thanh Hang - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thanh Hang Corporation.

-  You built your career from scratch, how do you evaluate the opportunities for young people who want to start a business in this field?

- Business opportunities always exist. When you look at business opportunities, you have start-up opportunities. However, the beauty field has its own principles. I always keep in mind that the most important thing in sales is that we have to sell the right value. If only focusing on profits, we will never have customers in the long run. Young people also need to remember that there is no path to glory without difficulties.

In each small stage on that path, discreetly observe and contemplate to choose a career suitable to social needs. I think that society has never lacked sympathy for beautifying. Only thing is that we - those who bring beauty, must prove quality, value and professional ethics to be accepted by society and customers.

- Which model should these young businesses operate under to achieve the highest efficiency?

- You should train your employees to be honest in life and work. For customers, they must be serious and truly professional and sincere.

The important principles are not to ignore any stage, to love the job, to select good personnel who are like-minded with you. When you obtain all those things, you have set up a complete, but streamlined apparatus, reducing costs to the maximum because each person is in charge of the right job that promotes their own capabilities.

Ms. Dang Thanh Hang and her son during the European business trip.

- Currently, there are a variety of spas and beauty salons on the market, how do you maintain millions of dollars in sales for many years?

- The weakness of the domestic market is to focus on the cheap price segment but forget the key point - in beautifying, the most important is to bring natural beauty. That makes the faces of the women after coming to the beauty salon leave behind traces of beauty repair. I want to change consumer awareness of beautifying.

When I started working, I had a belief that I could change their awareness with the actual results. If focusing on cheap price, poor quality, there will never be a good team of doctors.

Beautifying is not like buying a bunch of vegetables, if today we buy a bunch of withered vegetables then tomorrow we can fix it by buying a bunch of other vegetables. Beautifying cannot be fixed. If it is ruined from the beginning, even if it is fixed up to 10 times, that beauty is very strained.

It is also my business secret - focusing on the most important factors as skill and doctor's experience. I accept to pay a very high price to invite good doctors. Therefore, although the beauty remodeling cost at Thanh Hang Beauty is quite high compared to the common ground on the market, we still develop well with many close customers.

In the near future, Thanh Hang Corporation will promote clean cosmetic lines, safe supplements, imported from the US, Japan and Spain.- Một số thẩm mỹ viện, spa quảng cáo dịch vụ làm đẹp với lời lẽ rất kêu nhưng hiệu quả chưa đạt như mong muốn của khách hàng. Chị nói gì về điều này?

- Some beauty salons and spas advertise beauty services with very sharp words but their results are not as satisfactory as expected by customers. What do you say about this?

-  In my opinion, in the beauty field, word of mouth marketing is still the most important and trusted channel. The number of customers will be increasingly replicated when they feel satisfied and introduce to each other.

I am slightly opposite to other businesswomen, I like natural beauty. If customers look good, I often advise them not to do anything, or just take care of simply to keep the natural look they have. Besides, I want to deeply understand the most advanced beauty technology and services. Not everyone has the nature in beautifying if the doctor is not really good.

Thanks to our own direction, we receive thousands of customers every month, including about 800 old customers. The rate of customers returning after the first time is nearly 80%.

- There have been foreign businesses with strong financial strength and extensive experience in the beauty field coming to learn and invest in Vietnam. Are you under any pressure?

- I do not worry. For Asians, familiarity and trust are still the decisive factors. Thanh Hang's customers are always shared and advised by me personally. They come to us as a friend and accompany in the long term, not merely a customer.

I think that is the advantage of Vietnamese people that foreign businesses do not have. On the other hand, we have a good team of foreign doctors, along with the latest technologies. I am very confident because the things I choose are number one.

- What is your upcoming business plan?

- In the next 5 years, we aim to develop into a chain of about 50-100 locations of clean cosmetic lines and safe supplements, imported from the US, Japan and Spain. This system chain helps women have more reliable addresses with high-end beauty product lines.

I have just launched H&H high-end cosmetics store. We select quality products produced according to a strict process from the most advanced production countries in the world to ensure that only the most natural essences are used for customer beauty care steps. This will be a strategic field, contributing 40% of revenue to the total monthly revenue of the whole system, from the fourth quarter onwards.