Beauty Behind The Brand
Welcome to Beauty Behind The Brand, the podcast where entrepreneurship meets real life.
I'm your host, Nicole Manion—founder of Miskoka Beauty, entrepreneur, and boy mom. After spending over a decade building and successfully selling my spa business, I've learned that every brand has a story, every pivot has a purpose, and every challenge holds a lesson.
Each week, I take you behind the scenes of building a business, growing a personal brand, navigating motherhood, embracing mindset, and creating a life that aligns with your biggest goals. You'll hear honest conversations about entrepreneurship, marketing, product development, social media, leadership, resilience, and the realities that happen behind the highlight reel.
Whether you're a beauty professional, business owner, aspiring entrepreneur, or simply someone chasing a dream, this podcast is here to educate, inspire, and remind you that success isn't about having the perfect path—it's about having the courage to keep moving forward.
Welcome to the journey. I'm so glad you're here.
Beauty Behind The Brand
There’s No Maternity Leave When You’re the Boss
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What does maternity leave actually look like when you're self-employed?
In this episode of Beauty Behind the Brand, Nicole opens up about preparing for motherhood while running multiple businesses—and why her version of maternity leave looked very different from the traditional year away from work.
Years before having James, Nicole knew that if she wanted the freedom to step away from the treatment room and eventually become a mom, she needed to build a business that didn't depend entirely on her being physically present.
She shares how she transitioned clients to other technicians, built a team she trusted, automated systems, delegated responsibilities, prepared distributors and clients ahead of time, and created other streams of revenue that could continue even when she wasn't actively working.
Nicole also talks candidly about something you can't completely prepare for: how becoming a mother changes what you actually want.
From thinking she'd immediately use daycare or a nanny to realizing she wanted much more time at home with James, this episode explores the reality of balancing ambition, motherhood, mom guilt, childcare and entrepreneurship.
Nicole shares practical ideas for anyone preparing for maternity leave while self-employed, including:
- Getting yourself out of the day-to-day operations of your business
- Building a team before you actually need one
- Creating systems and automations
- Preparing clients, employees and business partners in advance
- Building online or retail income that doesn't require your physical presence
- Saving ahead and understanding your monthly expenses
- Finding ways to reduce overhead while you're away
- Planning for childcare early
- Easing back into work instead of expecting everything to immediately return to normal
- Giving yourself permission to change your plans once your baby arrives
Most importantly, this episode is a reminder that you can prepare as much as possible—but you won't fully know what motherhood will look or feel like until you're living it.
Build the systems. Save the money. Prepare the business.
And then give yourself the freedom to figure out the rest as you go.
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Follow on Instagram: @beautybrandpodcast
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Website:
https://www.miskoka.com/beauty-behind-the-brand
Follow our host on Instagram: @nicmanion
https://www.instagram.com/nicmanion/