Success in the industry looks different for everyone. No path is the same to this success and there's no right or wrong when descending on this journey. One element that most professionals associate with success is profit. For Nina Tulio, with 29 years in the industry, the role of profit isn't just about numbers; it's also about you and your business at heart.
Nina Tulio launched her book Profit Is Personal: Redefining Profit Through Leadership, Culture, and Self-Reflection on January 12, 2026, unpacking this take on profit and inviting readers to rethink salon success.
Beauty Launchpad sits down with the author and BLP advisor to talk about her book, the fundamentals of starting a business, and what's driving her as an educator today.
Beauty Launchpad: What’s it like bringing this topic to the beauty space, and why now?
Nina Tulio: It’s vulnerable, honestly. I kept pushing off the launch because I was so nervous.
Profit Is Personal isn’t a numbers book pretending to be a mindset book; it’s built on the idea that profit is an echo of every decision, every conversation, every value that shapes your business. That means I had to write about my own decisions, my own leadership blind spots and mistakes, not just hand people a formula. Why now? Because this industry has spent decades treating “business” and “self” as separate conversations. You go to class to learn technique, and you’re left alone to figure out leadership, culture, money, and mindset. This book exists because those things were never actually separate — you can’t grow a successful business without looking at yourself first.
BLP: Where does building a business actually start? What are the fundamentals?
NT: It starts with self-awareness. Before you touch pricing, your brand, or marketing, you have to get honest about the decisions, habits, and fears that are running your business for you. From there, it’s culture, leadership, systems, finance, brand, and personal growth. Most people build backwards: they chase revenue tactics before they’ve built the internal foundation to sustain them. The book’s whole premise is that you build outward from who you are, not the other way around.
BLP: What makes this unique to beauty/salon professionals specifically?
NT: It meets beauty professionals exactly where they are — independent stylists, commission-based owners, future owners, people who often got zero business training before they were suddenly running one. It speaks to the specific emotional weight of this industry: your business is your name, your hands, your relationships with clients. So the book treats profit as inseparable from leadership and self-reflection, which is exactly the conversation this industry needs to have.
BLP: What drives you as an educator?
NT: It’s about serving others, period. What drives me is taking what I’ve learned, including everything I’ve gotten wrong, and sharing it so other people don’t have to make the same mistakes I did. If I can help someone shortcut even a fraction of the time, money and energy they get to grow their business more efficiently and skip some of the years I lost figuring it out the hard way.
But underneath all of it is just a deep love for people. I want people to do well. I want people to create real success in their lives, on their terms. That’s what continues to pull me forward: the chance to keep serving this industry in a deeper way,[in] an authentic and real way.
BLP: What's a quote or idea that’s vital to profitability?
NT: If I had to boil it down to one idea, it’s this: understand yourself, understand your business, and understand your numbers and stay close to all three. Not a one-time audit, an actual pulse you keep your finger on. Because your decisions should be coming from your core values, mission, and vision of your business
And then the piece people underestimate the most: consistency. It’s not the big dramatic pivot that makes a business profitable; it’s showing up the same way, rooted in the same values, making decisions from that same clear place, week after week. That’s the thread that runs through the whole book. Profit isn’t a formula you find once. It’s a practice you stay consistent with.
