Cre8 Salon & Spa is a source of empowerment for women. With a staff of 48 women and four men, the Cre8 team works as a cohesive unit toward each others success. 

We all know each other. We’re all connected to each other. We all need each other, co-owner Marcy Sagorac said.

Sagorac regularly convenes Cre8’s leadership table of women, which includes herself, Tina Todd, Tiffany Dalton, Lily Nieves, Talia Wiedman and Heather Bennett. Together, they foster a supportive environment and promote the idea of work as a refuge from the countless other responsibilities women face in day-to-day life. Sagorac encourages Cre8 professionals to concentrate on their craft and not worry about anything else.

They can just be themselves at work, she said. They don’t have to be a mom. They don’t have to be a wife.

The salon’s organizational structure, in which each stylist cultivates their own clientele, means Cre8 is like a bunch of businesses under the umbrella of a larger business, as Sagorac describes it. It’s a chance for professionals to establish themselves within a framework that’s already proven successful.

Sagorac and her husband, Jeff, took a chance and opened Cre8 in 2006 as they rebuilt their lives following the death of her daughter, Adrienne. The Great Recession hit two years later and could easily have wiped out the business, but with creativity, consulting help, and a commitment to quality, Cre8 didn’t just endure” it thrived.

So today, four dozen women and four men have a place they can pursue their dreams and the tools they need to make them come true. The Sagorac’s are working to see that Cre8 continues to be that place long into the future. Part of that meant elevating Wiedman and Nieves to become shareholders. Another part is a transition for Sagorac, who retired from hair late last year to concentrate on supporting the staff.

My No. 1 client is now my family at Cre8, she said.

What is your greatest life lesson?

 For me, it came in the form of a song. Say What You Need To Say by John Mayer gives me a model to work off. It carries the message of someone who’s willing to listen and not just hear. It’s like the old saying, Seek to understand rather than to be understood. I carry it into my own life and business as, Say what you mean, mean what you say, without being mean. There’s a way to communicate directly and politely, and it makes running a business that much easier.