Meet Rambha Singh of Rambha Day Spa and Salon

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rambha Singh.

Rambha, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
From a discriminated girl child against boys in India to a successful entrepreneur in the USA is a long and eventful journey of 43 years with one theme of following my heart and passion and work hard to realize your dream. As a child, I grew up in a society which emphasizes more on boys and girls were given basic education and expected to get married at an early age and be a homemaker. My father was a fighter having lost his father even before he was born, I inherited his fighter, leadership and always be on the top attribute in my genes-though he never realized that. So, it required courage and passion to defy the norms and follow my dreams.

I was a great student but never got any support, but I fought against all the odds and passed high school with distinctions, merit scholarship and captain of NCC team. These achievements were realized without knowledge of my father who was surprised at first then supported and congratulated me-though he did not see any value of my continuing education and got me married to an engineer when I was 17. I wanted to be a medical doctor, and it was very tough to pursue education and meet the family obligation of married women. My husband came to my support and got me admitted to undergraduate college as well coaching for medical college entrance examination.

However social cultures and obligations never allowed me to focus on my dream and despite my best efforts; I could not make to medical college and completed my bachelor’s degree.  This is the time when my husband got a well-settled job, and I moved with him to Vishakhapatnam India-a city 1700 miles away from our hometown. Having lost my dream completely of being a doctor and my commitments as a wife, daughter in law, did allow me to go into a prestigious career. But I did not want to be a simple housewife. I knew I had a pleasing personality and people around loved me for who I was. This gave me confidence and feel good factor about my strength.

What started then as a casual hobby turned out to be my life changer and made me who I am today. And that did not come so easily. I had to fight resistance from my parents and deal with social stigma. In India, a job of beautician is viewed as a low job and does not get any respect. But when I joined a beautician to take a personal grooming class, I developed love and passion for this profession which was duly supported by people who came across during initial classes and compliments from clients who tried my services. I then decided to pursue Beautician as a full-time career. My father did not approve and was mad, but my husband supported me fully, so I went ahead with full training and got my diploma.

Initially, I would get my neighborhood women and offer free service to show my skills and slowly all the women around the township of 15000 families came to know about me. I started my beauty salon in a room of my husband’s two-bedroom apartment, and within a year I had a huge client base. But most importantly-the recognition I got as a great aesthetic, and my personality, inter-personnel skills, and leadership traits made me a local celebrity in the township as my client list included who’s who of that township full of engineers.

 Again, this was an achievement for me, but my father and others still did not have any respect for what I do and wanted me to do something else-though my husband always encouraged me to do what I was good at. Life was getting stable, but I wanted more from my life.

So, when I saw many engineers coming to the United States for Y2K problem, I started convincing my husband to look and take this opportunity and migrate to the USA. At the age of 37, and with a stable job of 14 years he did not want to take any risk. It took me three years to push him on taking a huge decision of switching his well settled career to a new and unknown territory of computer programming-that too in an alien country.

He made his voyage to this greatest country on earth-USA in May 2000.  I joined my husband in August 2000 to his one-bedroom apartment in Tempe. Being on spouse H4 Visa, I did not have work authorization, so I could not start my beautician job.

It was a very hard transition for me and my four-year-old son to sit idle in home for the entire day and wait for my husband to join us in the evening. He did not have a car, so we would travel on buses or walk to grocery stores. I wanted to get my son some activity, so I reached out to a daycare nearby and enrolled my son, so he will have the opportunity to be with kids of his age. It was quite expensive, and my husband was not making big, money-so I offered to volunteer at a daycare in lieu of reduced fees for my son. 

A leader is always a leader-no matter where he/she is. Soon, I became very popular with daycare kids and their parents as I implemented a lot of activities for kids which traditionally daycare will not. My hard work and innovative ideas made the daycare owner to explore options of sponsoring my own work Visa which did not materialize as getting an H1 visa for daycare worker were difficult. I continued there for six months and then joined East Valley Institute of technology in Mesa for an aesthetics diploma course. I continued my daycare work and classes for the next 1.5 years, and my husband was able to get his green card processed. In July 2002, I got my work authorization as well my Aesthetic diploma and started my own little salon in Tempe.

This again was a very bold decision considering I had no client base, but I was confident of my skill and experience of 13 years in India. Within a year I had a long list of clients and will be busy serving them six days a week and make four times than average money made by aesthetics. I did not advertise-all my clients came thru word of mouth. I was invited by, Channel3,5, abc12, Phoenix New Time, AZINDIA and various print media to showcase my unique skills. By 2005, I was a well-known name in my Indian community and beyond as a true professional.

My childhood and all the life events from the past always encouraged me to excel in what I do and expand myself further including giving back to society. Girl child discrimination always played on my mind, and I wanted to do something for that. I thus adopted a girl school in my native village and provided monetary support to build computer rooms and a library. More than money, it was my interaction with girls which helped more as they were able to relate with me as one of them. They looked at me as a role model and believed if I can do-they can too.

“Thru my social interactions and newspaper coverage, I requested parents to give their girls the equal opportunity to study and follow their dream“. This created awareness and changed the mindset of the society, and I am proud to say today that the school has turned today into an excellent school providing modern education. Also, a lot of girls passing out from the school and after getting into their careers-have started supporting the same way I did. 

Coming back to Dreams-My dream of becoming a successful entrepreneur came with my father who visited me in the USA in 2005. When he saw all my interviews, praises and appreciations from my clients-he accepted my profession and appreciated. But he wanted me to be an entrepreneur and open a big day spa and provide employment to many.

That is the biggest achievement of my life as I lived thru the pain of knowing my father did not like what I loved so much. In 2011, finally, I was able to buy my current business building with six suites and started my state of the art, high-end day spa in 4 suites. Unfortunately, my father was not in this world to see my dream getting realized but every day I go to the spa and look at his picture and feel how happy he would be. Four months after opening the salon in August 2011-I opened an Indian Restaurant and a Frozen Yogurt place. I ran the three businesses successfully on my own with logistic support from my husband and son. Soon, I was recognized as a great women entrepreneur who defied all the standard business model to follow her dream.

My business is my dream, so financial profit and loss comes secondary. I get pleasure and accomplishments from what i do every day. I had my share of failures too. I had to close Yogurt place after three years as my location never supported this business. My inexperience running a business or follow standard business analysis for a right business was the reason for failure. However, I did extremely well on the restaurant and spa business. My acceptance as a community leader in Chandler came thru my charitable work and giving back to society. I am very closely attached with my mother country India and wanted to give back to my village, my country which shaped me as a great leader and entrepreneur.

I always believed in “Small is Big”-A small effort with passion and being able to influence and connect people around-makes it big over a period. I started my first Small is a Big effort in 2007 with a girls’ high school in her native village Dewahalia in Rohitas Bihar. At that time school has few rooms with few teachers and the strong social belief of girls do not need education-not making any progress at the school. In my first interaction with girls, I connected with them as one of them having done my primary education in similar school and facing the same girl child discrimination vs. boys. I shared my story of fighting with social barriers and making my way to success, thus inspiring and making them believe to dream and fulfill them-no matter what obstacles come in their way.

I then helped the school with regular financial assistance to build more rooms and a computer center to provide modern education to girls. My passionate efforts to make a difference at the school soon got noticed and appreciated by local population and leaders thru newspaper coverage and word of mouth talk by highly inspired girls-bringing the community together. School started getting financial donations from distinguished leaders of the area who helped school procure govt funding to build a full-fledged school with nice classrooms and sports ground. I visit the school every time I am in India and keep inspiring the teachers and students. The biggest impact-school produced some successful students getting into a great career and supporting the school.

My biggest and most impacting contribution though has been since 2012 when I spotted Project EEZ English school in Varanasi India -running out of tin shades offering English classes, supporting tuition to underprivileged kids. I offered my huge house in Varanasi with ten rooms and 1.5-acre open land for kids to play thus allowing Project EEZ to expand its student base and offer quality education at a very nominal cost. I expanded the school by creating more rooms to accommodate growing number of kids. I would visit the school and spend time with kids and motivate them to do good in their studies and health. I will spend at least one evening with all kids, and their parents and communicating and connecting with them and advising what parents can do to help their kids with limited resources.

I would advise school management and teachers on the use of new teaching techniques emphasizing on more interactive classroom experience using smart TV’s and computer. Because of deep involvement, parents and kids got motivated and performed exceptionally well on academic, cultural and extracurricular activities. I am very committed and go above and beyond to help this school grow with the quality of education. I launched my new non-profit organization called Caring Karma in the USA this year and working on creating its sister organization in Varanasi to provide preventive health care services to rural villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. I was deeply moved due to my personal experience of my loved ones losing their life or getting disabled due to ignorance of their health situation. People in villages do not get an annual health check and will not know about their illness at initial stages. Caring Karma will create two mobile health check-up units on buses which will visit villages once in a year and perform routine health check by drawing blood and urine samples, analyzing the result and communicating with them with medicine prescriptions.

Caring Karma will explore all the options available thru other charity organizations, Govt Program to provide as much comprehensive preventive health services as possible and provide one-stop guidance towards a healthy lifestyle. Villagers health checkup and clinical reports will be stored in a secured computer program and can be sent to doctors and hospitals for further consultations/treatment on a need basis. Caring Karma would reach out to schools and colleges and encourage young folks to volunteer for its preventive care program. This would connect our youth and create future leaders to continue and expand the good work of Caring Karma.

I am also founder president of Rajput Association of North America-AZ Chapter which propagate rich cultural heritage of the Rajput community to our next generation and bring this community together to participate in broader community volunteering and fundraising events.

Has it been a smooth road?
There is never a smooth road to success and i am not an exception. I had to struggle a lot against many odds since my childhood, but one must deal with it to realize their dreams. All the struggle becomes sweet memories when you achieve success. For me those are my treasure which I always keep with me. There were roadblocks like financial needs, cultural differences and incorporating diversity and inclusion.

So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Rambha Day Spa and Salon story. Tell us more about the business.
Our motto is to provide high-end salon services at a nominal cost. We provide cosmetology services like Haircut and styling, Eyebrows Threading, Facials, massage, nails and skin treatment. Personally, I am known as an authority in the art of Eyebrows Threading and had been featured on local tv and news channels.

We are the only Salon probably in greater Phoenix area who did not close or changed ownership. I have been running this since 2011 and have seen most salons in the area either closed or changed ownership after 2-3 years.

My salon aims to establish as a family run business across many generations. I will run it as long I live, and my son will continue after my death.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Salon industry has not adopted yet to new norms of social economic changes. People have become cost conscious and expect more values for their money. Salons has suffered a huge setback due to the advent of online discounted offering thru Groupon etc. There is a dearth of trained and hard-working professionals in the industry and have a short turnover of employees from one place to other. Like other business are changing from retail to online and door delivery services-salon industry will follow suit.

Contact Info:

• Address: 955 W Chandler Heights Rd Chandler AZ 85248
• Website:  RAMBHADAYSPA.COM
• Phone: 4803940769
• Email: info@rambhadayspa.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rambhadayspa
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/rambha-day-spa-and-salon-chandler

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