Dani Everson is a mom of three, a wife, and co-owner of the three popular Clementine's Salons in the Denver region: LoHi, Aurora's Stanley Marketplace, and Olde Town Arvada. Dani and her husband, John, have three kids: Brandon (21), Kyle (nearly 12), and Huxley (8). Originally from northern Virginia, Dani, John, and Brandon moved to Denver in 2008. “We took a quiz online,” Dani says, “And it said we should move to Denver. My husband had been here before and loved it.”
The family has been extremely happy with the move. “Arvada feels like a small town while being a pretty decent sized city. I'm not a snowboarder or skier, but I feel like because there's so much of those outdoor activities, people are in a better space mentally.”
For any parent, after school activities are challenging. Dani's two youngest kids play tennis, and Huxley is getting in to art. Brandon also played baseball all through middle and high school.
Dani attributes a huge part of the success of the business to her husband's willingness to be a stay-at-home dad. “He was selfless. When my career really started taking off, he stayed with Brandon while we built the salons. He didn't have an ego and saw the value in what we were building.” To be fair, Dani says it's a home with a lot of testosterone. They even have two male dogs. “I'm very outnumbered,” she says. “Sometimes I come home, and there might be chicken wings everywhere. But they are so happy.”
Finding a balance point is a work in progress for Dani. “When I only had Brandon, I could bring him everywhere, but once we had more kids and more salons, it became harder to turn off work at night.”
The key, according to Dani, is scheduling. She even schedules times she stops dealing with work while at home, which is hard. A business owner's work never really ends. After 20 years, she's finally taking weekends off with family. “I think it's about being there for all the regular things like their tennis matches and not getting distracted by work when I'm there. I'm trying to be more present.”
Dani's biggest advice for any mom building a business is to focus on scheduling and work-life balance from the start. “Schedule the things that are not fun to do sooner. Then they fall off your list faster and cause you less stress. You will always have more work to do, but by fueling yourself and your home/work balance, it will give you more stability and strength to push through the hard things.”
"You will always have more work to do, but by fueling yourself and your home/work balance, it will give you more stability and strength to push through the hard things.” --Dani Everson
