9:45a.m. 21st November 2007

Shine Beauty owners Joel and Tania Turner at their Sunshine Plaza store. Photo: Chris McCormack / 170385

When Joel and Tania Turner opened their first Shine Beauty salon in the Australia Fair Shopping Centre on the Gold Coast in 1999, their modest ambition was simply to “keep the doors open”.

They’ve done a lot better than that, with three additional outlets now operating and big expansion plans in place.

Two of the new salons are in Brisbane – one at Chermside Shopping Centre and one in the Myer Centre – and another at Sunshine Plaza.

But, apart from winning the lifestyle and wellbeing category in the recent Sunshine Coast Excellence in Business Awards, the big news is the company is in the process of relocating head office from the Gold Coast to Caloundra’s Bulcock Street, Joel saying the decision to move was based “50% on business, 50% on lifestyle”.

“We’ve got a family holiday unit at Bulcock Beach and we probably spend 70% of our weekends up here – I’ve done a lot of travel and I can tell you it’s a pretty impressive part of the world,” Joel said.

“But it’s also about balance. The Sunshine Coast complements our philosophy which is achieving a balance between being passionate and energised about our business, but also being able to take time out.”

Joel said also the new head office would be a perfect location as the company prepared to enter a new growth phase.

“Franchising is the direction we’re going to go in. We’ve enlisted some expert help ... our operations manuals are nearly complete,” he said.

“We’re looking at south-east Queensland for the first 20 to 30 stores.”

The couple complement each other perfectly in the business, with Tania having worked in the beauty industry for several years before starting Shine, and Joel having almost two decades of marketing and business experience on his resume.

He established his own creative agency, Design Turn, on the Gold Coast in July 1993, before teaming up with Joe Sands in 2000 to form Turner Sands Advertising. That business became one of the Gold Coast’s largest specialist advertising agencies with its client list including several ASX-listed companies.

Turner Sands has just joined with SMART, one of Australia’s largest independent advertising agencies to form SMART SANDS.

“I’ve been reducing my work in that business to spend more time on Shine,” Joel said.

“The beauty industry is becoming more mainstream and Shine plans to be positioned in the centre of the sector.

“I believe the region, and Caloundra City in particular, is just about to really take off.”

Joel also said he and Tania were “thrilled” to win the Excellence in Business award, adding he believed the IT system the company had created had clearly impressed the judges.

“We’ve got a reporting system whereby each manager inputs all the information every day which we can access no matter where we are to see how things are going,” he said.

“But you can have the best system in the world, and it will mean nothing if you haven’t got good people to go with it.”