HMUA Beauty Business Hub Ep. 2 Part Two Secrets to a Successful Beauty Business

In this podcast episode, the host shares tips on creating a successful beauty business. She emphasizes the importance of having a mentor or coach and discusses the significance of having a website for hair and makeup artists. She recommends using Squarespace and explains how it can help with organization and client communication. The host also stresses the need for a detailed bridal inquiry form on the website, including questions about the event, services required, and preferred vendors. She highlights the value of clear communication and matching the bride's expectations with the artist's expertise and portfolio. Alright you guys, we are back. The Hair and Makeup Artist Beauty Business Education Hub where we have all things beauty business related. I am Brittany Rose, your host and we are jumping right in to part 2 of episode 2 on how to create a successful beauty business. I'm sharing all of my secrets. I'm not gatekeeping anything. So I want to share with you guys the knowledge that I have because so many hair and makeup artists quit before they've been in the industry for 5 years. It is one of the biggest industries of drop outs because it's hard and people don't know I need a coach, I need a mentor to help me get through these hard places and I can tell you that in every season of my beauty business life, journey, I've had a mentor and I've had a coach every single season. There wasn't a season, there has not been a season where I did not have a coach or a mentor and I'm here to be your coach and your mentor and guide you through all the challenges that you face and this podcast is to kind of help you walk through my walk and that maybe you can find some insight and some knowledge from the things that I've been through. So I want to jump right in where we left off. So part 1 we talked about branding, marketing, advertising, we talked about reviews and now we're going to jump right into website. I cannot begin to tell you how many hair and makeup artists that do not have a website and it blows my mind but that's how I think. I'm a website person and all of my brides are website people. I'm going to tell you, I search Instagram for hair and makeup artists to help me because I do such large weddings and I do multiple weddings in a weekend. I need a large team and I have a team but I always need someone else. I'm always reaching for more people to help me and come join my team. So there's a lot of hair and makeup artists that are really good and one of the things I notice is they don't have a website and I'm thinking how the heck do you book clients? How are you booking and I see they're not very busy and it's because they don't have a website. If you're DMing people to book with them, it's very unprofessional and I can't tell you how many times that Instagram messages will just vanish. I can't find the message anymore. It goes to spam. It's reported as spam. Something happens. Do not rely on Instagram DMs. It's unprofessional if you're a business and you need a website. So make it simple for your bride to figure out how to book. You need a call to action. You need a website and I use Squarespace. I've been using Squarespace since 2016 when I was moving into opening my own salon and spa and boutique. I use Squarespace. So Squarespace now has the option of like HoneyBook. I know of you, a lot of you guys have heard of HoneyBook and it's a funnel where clients can get contracts, proposals, invoicing, etc. So Squarespace has this feature and it's so amazing and it's so, it helps me so much because I'm tight day, I'm very organized and it's there for you. So I highly recommend using Squarespace. That way all of your projects can be together. So you need a website and your bride needs to know on your website, there needs to be details of your booking process. How do I book? What does booking look like? So you can go look at my website, BrittanyRoseBridal.com. This explains to the bride the booking process. What happens when we book? How do I book? And all the questions that she may have are on my website. So before she books with me, she knows exactly what happens. She knows what a bridal preview trial is. She knows how to book, how I'm going to coordinate with her coordinator on her timeline and her photographer. And she knows my booking system that she knows there's a retainer fee she has to pay. She knows about the invoicing. All of these things are tidbit short snips before my bridal inquiry form that I have. So this is something I know a lot of people get ghosted. And this is why. Because you don't have all of this information for your bride. So when she's inquiring with you, she has 100 questions. 100 questions. She just wants to know these things up front. Don't waste her time. Don't waste your time. Give her the answers to all these questions and all of the details. You need to let her know these are all the things that I need from you. These are all the things about me. And you need to have an inquiry form, the obvious. You need to have a form for them to fill out. Don't have a form that is so simple as when's the date. Don't. You need to know all of the details. That way, you can follow up with a pricing proposal. Because just like you, just like me, brides want to know what am I getting and how much does it cost. At the end of the day, brides have a budget. And if you let them know what you're getting, what they're getting with you, sometimes they'll stretch their budget. If your prices are a little bit high, let's say their their price point is $500 for the bride only. And let's say you charge $600. But you're so professional, and you're so detailed in your proposal of what you're offering them, they pay that extra $100. That might not be in their budget for you, but it's for you because of what you're offering. So your, your bridal inquiry form, and I've helped so many of my students with their bridal inquiry form. A lot of them have reached out. And one of their major challenges is I don't know what to put on the bridal inquiry form. I don't know what questions to ask. So I'm here to help you. You need to know everything. You need to know what time can you get into the venue? What time do you need to be ready? What time is the photographer going to be there? How many girls need makeup? How many girls need hair? Are you doing blowouts before? Are you adding hair extensions? Do you want to book a bridal preview trial? Do you want to do your bridal portraits? All of these things you need to know. You need to know who their coordinator is. You need to know who their photographer is. And, and you need to know these things because you want to coordinate with them, but also you want to cross market, network, and have a relationship with these people. When this person sends you an inquiry, you need to follow up with their coordinator and let them know, hey, Suzy Jo just inquired with me, and I want to connect with you as their coordinator and go over some details. Create a relationship with that coordinator because P.S. later they're going to put you on their preferred vendor list and they're going to be sending you brides left and right. Okay. That's a, that's a secret sauce right there. We'll get more into that later, but your website needs to have all of this information. It needs to, because you also need to know about time. If a bride inquires with you and you say, when's the date? And then you have to email them back and say, okay, well, what time's this? And what time? First of all, it's annoying to go back and forth. And I'm just being transparent, honest with you. Brides don't want to sit there on their email all day and email you a hundred questions back and forth. Get it all then. Then you know, okay, a bride inquired with me. She's got 10 people, hair and makeup, 20 services. They all need to be ready by 10 a.m. First of all, you can say in your head, do I want to get started at 4 a.m.? Am I your girl? If you're not, you can just follow up with that bride and say, unfortunately, I'm already booked. Or you can say, no problem. Early bird gets the worm. Let's do it. I've got you. You know, you need all these questions answered before you send a proposal. And you also, this is so huge to me. So you have to know what what what do they want from you. So I always require a picture of them. I need a current picture of you. And then I need pictures of your inspo. So that way you can let them know, hey, based on your hair in this picture, it's not going to look like this Pinterest inspo without hair extensions. That way you can send them a link for the hair extensions that you recommend. You can help them color match. And this is an upsell as well. If you guys are Amazon influencers, if you're part of the Amazon Influencer Hub, drop a link to your hair extensions, your $400 hair extension link, your little clip ins that you want your bride to use and let her use that link where you're upselling and you're making a little more money. Okay, there's I'm telling you guys, I can help you. I can make you successful. So having this on your website is huge. The Bridal Inquiry form. Huge, huge, huge. So your portfolio also should resonate with your ideal bride. So what's really good about your website and your Instagram and all of your platforms that you have, part one, please see part one. Your brides that are not for you, nine times out of 10 are not going to inquire. If you brand yourself as dark, moody, gothic, you know, very Twilight movie looking bridal, you're probably not going to get a simple, soft, natural bride that wants chapstick and some liquid blush. Okay, so that's why it's so important. Here's the problem that I see. And here's the solution. So many hair and makeup artists spend a lot of time wasting time responding to Bridal Inquiry to brides that are not their ideal bride. It's not you don't even do their type of work. There's a lot of people who are like, I don't do glam. I don't do pageant looks. All I do is soft, natural makeup. Make sure that your bride understands that. That way, all of your pictures are natural, soft, bridal makeup. So you're not going to get somebody who's wanting nine times out of 10, you're not going to get a pageant, glam bride inquiry for your work, because it's not what you're specializing in. That's not your brand. Your brand is soft, natural, if that's what you if that's what you if that's what you're selling. That's what you need to make sure everything's cohesive. You don't want to be responding to inquiries to brides that you don't do, you don't want to do, you don't do that work. And don't step outside of your comfort zone and take a bride that's super glam, if that's not what you want. And maybe that's not even what your price point is. Maybe your price, your price point is for natural, soft, quick 20 minute makeup looks that you can do. And you can charge $85 per service and you can, you know, knock out 20 services in a weekend by yourself. And then a glam squad comes in of brides and their party and wants these glam looks. That's going to take you double or triple the time. And then you want to stay at your price point? No, you want to raise it. So make sure your brand, you're staying on brand through and through. So the next thing I want to talk about is looking the part. So if your ideal bride, and I'm always going to reference back to me, because I want to share with you guys my experience. So looking the part, I want to attract professional brides. That means looking the part, I need to look professional. You will not see me showing up in sweatpants and a t-shirt and sneakers to the Biltmore house to do a wedding. You're not going to see me in jeans and a band t-shirt and some Chuck Taylors at the Duke mansion. You're going to see me wearing a blazer, a nice pair of slacks, or something like that. Something that's professional. You're going to see me wearing makeup and my hair is going to be done. You're going to see me looking the part of my brand. If you want to book weddings, or the bride doesn't care if you show up wearing sweatpants and your nighttime t-shirt, then that's who you need to attract. But I'm going to tell you, nine times out of ten, a bride is looking back at her wedding photography, and the photographers there are taking pictures of the hair and makeup artist touching up the bride. Do you want to be wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt looking like a hobo in those pictures for your bride? Probably not. That's my professional opinion, and I feel like looking the part is looking professional. No matter what your niche is, if you're a gothic bride niche, you need to dress the part. I'm just saying. You need to look cohesive, and you don't need to look like you just rolled out the bed. If you want to make six figures, you need to brand to attract those clients. Professionalism, having a professional website, and we're recapping here. Professional website, you need to have a website so brides can see what is your booking process. With your booking process, you can put prices on your website if you want to. I don't advise putting prices on your website because I believe that every single wedding is not the same. I think if you put prices on your website, people don't see the value as much as you sending them a proposal with all of the package of what you get and why you choose this package and then see a price. I think people are more apt to purchase a package from you versus a price list, but that is my personal opinion. Moving right along to vendor relationship. This is a huge thing that I feel like has really scaled my business, and it's allowed me to put things in place in the background where I'm not having to work as much. Like I said before, I'm putting in my Google, I'm putting in my Yelp, my wedding wire, and I'm focusing on my content for my Instagram. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. A lot of hair and makeup artists hire someone in the industry that's really good at that to focus on that back end for them. I do that for several of my students. I help them create their Google account or their Pinterest. I help them with their Instagram, and I'll even help coordinate weddings for them, I don't mind, and it is something that I offer. Something that I can't offer is doing the vendor relationship for you, but I can help you create vendor relationship by explaining to you how big it is. You need to connect with local florists. You don't even have to go hang out with these people, but what I'm saying is you need to connect with them even if it's through social media. Liking their post, tagging them when you're at a wedding together, and referring them if you really like them. Refer them and say, hey, I know a great florist. Use Becky's Blooms over in Davidson, and I refer her, and tell her Brittany sent ya. Then she's going to cross-reference you back. If she has a bride and the bride's like, oh, I'm looking for a hair and makeup artist. Do you know anybody? Then she's going to say, oh, yeah, yeah, I love Brittany Rose. She's amazing. Vendor relationship is so, so big, and I can't tell you how important that is, and I really sit with my students and make sure that they understand this. Another way to understand this is a huge part of the industry is networking. Sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know, and I believe that knowledge is the key to success, but the knowledge of networking is number one. I can go on and on about vendor networking. I have done style shoots with photographers. I've connected with coordinators to do venue launches. I've connected with caterers to do those bridal shows that they do in Charlotte. I've done a lot of that. They even have bridal dress shops in Charlotte, and I have done fashion shows with bridal boutiques and places like that who will give their brides a list of preferred vendors, and a lot of those bridal boutiques only have one hair and makeup artist on there, one photographer, one caterer. You want to make sure that you're connecting with vendors to become a preferred reference. Connecting with vendors connects you with brides. That's something huge that I can't just elaborate more on. I'm going to let you guys in on a little secret that I have been gatekeeping a little bit because it is something that is the cherry on top. If you've got, when you're building a sundae, when you're building an ice cream sundae, and you have all the foundations, well, think of your brand, your advertising, your marketing, your website, your Instagram, your bridal inquiry, and your vendor relationship as the sundae. The sweet cherry on top is the secret that I've been keeping. I'm going to let you guys in on the secret. 30% of my leads come from Facebook. Now, I know we talked about Facebook in part one, a little bit about being on the platform, but did you know, and a lot of artists don't know this, there are Facebook groups that you can join in your town and gain brides. 30% of my leads come from Facebook wedding groups. So, create your Facebook page, join local Facebook groups and book brides. I'm telling you, 30% of my leads are from these Facebook groups. There are so many brides that are searching for vendors everywhere. They're on WeddingWire, they're on Instagram, they're Googling, they're Yelping, they're Pinteresting, and they're on Facebook groups. It's a huge resource and you need to make sure that you approach this always on brand. If you're a lingerie bridal hair and makeup artist, when you're in those Facebook groups, you need to share yourself as such. Don't get sloppy or lazy in these Facebook groups because brides want the best and there's hundreds of people in these groups, hundreds of hair and makeup artists that you're competing with. So, if you want to get chosen, you need to make sure you're on brand and you need to make sure that you're responding to the brides that you want because there are going to be a ton of brides on there that are going to post, I need a hair and makeup artist, and they're going to show their inspo pictures. If you don't want to do it, don't bother. You're able to actually choose who you want to work with if you're using these. And face, I just can't emphasize enough. If 30% of your leads are coming from these Facebook groups, you need to be on them daily. So, that is a secret that I have kind of kept for, you know, I do share it with my students, but I don't always share it on my Instagram hub. But this podcast is here. I'm not gatekeeping anything. This podcast is meant to share all the ins, all the outs, and we are rounding the curve of finishing up. I have a few other things to share with you guys before we are done today, but I just wanted to hit on the, you need to be in a Facebook group. It's something that is important for your business. So, moving right along, you need a seamless system from inquiry to contract, which means when your bride submits the inquiry form, you need to follow up. I always follow up with a text message. People like that. It's intimate. You say, hey, it's Brittany Rose. I just received your bridal inquiry. Thank you so much. I'm sending you over a bridal pricing proposal now. If you have any questions, let's hop on a call. We can do a Zoom call. I do have some of my students that are Zoom callers. They immediately schedule a Zoom call before they even respond with the pricing proposals. They can go ahead and meet their bride and get the vibe of their bride. So, you need to be able to send them a proposal, send them a retainer. So, brides need to pay a retainer to retain your service, just like an attorney would. Deposits, I don't use the phrase deposit because deposits are refundable. Retainers are not. Depending on the law and where you live and what state you're in, I always use retainer. You're going to pay me a retainer fee to retain my services. This fee is separate from my charges of my services, my fees. So, you're going to move right along from proposal to retainer to contract. You need a contract. This is huge. If you've never written a contract, I can help you. I have contract templates you can use. You can just use my template if you want to. You can adjust it and change how you want, or you can go sit down with an attorney and have an attorney draft up a contract that you can fill in your bride's information. Now, attorney contracts, they range from 200 to endless. So, I do have contract templates. If you need, let me know. And then, invoicing. So, your bride inquires, you send a proposal, they pay a retainer, you send a contract, they sign the contract, and then you send them an invoice. There's going to be a final invoice. So, I always let my brides know, invoices due five days prior to wedding. Now, I used to work where the bride would pay the day of because I was afraid that the bride wouldn't look with me if I said, oh, you need to pay me in advance. Let me tell you, trying to collect money day of wedding is a mess. It's a mess. I cannot tell you how many times I've done a wedding and I'm trying to get money for my bridesmaid, and they're like, oh, let me go get my phone and I'll Venmo you when I get back. They leave. Don't Venmo me. I don't get paid. Then I have to ask the bride, hey, sorry, Susie didn't pay. Is there any way you can pay for Susie? How embarrassing. First of all, Susie, you're a terrible friend. Second of all, I don't want to be begging the bride to pay for one of her bridesmaids because they were irresponsible. Also, it takes up time. Most of the time, your timeline, day of wedding, is stressful. You've created it, hopefully, you as a hair and makeup artist have created the timeline, but sometimes you don't get so lucky and the coordinator tries to jump in and create a timeline for you. So, you're running empty on the timeline. You don't have 10 or 15 additional minutes for a bridesmaid to figure out if she has enough cash to pay you or if she can download the Venmo app and all that jazz. No, no, no. What I do is I send an invoice to the bride five days in advance. Now, I let her know this needs to be paid five days in advance. I've sent her before, but five days in advance, I let her know, hey, the simplest way for you to do this, if you're not paying for your bridesmaids, hair and makeup, I would collect everyone's payment and then you make one payment to me. That simple. Because photographers do it, caterers do it, the venue does it, everyone collects payment before the wedding day. For some reason, the hair and makeup artists decide, oh, we'll just get it the day of. No, no, no. Stop doing that. It'll make your life a lot easier. So, I've kind of recapped. We've been on the website. We've gone over your inquiry form. We've gone over proposals, contracts, invoicing, retainer, Facebook group. We've gone over all the things, and I know you guys probably have some questions, but I really, really hope that you've gained a lot of knowledge from this part one and part two. This is, in a nutshell, all the things that I've done to create a successful business. You know, my day looks like checking Facebook groups, creating content, responding to emails. My day is not so busy behind the scenes for me booking for my hair and makeup agency. You know, I do work a lot with coaching and all those things on the back end as a busy day, but when it comes to booking, I've got systems in place where things run smoothly. When I wake up, I check my Squarespace to see if I have any inquiries for the day. I go ahead and respond to those inquiries, get retainers and contracts sent out, proposals sent out, and book rides. I go about, you know, scheduling bridal previews, bridal trials, and things like that so that everything, as long as you get a system in place, and I'll say it so I'm blue in the face, if you have a system in place, things will run so smoothly, then you can focus on practicing on your mannequin, practicing your makeup looks, working on your content, and things like that. So, get a system in place, be organized, and make sure you're crossing all your T's and dotting all your I's. And if you still have questions, know that I am here to help you as a mentor, as a coach. I have a ton of resources. Please check my Stand Store. There are so many free resources, and this podcast is one of the free resources I'm going through. I will have weekly, sometimes a couple a week, little podcasts to kind of go over questions that I get from my students, student wins, student questions, and then just emails and text messages that I get from other hair and makeup artists asking me, and I can share with you guys those answers. So, I hope you guys have a great day, and please know that I'm just a text away. If you have any questions, see you guys next week.