Think back to the journey you had when you were learning. Disappointing Mani after disappointing mani - but you could see the improvement and were encouraged by the positive feedback you received. Last year we mani pedi trained a massage therapist. I had a devil of a job stopping her booking herself walk - in gel manicures before she was up to standard - because we'd praised her practise and she felt confident. I had to discreetly apologise and refund 5 TIMES IN A ROW!! Can you imagine how you'd feel if you knew your work had been refunded 5 times in a row? That was my stress to worry about not hers because I was the Trainer. Within 2 weeks of the last refund (and a very firm instruction not to book herself any more gel manis) she was painting our nails beautifully. She'd cracked it!
I've had problems with a few a therapists developing quality issues over the years. I've tried retraining, I've bought new lamps, I've replaced base and top coats and generally driven myself crazy trying to help the struggling therapist.
In the end all that is left is to review attitude and mindset belief rather than skill - preparation steps being missed out possibly due to anxiety, - the mind jumping ahead to worry about the recurring problem - not doing the things we drill into beginners: stir the gel, clean a sticky bottle rim, use a nail prep dehydrator just before painting base (don't dehydrate both hands and then paint one), control your client's hands - don't let them text between application coats or check each nail as you paint, pinch the skin back from the finger sidewalls, slide your own thumbnail under the clients nail and paint onto your own finger nail, load enough product on to your brush (don't run out of product part way through a nail), tilt your head right over to the left to check your application, turn the client's hand upside down for 10 secs to self level, lock a deeply pigmented colours with a 10 sec flash as Rosie R mentioned.
Sometimes the problem starts before you've even started doing anything practical.
I've got a lovely girl who works with me who suffers from "obsessive perfection disorder" She's a bit slow and then started to complain that she was concerned that Cuccio wasn't wearing as well clients expected. Then she said that clients were disappointed with our colour selection, especially our reds. I felt that if she believed clients were unhappy with the colour and she was stressing because she wanted every gel mani to last 21+ days then the chances that she would be happy with her work were slim and that would make her slow and she wouldn't pick up that the client was unhappy with how long everything was taking.
An obsessive therapist concerned about standards doesn't always deliver the ideal client experience whilst striving to be "best".
It's tricky to reset someone's head. I managed it in the end partly by accident and partly by some devious subterfuge. I realised that this therapist has a thing about OPI so I bought some OPI polish in colours so close to the Cuccio colours we have that most clients can't tell the difference. The therapist instinctively drew the OPI colours to the client's attention and the client would happily choose them and not say "oh if only you had another colour". Without realising what she was doing the therapist learnt that she can manage clients.
The therapist started to paint very happily rather than feeling unhappy about colour and enjoy the treatment because she was sure the client would love the result. This speeded her up. This attitude carried over into her gel application and her anxieties faded away.
So try taking a breath, smiling happily at your client and being very positive. Your client will love the experience you create and not notice that your work is 91 out of 100 or 88 out of 100 or even 74 out of 100. Once you've had a few positive experiences to lift your mojo you'll find that your work improves too as you start to believe that you're good enough...
