Hello Everyone
Since my post http://www.salongeek.com/skin-geek/107390-eye-lash-extensions-what-curl.html Ive had quite a few pm asking quite similar questions. So I thought Id do a post to answer all the questions and talk about my lash journey.
I solely do semi-permanent eyelash extensions. Ive got my own little salon and do about 30 40 lashes a week. I used to do more, but decided to cut down because I was working too many hours.
This is the first thread Ive ever started, so please be nice
If you feel offended or annoyed by anything I say please dont post anything horrible. Ill apologise now, sorry! Please just ignore me.
Ok, this is going to be long, so please grab yourself a cup of tea and get comfy.
Whilst working full-time in an office I trained in semi-permanent eyelash extensions with Novalash in October 2007. Unfortunately my training was really bad, but I know my trainer no longer trains for Novalash, so Im sure much has improved since then. The idea was to build up my client base part time, then when I had enough clients go full time with it. I had some flyers printed and built my own website using www.mrsite.com, which I found fantastic.
In my spare time Id go door to door flyering, leave flyers on cars, leave flyers in shops and put posters up where I could. I found not many places let me put my A4 posters up, so youre better off printing these at home on thin photopaper (that can also be used for flyers at home, but this is an expensive way of doing flyers), I get mine from Ryman.
Handing my notice in
With my full time job in the way I found it really hard to focus on building a client base. Sometimes I was too tired to go flyering. Or when I did have a client booked in after work I was sometimes dreading it by the end of the day because it took me 3 hours to do a full set and I was tired. Plus by working full time I couldnt do lashes during the day and couldnt do potential clients sometimes.
Id read somewhere once that its better to just take the leap and go for it. When you have to rely on a business for your income you make it work. Whilst you have another another source of income it isnt necessary to give your business 110%. So with that in mind I did the really scary thing of handing my notice in.
Moving back home
With no income now I decided to rent my house out and move back home. I needed to minimise my outgoings so I could focus on building a business.
Finding a therapy room
I started phoning places in the Yellow pages to see if they had a therapy room to rent. The first place I rang was a tanning salon that also did nails and beauty. The manager was lovely and really keen to have me in because she often had people ringing up for lash extensions and had to send people down the road. So I popped in to see her and she was great. She said shed give me a month rent free, then after that month start taking 30%. This was a great deal and I agreed to pop back in with some literature.
My only problem was Id decided I wanted to be based in Windsor because its a better area. So I called different salons, without much luck. Decided it would be better to go visit the salons. So did that as well as taking my flyers with me and flyering the area.
God Windsor was tough! People werent as pleasant and I had some days where I felt so down. Some salons turned their noses up at me because they hadnt heard of semi-permanent eyelash extensions others wanted a ridiculous amount of money for their beauty room, one woman wanted £150 a day!?! The one room I did nearly take on just didnt feel quite right, the location just wasnt right. After about 2-3 weeks of this I was feeling quite down.
My mum just told me to give up with Windsor and go for the first room. The area might not be as good but I might be surprised. Plus the manager was obviously reasonable by giving me such a good deal.
After this experience, I think its really important to go with your gut.
LOOKING FOR A ROOM
Back then I didnt know where to look for a room on the net. But gumtree, this site and the guild of therapists are great places to look and advertise that you want a room.
LASHES TAKE OFF!
I went back to the first beauty room, dropped some flyers, posters and homemade three fold colour leaflets off. I didnt get any professional leaflets printed because I wasnt sure how itd work out. Plus I found my homemade colour leaflets were working well. They disappeared fast and people booked.
Taking on a beauty room was the best thing I ever did! I was extremely lucky to find this room in such a great salon. They had a full sunbed and spray tan client base, the nail techs were busy so I had lots of potential clients there and they had a beautician who had a huge client base too. So within weeks I was really busy and after the first rent free month I decided to rent the room instead of doing a percentage split as this would be much better for me. Then guess what? The credit crunch came!
QUIET TIMES
As I was quite a new lash tech I wasnt full of confidence. Looking back, I didnt make the most of my room. The salon always had people in it, I should have introduced myself and handed my leaflets out to them, I was too scared.
I had to start promoting myself. I placed 2 adverts in the paper, spent about £300 and got 2 clients back. After I told my cousin who works in marketing about this and he said he hated newspaper advertising. Youre just getting your message and throwing it out there. What you need is to reach your targeted audience. He said why not explore free advertising; poster in the car, internet gumtree.
So I started going to different hair salons and offering to do one hairdresser for free in hope their clients would book. At first this didnt work, but as my work got better this worked fantastically for me. Their colleagues got it done and in turn their clients got it done.
TARGET HAIRDRESSERS
I think hairdressers are a fantastic way of promoting your business. They spend all day chatting, they love beauty and so do their clients, PERFECT!
Not all of them will get you loads of clients. So I told them for every 2 clients they got me they would get a free top up. I made it clear that it was a limited offer and at some point it would end.
Looking back I should have printed up little 10 20% discount cards, get the hairdresser to write their name on the back and for every 2 cards handed in they get a free top up.
I only did hairdressers but this would work on nail techs, personal trainers, spray tan girls, sunbed receptionist, anyone who comes into contact with people all day.
I did say to the hairdressers that their colleagues could have their lashes done for £20, but be careful with doing this, its subject to abuse, you may need to see proof that they work at a salon.
WORKING AT OTHER SALONS
Looking back this was a mistake for me, I should have just focused on building my business in the one salon. As I wasnt as busy as I wanted to be I thought its be a good idea to try working 1 day a week in different salons. I found 2 beauticians who was happy for me to pop in when I had a booking. These beauticians werent super busy and sometimes told me the wrong times, it was all a bit of a mess and I gave them up and stuck to my room.
After this experience I came to the conclusion that advertising in a beauty salon doesnt work as well as being in a nail bar, hairdressers or tanning salon. You need to be somewhere with high volumes of people coming in and out. Or if you are going to be in a beauticians it needs to be a busy one.
MOBILE
I was doing a bit of mobile work but have completely stopped doing this now. It was a choice between taking my heavy beauty bed, spend time setting up or doing lashes on the clients bed in an uncomfortable position which meant it took me longer to do. Having everything set up in my room was far more convenient and I could fit more clients in because I wasnt travelling between clients.
DO GOOD QUALITY WORK
Its true, nothing beats word of mouth. The beginning is hard but just keep going. You will get faster and start doing much better sets of lashes. As my lashes started getting better, my word of mouth referrals grew and I completely stopped promoting myself. Instead of 3 hours for a full set it now took me 1.5, so I took my price down from £75 to £60. Even though Id reduced my prices, my hourly rate was much better now. With lower prices I gained more new clients. The fact that I wasnt taking so long to do them meant my service appealed to more people which resulted in more clients.
GOOD TECHNIQUE
I feel its really important to take your time and practice putting on good lashes that are not wonky with the correct amount of glue. Dont worry about speed, that will come from time. If you practice poor technique, you will only become better and quicker at doing bad lashes.
Now that Im much better at doing lashes I get quite a few new clients who saw someones lashes in a shop, gave them a compliment and they got given my name. This didnt happen when I first started, so on that level it gets easier too.
GIVING MY CLIENTS AWAY!!! :-S
After a while I trained my sister up and found myself a new room to rent. I gave my old room and client base to a very nervous sister. Some of my old clients followed me to my new room but not many. I did this because I wanted my sister to have a successful business and shes doing great.
BUILDING IT UP AGAIN
When I started in my new room I did a half price offer for the first month. A full set of lashes for £30! I know this is dirt cheap, but it was January and I needed to do something to get them in. My reasoning was it didnt matter if I did it for free the first time, if the client becomes hooked and comes back to me forever for top ups itd be worth it. Anyway, plan worked and within a month I was very busy.
I then put my price up to £45 the next month, then £60 the month after. Theres no way I could have done a half price offer in the beginning, but now Id got my time down to 1.5 hours I could afford to do so temporarily.
Since my post http://www.salongeek.com/skin-geek/107390-eye-lash-extensions-what-curl.html Ive had quite a few pm asking quite similar questions. So I thought Id do a post to answer all the questions and talk about my lash journey.
I solely do semi-permanent eyelash extensions. Ive got my own little salon and do about 30 40 lashes a week. I used to do more, but decided to cut down because I was working too many hours.
This is the first thread Ive ever started, so please be nice
If you feel offended or annoyed by anything I say please dont post anything horrible. Ill apologise now, sorry! Please just ignore me.
Ok, this is going to be long, so please grab yourself a cup of tea and get comfy.
Warning - this is quite long!
HOW I STARTEDWhilst working full-time in an office I trained in semi-permanent eyelash extensions with Novalash in October 2007. Unfortunately my training was really bad, but I know my trainer no longer trains for Novalash, so Im sure much has improved since then. The idea was to build up my client base part time, then when I had enough clients go full time with it. I had some flyers printed and built my own website using www.mrsite.com, which I found fantastic.
In my spare time Id go door to door flyering, leave flyers on cars, leave flyers in shops and put posters up where I could. I found not many places let me put my A4 posters up, so youre better off printing these at home on thin photopaper (that can also be used for flyers at home, but this is an expensive way of doing flyers), I get mine from Ryman.
Handing my notice in
With my full time job in the way I found it really hard to focus on building a client base. Sometimes I was too tired to go flyering. Or when I did have a client booked in after work I was sometimes dreading it by the end of the day because it took me 3 hours to do a full set and I was tired. Plus by working full time I couldnt do lashes during the day and couldnt do potential clients sometimes.
Id read somewhere once that its better to just take the leap and go for it. When you have to rely on a business for your income you make it work. Whilst you have another another source of income it isnt necessary to give your business 110%. So with that in mind I did the really scary thing of handing my notice in.
Moving back home
With no income now I decided to rent my house out and move back home. I needed to minimise my outgoings so I could focus on building a business.
Finding a therapy room
I started phoning places in the Yellow pages to see if they had a therapy room to rent. The first place I rang was a tanning salon that also did nails and beauty. The manager was lovely and really keen to have me in because she often had people ringing up for lash extensions and had to send people down the road. So I popped in to see her and she was great. She said shed give me a month rent free, then after that month start taking 30%. This was a great deal and I agreed to pop back in with some literature.
My only problem was Id decided I wanted to be based in Windsor because its a better area. So I called different salons, without much luck. Decided it would be better to go visit the salons. So did that as well as taking my flyers with me and flyering the area.
God Windsor was tough! People werent as pleasant and I had some days where I felt so down. Some salons turned their noses up at me because they hadnt heard of semi-permanent eyelash extensions others wanted a ridiculous amount of money for their beauty room, one woman wanted £150 a day!?! The one room I did nearly take on just didnt feel quite right, the location just wasnt right. After about 2-3 weeks of this I was feeling quite down.
My mum just told me to give up with Windsor and go for the first room. The area might not be as good but I might be surprised. Plus the manager was obviously reasonable by giving me such a good deal.
After this experience, I think its really important to go with your gut.
LOOKING FOR A ROOM
Back then I didnt know where to look for a room on the net. But gumtree, this site and the guild of therapists are great places to look and advertise that you want a room.
LASHES TAKE OFF!
I went back to the first beauty room, dropped some flyers, posters and homemade three fold colour leaflets off. I didnt get any professional leaflets printed because I wasnt sure how itd work out. Plus I found my homemade colour leaflets were working well. They disappeared fast and people booked.
Taking on a beauty room was the best thing I ever did! I was extremely lucky to find this room in such a great salon. They had a full sunbed and spray tan client base, the nail techs were busy so I had lots of potential clients there and they had a beautician who had a huge client base too. So within weeks I was really busy and after the first rent free month I decided to rent the room instead of doing a percentage split as this would be much better for me. Then guess what? The credit crunch came!
QUIET TIMES
As I was quite a new lash tech I wasnt full of confidence. Looking back, I didnt make the most of my room. The salon always had people in it, I should have introduced myself and handed my leaflets out to them, I was too scared.
I had to start promoting myself. I placed 2 adverts in the paper, spent about £300 and got 2 clients back. After I told my cousin who works in marketing about this and he said he hated newspaper advertising. Youre just getting your message and throwing it out there. What you need is to reach your targeted audience. He said why not explore free advertising; poster in the car, internet gumtree.
So I started going to different hair salons and offering to do one hairdresser for free in hope their clients would book. At first this didnt work, but as my work got better this worked fantastically for me. Their colleagues got it done and in turn their clients got it done.
TARGET HAIRDRESSERS
I think hairdressers are a fantastic way of promoting your business. They spend all day chatting, they love beauty and so do their clients, PERFECT!
Not all of them will get you loads of clients. So I told them for every 2 clients they got me they would get a free top up. I made it clear that it was a limited offer and at some point it would end.
Looking back I should have printed up little 10 20% discount cards, get the hairdresser to write their name on the back and for every 2 cards handed in they get a free top up.
I only did hairdressers but this would work on nail techs, personal trainers, spray tan girls, sunbed receptionist, anyone who comes into contact with people all day.
I did say to the hairdressers that their colleagues could have their lashes done for £20, but be careful with doing this, its subject to abuse, you may need to see proof that they work at a salon.
WORKING AT OTHER SALONS
Looking back this was a mistake for me, I should have just focused on building my business in the one salon. As I wasnt as busy as I wanted to be I thought its be a good idea to try working 1 day a week in different salons. I found 2 beauticians who was happy for me to pop in when I had a booking. These beauticians werent super busy and sometimes told me the wrong times, it was all a bit of a mess and I gave them up and stuck to my room.
After this experience I came to the conclusion that advertising in a beauty salon doesnt work as well as being in a nail bar, hairdressers or tanning salon. You need to be somewhere with high volumes of people coming in and out. Or if you are going to be in a beauticians it needs to be a busy one.
MOBILE
I was doing a bit of mobile work but have completely stopped doing this now. It was a choice between taking my heavy beauty bed, spend time setting up or doing lashes on the clients bed in an uncomfortable position which meant it took me longer to do. Having everything set up in my room was far more convenient and I could fit more clients in because I wasnt travelling between clients.
DO GOOD QUALITY WORK
Its true, nothing beats word of mouth. The beginning is hard but just keep going. You will get faster and start doing much better sets of lashes. As my lashes started getting better, my word of mouth referrals grew and I completely stopped promoting myself. Instead of 3 hours for a full set it now took me 1.5, so I took my price down from £75 to £60. Even though Id reduced my prices, my hourly rate was much better now. With lower prices I gained more new clients. The fact that I wasnt taking so long to do them meant my service appealed to more people which resulted in more clients.
GOOD TECHNIQUE
I feel its really important to take your time and practice putting on good lashes that are not wonky with the correct amount of glue. Dont worry about speed, that will come from time. If you practice poor technique, you will only become better and quicker at doing bad lashes.
Now that Im much better at doing lashes I get quite a few new clients who saw someones lashes in a shop, gave them a compliment and they got given my name. This didnt happen when I first started, so on that level it gets easier too.
GIVING MY CLIENTS AWAY!!! :-S
After a while I trained my sister up and found myself a new room to rent. I gave my old room and client base to a very nervous sister. Some of my old clients followed me to my new room but not many. I did this because I wanted my sister to have a successful business and shes doing great.
BUILDING IT UP AGAIN
When I started in my new room I did a half price offer for the first month. A full set of lashes for £30! I know this is dirt cheap, but it was January and I needed to do something to get them in. My reasoning was it didnt matter if I did it for free the first time, if the client becomes hooked and comes back to me forever for top ups itd be worth it. Anyway, plan worked and within a month I was very busy.
I then put my price up to £45 the next month, then £60 the month after. Theres no way I could have done a half price offer in the beginning, but now Id got my time down to 1.5 hours I could afford to do so temporarily.
