Nail biters are potential business!

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JanBiter

New Member
Joined
Oct 31, 2014
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Ottershaw
I am a 53 year-old life-long nail biter, who has searched high and low for a nail expert who can help me, without success. Everywhere I go, I am treated as a pain, as someone they’d rather not touch if they can avoid it. But you should be seeing me as a major business opportunity!
Nail biters need love, care and understanding. Personally, I don’t want a one-off application of nail tips, I want sympathy and understanding (and I don’t care whether you use gel, acrylic, or fairy dust, I just want to trust that you know the best solution for me).
Don’t just charge nail-biters for one consultation, for one application of tips. We are a long term project. You KNOW that the first appointment is going to last for hours, you know we’re going to be difficult, you know we’ll be coming back more often than your other easier customers. So expect it, take advantage of it, and charge us accordingly. Establish a special “nail-biters programme” and charge us up front £500 for ten visits over twelve weeks (nothing less than this time or this cost will have any impact whatsoever). We don’t mind that we have to come back every week because we’re difficult – we just want to be loved and cared for. The more you charge, the more I trust you.
Don’t tell us to go away and come back once we’ve grown some nails to make it easier for you (with or without some special potion that you so generously provide). That’s like a hairdresser telling you to go away until you’ve grown enough hair to make it easier for them to cut. Live with it, handle what we have NOW. Love us NOW, not next week when we’re easier to love.
Because that’s really what this is about. Love us and understand us, now, as we are. You can have no idea how much courage it’s already taken to get us through your door. Resist the temptation to screw up your nose, wince or suck your teeth when you see our disgusting bitten little stumps. And don’t, whatever you do, say “Ugh"...even under your breath.
Instead, tell us that we’re really not that bad, that you’ve seen far worse,. Tell us that something can always be done, that you are a miracle-worker, that you (and only you) can make us look better and feel better. Give us hope. Please.
Most nail biters hide their hands away, even from themselves. They don’t like to read a book in public, to hold the strap on a tube, to hold a glass at a party. So use gentle touch to welcome us. You are holding in your hands the part of our body that makes us most ashamed, most embarrassed and most unloved. Simply holding our fingers, stroking them gently, laying them on a soft pink towel can move us to tears, we are so unused to the care and the touch. Don’t treat our fingers like ugly sausages, to be pulled this way and that. We’re already embarrassed enough to have to lay them out in full gaze of someone else. Treating us softly is enough to make us want to come back.
And while we’re talking about embarrassment, never, NEVER, call someone else over to have a look, to discuss my nails, even to talk about options. This is a secret, it’s between you and me, and I will die of embarrassment if you show my fingers to someone else (even once beautified by you). I already have a difficult enough relationship with my hands, so please don’t air my problem in public. I still blush at the memory of one thoughtless manicurist who found that the bed of my thumb nail is so soft that it moves under pressure, and who said loudly “Eeewww, that’s really weird, come and have a look at this” to all her colleagues. I wanted to weep. I never went back, but the shame burns to this day. Remember, we’re ashamed enough already. Love us and understand us.
Take before, during and after photos. And let US have a copy, don’t just keep them for your own website. Email them to us, to give us hope that one day we might kick the habit. This is not a one-off visit, this is a project, and you are the project manager for the entire twelve weeks.
Accept that we will NEVER kick the habit completely. Like an alcoholic, we will always be a recovering nail-biter, never a recovered one. And that’s great news for you, because you have a client for life! Remind us, even once we have some semblance of our own nails, that it’s a long-term habit, and that we need regular care (more than most people). Make us feel special, not freaks.
Make your salon cosy and private so that others can’t see our shame. Soft music, gentle lighting – cocoon us, don’t sit us in the window for all to see. And during the session, instead of talking about your own foul journey into work today, remember that we are a project, a big ball of stress already, we don’t need yours adding to our own. Talk instead about how I could reduce my stress levels this coming week, about what specific moods or points of the day are most likely to make me bite my nails, or what’s making me want to stop right now? Nail-biting isn’t about nails, it’s about handling stress. So you could extend your business by learning other skills related to stress-management - how about incorporating a hand massage as a reward on the interim visits when you only have to do a couple of repairs or in-fills.?Instead of giving me a little bottle of solar oil to take away, treat it as one of my ten sessions and massage it in for me. Think holistically, not simply "nails".
Above all, don’t hand me over to someone else on my next visit. I trust you, and you alone. You earn the right to charge me more, because you’re more than a nail technician, you’re a nail-biting consultant.
This is not a one-off. You KNOW this is going to be difficult. You also know I will be a long term client if you treat me well. So agree to take me on as project, provided I make some commitments in return. Why not have an agreement that I have to sign, that says I will do my best to reduce my stress levels in the coming weeks, that I promise to use my lovely new nails as “jewels not tools”, that I will be on time for appointments, that I will do my best not to bite my own nails if and when the tips fall off (which they will, of course). Make me pay up front as an indication of my commitment to the project. Plan in the diary all of the ten visits over the next twelve weeks., in advance. If you promise me in return that, if I stick to these commitments, in twelve weeks I’ll have made some progress and will have, if not nails to be proud of, at least nails that I’m less ashamed of, I will sign right now. And will happily pay £500 for the program. Up front.
Love us, understand us, and we will become your very best customers.
(I found only one person ever who did most of the above, but she has stopped nail work to have a family. So if you already do all of the above and are within an hour’s drive of Woking in Surrey, please let me know!)
 
Shame you're not near me, I would love to help you, I agree with all you've said and love to help people grow their natural nails, when they thought they'd never have any!!
Have you tried googling nail biters course/plan in your area, a lot of techs do offer these now.
 
Think u might need a shrink and a blog page not a nail tech.
Heaven sakes I have tons nail biters and they loyal clients who so ecstatic at the new nails they Instagram pictures their nails they like before and after pics.
It's a habit and takes 21 days to break.
My ex had such bad bleeding nails and toes as well as his family I fixed then all even nail bed grew back normally .

Holding or handling someone hands to do set nails if ur biter or not doesn't make difference to me or anyone else I worked with.
So don't take that personally.

Good luck
And thank you for the advise


Beauty at your finger tips!
 
....and paragraphs...the word wall was too much to attempt to read for me to even fathom what you're asking.

Confusion is a lifestyle - not a state of mind :eek:
 
Think u might need a shrink and a blog page not a nail tech.



Beauty at your finger tips!

This made my day, nearly chocked on my coffee lol. x
 
Before I was a nail tech, I was a nail biter. (Even whilst I was training to be a nail tech!)

To be perfectly honest, it's not a difficult habit to break. If you put as much effort into not biting your nails as you do thinking about how you feel because you do bite them, I think you'll beat it.

I did it without the help of a nail technician (and without applying any product myself) and I certainly wouldn't have paid £500 to have someone put acrylic/gel/fairy dust on them, just to bite them again when it's taken off.
 
I would have loved to help you but am not near you and probably not experienced enough. I have used tips on clients and this has helped to break the nail biting habit and the natural nails im the short term. The long term aim for gel polish on natural nails!
 
I was a nail biter for 10 years and i managed to stop on my own it takes a lot of will power and you have to learn to be aware when you're doing it that's the most difficult bit. I found chewing gum helped to start with or sucking a mint because i wouldn't bite my nails when I had something in my mouth. If you google nail biter courses in your area as some one suggested you'll find something a lot of nail techs offer this. Or ask friends and families for recommendations then phone the techs they suggest and find out if it's something they offer. To be perfectly honest the idea of paying £500 for it is completely ridiculous to me. Good luck x
 
To be honest , the more i TRY to read this post , and i am trying lol, the more i think it is a wind up ,

Simply holding our fingers, stroking them gently, laying them on a soft pink towel can move us to tears, we are so unused to the care and the touch. Don’t treat our fingers like ugly sausages, to be pulled this way and that. We’re already embarrassed enough to have to lay them out in full gaze of someone else. Treating us softly is enough to make us want to come back.

It is like the Barbara Cartland of the nail tech, tbh this is one of the best posts i have ever ATTEMPTED to read. Some one must have been really bored.
 
To be honest , the more i TRY to read this post , and i am trying lol, the more i think it is a wind up ,



Simply holding our fingers, stroking them gently, laying them on a soft pink towel can move us to tears, we are so unused to the care and the touch. Don’t treat our fingers like ugly sausages, to be pulled this way and that. We’re already embarrassed enough to have to lay them out in full gaze of someone else. Treating us softly is enough to make us want to come back.



It is like the Barbara Cartland of the nail tech, tbh this is one of the best posts i have ever ATTEMPTED to read. Some one must have been really bored.


'Wind up' was defo my first thought but I went with giving the benefit of the doubt.

Glad I wasn't alone :)
 
"To be honest , the more i TRY to read this post , and i am trying lol, the more i think it is a wind up"

Thank god someone else has been trying to read this Lol. I've tried many times to read this today and not had a decent reply to say.

However, I've been a nail biter since god knows how long. I do occasionally bite and I can't function with nails that are long. The most successful way I found in all honestly in breaking my habit mostly without a word of a lye is to have files lying about the place and even in every bag I own. So that if my nail catches I file it, if I'm out and it breaks, I file, if I accidentally bite it, I file it. Always having a nice shape and nice looking nails makes me try not to bite my nails. I look after my cuticles now too and I apply coconut oil everywhere and it is nice to see the change in my hands, nails, cuticles. And so because I'm not one to wear nail polish they just look *nice* so this is off putting to destroy them.

I do feel like that was a long winded speech though. Not sure if you are pulling out legs though.

That's just my 5 cents all in.
 
This made me think of my own old nail biting habit, I chewed mine constantly til I was around 15. My mum sorted me out with strengthener and "iced champink" nail polish from Avon when I was about 11. I still had a good munch on my thumbs for 4 years til I realised how nice my other nails looked when I eased up on them. It only took 4 years because I was picking at them and stabbing holes in them with a compass (nail "piercings" were apparently in lol). My nails r still a bit rubbish, thin and break easily, now college is over I wear shellac and am amazed at how much they have grown and remained long!

Anyway, I thought this post was a meandering poem when I first started reading, expected it to go somewhere n gave up when I clicked read more and lost my place. Not sure what the OP wanted to say, if anything. Sorry
 

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