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Leanned85

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2011
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Location
Tyne and Wear
I started my own mobile business last year, posted leaflets, gota website, put it on facebook etc, but i never got any clients. The only people i have done are family and friends really. I then asked a local tanning shop if they would consider doing nails, to my surprise she said yes!! I was over the moon, she didnt even want me to pay for the room, and agreed that she would give me a month to see how it goes and i had to give her 20% of what i earn. NOT 1 CLIENT booked an appointment, so now that idea has gone out the window :sad: i'm trying so hard to find clients but its just not happening!!! What am i doing wrong?? Feel like packing it all in!
 
Same here it's cost me a small fortune on advertising i know how you feel.
 
Same here it's cost me a small fortune on advertising i know how you feel.

Its crap! Not fair! Some people are getting clients who are doing gels and acrylics for £10 or £15 but i just dont know how they can do it that cheap!!!
 
Same here... I'm finding getting a client base harder than learning :-(
But it is January so hopefully things will pick up hey? :)
 
Girls you aren't the only ones struggling right now :( before we moved to the country, I was booked solid, lots of nail art, crystal pedis etc

Since moving here, I thought I would wait 6-12 months to settle kids etc and do some other training.

I am now qualified in hair extensions as well as nails and you know what - I haven't got a single client booked at all :( Christmas saw me do 1 half head extensions and 1 removal - not a call or enquiry for nails at all.

I am now adding on Gelish to my service menu to try to entice the country folk to have a service done that is a polish but will last them. Lots of the ladies here are not vanity conscious, rarely wear make up etc and most do lots of manual work also so I am on a bit of a losing streak :( xxx
 
I started my own mobile business last year, posted leaflets, gota website, put it on facebook etc, but i never got any clients. The only people i have done are family and friends really. I then asked a local tanning shop if they would consider doing nails, to my surprise she said yes!! I was over the moon, she didnt even want me to pay for the room, and agreed that she would give me a month to see how it goes and i had to give her 20% of what i earn. NOT 1 CLIENT booked an appointment, so now that idea has gone out the window :sad: i'm trying so hard to find clients but its just not happening!!! What am i doing wrong?? Feel like packing it all in!

I signed up to this company's blog and this article helped me, I genuinely hope this helps you too:

How to Promote Your Beauty or Nail Salon – Quick Guide « General « The BLOG | Nails and Beauty Academy
 
I started my own mobile business last year, posted leaflets, gota website, put it on facebook etc, but i never got any clients. The only people i have done are family and friends really. I then asked a local tanning shop if they would consider doing nails, to my surprise she said yes!! I was over the moon, she didnt even want me to pay for the room, and agreed that she would give me a month to see how it goes and i had to give her 20% of what i earn. NOT 1 CLIENT booked an appointment, so now that idea has gone out the window :sad: i'm trying so hard to find clients but its just not happening!!! What am i doing wrong?? Feel like packing it all in!

Have you put a free listing on Yellow Pages & Thomson Local directories?
 
Its crap! Not fair! Some people are getting clients who are doing gels and acrylics for £10 or £15 but i just dont know how they can do it that cheap!!!

Maybe they are using MMA? Its not good, its not healthy and the more we make people aware of this - the better.

Advertise that you don't use mma in your salon?
 
What is MMA?

I learnt it on my nail course. MMA is called methyl-methacrylate and causes cancer. It's actually been banned in America. The healthy and harmless alternative is EMA (Ethyl-methacrylate), brands like Jacava, CND, and all the other top brands use this type of chemical. It is slightly more expensive than MMA though. You've got to weigh up whether the health of yourself and your clients is more important than saving a few pounds by getting MMA. I can tell you now, just in case, its really not!
 
What are you offering? Clients dont want the same old, same old!

Do the girls that work there nails then when they are spraying people they can see them!!

People that normal go for tan are younger so i would disply lots of nail art and minx etc that would catch there attention!

Sent from my HTC Vision using SalonGeek
 
Offer to nails for free on a bank teller, real estate broker, someone in the public eye a lot in exchange for them advertising for you. Advertising very rarely works. Word of mouth is the best. That being said you better be sure your skills are amazing. One thing about the NSS salons is that clients know what they're getting no matter which one they go to. If you do that teller or banker and then the nails have problems then they're not going to keep them free or not and they certainly won't tell where they got them.

If your skills are great it only takes a few clients to help build your clientele. A happy client will statistically only tell 3-5 people but screw someone up and they'll tell 10-20 people. Think about the last time you ate out and it was bad. How many people did you tell? And will you eat there again?

If you haven't started doing gel polish you need to add that asap. People are wanting an alternative to acyrlics. My business is about half acrylic and half gel polish and adding new gel clients every week. All by word of mouth. I haven't done a full set on a new client in years.

Even with all this and skills to boot you can count on it taking at least a year and probably longer to build a good clientele.
 
Just wanted to add that price has little to do with building. People will pay for the skills. Make sure your skills are the best and make sure to give great customer service too.
 
There is a fabulopus thread in the business forum on how to promote your business x Have a search through there will be something in there to help x
 
I started my own mobile business last year, posted leaflets, gota website, put it on facebook etc, but i never got any clients. The only people i have done are family and friends really. I then asked a local tanning shop if they would consider doing nails, to my surprise she said yes!! I was over the moon, she didnt even want me to pay for the room, and agreed that she would give me a month to see how it goes and i had to give her 20% of what i earn. NOT 1 CLIENT booked an appointment, so now that idea has gone out the window :sad: i'm trying so hard to find clients but its just not happening!!! What am i doing wrong?? Feel like packing it all in!

Going mobile is very hard.. especially if you have not worked in a salon and have a client base to take with you. I started my business 2 years ago and wow what a rollercoaster ride.

But I am happy to say I worked the busiest December than I have ever worked even in a salon lol what is the key? word of mouth, take lots of pictures of your work, be creative!! clients love a little something different.
I needed 3 of me in December, I was working 8-14 hour days... lots of new clients.. my portfolio has expanded 10 fold. My BIGGEST piece of advice. Make sure you have an excellent camera. NOT a mobile phone that takes a quick pic. Bring some background material and take a quality picture of all your work you do.

On every family member, every friend not all the same work or you will look boring and same old. People love a nail technician who can give them something different and someone they can SEE does excellent work. Especially on public website, facebook etc albums. All the best of luck... determination and creativity will get you clients. Sitting down and hoping they come to you will not.
Drop leaflet in big companies. Offer a deal on new nails or designs you offer so you can have pictures of new hands to add to your portfolio.
 
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I do sympathise, this is me about 8 years ago. I hand delivered about 2500 leaflets (as I had nothing else to do lol) then went home and waited for the phone to ring. Well I had a long wait! I think 1 person rang that week . . . but it was a start!

Someone here mentioned listings in Yellow Pages and Thomson and I would totally recommend this, these two sources brought me quite a few clients and you will be entitled to a free lineage ad (ie name, address & phone no) in both publications and the best bit I find is that this automatically includes you on Yell.com. It tickles me that I pay nothing, yet if you type into google "nails" and my town, mine is the first in the list!

I hope your friends and family are paying you ... that way you can offer them 25% discount (or whatever) off their next appointment for every person they introduce to you, I find this works very well as people love to get money off!
Just make sure you remind them at every opportunity.

After 8 years I still have some of the clients that came to me first, and along the way have done their sisters, neighbours, friends, mums, etc, so once you start you'll probably find it snowballs a bit (although times are harder now with everyone being so short of cash)

At least 50% of my client base are ladies of about 50/60 +, and they are such a godsend. They may not be funky/trendy (well a few are lol) but they are reliable, friendly and polite, they never forget their money/chequebook, and best of all they have more disposable income for little luxuries such as their hair and nails etc, so while some of my younger clients have to have a break from nails for a while due to lack of funds, the older ones keep on coming as regular as clockwork! It might be worth particularly targetting this market?

Anyway chin up, it IS difficult at the moment, no two ways about that, and I hope this year brings you lots of new customers xx
 
Hi girls
I work from home and have built my beauty business up by doing party plan swell (Vie at Home, formally Virgin Vie) I became a consultant and did 1 -2 parties a week for a bout 2 years, I was selling lovely make up and skincare and doing a little make over on the hostess. I made a point of telling the ladies who attended the parties that I did beauty therapy and I always but a treatment list/pricelist in there bag of ordered goods. You only need a couple of leads from these parties and if they are happy with what you do they will spread the word. It worked for me. I met lots of ladies this way who became my beauty clients. I now don't have time to do Vie as the beauty has built up. However, that said this time of year is really hard work as no one has any money!!. Make sure you are your own advert. Always have your own hair and nails immaculate and always have a busisenss card on you to give to someone if they comment. Hope that helps x
 
Do you have a website? I find that a lot of my business comes from my website and the rest from word of mouth xx
 
I started out in beauty therapy, nails & tanning in October last year. Ive had a home salon built on the side of our house, I've bought all the shellacs, OPIs etc I've paid for adverts in locals magazines & papers, I've had 10,000 leaflets sent out around Warwickshire & had 3 at most respond to that.
I now just do family members & my mums friends.

I've had a number of clients who have booked & not turned up to appointments. I had one client who decided to shout at me & refuse to come back after having our drive resurfaced by a company that wasn't her husbands.

Business is so slow, I'm not sure how long to hold out for. Thankfully I was made redundant so still have money to survive on BUT this won't last past April :( Condifence is at an all time low when it comes to doing treatments now... Gutting!
 
Do you have a website? I find that a lot of my business comes from my website and the rest from word of mouth xx

I do have a website but its hard for people to find on google unless a pay for adwords etc x
 

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