I’m very fortunate in that I’m passionate about waxing and I love to chat, so working with clients and students is a dream job for me. However... if I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d never turn the wax pot on again. Shock horror!
Now, before you start jumping up and down saying how you can’t ever see your life without doing a set of lashes, nails, etc, let me tell you, when you’ve been doing it for hours a day and for many years, you get burnt out, so it needs to pay well.
So, have an honest chat with yourself today. Comparing the hours you work, are your profits worth it?
I know that some of you may work just to have a bit of spare cash because you have a partner that is the main earner. I see that as a hobby job (not a necessity), and that’s great, so power to you. That’s a wonderful position to be in.
Then, there are those of you that work because you HAVE to work, to pay the bills and to get by. That’s most of us.
Here are the stinger questions:-
Is beauty really paying off for you?
Could you earn more getting a regular job, with holiday and sick pay?
Could you earn more cleaning, or selling stuff?
When I used to go onto beauty forums (many years ago), I’d read some of the posts and think ‘WTF!!! Why are you doing it?’. They’d say, ‘Oh, I’ve been doing nails from 9am to 9pm and my fingers are bleeding. Now I’ve got to go home and do housework’. Let me tell you, if you can’t afford a cleaner when you’re working twelve hours a day, there’s something seriously wrong.
Work out what you need/want to earn a month, divide that by how many hours you’re going to work, taking into account x amount of weeks holiday a year, then deduct your outlay and tax and see what you’re left with an hour.
If that’s less than £20 an hour, then have a think about getting a new career and doing beauty as a paid hobby. I know that there are areas of beauty where you can earn way more than £20 an hour, and they’re extremely lucrative....waxing being one of them, but they’re not all money makers.
Before you say...’Well, it’s easy for you!’ Why? I’ve never done a business plan in my life, and I’ve never advertised, but I’ve always been a grafter. I’ve always made sure that what I do is to a high standard.
I raised my daughter alone, with no financial support at all, she’s 36 this year and my proudest achievement. I was born and raised in a very poor part of East London and lived in a Council flat until I was able to get a mortgage for my little house in Essex in my 40’s. That’s not a sob story....I’m telling you this to motivate you.
With hard work, skill, drive and personality (very important), you can really make a great success of your business. Personality is King.
You can be a mediocre therapist with a great personality and you’ll be fully booked, or, you can be the best therapist in town but a bitch, and they’ll go to the one that is friendly, makes them laugh, and never breaks a confidence.
Hope this helps in some way.
Love you all, Kim xx