Why you're not scaling your bridal hair business

As entrepreneurs, we are hustlers. We grind, okay? It's part of what makes us the 1% that takes that leap of faith into entrepreneurship that the other 99% of the world just wouldn't even dream of doing. So as the fearless hustlers that we are, we think we need to constantly be hustling in order to scale our business to six figures. So you might be thinking a few months into your business, Lara's business next door is taking off. She's offering hair and makeup. I'm going to do it too. Got to start offering XYZ service so that way I can increase my revenue. It's slow season now. I have time. Let me take up that side hustle of DIYing furniture. You might think that hustling is what's going to bring you closer to scaling your business. However, there's only two things in business that are actually going to increase your sales. Those are increase your sales or decrease your expenses. Nothing else. So in this video, I want to break down increasing your sales because that's where I went horribly wrong where I started out. And I find a lot of other bridal beauty pros go wrong in this area. So let's talk about increasing your sales. Now, when I say increase your sales, there are four specific ways that I like to do this. The number one thing is to add more services. So do upselling like add ons. Add ons can be a second reception style. You going back for touch ups, charging for your travel fee, charging to bring along a second stylist, charging for going to somewhere that is early in the morning. Anything that is an additional fee onto your normal services, you can add another service such as adding on makeup. You can add on hair. If you're a makeup artist. You can add on event styling. You can add on rehearsal dinner hair for your brides. The third way to increase your sales is to raise your rate. So look at your rates. How long have you been charging the same rate? Do you feel like you deserve an increase? How much are you bringing in per wedding per year? How long have you had these exact same rates? I'm going to guess probably a really long time since you decided to give yourself an increase. And the fourth way to increase your sales that you can do right now is to book more weddings. So look at how many weddings you have booked. If you only booked 30 weddings, think about maybe doubling that and increasing it to 60 weddings. If you're looking at that over the span of a year, 60 weddings really isn't a lot. Now back in 2016, I logically thought, okay, the best way to increase my sales is to offer more services to my brides with a little bit of mix of some add ons like adding on for lashes and charging $20 for that, and adding on for the donut hair mash and charging $20 for that. I really thought that I was going to kill the game instead of scaling to six figures in 2016, in my first year of business, I only took home $6,000. I really killed the game there, didn't I? What happened? I really thought adding on these more services was going to scale me to six figures like so fast. What happened? Here's what I didn't understand that I want you to understand now. When you are scaling a business, what you have realize is it's going to require more of you and there is only one of you. You only have so much attention span that you can span in one day. Your attention span is limited. So if you are maxing out your attention, offering all of these different services or to little things that don't matter, you're not going to be able to put your attention into actually growing and scaling your business. You're always everywhere, but at the same time, you're nowhere. So here's what scaling looked like for me. From 0 to 50,000, I was working with tons of different clients. Every single client that could sit in my chair. And what I was doing at this time was I. I was figuring out the type of client that I love to work with and I was figuring out the type of hairstyles that I love doing. And this is really great when you're saying yes to every single client because at this time you likely don't even know who your ideal client is, the types of styles that you like doing, or the wedding venues that you like working at because you're so new in the space. So if you have that mindset when you're working from zero to 50,000 and you're thinking of it as saying yes to everything in order to figure out what you like, that's exactly what you want to be doing in this space. Then when I went from 50 to $100,000 a year, instead of focusing my efforts and energy, single wear and saying yes to every bride, I had to start saying no. And when I started saying no and only saying yes to my one ideal bride, that one signature style that I wanted to do is when I actually skyrocketed my business. That was when I started actually scaling and actually increasing my sales. Here's how adding More services actually stole my attention away from what I should have been focusing on. That might be causing you to steal your attention as well. So, number one, you're going to be juggling all these different client appointments. You're scheduling them, you're doing the emails for them, then you're showing up on that day. And if you are servicing clients every single day of the week, you are going to be draining your battery really fast. You have to show up and be present for your clients. And when you're doing that, that's already going to drain your social battery. So when you get home, you're likely not going to want to spend time in your emails to schedule even more appointments. The second thing is you're likely mentally switching from hair to makeup. So when I was doing hair and makeup, when I would have a client in my chair and I'm doing hair and makeup on her, I would have to mentally switch. So I would either do her hair and then I would have to switch my brain over to, okay, we're focusing on makeup, how do I do the makeup, where do I start? What's the prep work that I need to do for that? And it is really exhausting. Again, it's draining your attention span fast. Then at the end of servicing my clients, especially when I was adding on all those extra services, I was so exhausted and drained at the end of the day that I couldn't even be present when I came home from weddings to be present with my husband or with my fur babies because I was just so exhausted. I'm already naturally an introvert. So when my social battery is drained after working a wedding, it's hard for me to come home and want to have a conversation. But it was even harder when I was giving my attention to all these different services because my brain battery was just completely dead. Like somebody charged me up. Okay. I just had no energy to have any kind of conversations. Like the silent drive home is still a thing because I'm an introvert. However, it was just always a thing. And the last way that adding on more services actually took away my attention span was because I was always squeezing in clients on days that I was supposed to be off. Because again, I thought having all these different services and always being available for my clients was going to bring me in the most revenue. Right? Because if you're working and you're servicing clients, you're making revenue. However, I was constantly squeezing those clients in, especially for last minute appointments like events, because I was afraid to turn the money away. So I never had A work life balance because I was always squeezing them in and my attention was getting diverted everywhere. So with that limited amount of attention span that we have every single day, our brain is making like 30,000 decisions decisions. So you enter brain fog and brain fatigue super quickly and you spread yourself so thin when you are trying to service clients every single day and always have all these add on services that you're doing. So by increasing the services that you offer, what you actually done is decrease the attention to give to each one of those services and to each one of those clients. Especially if you're adding on separate businesses on top of doing bridal hair. Now imagine what you would be able to offer and give a client if you were just doing one service. You're likely going to be able to show up and be more present for that client. And the number one thing that I noticed when I stopped adding all these different services, I felt like my client experience was 10 times better because I didn't feel like I was rushing my clients in and out of my chair doing hair and makeup versus when I'm only doing hair. I don't feel like my client experience is rushed at all. And that's a better experience for my clients. From 2016 up until 2020, this is how I ran my business. I offered more services with the logic thinking that I was going to make my more revenue. However, it wasn't until I had a massive wake up call and I decided to drop my ego and actually start learning some business practices. So here's what I discovered along my route. Going from $50,000 to $100,000 and five reasons likely why you're not scaling that I wasn't scaling either. The first reason is you're trying to copy people who are 10, 15, 20 steps ahead of you instead of doing what they did then. If you're somebody who's looking for a quick win and you are copying what I'm doing Now, I'm likely 10 to 20 steps ahead of you. So real, if you are making under a hundred thousand dollars a year, I am likely 10 to 20 steps ahead of you. Now I don't say that to discourage you or to come off to be offensive. I say that because I don't want you to copy what I'm doing now. What I want you to do is copy what I did to get here. And those steps are completely different. There are specific strategies that are going to scale you to a hundred thousand dollars six figure year. And I don't want you to miss a single step within that process. If you want to know the step by step strategies I use to get me from $50,000 to a hundred thousand dollars a year, make sure you sign up for my course that I'm launching in no Bridal Boss Academy business and Instagram 101 where I'm going to teach you the exact step by step strategies that got me from $50,000 a year to $100,000 a year. Link in the description box below. So right now you might see other people hiring a team to do weddings without them, or hiring a VA or outsourcing their content. However, those aren't things that you need to be focusing on right now. What you want to be focusing on is that one client that you want to work with, that one signature hairstyle because you have limited attention and you want all of your attention to go to one thing. The second reason you might not be scaling is because you are getting bored of doing the same thing. You're like, I'm a creative. I don't want to do the same hairstyle all the time. I don't want to be stuck in a creative box. I'm a creative. I want to do a different hairstyle. I don't want to be a one trick pony. I used to tell myself this all the time and what happened was I had no demand for my services, absolutely no demand, because I was trying to speak to everyone. And what ended up happening was I spoke to nobody. So if you are somebody who is like, I don't want to get bored doing the same thing, okay, have fun sitting at home 50k for a really long time. Because that's exactly what happened to me. If you're looking to scale something fast again, if you look at everyone who's truly successful in the industry, they have a niche, they have a signature style. I've yet to find somebody who's truly crazy successful who offers more than one hair service and doesn't have a signature. If you want to know how to get better at glam waves, do just glam waves. Don't be the haircuttery trying to attract every single client. Be the elite salon. The next reason you're not scaling is you're too afraid to reinvest back into yourself. When I was starting out, I was so scared to pay for an online course. So instead of course, I went the DIY route and I was on YouTube every single day. And instead of actually taking action, what I was doing was just consuming overload with all of these different YouTube videos teaching me all these different steps of how to build a business. Instead, what I really need it was the chronological order in the steps to get me there. The biggest disservice you can do as the CEO of your business now is to not reinvest into yourself and reinvest into to business education specifically. Being scared to pay for online courses really delayed my business growth. Next, taking advice from people who have never done what you're trying to do or who aren't where you want to be. When I finally decided to build my bridal business, I was at my corporate job and my pool of people was so small. The only people that I was really interacting with on a daily basis were the people who were in my corporate job, my mom and my ex boyfriend at the time. And none of those people had their own businesses, but besides my mom. So she gave me some good advice. But none of those people had ever built a business. They had never built a bridal hair business specifically. So when I was getting advice from them on what to do, when I was deciding, do I quit my corporate job, Do I stay here, Do I take this bridal hair business full time, they were giving me advice from the mindset of trying to keep me safe. Your family, your friends, your other coworkers are likely going to want to do what keeps you safe. However, if you are a business owner and you are a natural entrepreneur, it is all about getting outside of your comfort zone. What also ended up happening was anytime I would tell somebody that I had my own business, they would always tell me to add different things on. They would say, oh, you do hair and makeup, you know what you need to add on these touch up kits. You know what, you could go down to the dollar store and you could get bags that you could fill up and then you could sell them. You could sell them to your brides. And I would be like, that seems like a lot of revenue. And I don't know if anybody would buy them. Every time I would tell somebody that I had a business, it was like, oh, I have a great idea that I can tell you that you can give to your clients. I don't know why I just did a New York accent right now, but hey, here we are. And what this led to was I had zero confidence in what I was offering because anytime I would talk about my business, somebody was telling me something else I needed to add on to it, which gave me zero confidence, feeling like what I had to offer was even good enough. And this right here was a waste of time and attention because like I said in the beginning, they weren't where I want it to go. So if you are somebody who is looking to scale your business, make sure you are following the advice from people who are where you want to be. The next reason you're not scaling is because your ego is in the way. Now let me tell you, my ego got in the way and was so large I could not see my blind spots for the longest time. I was like, I've been doing hair for five years. I don't need to take other education. I know how to do hair. People like my services. I don't need to practice on a mannequin. I'm too good for that. Yes, that's how I used to think. However, this was a huge disservice because I couldn't pinpoint exactly why my hairstyles weren't looking like the photo when I did them on my clients and why sometimes they were getting upset because my ego was in the way and I was too afraid to invest in hair classes and hair education. When my clients would email me and say that they were upset with their hairstyles after their trial because it wasn't looking like their photo, it was a major problem. But my ego couldn't step aside for the second to be like, hey, let me make my client experience better and let me imagine invest in myself and invest in my skillset. Instead. What I would do is I would get emotional about it and think that it was the client who has a problem, when in reality it was me. My skill level was lacking. Okay, now that we understand your attention is one of your most valuable resources, let's audit your attention and see where you're actually spending yours. Have you ever asked yourself the question, where are you spending your attention on a day to day basis? Ask yourself, does that thing that you're thinking about in this moment need your attention in this moment? When something pops in your head, it doesn't necessarily mean that it needs your attention right now, such as texting that person back, emailing that client back, creating that Instagram content and posting it, making that target list. All of these things are going to be flooding your brain on a day to day basis and hours of your attention are taken up by all of these things that pop up in your head that are on your endless to do list. But does it need your attention right now or can you save it for later while you're actually working? Like, let's say you're emailing your clients? Do things pop in your your head that make you stop what you're doing and you Take action on it in that moment, such as while you're sending emails to clients, you think to yourself, oh, I really need to update my website and add that thing on there. Let me stop what I'm doing and I'm going to do that. Now, do you need to pull out your phone and respond to comments and dms like right now? Now imagine every single time you gave attention to a thought, meaning every thought you have, you actually take action on it. You give $100 towards it. How much money would you spend into that? Now, what did you get in return of that attention investment? Did it increase your sales or move the needle more forward in your business? This is to bring your awareness to where your attention is going every single day. Because let me tell you, when I did this attention on it, I was about $1,000 in the hole after this because I give attention to a lot of meaningless thoughts. And when you think of it, Jeff Bezos isn't giving his attention to his Instagram notifications blowing up or having his emails blow up his phone all day. Because billionaires understand that attention is their most most valuable asset. The reason why people say to focus on one thing is because your attention span is so short. So if you're still somebody who's asking, why would I not offer makeup services if I'm getting so many requests for it and I'm turning down money seems almost counterintuitive, right? But when we think about it, and after you do the attention audit, it's because you can't divide your attention and expect to be an expert. So let me know in the comments what your bill was when you racked up where your attention was going. If you're spending $100 per thought, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye.