Are You Treating Your Beauty Biz Like a Real Business?

Welcome to the Working Moms of San Antonio podcast. We're your host, Erika Radis and Marie Lifschultz, a realtor and lender here in San Antonio. But most importantly, we're working moms just like you. This podcast is all about creating a space where we can come together, share stories, and learn from each other. We love connecting with local moms in business hearing about their journeys and how they're balancing it all. Because let's be honest, it's not always easy, but it's so worth it. Before we dive in today's episode, we're excited to share some big news with you all. Our business community and coworking memberships are officially open. Whether you're looking for a supportive community of moms in business or need a beautiful space to work and grow, we've got just what you need here at Working Moms of San Antonio. You can visit the link in our show notes or workingmomsofsanantonio.com/membership for more info. Now on to today's episode. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and let's get started.

I have been a bookkeeper for probably 3 years now, but I have, I got my degree back in 2012 in business administration. And during that time I had already gotten my, I'm a retired hairstylist too, but you know, let's not talk about that. But when I got my degree, it was so that I could run my own business so that I could run my salon. And, you know, I figured why not? I like going to school. But I also have ADHD, so then I end up doing all kinds of shit that I probably don't need because I overthink everything. So I went to school for it. I only used it for my business. I used it when my husband opened up his business in California. And then I was like, okay, like, that's the only reason I went to school for, just so I could work for me, which is, I mean, kind of dumb if you really think about it. But that was my, my mind was like, no, you're doing it. It's going to work for you. And that way you don't have to hire anyone. Well, then, you know, go fast forward to 2020, you know, pandemic, all this shit happening. So I decided, you know, I'm done doing hair. I had a studio here in San Antonio. I was just, I was over it. I think that like most people, everyone during the pandemic, you realize that whatever it is that you were doing, that wasn't it, you know, you just thought, I know for me, I decided like, I was like, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. And one of my friends there at the studio, she was like, I didn't know you did bookkeeping. And I was like, well, yeah, but I just don't, I mean, I haven't done it in a long time. I only do it for myself. So she hired me on and then from there she kept on wanting to pass on my information. I was like, I don't want to do this shit. Like, what if I, 'cause I mean, in my head I was like, what if I fuck something up? You know, like I haven't done this in a while. So what if I, there's something that I don't do the right way. And it wasn't so much because like I thought that it had to be something more professional or that I had, you know, I was like, I don't have the look. My hair is always fun colors. I have all these tattoos. Who's going to take me seriously? But I had to realize that like buying her books, I saw her growth and I was like, I want to do this for other people. And I want to do it for other people in the beauty industry because we're looked down upon and they don't take people, they don't take us seriously. They think our job is not, you don't make that much money or it's just like a hobby or whatever. So I wanted to show different, you know, I wanted also for ourselves as hairstylists, sometimes we also don't see our worth, but I think in the industry as women, we really don't see our worth, period. So I wanted girls to start seeing themselves in a different light and I wanted to help them grow. And my friend, she finally pushed me to keep on going. And then last year, it's when I took myself seriously and I started to grow. And then I, from there, it's now I'm, this is what I do and I love it. I, yeah, I freaking love it. I can't see myself doing anything else, you know, except for my little side hustles that I call them side hustles, but they're also like full-time jobs. Um, like the You know, the tattooing. I also took classes for that and I was doing it, which is, you know, not legal, but I was doing it here at home and it was only on friends. It was only on friends. So they were letting me practice and I was like, all right, you let me practice, then you can't talk shit or you can't say I fucked up because you're letting me practice. Yeah. Uh, but you know what, they, I did pretty well and now I work at Vanidosas Studio with Claudia and I do Tattoo Fridays there, which is a lot of fun. But oh my God. So one thing that Erika will not do is tell you that the tattoo is fucking crooked. Left, right. So when we first— so I'm putting the stencil on, right? And then I'm like, I'm looking at it. I'm like, this doesn't look right. But I'm like, you know, I asked her if she liked it and she was like, yeah. I'm like, can you stand up? Or I don't know if I told her to stand up or what we did, but I needed get her to move her arm a different way. And I was like, that doesn't look centered. And then she's like, oh yeah. I'm like, you should have told me something.

What the hell?

Like, this is going to be on you for I don't know how long. You know, it's only permanent. So make an appointment. I'll get you in. Yeah, I like it because I do love the creative. And it's so funny that when I was little, And I just talked about this in my podcast. I said when I was little, I would look forward to getting like the stationery sets or like the pens and all these like fun colors of paper and like office supplies. To me, that was what made me, you know, get excited as a kid. Yes, I have a collection of like, I have two big old, I don't know what they're called, but where you put pens and then it spins. I have a big one that spins. Yeah. And it's full of pens and I have another one full of Sharpie markers and all the different colors because I'm obsessed with fucking pens. That was like the first thing I did when I said I'm gonna homeschool. I was like, well babe, now I need all this shit. And now my room is completely organized and I have different colors and everything kind of goes. I have my bulletin board. Like I don't fucking even look at that shit. The kids don't even look at that shit. But it looks pretty. Yeah. Yeah, no, but it looks nice. And it's like, I wanted my big-ass printer. Like, do I really need a— I do need a printer like that. Like, it's an office printer. That's something I wanted when I was growing up. Like, it's the dumb little shit that for other people as a kid, you're, why would you even want that? And for me as a kid, I remember asking, I think one of my mom's friends, she was a secretary at a school and she gifted me a typing book. So that I could learn to type fast. Like, what fucking kid does that?

Me.

I still, I have a collection. I have a collection of crayons that I have my box of crayons that they're just mine and they have to be Crayola. And then I have the different little, like they come with the like different designs or whatever on the boxes. Yeah. I have every single one that has come out and nobody can touch them. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So they're collectible. I mean, you can, I'm sure you can, but I don't. I'm like, they're mine. If you touch them, I will kill you. I mean, you know. And I have coloring books. I published a coloring book as well. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, it's, I don't know, it's the little things that make me happy with the bookkeeping, but I still get to be creative. And I think most of my brand is creativity. Even like my bookkeeping set, everything's pink. Like I, you know, I remember in school I used to get in trouble when in college when we were working on our spreadsheets and my spreadsheets were all pink. With purple and they would tell me, that's not, you're never going to make it in the professional world because you want to make everything so colorful and so girly. And I was like, watch me make it work. So even when I went to beauty school, it took me a while. My mom, parents always know what you're going to do when you grow up. And no matter how much you say, that's not what I want to do, they already know. My mom, since high school, she would always tell me, why don't you just go to beauty school? She saw me always messing with hair color. You know, I learned to do nails when I was 12 or 13. So I always did all the fun stuff, but also the makeup, I loved it. But I was like, no, because I really thought that hairdressers didn't have an education and that the education that we got wasn't, you know, I wanted people to know that I was smart. And I wanted mostly my family, I wanted my family to believe that I was smart. And I thought that if I went to beauty school, they were going to think that I just took the easy way out. But when I went to beauty school and they handed me books and those books, you had to learn science, you had to learn anatomy and chemistry. That's when I was like, oh shit, like, this is amazing. Like, it was one of— I think it was really hard, especially the anatomy part of it. So then I realized— that's when I realized this is more and we have to be taken seriously, you know? So that's when I started kind of Even now, that's why I advocate so much for girls to take themselves seriously when it comes to their beauty business, because it's more than just, you're more than just a beautician, you know, you're more than what you think you are in the service industry. And I feel that once they have their books done, they'll realize how important, you know, and how much money they can actually make doing what they love. You know, I, In the last few years, my mentality has changed a lot as well because I used to always think when my kids were in public school, you know, I was always pushing college and that they had to go to college once they finished high school. And so our oldest, who's 20 now, we said, you know, as she was getting closer to going to college, we're like, you know, if you don't want to go to college, you don't have to go to college. You could find something that you love. We've always known that she loves to cook. She loves to bake. And she's had a baking business since she was 14. So, and she got her food handler's card and she went and did all the stuff that you needed to do and to figure it out at 14. You know, I wasn't even there at that age. And so we knew, we told her, why don't you just go to culinary school? Because we know that's what you love. No, so she went to UTSA. I think first semester she made it. Second semester, halfway through, she stopped going to school and she was living at the dorm. So I kind of, as a mom, you know that they're not doing something right. So I was like, we went and picked her up. We're like, you're done. Like, because she wasn't going to classes. And we told her, why don't you go to school for something that you love? Why are you, you know? And even then, she still, she went for dental assisting, which we, and she likes it. And she's not even, she's not working in the field, but we know what she loves, you know? She loves to bake and she loves to cook. And So it's one of those, if you just go to the trade school, she could have, she had to learn on her own and that's okay. And I'm okay with that. But now it's like, why do we push college on all these kids when a lot of the times you see what their strengths are as they're growing up? You know, my 15-year-old, her strengths are makeup. She loves makeup. She loves acting. So she wants to be an esthetician, you know? And she takes acting classes and she loves all this. So each one of my kids has had something different. I wouldn't have noticed that or known that had they still been in public school. You know, so now I don't push the college because I've done the trade school, I've done the college, you know, I've done just small classes. And now I know what it is that, you know, that's what they're good at. Can I tell you something about the business degree though, at least on my view? So I went to get my business degree and everything that I've learned as a bookkeeper now, or that I know, I've learned more hands-on than I ever did in school. And the stuff that you learn in school, it's so much bullshit, to be honest. But yeah, so having to do all these bullshit classes, like for me, like I said, I, my brain cannot focus long enough to sit there through a freaking history class, through an English class, through all these classes that I don't need and they're useless. I, and maybe they're not, you know, people may think differently, but when I ask questions because of something that I didn't understand when it came to either accounting or it came to anything that had to do with marketing, it was like they couldn't break it down for me. And I'm a visual learner. You need to break it. You need to dumb it down as much as you can and I'll figure it out. Like I'll learn it. But if I'm asking you a question and you're like, well, this is how I explained it, then okay, then you're not willing to teach me the way that I'm telling you that I can't learn. So it was more of those like, okay, whatever. So everything that I've learned, that I know now for bookkeeping, I've honestly learned as I've done it for myself. I think that's the, and I think that's what, if one good thing came out of pandemic, it was that a lot of people actually went for the things that they love to do. Yeah. And I know for me, like I said, I was like, okay, this is it. And I'm still using my creativity. I'm still, you know, I'm still me. And that's one thing that I always say when my clients that I do, like that I have now, they know that I cuss, they know that I have tattoos, they know that, like, but when it comes to your book, like, they're going to be, you know, spotless. I'm going to take care of you. But if you're spending the money you shouldn't be, a way you shouldn't be spending it, I'm going to talk shit to you. Like, I'm not going to, I don't sugarcoat shit, you know, like I'm just going to, this is one, this is who I am. This is the kind of people I want to attract. And if you're not willing to, I don't know, work with me or if you don't want me to tell you how to run your business, then we're not a good fit because I'm just trying to help you out. I think one of the biggest mistakes that someone will do is open a QuickBooks account and honestly not know how to run it because even for me that I was taught how to do accounting. When I first started QuickBooks, it was very confusing to me and I had to take a whole course just to understand it and to even be able to offer it to clients. Because when I started doing books, I was doing paper and pencil. That's how I kept up with books. It was just on paper because I, I was scared of QuickBooks and I was scared of learning it because I was like, if I mess something up, it's I don't know, but then I figured it out and I got certified through QuickBooks. So I think one of the mistakes is that, like I said, people will go in it and then sometimes they categorize shit the wrong way and they don't ask anybody. I was like, don't do that. No. And then another mistake that people do is they use their business account, like their personal account., and they just, you know, they, and not even they mix it. They literally just use their business account for everything. And it's like, no, you have to separate the two. They're two different things, like pay yourself. And I think because we see and we're small businesses, like we're like, okay, well, we don't need to, we don't need to separate it. We could just use it. And that's how we pay ourselves. No, make sure that you're paying yourself a certain amount from the profit that you're making. Um, and that's it. Like, I think those are like the main three. If you don't know QuickBooks, either take a small course and learn it, or just do paper and pencil, or, you know, also separate your accounts. When I talk to my clients, I always tell them, you want to think about it this way. If, let's say, you want to buy a house next year, they're not going to want to see Like when they look at your business account, they're going to be like, what the fuck is this? Like, why do you have personal expenses on here? And then you're not making yourself look profitable. Instead, what's happening, you're making yourself look like you have all these expenses through the business because one, you don't have them categorized correctly and they're just seeing all this money coming out. So how much money is your business actually making? So you're not going to know any of that if you don't separate them. So I always try to be very good with my clients about telling them that for the health purposes. I had one client that I took over and she had a CPA. When I tell you her books were a mess and she wasn't sure what the hell the CPA was doing. It took me, and even now we were actually sitting down yesterday and we were, I was trying to, you know, get all her shit together for, for tax, uh, time. And then I was like, are you fucking kidding me? Just when I thought that I had already fixed all this shit that this dude did. Like, there's still so much more that's coming up and it becomes frustrating because it's like you sit there and you charge all kinds of money for what you do as a CPA, but you're not even doing your job right. And it sucks because I, it's not just one person that I've heard this happen to, you know, it's been multiple people and I don't know if it's from the same CPA or what, but I've You know, find yourself a bookkeeper who really knows the kind of work that you do and that they're actually going to go hard for you as far as, you know, they're going to give you shit if you're spending the money you shouldn't be spending. They're going to be strict with you. They're going to, you know, they're going to hold you accountable for everything. Um, if you have someone who's just like, okay, they're just inputting everything that you give them without questions. Then you have the wrong person. Normally when the CPAs, uh, a lot of the times actually when the CPA is the one that's in charge of books and even me as a bookkeeper, if I'm in charge of books and I mess something up, I have insurance in case anything comes back to the client because it shouldn't be their fault if I'm the one that's handling all their shit. And I have insurance for that and a CPA should too. So they can actually come after the CPA. I think that the difference between, one of the biggest difference obviously between a CPA and a bookkeeper is the CPA, yeah, they have a license and everything, but they know the law and they know more legal stuff and they're allowed to do more shit that when it comes to legal than we do, you know, but it doesn't take away from them Sometimes I don't even know how to use QuickBooks or sometimes I don't even know how to categorize shit and it's all miscategorized and it's like, and they hire bookkeepers who are freshly out of school when they're doing this stuff. It's like, are, you know, are you making sure who is the person that's actually doing your books? Yeah, so that's how, I don't know, do your research when you're going to look for a bookkeeper, you know, and look me up. Beauty pro, bookkeeping. There is a big old controversy right now going on. Tattoo artists fucking hate all the fine line tattoo artists and all the permanent makeup artists because they are mad that we're not doing a fucking 2-year-long apprenticeship of being somebody's bitch at the tattoo shop, you know? And they had to do all this and we took a course and we're not supposedly, you know, Yeah, I get it. We're not as good at them because they have— as them because they have years of experience. Fine line is where you either use one needle when you're tattooing as either a one needle or three needles, up to five needles on the tattoo gun and the different sizes. Those create a very fine line. Well, if you tattoo with one needle only, it's very fine. And if you're— if it's not done right, it could blow the ink. So as you're putting it in, the ink could spread. And tattoo artists are not— they're mad because they don't know how to tattoo with one needle. They're trained to tattoo with 7 needles or more. And I probably will get a lot of shit from tattoo artists for this, but it's true. It's, they're more mad because they can tattoo with a fine line. If you look, I asked for this one, I asked for that to be a fine line tattoo right here. And I think it was done with like 9 needles. And so, and you were to ask them, I've had some that the lights have blown out and it's not even one needle, you know, so they don't know their depth, but a fine line, it's just knowing how to tattoo small tattoos with very thin lines. That's what I, that's what I specialize in, in the dainty tattoos. I've done a bigger piece before, but it was like when I was still practicing and it's probably this big that I tattooed. And, and that one I did have to go with a little bit of a thicker needle only because it was bigger and it wasn't going to look as great if I went with the fine line. But I'm trying to build up to go to drawing bigger tattoos and maybe even color. But my favorite are honestly the fine line, the dainty looking tattoo.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of The Working Moms of of San Antonio podcast. We hope you love today's chat and found a little inspiration to take with you into your week. If you have a podcast topic suggestion or a question you'd love for us to cover, definitely send us an email at hello@workingmomsofsanantonio.com. We'd love to hear from you. And until next time, see you in the community.