E6. The Biggest Financial Mistakes I Made as a Business Owner

In this episode, I’m breaking down some of my biggest financial mistakes as a business owner, the ones that don’t get talked about enough. From not paying myself properly and how that impacted my personal life, to struggling with imposter syndrome and constantly feeling like I had to “earn” my success… we’re getting real.

I also dive into how I wasted money on the wrong courses, chose the wrong products and the harsh truth about educators who don’t deliver (including a storytime you won’t believe). If you’re in the beauty industry and want to make smarter financial decisions, this episode is for you!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone and welcome to Blossom and Business, the podcast for all things beauty, business, mindset, and more. My name is Monique and I am the owner of Royal Blossom Beauty, a beauty business based in Melbourne, Australia. I offer nail, lash and brow services as well as Nell and Business Education. I really hope you enjoy this episode and let's get into it. Let's talk money. More importantly, let's talk about some of the biggest financial mistakes that I've made as a business owner. I'm sharing what I've learned so that you don't make the same mistakes. We're going to be going a little bit personal into my finances this episode, so just prepare for that. I wanted to share some of the fuck-ups that I've made in my business so that you guys don't make the same. If you're new here, I've had my business for about six years. We hit six years in May, so you know, basically six years at this point, and I have spent a ton of money. I don't have a shopfront, I have a home salon, and the renovations were a gift from my dad, so I didn't pay for any renovations either. But apart from those initial renovations, every single cent that has been invested into my business was my own money. I've never had a commercial space, I've never rented a chair, I've never done any of that. I've also never had staff. So you may be thinking, but Monique, surely you haven't spent that much money. Like you work out of a garage at your dad's house, surely you haven't spent that much money. Whatever you think that I have spent on my business, triple it. Because I have spent so much money, and I honestly could have gotten away with spending less than half of what I've spent. I didn't even want to look at how much money I'd spent on my business. Until I was planning out this episode, I was like, maybe I should just go and check. Just so I can confirm that I have definitely spent a lot. And oh my gosh, I was lost for words. I even Googled like what's a like rough amount of expenses that you know businesses from home that have a salon or whatever would spend in a year. Then I chimed that by six, and I'm like, damn girl, you have spent too much money. And that's not to say that I've had a lot of money or that I have a lot of money. I don't want to start this on the wrong foot. I spent so much money because I wasn't paying myself barely any money. I didn't just have like a huge bottle cash lying around somewhere. I didn't have a huge like financial investment. I literally started my business with like maybe like five or six grand in savings. The reason I've spent so much money is because almost every cent that I got paid from clients I put back into my business. But as much as business is an investment, and I'll talk about that later, I put too much back in the business in the wrong areas. So we're gonna be talking about some of the things that I spent a lot of money on, or even spent, you know, even a cent on in general that you can get away without and that you shouldn't have to spend any money on. Like I could have saved so much money, but I try not to blame myself and I just try to be more thoughtful and intentional going forward because I didn't have any sort of guidance when I first started. Like, again, no one really talks about business, like no one talks about finances and things like that, with like nails especially. Like, we don't have anyone to really look up to when it comes to how much you should be spending, how much you should be paying yourself. Like, I feel like more recently there are some girls doing it now, but there's not a whole lot of business information out there. So, again, why I created the podcast, I'm gonna help you. So let's get into it. Now I'm always talking about business, but if you want to know a personal goal of mine is to actually own my own house. I still live at home. I could, you know, rent if I wanted to, but as I'm sure you guys know, being an Ltech, you need a sink. Not every landlord's gonna want you to have a sink or even want you to have a business in the house in general. If I'm gonna move out, I want to take the salon with me. So there's no point me renting, and also, you know, everyone's got their own opinions on renting. To me, it's just like paying someone else's mortgage, like I'd rather not, but I do know that's the only option for some people, so if you rent, nothing wrong with that. But I knew for me I didn't want to move out and just rent because I'd be burning through money. So my goal personally is to own a house. Now my partner has a house and I could move in with him, but I want my own house. I want a house that I can put the salon in, I can have my dog in, and I can just have like me, my partner, my dog, my salon, all in one place. Now that is my goal, and I'm gonna link back to how this is relevant very soon. Now, mind you, I am 24. I always said that I was gonna move out at 18, but I turned 18, 2020. We all know what happened that year. We all know what happened that year. And that was also the year that I started my business. But I'm 24, and you can blame, you know, cost of living, like the housing crisis, interest rates, like all of that as to why I haven't bought a house yet. And I know what you're probably thinking, like mini 24 is so young, like the average homeowner is like 30 or whatever it is, 35. I have no idea what it is. But my point is that I set a goal for myself, and I could have reached it if I had done things very differently in my business. Like, I'm confident that I could have done it had I made some changes, but I can't change the past now. The only thing I can do is help you guys not make the same mistakes. So, of course, cost of living, all of that contributed to why I was unable to buy a house, and I try not to blame myself for it, but again, there were some things that I could have done differently that would have increased my chances of getting a house. I could have paid myself so much more because, as I mentioned, I reinvested a lot of what I earned back into my business and a lot in the wrong places. So I'm the kind of person I'm trying to get better, I'm getting better, I would say, that I would only transfer myself money when I needed money, right? Because I have my business account and I have my personal account. I would only really put money in my personal account if I needed something, like if I need a little cash to survive. So I'd only give myself money if I needed it. Again, I live at home. My personal expenses are quite low. So I wouldn't give myself money, I wouldn't pay myself much money. So I would leave it in my business account and I'd end up spending it. That's exactly what I do. I'd end up spending it. But what that meant is that I was able to give my clients so many different shades of gel polish. I was always buying the latest products, the trendiest tools, and you know, I was very up to date with the times, I guess. And I was also able to expand to lashes and brows. I have done between one and six courses every single year because not only do I prioritize education, which I think everyone should be, but because I didn't pay myself, I had the money to put aside to that much education, which you definitely don't have to do one to six courses a year, but of course I do recommend some sort of you know upskilling. But I had a lot of opportunity to take my business further because I invested almost every cent that I got from clients back into my business, which is great, like it's a great opportunity for my business to grow. I was suffering personally because I wasn't giving myself anything, and again, I had low personal expenses, so it wasn't affecting like my day-to-day life. Like it wasn't like I wanted to go out, but I couldn't. Like, I don't go out, so it didn't really bother me. But when I would pay myself money, automatically I would save half. Again, because my personal expenses are quite low. I could save half. And I'm such a good saver, right? I'm such a good saver. I'm pretty good with money. Once it hits my personal account, it's just getting it there, that's the issue. But once it hits my personal account, I'm pretty good with money. I don't really spend money on random stuff in my personal life. I'm actually a bit frugal in my personal life. Like I don't actually spend a whole lot. Like I stopped paying for a gym membership and I just do exercise at home. I do my own nails, I wax my own eyebrows. Like I try to save money where I can. I only get my hair done like twice a year. Like I am very frugal when it comes to my personal finances. Just a little fun fact. So when I paid myself, I would immediately save half into my house savings. So as good as I was at saving the money I gave myself, I was horrible at giving myself money in the first place. And I would wonder, like, why is my house savings never going up? Like I'm such a good saver, but I wasn't giving myself any money. Like, of course it wasn't gonna go up. I wasn't even giving myself the money to save. But when I did give myself the money, I would save it quite well. But again, it didn't affect my day-to-day life because I'll just give myself just enough to pay for the food or whatever I wanted to do. Again, I don't really go out, so you know, I didn't have much to pay for. But when it came to the point in this past year or two where I'm like, okay, I gotta start looking at houses now. When I went to the bank and they compared, you know, obviously they find out your income by looking at how much you earn, take away expenses, blah blah blah, like all of that. They were like, You're not actually earning enough. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like I'm I make like X amount with clients, but once you take away the expenses, it's like, oh, like damn, that's that's yeah, not not too great. And when I went to the bank, I was really determined, I was like, I've got such a good deposit now, like I'm very excited to move out. But correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a broker, I'm not like any of that, but they didn't really care about my deposit, they cared about my earnings. Where did all this money go? I had given myself a lot of opportunity to invest in my business, and that's because I was giving my business the money, not myself. And I know what you might be thinking, but Monique, sole trader, technically, it's all of your money. I kept it very like clear line, personal business. And again, the issue wasn't me being careless with my personal finances, it was me getting the money from my business to me, like it was just crossing that line. So I wasn't really giving myself much money because I didn't really need it, and I can say that you know I'm fortunate to be able to live at home. I know not everyone can live at home, and I know some people do have medical conditions that have a lot of expenses and children and like they have no choice but to rent and move out and whatever. So I'm very fortunate to have been in the position where I could stay at home, and as much as I have been like, oh, I want to move out so bad, and I've been so tempted to just move out and rent, I've really just had to like just accept that if I want to reach my goals, I just have to put up with living at home for a bit longer. So I don't want this to come across the wrong way. But my point is that I just never prioritized myself. I never saw myself as someone that really deserved to have the money that I was getting for my business. I felt like I constantly needed to improve and that I couldn't pay myself until I was earning a lot of money. I would really just give myself like the leftovers. I wasn't prioritizing paying myself a wage. I was probably giving myself $100 a fortnight. Like I'm being brutally honest, maybe $200 a fortnight, like, and that's like how do you live off that? Like, really, how do you live off that? Like, I was barely paying myself anything because I was not prioritizing myself and I was not thinking about the future me. I was thinking about the present-day me. The present-day me that was living at home and had not many expenses. I thought, let me just put everything back into my business, see how far we can take it. And not only was I not getting much money personally because I wasn't paying myself, but also I was undercharging in my salon as well. So I was bringing in significantly less money because I wasn't charging what I was supposed to be charging for the amount of time I was taking the expenses and things like that. And like I'm not even talking about the ridiculous expenses that I did have, but just like the standard expenses, my prices didn't even cover that. I was constantly spending money on my business where I really just didn't have to. I experienced a lot of imposter syndrome. I just felt like no matter what, I just wasn't good enough. I never felt like I had enough products, I never felt like my skill set was in the right place, so I'd keep buying more products, buying more shades of gel, and rolling in more courses. So I thought if I just buy this product, enroll this course, like it's all gonna be fixed. It's all gonna be perfect. Now I truly believe a lot of the financial mistakes that I've made, especially even being in that mindset, I think mindset is like one of the most important things in your business because that goes to show like if I was in a better mindset, like about my self-worth, I probably wouldn't have learned so much money on stupid things. But I truly believe, like, if I had a business coach back then, that things would be so different because I didn't have anyone to tell me, like, you know, how to handle my finances, I didn't have anyone to tell me to budget or pay myself a wage, like no one taught me any of that. So I think back then having a business coach would have reduced a lot of this from even happening, and I think my business would be in an even more successful place now, but I didn't even know business coaches existed until like two years ago. Like that's crazy because like now courses I feel like a lot of them just teach you to be an employee, they don't teach you how to be like a business owner, like it's just crazy. I had no knowledge in business and no knowledge in starting a beauty business. I did end up doing business courses now throughout the years. I've got a search for in business now and I've done other business courses, and I'm also getting a business coach myself. I'm definitely getting on the right track now, finally. But I think if I had a business coach or if there was some form of business training at least, like targeted towards Nailtechs back then, things would have been so different. No one else was looking at the finances and the numbers in my business, apart from like an accountant when you do like your taxes at the end of financial year, and they're just processing, you know, the numbers, they're just doing the return or whatever you're doing. They're not gonna be the ones to tell you, like, your expenses are high, you should charge more. Like, my account doesn't even know how much I charge. Like, it's not their place. At least for what I get done, which is just my normal taxes, like it's not their area of expertise. So no one's gonna tell you how to improve the finances of your business unless you get help, unless you learn yourself or you get help. That's where business coaching, business courses, something like that is really gonna help you. So I had no one there to remind me that you need to spend less, you need to pay yourself a wage, this, that, and the other. I had no one to help me really. So these financial f ups were kind of a mix of a lack of financial knowledge and a lack of self-worth. And now, years later, I'm trying to teach myself that as much as having a business is an investment and you do need to set aside some of your profit to reinvest into your business so that you can grow even further, you still actually need to pay yourself like at least a livable wage, at least. But ideally, like the more that we can pay ourselves the better, you know? But at least have a livable wage. My issue was just the giving myself the leftovers, just reinvesting all the time. And not every investment is a good investment. Now, years later, where I'm six years into business, I'm trying to backpay myself after all the mistakes that I made when I first started. I have been trying to keep my expenses astronomically low, which is quite hard because I wanted to do business coaching, I wanted to learn about this myself and that myself, and now, you know, expanding into courses, I've got a whole lot more expenses because I've got the email marketing, the website, the learning platform, I've got a lot more expenses related to that. But just my general expenses, especially in the salon, I've been trying to keep things super low because I'm trying to make back everything I lost in those first few years. Or like at least those like expenses that I could absolutely live without. I'm still paying for my past financial mistakes right now, simply because I had no financial knowledge whatsoever. I just didn't know any better because no one teaches this stuff. And that's exactly why I did create this podcast because I know not everyone has the funds for a business course, not everyone has the funds for business coaching or mentoring or anything like that. So I thought this would be a really good free resource, like in between doing a course and like mentorship and coaching and just like trying to figure it out on your own. Like I can't guarantee every piece of advice is going to work for your business, but I'm hoping that it can encourage you that if you still need a little bit of extra help, that you will go ahead and get it. So I'm giving you advice from what I've personally learned. So take it with a grain of salt and things that I've learned from other people as well. Because the last thing that I want you to do is make the exact same mistakes that I've made. Now, enough backstory, let's get to the actual s that I wasted my money on. Firstly, spending money on low quality products. Now, I already talked about this in a previous episode, but I think really investing in good quality products will set you on the right path from the very beginning. And not only do you not want to be purchasing low quality products for safety reasons, they could have, you know, unsafe chemicals in them, or maybe the chemicals are safe but they're in an unsafe percentage. Like you really just don't want to risk the safety of yourself and your clients by buying low quality stuff, but also because they may not be very good. The consistency may be horrible, the pigmentation may be horrible, the retention may be horrible. There's just so many things that can go wrong when you buy low quality products. And you may spend more money trying to replace those low quality products or being sued if it's like a chemical, like a illegal product or legal chemical in the product kind of situation. You were gonna waste so much more money buying low quality products than if you had of course gotten those high-quality products to begin with. And I know if you're a beginner, you're probably thinking, I just want to buy the cheaper products just so I can practice and I don't want to waste the expensive ones on models and just messing around. But it's not worth the risk, really. It's not worth the risk safety-wise, chemical-wise, but also you may struggle with your attention, especially as a beginner, and you don't know if it's your product or your technique. So just go with the high-quality products. Trust me, it makes a huge difference. Trust me, a lot of these low-quality products just end up in the bin. So trust me, look for a reputable supplier, look for products and brands that people are actually using. And please don't buy chemical products straight from wholesalers if you don't know anything about the chemicals and ingredients in them. A lot of these smaller brands or even bigger brands that are very popular, they actually go into researching what is safe, what is a safe percentage. And I know, especially in the nail industry a few months ago, there have been a lot of issues with one particular brand due to a lack of transparency. And I know that even sometimes with the big brands, you can't trust them, but they are going to be a lot more trustworthy than just going straight to a wholesaler if you don't know what you're looking for in a product. So I'm trying to avoid naming names because I don't know if I can get sued for it, but you know the websites I'm talking about. Plus, if the product does not last and it's the reason why you're having poor retention, whether it be a bad nail product, a bad lash adhesive, your clients are gonna have retention issues, and that's more free fixes and free repairs that you're gonna have to give out, so you lose more money, or you're gonna actually have to provide refunds and you lose even more money. So just think about it from that perspective. So please just invest in the high quality products. The second mistake that I made is buying almost every product that some brands came out with, especially ones that probably weren't the greatest. So, especially with nails, I find this in particular. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but every time there's a trend, whether it's the airbrush paints, the ombre mists, the pat pat gels, like every single Aussie brand, or almost everyone, they jump on it immediately. Now I'm not naming and shaming any brand in particular. This is just very generic. There may be some brands that actually do things the right way, but the reason why a lot of these brands just so happen to come out with these products perfectly when it's trending, and all at the same time, by the way, they all come out with the same products at the same time, is because as soon as they find out that it's trending, they buy it in bulk and they sell it to you, which is great. Like, obviously, you want to stay on top of the trends, it's a good business move, but a lot of these brands don't actually know what they're selling. Like, I remember I brought one of these products in particular, I won't name which one it was, because I don't want to give anything away, but I purchased one of these like trendy, like you know, make your life easier kind of products from a brand in particular and they didn't even know how to use it. Like I asked, like, you know, can you show me how to use it? Like, can you tell me how to use it? Are there any swatches? Are there any like demo videos? They said they didn't even know how to use it. Like, how are you selling something that you have no idea how to use? You might not even know if it's safe, you don't know how to use it. So if you notice certain brands don't show demo videos on a product they're releasing, don't have their own like product photos and videos in general, like it's like a photoshopped version of like their product with the logo on it. They can't even show you what the products look like, they can't show you how to use it. It's probably because they just ordered it in bulk without any sampling and they're selling it to you. And I know like I hear all the time from e-commerce businesses, like manufacturing a product takes a lot of time, especially if you are to sample it. So if they did want to sample it and make sure it's actually good and film tutorials and become educated on it, they're probably not gonna have it straight away. They're probably not gonna have it when it's first trending. So my mistake was that I bought a lot of these trendy products, which first of all you don't need, like they're just to make your life easier, but you don't need them. Like, I don't buy Pat Pat Gels because I've got gel paints, they do the same thing for my ombre aura designs. I don't need them. Same with the ombre mist and airbrush paints, there are other ways to create ombre. These are all just things that are convenience. So you don't need them, you can buy them if you want them. If it's if you do a lot of ombre and it's worth it for you, you can buy them, but they're not necessities. But my mistake was buying these products from a brand that hadn't even trialed them, they had no knowledge on how to use them, they were still figuring it out themselves, they had no demos, no swatches because they hadn't even had the product, but they were doing all the marketing for it. And then I obviously ordered the product on launch day. I got it, and I'm like, how do I even use this? There were errors with the product, the formulation wasn't perfect, like the customer was not being considered, it was just a profit thing, like it was just to make money. So now not only am I super cautious about buying products I don't need, like, you don't need every single trendy product out there, there are a lot of things that you can do just a different way, but also buying things that a brand has not done their research on and a brand has not sampled. Like for me as a consumer, I would never want to buy from a brand that just throws products out there into the universe and does not sample them first. Like this honestly changed my whole perspective on this brand. When trendy products come out that you are interested in, maybe wait till some other people buy it first and see their reviews because a lot of these products you don't end up using because they're actually s but if you've seen other people use it and it's good, buy it. But I was one of the first people to buy these things and I just didn't like them. And one of these products being from a brand that didn't even sample it definitely put a bad taste in my mouth. So if there's any suppliers watching this, I hope you know that we expect you as consumers, we expect you to sample the products and actually like know about the products that you're selling, not just you know throw things into the universe for us to buy. Because now from this podcast, people aren't going to be eating them up anymore. You just need to actually put out good products. The third is enrolling in several cheaper courses rather than one or two good ones. I wasted so much money on low quality trainings. I was too worried about the price point that I didn't even consider the support that I would be getting, whether or not you know I got feedback on my work, whether or not it included this topic, or how well the topics were going to be taught. I was worried about the price more than I was the value. So I would just enroll in a course just because it was cheaper. And I know cheaper doesn't always mean worse, like there are some courses that are just I guess undervalued, like they're really good, but they're not very high cost, and there's some that of course would be really high cost and not worth it at all. But I found in my experience the cheaper ones were definitely cheaper quality. So I enrolled in some courses where it was literally Facebook Live, like my first FNL course was a Facebook Live, low quality, like just you did like one set and you got feedback, like that's it, like there was not much going on, and the access period wasn't very long, like just wasn't very valuable overall. Some educators I've even contacted in recent years don't even reply to your DMs. Like I enrolled in like a masterclass not long ago, and I'm still waiting for a response to my DM. Some people just not worth the money, not only the course, but the people too. Like, you just need to keep that in mind. Just the lack of support is just really not worth it. So, really do your research when it comes to courses and masterclasses and everything that you do. And I want to tell you a story time about one of the courses I've done that I had not the greatest experience doing, and this was not a cheap course, so that's not really relevant to the cheapness of the course, but more to the value. Now I want to preface that this course, the knowledge taught was actually pretty good. The way it was presented was okay, it was the delivery, the support, the communication that really just ruined everything. So I'll give you some backstory. So I'm not gonna name what kind of course it was and who the provider was because I'm not gonna name and shame, that's just not me. But this was a few years ago that I enrolled in this course, and this was an established educator that a lot of people had recommended one of their other courses. And they were coming out with a course on a topic that no one really had courses on, and it was something that I wanted to offer in my salon. And because everyone recommended this educator so much and her other course so much, I was like, yep, I'm gonna do her course when she launches it. Now, there was a launch date, and I was like, yeah, this is perfect because I was recovering from a surgery and I was like, Yep, I can watch this course while I'm recovering, and then by the time I'm recovered, I can put all this knowledge into practicing on clients and models and everything like that. So it was like working out perfect timing, right? Now, mind you, when I enrolled in this course, there was no mention that it wasn't going to be like a you know, get access straight away to the full course and that it was actually going to be like weekly releases of like modules, no mention of that. But you know, if that was actually the case and I misread, I would have, you know, been okay with that and just sucked it up and moved on with my life. But it didn't stop there. So not only was I annoyed that I had prepared to, you know, binge the whole course in a couple weeks and then really get into practicing, and it could have just been false advertising or just me not reading it properly. There were several weeks that were missed where we as student community had to follow up and complain and reach out and try to get the lessons released. And at one point they were like, you know what, we're just gonna release everything by the end of the week. All of the modules will be uploaded by the end of the week. So we're like, yep, great, because we were like ready to get it move on. We're like a month into the course and we didn't even know how to start the service. And of course, those modules weren't up, so it's been a month and we hadn't even learned how to do anything yet. It was just like it was just like anatomy, like some basic theory, like that kind of stuff, which is obviously super important, but there was just no practicals yet, and we were already a month in, so it was kind of getting draining at that point, but it's fine, that's just that's just a delivery mode that I didn't expect. And then there were six weeks where we got no lessons, no responses to our messages, no responses to our emails. Six weeks we were completely ghosted, they weren't on social media, not even the support employees or whatever were helping us. We all got ignored for six weeks. Only for them to say that they hadn't even finished filming the course yet. So it took me, and I'm not a complainer, like I'm not really, you know, the kind of person to send like an essay when I'm unhappy with something. I really just suck it up and move on. But I had to send a very long email because I spent over $2,000 on this course. It wasn't like a cheap course, and of course, it already started negatively because it was not told, or I clearly didn't see that it was like not released all in one go. But they said there was gonna be weekly releases, there wasn't, they skipped weeks, and then out of nowhere, they said they were gonna release it all by the end of the week, and they didn't, and then it went six weeks ghosting us. So I was just really fed up at that point because it was like three months into the course, and we hadn't learned how to even start the procedure, so we all got really annoyed, and of course, as soon as I send the email, everything is released. But that was just a horrible experience, and even though we got a free course out of it, like another free course out of it, like it just wasn't worth the hassle, and I wouldn't have enrolled in it had I known that was going to be the delivery. The content itself was good, but the delivery, like, just no, it was just horrible. So, my advice is to not only look into courses that are actually valuable, like in general, like actually good, not just looking at a low price point just for the sake of saving money, but also look if it's the course for you. Like, I see so many like hard gel masterclasses, lash lift, like Korean lash lift masterclasses that are probably so valuable to people that already have experience, right? To existing nail techs, existing lash techs, but being a masterclass, not like a course, it may not be the best option for a beginner. Because what I find is masterclasses are smaller, kind of more detailed version of a course that's focusing on one particular skill, one particular technique, one particular product. So you'll find that with most masterclasses, they don't actually cover what a beginner needs to learn. So, for example, a hard gel masterclass, it may go over a manicure, but it's mostly focusing on the hard gel application. And of course, that has to do with the manicure and the shaping, like all that might be covered briefly. But if you're a beginner, you also need to learn about tool cleaning, anatomy, nail and skin conditions, all of that, which these masterclasses probably don't cover. And that's not to say that they're bad, they're just designed for people with experience. They're more of like an upskill kind of thing. Like, for example, if you're doing a Korean lash lift masterclass, but you've never done lash lifts in your life, that masterclass probably isn't enough for you to start doing lash lifts out of nowhere. You probably need some sort of beginner lash lift course, beginner lash lift class, before you can do some sort of like masterclass to really take your skills further. So some courses aren't bad because they're like not valuable. They might just not be the course for you because you're not actually looking at what's included and not everything is designed to be beginner-friendly. Like, for example, I offer upskill training, that's like one day. I cannot teach a beginner in one day. So my upskill training is targeted to people that want to upskill. Not learn completely, like from scratch, but upskill. Not every training is going to be suitable for everyone, so just when you're looking for a course or a masterclass or whatever, really look at what the lessons are and reach out to the provider, the educator, the company, whoever, and see if it is going to be suitable for someone that is a complete beginner. And don't just rely on reviews because you might see really good reviews for a hard child masterclass, but the people that gave it a good review were already experienced. So of course that was gonna be very valuable to them. But someone that's a complete beginner may not get enough value from just the masterclass. So education can be one of the things that you invest the most money into. So you really don't want to f it up because then you're gonna have to enroll in another course, enroll in another masterclass, and you're gonna end up wasting money. So if you're enrolling in a course, I beg you, don't just look at the price, look at the value, look at what's included. Yes, look at reviews, but also look at what you plan on getting from the course. Really just to do your research and don't rush into it because you don't want to do a course that you invest in and you regret and you have to spend even more money. Another financial mistake that I made that I mean I'm kind of on the fence about whether or not it's an actual mistake. I think it's just the way that I went about it, but offering so many different services. So if you're new here, I offer nails, lashes, and brows. So within that, I offer manicures with builder gel, gel ex gel polish, I offer pedicures, I offer lash extensions, which are handmade in particular, lash lifts and tints, brow wax, tint, dye, and lamination. Plus, I offer like paraffin wax treatments and other little bits and pieces that people can add on as well. Oh, and nail art, like there's another one, but I offer a lot in my salon. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Like, you can have a passion for a lot of things. I absolutely have a passion for all three. I love them so much, and I could never get rid of any of them. I think if I was starting my business all over again, I would probably only choose one or two areas to focus on because it can get really overwhelming. Like I'd probably just do manicure and pedicure or lashes and brows. Like it gets really overwhelming doing so many because not only is it a lot more like products you're gonna have to order, which of course your product cost is included in your service price, but it's a lot more money you have to spend on education. Like if you're just doing nails, like you'll just do like one upskill training a year or something of that nature. But with nails, lashes, and brows, it's like you have to stay up to date with all three. Like it's just so stressful. Like I find it so stressful trying to make sure I'm at the top of my game for all of them, because otherwise, if you don't, you're gonna fall behind in one of them and your service is never going to be as good as it should be. It's hard to kind of be the expert in several things. So as much as I love nails, lashes and brows like equally as much, it has costed me a fing fortune. I'll tell you that. Because if you focus too much on one area, like if I focus too much on nails, I feel like my lashes and brows are lacking. If I focus too much on lashes, I feel like my nails and brows are lacking. Like I just feel like it is so hard to juggle. If you want to like provide the best results possible, you absolutely can do everything mid. You can do everything mid, but if you want the best results, the most high quality stuff, you really just need to like make sure you're at the top of your game, staying up to date with trends, staying up to date with products and techniques for every single service that you offer. So it's very stressful and it's very expensive. So, as much as I love all three, I started with nails, like after I ditched makeup, nails was the one that I started with out of those three. So, a lot of my clientele is nails. I would say my clientele's 70% nails and 30% lashes and brows. So, even though I focus on upskilling in all three, nails is definitely the thing that I'm most known for. That's the thing I teach now. But as much as I'm most known for doing nails, I'm also like a full day of nails. Like, give me some lashes, give me some brows. I love like doing a mix and really just breaking it up because I do get sick of doing the same thing over and over again. And also nails, like my hands, uh they go in, they're starting to go. So lashes and brows is a lot easier on my hands. In fact, I'm even like debating reducing my clientele or like closing off from taking new clients for nails in particular, because just over the years, like I haven't really done the best practices to take care of my hands. So we'll see how we go because I love doing all three. I could never give up nails, but I could also never give up lashes, I could never give up brows. I love doing all three, which makes it so hard. Makes it so hard. Because if I like didn't like one, I would just be like, oh, I'm not gonna offer that one anymore. But I love them all and it makes it so hard. So I don't have any plans to stop getting rid of any of them, but just some advice if you're just starting out your business and you're debating offering another service, I would say just start with the service that you're already offering, or like the first service you're planning on offering, and start with that and only think about going into another service as well. If you feel like you can truly commit to not only the financial cost of adding another service, like the education products, the setup, everything like that, but also the time and effort and skill commitment to make sure that you're the very best that you can be in that service. So I'm happy that I offer nails, lashes, and browsers now, but I definitely would have gone about it in a different way. I did too much too soon, like I barely had nail clientele, and I started offering lashes thinking that was gonna fix everything and get me more clients, but it doesn't do anything. It's just another service. Like, yes, there were some clients that I got that were just lashes, I didn't care about my nails, but like I really should have perfected my business first, like really just like started like making sure it was good before I went and added and added and added. I did way too much too soon and got so overwhelmed. My fifth financial mistake is undercharging. You don't want to be undercharging because you're obviously not covering your overheads and you're not making any money. Everyone's life goals are different. Some people want to travel, some people just want to take time off to relax, some people want to have a bunch of kids, get married, and have a big wedding, some people want to, you know, do all different hobbies that they like, they want to buy like expensive handbags or clothes or you know, get massages on the daily. Like everyone's got different goals. But to be able to afford at least some of the things that we want in life, we need to make sure we have a livable wage. I undercharged for years and it really got to me. I was when I first started, I was working like seven days a week, not all day every day, but that's what I had offered. But when I started working consistently, like fully booked schedule, I was working about five to six days a week and like long days, like I was working morning until late night. So I was working like 12 hours a day, but barely making any money. Like I definitely wasn't making anywhere near the amount of money that I was supposed to be making for working that long amount of time. So there was times that I was in a negative mood, and I'll be honest, like that was a lot of the time back then, and I was like, what is even the point? Like, I'm working my ass off, like working five, six days a week, 12 hours a day, and I'm bringing home less than if I worked like four or five days a week somewhere else, doing like humane hours, like normal hours, like eight hours. I was like, what's the point of even having business if I'm earning minimum wage or below minimum wage? Like, what's the point? Because even if like your wage covers your client time, as a business owner, you have so many other tasks you have to do outside of like doing clients. You have upskilling your education, you have ordering stock, you have content and marketing and replying to inquiries and cleaning and things like that. There's a lot more outside of your client hours that you need to get paid for. So bare minimum or minimum wage is just not going to cut it. I was just like, what's the point in having a business if I'm earning significantly less than someone working a normal job where they go home and they don't even have to think about work till the next day? Whereas I'm in like work mode all the time, like doing clients, and then I finish clients and I have to do this, that, and that, all to make the business keep running. What's the point? Like I may as well just do nails as a hobby and just go get a different job for someone else. But I didn't want that. I wanted to do beauty and I wanted to do beauty as a career. So something had to change. You can make a livable wage doing beauty. In fact, you can make a lot of money doing beauty, depending on your pricing, depending on your expenses. There are ways to make it happen. It's all just gonna depend on your profit and loss, but I wasn't even making a livable wage. And on top of this, as we mentioned earlier, I wasn't even paying myself that non-livable wage. So I'm sure you can imagine how little I was giving myself. But the cost that I was charging, it wasn't covering my overheads, it wasn't covering all of my expenses. Almost every cent of the money that I actually got from clients was being reinvested back into my business. So, of course, things had to change. I not only stopped buying sh that I didn't need, but I also had to calculate how much it actually costed me to perform a service on a client. So considering the time that it took, the product cost, any other overheads like booking system, payment fees, things like that, and I actually had to increase my prices quite a bit because I realized I was severely undercharging and I was so scared that you know if I raise my prices that clients are gonna leave and I'm gonna have no clients. And I know so many other girls out there feel the exact same, they feel so scared. Like, if I raise my prices, clients are gonna leave. But let me be a prime example. I used to charge like $50 when I first started, like as my introductory pricing. Now I charge over a hundred dollars. I've got a client that was with me when she first started coming, she was paying $70, and now she pays from $115. She didn't leave. Now definitely lost some clients, like they definitely do leave, some of them, but you get new clients that do value your services, and they will pay your new prices because they actually want to support you and they value a quality service over something that's lower quality and super cheap. You may lose clients from raising your prices, but you're going to get new clients who value you so much more. You don't deserve minimum wage, you deserve so much more. Money is so stressful. Undercharging may be exactly what's holding you back from being able to run your business without the fear of not making enough to afford to live. I promise you that pricing matters a whole lot more than you think. So, in summary, you need to be paying yourself, you need to be charging enough, you don't need every single product under the sun, you don't need every single trendy product that does things that your existing products already do. Do your research when it comes to buying products, when it comes to enrolling in courses, your business is an investment. You can't expect it to bring you money if you're not giving it money first. But in saying that, not every investment is a good investment. You're going to make mistakes, and that's okay, because you're going to learn from them. I definitely know that I have. I now track my income and my expenses a lot more closely. I don't spend money just for the sake of it and I only invest in things that I think will truly help me grow. I have come to learn that, you know, getting financial freedom isn't about how much you make, it's about managing what you make. You don't always have to make more money, you just have to manage what you make better. Because if you can't do that, then after all the hard work is done, you can't even enjoy it. I really hope that you enjoyed this week's episode and found it helpful. I hope you now have an improved mindset towards finances and money in your business and you can make more informed decisions when it comes to products and education and things like that. I'm super interested in whatever financial lessons that you guys have learned in your business so far. If you have any, so feel free to leave a comment if you're watching on YouTube. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a thumbs up, rate five stars, you guys know what to do. And I'll see you guys in the next episode. Thank you for listening to this episode of Blossom in Business. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love if you could give the video a thumbs up on YouTube or rate the podcast five stars on Spotify. If you don't want to miss an episode, make sure to hit the notification bell so you get notified every single time a new episode drops. If you want to follow along on my journey, make sure to follow me on socials at Royal Blossom Beauty. And if you have any requests for certain topics or story times or anything else you uncovered on the podcast, or you want to apply to be a guest speaker, click the link in my description and you'll be taken to my website with all the information. And I'll see you in the next episode.