E18. I Almost Closed My Salon

I almost closed my salon and gave up on my business completely 😳

This is something I've never really admitted out loud before. There was a point where I was working seven days a week, taking on hours that didn't serve me, dealing with clients who drained me and barely paying myself anything. I got to the point where I thought 'what is even the point?'.

In this episode I'm getting real about the exact moment I almost walked away from everything I'd built and what actually shifted for me behind the scenes.

✨ Why working around everyone else's schedule nearly burnt me out
 ✨ The pricing mistake that meant I was earning less the harder I worked
 ✨ How I set boundaries with clients without losing my business
 ✨ What actually changed once I stopped running my business and started owning it

If you've ever thought about quitting, I need you to hear this one 💕

I also touch on something big I'm launching very soon so keep your ears open for that one 👀

Don’t forget to rate this podcast 5 stars ⭐️

Follow us on Instagram ⬇️

https://instagram.com/blossominbusiness_

https://www.instagram.com/royalblossombeautysalon/ 

Follow us on TikTok ⬇️

https://www.tiktok.com/@blossominbusiness  

Have a topic you would like covered on the pod? 🌸

Send through your request on our website here: https://blossominbusiness.com/pages/blossom-in-business-podcast 

Want to be our next guest speaker? Apply here: https://forms.gle/CNjjMm4YnAPLY7LG7 

Become one of our sponsors: Email contact@blossominbusiness.com 💌

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey everyone, welcome to Glossman Business, the podcast for beauty business owners who are ready to treat their business like a business, not just a hobby. My name is Monique and I'm a Melbourne-based salon owner and educator and I'm here to help you grow your income, attract the right clients, and build a business that's actually sustainable. So if you're in the beauty industry and you're ready to level up your mindset, your marketing and the way that you run your business, this is the podcast for you. I hope you love this episode. Now let's get into it. Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Blossomin Business Podcast. Before we get into this episode, I just want to preface I forgot to bring my big microphone to the salon today. So I normally film with double audio, like I normally film with my little mini microphones attached to me, and I have my big microphone. That's just so I have two audio sources as like a backup in case one like messes up in editing. But normally I choose the audio from the bigger microphone because it just sounds so much better. But I forgot that one. So we're just using the little mini mics today. So if you're watching the visuals, I have bought it closer to my mouth. I've got like a little nail file and I've just clipped it to that. So we're holding it like a little microphone, which is so cute. But if the audio is a little bit different, it is still a microphone. They're still good microphones, but I just prefer the audio on my big microphone. But we'll see how this goes. So if the audio is a bit different, I'm sorry, I forgot my microphone, but we've got the other ones. So we're gonna try and make it work. In today's episode, I wanted to talk about the time that I almost closed my cell on. And this is not something that I've admitted to many people. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Like, I feel like we've all had a point in our business where we've been like, is it even worth it? Should I just go get another job? Because if you're someone that doesn't have a business, I'll just break it down in simple terms. It is so hard running a business. It's so expensive and so time consuming. And this is a whole nother episode topic, but not everyone is the right fit to run a business. So I wanted to talk about a time where I was very close to just throwing in the towel and closing my business and just giving up. What caused me to want to do this and how I shifted everything so that I could actually fall in love with running my business again and keep going. So I won't lie, there's been so many times throughout my business where I've been like, what's the point? Like, genuinely, what is the point? Right? And I feel like we all have these thoughts at some stage. Sometimes they're a one-off thing and it never happens again. Sometimes you might have them every few months. And I feel like a lot of the time this can also be because we think, you know, doing nails, doing lashes, that we're just going to be working while we're doing the services. But there's so much that goes on behind the scenes. There's a lot more to running a beauty business than just providing the service. And I feel like that's the part that not a lot of people know about before they join. They're like, oh, I'm just gonna do the service, it's gonna be so fun. But then it's like bookkeeping, marketing, literally so many other things. And even just like the customer service of it all, like dealing with cancellations, dealing with you know, trying to get cancellation fees and maybe any sort of negative client situation. Like, there is so much more involved in a beauty business than just doing the services. There's also stock ordering, upskilling. You think you're done with one course? No, you've got to do more because you need to stay at the top of your skill set. There's so much money involved, like there's so many fees, there's so many expenses, and of course, with the right pricing, this works out fine. Like, it's fine. It just it's a lot if you haven't sorted out your pricing. So I feel like for me, there was a lot of factors that have made me feel like this, that made me feel like I just want to give up on my business, I'm just gonna go work for someone else, I don't want to do this anymore. And I feel like one of them is I was working crazy hours. I literally had seven days a week open, not fully booked seven days a week. Like that would be a bit crazy, but I had seven days a week open because I thought I just want to get as many clients as possible. I want to be able to accommodate to any sort of client schedule. If they need a Sunday, I'm gonna be open on a Sunday. They need a late night, I'm gonna be open on a late night. I would be so accommodating, and I feel like that just like was crazy. I could never do that now. Now I'm firmer with my days, like as in I I was doing five days, and now that I'm doing the education and everything like that, I am leaning more towards four days most of the time because I do the in-person trainings and stuff, so I end up probably in the salon maybe like four to six days a week. But let me preface, if it's a six-day week, two of it might be with training. So usually I try not to be in here more than five days a week because that's just wild after that. But even when I got to the point where I was working five days instead of like seven days, your work doesn't just stop when you finish clients. You've got all the marketing, content, all of that. So for me, I felt like I was working all the time, not only in regards to like having to do all this work outside of clients, but also I was trying to accommodate as best as I could to my clients' preferred hours. Even though I was down to five days a week, I was working late nights, I was working weekends, and they're just hours that I genuinely didn't want to do. Like, I think I've mentioned this before. Before I had my partner, I could not care less about working on a weekend. Like, what did I do? Absolutely nothing. So it didn't really make a difference to me to work on a weekend, but now my weekends are like the time we get together because he works full-time, Monday to Friday. I work full-time, but my days can like work around me. They're supposed to work around me. And we've been together for two years now. Like, we literally just had our two-year anniversary, but like Sundays isn't enough, like one day together isn't enough. We're not living together, so I need at least the Saturday as well. That would be great. Because especially during the late nights, like, can I see him after that? No, it's too late. Could I see him on a Saturday? No, I'm working with clients. Sunday is just genuinely not enough because that ends up being like a cleaning reset kind of day. And for me, with the workload I had doing salon and all the behind the scenes of the salon, and then stepping into education, like I ended up working a lot of the Sundays as well, just on my computer. So I feel like I had to really take charge into the hours that I wanted to work. And I'm still doing Saturdays now, but I've closed two Saturdays a month. I'm doing more of a transition, like I could do like a clean cut, like bye, Saturdays, gone, too bad, you know. I could do that if I wanted to, but because I don't mind right now, I don't mind the occasional Saturday. I just didn't want to work every single Saturday. I am still doing some, probably like two to three a month, just depends on how many weeks there is in a month. But yeah, I've kind of taken charge of my hours, I've taken back the time. I don't do late nights at all anymore because there's just something that didn't fill my cup. They made me hate my life. I'll be so honest. They made me hate my life because for reference, I work out of my dad's garage, but I am usually between my mums and my partners. So if I was doing a late night, I couldn't eat dinner until 10 o'clock. Because even if I was doing a late night day, even if I wasn't starting at 9am, if I wanted to have a more realistic eight or nine hour day, I might start at 12. First of all, what can you do before 12 p.m.? Like you can't really do anything because if you go far, you have to race back, right? And I just feel like I hate having something on later in the day. I feel like I can't do anything. I feel like I'm chained to the house because I know I have something to be back for. So I already hated the idea of that. Like, yes, working in late night, you'd want to start later so it's not too many hours of actual working. But what are you gonna do in the morning? Like, unless you're someone that loves to sleep in, which I'm like not a morning person, but I'm also not a late night person. So for me, waking up at 7, I'm trying to get to the 5am club, but we're not quite there yet. For me, a 7am person, maybe 8 a.m. if I've like been up late at night before, by the time I like get ready and have breakfast and do all the things, there's not a whole lot that I can do if I was to start at 12. Because I like to be in here at 11. If I was starting at 12, I always come in an hour before. What am I really gonna do? What am I really gonna do? Like literally nothing. But anyways, I've gone off on a tangent. But with the late nights, like even if I made it humane, I guess, hours, like eight or nine hour shift, I always give myself a lunch break, which starting at 12, it's kind of awkward to have a lunch break because like it's basically lunchtime. Like it's basically lunchtime. Um, so it was a really awkward starting time. But also, if I wanted dinner, I'd usually have dinner with my mum or my partner. So when was I meant to do that? I'd have to drive all the way back to their house and come back, you know? Or I'd have to have two prepped meals, lunch and dinner. So I'd never have dinner at the table with everyone else. I'd either have to bring it and have a dinner break, or I'd have to eat it at 10 o'clock when everyone else is already eaten and probably in bed. So for me, I felt like it was messing with not only like my personal, like family, friend kind of life, because I would finish work and everyone was probably in bed. There was no socializing, there was nothing. But also it was just killing me mentally because I'd finish work, I'd have my dinner and my shower, and by that point it's like 10:30, maybe 11. And it's like I don't want to go to bed straight away because I'm not someone that stays up super late. I'm probably more of a 10-11 kind of person. What am I meant to do at that point? Like, that's my bedtime now. Like, I can't do any scrolling. I probably start at 9 a.m. the next day because I was only doing two late nights a week. I probably start at 9 a.m. the next day. I can't even stay up and do anything. I can't watch a show, I can't watch a movie, I can't exercise, I can't do anything. So for me, late nights was just destroying my life. I don't do them anymore and I refuse to ever do them again. But I know everyone's so different. Like everyone has different hours. Some people love doing late nights. If you love sleeping in, you'll probably love late nights because then you can just start later, you get to sleep in. But for me, I'm kind of that awkward in-between. Like I'm not a morning person. I'm not waking up at 5 a.m. trying, but we're not really getting there yet. But I'm also not like a night owl. I'm not gonna be up till 12 or 1 a.m. So I feel like one of the big reasons why I wanted to give up is I was working hours that didn't work for me, and I was too scared to change them because I was like, these clients, they need those hours. They work, you know, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, and I really wanted to accommodate to them by having those late nights, having the Saturday, but it was killing me, and I had to remember like I'm running this business myself, like it is my business. I can literally have whatever hours I want. So part of why I wanted to kind of give up and just go get a job somewhere else is I was like, well, if I just got a nine to five myself, I'd only be working nine to five. I get to come home and you know, do whatever, like from five o'clock onwards, just like everyone else, you know, and I would get my weekends. That was literally my motivation to be like, let's close the salon. I want, I want a nine to five. I thought I would rather work for someone else and finish work at five o'clock and have a weekend than have my own business and choose my own hours, but feel like I had to work hours that didn't serve me. And I feel like this is the part where you kind of have to take responsibility, you have to kind of take action because you don't have to work the hours you don't want to work. It is entirely up to you. And if you are choosing to work hours that don't serve you, that is kind of your own fault in like the nicest way possible. It's your own fault. So for me, this was my own fault. I wasn't doing anything to change that. So of course I was gonna continue to be miserable. So what I did to change this is I got rid of late nights by and even though I'm still doing Saturdays, I'm not doing as many, I'm probably doing two to three a month. I'm probably gonna get rid of them. I'll be honest, I might keep them to the end of the year, but I'll probably get rid of them. And part of me still feels quite guilty because I'm like, some of my clients genuinely can't come any other time but a late night or a weekend. And just to clarify, I reduced late nights a while back, like probably late last year, maybe, or even the start of this year, I can't even remember, probably last year, and I've been gradually reducing the Saturdays. I first started by finishing earlier, and now I've started to get rid of some. A lot of the people that were like, I can only do after 6 p.m. on a weekday, or I can only do a weekend, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, they're booking at you know 8 a.m. on a Thursday, they're booking at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, I don't know, but they're booking times that they said they weren't available. And yes, I understand convenience. Everyone's going to give you the most convenient time, but like think about it like this. They're coming every what, four, five, six weeks for their nails if you do nails. That's only an inconvenience for them, every four, five, six weeks, whatever. If you're working the hours you don't want to work every single day, or every week even, that is so much more inconvenient for you than it is for them. So, my mindset now is the client works around you. It is your business. There are so many beauticians out there. As much as I would love to keep the same clients forever and always be able to accommodate to them, at the end of the day, you have to put yourself first because otherwise that's when you're gonna hit these blocks where you're like, I don't want to do this anymore. I give up. Like, what's the point in even having my own business, you know? So I feel like really just taking control, which I should have had all along because it is my own business. I don't have a boss. Taking control has really helped me change the hours so that I can run the business that I actually want to run. And going into balance, that's where pricing becomes a factor. Because again, we do so much work behind the scenes, not just the clients. And these responding to inquiries, ordering stock, posting content, any sort of marketing, this actually all needs to be factored into our pricing. Because if we're not charging properly, if we're not charging enough that it covers the amount of work we do throughout the week, plus room for profit, what is the point? Like you could work for someone else and probably get paid more for doing less. So you have to ask yourself, why are you continuing to undercharge? So for me, another reason why I was kind of like, I want to close the salon, I give up is because of the money. Because I'll be honest, charging what everyone else charges doesn't mean that's going to be the right pricing for you. Doesn't mean that's going to be profitable for you. You need to actually consider how many clients can you take in a week for like humane hours and how much work are you doing outside of the clients. That pricing needs to cover it. And for me, I'm not someone who rushes. I'm pretty, I guess, lengthy when it comes to my manicure timing because I feel like I'm super precise, I'm super detailed. A lot of my clients and I have a good chat. So I'm not having clients in and out within an hour. Some of them could be like maybe an hour 15, whereas some of them are heading towards that two-hour mark. So my pricing needs to accommodate for that two hours, just in case, because that's how much time we're reserving. But not only does it need to accommodate for that two hours, but you also need to consider all the other work you're doing for your salon outside of your client hours. So not just the admin and stuff, but also the cleaning, the setup, all of that. You really just need to know your numbers. And I feel like a lot of us, we're like, we're gonna do the marketing outside of working five days a week with clients. So that's why you end up doing really late nights. Even if you finish with clients at five, you're doing all the admin afterwards. Or even if you just work Monday to Friday, you're doing all your admin and marketing on the weekends. Ideally, what you want to do is be able to price yourself so that you can do all of that work inside of your quote unquote work hours so that you don't actually have to work, let's say you wanted to work Monday to Friday, nine to five, so that you don't have to work more than Monday to Friday, nine to five. And that timing includes your clients and includes your admin and all your marketing. That's like the ideal way that you want to price yourself. So, with any service that you are offering, even if we didn't even factor in my admin and marketing time, just my service time alone, I can't charge $80 or $90 for my nails. I physically can't because I would not make any money whatsoever. I wouldn't even be able to give myself a wage, let alone profit. And then you also want to factor in the admin and the marketing. This is why no true businesses pricing is going to be the same because there's so many factors involved. Not only the general expenses like your overheads, your product costs, the service time, the time spent doing admin, the time spent doing the marketing, the cleaning, all of that. So for me, it was really just fixing my pricing, not only to cover expenses, the actual service, the work I was doing outside of the service, but you also want to consider annual leave, sick leave. If you work for someone else, they're paying you that. So if you're working by yourself and you're not accommodating for that in your pricing, what is the point? Because you're never gonna be able to take a day off without severely losing income. Like, I, even to this day, to be honest, I get so mad when someone is sick and they come in the salon, or someone in my family or friends are sick and they come near me because it's like, oh my gosh, if you get me sick, I have to cancel a full day of clients, maybe even more than a full day of clients. And I'm not a big canceller, I kind of just I'm sick and I push through and I end up more sick and miserable for so much longer than if I had just taken the day off and rested. But I would just absolutely despise people because I was like, you are going to get me sick and you're gonna make me broke. I cannot afford to take a day off. And that's what we don't want. Like, yes, we don't want to have to take a day off because the more that we can work, like our normal hours, obviously that's more money. And you're having annual leave or having sick leave, obviously we're taking away more potential earnings, I guess. But we want our pricing to accommodate for a certain amount of sick leave, a certain amount of annual leave every year, so that at least we're not losing money. Like, yes, we could be earning more if we didn't take those sick days and didn't take the annual leave, but at least we're not earning less than what our goal is. This allows our income to be a little bit more predictable. Another reason why I was wanting to give up is honestly the customer part of it. Like I'm such an introvert and I don't like dealing with any sort of negative situation in general, no matter what stage of life, business or not. I don't like negative situations. It stresses me out and I just do not have the time of day for that. Now, I do have some lovely clients, just to preface, I do have some really amazing clients, but I found it was the not so amazing clients that was like pushing me over the edge because I never really saw myself as wanting to be in a super customer-facing role. I kind of wanted something where it's like independent, like I like working on my own. It's just that I love doing all the admin behind the scenes because I'm working by myself on my computer, it's like peace, quiet, I don't have to worry about anyone else. Versus when you have a customer-facing role, you're obviously dealing with customers. And they can be good or bad. And I feel like also being such an introvert as well, sometimes my social battery genuinely dies. Like even when I go to like industry events, sometimes I'm just standing there because I'm like, I do not have the social capacity for this right now. I'm such an introvert and I'm shy, which is already making it harder to like go up to people and talk to them. But I also have situations where I'm like, okay, that's my socializing done for the day. I'm ready to be by myself and just be alone. But when you have a customer-facing role, it's like you always have to be switched on, you always have to be conversing, and I would just be like, oh my god, I don't want to talk to anyone right now. I just want to be by myself. And I just feel like some clients, even if you have no issues with like policies, like they're not late, they don't cancel, that kind of thing. Just some people's vibe is just negative, or maybe they're trauma dumping. And I feel like that's a whole nother episode we could do about how clients literally trauma dump on us. Like, I remember when I first took models after I learned nails, I had a client come in and she's like, Oh my god, my ex-husband is in jail, I'm getting a divorce, like all these things, and I'm like, uh, I don't know what to say about that. Like, how do I respond to that? Like, I'm a beginner Naltech, and I'm like, um, cool, like, I don't know what to I don't know how to help you with that. Like, I'm not sure what I meant to say. Do I say like mmm, oh yeah, like I don't know what to do in that situation? Like, again, I just feel like I'm the person that like I don't like to be in these negative situations. I don't want someone just sitting there like dumping all of their negative drama on me. I just want to do my job. I just love like positive like catch-ups and that kind of thing. And I guess this is also a thing where I haven't actually made any changes to how I've run my business to battle this. I've just kind of sucked it up. So that's probably a task for another day is to maybe set some sort of guide or policy or maybe just learn how to redirect conversations so they don't get so negative. Because really, we don't want to be dealing with all this. Like we already have our own life and our own stuff to deal with. We don't want to take on the drama of other people. And I feel like there are so many like customer experiences that do really push you. Like, I remember I had, I think it was when I was learning lash extensions, I had a model. I messaged her 10 minutes after her appointment was meant to start, and she goes, Oh, I'm at the local shopping center, I'll be there in 20 minutes. Like, baby, your appointment was 10 minutes ago. You're gonna be 30 minutes late. Like, that's crazy. Like just dealing with people like that. But I feel like situations like this, at least, this is when policies come into play. Because she was literally like, Oh, I'm just gonna finish my groceries. Like, you're already late. You're already late. If you're 10 minutes late, you should literally be pulling up right now, at the very latest, not finishing your groceries. Like, I would just drop that and leave. Like, I feel like just some people do not have logic. That's a conversation for another time, maybe a whole nother podcast, because this is like we're not gonna go too deep into it today. This is where policies come into place, so really making sure you have the correct policies for these situations. Like they will still happen, but at least you can find a way to at least get compensated for these cancellations, or maybe reduce the service if they do come that late without any sort of like, you didn't actually give me the full set. Like, babe, you were 30 minutes late. Come on now. And of course, I feel like this is something that I've experienced so many times is customers that book the wrong thing. Like it literally says come with bare nails and you've got product on. What do you mean? Like I literally says it three times. Like it says it in the description, it says it in the terms and conditions, it says it in the consultation forms. I've even written it in my reminder emails, but you're still gonna have customers that just don't comprehend. Again, that's a whole topic for another episode, but you're gonna have customer situations that just test you so much. And this isn't just in beauty, it's literally in any customer facing role. But I feel like having policies and having like clear service descriptions, writing things everywhere, like literally I blaster things everywhere. But as stressful as these situations can be, I feel like a As one of these things happens, learn from it. Put something new into your policies, make sure your service descriptions are really clear. I like to plaster any specific information everywhere. So for like me, with like nails or lashes, like full sets, I'll put bare nails, bare lashes, like literally the service description, the terms and conditions, the consultation form that they get sent before they even come, and I even write it in the reminder emails and confirmation emails. Like it's already in there in like four places at least. So it just kind of reduces the risk of anything happening from this, like any sort of drama. So I feel like as annoying as these situations can be, I feel like after I shifted my policies and made them quite firm and actually stuck to them, I didn't have as many issues. And back to money, one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to close my business is that I was not making money at all. If you've listened to my other episodes, you know that I was literally not paying myself for a really long time. And when I actually started paying myself, I was paying myself so little. Probably like a hundred to two hundred dollars a fortnight. But I kept going because I have such a passion for what I do. So for me, it was never really about money. But eventually I got to the point where I was like, what is the point? Like, as much as I love doing nails, lashes, brows, having my own salon, being my own boss, what was the point? Because I wasn't making any money. I didn't feel like I could choose my own hours. I had to keep dealing with these annoying client situations. That's when I really had to like take control and change things in my business because otherwise it's just gonna keep happening. You're still gonna keep having these thoughts, like, I'm ready to give up, but you actually need to make changes so that things don't go bad in the first place. So you don't have these thoughts in the first place. And again, back to pricing. Like you might look at my prices and be like, oh my gosh, she's charging so much, she must be rich. No. Pricing, those were whole other episodes. But pricing is gonna be so individual for every single business. And you really need to be able to price what's actually going to be worth it for you. Do you want to earn minimum wage? Probably yes. Do you want to have annual leave and sick leave? Probably yes. Do you want to get paid for the work that you do outside of just doing the clients, the cleaning, the admin, the marketing? Probably yes. And if you want to earn even more on top of that to profit, that would be amazing as well. But the issue is most people don't even charge to cover the bare minimum. They don't even break even because their pricing is not where it needs to be. But because I didn't know anything about pricing, I didn't know how to calculate my pricing, and also there was a lot of fear involved because pricing what I needed to price for the service time I take and the expenses that I had meant that I had to charge a lot more than other people in my area. But you might think like that means that you're profiting too much. And I'm like, no. That just means that either one, everyone else has really low expenses, or two, they're in the same situation where they haven't even calculated their prices. So you can't just look at a price that seems higher than what you charge and assume that's highly profitable because that might just be just like breaking even for them. And I'm such a girl's girl. Like I see other nail techs charging even more than me. And I'm not sitting here thinking, oh, must be nice, like what a rip-off, that kind of thing. I'm like, you go queen. Like you do that. Like I love to see when people actually start charging their worth and worth based on the numbers, not just based on how you feel, because that could fluctuate with time. If you feel low or you feel bad in your business, they're probably gonna undercharge because you don't feel worthy of charging enough. Charging your worth based on feelings is only beneficial if you're feeling really good about yourself and you can charge more, more than what your numbers say you need to at your bare minimum. So for me, undercharging was a mix of lack of financial knowledge and not knowing how to actually calculate the prices and that fear. The fear of being too expensive, the fear of losing clients, the fear of even how other people in the industry were going to perceive me. But the thing is, I may have been the most expensive in my area, but I was actually undercharging compared to a lot of technicians with a similar skill set and similar service timings and similar ideal client or target audience. So as much as I've always had a passion for running my beauty business, I wanted to close because I was like, what is the point if I'm doing more and earning less? If I hadn't worked for someone else, I would be doing less hours and earning more. I could finish at 5 p.m., I wouldn't have to work weekends, I'd have the paid annual leave, I'd have the paid sick leave. I could have just completely closed my doors and been like, I give up. What is the point? What is the point of having a business if I'm undercharging? What is the point of having a business if I can't choose the hours I actually want to work? So that's when I had to consider, am I running my business or is it running me? And when I actually started calculating my prices and choosing hours that worked best for me and my life, that's when I actually fell in love with running my business again. Because as much as I was earning nothing from my business and I was working hours that literally burnt me to the ground, I kept going because I was so passionate about what I do. But now that I've made these changes in my business, I can run it exactly how I want to run it and have it actually fulfill me. And for me, I didn't just calculate the prices and increase the number. I didn't just close off certain days and times I didn't want to work anymore. I actually changed basically my entire business. Like it felt like kind of like a rebrand, but not really. I kind of changed the way I positioned my business so that I could charge those, let's say quote unquote, premium prices, because we can say that they're premium prices, but they're realistically just what I need to charge in order to live. But let's just say premium prices because it to some people that's just what it is. I literally had to change the whole way that my business was perceived. So again, like a mini rebrand, I had to change my positioning, my pricing, the service, the experience. I had to change everything so that I could get those clients coming back paying high prices, so that I could have these boundaries in place, so that I could work the hours I want to work and minimize the risk of these last-minute cancellations, these no-shows, these clients that expect you to move your whole day around for them, all of these situations. I had to change so much on the back end. Not just change the price of my booking system, not just change the work hours, I had to actually make changes to how my business was perceived by clients in order to keep being fully booked. Because with any price increase, change of hours, as much as we will try to reduce the risk of losing clients, it's gonna happen. But you need other clients that are going to come and book with you, anyways. Because as much as we want to reduce the risk of clients dropping off when we increase our prices or change our hours, genuinely we're not gonna be able to suit everyone, whether it's due to budget, whether it's due to availability. So we may lose clients and that's completely fine. We just need to attract the right clients. This could be new clients, this can be our existing clients that can find value in what we offer so that they can come at a different time, even though it's more inconvenient, or they will pay more, even though it's more of a stretch. So if you're someone that's been thinking about giving up and quitting your beauty business, I just want to let you know that you are not alone. Not only have I experienced this first hand, but there are so many other business owners out there that feel the exact same. And if you still have such a passion for what you do, whether it's nails, lashes, brows, facials, tanning, whatever it may be, you have such a passion for it and you really want your business to work out, you can still make it work. You probably just need to change something behind the scenes. Whether it's your pricing, your boundaries, your hours, your systems, your positioning, your content, there's so many things that you can change. Now, if you're listening to this and you're like, yep, I need to change some of these things. I need to make these changes in my business because I am so close to closing my business. I want to keep going. I'm so passionate, I just want to keep doing this, but I need it to do it in a way that's actually fulfilling me. That I am so thrilled to announce. I just announced it on Instagram, probably last night, by the time you guys are watching this. I'm not sure exactly when I've announced it, but private mentorship is coming. I've been in your situation, I know exactly how it feels, and now I've literally changed my whole business. I've changed the way I run my salon so that it actually fulfills me, so I can actually charge my worth based on the numbers. I actually did not lose a single client from memory when I raised my prices. I've changed my work hours and I'm still fully booked. And I know this is exactly what you want as well. And I want to be the person to help you get there. As much as I provide so much value in these podcasts, if you're a longtime listener, you know how much value I like to give you guys in these episodes. Imagine how much more you could get working one-on-one with me. Just saying. So mentorship hasn't officially launched yet. I've only just announced that it's coming, but it's officially launching on the 11th of August, and that's when applications will be open. So I had been teasing that something was coming, and this is exactly it. I have been shipping away at this behind the scenes for quite a while, and it's not a course. If you don't know anything about mentorship, I feel like we should do a whole nother episode on what it actually is. I think I might have even mentioned in a few episodes ago about my rebrand that I worked with a business coach myself and I was being mentored, and that was literally a game changer. Like I will not cap, it was a game changer. So what I've been working on behind the scenes is bringing all the strategies that I have to get to where I am today into a format that I can customize to exactly where you are right now and where you want to be. It's not a course. It's not pre-recorded videos where you just watch them and then you apply it independently. It's not a course. It's also just not me giving you advice on, okay, raise your prices, you know. We actually go into strategy. And these aren't copy and paste strategies either. As much as I do have my own strategies that have worked for me, I'm not just gonna give you those strategies and say, okay, do this, you know? With mentorship, this is completely personalized to where you are right now, what you can take on, what you can realistically implement, and what your exact goals are. So I don't just take what worked for me and give it to you. I take parts of what's worked for me, think of how I can shift it for you and create your own customized strategy to get to where you want to be. So on the 11th of August, I am launching my 12-week private mentorship program, and this is one-on-one with me. It's not group Zoom calls, it's not a course, it's not just generic advice. It is one-on-one working together. Think strategy, think priority support. You're gonna have me in your back pocket. You're going to get action plans with exact steps on what to do to reach your goals. Realistic steps that you can actually do. Now, there are only very limited spots for this mentorship program because it's completely one-on-one. There's only so many people that I can take on at a time to continue running my salon, continue teaching nails and doing all the things, running the podcast. There are very, very, very limited spots available to work with me one-on-one. So that is why it's going to be application only. This ensures that not only is mentorship the right fit for you, but that I can help you get to exactly where you want to be. And guys, the best part of this is when it launches, it's going to be at a launch special. This means the pricing is going to be the lowest it will ever be. Trust me, it's never going to be this low again. I just want to give everyone the opportunity to apply and secure their spot before I actually increase the prices. So the price is only going up from here. So again, applications open on the 11th of August, and it's so exciting. I'm going to be sharing a lot more information on the program, what we can work on together, what results you could have, all on Instagram. So make sure you're following me at blossom in business underscore. I'm going to be sharing so much more, even some behind the scenes, all of that. I'm so excited. So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I need this, I need the guidance, I need someone to actually help me go to the next step with my business. Make sure you're following me on Instagram and stay tuned because this pricing won't be around for long. And again, this is completely one-on-one. There's only so many girls that I can help at a time because you're getting priority support from me and we're getting all of the strategy calls, everything. We're working on that together. And I know this has been something that you guys have wanted for so long. You guys have been in my DMs for a hot minute asking, do I do business audits? Can we do strategy calls? All of the things, and I'm so excited to announce that it's finally coming. It's not that far away now. So mark 11th of August in your calendar. That's when applications officially open. So on the 11th of August, not only do applications officially open, but you have the opportunity to jump on a free clarity call with me. This is a free call where we talk about your goals, where you're at right now, where you want to be, and we discuss whether or not mentorship is the right fit for you. Because again, I only have very limited spots available, so I want to make sure it's going to the right people. That wraps up today's episode, and I really hope that you can make those changes in your business so you no longer want to quit and you want to keep going. Again, stay tuned for the mentorship launch because I'm so excited to work with some of you girls one-on-one to help you reach your goals. I'll share some more details about mentorship here on the pod after it's officially launched. So stay tuned for that 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 5 stars on Spotify and Apple. 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, I've put the links to all of my socials in the description. If there's any topics you'd like covered on the podcast or you would like to apply to be a guest speaker, you can find the links in my description. Stay tuned for the next episode.