Esthetician Business Debt
Do you have debt in either your esthetician business or personal life? Or maybe both?
If so, you are not alone. In today's episode Brittany is going to talk about overcoming the shame around debt and how to get out of debt.
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Brittany Hagemann (00:01.23)
You're listening to the S Editions Earning More podcast with Brittany Hagemann, episode number 147.
Brittany Hagemann (00:18.254)
Hey, hi. Hi, happy Monday, welcome back. I'm so excited to be back here talking with you today.
Today we're gonna talk about something that I talk to my clients about a lot. It's something that I feel like is kind of a dirty secret, for lack of a better word, or a better expression that a lot of estheticians have, and that is business debt. And I kinda just wanna talk through it with you today. I wanna first...
Remember our ground rules here of no shaming. I am not here to shame you or to tell you you're doing something wrong or to make you feel bad because I know long -term change does not.
come from shame. Shame will not create long -term change. That's the rhyme that I'm gonna use now for the rest of my life. Shame does not create long -term change. Shame just creates more shame, okay? And shame comes from feeling like there's something morally wrong. And I don't believe that debt has anything to do with morals, okay? I'm just gonna be really clear on that. Debt money has nothing to do with your morality as a person.
I think the only time that money and morality go hand in hand together is when you're taking money from someone in a sneaky way, knowing that you're tricking them, you're getting one over on them, or you're having them buy something, and you know you're not going to deliver it, and you know it's not going to be that great. That's when I think money and morality come together as a problem. But debt.
Brittany Hagemann (02:11.438)
has nothing to do with morality. You could say that people who take people's money and create debt, maybe there's morality there. I don't know, we're not going into that conversation today, but a person having debt is no less moral than someone who doesn't. And that's a big thing we talk about in our culture a lot, like I have no debt, I'm debt free, I own my house, whatever. Great, good, bad, or indifferent, there's positive and negatives to ...
all of these things. I'm not a financial planner. I am not certified in finances in any way. This is also a disclaimer. I am not a bookkeeper. I am not an accountant. I have no education beyond regular life about finances. But I am a mindset business coach in the sense that I can help people create debt payment plans, right? Figure out a way to pay off debt in a way that feels really good for them, which I do for some of my clients.
and also overcome the shame around debt, which is usually the reason we can't pay off debt very quickly, because we have a lot of shame around it, and it feels very heavy. But again, if we go back to the first thing they said, and the most important thing that I've said in this podcast, and maybe everyone will say in this podcast, is that if you have debt, it has nothing to do with you as a moral person. You can meet the best person in the world and have lots of debt. You can be the worst person in the world and have no debt.
There are serial killers out there that have no debt and they are serial killers and they do really horrible things to people. There's also people out there that have lots of debt, who've never hurt anyone, never killed anyone, never did any horrific crime, right? So I just wanna like really, really reel that in right now. Cause I know, especially if you have debt in your business, you may be carrying shame. So you may have to just...
Listen to this again and again. And really work on that around the shave you have around that. Okay. Okay, are we good with that for now? Okay.
Brittany Hagemann (04:20.046)
Along with those lines, I want to say there's no such thing as good debt or bad debt when it comes to your business. I'm not talking about personal debt. I'm not getting into the weeds of personal debt. Again, I'm not making any good or bad debt judgments in there either. I know from financial planning, yes, there's whatever. We're not talking about that. I'm just talking about...
people can be very high and mighty about their debt, like, well, this is good debt or this is bad debt. And again, it adds to the conversation.
Brittany Hagemann (04:56.206)
that if you have debt, then you are doing something wrong. And that's not necessarily true. I think, again, I think let's talk about why debt can be a problem for you, but doesn't mean that you are a bad business owner or that you are a problem or even that you have a problem, but maybe why it feels like a problem for you. I think the problem with debt is a couple of things. The first thing is,
When someone's already in debt, and I know this for a fact because I have been in debt many times in my life and been out of debt and I'm not a debt -free person through and through my entire life, so I just really also want to say that. But I know for myself and I know for my clients that when I'm already in debt, it's like, f it, more debt. It can kind of just get to this mentality of like, I already have $10 ,000 in credit card debt. What's another 200?
or what's another 2 ,000 or whatever. So it's easier, I think, once you already have crossed a certain threshold in your brain to keep adding to the debt because it feels like whatever. It's not gonna make a big difference. And maybe it won't, I don't know. It depends on all of the different things. But I think the problem with that is then you kind of have a whatever attitude spending and you continue to put yourself more in debt.
And then the stress of making the payments kind of eats you alive and eats all of your profit and you can't pay yourself and then it becomes an actual problem for you, but not because you are a problem. Okay? And let me tell you, if there's a problem, there's a solution and I'm here to give you lots of solutions. Okay. So I'm gonna tell you my own recent experience with debt.
Just to kind of give you, and again, I'm not saying this is what you should or shouldn't do. This is just my own experience and how I've made the decision and why it was a good decision for me. I'm also gonna tell you a recent experience with debt where I made a decision and it wasn't a good experience for me. Not that I'm good or bad, not that one debt was better or worse than the other.
Brittany Hagemann (07:18.094)
But just this is kind of where I am and have been with my own business debt. Okay. So the first time I ever took out debt in my business, I had savings when I opened BLH Beauty and I had income coming in consistently. So I didn't have any debt when I opened BLH Beauty, which is very unusual, but I didn't. So that was a debt -free business opening, which is not everyone's experience. So it was really great.
this business, my S esthetician coaching business, I felt like about a year or so into coaching, I needed more. I needed more help and I didn't really know where to look. And I looked at a couple different coaches and different programs and one program really felt like the right program for me. And it was a bigger number than I would expect. I'm not gonna give you numbers right now just for my own sake of privacy, but a bigger number than I...
was you suspending on education and coaching and all those things. But I was like, you know, I think this is gonna be worth it. So I took a personal loan from a loved one to pay for it. And I think I did what a lot of people do when they have debt, which is this is going to solve this problem. So taking on this debt,
is okay because it's going to solve the problem of X. The problem that I was really looking to solve was I had really like my... Unlike in BLH Beauty in San Diego, so it was a new experience for me, unlike BLH Beauty, which my business kind of consistently grew slowly in an upwards motion. It didn't have huge months and then low months. Some months, of course, were better than others and they would fluctuate.
but it genuinely slowly grew in an upward line. Not perfectly straight up, but it was a slow grow. My coaching business, it kind of was like Feast of Fame. I either had a ton of money or no money. And it was very hard for me because I needed that consistent income so I could pay my childcare, because childcare was like, I needed to at least break even with childcare, because...
Brittany Hagemann (09:41.294)
I have a child now, right? So this was like, again, my own personal stuff. So I was looking for something to help me get that consistent income. And as opposed to when I was making these decisions, choosing to work with someone who that is what they promised, or that was what their goal of their program was, is consistent, reliable, coaching income that you have a program that people...
you know, it's a good offer that they need that you can help them with, that you can help them over a period of time, that you can rely on that money over a period of time, that you can structure it in a way that's very sustainable for you, that's very impactful for your client. That was kind of what I was looking for, but instead I was like, I'm gonna work with someone who is promising lots of money in your business. And I didn't really know exactly how that would be, but I was like, sold.
And I did learn a lot from that person. I did enjoy so much from that program, but it still didn't give me the structure I was looking for for those ups and down months, right? And I'm sure if I go back to everything I learned in that program, I could find more nuggets to help me with that. But when I look at my own business decisions that I've made, I can't say that I regret.
that decision, but that wasn't a decision, a debt decision I would do again. So, um, about when we first,
Brittany Hagemann (11:20.974)
So would I say that was bad debt? No, because I did learn a lot from the experience, mostly being a person cannot save or be the amazing person in your business to do everything, change everything for you. It has to be you and really have to figure out what that is for you and what it is that needs to be changing. So that was a good learning lesson for me. And that debt isn't on my...
Credit report, it's not anything that is financially following me around, that's like, growing interest, which I think people a lot of times will say that's bad debt.
if it includes interest. And I would agree from a standpoint of a business owner, if you have a lot of debt that's including really high amount of interest, you're just losing that money. Every month, of course, that's money that you can write off against your business so that you're not paying taxes as much. But if you're not bringing any money home, you're just losing money in your business. It's not really helping you. Maybe it's not really hurting you, but it's not really helping you. So it's just a decision you have to decide of what's good for you.
So this loan didn't have that, but it also didn't give me what I was looking for. And the money was just higher than I really could have afforded to pay at the time. And I really should have let that be a deciding factor of whether or not it was a good investment for me. And a lot of times I will talk to new estheticians,
new esthetician business owners and I'm like, hey, they work with me. Opening a new business is really expensive and then also hiring a coach can be really expensive and are these all the things you want to be doing right now with your money? And some people are like, yes, I have the money. This is what I want. Great, it's a great fit for them. Some people are like, oh yeah, no, I didn't think about that because it's a lot of different expenses to have at once. I don't ever want to be an expense that someone has that they like every month. I want it to be like, yes, it's so worth the money.
Brittany Hagemann (13:27.63)
So then a good investment that I have made in debt was we first, we moved to Georgia not quite a year ago. It'll be a year ago, like end of May. And my childcare situation was basically non -existent and my husband was flying a ton because it was like the busiest summer that Delta has had in eons because like COVID's finally over, people are out traveling.
and he was gone all the time and I could not find childcare. And so I literally could not work with clients. But my business had expenses that were fixed, like my website, not a huge amount of expenses, but enough expenses that I didn't have the income to pay for it. So I had to make a very strategic decision, whereas I was just gonna like not.
do my business anymore or like start from scratch and like close my website and have to redo the whole thing? Or should I take out a loan that would cover the costs, keep my business open for that period of time, give myself a very specific period of time that I can take off from my business, not spend any extra money in my business, but just do exactly what I need to do to keep my business open. And then once I start making money, be able to pay that loan back.
And that's what I did. I took a small loan out from a bank to kind of keep me open in that like six month -ish range, knowing that I would come back eventually with childcare and ability to work again. I knew I could make at least the payment for sure, if not more. I was confident of that. It's not been a problem. I'm almost done paying off the loan. Like it's not a thing. But I could afford the loan. I could afford the debt.
It never has been a stressful payment for me. It's never been like, oh gosh, how am I gonna pay this? Because I was really mindful about what the money would go towards. It wasn't just like, I just got money and I'm just gonna spend it and buy a bunch of stuff for my business and write it off. No, it was very like, this is exactly what I need it for, for this thing, for this period of time. This is how much it's gonna cost to pay it back. I have this money, I know.
Brittany Hagemann (15:50.894)
I can bring in, this isn't hard for me. I did all the calculations, not a problem. I would recommend that to myself a thousand times over. It was such a great decision. And my coach who I love, who I've been working with for almost a year, has like a next level group that I could have worked with her, but I would have probably had, it would have been a hard financial thing for me.
And I just told myself, I'm not gonna do that to myself because I don't wanna be financially stressed out by financial business decisions. I wanna be like, this is an easy decision for me. This is where the money's coming from. Because what I know to be true about myself and about my clients, especially when it comes around debt, is debt can feel very heavy. So if you're already in debt and you just pile on more debt, it can feel like you aren't able to come.
pop your head up to breathe, right? You just feel kind of buried by it. But if you're really strategic when it comes to debt and be like, okay, I'm not going to pay myself as much for the next few months or I am taking a loan out or I am putting this on a no interest credit card or a low interest credit card knowing that these are the payments and I can easily make those payments or whatever, you have a plan of how you can pay for it.
Like before I've gone to my husband and been like, I'm gonna take home less because I'm doing this instead. And we agree on that. And he's like, cool, I get that. That makes sense. Cool, right? So these things aren't bad decisions. It becomes a quote unquote bad decision when there's no planning behind it and it's just spending.
And my first story, I did plan it. The investment didn't quite, the reason that I wouldn't do it again is I didn't have the money up front. And I had a plan for paying back, but it was very contingent on the results I thought I would get from working with this person versus my current results. So.
Brittany Hagemann (18:02.446)
Any kind of future investment I do in my business, especially when it comes to working with someone, and what I would want people to think about when working with me is your current money, can you afford it without it being really dramatic for you? And if you can't, you're going to have to wait until you can. Because it just adds a layer of stress that's totally unnecessary.
And I remember I talked to my coach about that and she was like, yeah, I think we should wait the next round if you are in a different financial standpoint or whatever. Then I think this, I know the program would be really helpful for me. It's exactly kind of the direction I want to go in my coaching business. I love my coach. I trust her endlessly. She's been so helpful with me in my business and growing my business, but I have to feel not a lot of drama around the payments. And I expect that from my own clients as well.
And the way that that is is if you don't take on more debt, then you can comfortably handle. And only really you can answer that question. And some debt, like I had a client who brought on Procell and it was like, okay, and she made a plan for it and she brought that on while she was coaching with me. So it was like investment, investment, investment, investment. But she is killing it and it worked.
really well because it was very mindful. It wasn't just like, this is gonna solve this problem, this is gonna solve this problem, just pay for it to just have these things miraculously go away. It was like, this is gonna do this, this is gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, this is how I'm gonna pay for it. If it doesn't work out, this is the backup plan. And it worked out for her because it was a very calculated risk. It wasn't just like a...
Oh well, I already have $30 ,000 in credit card debt. I'm just gonna add another 20 for this, this, this, and this, and then hope it all works out. It was like, yes, these are the payments for this. This is how I'm gonna pay for it. This is the payment for this. This is how I'm gonna pay for it. And I'm gonna do this with this and this with this, and that's why it's gonna work. And then she just made it happen. And that's what I did also with my own loan I just took recently, which was like, yes, this is the loan I need to take for this specific reason.
Brittany Hagemann (20:20.27)
As of this date, this is going to change. This is how I'm going to pay for it. This is what I know I can easily pay based on my years coaching in the past. So I can, like, without a panic, take that one.
I know I feel like I'm talking a lot about like hypotheticals, but I really do hope that this is kind of helpful for you when it comes to making financial decisions in your business and taking on debt in your business. Okay, I want to end with another part about debt in your business, and that is how to get out of debt. And I can definitely do more podcast episodes about this if you're interested. Just let me know if this resonates with you. But.
The two things that I recommend with my clients when I'm helping them get out of debt is one, really working on the mindset around the shame around debt and that you feel badly about yourself because you have debt. Because that alone is killing you. So you really want to work on the mindset around it that you have about yourself about having debt. And the second thing is having a very specific plan of how you want to spend your money and sticking to it.
And then I do coach my clients when they have those like, I really want to spend on this and we like kind of talk through it. And like, again, it's their money, they can do whatever they want, but I can also just be like, okay, so that's how much this costs and is this what you want from it? Like we just talk about it. There's no shame. It's just like, is this really what you want to do with your money? If it is, keep doing it. But if it's not, then let's not do that. And let's work, do the mindset work around it to help you. Like I lied, there's three things I have them do.
The third thing I do is to have them make more money. So I tell them exactly where in their business they need to make more money. And I tell them how to make more money and go after it. You may know that Bobby Brown, she is a makeup artist. She owned her own line, Bobby Brown Cosmetics. She sold it to Estee Lauder a few years ago. She now owns Jones Road Beauty. I love her. I love Bobby, like big Bobby Brown fan. And I heard her in a podcast once talk about how she...
Brittany Hagemann (22:28.782)
either wasn't making money when she first started out as a makeup artist or she was in debt. I can't remember what the circumstances were. But she didn't have enough money was the problem. And she went to her dad who's like a big business person and he was like, you have a money problem, you just need to make more money. And she's like, okay. So she just went out and got more bookings and like feet to the ground made sure she like went from place to place to place offering to do makeup for people.
and that's how she just made more money and then her money problem went away. And so that's also what I teach my clients. Like, okay, you have this debt, you have this shame around the debt, and this is what we're going to do for a plan with the debt, this is what we're going to do with the mindset around the debt, and then let's go and make more money. You need to raise your prices, you need to sell more product, you need to do both. This is this, this is the service we're going to focus on to make more money.
These are the products we're gonna sell along with that service, make them money. And this is not like a simple process. It's not an overnight process, but this is what we do. It's like, okay, let's figure this out. And let's, part of that plan is paying down the debt as quickly and easily as possible so that it's not growing and like becomes this like giant that's just like staring at you that you just like hate and you feel really suffocated by. Because debt can do that. And I've had debt feel that way before.
For sure, so I know how it feels and it feels like you kind of get in it and you can't get out of it, but you totally can. And the best part about being a business owner is that you have the ability to make more money and pay off your debt faster than you could if you had a regular job. The difference is, is as a business owner, when it comes to making money, if you feel down and out, because either you're not getting the bookings you want, you're...
Your month doesn't look as good as you think it's gonna look. Someone isn't buying product. Someone no showed. Someone canceled last minute. All the things that happen in our business that's so hard and so demoralizing, that prevents you from pushing forward and going out and making that money. Someone says they don't wanna buy a product. The next person comes in, you feel really nervous. You don't talk to them about product. You miss the opportunity. Versus like...
Brittany Hagemann (24:45.934)
someone didn't buy a product, I'm going to manage my mind around that so that that doesn't affect me on this next thing.
and be really intentional with that.
those mindset shifts and allowing yourself to feel sad or whatever and being like, okay, that sucked. I didn't want that to happen. I was so annoying that person didn't show up or whatever it is. Okay, let's go. I have this new person, this new person I can talk to and ask them to come in for a brow wax or whatever. And I'm gonna focus on that and my energy on that and not on what didn't work and not on the disappointment.
So you do have the ability to make more money, but it can feel very overwhelming if you have debt and you haven't been making money. So that's where that is where the rubber really meets the road. That's where you really have to kick it into gear. I could have taken out that loan this last summer and then kind of just barely made enough money to cover it. I could have totally done that, but I didn't want to just make enough money to cover the loan in my...
business expenses, I wanted to make more money and bring it home money for my family again. I haven't done that in a while. I was like, let's go. I wanted to help estheticians make money in their business, right? I had these things that were very motivating for me. And it was like, this is just one thing that I'm going to pay for, but it's not going to be... I'm not going to make that debt mean anything about me as a business owner. Like, oh, I had to take a loan out to keep my business open when I have this huge life change. No, no.
Brittany Hagemann (26:29.39)
That's fine. I'm still a great coach. People still really value me. It was just a temporary situation because of all these life circumstances I was in. And I made a plan, and I stuck to it, and I didn't make it mean anything about me as a business owner or as a person. And if you start making debt, it means something about you as a person. If you start making situations happen with potential clients or clients about you as a person, you as an aesthetician, it will just
be so much harder for you to cycle out of it and make the money. But I just want you to make a plan for it. Oops, sorry, hit my microphone. Make a plan for it. Put it over here. Stick to that plan.
Turn away from the shame, process and let go of the shame. No one means anything to do with you and get to work. Grow your business, make the money. Then the debt will fall away. You'll get in the habit of making that plan around your money because it works and it's actually really simple and you'll just keep doing that and make more money. Problem solved.
I have a feeling this is going to resonate with a lot of people. And again, this is simple, but it's not easy because it takes a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of mindset work, like a lot to the point that you like hate it. I know because I've been there. I know because my clients were there. I know. I get it. So if you need help with this, I am your girl. Book a free discovery call so we can talk about it. And if you can't even imagine taking on more money, then you're going to have to figure this out on your own until you can hire me.
because I don't want me to be an extra expense for you that causes you stress and drama. Okay, that's it for today. I'll talk to you next week. Have a fantastic week. Bye for now.
