Finding Direction and Focus in Your Esthetician Business

Summary

In this episode, Brittany Hagemann discusses the importance of having direction and focus in your esthetician business. She emphasizes the need to dedicate time to marketing and putting yourself out there to attract new clients. Brittany shares personal stories and examples to illustrate the importance of perseverance and problem-solving in growing your business. She encourages estheticians to choose a marketing direction that aligns with their personality and strengths and to be willing to fail and learn from their experiences.

Takeaways

Dedicate time to marketing and putting yourself out there to attract new clients
Choose a marketing direction that aligns with your personality and strengths
Be willing to fail and learn from your experiences
Persevere and problem-solve to overcome challenges in growing your business

Brittany Hagemann (00:00.846)
You are listening to the Estheticians Earning More podcast with Brittany Higman, episode number 156.

Brittany Hagemann (00:10.894)
Happy Monday. Welcome back. How are you? How is your summer going? Is it officially summer? I think it's officially summer this week, but it's definitely summer here in Georgia. I have been traveling a lot in the last month, which is really not normally like me. I'm just home, doing my thing. So I first went to Sweden, which you probably already know. And then I just came back from the San Francisco Bay area.

where I was visiting some of my family and friends and celebrating my dad's birthday and early father's day. And it was a lot of fun, but it was a whirlwind and I'm very tired from it. And I'm really happy to be home and back to my schedule. We don't have any other scheduled trips as of now. And so I'm really looking forward to just like working and helping my clients and all of you. So I'm really excited to talk to you today about this concept that I've heard from...

my clients, I hear on discovery calls with potential clients. It's just a general feeling that I get from a lot of aestheticians that they aren't doing enough in their business.

Brittany Hagemann (01:31.918)
Like I think this is kind of comes from the feeling of not having the right direction in your business. Usually when I have these conversations with people, they say, I don't feel like I'm doing enough and I don't feel like I have enough direction. I don't really know where to focus my energy. And so that can kind of be the case because you are focusing on...

Because you...

Brittany Hagemann (02:04.462)
because you kind of maybe are running around with like a chicken with your head cut off, right? Where you, I really kind of hate that analogy, but it is really, it's a good visual. But you like really know you need to be doing something and so you are working, but you don't, you're not really working on things with intention, with a purpose behind it, with kind of knowing why you're doing things. It feels like, I think I've talked about this last episode, but it feels like a lot of it is luck.

things that have worked and you know you need to make more money but you don't know how and you don't feel like you're doing what you need to do. Right? And so, so often I've talked to people who are like, I know I need to post more on social media. I just hate it. Right? I know I need to do this. I know I need to do that.

And I think that it's really easy to look at what people around you are doing and then what's working for them and think that what they're doing, that's the right way to go.

Brittany Hagemann (03:30.158)
And you, you know, usually it's someone that you see online, even though I know I tell you guys not to pay attention to other estheticians, especially estheticians that are not in the same stage of business as you. So you're looking at their Instagram or their TikTok or whatever, and it's very curated. It's very organized. It is just on point. You're like, gosh, they just are on fire all the time. And you see what you do and you're like, it's not enough, right?

And so you, yes, maybe you're working on clients and yes, you are trying to talk to people about your business or post on social media or whatever, but the expectation and the standard that you see, you aren't living up to that at all. And if you listen to this podcast before, you know that I will consistently say this, is like not to look at other people and to focus on your clients because,

When I feel overwhelmed in my business and I don't know where to go and I don't know what to say and I don't know what to do, I always think back to my clients. And that may be a really helpful insight for you that maybe you've heard me say it before, maybe you haven't, but it may feel still very overwhelming and you don't have direction because you have lots of different types of clients that have lots of different services that you do for them. So you do waxing and you do lashes and you do facials.

And so where do you focus? Right? Where's the direction of where you want to go?

Brittany Hagemann (05:06.286)
It's this really paralyzing feeling of being in limbo, right? And like not having direction and knowing what you want, which is to have a profitable, successful business, helping people in an institution business.

Brittany Hagemann (05:23.598)
but not seeing how your business can that work with your business and your circumstances. And I'm gonna tell you right now, everybody has extenuating circumstances. Lots of my clients have issues with their location. I did give Lev Marie, who was on my podcast, she's a former one -on -one client, but she's always a client. Because if you're a client, you're always a client with me. And I'm still gonna see her have like an odd, like a conversation here and there. But.

She was talking about on that podcast about how horrible and ugly the room was that she first started her businesses. And I was giving her a really hard time on the podcast. I was like, okay, Liv, like, okay. And I didn't say in that podcast, I should have said it when I went back to do the intro that she was right. She sent me pictures and they were absolutely the most, it's the worst I've ever seen ever. It was so bad. I think what would have made it worse was if it was like really dirty. So it was clean, but it was just, the decor was just horrendous. But anyways.

But a lot of my clients, yeah, they're in not ideal locations and where their business is or they're sharing space with someone or they have to move spaces. my gosh, that happens all the time with my current or potential clients. There are all these extenuating circumstances in our businesses and then we have to focus on those to keep our business moving. And because of those situations, we kind of like...

use that as a pass for not claiming a direction in your business. You have to just claim it. And obviously I help my clients do that, but you just have to decide this is what I'm going to do and this is how I'm going to do it and this is how I'm going to make money and this is what I'm going to do. That is what I did when I opened BLH Beauty in San Diego. I claimed it like I'm going to be an acne specialist even though I had literally ...

not helped anyone's acne clear completely. Like I helped people's skin improve, but definitely not to the level that I wanted to be at that point in my career.

Brittany Hagemann (07:32.302)
And I think what can happen with a lot of estheticians that I know and I work with is that, you know, maybe it's your, yeah, your room or your location. Maybe it's your own personal finances or things in your own life that are causing a big distraction.

Brittany Hagemann (07:57.166)
maybe you're just a really busy person and you just feel really scattered braided because you have a lot of balls in the air. Like maybe you have small kids at home or you're taking care of an elderly parent or grandparent or you're also in school at the same time. There's things in your life that make you very busy and it's harder for you to focus on the plan, the plan that you know that you need to do to make the money. And so then when it comes to,

making money, you kind of are at a standstill because you're not doing enough, I'm putting that in quotations, and Amy, to be honest, you probably aren't, and instead you're focusing on these other things that are important that you need to spend time and energy on, but that is all you do, and that takes all your energy. So when it comes to being creative and putting yourself out there in social media and marketing and talking to people and doing all the things you can do to grow your business, asking for referrals, all the things,

There's nothing left, right? And I've also like, and I have felt this way my own self many times in my business before and I've seen it with my clients as well, is this concept of like, I'm doing all of the things. I want someone to come in and fix it for me. And I'm not saying people hire me for that. I'm saying like,

I want my current clientele to refer all their friends to me so I don't have to go out and put myself out there in marketing, right? Like I'm relying on my current clientele to grow my business for me. And I know I've done that before in the past. And it feels like a really easy thing to do, but that can help and that can work in certain situations and certain times, but we can't put all of our eggs in one basket. Like you can't only rely on Instagram to

grow your business or TikTok when you're a brand new business owner and no one knows who you are. Yes, keep putting stuff out there, keep putting stuff out in the world and maybe you'll be really lucky and it'll take, a post or two will really become viral in your area and people will come in for it. But when we start to like, one thing to fix our business and fix...

Brittany Hagemann (10:16.046)
the money in the whatever it is, getting new clients or products. I see this also with people investing in skincare lines, I've said this before, and I'll continue saying it as you know.

Brittany Hagemann (10:32.206)
I love face reality, but I've seen it so many times that people's businesses are not succeeding. So they break on face reality and now they just are having debt for the products and everything. They have all these products that they don't sell and they're probably not going to sell. So face reality did not fix their problem. DMK did not fix their problem. Asking their current clientele for referrals is not the only solution. And so what ends up happening,

is...

You may have done one of these things and then it doesn't work and you have other extenuating circumstances in your life, just human being and you have things going on in your life like all of us, and you let that be the reason why you aren't growing in your business.

And then it's really hard to have a direction and know where to focus because you're focusing on I tried this and it didn't work and all these other things in your life. Okay, and I'm saying this with love because I've been here and I probably will be there again. And there's also a difference between that, what I just described and taking an intentional break. Like I've taken more time off work, like,

marketing -wise in the last like month or so because I was traveling and I it was like a really kind of a break for me not to say I needed a break but I was just I really enjoyed the time that I had and and I was still talking to my clients and seeing my clients and stuff like that but any kind of thing beyond that I wasn't doing as an intentional break just to enjoy that time so I could come back and be fully refreshed and ready to go and keep going so there's difference between intentional breaks and just completely

Brittany Hagemann (12:21.806)
having at the bottom of your list. Like, yeah, I know I need to, but I'm gonna put all these other things in front of it. So if you are in this situation, if you feel like you have a lot of things on your plate, you don't know what direction to go in your business, you feel like you're not doing enough,

Brittany Hagemann (12:47.406)
I want you to use the time that you would be seeing clients to put yourself out there and market yourself. I don't know what that will look like for you based on where your area is, what your strengths are, whether that means doing like three or four reels a day, whether that means going to all the networking groups in your area, meeting people.

going to any kind of business things online or in person. There are so many different ways to market yourself and I definitely talk through this with my clients based on their personality. But let's say you're open 20 hours a week for clients and you only have five clients right now. And I'm gonna reframe that. You have five clients. It's not only five people or five people. I remember when I first had like.

five regular clients and I was like, this is just the cra - I just thought it was the craziest, best thing in the world. So you have five people that are coming every week and you have like, let's say, 13 hours that you haven't filled. Those 13 hours need to be completely and wholly dedicated into marketing and getting yourself out there. That's the direction that you need. I know you're like, no!

I know, I understand. It's like, wait, okay, but can I just do an hour and call it good? No, you can't. No. If you want to make it work, you have to put in the time. And that means, like you talked about this last week, that means like try things and see how it works and tweaking it and making it different and figuring it out and realizing like that didn't quite work and that should work differently and this is that.

And it's not like you try it by doing a couple of reels and be like, well, no one looked at it. Or you go to a marketing vet and you get no contacts from it. Or whatever. You try these different things. It's like you actually try it and have actual conversations with people. And then if they still don't book and they say they are, why did that happen? And really spending time figuring that out and problem solving.

Brittany Hagemann (15:04.654)
versus going to a marketing event, like a business group in your area, not talking to anyone, heading on a card here or there and be like, it didn't work. And maybe that's not for you. Like I'm not saying that that's what you should be doing, but if that's what you have decided you're going to do during that time, maybe you are good, naturally good at talking to people. You can't just...

If it doesn't work once or five times, it doesn't work. You have to spend time in really that problem solving of what didn't work about it, what did work, how can you improve upon that? It's the same thing with you're doing a lot of reels. You're putting things out there. You're seeing what's performing, you're seeing what's not performing, you're seeing what people are engaging with, people aren't engaging with. This is the work. This is the direction you need in your business. This is the putting yourself out there online, in person, both, combination of both, and seeing what...

works for you. What works for you naturally, like what you naturally like to do, and what works for your audience, potential clients. And it's work. It's actually a lot easier to just see people in person, right? So much easier if those were just clients that were coming in during that time. So that when you are booked, it's such an easier experience, I promise you.

than this kind of like building, which I know a lot of you people are, which is why I've been talking a lot about that building phase in your business. And so I really want you to choose a marketing or marketing directions and that is the direction that you're going in. So whatever it is, I don't know with your personality, with what you like to do, how you like to meet people virtually, in person, combination of the both, but you need to figure out what that is and go.

all in. You need to go all in. You need to put yourself out there. You need to be willing to not get received the way that you thought you were going to be received. You need to be willing to problem solve and figure out what worked and what didn't work. You have to be willing to fail. And I'm putting that in quotation marks. I know I've told this story in the podcast before. I know if you're one of my clients, you've definitely heard this story, but I think it's an important story to repeat to kind of

Brittany Hagemann (17:26.606)
demonstrate my point here and kind of help you see the importance of.

Brittany Hagemann (17:38.766)
being clear on meeting more people and making that happen for you and not just saying like, well, I tried this and it didn't work. So when I first moved to San Diego, I was living in North County, San Diego, and I worked for a very, very small company. This was before I worked for Target, and there was only two other employees, but they were both guys and we were never gonna be friends. And I was so desperate to have friends. I didn't have any friends in San Diego.

One of the reasons I moved to San Diego was to meet new friends because I was living in...

because I was living in Sacramento previously.

Brittany Hagemann (18:22.35)
And all my friends were in serious relationships and went from being available to hang out to like not available. And I was really lonely. And so one of the reasons I moved to San Diego was to meet new friends and all these things. And so I was trying to find different meetup groups. Like, you know, I had my dog that were dog centered and, you know, going to these different groups and finding ones that like were actually things I was interested in, not just like...

like going to a Frisbee meetup, which I don't wanna play Frisbee, and then they'd be disappointed because I'm not good at it, and they would be like, why are you here, right? So like trying to find like things I actually was interested in. I honestly like just like sitting and talking to people and having a glass of wine, right? Like that's really fun for me. So I found this group, it was in North Park, which if you know the San Diego area, it's like near San Diego, so it's like a good 30, 45 minutes from where I was living. And this is the time I was not making any money, like,

like a drive like that, it was expensive. I'm like, it's okay, they're meeting in a wine bar. Like if I can meet some people, like I know maybe I can meet one person who's eventually gonna be a friend, it'd be worth it. So I go and get a glass of wine, like one of the first people there. And then I quickly realized that I didn't read the book, or the book, the thing in the meetup group as clearly, and it was for like adults in their like 40s and 50s. By the time I was like 25, 26 years old.

And I was so crushed. And they were very nice to me. And I finished my glass of wine. And I got in the car. I remember I called my dad crying. And I was like, I'm never going to meet any friends. Long story short, I ended up finding another meetup group for women in their late 20s or late 30s in my area. I went and started going to all their events. And I made some really incredible friends, many of which I'm still friends with today, which is like 15 years later. And so the point of this story is I did not give up because,

one meetup group of many of the meetup groups that I looked at weren't for me. And then I went to one and it was like a complete disaster, even though they were very nice to me. Obviously I didn't make any ones like friends from that, right? Which was the point. And so I had to continue to put myself out there and continue trying. And I chose meetup groups as a vehicle. Of course, there's other vehicles to meet people and make friends. And so that was just,

Brittany Hagemann (20:50.606)
what I wanted to do at the time. And I guarantee you if I kept trying meetup groups and it wasn't working, I was gonna try something else. I wasn't just gonna not have friends. I wasn't gonna be like, I don't know, it's too hard, whatever. I really knew I needed friends. I knew having friends was a really important part of being me and a human being and having social. Even though I like to be alone and have quiet time, I really like talking to people and spending time with people and going out to eat and all these things. And so I needed friends for that, right?

And friendship is really important to me. I hold my friends very dear to me. And so I knew I had to do that. So you know, yes, you do know what you need to do. I know you feel like you're not doing enough because you haven't made it that simple and clear for yourself. So make a plan exactly what you're going to do this week during the time that you don't have clients. And I want you to use all of those hours. It's going to be a stretch.

It's gonna make you work. It's gonna make you feel like it's too hard. But I guarantee you if you really do it every week and you really put in that time and you really try things and you really allow yourself to problem solve when things work and don't work, it will work. It will work. May not work this week or this month, but it will work. But you have to put that consistent time in. You need to put a lot of time in, not 20 minutes, not an hour.

you have to put in that time. Okay, that is it for today. If you have not already, sign up for my free workshop that I'm having very soon. I will talk to you later. Have a fantastic day. Bye for now.