Overcoming Doubt: How It Holds Estheticians Back

In this episode, Brittany Hagemann discusses the theme of doubt and how it can hold estheticians back in their businesses. She explores different areas where doubt can manifest, such as doubting one's abilities, doubting the success of niche services, doubting marketing efforts, doubting the effectiveness of raising prices, and doubting the ability to sell skincare products. Brittany emphasizes the importance of overcoming doubt through mindset work and problem-solving, and encourages estheticians to take action and learn from their experiences.

Takeaways

Doubt can be paralyzing and hold estheticians back in their businesses.
Doubt can manifest in various areas, such as doubting one's abilities, doubting the success of niche services, doubting marketing efforts, doubting the effectiveness of raising prices, and doubting the ability to sell skincare products.
Overcoming doubt requires mindset work and daily journaling to build a positive self-image and find evidence of one's abilities.
Problem-solving is key to overcoming doubt and improving in different areas of the business.
Taking action and learning from experiences is essential to grow and succeed in the esthetics industry.

Brittany Hagemann (00:00.494)
You are listening to the Estheticians are Anymore podcast with Brittany Hageman episode number 153.

Brittany Hagemann (00:16.846)
Hello, happy Monday. Welcome back. I'm so excited to be back with you. Today I am back from Sweden, Stockholm primarily. I just was in Stockholm. It was such an incredible trip. It's the time of my life. It was next to my honeymoon, the best vacation trip I've ever been on. Really incredible. Highly recommend visiting Stockholm.

even if you're not going to see Taylor Swift. It was a really beautiful city, especially like in the summer, May, it was perfect, like 70 degree weather, clear skies, it wasn't raining, which is kind of miraculous, I think, for that city. Really incredible trip. So I feel really rejuvenated by it. I actually have not really had jet lag. I used some of my husband's tips of staying up.

really late when I was in Stockholm and so it wasn't that hard for me to like I just came home, I went to bed, I wasn't like had a hard time sleeping. So I feel really good like energy wise and also just like from a mentality standpoint of just like I had a full week off of being a mom and being a business owner and just really like doing whatever I wanted for the week and I feel really good and like ready to be back and.

my clients and record podcasts for you as well as sit down with my family. I've been really enjoying my family this week and I haven't been really posting a lot on social media because I've just been in my kind of family bubble and working with my clients. So, so excited to be back. Today I want to talk about something that is a theme I see with my clients and on discovery calls with potential clients and just also...

talking to estheticians and something that I also experienced and have experienced and will probably continue to experience because I'm human, and it's doubt. And doubt is a very powerful emotion because it can be very paralyzing for you. So I'm gonna give you some examples of how doubt may be showing up in your business and the consequences that it's having.

Brittany Hagemann (02:36.174)
One of the biggest things that I hear from aestheticians is that they have doubt in themselves. They have imposter syndrome. They don't believe they can achieve the results that they want, whether that meaning financial results for their business or results for their clients or a combination of both. Usually it's a combination of both. And they see other people do it.

and maybe they've had some success in their business in the past, but it feels like they don't really know how that happened and they don't know if it can happen again. It's like this... If any kind of thing that did happen, whether they've helped people with their skin or they've made money in their business, it's kind of like, I don't really know how that happened. I... You know...

It kind of like I was kind of lucky or I just, it's like kind of like a big mystery and it can also compound that doubt, right? Cause you're like, well, I didn't do it. I don't really know how it happened, but definitely wasn't me, right? Like, I don't know how I met, like found these clients. Like it was like,

referrals or whatever, but it wasn't like I was just lucky that I had the referrals or I was just like I worked for someone before and then they came with me or whatever, right? And then I like you have doubt on your abilities to build your business because you don't see how you did it. Or maybe you have been doing hair removal and you really want to get into the more skincare world. And this is something I coach a lot of my clients on because a lot of my clients are kind of moving from hair removal to skincare.

And it's like, well, I haven't done skin since school. Like, I haven't, like, it's like I don't even remember. I don't even know what everyone's doing. I actually put my lash extensions, if you're watching the video, I just got them redone yesterday. They were in dire need of help. And I've gotten some milia on the inner side, like inner corner of my eye because I don't rub my lashes of my eyes. It's like, I'll rub this part of my eye.

Brittany Hagemann (04:58.99)
and they've been driving me crazy. And I forgot to have Susanna take them out when I went and saw her last. And so I got one of them out myself, but it's really hard because I have to like basically cover my left eye to do it. And I really need both eyes because like it's small, I'm using a needle, all the things.

So when I went yesterday to my esthetician who does my lashes, I was like, hey, can you remove this milia? I'll pay you extra. It's driving me crazy. I can't get the angle. And she was like, I can't. I'm like, do you not know how? She's like, no, it's been three years. There's no way I can do it. And I was just like, you totally can do it. I don't believe that. Obviously, she didn't do it. She didn't want to. I'm not going to force her to do it. She wasn't.

like feeling comfortable, but she had doubt in her ability to do it, even though she used to do skin all the time, and she's been three years since she's done it. And I was like, well, I haven't removed Milia for three years. That was the first Milia I've removed, because I haven't been in the training room. And it was on my own skin, and it was like, fine, you know? And I'm like, you know how to do it. Like, I just don't believe you. You don't know how to do it. Yes, you haven't done it in a while. Like, yes, I haven't put a chemical peel on someone in a long time.

Maybe I would even need to review the protocol for a second, but I know how to do it. I did it for years. I know what to do. It's okay if I have to review certain parts of it. It kind of blows my mind a little bit when people have this self -doubt because they either haven't done it before or they discount what they have done before. It's like, well, yeah, I did that, but it was so long ago. There's no way I know how to do it anymore.

or, well, I don't know how to do Procell. I don't know how to do acne. I don't know how to do DMK or whatever skincare line or specialty that they want to do. I don't know how to do Wish, the barrier health stuff. I don't know it. I didn't learn it in school or I learned it in school and it was so long ago that I just don't like...

Brittany Hagemann (07:15.246)
There's so many estheticians that just know so much more than me and I'm not that good at it and I just don't know, right? It's like, I just call BS, I just really do because it's not that you don't know or you can't learn. I just don't believe that to be true. I believe that you have doubt in yourself but it's not based on any fact of what you can and cannot do.

in your business as a human with a brain that can learn and change and grow. I just don't find that real. I think that doubt is something that we hide behind because we know if we take the action, we could fail, and we don't want that to happen. And so when you have this doubt in yourself, you're like, well,

if I go forward and do the milia and it doesn't come out, I've proven that I am not good at this versus maybe that milia just wasn't coming out. It does happen. Sometimes they're really tricky and they just need to be a little bit bigger before you can get them out. I've had the experience with milia, removing them. Sometimes they're just not big enough and it's not because I'm not good at taking them out. Right?

And so we kind of like, we're so afraid of what could happen in a negative way that we don't take action. And the chance of that happening is just as likely as it going well, if not like going well with a higher chance. Like it's like a 95 % chance it's gonna go totally fine and a 5 % chance that maybe it won't go the way that you want it to go.

but we will only believe that 5%. I'm gonna give you some examples. We can also, I've seen doubt with clients about just their services in general and feeling like they have to offer lots of different services at different price points and all these different things so that they can make money because they don't believe they can make money.

Brittany Hagemann (09:39.694)
niching down or being more selective about what kind of services they provide or being really specific about who they can help. And they doubt, like they know that works for others, but they doubt that's going to work for them because they have all these reasons of like, well, where I live and like the type of clients and this and that.

Brittany Hagemann (10:10.83)
Like it's just not, it just doesn't, it's not gonna work for me. And so then again, you hide behind that doubt because you're like, well, as opposed to trying it and putting yourself out there, it's like, well, I don't know, that's too much, like it's not gonna work or I don't want, like I don't wanna feel the feelings of it not working, so I'm just gonna not. And others I see a lot, a lot, a lot.

is doubt in marketing. Like putting yourself out there talking to people in the world about what you do or online, whether it's Instagram or TikTok or whatever, and Facebook. For those of us who still are on Facebook, I know some of us don't use Facebook anymore, but it's like, well, you know, I put out this post and no one, you know, responded and I'm not good at it. And I, like, there's just,

like doesn't work anymore anyways and like I'm never gonna be this big influencer and all these things. But I haven't had a client that consistently posts on social media for a long time with a really strong message and hasn't seen positive results from it.

I've known estheticians that post on social media here and there and then they don't really get anywhere with it and they feel really frustrated and they kind of give up. That is the usual story that I hear. And for some reason, people think in their mind that that means that they've done it. And so that's like evidence that it doesn't work. But they also, like these like, you may be doubting your ability to post on social media. Like you're not good at it because you're not so -and -so.

You're not good at it because you don't want to dance in front of the camera, which you don't have to dance in front of the camera to be good at social media. You're not good at it because of a personality trait of yours.

Brittany Hagemann (12:21.422)
But I have had clients that I've worked with. I can think of one particular who is like a very soft spoken, very kind, not overly, actually I can think of two or three now, overly like energetic, like in your face person. And they have learned how to do really well on social media, being themselves. Like I've seen the transformation of our time working together and then post our time working together and they keep working at it.

And it's like they really use it for them, like how they really are. And they're no longer trying to emulate other people. And so they're not allowing the doubt that social media can work to hold them back anymore. They're like, it can work, I can make it work, right? Another doubt that I hear a lot from aestheticians about is that if they raise their prices, it's not gonna work.

Right, like people won't pay for it, people can't afford it, that it's too much money. Like there's a lot of like drama people have in their mind around pricing. That it's just not sustainable to have prices at a certain price point. It's a lot of drama people have. And I've definitely had that same drama too. Like you don't wanna price people out of seeing you, you would rather be busy and...

make less money, but know at least you're booked. And when you try to transition to make more money, you just don't see how that would work. And again, there are things that are not going to always work, right? But the doubt that you have in yourself or in your services then translates to the pricing. And so then it just continues.

It just continues, the doubt just continues to like infiltrate your business in a way that is just like so unhelpful for you and for your clients. Because again, I'm gonna keep just saying it, like if a client can't afford to get products and see you regularly, they can't really get the results that they want.

Brittany Hagemann (14:44.846)
And so then they're putting money towards something that the result they're not really gonna be able to get because they can't really afford the results that they really want because they're not able to do the products and the services. So it's actually like not as great to have your prices lower just to try to help people who can afford it.

Another area that I find people have a lot of doubt in is selling products, particularly skincare and having a lot of doubt in their ability to sell, right? Like in fear around selling and fear around owning how great the products are that they have and feeling good talking about it. I...

I know this is such a problem with so many aestheticians because one of the first things I do with my clients is we look at their numbers and what they're selling and how much product they're selling and how many of each service that they're doing and all the things and just so I can have a good understanding of where the money is coming from in their business. I think I've only had one client in the last six months who is selling, no, I've had two. I have two clients.

that is selling like 40 to 50 % of their revenue is products. Everybody else is like dramatically lower, 10%, maybe 20%, not even 10%. And there's a lot of drama and guilt and fear around selling. And then again, it's like one of those things where they're like, I know people sell products.

but I don't think it's gonna work for me. That's great that it works for them and it's not gonna work for me. And I just find this mindset to be such a hurdle. And the reason a lot of times my clients actually hire me is because they have this mindset and that is why their business is not succeeding because of their doubt.

Brittany Hagemann (16:59.534)
in themselves, in their business, in their products, in their services, in everything, their ability to market, all the things. And because of that mindset is why they cannot move forward in their business and make more money. That's why they're kind of stuck essentially. Sometimes actually then that doubt also prevents them from working with me because then they're like...

I may have doubt in themselves that they can get the results by doing the work that I teach them. So it just keeps working. You realize in the mindset that you have about your business is what you also have about your ability. It's hurting everywhere. So if you are in this mindset, this is what is keeping you from getting results is you doubt yourself. You doubt your products. You doubt your business. You doubt everything.

So how can you get out of this mindset? I think one of my favorite techniques is like daily mindset journaling is something that I teach my clients and really working on how you see yourself and having a more positive self image and finding evidence that you are good at what you do. You do know what you're talking about.

Brittany Hagemann (18:16.782)
and really focusing on that versus the evidence that maybe it's not.

And this is not an overnight process. This isn't something that you do it a couple of times, and then you're like, I have no doubt ever again. I feel great. But be really intentional with how you think about yourself and being really aware of what's happening in your brain. Our brains do so much to protect us. And so the doubt is actually a form of your brain protecting you, because if it

keeps you from moving forward and doing something that potentially could hurt you financially, emotionally, all the things, then it's done its job. It's like, I did it. Good job. Good job, right? And I prevented this person from potentially making another mistake, right? And putting themselves out there in marketing and being humiliated, right? Or trying to talk about skincare and you can tell that...

your client is like, can't wait for you to stop talking so that they can just go home. They can just pay you and leave, right? And so your brain's like, I don't want that to happen. And so I'm just going to do everything I can to avoid that conversation. But if you don't go through those experiences and really work on what went right, what didn't go right, how are you going to improve?

What can you say differently? How can you explain it in a way that makes more sense? And look at it really as a problem to be solved that you are just figuring out versus I'm really bad at this and I know nothing and no one buys skincare from me. Or again, marketing, if you're putting out posts consistently every day or five to six days a week and months go by, weeks go by and there's no engagement.

Brittany Hagemann (20:24.27)
Being like, why is this not happening? What in my message is not being clear? You're really looking at it as a problem solving way of what's working, what's not working.

That is much more uncomfortable for your brain than just having doubt and not doing it. I don't know. I don't know how it's gonna, I don't know. I can't do it, I don't know.

Brittany Hagemann (20:57.294)
And it can be tricky because I think, obviously doubt can serve you well, right? And questioning things can serve you well, really more than doubt. Like I talk about, I've talked about my clients, like I, when I was still in San Diego doing BLH Beauty, my acne, I was considering bringing on other lines and doing kind of other things to.

continue to serve my clients maybe in a longer term way and trying to figure out ways to make more money and maybe even see a little bit like clients that wanted maybe a little bit more of things. And so I really looked into a bunch of lines and I really thought about, I looked at their products and I got services done from people who did those lines. I really spent time thinking about does this

fit with what my current clients are and or do I wanna build another clientele to go around this. And I spent a lot of time really looking at it, thinking about it, and I eventually decided that it wasn't a good time or fit for me and it wasn't what I wanted to be doing with my time. So I think it's important to evaluate things and to really look at things and think why would something,

work or not work, why did this conversation with this client work or not work, why did this post work or not work, why did this treatment on this client work or not work, right? And so you're really switching from just living in doubt and uncertainty to problem solving. I just did a podcast not that long ago about problem solving and it's such an important skill and so you're like, you know, maybe you've,

bought lines in the past of skincare and it didn't work, didn't work, I don't know how to put that in quotes, but we don't know, but why didn't it work? Was it because you actually didn't really like the line very much, so it was hard for you to sell? What was going on? I've had some clients who have worked with previous coaches in the past, or currently are working with coaches, and I'm always asked them, what has worked and hasn't worked with that person?

Brittany Hagemann (23:19.63)
And I really want to understand what works for them and doesn't work for them to see if we're a good fit. And what specifically do you need that you didn't get before? But in a lot of times people don't even have that answer. They're like, I don't know, it just didn't work. Right? But we need to figure out why. Why didn't it work? What was specifically about it that didn't work for you? I also had the same.

issue I hired a coach that I really liked her a lot but I didn't get the result I wanted and so I spent a lot of time figuring out why that was. So that next time I hired a coach with my current coach who I adore and I've gotten a lot of great success working with her, I was very specific about why when I hired another coach what exactly it was that I needed and was looking for.

Brittany Hagemann (24:14.062)
Like I said before, that if I ever go back in the treatment room, I definitely would do like a Procell microchannel because I love the results of it so much and I believe in it so much. But...

There are other modalities that I have tried or looked into that I didn't have that same conviction about. And that wasn't me having doubt that those could work. It just wasn't the right fit for me. And really using that ability to figure it out, to move through the doubt and make an assessment.

Brittany Hagemann (24:56.27)
The same thing goes with really anything in your business. In marketing, you don't know what works until you put out consistent material and then change things based on the feedback that you get from your audience. It's the same thing with this podcast. I put out different episodes, different types of things, and I saw what people resonated with and what they don't.

I mean, I look at what the numbers of people have listened, but I also like feedback from people, just telling me what they like and they find helpful. And you just consistently do that. You consistently show up. Same with selling a skincare routine and getting really good at consultations like I did. That was not an overnight process. That was after consultation, after consultation, after consultation.

after talking to people again and again and again and being like, this is, when I get to this part of the consultation, I lose them. Why? Why do I lose them? When I start talking about products, this is when I can see they've completely disengaged. Why is that? What can I do say differently? How am I missing it?

I also do the same thing with my coaching clients. Sometimes I'll be teaching something to someone and I can tell if they are not understanding it. So how can I figure that out in a way that they can? It's never helpful for me to doubt my abilities in any of these situations. Like if I'm in a consultation with someone selling them skincare products and I can tell that they have stopped listening and I believe the doubt in my head that tells me I'm bad at this and they don't trust me,

That isn't going to help me solve the problem of what they were super interested in what I was saying, now they aren't. It's not because of the products. It's because of me and the way that I talk. Like something happened and I wasn't talking about it in a way that they understood or they couldn't like, there was something there. And it wasn't because I talked about products. It was something else. Because I figured that out.

Brittany Hagemann (27:14.414)
I was like, here's your seven products, this is how much it costs, this is what we do. I was like, it was not a thing and they just always bought it. It was never like a thing. But I had to spend a lot of time in self -analysis and problem solving and thinking about all of that. It's much easier to be like, well, I'm bad at this and I don't want to make people feel a certain way or I don't want to, you know.

have a conversation where I felt like I kind of was flailing a bit, right? So I'm just not gonna do that again, because that was hard. It is really hard. It is really hard to put out social media posts that just no one really pays attention to. It's super hard. Happens to me all the time. It's really hard to get to the end of a consultation with someone and think that they are going to...

book another appointment and buy product and maybe they book an appointment and they don't buy product. That's super hard. But if you believe that's because of you assuming inherently about you that is like unfixable, it will just continue to be that way. But if you're like, huh, this is interesting. This is something that I've been seeing with the last five people when I get to this point in the conversation and this is what happens.

What else could I do? How else can I approach this?

Brittany Hagemann (28:43.566)
When I go and post on social media, this is the general engagement I've been getting the past three weeks.

What could I do differently? What about my message is not interesting? I have done this so many times on social media. If you have been following me for years, you probably have noticed an evolution of my posts. If you haven't, just go scroll all the way back to 2019 when I started this business and you will see an evolution of the posts. There was a lot of trial and error.

And it was hard, mentally it was hard because I had come from running my BLH beauty Instagram, which I could just, I knew exactly how to post in a way that people understood. They got it. I got great engagement, so many comments. It was like cake for me. So I was like, I can do this again. And then I realized it's a completely different audience and a completely different message. And I didn't really...

know how to translate what I knew, but I knew how to do it, I had to just figure it out. And it just took me some time figuring it out. And knowing that the numbers, I wasn't gonna get the engagement, the numbers that I was used to, and it was gonna suck, and I was gonna just have to feel it. But I didn't doubt my ability that I could do it. What I always would tell myself when no one really did anything was, okay, I just haven't figured it out yet, I'm still figuring it out.

I'm gonna keep trying until I figure out what hits home with people. And to be totally honest with you, my reels that I've been doing recently have not had the same engagement they did three or four months ago. I don't know if it's Instagram. I don't know what's happening. I don't know. Sometimes it's one of those things that there's an Instagram thing happening or if it's people have changed what people liked before, they just kind of have seen too much of it and they're kind of bored and they want something new and I kind of have to think outside the box again.

Brittany Hagemann (30:45.966)
which I think is actually what's happening is like kind of the same content that people are seeing consistently and like it's not that interesting. So they kind of keep scrolling. So you have to like think about how can you engage people in a way that they haven't been engaged with before.

But I can do it, I can figure it out, and so can you.

you can figure it out. So as opposed to allowing yourself to just stay in doubt, you need to work on that mindset and take action and try things and then be okay with it not working the way you want it to work. I know it's hard. It's so hard. I think it's one of the hardest parts of being a business owner is, I really hate this expression because I feel like it's been so overused.

Feel the fear and do it anyways. Feel the doubt and know that that's just your brain protecting you and keep going. It's still gonna show up and still gonna be there, but it's completely holding you back.

Like it is one of the main reasons you are not growing your business and making money. So if you need help with that, I can also help you. This is what a big thing I spend time with my clients on is this, mindset and coaching around this, daily work my clients do that I give them to kind of overcome this, and then also our weekly chats where I'll just challenge you in all of your ideas with lots of love.

Brittany Hagemann (32:23.214)
I'm very kindly direct if you haven't picked up on that because I understand and I also just will call BS on that. That's just not true. I just don't believe you. Okay, that is it for today. So good being back.

Brittany Hagemann (32:43.63)
and talking to you. I'll be back next week with another episode. Have a fantastic week. Bye for now.