I want to introduce myself and my story quickly.
A few years ago, I’d recently returned from travelling to live with a new boyfriend in a new area of Sydney.
I applied for a job with a salon franchise...
…that worked around nine stores and mostly from kiosks in the shopping centre. Almost instantly after the job interview, I got the job offer for the position I applied for and a Managers role for their Sydney CBD store.
I was over the moon and thought I’d hit the jackpot, but I quickly realised that the hours were long, the pay was minimal, and expectations to do treatments quicker, cheaper & better began to overwhelm me.
I remember the business owner saying that if the customers wanted ‘full’ coverage of lash extensions, they should go to another lash salon that charged more.
That’s when the cracks began to show.
The environment wasn’t about caring for or making our customers feel important…
It was to have them in and out, then pocket the money!
I had a desire for change. I knew there had to be a better way to do what I loved without providing a rushed job and the nastiness in a particularly stressful environment like a beauty salon.
I struggled to work for someone else. I had minimal time to experiment with treatments. I was told what products to use, how much of the products I could use, and the magic figure the salon needed to make weekly to receive commissions. And by this time, the owner had me managing three staff and the social media of the nine stores with zero boundaries in place to protect my personal life.
I’d had enough by this time.
I felt overworked, underpaid and underappreciated.
I was done with the toxic environment, and I started to plan how I would get out of there; I was desperate. I dreaded all the uncomfortableness of a shift at work, so I started applying for jobs not in the beauty industry!
For the next two years, I worked odd jobs, from traffic controller, warehouse packer, and bus driver for an aged care home. I was doing everything in my power to drive this dream home!
I was using my spare cash to do extra training, buy products, buy machines and offer services to friends and family in my boyfriend's family home’s spare room. It was a 2x3 room with its bathroom attached which was nice enough; I was lucky enough to use this space for free, which meant I could put all the money into learning! I was trailing all these different techniques, reading advice online and mixing up specific steps during the treatments to see what worked well.
Eventually, I began getting feedback, and my results became consistent.
I started building my reputation to eventually pluck up the courage…
…to seek out a salon room that I could rent out daily, which lasted for around three months until I found an even better room inside a medispa that I soon moved to while still working my part-time job as an admin for an engineering racecar company.
I had the attitude that whatever needed to be done, I was going to do it; the problem with this was that I was trying so many different things that I wasn’t saving much money, and my outgoings were growing with treatments I was adding. Most weeks, I worked my side job to pay for insurance and repayments on a purchased laser machine.
But I wish someone would've told me that you don’t need to help everyone. What I mean by this is you don’t necessarily make more money offering a tonne of services! In my experience, you waste a lot of time and money paying for expensive equipment, insurance and studying to perfect all the treatments.
Lash lifts were another service that factored into growing my business and reputation.
I used this treatment as an incentive for my ideal audience through local businesses I’d liaise with.
I’d have the ladies come in to redeem their gift vouchers, take tons of photos and offer hand massages as a little treat. They had referral and loyalty stamp cards when they left and were prompted for a review.
Lash lifts were perfect because the product cost was low, it took around an hour, and I had nothing better to do with my time. I was in a city where I didn’t know anyone and thought it was a good investment for growing my social media and skills, and hopefully, they’d tell someone about me. It was a win-win for me in my eyes.
Since then, I’ve cut down my treatment menu in the last five years. I’ve also relocated into my shopfront using my services and a mix of networking and marketing; I’ve built the highest Google rated lash + brow salon in Sydney's Sutherland Shire. With over 230 5-star google reviews and over a decade of industry experience, I knew I had to share what I learned with like-minded individuals.