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Make Your Beauty Business Stand Out

I want to know, why do you want to own a beauty business? And you know why you and why beauty, what t what can you do to make your business stand out? This is something that you need to take into consideration before you make the investment into the kind of equipment and knowledge that you need to have to have a beauty business. So as we discussed with alana, there are a lot of things that you need to take into consideration. You just can't simply say, I'm going to make chapstick and lip balm and then just put that out into the world because you have more rules to follow than a lot of other hand makers. So really being clear that this is an adventure that you want to embark on and that this is something that you really want to dio is going to be an important piece to your complete puzzle of perfect business, so it would be really great if I would actually be interested in knowing if you could share in the chat why you want to start a beauty business, what is it that attracts you, teo? ...

Either bath and body, either or bath or body or both? And what makes you want to do something like that? I think that that would be really interesting for all of us actually to see what the various motivations and appeal to this is for a lot of people also another thing to think about when you're deciding on having a beauty businesses are you going to need each down? Are you going to narrow in on one particular thing that you would like to make herself that's going to be sort of the anchor were the foundation for your business? This is really helpful and a lot of ways on a lot of those reasons a lot of brought up and I was so thankful for but when you're working with sense you have to do a lot of experimentation there's a lot of different safety rules that come into play and there is a whole gamut of things that you need to consider when you're working with ingredients like that to make your product so often times choosing one or two things is and then then allowing your business to build out from there is a great way to start actually because you can sort of make a minimal investment but you can get a big return from your customers and create a really strong loyalty right from the get go for example, I was in portland, oregon, where he now lives, but a few years ago I didn't live there I was there on book tour and my lips got chapped and I bought a lip balm that was from a local lip balm company called portland be bone and I loved that lip balm so much that when I ran out, even though I was not in portland, I have consistently ordered that lip balm online for ever now and now I give it as gifts all of the time I stuck up on and buy tons of it, but it's, and they just have this one product and it's lip balm that they make from from the honey from the bees that are actually on their property, but they just started with one thing and work from there. So that's, another really great benefit to having a bath or beauty business is that oftentimes you can just have one signature product and really take that as far as you can for as long as you can, which a lot of other john ra's within the within the options that you have for handmade businesses, don't allow as much restriction on what you're going to make in order to be successful, so consider sort of narrowing down what your ideas are getting very specific about what you can offer, and also who is sir, target market. There are so many different directions, you can go when you have a beauty business, or you're going to make products for babies, are you going to target an audience that has values that's really going tio be interested in? Buying and purchasing and using organic products like a wanna was saying, do you want to target people with a specific kind of skin or of, you know, a specific lifestyle? Who is your target audience for the products that you want to make it's almost limitless, the different directions you can go in? And I think that that's one area that makes this particular industry really flexible and also really easy, tio kind of rein things in it the same time, which I think is a lonely easing eso right off the top of my head, I mean, you could think about customers are getting a value organic people who have allergies, people have certain skin conditions, people who do not like sense, and now they're sad that they can't find good, you know, soap or hair conditioner or lotion or whatever it is because they're really sensitive teo perfumes and dies and sent so there's just so, so many different ways that you can go there. So this is one of alanis photos that I used in the slide, so I sort of mixed photos from her business throughout our whole presentation so that you could kind of get a double look at what we're talking about, but also the way that she's chosen to do her branding, which I think is really appealing, but so who is your customer? What do they want? How much are they willing to spend to get it and how will you find them once you narrow once you figure this part out it's going to make the rest of your business run a lot smoother once you know who you're selling to and white it's just going toe all make so much more sense to you and be so much easier if you already know what you want to make, then you probably already know a lot about who you think is going to buy it for example, you're only going to sell ten dollars a ten dollar bar of soap to someone very particular somebody you really has ah high value for what that ten dollars, worth of soap is, you know to them versus what they could get a lot cheaper. So when I want and I were doing the podcast, one of the things that we talked about actually was all of the things that him made soap represent to me because I will just come out and tell you that I am a handmade soap user and always have been partially because I get so much of it as gifts but also because it is something that I really like, I like my bathroom to be a kind of certain way or smell a certain way when I walk into it and handmade soap really does that for me far more so than regular soap that I could just get wood dio, so I am her kind of customer that will splurge or make room for handmade soap and my personal budget, so she already kind of knew something a little bit about me, just just from that fact, and the same goes for your customers, if you know that they are really thrifty, or really I have a different set of values or a different set of concerns, you're going to be able to aim your packaging, you're writing everything else that you're doing towards the person who has those consumer traits in mind. So, for example, she really was thinking about who was going to be her customer when she did all of this. So I think, amy, she even had a little sprig of greenery that she rot in today for her display. So thinking about your branding and who you're working for all across the board like that is really going to make your job is a business owner so much he's here. So what do you need to get started with your beauty business? If you wanted tio really get going and get something started as soon as possible, you can start out with thinking about these five things if you wanted to get started on creating your business today, a vision, a plan you need supplies to make your product, you need tools to make your product and run your business, and then you need courage, so we're going to start at the top here with vision, a vision in this case is what kind of business do you want to create? So we're sort of thinking big here like, like alana did in the beginning when she started, you know, and I love how she said that where she is now, five years later, is not where she started out, you know, she she's not even where she was a year ago because a year ago, she had a full time job, so having a vision for what you want to sell, or what you want to make is really an important part of deciding what kind of business you're going tohave, or even if you really want to go into business, so creating sort of a big picture vision for yourself on what you want and how you're going to do it, and who you're going to do it. For all of that, all of the other choices that you need to make as you go along owning your own business and into that journey all sort of come from some element of this vision that you can look back on and pick out certain parts of what you saw happening for yourself, for your or your vision, and then that will help you make the decisions that you need to make us time goes on. If your vision is for your business to fully sustain you, let's, say, three years from now, that's going to affect everything from that's going to affect how much you sell your product for so your prices. And then if you are asking a lot of money for what you make or what your customer perceives as a lot of money for what you make, then you might need to adjust your ingredients. Then you might need tio invest more in your packaging or your web presence or whatever that is. So if you're if you're ultimate goal is for your business to support you one hundred percent, the your vision helps you get helps you to get clear on the decisions you need to make along the way. Ah, plan is how you're going to get it all done. The plan is your vision moved into action. Your business isn't going to happen and it's not going to exist in nothing. Really good for you is going to come out of any of this work if you don't put any action behind your words or your dreams or your desires, you have to be motivated, you have to be interested in doing the work, and you have to be ready to take action aa lot of this sort of things that make sense, like, of course, I can't have a business if I'm not willing to work, but it is a little bit harder tio do than it is to say, so anything that you want to create for yourself and your business, and in your life, you need to have a vision for it, and then you need to know what the action step is, and then you need to actually execute. So knowing what you need to do and then getting it done are two completely different things, so you need a vision, and then you need a plan, and then you need to take action on that plan, so I'm going to say it just one more time, but your plan is your vision in action. Um, next, you're going to need supplies, you're going to need supplies to make the things that you create, so you just can't decide to make something, and then it appears out of thin air. If that was true, my life would be a whole lot different than it is right now, you actually have to get the supplies that you need to make your product, you need to have the best supplies possible, which could require that you make some additional investments, which we are going to talk about in a little bit, but you need to have the supplies available to make at least her signature product or the product that you want to start with. You're also going to need some tools to make your business happen. You're going to need a camera if you plan on selling online because you need photographs, you're going to need a way to access the internet so that you can build a store, you're going to need to be able to write your own copy, you're going to need a boxes to ship your product and you're going to need packaging if you are selling beauty products than most likely you're going to need labels, you're going to need to take extra care with their packaging and the way you ship your stuff, particularly if you make anything that is liquid s oh, you have a lot of other things to think about with your beauty business, you're packaging needs me and clued things like stickers and expiration dates, you might need to make sure that you were listing all of their ingredients correctly and that everything is the way it's supposed to be that you're complying with any laws or any restrictions that the government might put on your business. And I want to say that I don't know what it is like in other countries, right off the bat I can on ly speak and very limited lee to what the laws are in the united states, but it could be different where you live, so, you know, you need to also account for and plan on, doing some additional research time to figure out exactly what your business needs to move forward and a an illegal way, which is going tio affect the tools that you need to actually do your business. You might even also need people who contest your products before you put them out into the marketplace and s o those are actually assets. I hope that the people who test your products are not tools, but you need other things that people just don't need in order to get your business done and there's a lot to think about it a lot to keep track of, which is why you're going to need a big, giant, healthy dose of courage. All of this is pretty pretty complicated stuff, and I think that the results are worth it in the end. I mean, we heard I want to say that she wouldn't go back to working full time, no matter what. And I hope that the same the same holds true for you that as you work on improving your business and getting it to where you really want to be, that you soon won't be ableto imagine doing anything else, but when you're just starting out and when you're just trying to get all of your ducks in a row and trying to figure out what you really want to d'oh, we need a lot of courage because it gets hard and it gets lonely and it gets confusing and that's why I put it on the list because it's, no joke that alarm a said you're obviously right, she would not go back to being an employee, and I think a lot of people have that fear of taking issues, talking about health insurance, etcetera, but having the courage to really move forward, no, what no one rarely ever looks back. Yeah, I really don't I think it's interesting, because I know a lot of people now who have decided not to continue on with their handmade business, but it's only because it wasn't what they thought it was going to be. They thought that it was going to be a lot different, and it turns out that they just warn us entrepreneurial as they thought, or owning a business wasn't what they thought it was going to be like, which would be the category that I fall into. Owning a business is nothing what I imagined it would be like, but the more the people I know are like a wanna who just think like I wouldn't I couldn't do anything else, I wouldn't do anything else, and they had no idea until they actually found themselves in a tough position and needed to make those choices, but people, I really don't know many people that go back because they couldn't handle the work they go back because it just wasn't what they ultimately want it, and they didn't know it until they tried it, but yeah, I mean, come to think of it, I don't know a single person, you said that was just too hard, you know? But this brings me to this little handy slide that owning a business is a whole lot of work and then just I'll be frank, it just doesn't really seem to end sometimes, but the thing is, is that it's a whole lot better on the other side? And I do think for the most part it is always, always, always worked that, but when you feel this way when it does feel like too much or you're not sure if you're making the right decisions or everything just seems too hard and it's just exhausting and you don't know what you're doing and something spilled or something didn't come in the mail or you've got a mean email, whatever it is that's, why it's really important for you to build community and that's? Why it's really important for you to know how to reach out and ask for help when you're starting your business? No one does this alone. I don't know anybody who does this alone and you do not have to be the first person in the world who who starts a business all by themselves and is completely alone out there in the world, not sure of what's going on. You are not the only person who feels this way sometimes, or who experiences the's things, and you do not have to keep it to yourself, find a group of people who want to support you and want to understand you and want you to succeed. They exist and they're waiting for you, so even though this is so much work, it really it really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really is worth it, okay? These are some really great questions to ask yourself is your beginning, and what do you already have that you know you need? So that is something that I think is a place where a lot of us get trapped when we're starting handmade business in the beginning, we think we need so much more than we already dio, but just like we learned from alana today, your business starts in a place that you're not probably going to be in a year. So it's often times a little bit it's not necessary for you to invest a lot of dollars into things like a website or branding at your very initial stages, because you're not sure you're not exactly sure yet what your business is going to morph into you are what you're going to decide that you want in the future, or what's really going to be popular with your customers that you're going to want to expand on or build on or continue on. So you probably already have a lot of what you need to start your business right now, obviously you have some sort of skill set, which is why you're going considering it in the beginning. So you already have some knowledge around what you want to do, what you want to create and what you want your business to look like because you're already here. So that's that's, you're already into such a good place that it's that it's amazing. So sometimes it's helpful. If you're really worried about starting a business to create a list of all the things that you already have that you think that you need and then you can give yourself a little bit of relief in that when you look over the list and you think I already have the's. So molds already have the's specialist already have these five books. Oh, I already have a stainless steel pot. Oh, I already have a computer web site and camera. These calculator watch. Whatever it is that you need to make your business start or move or move forward, you probably have a lot of it at your disposal. Already. A really big thing that I need you to think about is how much time can you invest in your business? We all know if you make soap by hand that it's not a fast process, you know, how much time do you really have to? To devote to what you're doing and how much time do you are you going to be able to put into the other side of your business, which doesn't have anything to do with making, but that is your branding your packaging, you're labeling your professional memberships, you're selling online your commute education with customers applying for shows, how much time do you really have to invest in this business? It's okay, if your answer is not that much, if you don't have a lot of time that's all right, there's. So many options that you have in the beauty business for people with limited time, this could be you are you introduce seasonal lines on lee, so you know that you're only going to make one cent or whatever it is for spring, summer fall, you could just do one of a kind, one of a kind sense that air for one month it's on lee, you know you could move forward like that with all of these restrictions on your business that are actually just really healthy boundaries and parameters that you set for yourself that will help you stand out, yet help you take advantage of just how much time that you don't have, so when it comes to working on our business, it's really important to remember that almost everything takes longer than we think it does. In fact, I challenge you to the next time you sit down to make something, or you begin to design something or think about a new product or something new that you want to try really spend sometime zero and on how long it takes you to do it. And I think that the true answer will really surprise you at how much longer it takes for you to actually do it. Then what you think I know for myself? When I tried experiments with this, like, if I asked myself, how long is it going to take you? Teo ex wires. E I will write down like something crazy, like forty minutes, which feels like, oh, and in that time it can also check my email. But then, lo and behold, actually check my email for forty minutes and get kind of lost in there and not not get out of my work done, and then I never got my actual task done to begin with, which is part of time management and part everything takes longer than we think it's going tio, so really spend some time going deep into what time you have to put into your business, because if you you need to match your expectations with the time that you have available and that's something that's really easy to overlook, but it is one of the big kickers when we start to feel a little bit down about ourselves is to think I didn't do enough get didn't do a good enough job, I didn't have time to make this work. What you really mean by that is that you wanted to do too much with the time that you had available. So how much can you really get done and the kind that you honestly have available to you and that that is that'll make a huge difference in what you're doing? I do something that I like to call mind maps, and I don't have an example of when here but it's, where I write if I'm going to work that day and I am on early visor, so say that I am planning on getting up at four thirty that day, and I am also ah, late sleeper, so usually go to bed around midnight, so if I plan out all of those hours on my piece of paper and divide them up into our chunks, if I end up blocking out the things that I'm going to have to do, no matter what else is going on during that day, if I need tio run errands or have a meeting or make dinner for my family or whatever it is that I'm responsible for that day that has nothing to do with my actual workflow. Sometimes I could fill in all of those squares and see that I only have, like, two hours on wednesday because I am my time is actually booked and all of those other our segments, and that always surprises me where I just think, uh, but it's a full day. So what we have, we think about our time, and then what we end up with in reality is often different. So how much money can you invest in cheer business? If there's something that your business really needs to get a good start than you're going to have to invest that money, then you need to know about that from the beginning and be really honest about yourself. It doesn't feel is good if you have a business and particularly a small and made business or however you're deciding to start out and you drop a lot of cash on that right off the get go and then aren't sure how you're going to earn that back, but also it the same time, I'm saying, I'm going to start this business and not spend any money is also unrealistic there's, hidden fees or not not hidden I'm just things that maybe you don't really think about that easily anytime you list something to your online store, you know, sometimes you're charged a fee for that if you accept a payment through an online service that collects money for you, you know that's usually not free, and you'll have tio pay some money to that company that helps you with your credit card transaction on the web hosting fees for your website like these are all things that cost money and it's easy to not think about them, really, because they're just things that we're paying all the time without really being aware of it. But if you need to buy a piece of equipment or if you need to upgrade something that you already have or if there's something that you can invest in now that's going to make running your business easier down the road for example, something that's going to save, save your back or save your hands or your wrists when you're making soap and you're cutting through those heavy bars of soap, you know you really have to put your back into it and use your honor strength to do that work and that's, you know, could wear on your body over time, and you really want to take care of that because without it you're just not going to be in business because it would be impossible to make soap without using your body. So, you know, investing in any kind of equipment that can make your job a lot easier is definitely better for your business in the long run and it's important to be clear about that from the start with yourself. Also, how solid are your concepts and your ideas? And by this, I mean, are you really sure that you know what you want to be making? Aa lot of people find it really exciting and fun to just jump right into business without being really sure what they want to do. They have some sort of big idea, and they have some really good thoughts. But being really clear about what you want to make and how you're going to make money, it's going to be really dead. Actual to you, in the end, you're going to save yourself a lot of time and a lot of energy, and if you're anything like me, a lot of tears, you're going to have a clear path to follow in the future, and that will really come from being pretty solid on where you are with your concepts and ideas. If you're just experimenting or just winging it, or just trying to learn, and you want to start a business during your learning phase, I think that there's room in a space for all that, but that would mean that you had a very different kind of vision, and that would mean that you were willing to start or be involved in a very different kind of business than one that you plan on having carry you, carrying you forward into into the future and successfully so really being clear on what your concepts and ideas are is a pretty important part of the process. Another thing that I want you to be really sure about before you start your business are before you decide to expand or change your business is how skilled are you? Really? I think it is really, really great to remember that we all start somewhere that nobody is for knowing how to do anything that they know how to do now that nobody except for maybe breathe, but, you know, like you just all of the skills that you have, all of the things that make you incredible, all the things that make you the person you are today are all things that you had to learn in some way, shape or form, and then you just realized you were good at them, and so you continued on with them. You don't have to know everything about owning a business tio own a business because you can learn or improve upon anything that you already know, and you can figure out things that you need to know. But one thing is for sure, if you're going to put yourself out there as a maker of any particular kind of product, you're going to need to be good at making that kind of product because obviously you want people to buy, you want to be in business and you want to be successful. So how skilled are you really at making what you wanted? Nick, can you think right from the beginning ways that you can match your projects? Tio bachir work to improve your workflow? Is there anything that you need to learn that could really make a big difference to your bottom line about the way you do you're producing of what of what you want to sell to people? What kind of skills could you improve or could you pick up that will make your business run smoother and make things easier for you? I think that the truth is is that we all can figure out what some of those areas are, where we're a little weak and how we could make that better there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think it is the more successful business person who says I need to constantly be learning I need tio up my photography skills, I need to improve my writing skills because my copy isn't drawing people, and I get asked too many questions over email, and I think I could solve all of that if I had a better explanation on my website or change my sales copy in some sort of way. So house killer you really and if there's an area where you need to improve, how are you going to improve it? Where you going to go to get better? What do you need your business to get back to you? And this is ultimately what is your business existing for? What are your expectations for your business? If you don't know what that is, then you will never know if your business is really doing a good job, you'll just know if you're happy doing it or if it's fun or if you like it if your business doesn't have any benchmarks that you're trying to reach, are places that you're trying to get your business to take you, then you just have a hobby that makes some money. You need to figure out where you really want your business to end up, so that you can number one, figure out how to get there and number to keep in touch with if that's what you really want on dna number three year business needs to work for you. We don't talk about this, I don't think soon enough, but you are in business to make money unless you ran a charity, which is also fine, but you know you're in business to make money, we all need to make money. At the end of the day, we need our efforts to pay off. We need to get our we need to recoup our investment dollars that we put into place, but that's not going to happen unless you're really clear with yourself and honest with yourself in the beginning about how much money you want to make. If you were to say that you want to make x amount of dollars for the year, but then you look at how much time you have to actually invest, and you can only say, make one hundred things, and you know that they sell for a dollar, if if you do the math and you end up with what you're able to produce, what you can produce and then how much you need to produce if there's a really big discrepancy between those two numbers, then you need to rethink the structure of your business and whether or not this is the right thing for you to be doing so that's why it's important to know what you want your business to give back to you and that could be a really hard question and sometimes your partner or your family needs to be involved with making a decision like that but it is it is definitely one of the key factors of having a successful business and it goes back to the first flight that we had of the segment which was why you why do you want to be in business? So with all that being said, all these things you need to think about how much time you have how much money do you have? Are your ideas good or not? All those different things that we've been talking about for the past few minutes I want you to know that I want you to know this there's the reason that you can't do it and do it well all of these things even within the beauty and bath business that are there so many rules and regulations for you too follow there's no reason that you can't figure it out joining an organization, I think, is almost imperative in this industry. If you're really interested in taking your business as big and as far as you wanted to go, because you are probably going, you need to have a group of people that you can turn to to ask for advice or questions, or what their experiences were. You can learn anything. You can figure out everything that you need to figure out. People do want to help you, particularly people who are more established than you. They remember what it was like to be in your shoes. When alana was talking about hermann's, where today and how she met that person through a professional organization and how much it enhance stand changed her business. I meant to ask her if she ever plans on being a mentor someday, because I was assuming that her answer was going to be, yes, that she did plan on being a mentor to someone else. Someone someday, because people do want to help you, and they wanted to be successful and there's a little side note there about competition that you might feel afraid to reach out to somebody who is doing something similar to what you want to do for yourself because you might think that they don't want to talk to you because they're your competition, and I have a couple of different things to say about that which is number one. Competition is healthy, it proves that there's a demand in the marketplace. So as many people as there are, that makes something similar to you in your market, whether that's, locally or the the world or wherever you hang out or wherever you think your ideal customer is, really, because that's, where you want to target, you're selling efforts it's really good if you have some competition in there because that gets people choices and choices, what I think really helps people to buy was is what helps them make it if they see that there's so many companies out there putting out a similar sort of product, you kind of start to feel like, oh, I think I really need eat that well, I think I really want that it reinforces their decision to buy something when they have a lot of choice and that's what one reason why you should not be afraid of competition if you let up against somebody who says they don't want to share information with you because it's proprietary or secret or whatever it is that's fine just respect that and either ask your question to somebody else or ask them if there's some some other way that they can recommend that you find the information that that you want to have have. I see that happen again and again in business where somebody doesn't want to share a resource that they have because they want to keep that upper hand or they feel like that fact is is a part of what gives their business and edge eso just move on and take that in stride and ask your question to somebody else, and eventually you will find somebody who doesn't feel like that detail is imperative to their success, and they will be willing to share that information with you. I want to reaffirm that you most likely need less to begin than you think you d'oh. I think if you have a aa a phone on your camera, you have a camera on your phone, you have a computer, you have a product that you want to sell, I mean, you could start a business by the time we're done with this course, you could have something online. For sale and the next forty minutes or so. And I could. Then, ma got mine, and I could purchase it. So starting a business is really a lot easier than you think. And there is absolutely nothing that you could want to do for your business, whether it is at a widget to your website, or figure out a shipping cost. Or find out what a law or regulation is for your area, that the internet cannot help you figure out. So it is an incredible all of the resources that we have at our disposal these days that make things so much easier.