The First Step Every Lash Artist Should Take in Their Business

So… you’ve taken a class and learned how to apply lash extensions, hooray! Know that this is an exciting accomplishment and it unlocks the doors to tremendous potential. You could literally change the trajectory of your life with this one skill. And while learning how to actually do the work you plan to put out into the world is great, it’s just the first step. It’s not enough to get you booked solid.

The unfortunate truth is that you can spend hundreds of hours learning how to do lash extensions but the act of simply learning and then opening your doors isn’t going to flood your business with clients. This is something that most classes won’t tell you and it leaves a lot of lash artists with skills that they can’t consistently use.

Sure, it’s possible to get some people in the door through referrals from family and friends but unless you have a massive family of influential people, it’s highly unlikely that those referrals will be enough to help you build a profitable business.

So, where do you start?

Before I explain, I want to first share a little backstory about my early days as a lash artist to help provide some context.

When I first started out, I was like a lot of artists thinking, if you build it they will come. I learned within the first month after my first class that wasn’t the case. So in an effort to get clients, I decided to work out of a day spa, hoping to piggyback on their clientele and get people in the doors.

Back then, I didn’t care who booked an appointment with me. If they had the money to pay, they were my client. I ended up getting a handful of clients from the spa’s existing clientele, but I still didn’t make enough to consider it a real business. It felt more like a side hobby based on what I was making at the time. And if I can just be honest here, when I looked at the handful of clients that I had, I didn’t feel driven or excited to work with them. I saw them as a job and a dollar sign.

Then one day I’d had enough. I told myself that if I couldn’t make at least $5000 a month doing lashes, I’d quit and go work a regular job. And I knew that my stategy of hoping clients would find me wasn’t going to work. I needed to take control of my business and my destiny the same way I did when I did hair extensions for a living. I knew that I would have to hustle and not rely on anyone.

At that time, I made some big changes to how I approached my business and although it took a few months, it paid off. I went from having a handful of clients I didn’t really enjoy working with to being booked a month out, working with clients that I actually enjoyed and looked forward to work with.

Here’s how I did it.

Although there were a bunch of little things I did along the way to get booked solid, I started in the same place that I have started every successful business I’ve owned. And when I’m hired to work with any business in any field, it’s the first place I start within their business to establish the foundation of the business. And that is to get super clear on who you want to serve.

By getting clear on who you want to serve, it means that you’ll be able to get more strategic and you’ll be able to design your business in a way that attracts the kind of clients you want to work with instead of taking anyone who will pay you to do their lashes. Once you know who your ideal client is, your communication from social media posts, to your marketing, to what you say on your website will be catered to that person and you’ll have a better chance of speaking to their wants and desires which will give you a better chance of getting them in the door and more people like them. When you know who your ideal client is, you’ll be able to get hyper focused on this one person and communicate to them in a way that connects and turns them into a client.

So, how do get clear on who your ideal client is?

Let’s use one of my personal experiences with you to illustrate how this works. In 2019, I went to Vegas for the very first time. For that trip, I got to experience Vegas that was very different from most people because I was there with a celebrity and their family.

At one point in the trip, I went to the Palms Casino for dinner with my party and when you walk into the casino, the first thing you’ll see is a bar and the gambling floor. That area is open to the public so anyone can get in. In the early days, my business was just like the entrance to the Palms Casnoi and the gambling area. Anyone with money could get in.

So then, I walk through the casino and to the restaurant. And this restaurant was also open to the public. So basically after gambling, anyone could head over to the restaurant to eat. No reservation needed. Honestly, the restaurant looked really nice to me. But the concierge comes over to my group and we’re guided to this super exclusive, private dining room. And this dining room was lavish. Beautiful art work on the walls, we had our own private wait staff and could pretty much do whatever we wanted to do in that room. That room was NOT for everyone at the casino. It was for VIPs. I won’t go into detail of how the night progressed in that room but I will tell you, I was there for hours, the food was amazing and it was an incredible experience.

When I made the decision to take ownership of my business, I treated it just like that private dining room at the Palms Casino. And I want you to think of your business that way too. Its not the place where anyone off the streets or anyone with money can get in. The only people that should be allowed into your business are your VIP’s. Those VIPs are your ideal clients and you’ll want to choose them as carefully as you’d choose your friends.

Here’s how you do it in a few simple steps. First, I want you to carve out some time to think about the people you’ve encountered in life that absolutely turned you off. What characteristics did they have? Were they mean? Did they talk too much? What are the things that you absolutely despise and don’t like? Write all of those things down.

Once you’ve made this list, now it will be a lot easier to get your juices flowing and thinking about the characteristics you love. Who do you enjoy spending time with and why? What do these people like to do? What personality traits do they have that you enjoy and that light you up? Write these things down on the opposite side of the page.

Then you want to take a look at that list of characteristics that you like and think about who that person is. Where does a person with these characteristics hang out? What kind of things do they like to do? What do they like to eat? Does this person have a family? Are they single? How old are they? How do they dress? What brands do they follow? Think about all of these things and you may even want to give this person a name to make it more real. In this exercise, you’re thinking about one person. Not a group. So, who is this person?

The reason why you want to do this exercise and go deep on who this person is, is because this is your ideal client. This is the person that you’re going to look forward to working with. This is your VIP. They don’t have to be famous or influential. They just need to be the kind of person you enjoy being around and that you like working with. When you get crystal clear on who this person is, it’s going to drive your decisions when it comes to your business. The kind of services you offer, what you say on social media and your website. It’s going to help you to design your business with this person in mind. And when you do this foundational work, this is what’s going to help you to attract more of your ideal clients.

An added benefit to doing this work in the beginning of your business is that it will repel those people that you don’t want to work with because your messaging won’t land with them. It won’t speak to the people that aren’t your VIP’s. Now I know that if you’re just trying to get new clients in the door, it may sound counterintuitive to repel clients. But trust me, clients that aren’t ideal for you usually become headaches because they won’t be completely satisfied with what you do and what you bring to the market. Trust that those less than ideal clients are ideal for someone else and know that it doesn’t serve you or the client when you work with clients that don’t light you up.

If you’ve already gotten started in your business and have clients, you’ll still want to do this exercise. Use your current clients as the example of who you love to work with and who you don’t and write it all out. Remember, it’s better to design a business you love now rather than have a business full of clients you don’t like years from now. No money in the world is worth your joy and happiness. You CAN have a profitable business that you love.

So to recap, the first thing that you want to do in your business is to get crystal clear on who it is you want to serve. This is THE MOST IMPORTANT step to designing your dream business and getting booked solid.

If you want to master your lash application and attract quality clients, check out my monthly program, the Lash Masters Monthly. Every month, I teach lash artists the latest techniques and strategies to master their lash application and attract their ideal clients.

You can join clicking the image below this article.

If you found this article helpful, leave a comment for me below and let me know the biggest takeaway for you. And if you’ve done the exercise I mentioned here, let me know what you learned in the comments below.