Make 2024 Your Year: Part 3 Growth | Ep 6

Welcome to Part Three of our series on making 2024 your year! In this episode, we delve into strategies for growth. Learn how to stand out in the industry with the Principle of Attention and harness the Power of Paid Ads. Overcome limiting beliefs, shift your mindset, and discover the importance of Building Your Database for sustained growth. Whether you're a PMU artist, salon owner, medspa owner, microblading artist, or any beauty pro, this episode is packed with actionable insights to drive your success. Let's make 2024 your breakthrough year in the beauty business!

Get your copy of 'The No Fluff Guide to Growing Your Beauty Business' for actionable insights. https://beautybizai.com/free-book-2

Transcript

All right, welcome to part three of the how to grow your business and 2024. So if you are a beauty business owner, you might have not heard part one and two, you can go back and listen or watch those later. But this is going to be very important. And what I should really title this video is, you know what I wish I had known when I started my business seven years ago, because if I had done these few things that we're going to be teaching you guys, it would be such a life changer, not only for the quality of my life for those first few years in business, but also for the growth of my business. And so Tony, you know, what's the what's the first thing we want to talk about today?
So the first principle I call a principle, the first principle I want to talk about and one thing you know, me and you both discuss this, we wish we knew in our business, when we first started out, is the principle of attention. She who owns the attention of their hurt, he or her audience wins. What do I mean by that? If now's a tongue twister, right. But what I mean by that is, you know, think about this, whenever it regardless of the economy, there's always somebody looking for your type of service, it just gets a little bit harder, right? So that means you have to get in front have a little bit more people. And getting in front of a little bit more people means you have to gain more people's attention, right? So in order to gain more people's attention, you know, the number one principle we wish we were to start we mean, you both agree to this is we wish we started running paid ads, like that was the number one thing and then we're not just saying that as marketers, but we're saying that as Imagine getting in front of 1000 people every day, because Jake, how many people were you getting in front of on a daily basis, when you first started out your marketing,
that's the thing I was getting in front of a decent amount of people via Facebook groups and word of mouth and stuff. But now that I look back, I'm like, Wow, if I just like added fuel to the fire with ads, I would have reached 1000s and 1000s of more people. And it would have just been a game changer for me. Because that way, instead of spending hours and hours trying to prospect trying to message people trying to post on Facebook groups, you know, I could set up an ad and have it running on autopilot. And that's, that's the thing. So many people say that I don't have time. Well, ads are gonna run for you 24/7, you don't have to sit there and you know, micromanage them necessarily.
And that's the that's all thing with, you know, even with, you know, me and my wife watching our new studio, you know, I'm not concerned about is she going to make it is she going to survive, is it going to work because I just No, I have to get more attention on her business than her competitors are getting on theirs. And the simple way, I'm going to do that and just, I'm not hiding it, I'm just gonna run more ads and spend more money than my competitor. It's that simple. And you know, I know for some of you, you may not be in that position, but you are in a position to still take control your business, and get out there and get in front of more people consistently. And I don't mean posting on Facebook, posting on Instagram, posting an amazing reel and hoping two or three or four people like your post, what I mean is actually going out and making raw connections with people who have maybe followed some of your competitors go out there and click on their followers and saying, Hey, I noticed you were following some of the same people. Have you had permanent makeup done? Or have you had keratin treatments? And have you had XYZ service done? Okay. The cool part about it is for so many of you, you focus on how do I get, you know, how do I find my clients, guess what, every everybody has a competitor in this world, everybody has a competitor, go on your competitors profile, and just see who they're following. And make a connection because I guarantee you, your competitors, not even connecting with their own followers. And that's how you win when you don't have any money. But I
think too many people have the limiting belief of I don't have enough money to run ads, like I need 1000s of dollars to start advertising. And the fact is, you know, even from our marketing agency, we have packages that literally will cost you less per month than going out to eat to dinner once. And
Jake, you know, it's funny when we started back in 2018 with you, you know, we were bootstrapping it, we were doing different things. Like we were very tight budgeted, you know, paycheck to paycheck, individuals. And, you know, you have to also have faith and I'm not saying like, you know, spiritual faith in it, you have to have faith that it's going to work. We didn't you know, I you asked me the other day, like, did you ever think that you would fail? And I was like, no, because I knew I just had to get in front of more people. And then that's when we started about the whole attention and how this podcast came about. Right? That's
the thing is like, in Sorry to cut you off. But so like this is the most important part of any podcast this the most important thing I've ever said on any podcast is all of you listening or watching you believe in something. And that's the difference between faith and doubt. You either believe that it's not going to work out or you believe that it is going to work out and I'm not saying have you know, blind faith and like do something stupid and think it's gonna work out magically, like, that's not what I'm talking about. But I think you understand most people should understand that, like, you can sit there and listen to your fears and believe in those and really worry about everything. Or you can take smart action, but the key there is to take action. And you know, instead of asking questions like, well, what if it doesn't work out? Well ask questions like, what if it does work out? Or when is it going to work out like things that are more positive? And this is not just about, you know, affirmations, but these little mindset shifts will make a huge difference. Absolutely.
And, you know, I going into like having doubt and fear in talking with a lot of our clients and things like that. The unfortunate part is, whenever we brought on clients to our agency, that have said, Hey, this is my last dollar, it's got to work it's got to do is I have to have clients and I have, like, all that negativity and pressure, right out of the gate when they're signing up. It's never worked out. And you know, me, and you instituted last year that, you know, if anybody ever comes to us like that, we're just going to gracefully say, unfortunately, we're not the company for you. And it's not that it's not going to work. It's that what we know is when individuals put so much energy in thinking that it's not going to work, they're speaking into existence, and it's not going to work, somehow it's not going to work is
the same thing, like and somehow I've been guilty of this in the past, where it's like, you know, I want to get in shape. I want to lose weight, and you start doing all the right things. You have the diet plan, you go into the gym, and then two weeks go by. And it's funny, because me and my wife actually been going through this, it's like, oh, you know, we're not losing weight fast enough, or it doesn't feel like it's working. I'm the same weight. But you gotta remember it's a process and things take time to adapt and optimize. It's not going to be instant results. Yep. And
that's, that's all key to it is I knew going into it, you know, back in 2018. With you, Jake, that it was going to take some time. Lo and behold, it all it took was two weeks and we started seeing results. Mind you again, we were paycheck to paycheck. I was stressing about Jake's upcoming bill. And you're super nice about you're willing to work with us. You're you want to see us succeed. But at the end of the day, your business on a charity. And I understood that, you know that bill was coming up. I had to pay it if I wanted to keep her doors open. And honestly, not a lot of people know this, but I paid you before we paid her rent. And my wife asked me she was I was like, Why? Why are we paying Jake before the rent? And I said, Well, here's the thing. If we don't have clients, we can't pay the rent. So what's the point in paying the rent? If I'm not gonna have clients? Think about that. Think about like, and she's like, Wait, you're right. Like, the most important thing isn't rent. It's making sure your clients, it's in front of clients. I've
even seen people where they'll spend you know, $20,000, making sure they have a beautiful place, and everything's decorated and pretty nice. But then they have no clients. And so what's the point of having all that if you don't have clients? Yep,
I actually had a, an individual I was talking to the other day, she's like, I'm spending $100,000 on a builder. I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And I'm like, so what are you doing to get clients? She's like, well, once everything's done, I'm gonna I'm gonna circle back with you. I said, so you're gonna wait till everything's done, and you're locked into 100k in debt. And then you're going to wait to start thinking about hiring eight clients and sort of start thinking about that way before. So it's mind blowing. So but I think, Jake, that is our number one that we both agree that attention is the number one thing you need in your business, regardless of what phase of business you're in, whether you're new, or whether you're experience. Especially I would like to say this, though, Jake, especially when it comes to the experienced artists, because experienced artists tend to fall on their reputation. And as more and more competition comes in, your reputation is going to dwindle, dwindle, dwindle, dwindle, dwindle, and no one's gonna care that you're five times master certified XYZ and all that stuff, it's just gonna become a price war. So it's cheaper for you to start marketing and start gaining the attention now, instead of waiting until you need that attention,
but I mean, there I totally agree with that. But you know, if you are someone who's experienced or you know, you have a better service, instead of making it what a price war like Tony mentioned, where it's all about who has the cheapest price, you know, follow tactics, like we teach in the no fluff guide to grow your beauty business, the book, you know, we teach how to set yourself apart so that people are not just focused on the price, they're actually focused on the value and so, you know, that's all about the marketing side of things, but that'll be a different podcast. By the way, if you do want a free copy of the book, just shoot us a DM on Instagram PMU marketer and I'll send you a copy. Anyway so the other thing that I would go back and tell myself seven years ago when I started a business is like, Hey Jake, you got to get more organized with leads. You got to have some kind of system because, you know, writing I'm looking at my bookshelf in the background. And somewhere over there, I've got some notebooks. And in those little notebooks, I used to write down all my clients like I would write down their name number info, when I'd call them, I'd read down their notes, and it was so disorganized because it's all on paper. And then I have to like flip through and try to find them anytime I want to reference and it was like, very inefficient. But now I've found that there are actually software's for example, we have a software called BT. Biz AI. But any kind of software it's going to call it. It's a CRM basically is what we call it, Tony, what is CRM even stands for?
Yep, it stands for customer relationship management system. Now, for many of you, you may think that you already have that, like, let's say, the gar acuity gloss genius is one of those other platforms. Those are client relationship management system CRMs. But they're for clients that have already transacted with you. Okay, what Jake's talking about what you're talking about, you can correct me if I'm wrong, is what about all those inquiries that haven't transacted with you
it's Think about it like, and I'll let you continue to second time, I just want them to think about this. Like, think about all the people that have messaged, you contact us you inquired about your service looked at your website, do every one of those book? No, in fact, you're actually doing a great job if you can get one out of 10 people to book a 10% conversion rate, you know, out of the gate. And so that means 90% of the people who have inquired with you have not booked yet. So how are you managing those people? And that's what Tony is referring to?
Yeah. And that's where Jake, when you know, when we first hired you, you kind of impress that upon us, and it was you didn't have it dialed in the way we have it now. But I can't tell you how many times you know, whenever we're running ads, we need to follow up every lead at least three to four times. Like if you're looking to hire any marketer and just get bookings in the on demand. It's not it's not realistic. You have.
Yeah, so think about it. Like let's say you get 100 leads a month or 100 inquiries a month websites completely average for our clients, a lot of even get more. So let's say you've been advertising in business six months, well, now you have 600 leads, like, even if you were to do the things we teach for cells, which is follow up like I mean, any sales companies, or marketing company or any business owner is going to tell you, you have to follow up, the money's in the follow up to get people to book for the most part. And so even if you were going to follow up with everybody yourself, like how can you possibly do it with 600 people, you're going to be glued to your phone for hours and hours and hours. So instead, what if you had a system where you could just shoot out a quick text message to 600 people or shoot out a quick email or Facebook message? Well, that's exactly what a good CRM, you know, will do. And like I said, I'm not trying to sell you guys on PD. Biz AI, but we do have a software that we have, you know, and we're happy to give you guys a free trial if you mentioned it from this podcast. But we do have a software that does all this stuff. And so you know whether you want to see a demo of it, or if you just want to, you know, look at one of our other YouTube videos, I think we have it but yeah, I wish I could go back seven years ago and say like Jake, get some kind of CRM like
it's it's, you know, not applicable to the beauty industry, but not having a CRM cost me over six figures when I was in real estate. And it's the same concept. I sold so many houses my first year, I was crushing it. I was making Well, mid six figure years, our first year, but I didn't remember anybody that inquired that whole first year. So when the second year came around, I was scrambling to get all new people. So building a database, you're literally building almost like your own community of people that know like and trust you that are willing to in supporters that are willing to transact with you. And all you do.
Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned database, because we literally have like, last year, we had two clients, and it was same situation. Totally different outcome. So one of the clients. So one of our clients, her name was actually Marla, and she had her Facebook page shut down. And so she lost her Facebook page, which means she lost her Facebook inbox leads. But guess what, she had our CRM software and so she had their name, number and email. She was able to quickly text our you know, inquiries and clients say, like, Hey, I just got hacked from I lost my Facebook account, please go like this new page and like it was up and running quickly. And she was able to bounce back and she's doing better than ever. Now. On the other side of things. We had a client who did not have our software, they were just running ads. And when their Facebook page got shut down, they lost all their leads. And it was a huge struggle like it was it was not good and I don't I still don't think they've ever caught up and so having that database is like having insurance for your business. Yeah,
and for those of you who are listening and watching, Facebook is notorious for just randomly shutting down your profile, for example, you know, if you're a permanent makeup artists, depending on how what angle, you may have taken your photo, or your video, Facebook can classify that as self harm. It's literally there that finicky. So as marketers, we do our best and will tell you, Hey, you can't use this. You can't use that, just like you can't use before and afters. So I'm not saying we're not trying to scare you by saying your Facebook pages get shut down and instill fear in you. But we want to tell you that it does happen. And even
my even my personal profile got shut down for no reason back in 2020. And like, I didn't get it back until six months. And it wasn't like most people think like, oh, I'll just contact Facebook support, and they'll make it right. No, Facebook support is too busy. They don't care about you. Even when I contact Facebook support back then I had VIP support. But they were like, Yeah, this is some kind of glitch. We don't know how to fix it. And so luckily, I finally got my profile back. But imagine not having your main source of leads, like in your inbox of all those clients for six months or forever.
Yeah, it's super scary. And you know, us as marketers, we have so many stopgaps in place. But at the end of the day, we don't control Facebook, Facebook beats at its own drum, and they make their own decisions. So it's definitely it's super nice note having that kind of insurance policies out there.
Yeah, we were actually at a conference a couple years ago. And I forget what his name is, but they consider him the godfather of digital marketing, like he's been around forever. But he was like, yeah, if you lost everything today, the only thing you would have left in your business that your database. So think about that, if you lost your Facebook, your Instagram, your Tick, tock, you know, whatever you lost, the only thing you're gonna have left is your email list. And hopefully, you have people's phone numbers too.
So it's super scary database is so crucial. So
and just how we said with and this is all kind of flowing together, because like the first step on this podcast is we said, You got to get in front of more people and build more connections. Well, guess what? Having a database and a CRM stuff is going to help you keep those connections, because the initial connection, the initial intention is great. But you know, what, really drives a business to that next level is repeat clients. And you can't have repeat clients if you don't stay in touch with people. Yep.
Yep. I would say honestly, right now, almost 30 to 40% of our business comes from repeat clients. Yeah, comes from stay at a textbox or email blasts. So it's awesome. So
yeah, because like, especially when people are thinking like, well, advertising expensive, yeah, advertising can be pricier to get a new client compared to having a repeat client. And that's why with all of our clients, we sit down and say, like, you know, there might be some special circumstances, but for the majority of like, 98% of businesses, we say, you know, get somebody in the door, even if it's, you know, a higher cost than you would normally think of just to acquire that client. And then have a special strategy, which we've actually, you know, almost trademarked this strategy, but have a special strategy, where you can actually get them to come a repeat not only a repeat customer, but a raving fan. And that way, they're just like, almost like like, for example, a lot of my clients are like friends slash family to me, just because I get people in the door. And then once I have them as a client, I make them a repeat client, and I take care of them.
Yep, it's all about taking care of your people. It really is so but awesome. Well, I think Jake, on our next podcast, what we need to do is kind of go over that secret weapon you're just kind of alluding to and talking about. So stay tuned for our next podcast on that. Yeah.
And we appreciate you guys for listening or watching this and if you ever want to just sit down with either me or Tony and kind of go over what you're currently doing your marketing and see you know if there's any ways and as you see me and Tony like to teach so even if you don't want to like sign up for our service, it's not a big deal. We'll just we'll look at your stuff. We'll see what you're doing and we'll give you some advice and so if you want to book a free business planning session, we do get booked up on those lots of if there's no variability just save the link, but we do have the link posted below or if you're watching the podcast, just shoot us a DM on Instagram. Already thank you guys for for listening, and we'll see you in the next one.
See the next one.