How to Launch Your Beauty Business with Amanda Banks | Ep 10 The Beauty Biz Pro Podcast

 Welcome to the Beauty Biz Pro Podcast! In this episode, we chat with Amanda Banks, a seven-figure beauty business owner and permanent makeup expert. Amanda shares her journey from Seattle to Scottsdale, discussing her virtual presence and extensive training programs. She offers practical tips on launching a beauty business with intentional spending, starting small, and growing sustainably. Amanda also reveals client acquisition strategies, profitability tips, and how to create exceptional client experiences. Tune in to learn how to balance organic growth with strategic paid advertising and take your beauty business to new heights! 

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Transcript

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the beauty biz pro Podcast. I'm joined with the amazing Amanda Brewer. She's a seven figure, beauty business owner. And today we're gonna be talking about diving deep into the startup of a beauty business. What's it like the biggest aha is the biggest mistakes, things like that coming from a seven figure, beauty business owner, Amanda, I'm so excited to have you. Tell us a little bit about your background and a little bit about who you are for the viewers that don't know who you are?
Yeah, well, first of all, I love these conversations. And I know you do too, because we're both very data driven people. But I initially started my company in the permanent makeup industry eight years ago, and the Seattle market and we've expanded to multiple markets where we've got a location in Scottsdale, now we're virtual we have we do a ton of training. And I think that we see a lot of patterns, Tony and I were talking, we're like, we need to do an episode about how to launch. Or maybe there's people that have been doing services for a year or two, but they haven't really launched. And how do you do that properly? What do you not do? And so I'm excited to have this conversation. Because I like the way I approach things was very frugal, it was very intentional. I had spreadsheets and I tracked expenses. And I think there's a lot of tips that we're going to share, that will be very helpful. And I'm curious to hear feedback on what you guys took or what you're going to be applying or some actionable strategies that you're going to be using in your businesses.
Absolutely. In fact, I'm gonna do one better. So comment below or wherever this you're seeing this video on what was your biggest takeaway, and I want to pick one of you lucky winners to receive a free month of our beauty biz AI software, just for the number one personally pick. So we'll be launching that here soon and giving the giving the award out. But let's dive into it. So you have two separate locations. Was it the same, like launch strategy for both locations?
No, no. When I launched in Seattle, it was before Microblading was a thing then so people didn't really know what it was there was a lot of demand creation in how I built things. So I and I still recommend this to everybody to this day, I subleased a room. So I rented a room two days a week from an esthetician. So when she was not working in her room, I rented her off days, it was extremely cost effective. And I broke even on my overhead in one day of clients. So first day of clients in the month, I was already in the green. And that gave me such peace. I didn't know how if I was going to have stable clientele yet. I didn't know where it was going to grow to. And I certainly I'll be honest with you, I did not think it would grow to where it is today. But I even when I was making I'm gonna give you some numbers. And it's not to this, you know, I'm I'm humble as hell. But I back before there were any micro bleeding artists, I was making almost 200 grand a year on two days a week of permanent makeup. And I was subleasing from an esthetician paying 400 Something a month. And I would just roll my little trade with my tools and my browser treatments. And I just thought that was so cool. It's like why would I want to go and spend more on rent or more on other expenses when that's not what's going to drive clients at my door. And so once that I needed more than two days a week and I quit my six figure like career to pursue permanent makeup full time. I still subleased a room. But I sublease from people that had multiple rooms. And I just rented a full time room from them. And it was still it was maybe $1,000 a month at that point, which is not a lot in Bellevue, Washington, it's a lot other places I get that. But it was really cheap at that time. And then after two years of that, that's when I actually signed a lease and did a very minor build out and had more of the training academy and everything too. But keep in mind, I was still training at that second location for cheap. So the visual of your studio is not what's going to drive your initial clients in at all. So I would not I always joke I'm like don't treat your studio like your wedding. Don't go spend 1000s 10s of 1000s of dollars for something that's not going to pay you back. Your Studio is a business and as a business owner, you need to be lean as hell. And when I opened my second location years later in Scottsdale, I had a spreadsheet I already knew what I needed. I knew what I needed to get clients in the door and make money and so i i bought used furniture I use the handyman for what I really, really needed. I knew down to the very minimum of what I went to the dollar store a bunch and I kept it cheap you guys, and it doesn't look cheap. It looks really nice it both of our studios, but you would never know how intentional I was with budgeting. And you need to become aware of what it really costs to have a full lease versus a sublease. Yeah,
and I think you know the biggest mistake because for a lot of you who don't know don't know this about me. I'm also a studio owner West Awkward wife's life decision for makeup artists, the biggest mistake we made, I wish I wish we had that piece of advice back in the day. But we first launched our first location. We focused on the looks, the aesthetics, make sure we had the best machines, make sure the technique was down. What
do you think you spent? I want to know. So if you had to throw a number at it to get open,
so if I had to throw a number at it, I want to say we spent 12,000 Oh, that's not bad. No, it wasn't because in to be honest with you, we it was a source ensuite, that's what it was. Also, once we
we called grand for a solace. We Okay, that's a lot.
Yeah, yes. That's like a little room. Yeah, what was what it was like one of their larger rooms, I'll
be honest, it was okay. It was a mid room.
But we decked it out, made it look pretty. You know, we went to Pier One and all the higher end stores for all the nights for we overpaid for everything. And day one of us opening. You know, I tried to stay out on my wife's business as much as possible. But, you know, day one, I was like, how many clients do we have? She's like, I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm like, we have three grand in expenses, and overhead and credit cards and all because we put all the credit card. Like we made every mistake in the book starting up, and you made every right decision. So
there is a book called The Lean Startup method. So read it, if you haven't, but it's hard, because sometimes we see what's like sexy for studios and people building out these big studios, but you also don't see their net profit. You also don't see that I'm not saying that. Like most people with big studios don't make money. They certainly do. I'm one of them. But for the most part you not everybody is smart with money. They're not smart with overhead. And if you are starting out, and you do not have stable clientele you sure as heck should not sign a lease, you should sublease and that is my strong opinion.
Yeah, and and you know, for us, looking back, you know, what saved us was, I came from a business background sales, training, coaching, directing big businesses. And I was always taught the key to success in business is getting in front of more people than your competition, flat out, create, if you can, if you can ace that one thing, you will be successful out of the gate. Now we'll get into what we did and how we launched here a little bit. But talk to me about, you know, how did you decide on your location? Because you made a comment before, like those first few clients don't really care about your studio, because they don't have any preconceived notion about you, really. So how did you like obtain your first few clients? What did that look like? How did you start? How did you get
I'll preface it by saying that I did things the opposite of how most people do it. I found a cheap location and a high end area. So Bellevue, kind of like Boca Raton in Florida, like where are the highest income earners? And where how do I attract people that want to pay top dollar and for context are to this day, our studios, we are one of the very most expensive studios, like you can't get a treatment for under $1,000. That's just, that's our starting point. And that doesn't include tax either. So we are a different breed. But even though I have always charged a little higher than everybody else, I've had the lowest overhead of everybody else too. And so when you are starting lean and you are starting frugally, I have loved the idea of being able to sublease without a lease from somebody on their off days or a room that's already decorated. So it does it didn't look bad. It was just decorated. And the esthetician I rented from she had cute pink is like girly, feminine aesthetic. I like more of a clean modern. So I did not like the pink. But did I want to pay 2500 or 4500 more for the fruit to have my colors? Absolutely not. Because I'd rather put that into other things. And so we're talking a lot about being frugal. But I also want to talk about another mindset from lean startup method, which is learning your customer acquisition channels and leading into it. Because what I did is I took those savings, and I invested that into marketing or whatever I needed to do that I knew for sure 100% was going to get clients in the door. Now for you that what would that look like? What are examples in Yelp advertising, Google Facebook advertising, it could be mailers that you're sending out anything that you know, if I spend $100 On this level of marketing, what am I going to get back in acquisitions or sales. And once you invest in figure that out and your business, then you have no problem spending more on the marketing, but I would never put all that money into the overhead of my business, because that's not going to drive clientele. I'm only going to optimize and drive my investment into things that are going to give me an ROI, a big ROI. So it's a different mentality, you guys because we all think oh the cuter our place looks the more customers come in, it's almost the opposite. It's really not.
And that's really where you know the biggest mistake we made In opening our first location, because I'm a very big believer in, you know, I want, for example, my wife to rise on her own accord, I want her to have success, I want her to feel that. So I told her when I was watching this back in 2018, you need to do it on your own. You know, you've heard all my talks and all this good, you know what to do. In the biggest mistake, our second biggest mistake we made was we didn't pre market. And that was something that if you look at any big company like European wax studio massage, envy, Hinsdale massage all these bigger franchise type companies, before they even go into a market. If you're like, I don't, I'm afraid to go into that market. I don't know if it's gonna work, do pre marketing, coming soon at things like a waitlist on any project coming. Anything that you're fixing to launch, you create a waitlist, that way you feel confident in launching, that's, you know, I deal with, I'd speak with artists, probably at least five to 10 artists a day, when they're first starting out. They're like, Tony, I don't know if ads or running paid ads on any platform, whether it's with us or doing it with somebody else. Like I don't know if it's the right thing, because I'm new. My question to that is, well, how are you going to get in front of more people than where you're at now? And they say, Well, I'm gonna post, Instagram and Facebook are totally different beast than than what they were three years ago with, with what a lot of coaches are teaching now. So that really doesn't work. Just posting and praying. But so talk to me a little bit about, you know, okay, so you got started, you got your first few clients, what was, you know, where are you at now in business.
So when we started, I did a, like a 299, new location special for permanent makeup, which I was brand new, and it was a new location. So I said, new location as if it was, so they didn't think, Oh, she's a new artist. And I got my first 30 clients instantly with that. And I think I did some advertising through Facebook and Yelp, maybe some Facebook groups to generate that. But here's what why my mindsets a little different is I took those 30 clients, and I told myself, I'm gonna get 10 referrals, minimum out of these 30 clients like the like, bare minimum, like I'm really screwing up, I'm gonna get that many. And it ended up being exponentially higher. Because the way that you treat a client, when you are working really hard to get into their friends and family circle is different. It's an exceptional experience, you go above and beyond, they feel like they are cared for, and they're seeing a top professional. And so if you're new, and you're not creating that crazy exceptional experience, then they're not going to tell their friends and family to come to you. You know, my hairstylist, the people I go to, I tell people, you have to go to them. There's no one else in the whole world or anybody, my injector and I'm like, you can't go to anybody else. There's nobody, you know, and I want people talking that way about our services. And so how do you kind of have to do some forensic thinking and break down? How do I create that for my clients, and that's what exponentially compounded our business and to be honest with you, we, in eight years did not do paid advertising for permanent makeup, we were all referral, all word of mouth and all people finding us organically. And so I mean, we market and we probably spent 30,000 a month on paid advertising for, for cryo between all our different platforms for the CoolSculpting we do. But permanent makeup. That's an experience that is an emotional experience and unique connect really deeply with your clients. And
the interesting thing about that, as you hit it right off in the beginning, you did you So you did do a little bit of paid ads in the very beginning
to generate the new first 30. And you
know, that's the biggest thing I hear that piece of what you just said, start you have to have that like ignition in your business that start that jump The jump was getting to that paid ad to get to those 30 people then treat those people like, like they were gold. Oh,
I wrote them. I mailed them handwritten cards after their appointments, and thanking them with personal information like saying, hey, like, I hope that you and your husband have a great time and Europe this summer, or whatever. So they know I really care. Because when no one does that. If you received a card like that from somebody, you would remember it forever. So what are you doing to make sure your clients remember you incent everybody to forever? Reach? You know, one more thing I want to mention on that too, is I would never have invested into those initial ads if I had high overhead. So since I subleased, two days a week and I had very little to no expenses. It was easy for me to put 10 or $20 to boost a post or do this or that because I saw it generating clients. And so keep in mind if you have really high overhead, you're going to be so stressed out and then you can't invest into the things that are actually going to drive traffic. Yeah.
And that's that's such a huge like, thought process when you're when you are first starting out. In fact, I had a conversation with a woman last week. She's starting out she's starting out in New Jersey, New Jersey. I'm sorry In New York, and she was talking about her studio to me this to me this to me this, I think it's great. So how are you going to get clients? She's like, well, that's why I'm on the call with you. And I'm like, okay, but you told me you're on a very tight budget. So you've already spent your budget. And she's like, Well, yeah, when you put it like, like, you've already spent your budget, you're putting yourself out of business, start so much time,
because nobody teaches us this stuff. You know, like you and I have probably read 100 books on these things. But when you are new, and you are you go through Beauty School, Esthetician school, whatever you want to call it, you're an NP, you're wanting to do Botox, you learned the treatment side of things, but they didn't teach you the business and marketing side of things. And honestly, in any good business at all, your focus should be split 5050 50% of your mindset, your effort should be into the services you provide, and the quality, all that and 50% needs to go towards your marketing and sales period, period. Like there's no exception, and you can't delay on that. And that needs to start at day one. So it's just a different mindset, then people are coming out of school with because they've always been beauty treatment mindset, and they come out, they're like, Wait, business is a whole world. And the deeper you get into the world, you know, you you realize you lo know, even less than you thought, it continues on forever.
And, you know, going back to the statement of like, you start with paid ads, now you're doing it for permanent makeup, that's like my dream to have a client start get super successful, build a rock solid business, we're, you don't need us anymore. Or if you do, it's just for another service or product or something else you're launching. Because to me, you will always need marketing. Either you're gonna have referral based marketing, or you're gonna have actually paid paid marketing and
referral traffic it generates to your website alone, it benefits you more than just the bookings. I mean, there's SEO benefit to that there is exposure, branding, follower count, there's a lot of intangible value that's built with our marketing efforts. So people are like, Oh, I spent $100. And I didn't get a booking. Yeah, but cumulatively over time, kind of like I invest, I won't even tell you how much I spend on SEO a month, it's a lot, it's in the multiple 1000s a month just for SEO alone, not including Google, Facebook, anything else. And that gives us such organic flow. But that took years to build while still paying those 1000s of dollars a month, because it's a long term vision. And so you need to become educated on marketing and what is relevant for you. And that's gonna be based on the services you provide. If they're a high or a low profit margin service, is it repetitive is it one time, like, you've got really got to narrow in what you're trying to do, and be intentional and strategic with it and seek out somebody that can help you utilize? I mean, if you can figure out just one or two acquisition channels, if it's Facebook ads, if it's Yelp ads, you know, I'll give you some context Washington and Arizona, my two locations, they we do the same amount in ad spend, and the same amount of revenue based on the ad spent. However, the platforms we use are different, because they're in different states. And in different states, we get clients differently. So I noticed in Arizona, we get customers way cheaper using one platform, where in Seattle, it's way cheaper using a different one. And so you need to look at the data. And I'm sorry, but you can't just delegate your marketing, and go, here's 100 bucks, and I didn't get anything in return. Because you guys, it's you got to become a marketing expert yourself. And Tony, I'll tell you, our team is a pain in the ass little bit. We've got a whole, like my team, I have people that update spreadsheets daily, that we are on our ships, like we are on our stuff, we know exactly what's happening with all of our marketing, all of our cost per lead all of our acquisition costs, and then it goes into other spreadsheets. But that's why we win is we don't rely on your location to be. That's
what matters. Yeah, that's what I love working with you is because you do come with the whole side of you're looking at every dollar every little, every little lever you look at. And I love working with people like that, because you get it, you do understand like we are a company. But we have, we're a data driven company, right? We look at the analytics and numbers at a larger scale where when you start looking at the macro numbers, we start really diving into okay, this ad set was working better than this ad set. You know, I look at when people come to work with us and say listen, I don't want to be your ad person that just runs your ads. I want to be a brand partner. I mean,
we have exactly what it is. Yeah,
I've called you at 10 o'clock at night yesterday on a Friday night when you're fixing aboard a plane saying hey, we need to change this. That's the kind of that's the kind of support you need. However starting out it's it is scary for people and I'm not sitting here saying, Oh hire marketer, nor are you. I'm sitting here saying anybody listening to this call, if you're struggling to grow your business or you're trying to figure out how to grow a business or anything like that, rule number one, get in front of more people than your competitor. There are so many ways to do it. And I'll give you really quick, several freeways, one DMing people on Instagram. Now, that's, I'll be honest, that's where my favorite ways to get business, I'm not going to give that that how to away if you want to shoot me an email, but DMing people on Instagram to is getting involved in the community, Chamber of Commerce, things like that, how you said, you've gotten in a very financially a fluent area. Okay, going out to social events, like here in Orlando, I know several permanent makeup artists who go to the cars and coffee every single weekend just to talk to the whip the wives that are walking around in the cars, and they're picking up three or four clients that way. So there's so many free ways you can get clients, but there's also the easy the systematic way of paid ads.
So it's hard because when I was building the foundation of my business, and I was starting up and I was lean, I was 100% in and that meant everyone I talked to knew what I was doing. And it wasn't in a salesy way, it just worked in a conversation. And then a lot of my referrals that came in, were the people I talked to that had a friend or sister that were like, Oh, I have I know somebody that's doing that you should go see her. And it's a big spider web. And I'm sorry, you guys, but you gotta build your frickin spider web for the from the first little circle, and you got to keep building them. And that's going to be with a lot of conversations with everyone you've run into. And that means sharing your Instagram and the site and building awareness because you are in the demand creation phase for your brand. They are not aware of you yet. So they're not going to book with you unless they're aware. And how are they going to get aware if your overheads high and you can't spend money on marketing, I'm sorry, but it's got to come from you.
And you know, to give some context to so I made us known this for quite a while but me and my wife launched another location, actually April 6, and her first month, I believe, don't hold me to the exact numbers somewhere between five and $6,000 revenue working part time working two days a week. And she didn't have any clientele. She didn't have any backing wards in a new town. Totally just like if she was a brand new artist. And the difference between starting this location, and then starting the one we did was we didn't make any of the mistakes we did the first time. And the number one thing was we ran paid ads. And that's how we got all of our clients. That's how we did the business. Now the interesting part of it is when we ran those paid ads for the first, I don't know, three weeks, we probably booked 15 or 16 clients. But then the last three or four we booked going back to Amanda's method. Those people they were so excited with my wife's work. She wound up booking 12 people the month of June from referral from the three people she got for her paid ads for last year. I
love those referrals. We have a few clients that are like that, and I swear they are so definitely I'm like and we incentivize them. I mean, I don't do a referral bonus for everyone. But if someone's sending a lot of people hook them up. Get it it's like a water spigot keep it going. Yeah,
well my wife she's actually writing it right as we're doing this call she's at the studio giving one of them free pro sell treatments like a three to 50 officers doing it for free. Because she's referred so many people she has more people she wants to refer more in a seasonal area. So it's like snowing they call Snowbird season, but we have the same thing in Arizona. So but she has more people that have already called they're like, hey, when I get in town in November, can I come see you. And again, I'm a marketer, I run beauty biz Pro, we turned our ads off last three weeks, two and a half weeks ago, because she's booked out so much.
And I know easier weights.
And that's exactly what it is. I told my wife I was like, it's time to raise and guess what we're month to month to.
So it should be I love that and then you get social proof you get reviews and it just continues to accumulate.
Well my thing is also want to talk about his mindset, like and I think this is where we kind of end with his mindset is, you know, the mindset of a lot of artists I talked to is I'm new. I gotta do a model call. I got to you know, I can't expect to make big money right out of the gate. I can't expect to make a living in the first six months. What's your thought on that? What what do you have to say to that?
I'm a weird one on this because I I'm trying to be relatable, but I'm not very relatable. I I have this mindset where I know if I commit myself to something, it's going to happen. And unfortunately, in business, that's what's required. Because if you want to go and hit X, Y, Z, or you need to hit X, Y, Z, you have to fully believe in it, you and you, if I'm half ass, and I 50%, believe in what I'm doing, it's going to show it's like sweat, it's going to sweat out somewhere in my business, it's going to affect the way you talk to clients, the way you are more eager to get back to a phone call that came in on your business line, your response times, the way you do anything, I don't know, I just I believe that, if you're not 100%, I'm sorry, that's really hard. You got to read some, some good books, you got to get your mindset, right, and you got to believe in yourself, even if you have failed in the past, it's not going to work unless you 100% know that this is what you want to do and what you're doing. Because when you have that vibe of IMO, when people are freaking attracted to that, and people want to come on board, and they want to support you, they don't want to support you, when you bring it up, they want to support you, when they see you working your ass off like living what you're saying. And so I always tell I tell myself this, I tell people in my life, if I say I'm going to do something, and I don't do it, it hurts my self image. And my belief in myself goes down, because I don't believe myself anymore. And so if I'm going to go and create something, and I say I'm going to do it, I have to do it now, because now I'm scared that if I don't follow through with it, that I'm not going to be able to follow through the future. And so it's like a gauge in my life that I follow. And so I'm real careful about that. But at the same time, you can't be negative either, like Sorry, but if you don't think you're gonna make a living in six months, you're not going to be like, it's not gonna happen. I when I was doing it, do you think I was making 200 grand off two days a week? Within my first two months? Do you think I like? I don't know, I just I believe that the people that believe in themselves and that are all in and buy all in I mean, studying. I mean, personally, growing yourself, the best investment is right here. Even just taking stupid brand supplements helps me every day, like I am so intentional about keeping this healthy, so I can go and be my best every day. But um, I don't know, that's, I'm a little extreme in that mindset. But I firmly believe in it, because I've lived it.
You know, my, my big thing is success leaves clues. If Amanda can do it, and started out super lean startup, very little, little overhead, if I can, if if I can do it, and I'm a guy in the beauty industry, and let's like let's face I always say like I'm the I'm the the you know, just a guy in the beauty industry, and I'm helping my wife, I'm taking calls with from my wife, sometimes I'm, I'm helping herself, I'm talking to talk, I'm doing those different things helping her if I could do and we can be that successful. Why can't you? Me? As a business owner, if someone says, Well, how are you gonna be successful, I just have to get in front of more people than anybody else. That's it.
I think people are just scared. And I think they've never been in an environment where they, I think you and I have a sales background. And that's where you and I connect is because we understand rejection. We taught we don't care. We're like, you don't want lower selling fine. That's cool. Let's be friends anyway. You know, that's, that's our thing. But a lot of people are scared. Because they feel that sales, they feel the marketing and they feel icky. They don't want to talk about what they're doing. Because they feel like they're selling it and are going to be annoying to people. And that's not how you work it into conversation. There's the best salespeople you don't know our salespeople. They don't. But if you want to win, you need to personally grow, you got to change up here. And that's tough. It's tough. It took me forever. You know what, it's still I read books, all the frickin time. I want to. I'm like, I'll show you the books I'm reading right now. But if you're not willing to grow up here, you're not going to grow, like on the exterior.
And that's where like, I also do get a lot of calls from people. They're like, Yeah, I've been in the business. 20 years. I know what I'm doing. But you don't
like 20 years means nothing. That does
my exact. That's I want to say that to people sometimes. Because I'm like, if you're 20, you should
you should say you should be the real friend, and kindly tell them that, like you understand that. But then if that's the case, why are we on the phone right now?
Yeah, well, I I'll be honest, like I was telling you. Before the call, there was a call like right after my pup died two weeks ago, I got on a call with a client similar to that situation. And she was saying that to me, and I was like, you know, ma'am, I really feel like you're wasting my time because I'm trying to give you advice, and you're just over talking me. And you're saying you know what you need, but you're not you're not listening to what's going to propel your business forward. Back in the day. You used to use a little spiral notebook to take appointments and things like that, and used to just talk to people on your chair now, with Instagram. I could go I could go take Have your business in less than a month, it's very easy, I'll go to your followers list and start DMing every one of your followers that you've never connected with.
And it's gonna be different in another five years, you've got to learn to pivot. But you know, what doesn't change is like getting out of your comfort zone and being committed to learning and growing personally, if I put it in perspective, I have over a dozen staff that are within our company, our beauty company. And if I have a bad day, I cannot allow myself to be grumpy with a staff member, or be emotional or anything, I have to lead my company every day 100%, I made that choice when I hired them. And so a good company, a good leader, is a good leader. And if you think about good leaders, they don't let those bad days hit them. And so I'm like, I'm sorry, but you need to start with leading yourself. So when you're having bad days, emotional days, are you still following through and showing up as the leader of your company? Most of the time? The answer is no. And if being a business owner is not for everyone, like honestly, some people, I would say 75% of people that are business owners should just be w two, because they like they want to be the business, they want the sexy part of it, but they're not willing to grow. And if you want to do well, in business, you're required to grow, you're required to get yourself right and learn how to lead yourself, have emotional intelligence, learn sales, learn marketing. And if that doesn't sound like something you want to stretch and do, then maybe it's time to consider something else. Because it's, it's just interesting how we blame certain things. In business, when it's a formula in any industry. In any industry, we could go into a cleaning business, like I know you guys have a cleaning company, and it'd be the exact same thing.
Exactly, you hit the nail on the head. So real quick, would love to wrap it up with your thoughts on 2020. For what you're seeing shifting, and your prediction and kind of where do you see the permanent makeup beauty industry going? As a whole in any direction? Like what, as far as business is that?
You and I have talked about this where there's bell curves, and there's phases, there's cycles to business, what I think is the people that are gonna win and get through the next four years with whatever is going on with this economy. Everything else, it's volatile, we all feel it is you need to be lean, you need to keep your overhead low, very, very low. Stop dreaming about your dream studio, it's not going to make you money, and focus on learning and mastering the acquisition channels like Yelp, or like Google or Facebook, and really taking the time and committing to learning them and investing tiny bits here and there. And as you figure out what's working, spend a little more in that one area. And if it keeps working, spend a little more we're not like when I tell you I invest 30,000 a month, I did not start there. I split test the crap out of that. And I figured out where exactly in which exact ad was going to get me the highest return. And so you need to do it with a lean method. And, gosh, we've been talking lean the whole time read The Lean Startup, for crying out loud. It's a great book, or just read the summary on chat TBT or something.
Yeah, so the real quick like I remember when you first started with us for the cryo your budget was nowhere near that. No, no, it scaled up. And same thing with me guys, when I first started with my wife, our budget was $300 a month. Now, I don't mind spending $100 a day.
But that's because it's making you money. I wouldn't spend that money on overhead, like expenses that go by. But I would spend that if I know that it's getting clients in my door and making revenue based on that. That's called your costs. There's cost per lead, which is how much you have to spend in advertising spend for them to click your ad or go to your website. But cost per acquisition is what I really focus on. I'm like, Okay, I'm getting all these leads from here, but who's actually booking? who's actually making us revenue? who's like, where are those sources. And so I have made so many fun, simple spreadsheets to track and I have assistants in the Philippines that update those daily and we monitor the crap out of it, because I want to make sure that our advertising spend is well used, and that we're never complacent because things change. And so we are able to ride the wave because we see changes in trends and marketing. And I'm sorry, but you can't do that by just delegating and checking out and not being a partner.
Yet, no one's gonna want it to your business like you monitor your business. Yeah.
And I am so proud of my business, but I'm also responsible for it. And that is a lot of weight with how big we've scaled. So I have to continue to lead from the front and grow and learn and pivot with all the new things that are coming to with technology with marketing everything. It's insane. Yep. All
righty. Well, Amanda, thank you so much for joining us today. I love to actually do another one on like hiring. That'd be amazing. But
I could do like a five part series on that one that has layers. That's like an onion. Yeah,
we definitely do a 10,000 foot view one. So stay tuned. Dude, but thank you so much for joining us today. And, as always, any questions email us Tony at PMU marketer.com The man of what's your email if they have which one reach out ask questions,
email us info at Eastside microblading.com. Or you can just message us on Instagram and my Instagram is Amanda banks. Ba nk s.pm. You.
Awesome. Thank you for joining us and we'll catch you guys in the next one. Thanks, guys. Bye