Starting your New Business Part 1:
Starting your own business is hard, but starting a business in the beauty industry, where you are competing with so many salons and mobile therapist is really hard. It will take determination, perseverance and passion. If you have these qualities you will have a thriving and rewarding company. We have many students who say to us that working in the beauty industry isn’t like going to work, because you are being paid for something that you love doing.
The health and beauty industry is worth an estimated £5 billion a year, so it is understandable that beauty salons/mobile therapists are one of the most popular kinds of start-up businesses in the UK.
It is said that generally it will take you between one to two years to start making a good return on your investment. It takes a lot more than just finance to make your business work for you.
At the start of your business there will be quite high set-up costs for equipment and products. Top of the range equipment and products are not needed at the start, you can purchase these as you start to make a profit. The costs will depend on how many treatments you are thinking of starting your business with. Some people would like to start up with everything relating to nails, some just want to concentrate on holistic treatments and so on. But some as I did want to offer the whole range of treatments, which is where the costs start to add up very easily. As a training company we try and advise our students against spending money needlessly. We give you tips on how to save money by using products correctly without wastage.
When I started both my treatment and training company, I didn’t have anyone to recommend which products to buy and which ones I didn’t need, so I just purchased everything. This is a very expensive way to learn and is not advisable. Ebay will become a very good friend of yours, there are lots of items you shouldn’t buy on there, but on the other hand there is a lot of equipment that you find on there that is definitely worthwhile having and many bargins are found on ebay.
We do recommend that you start off with products that your clients would have heard of. For example gel polishes, Gelux, Gelish & OPI are all top brands they are not cheap, but people have heard of them and will be more likely to come to you if it is a brand that is known in the industry. You don’t need the entire colour range to start with, 5 colours will be sufficient 1 red, 1 pink, 1 neutral, 1 dark (purple, blue, black or dark red) and 1 trending colour. As you start to make a profit you can add to the colour range. It is the same with all other products Kaeso have a fantastic range for facials and the kits are very economical compared to something like Elemis or Demalogica, again you can work your way up to this range should you wish to use their products.
We will cover more about products and other issues when starting up your own beauty business in part 2 and beyond.
Don’t give up you can do it!