In November 2022, 294,000 random people saw my face on a digital billboard.

3000 people joined my email list.

2619 people watched me do a class about advertising.

That’s a freaking lot of new people to have their eyes on me, hearing my voice, seeing my hair, taking in my personality, and watching how I sell.

As someone who used to be terrified of self-promotion, I’ve come a long way to be happy with those numbers instead of blushing insanely and wanting to hide.

I wouldn’t be where I am if I hadn’t tackled my paralyzing fear of self-promotion. I had to get it out of the way in order to move forward - there was no way around it!

I’m so glad I did because now I've got a business that pulls in multiple 6 figures a year, and I love being part of a thriving community in the beauty business.

As far as how I do most of my promotion, it’s mainly through Facebook and Instagram ads (more on that in a bit!).

But the thing I really want to dive into today was my process for getting over my fear of self-promotion. Everyone struggles with it, and if you can learn something from my experience, I’ll have done a good job.

How did I get out of my own way, push past those fears in my head and show up confidently to sell what I have to offer, despite insecurities, and self-doubt, worries?

Even if you're an absolute pro at hair, makeup, tanning, waxing, nails, extensions, or skincare, chances are you still feel your stomach drop when you think about putting your face and your personality out there for people to judge.

Today I'm going to share with you the most prominent fears I had about self-promotion and how I got out of my own way to do it anyways.

Whether you're just starting out in a rental booth or you're running a thriving salon with a big team, I hope that my experience in conquering my fears in self-promotion can help you get to the next level.

Fear of judgment from other people

If you’ve never run an ad on Facebook or Instagram (and specifically, an ad developed in my course The Ad Lab, where I teach my students to produce videos of themselves doing what they’re best at), it can be suuuuper scary to imagine putting your face out there.

And sometimes the worries are projected at people who literally aren’t in our lives at all - what would our childhood bully think of this ad? Our mother-in-law's judgy mom friends?

And then your mind might dwell on all the strangers who will see it. I told you about the almost 300,000 people who saw my face pop up on their newsfeed last month… Jeez, that's a lot of eyeballs on my face.

My brain wants to obsess over every perception they might have of me. What if they think my voice is annoying? What if someone points out my crooked nose? What if they think my work is bad or that I’m under qualified to do what I’m doing?

The nagging fears of everything other people might think of you will never stop unless you stop it. So…how do you stop it?

You remind yourself that almost none of your fears of judgment will come true. I promise you. I’ve been advertising myself online for years - at this point tens of millions of people have seen me.

And I’d say that once a year, at most, I’ll get a few negative comments.

Here’s how I deal with it.

I take a bit of time to really absorb the comment and understand where it was coming from, and then I respond tactfully and kindly. And then I move on, and it doesn’t affect the rest of my day. That’s it!

Because while a few random people are leaving miserable comments on my stuff (but again, super rarely), I’m making money for my business. It’s a small price to pay for success.

When it comes to fear of judgment from people we actually know in real life, well, most of that is in our own heads.

In fact, the majority of people we know will be happy for us, proud of us, and cheering us on.

And if they’re not? Those people can’t be helped. They’ll judge us from the sidelines no matter what we do. So we might as well succeed instead of letting them control us.

It’s been said so often that we forget it, but it’s true: most of the time, most people aren’t thinking about us at all. And when our faces appear on their screens, most people will say, “Huh, look at that, good for her” and move on. That’s it!

Don’t let fear of judgment hold you back - it’s almost never real.

Fear of coming across as too “salesy” or pushy

I’ve talked with a lot of beauty business owners, and this is a big concern of theirs. And for a few years, it was mine, too.

You want to promote what you do, but you don’t want to seem pushy or arrogant.

We run human-based businesses in this industry that are built on strong relationships.

I know that the last thing you’d want to do is cheapen those relationships by turning them into sales conversations.

Of course, you and I both know that you can’t build a successful business without some level of sales. And the other thing we know (but often forget) is that the people who grace our businesses know we have to sell to keep going. We run businesses, not charities.

The best thing you can do is to get comfortable with sales in a way that feels authentic to who you are and how you naturally present yourself to the world.

An easy way to do this is to take the focus off you and put it on your ideal client.

When you put the focus on the client and you keep your promotions personable, friendly, and authentic, you're naturally selling yourself and your services without trying too hard.

The advice I give students in The Ad Lab is to write ads that put the focus on what their clients want to achieve. What benefits will they be getting from your services? Point out how they feel now (before your service) and how they want to feel and can feel after they've booked with you.

When you frame it this way, it's not you trying to make sales. You're just shining light on the needs and wants of your audience and how you can help them with those.

Another way to help ease the discomfort of promoting your salon, spa, mobile clinic etc is to let your personality and friendly spirit shine through in your ads.

Warmly introduce yourself to your audience and let them see how excited you are to serve them. Video ads are very effective sales tools because you can make real personal contact with your audience by showing your glowing smile and your enthusiasm for what you do. Be yourself and speak like you'd speak to anyone who books with you, naturally and with ease. Even if you feel awkward as heck doing it, trust me, your audience will warm up to you and it won't seem awkward to them.

I find that the more I do self-promotion from the heart, and keep it true to who I actually am, the less it feels like selling. It’ll feel like that to whoever sees your ads, too.

Fear of comparison to others

If you're new to the beauty business, you probably spend a lot of time looking around at what others are doing, to learn from them and try out similar or different things.

Social media can be a great place for inspiration and lessons from peers and mentors, but it also has a dark side we're all well aware of: it gets us playing the comparison game.

We feel pangs of jealousy when we see that competing beauty businesses have more followers and engagement, higher prices, better service offerings.

This is something I struggled with a lot up until recently. I found the more time I spent on Instagram, the more I habitually compared my business to others who were in the same “niche” as me.

And it didn't feel good.

Comparing myself definitely did nothing good when it came to stepping up to the mic and saying, “Hey, I’m Stephanie! Here’s what I do!” I kept thinking, who am I to demand attention when someone else is doing it better or louder?

Here’s what I’ve learned through just doing it anyway, even though I was scared: the confidence comes after you promote yourself.

Taking action in promoting ourselves leads to more clientele, more experience, and more hours spent getting better at what we do. That leads to more confidence.

Stage fright without time on the stage just leads to more stage fright. The only way to get over it is to do it.

The instinct to compare ourselves to others is natural (and never totally goes away), especially at the beginning.

You have worked hard to get where you are, and you deserve success for your hard work. The only way to be successful is to let people know what you’re up to. So speak up! You won’t regret it.

The fear of promoting yourself and nothing happens (or you attract the wrong people)

Let’s just get this out of the way:

There will be absolutely be times when you put out an ad and don’t get any bookings or sales from it.

There will be emails you send out that no one responds to.

Sometimes you will spend a ton of time making a video or a Reel for Instagram, and it won’t get much engagement at all.

It happens to me all the time.

I’ve run Facebook and Instagram ads (my expertise) that I’ve spent good money on and had zero returns.

It’s a bummer, for sure.

But you can’t let it stop you. If you give up, you’re guaranteed not to get bookings.

So if your first ad flops, make another one. Tinker with the settings. Try testing out a different format or shorter caption.

If your first email doesn’t get results, send more. More emails always means more sales in my business!

If your first major Instagram video or Reel doesn’t get picked up by the algorithm or get much action, try again.

As for the fear of attracting the wrong people when you do do self-promotion, like deal-seeking clients or grouchy nitpickers, my best advice is to create promotions that really show off who you are.

When you put yourself out into the world in a way that’s authentic, you attract like-minded people to you. So don’t talk about deals in your ads, talk about the quality and benefits of your service. Don’t be straight-laced and ‘by the book’ while you’re sharing what your business does - be you! Use slang, be warm and friendly, be inviting. The deal-seekers will quickly lose interest when they realize you’re all about providing high-quality service to people who love what you do.

Fear of not knowing how to self-promote well

There are a lot of things to consider when you start advertising yourself online.

Where should you run your ads? How much should you spend? What should you say? What settings should you pick to target the right people?

My advice is to start in a place that’s familiar and comfortable, on a platform you’ve used often.

For me, that’s running ads on Facebook and Instagram. I’ve built my business on these two platforms because advertising there is so effective. It’s how I get so many unique views every day and new people from all over the world signing up for my courses.

It’s also where people find my free class on attracting and booking your ideal clients using Facebook and Instagram ads. If you’re really unsure about where to start when it comes to self-promotion, this is the perfect place! Check out the class here -> How To Build A Full Appointment Book Using Facebook and Instagram Ads