Over the past 10 months, the beauty industry has learned just how tough things can get. Now with a second wave of shutdowns in many places (including where I live, Ontario), the first several months of 2021 are going to challenging to say the least.

But at the same time, I think we’ve all been surprised as business owners about how resilient we are. So many businesses are bouncing back. They’re pivoting and getting creative about how to do business in “the new normal”. 

The whole world has changed in the past year, and the beauty industry is changing with it. When salons are closed, or when their ability to make money the traditional way has shifted, tons of business owners realized they need to change their business models. 

For many, that means finding new ways of making an income. Aside from providing beauty services to guests, and selling retail products during appointments, are there other ways to make a living, and actually grow your revenue? 

The answer is yes! And in this blog post, I want to inspire you with stories from beauty business owners who have been hit by COVID, but they’re not taking it lying down. Instead, they’re shifting their business models to grow a side income in the new “COVID” economy. Here’s how they did it…

Make and sell a brand new product 

As a beauty professional, often your first thought when selling products will be something closely related to the services you offer: cuticle oil, lash cleanser, eye masks, etc. But sometimes it takes a special sort of creativity to break out of the box and sell products that go flying off the shelves. And sometimes, they’re something completely different and new! 

One of my friends and students Lauren Gregory Callender is the owner of Grand City Tanning spray tanning studio. However, as you can imagine, spray tanning services have been a bit slower than usual post-shutdown: almost all events are cancelled, and along with that comes less demand for an event-ready glow.

So Lauren decided to get creative and create a new product that clients were asking about and had their signature cool girl style: tie dye masks! 

Lauren and her team have been thrilled and overwhelmed with the response to their homemade masks: Their first round of masks sold out the first day, and they sold 285 masks sold in their first month! With masks selling for $10-25 each, it’s meant thousands of dollars in extra revenue for their business. And in a time when business was slower, that truly makes a huge difference.  

In fact, the Grand City Tanning team has been having a hard time keeping them in stock and is getting the whole team involved in production:

During this shaky time for business, Lauren saw a need, a product that clients wanted and aligns with their brand (younger university students), and created a whole new product line of tie dye masks that clients go crazy for. 

The moral of the story is this: don’t pigeonhole yourself just into a specific type of beauty product. Get creative and really listen to what your clients want right now. 

Build an online store 

During the shutdown, so many beauty businesses realized the need to be able to sell products to their clients even when they can’t make it in for an appointment. 

My solution: a simple, streamlined, beautiful eCommerce for your salon. Having an online store is honestly one of the most fun and easy experiences you’ll have. I made my own here, as an example, which you can check out right here.

Using Square, it only took me a few hours to take photos, write descriptions, upload products and info (like shipping, pricing, etc), and then design the store. 

An online store really gives you an edge of professionalism, provides a service to your clients, and it’s a new income stream that you can have if another shutdown ever happens, plus supplements your income even when things are back to normal. 

Want some proof that selling through an online store actually works to generate more revenue, without much extra work? 

Take my student Mel Gardner, owner of Bare Skin Studio, who specializes in male waxing and grooming. During the shutdown she sold $5000 worth of gift cards and shaving products on her online store in 1 month during the shutdown. 

Yara De La Torre, owner of Lashes And Curls Studio, is another one of my students who got her online marketing in beautiful shape during COVID. She created an online store (she made hers with Vagaro), and sold $1000 worth of haircare kits her first four days after launching it.

Sounds awesome, right? But you might be wondering what type of product would sell really well on an online store. Well, you’ve got a few options:

• New products, like Lauren’s masks, which she does sell on her Square eCommerce.

• Existing salon stock of products. Just take photos of products and upload them onto your store, for another way that clients can purchase. 

• New kits of products, like my student Melissa West from The Royal Treatment Mobile Spa. She created a “facial in a bag” that had 8-10 hand-picked products for clients and sold them for $40. They were a huge hit with clients. 

Whatever type of product you decide to sell (or if you want to sell multiple types of products), my advice is this: Don’t just sit on this idea and overthink it! Get started making a store right now with Square, and you will not regret it. It’s so easy and fun, and can end up being a surprising money-maker in your business.

Formulate and sell your own beauty products 

Formulating your beauty products is a pretty big undertaking, I won’t lie. But at the same time, it can be a huge revenue builder for your business. And it also solidifies your brand. It helps you to grow and brand yourself as an expert in your beauty space. 

The cool thing is, you don’t need to go about finding a chemist, talking to bottle manufacturers, and researching it all on your own anymore. 

You can do private labelling, which means that you work with a company who develops and packages the product for you, and then they arrive to you with your own branding. Then your only job is to sell them! 

If you have absolutely no idea where to start with creating your own beauty products, but the idea is alluring - why wouldn’t it be! - check out Private Label Insider. Melody Bockelman has 10+ years in helping individuals and salons create their own cosmetic products, and she teaches you everything you need to know - from finding manufacturers to selling online. 

Your clients are already loyal to you and know that you’re the expert a huge amount of knowledge. Use that knowledge and loyalty to your advantage and create products with your own branding that they will snap up. 

One example of a beauty business that’s done this exact thing is my friend Shonna Dexter from Recreating Rays spray tan studio. She’s creating at-home spray tanning products with their branding, which she knows from experience is exactly what her clients want to purchase to keep them glowing between appointments. You can check out the Recreating Rays online store here.

Partner with a well-known beauty brand

This is something Yene Damtew taught me about, something I hadn’t thought much about before, but which has been huge for growing her business

Yene is a hairdresser, salon owner, and teaches other beauty business owners about how to make more money and generate additional revenue streams. Not to mention, she is also celebrity stylist to Michelle Obama! 

Brand partnerships are one of the ways that Yene encourages hairstylists to think outside the box. Instead of influencers who aren't even professionals, Yene realized that she as a certified stylist had much more clout than just a non-professional. She works with brands she actually uses in her salon and believes in. For example, she has signed a deal with DevaCurl to be a Curl Coach. As part of this partnership, she hosts DevaCurl sponsored events at her salon and the brand pays her.

So what’s Yene’s advice for creating brand partnerships? First of all, identify a brand you like and align with. Choose brands that you personally use in your salon, especially. Next, pitch yourself to the brand with a press kit and information about your business and your own brand. The last step is to make a clear deal with them about what you’ll be doing for the brand, and what you’ll get in return. 

Yene told me that the most common type of partnership is social media promotion: You’ll create social media posts and video to promote the products, and the brand will pay you for them. 

Yene wants to make it very clear that you don’t need to be famous or have a big following to create lucrative partnerships. The most important things that a brand wants from you is a deep knowledge of the product, and a brand and clientele that aligns with their own vision.

Offer 1-to-1 virtual appointments with clients 

When clients can’t come in for an appointment, whether because of quarantine, or for other reasons, how can you still provide them with your personal touch and your experience? 

Online consultations and virtual appointments! They’re easy to set up, cost you nothing except your time, and can be great for selling products as well. 

This is something that Melissa West has been using for her California-based spa since she can’t open her doors yet. Melissa is the owner The Royal Treatment Mobile Spa, and here’s how she’s using virtual appointments for her skincare clients:  

Melissa’s booking software allows for teleconferencing. While her clients have a little bit of extra time at home, they want to learn how to take care of their skin on their own. And Melissa teaches them! They learn how to do a face massage and she helps them get on a great homecare routine while waiting to get back in the spa. 

Melissa charges $40 for these appointments, and up to 50% of that can be used as a credit towards product purchase. She writes a prescription sheet for clients, they check off the products that they want, so she can deliver them directly to their home.

Priscilla Molina is a makeup artist who has been using virtual appointments in a creative way to teach her clients to do their own makeup. She does them in a few different ways, all through Zoom. 

So far, she’s hosted several group makeup classes, with 15-20 attendees each, that she charges $39 for. 

“The first virtual makeup class I was offering was a full face with day and smokey eye look. Then I started offering one-on-one because women were asking about it,” Priscilla explained. 

For one to one Zoom makeup classes, she charges $100. 

The next class she’ll be hosting is for everyday makeup on zoom calls for work - something that many of her clients have requested. She’s also had requests for girls night makeup classes with 8 or more women, so she’ll be offering that soon to her clients as well, who want to learn with their girlfriends. 

When I asked Priscilla how she promotes these classes, she said: “I promote via Instagram, and a lot of my following are either past brides or clients who love to learn. I’ve had 2 classes, was able to have 15-20 people join and that wasn’t hard to promote at all .”

Teach online classes 

This is something that I’m obviously very passionate about. I just finished the fourth launch of my online program The Facebook Formula For Salons. I’ve made 6 figures plus with this course so far, from a single program. 

I teach Beauty Business Owners how to use Facebook Ads -- something that I’ve used myself in a huge way to build my business. 

I truly do think that digital courses are the future, and I know that every single beauty business owner has something to teach. Whether it’s teaching other beauty professionals how to do a certain technique that you’ve perfected - lashing, spray tanning, balayage etc, or teaching the business side of things - like how I teach client attraction through Facebook Ads.

Or, a very lucrative way to do this is to teach classes directly to your clients. This is an incredible way to generate additional income with your existing client base, while also serving them in a new way.

Enter Gina Rodriguez, owner of The Cultivated Curl. She has three different courses that she teaches to her clients and a larger non-client audience, to teach them how to perfect their curly hair. 

• ”The Process Perfector” - curly hair technique workshop course

• “The Wash Day Blueprint - Group curl coaching”

• And she’s also working on a mini course for diffusing curly hair

Originally, Gina decided to teach these courses because she was so solidly booked out for months and months that she realized she was losing money with people wanting to see her but not belong able to and ultimately going somewhere else.

At the same, in her services, she found herself saying the same thing in her salon over and over to clients. 

That’s when it hit her: she realized if she could turn “Curly hair care 101” into a course, she could require the clients to go through it before coming into the salon. 

Having recorded online classes that she sells, freed up some time that she would have spent teaching, she’s getting paid for that knowledge, and she’s able to see more new clients who are willing to pay a higher service price. (Score!) 

Her new clients have responded well to her classes, and are excited to have the extra attention and access to her training online whenever they need it.

Here’s what Gina said about teaching classes: 

“I have always seen myself as the CEO of my business and this year has really pointed out how crucial it is to be paid for my time and knowledge. Hairstylists are generally such a giving bunch, but because we are behind the chair and not really sure how to monetize our knowledge outside of our salons (or as product manufacturer “Brand educators”) we are leaving money on the table. My goal is to become a source of knowledge and to get paid for that while still serving my clients.”

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