Laura Elizabeth is a hairstylist, salon owner, educator, and mentor for beauty business professionals who get stuck, as we all do at some point, making the same revenue consistently and not experiencing growth.

Laura spent 18 years behind the chair as a hairstylist on commission, so she has a really clear view of the industry, its clients, and how to grow as a beauty professional.

I sat down with her to talk about one of the most prominent lessons she’s learned (and teaches all of her students) when it comes to building your beauty business: finding and targeting your ideal clients is the best way to build a solid hairstyling business that will invigorate you and keep you fully booked in the longterm.

Today’s blog post will be helpful for you if you feel stuck in your growth as a beauty professional, whether you’re renting a booth in a salon, waxing clients from your mobile studio, or thinking of moving to a bigger location.

Laura and I talked about how to find and grow your confidence in what makes you special, and how to lean into your uniqueness to attract your ideal clients and grow your beauty business.

How to grow your confidence in yourself and your hairstyling business

Laura has worked with and taught hairstylists at all stages of their careers, and has learned the absolute truth when it comes to pushing past resistance to grow and ultimately stand out as a beauty business: confidence is key.

“Every time that we are looking to expand ourselves and do something that we are not [sure how] to do, it can show within our business. Whether or not you know how to do something really well, to be confident in who you are and your abilities allows you to feel unstoppable within expanding your business, within growing your clientele, within niching down, within raising your prices.”

“You have to really be certain about who you are, what you stand for, and believe in what your core values are. And then the big scary unknown on the other side of that fear becomes a lot more tangible and a lot less scary, to really go after that.”

But what about if you’re not 100% sure what to feel confident about?

Laura coaches her students and mentees to first write down the things they love about themselves and to lean into developing those.

“We focus way too much on what we don't like about ourselves - and that's what we are telling ourselves in the subconscious. We have a lot of old programming and old stories lay in that area that we're not even aware that we're thinking, but they continuously replay in our minds and that's how we make a lot of our decisions.”

“By reprogramming that, by doing simple affirmations, by writing down things you know for certain about yourself [you’re] strengthening the confidence muscle. [This] allows you to start feeling better about yourself.”

Laura says that for her, confidence starts with something as simple as wearing an outfit that she feels really good in, and watching her actions become more bold and focused because she feels great.

“When you feel good about yourself, that's when you want to talk about yourself. I say you're the biggest cheerleader within your business. No one's gonna talk about you as much as you talk about you. If you don't feel confident about yourself, how are you gonna talk to somebody confidently about your business?”

Shine the light on your unique qualities to attract your ideal clients

The services that you offer are, for the most part, similar to your competition, particularly if you haven’t niched down and specialized at something yet.

So how do you stand out against the competition and grab the attention of your ideal clients?

You focus on what is really unique about your business: YOU!

“I have clients that say, ‘Well I'm weird’ or ‘I'm different’ or ‘I'm introverted’...[I tell them], use that as your strength. I don't know why being introverted is a negative thing. I don't know why being weird is a negative thing. I think these are all things that create uniqueness and allow everyone to have a different personality because nobody wants to be the same. I don't want you to be me, I want you to be you.”

“I have clients that have such creative minds and they think so much differently than I do. And I admire that because I definitely think that I can be very ‘Type A’, I can have a very systematic approach. It works for me and that's what makes me magnetic in my way. But for someone else who thinks much bigger [and is] more creative - that is your strength.”

Laura explains that sometimes, a trait or quirk you perceive to be negative about yourself could actually be the exact thing that will bring you closer to your ideal client because they have the same trait or quirk.

“If you feel introverted, use that as a marketing tool to reach out to other clients who may also relate to that. Because they're probably also looking for someone who isn't outspoken and boisterous and loud because they need to find someone who meets them where they're at, and you are that person for them.”

Attracting your ideal client by being yourself isn’t just good for building your books, though - it’s also crucial for continuing to love what you do and avoiding burnout.

“At the end of the day, I want to go into my job loving every single client that I'm working with,” says Laura. “I don't want to feel dread [or] anxiety; I don't want to feel like I have to perform. That's the last thing I wanna do. That's a big reason why I went independent - so I could stop performing and I could start being present.”

Dealing with your doubts about niching down as a beauty professional

Over the years of teaching beauty professionals how to market their salons and spas online, I’ve come across a ton of people who have a lot of resistance to getting really specific about what they offer.

In my experience, newer salon and spa owners are afraid of not making enough money to keep their businesses afloat, so they scattershot service offerings to target a wide group of people.

Hairstylists who offer everything from cut and style to balayage to bangs can serve lots of people, but when you target the masses and everything they want, you end up with a lot of deal-seekers and clients who don’t really know what they want and then aren’t happy with what you give them.

Laura has found the same thing in her 18 years in the industry.

“I feel that people shy away from niching down because they’re afraid. It's a scarcity mindset. They're afraid of repelling business and they're not gonna find the clients that they really want to work with.”

“When I started doing hair 18 years ago, I did all the hair. The salon that I was working for [had] this mindset [that] no matter what it is you're gonna say yes to everybody. It’s serving the masses and it does serve a purpose. You utilize each client as an opportunity to figure out…who else wants to come and see me? But I do feel that once you've been in the industry for more than a year, it is probably important that you go ahead and you niche down and get into a place where you're getting really specific with the services you love.”

One of the benefits of niching down to a specific hairstyling client is that you can charge more money for your specialty - and, when the occasion comes up that you’re asked to do something outside of your specialty, you can charge a premium rate for that, too.

“For instance, I've been getting away from doing men's cuts,” explains Laura. “I have probably four that I still take care of, and I do charge a high ticket for them. I don't personally find the joy in myself doing men's work, but I do know their stylists out there that are amazing at it and I want refer my clients to those people because they shine bright in that area.”

When you decide to niche down as a hairstylist, you have to draw boundaries around who you will say yes to, and who you’ll refer to someone else. This thought can feel uncomfortable for some, but it’s totally worth it in the long run.

“You have to be okay with saying no. You have to be okay with shifting and pivoting your business. You have to be okay with shedding people that maybe don't serve you anymore but know for certain that there are more of the people that you want to start seeing available to you in your area.”

And, Laura points out, it’s important to focus on your end goal of making more money as a specialist, not on the small amount of business you’ll temporarily lose by niching down.

“[You can’t] have the mindset that, ‘Oh my gosh if I lose like 10% of my business, I'm gonna go hungry. By letting go of things that don't serve you, you open up space to bring in more people that want to spend that time and money with you that are a better fit and that probably are willing to grow with your business in an even greater way.”

How to set up a system to filter out your ideal clients from the not-so-great ones

Over her many years as a hairstylist, Laura’s figured out who she really likes serving, and says she feels it as a “soul connection”, instead of the traditional wisdom of targeting whoever’s local to you or who wants what you’re best at.

“I've taken a handful of courses…and they all say ‘[Have the client] fill out this form; what is [the client’s] age and where do they live and how much money do they make and do they have kids?’ Then I was like, okay, great, I know who I'm talking to.”

“I would reach out to my current clients who fit [the target market] and ask them for referrals. They would bring me their friends. I was finding that their friends weren't always the greatest fit for me. Just because their friends were somebody that fit my profile that I created…their values for instance, didn't match my values in the salon.”

Laura mentions that a big part of sorting out who she really wanted as an ideal client was figuring out the type of things she really didn’t want in a client, first. She nailed down the type of things that made her feel like an appointment had gone sour, and says, “It's usually not about you.”

“It wasn't about me. It was about them and understanding like we just weren't the right fit and it's okay that I don't meet everybody where they're at.”

“A lot of it [is client] expectations or a timeline of not being respectful of what I do behind the chair.”

Laura figured out that some of the traits she originally felt were negative about herself turned out to be similar traits to her ideal client - and in same the way, how she serves her clients that a few complain about is exactly what she takes pride in and knows her ideal client wants, too.

“I take my time - I'm not a fast stylist and it's because I create so much value. I have an experience that I do behind the chair that I'm not going to short change that just because somebody wants to get in and out fast.”

Because she values fostering a real connection with her clients, Laura has created an intake process for new clients that helps her get a sense right for if they’re a good fit.

“For every new guest that gets referred to me, I have an intake form that has very specific questions on . [The form] essentially is giving me all the information I need to understand who they are, what they want, and through the way that they write and through their responses I can tell if we're going to be an energetic fit.”

“And then we jump on and do a virtual [consultation], so a FaceTime or a Zoom call. And then I actually get to meet them and again, this is all about our connection. So through the questionnaire I find out if they're a good fit, then we jump on a call and then we dive even deeper.”

When you don’t have a system in place to filter out good clients from so-so clients, you’re doing yourself and your business a disservice, so it’s very important to have an intake process.

“There have been times in the past where I have said yes to somebody when I know I should have said no,” Laura confirms.

“And that may have been because they didn't fill out the form. I was doing a client's friend a favor, I neglected my systems and it ended up biting me in the butt. They took advantage of my time. They may not have been kind human beings in my business. They had expectations or they weren't listening to what I was saying to them.”

The most important things to consider when targeting your ideal client

When Laura first moved to Dallas, she didn’t know anyone, and was starting from scratch with zero clients.

So she took a bird’s eye view of her salon from the perspective of her ideal client: would that person want to visit her here, in this new location?

“I did my research on where is it located, what is the ambiance? What is the energy in the room? [Would] the clients that I have right now be attracted to this place? Is this going to energetically make sense for me to move here? It's not just about convenience, it's about making sure that this is going to match what [you’re] building and growing.”

Once she was sure she’d set up her new space in a way that would attract the people she wanted to serve, she thought about where she could meet them in a space that would foster great bonding and communication.

“I always think, where would someone that I'm looking for hang out?” Laura points out.

“So if it is social media, are they gonna be on Instagram? Are they gonna be in a Facebook group? Are they going to be a referral from a client? Who am I gonna be really talking to? And I start to speak with my brand voice on that.”

If you’re trying out Instagram as a place to find your ideal clients, don’t give up!

“Consistency is key. It takes about seven times [of] someone seeing something to actually buy into it.”

Laura prefers to connect with new prospects in person, though - and it’s a fun way to get to know your new area!

“I love meeting people in person versus virtually. So I always look for places to go hang out, whether that's at the yoga studio, at a gym, at my local church. Maybe it's just getting into a place of networking. For instance, Dallas has a ton of women's networking events.”

Above all, Laura says, you have to be brave and really believe in yourself. Believe you’ll connect with the right people. And dress for the occasion!

“I'm gonna put myself out there, I'm gonna get uncomfortable, I'm gonna go meet people in person. I'm gonna talk about myself and even if I don't feel confident, I'm gonna [dress in my] power outfit. I'm gonna approach people for the first time and introduce myself and tell 'em what I do. Through that action you're gonna start feeling more confident and you're gonna probably get a lot better feedback than you realize.”

If you’re ready to open up a conversation with potential new clients on Facebook and Instagram, check out my free class on how to build your books using social media ads. In this class you’ll learn what to say, who to say it to you, and what to expect when you’re running social media ads.