Not many people can claim this, but you are passionate about doing lashes and thoroughly love your job as a lash artist. As they say, ‘Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ Every time you do a beautiful set of lashes, it brings both joy and pride; after all, your work is a labour of love. However, the time you spend and the sincere effort you put in completing each set should also be yielding you good profit. Are you making enough profit?
Remember, the rule of thumb should be to work smart, not hard. You are not doing it right if you are burning yourself out toiling away 80 hours a week. There is a simple way to make the amount of money you want and need to live as comfortable or as luxurious a life you want. Do the job you love and not slog your guts out. To do this, having a plan is integral. Let’s break it down for you so that you have a better roadmap to tread on to make a flourishing entrepreneur out of yourself.
Let’s talk money
Apart from beautiful lashes, nothing looks more pleasing than the continuous flow of cash into your account. To turn that into reality, let’s start with the basics. You need to ask yourself how much money do you earn annually? $50,000? 100,000? 500,000? You decide and work with that number. For the moment, we will work with the example of $100,000.
Now you need to list down your yearly business expenses. Sitting down to revisit all your costs from last year can seem like an arduous and boring task, but we urge you to consider it. It could be the rent you are paying, your insurance, purchases of technical products, bank loans, or any other business-related miscellaneous expenses you forked out money for. If you have just started your business, don’t stress, you can make your best estimate and hypothetically list down the expenses you may have.
You need to also consider the unavoidable expense of taxes. This can be tricky, considering it is directly proportional to your income, where you live, and other related factors; however, you will need to turn into Sherlock Holmes and investigate and research on how to calculate your taxes. Visiting local government websites or talking to your accountant may lead you in the right direction.
So, what do we have so far (example only):
How much are your yearly business expenses: $30,000
How much tax are you paying: $10,000
How much money do you want as a take home salary: $100,000
Add these to total how much revenue you need to bring in: $140,000
Let’s talk lifestyle
‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ ever heard of that phrase? Well, it isn’t rocket science to comprehend that, after all, striking a work-life balance is essential for your health and sanity. Earning $100,000 a year may be alluring, but if you are spending more hours in your salon rather than living your life, is that money even worth it?
Let’s touch upon how many hours of work would you like to work to make that money?
So, let’s work this out:
How many hours a day do you want to work: 8
How many days a week do you want to work: 5
How many weeks a year do you want to work: 48
How many hours does this total: 8x5=40, 40x48=1920 hours
Are we getting somewhere? Now that you know how many hours you want to work and how much money you want to make, you know how much you need to charge per hour to your clients to achieve this.
Get your calculator out if you are mathematically challenged like us. Now, simply divide the amount you’d like to earn per year by the number of hours you would like to work per year.
Have a look at this:
$140,000 % 1920=72.91
So, if you are charging $73 an hour, Bingo! You pretty much know you can achieve your targeted profit margin! Let’s say a Russian Volume set takes you 2 hours to complete. This means you should be charging $146 for your set.
Could it get any simpler? Now, you’ve got a step-by-step process to work out exactly how to make the money you want to be making.
Let’s sweeten the deal
Whilst much of your hard-earned cash comes from those golden fingertips of yours, you aren’t utilising every opportunity if you aren’t upselling to your clients. Having a retail corner for your business doubles your chance of profitability. Give those products a chance to earn money for you!
The possibilities for upselling your products are endless, but hard-selling can limit your chances. Therefore, you must believe in the product you are selling. Selling a product every client NEEDS, such as Prolong Lash Cleanser, makes your job easier. Because when your clients return to you with luscious looking extensions after their 3 weeks mark, their belief in your expertise and recommendation would have increased manifold. We all know Prolong Lash resale margins are exceptional, so selling cleanser as a MUST HAVE to your clients is a no-brainer. Selling our complimentary products such as Make Up Remover Clothes and Cleansing Brushes are just the icing on the profitability cake.
Our commitment to helping you grow your business
We are passionate about helping lash artists grow their businesses. We want to provide the opportunity to lash salon owners to retail products to increase their chance of earning more. Prolong Lash products have been expertly researched and designed specifically for eyelash extensions. Though our star product since 2006 has been Prolong Lash Cleanser, exciting times ahead will bring new products to our range and new opportunities for retail. With much consultation with our resellers and industry experts, we have created new complimentary products, Oil Free Hydrating Eye Serum and Oil Free Eyeliner, these have both been created especially for use with eyelash extensions.
We only want to make products that clients truly want and need, making them products that sell themselves. What more could you ask for?
As entrepreneurs, remember why you started. Because you love what you do. Don’t burn yourself out undervaluing your work; plan, set yourself a goal, and remember, there is a client out there for everyone, so regardless of if you want to earn $100,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year you simply need to price your services right.
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