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Lately, I've been hearing a lot of estheticians talk about clients canceling, budgets tightening and a real fear of how to keep their revenue steady. So if you have been feeling the shift, I want you to know you are not alone. I am seeing this all over Facebook and all the different esthetic groups. Today, I'm hoping I can bring a little bit of calm to the panic and just share a different perspective. There will always be some economic uncertainty. So rather than worry, let's consider it as a wake up call, a call to strengthen the foundation of your business and create something that isn't just a luxury service, but a community that people don't want to live without, one of the biggest mistakes they see solo estheticians make is thinking their job is just about facials or cleaning their treatment room or choosing a product line or even just reordering product. The truth is, running a successful business isn't just about one of those things or all of them, it's about how they fit together to form this bigger picture. The secret ingredient to longevity in this industry is community. And when clients feel connected to you, to your brand and your values, they don't just see you as an appointment on their calendar. They see you as an essential part of their routine and a part of their life. I remember when I was running my business, I truly tried to make every single client feel like nothing else mattered in the world in that moment, and it wasn't fake. It wasn't disingenuous. I was genuinely grateful that they chose me. They could have went anywhere else, and they decided to spend their time and their money with my business. And that gratitude really translated into the experience that they loved and the one that they shared with their family and friends. Even now, a year after selling my business, I still text with some of my old clients, and that is the true power of connection. Now, if you're wondering or saying to yourself, Sarah, what does community even mean when we're talking about esthetics, or how do I build this community around me? Here are a few strategies I want you to think about. First networking with local businesses, and by networking with other businesses, I mean finding other small businesses in your community that are well positioned and also compliment what you're doing, but don't necessarily compete with it. This is helpful, because they can help funnel new clients to you. I have a blog all about networking with other local businesses, which I'll link in the show notes. I really feel like being a part of a larger community of small businesses is is really important next, prioritizing your clients, and by that, I mean, build real relationships. Remember their favorite hobbies and their kids names or that big vacation that they're excited about. All of these small details make a big impact. If you're like me and you have a hard time remembering things, make sure to write these dates down, put it into their client portal, their appointment notes, wherever is most helpful, because it really does make such a difference. Also make sure to follow up with them post treatment or after they've purchased a new product, a simple just like, hey, how's your skin doing? Can go a really long way. And then don't forget to celebrate milestones, birthdays, anniversaries, or any sort of like little personal wins, acknowledging them with a small gift, or even just like a heartfelt little text message, this shows them that you care. And it's human nature to always like to be recognized. Third, build and leverage your email list. Unlike social media, which you don't own, your email list is a direct line to your clients. Start collecting emails today, even if it's just through, like a simple sign up sheet. I know before I started collecting emails, it all seemed so pointless, and it was just like another thing on my to do list. I remember thinking like, what am I going to do with these emails? What would I even send? What am I going to say? And it seemed like a lot of work with not a lot of payback. But I promise the payback is there. It's just not that instant gratification. Application we all like you have to be in it for the long haul. Your email list is like a Rolodex of your clients that you can market to, which matters because each name has a monetary value, and each name also has the potential of making a purchase during slow months, hence, helping to keep you in business if you're struggling to think of what content to send, there are so many resources, including blogs, chat, GPT, podcasts related to email marketing and even online marketing master classes. One important thing to remember is always send valuable content. We don't want to spam their inboxes and we don't just want to sell. You want to educate, inspire and keep them engaged. Otherwise they're just going to unsubscribe. You can also segment your audience, which means you can send them targeted emails based on their preferences, skin conditions, past purchases, really, almost anything. Most email platforms have online courses to learn more, including how to segment, how to read your analytics and grow your list. If this seems all too much and your budget allows for it, highly recommend just hiring a company to create your email flows and campaigns for you. You'll always have to have a part in your email marketing, because whoever's doing your email blast for you will need to know about sales or upcoming new services, so you'll always have to have a hand, but it is handy to have somebody kind of roll that out for you. If I were to tell you one of the most important things I ever did for my business, it was definitely investing in email marketing. Next up is utilize smart relationship driven marketing. This means find ways to build trust and engagement with your audience, such as sending random texts for special events or even just like a simple random text that says, Hey, I saw this and thought of you, those sorts of texts can really go a long way. Now, obviously, Don't bombard your client with text messages. They aren't your friend. They do have their own lives, but I really recommend doing this and doing it sparingly. Social media can also be a great way to kind of build this trust factor. Social media is great for storytelling, and can be super instrumental for some of your clients. Lots of clients enjoy seeing behind the scenes content, seeing client transformations, and also just love being invested in your personal insights and tidbits of your life that you want to share. But I want to caution you to remember to build trust first, and then know that the sales will follow. It's kind of like this dance. You don't want to just outright ask for the sale. Give them a reason to want to without expectations, make them fall in love with your brand, with what you offer, with what you stand for, and then you go in for the gentle ask. The fourth is not necessarily about community, but it's a way to improve your customer experience while also increasing retail sales that create stability for you. I cannot say this enough retail is so important, it should be a major source of your revenue. And here is why, our revenue is heavily tied to the amount of time we spend with our clients. Retail will help offset that, and can be an amazing passive form of income. After you have initially recommended products, your client should, in theory, continue to come back to purchase more, and if you can have them purchase online even better, a few ways to increase your retail sales is always having stock on hand. People are more likely to buy when they can feel and smell it in person and then take it home immediately. Also, it's important to educate clients on why home care matters. Retail should be looked at as an extension of the service, and not just a ploy or like a salesy marketing thing. Last get creative on how you market your retail online. You can post tutorials, have your own branding shoots of products, obviously, share some before and afters. There's so many ways to bring your brand personality into the way that you sell your retail All right. So now that I've shared four ways to build and strengthen a community, it's important to know how to track their performance. This is paramount to all of this. If you can't measure you don't know if it's working, one of the first things to measure is, what is your client retention like? Are people coming back? Your booking app should have this feature to give you that percentage. If your rebooking rate is low, you have to figure out why, and sending out a survey or reviewing your Google reviews can be helpful, but it's really important to take a look at what could be contributing to this. It could be the booking process. Us. It might be your space and maybe all of these little details that you're unaware of that is impacting your retention. It could even be posting things on social media that may be a little off putting, such as this new trend of client shaming and posts and reels or stories about policies that just kind of feel passive aggressive. These things do matter. I've definitely stopped going to a few service providers because of their passive aggressive Instagram posts. Is it patty? Maybe. But I know that I am not alone in that, and I just rather spend my money with people who are gracious. Also look at what is your retail to service ratio, how much of your revenue is from product sales. Keep an eye on this number. Remember, we want to prioritize retail. That means thinking about ways to increase those numbers. Maybe it's building an E commerce site, or finding ways to create a fun and intentional branding moment, or even setting up an email campaign that helps drive sales. Speaking of email engagement, it's important to continuously check to see if people are opening and clicking on your emails. We want to know if they're landing. We need to know if we're actually seeing a return, because most email platforms charge. So we want to keep an eye out for this. Again, there are so many different free classes on this, or you can even, like I mentioned before, hire out at the end of the day, it's important to remember that your business is not just about the treatments you offer, it's about the experience you create, relationships you build, and the community that you foster. When you focus on connection and strategic marketing and diversified revenue streams you create the safety net. If you found this helpful, please leave a review, share it with a fellow esthetician, and let's keep building this community together until then, see you next week.