Beauty Pro To CEO

Episode 1: Picture Perfect Salons — Uncovered

• Debbie • Episode 1

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The Truth About Salon Ownership: What Social Media Doesn’t Show You

Ever feel like every salon owner on social media has it all figured out? Perfect posts, thriving teams, and endless success? In this episode, Debbie Mulhall pulls back the curtain on salon ownership and reveals the realities behind the polished Instagram feeds.


What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

  • Perception vs. Reality in Salon Ownership – Why a flawless social media presence doesn’t always mean a thriving business.
  • The Comparison Trap – How comparing yourself to other salon owners can hold you back—and what to do instead.
  • The Role of Social Media – Using social media as a business tool rather than a source of self-doubt.
  • Understanding Team Dynamics – Why even the most successful salons face challenges behind the scenes.
  • Navigating Growth & Overcoming Challenges – The systems, tools, and mindset shifts you need to thrive in business.
  • The Power of Networking & Community – How connecting with fellow salon owners can help you grow and feel supported.

💬 Debbie’s Key Message: A salon should be more than a job—it should be a valuable, sellable asset. Without systems, strategy, and financial clarity, many beauty business owners face burnout and walk away with nothing. Start planning your exit now—so you can leave on your terms, with profit and purpose.

✨ Discover the 4 Biggest Profit Killers that could be holding your beauty business back 💸💔—straight from Beauty CEO & Mentor Debbie Mulhall 💄👩‍💼: https://www.beautybbm.com/signup

🎧 Tune in now to protect your passion, prepare your plan, and turn your salon into a sellable asset.

📩 Have thoughts or questions? Connect with Debbie on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beautybusinessmasterybbm

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beauty_business_mastery/#

Website: https://www.beautybbm.com/

📢 Loved this episode? Subscribe, rate, and review! Your support helps empower more beauty entrepreneurs to build sustainable, stress-free success.

Debbie  0:01  

Debbie, welcome to Beauty Pro To CEO. I'm Debbie Mulhall and a cure a beauty or skin professional who wants to build a thriving, profitable business without the stress and burnout. You are in the right place. I started in this industry, just like you, working hands-on passionate about beauty, but quickly realizing the passion alone does not pay the bills. I built my business from the ground up, learned through trial and error, and became obsessed with mastering leadership systems and strategies to create a business that works for me, not the other way around. Now I help beauty clothes, just like you to do the same. This podcast is your go-to for practical business tips, no fluff, strategies, and real talk behind the scenes, the highs, the lows, and everything in between. And because I'm all about mixing strategy with a little magic, you'll also get a little dose of Debbie de Lulu energetics and magic, because mindset, intuition,n and energy are just as important as the numbers. So grab a copy. Get com V, and let's dive in.


Debbie  1:06  

In today's episode, I'm going to go through common salon ownership, misconceptions that look picture-perfect from the outside, the polished picture-perfect perception of success often hides deeper realities. This episode, I'm going to challenge those misconceptions and uncover some of the truths behind them. Have you ever found yourself looking at another salon owner's Instagram feed or their, you know, glowing reviews, and thought, wow, they seem to have it all figured out? Well, spoiler alert, they don't. The truth is, what looks picture-perfect on the outside often hides a much messier story behind the scenes. And in today's episode, I really want to pull back the curtain on some of the common misconceptions about success that fool even the savviest of Salon entrepreneurs. 


Debbie  2:02  

So if you've ever felt like you're the only one struggling while everyone else seems to have it all together, this episode is for you. So let's get into it. The highlight real versus reality, and this is, I think, the biggest comparison trap that we fall into. So I know many of you will relate to this, but when I started my business, I was so guilty of looking at other salon owners and other businesses and other solo entrepreneurs, and I really did think, wow, they have got everything figured out. Everything looked flawless. Their social media was perfection. Their branding was on point their businesses and just seemed to be running like a well-oiled machine. And meanwhile, very often they maintained, you know, a glamorous, put-together glossy image for their social media. Absolutely, they just seemed to have it all figured out, right? 


Debbie  3:01  

And when you go beneath the surface and you get behind the curtains, it's really not the case. So meanwhile, I'm struggling, feeling like I'm running around trying to grow the business, get new clients, answer the phone, put out fires, and honestly, back in the beginning, really praying and hoping that no one noticed just how disorganized I really was. So as a young entrepreneur, I can't say that I was as organized as you know these days, but in the beginning, I just felt like everybody else, everybody was more organized than me, and we, as salon owners, we are the worst for comparing ourselves to other people. So the first big thing that we all do all the time is, you know, watching somebody's Instagram handle and their engagement on their posts, or their ability to come on and share stories. 


Debbie  3:58  

And you know what we would say about that is, at the end of the day, social media and Instagram is a tool within our business, okay? And depending on what stage of growth you're at, like, if you are naturally a dab hand at social media and creating content and mastering the, you know, the finer points of creating graphics, and you know, able to do all that well, it's probably something you enjoy doing, and you're naturally going to have that reflect in your business. But I would just like to draw attention to the fact that just because you have a picture-perfect social media social media presence that really doesn't tell you everything about the behind-the-scenes of a business. So that doesn't necessarily mean that the business is profitable. It does not mean that the business owner is living a lovely, easy, breezy life, and it certainly doesn't. 


Debbie  4:59  

Tell them, or tell you, if their books are full, it really doesn't tell you anything at all. Okay, so you might look at a salon owner and be a little bit envious of their treatment quality. And I totally, totally relate to this. So if you're you know somebody who is providing a specific service that is very much a visual result. So if you're a lash technician, a nail technician, brow artist, or even in our industry, we do a lot of skin transformations, it can be a little bit all like, I don't wanna say off-putting, but it can be. It can feel really defeatist, um, in the beginning, when you're starting your career and everybody else's work just looks so perfect. Well, there's a couple of points around that. Number one, if they have more years under the belt than you, then please give yourself some grace so you cannot compare your year one lash transformation, brow transformation, skin transformation, to another technician who has 510, 15 years in the biz. 


Debbie  6:10  

That's for sure. Second of all, if the business has a number of employees, not only are you now comparing yourself to a snapshot of somebody who may have many more years experience than you, but you're now comparing yourself to another business that may have 1015, 510, 1520, stylists putting forward their best work, and you might see a monthly or a weekly post from the Best of 20. Okay, so it's important to really remember you can, you can really, you can really get caught up when you look at somebody else's pictures and think, oh my God, why are mine looking like that? Another thing to bear in mind, and I see this all the time, is, if you're not using, for example, an AI tool or a photoshop method, or if you're not using if you're not really, really, really good on editing images. 


Debbie  7:14  

There are people out there. There are, you know, virtual assistants and graphic designers. Their sole job is to retouch imagery for beauticians. So you don't even know if this work has been highly edited or if it's if it's if it's natural work. Okay, now, I'm a long time in the business, I would say I have a very keen eye, and it's really apparent on some pages, but there are people out there that have put skin transformations up, and you need to be really, really, really good. Have a really keen eye and a really experienced eye to see. But yeah, people, people do stuff like that. 


Debbie  7:57  

They will use any sort of editing tool, they will airbrush, air filter, so just be very careful what you're comparing to now, I will say, as a strategy, I do think it's a really good idea to find people who are incredible at their art. And I would actually encourage my own team, and I would encourage anyone who wants to become a master at something absolutely, find the best people in the world, putting out the best lashes, and absolutely put the put their images on your goal card, put their images on your vision board, and, of course, endeavor to grow into that person. But instead of getting all frustrated and giving yourself a hard time in the early days when you don't have that same look. Give yourself some grace. Commit to growth, commit to getting better. And actually, maybe they're the person that you need to upskill with. Very often the really, really good people have upskilling or training. 


Debbie  8:57  

Um, so yeah, maybe use it to your instead of kind of sitting in a corner and hiding in the background, I find people are very open in the industry, you could actually message them and say, Hey, I love how you did your edit. I'm an up-and-coming artist, or whatever is there. Could you tell me what you used? I mean, I don't know how many times I've reached out to people and said, I love your images. I don't know how you get your lighting so good. Can you share with me your ring light? Or can you share with me what camera you used? There's one particular clinic in Australia, and when I say borderline obsessed in my earlier years, a clinic is called the skin fairy. She Carmen is the lady's name and her picture. When I was starting my skin clinic, I used to drool at her layout, how she she was so open and transparent. She never edited any of her skin pictures, her befores and afters were all incredible, and even the behind-the-scenes you could see her clinic was immaculate. Everything was so organized, so. 


Debbie  9:59  

So instead of getting all caught up in the beginning that ours was our pictures were not that good, and we actually emulated her work, and we always maintained the standard that we were going to try and become like that, so that was our goal back 10 years ago. And it's it was a great thing to do in the end because we got to that point, I'm hoping that now sometimes, sometimes people look at our clinic urban and the urban clinic page and maybe say, Okay, I like how they do it, because we've got now, like 1314, and that's combined experience because I have a large team. So it's not just one person's experience. So in the beginning, don't compare yourself to again somebody else's best work, or their collective work of a team. Use it to your benefit. Set it as a standard for sure, and yeah, if you can identify that you have a huge difference in a service, well, that would make you maybe go back to the drawing board and say, Okay, how can I improve? How can I get better? How can I emulate this? 


Debbie  11:01  

I love the concept of finding a clinic, a business owner, an entrepreneur, and if you love their style, it's a compliment. I'm not now. I'm not saying go and copy their images and put their work on your page, not at all. But it's it's a compliment to somebody, if you you know, recognize their amazingness and maybe ask them for some help or some pointers, and you'll be surprised, and it's a great way to make connections in the industry as well. So that will be just something I would say about looking at other people's imagery and the level and standard of the treatments that they provide. So another comparison or another misconception that we would see in the industry is looking at their hopefully booked they look so, you know, you might think that, you know, if somebody has a huge team, and they've got all these images going up, that their team is fully booked all the time, so you think, well, how come they're not advertising on their social media for Monday slots, or it's February, and how come I need to post about availability in my diary? Or you may have friends in the industry, and they might tell you that they're fully booked, but you know, overall, as a whole, there are quieter periods in the industry. There are ways to protect yourself about that. But assuming that other business owners are not quiet is not helpful at all. You really never know what is going on in someone's diary unless you have access to it. 


Debbie  12:37  

Hey, beauty, boss, if you're loving this episode and you're serious about making more profit in your business without constantly hustling for it, then you need to check out my mini program, Beauty Profit First. This isn't just another pricing formula or spreadsheet. Beauty Profit First is all about flipping your mindset and creating rock-solid and simple habits that will protect and grow your profit week after week, month after month, no matter what stage of business you're in. I've also included a really, really handy plug-and-play Beauty Profit Tracker for you to install straight away from today into your business. So you have to go building any crazy elaborate spreadsheets. It's all there ready for you to go. So whether you're just starting out or you're already an established beauty entrepreneur, the difference between struggling and thriving isn't about working harder. It's definitely about working smarter and making those money moves. And that's exactly what I'm going to show you how to do inside beauty profit first. So if you're ready to start running your business like a true CEO and actually keep more of what you earn, then click the link in the show notes and grab Beauty Profit First today. All right, let's jump back into the episode. 


Debbie  13:48  

And also, you don't really know what that person is doing with for other methods of marketing. So if they're not posting their positions and their availability on social media, it doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have space or white space in their columns that they need to fill. 


Debbie  14:05  

It really doesn't tell you anything other than it's not their strategy to post availability on social media, because I have worked with clients one to one, and they said that, you know, that they felt embarrassed putting their availability on a call to action with treatment availability slots on their social media because they felt like it made their and their business almost appear as a failure. And that's really not the case. Because if that's an action step that in your particular business and your model lets your clients know about some availability, and if you book in three, three more appointments from posting that, if that, if that's something that you do to keep your therapist busy or to get some revenue generated, that's fine, if that's your strategy. But my point is you don't know that somebody else is not putting ads on Google. They could be using that same person that you think is fully booked. Could have a budget of 200 or $400 Dollars per month where they are advertising on other platforms or using social media advertising to fill those slots. 


Debbie  15:07  

So just because they're not posting, you don't want to assume and compare yourself. It's much better to have a strategy in place to manage your white space from behind the scenes and just focus on that, but definitely focusing on other people. It's just not always the case. Okay, next one I have jotted down on my little list is the perception of Team harmony. Okay, if you look at your business and you might be managing a team, and of course, there could be conflicts, there could be scheduling issues. There could be, from time to time, challenges with running a team. And from the outside, looking at on someone else's business, you again are looking at, potentially the highlights or these happy, shiny pictures of therapist of the month highlights,


Debbie  16:07  

and, you know, these fun reels, you know, showing the team doing all these crazy things. So that, I'm not saying that they don't have a great culture and happy teams, and I'm not saying that they don't have team harmony. But I'm again, it does not necessarily mean anything. So many business owners can easily put that perception up. Of course, they're going to put the perception up that everything is good and everything is happy. I can tell you that in my clinic we have had thank you, Jesus. Thank you universe. I'm clasping my hands together and saying thank you. In the in the last few years, we haven't had any situations with team management, but I can tell you in the past, in previous years, and I'm going to say we're going back. 


Debbie  16:55  

We haven't really had anything in the last five years, but before, we had a very strong business culture set in place and code of honor and Code of Conduct within the business, I'm not going to pretend that we never had issues. I'm not going to pretend that it was all everybody happy all the time. No, from time to time, there may be small conflicting I have to say, I'm grateful that we never had any massive issues, but we have had one or two people, for example, join the team who are not fully aligned with our core values and didn't quite fit the team. Okay? Now, in those instances, we may have had some disharmony. Am I going to post about disharmony on my team, on my social media platform? No, I'm not okay. So it doesn't mean that everything is perfection underneath. 


Debbie  17:49  

And to be quite honest with you, and there are a lot of teams out there, and they have not so good cultures, and not so they're, you know, not such a positive, happy, high vibration, and, you know, environment and it really, sometimes they're the exact business owner that will put all the pictures of the team out partying or going for drinks or having, you know, you just, you don't know, it's not a realistic representation. So again, my whole piece around that is really focused around your own business, like nurture and nourish the team. If you have a small team and you have two employees, nourish those two. Don't compare yourself to another clinic who has 10 or 15 you don't know what kind of crazy is going on at that 10 or 15-person team. If you're starting with a team of two, nurture and nourish, and that whole concept of the grass is not always greener on the other side, the grass is most certainly greener where you water. So if you have a smaller team, get your culture right with that small group. 


Debbie  18:57  

As you start to bring more team members on, you will find that naturally, things will grow in the right direction, okay, you don't get that right when you have a smaller team, for sure, for sure, when your team expands, so will all the problems and all the disharmony and all of The conflict, things can get really, really stressful, and the complete opposite to what you might think. So be really grateful for the good people that you have on your team. Nurture them and nurture your own culture, and focus on that that will yield you much better results than looking across friends at someone else's team and going, Oh, look, she has it all. She's got some great people there. Or whatever. You never, ever know what's going on beneath the surface. So I can tell you definitely, when I started out, I talked about these points because I was guilty myself of all of them, okay, I was really at all times I felt myself. 


Debbie  20:00  

Have succumbing to that, and it does take a little bit of practice and a little bit of confidence in your own abilities. And I think the turning point probably in my own career, was when I started to attend networking events and started to become friendly with other business owners. And I've been always a very open and authentic person, meaning, when I would engage with other business owners at events, or we would meet on social media, so many, actually, so many friends who are business owners on social media, we connected via social media. And I've always operated from the point of, you know, honesty now on the outside, when we were in our growth phase in our business, people may have looked and said, Oh my gosh, Debbie and the team at Urban, they have no problems. They are slammed all the time. The team all love each other. They always have great content going up. But for sure, during periods of growth and during periods of learning, we had so many challenges. 


Debbie  21:02  

And I think what would happen is I always I never tried to pretend we were something that we weren't. So if I was speaking to another salon owner, I was very open and authentic about the challenges that we would face. And what happened, which is really interesting, people will meet you where you are. And what I found was, as soon as people got to know me personally, and they understood that I wasn't about impressing them and I wasn't this, I don't know the Wizard of Oz. You know when you're like, Oh, you're just a normal person and you make mistakes and you're real, and shit goes wrong for you, too. I feel like when the veil came down on the wizard was so many business owners opened up and they would share their own experiences with me, and just probably, as they may have been shocked at some of the challenges I was facing. I was pretty surprised to learn things about their business and things that they shared or, you know,


Debbie  22:03  

yeah, so many times you would just be privy to information, and it would make your perspective shift. Okay? So it's really something that I think will come with time will definitely come with confidence. I maintain it's really important, really, really important to have connections in this industry and connect with other salon owners, because it there's strength in numbers. There's also reassurance if you're in a growth phase, like if you're a business that is in your 12345, and you're on a growth phase, honestly, honestly, growth is painful like that is the whole reason I have built Beauty Business Mastery. It's why the BBM program is going online, because I seen the need to solve a very, very painful problem for our industry. So that's why I have launched this program. That's why BBM is there. It's to support business owners. 


Debbie  23:00  

But the reality is, as long as your business is in growth, you are going to have growing pains. It's really normal. Now you can stay in the comfort zone and not grow, and you can have a very comfortable, easy life. And maybe that's your particular mo in your, you know, career, maybe you would like to maintain, you know, a self of self-autonomy and stay as a solo entrepreneur, or you'd like to keep a smaller team. It doesn't matter. But if you're on that path of hiring team members and growing a business and increasing your revenue, I want to tell you here and now, growing pains and challenges are inevitable, and if you're not stretching every few months and feeling the pinch. Chances are you're in you're not in growth now, of course, having the right systems, the right tools, the right processes, the right support, the right mentorship, and I think, very important community. And you know, as I say, if I would have been lost, lost without those women and men at the end on and on Instagram or at the end of WhatsApp that I was able to reach out to, or something would happen in the industry. 


Debbie  24:07  

And I get a message from the caller Mary, and she said, Oh my god, Deb, did you just see they're now changing the laws around this? Or what are we going to do? And I can tell you around the time in 2020, when all of our businesses were closed, I think I made more friends in the industry during that period than ever, and it was so important to have that network. So instead of coming from a place of fear and comparison, I encourage you to lean in. Lean into those business owners. Reach out to them. Okay, maybe not every business owner is going to be open, authentic, and interested, but to share with you or to connect with you. But actually, in my experience, the fear of not reaching out and not making that connection is actually the only thing I can't think of. I can't think of one time, actually, I can. 


Debbie  25:00  

Wine, we say, Not one time did a salon owner reach out to me that I didn't connect with them and answer their questions the best of my ability and support them. And I can think of I can't and again, while I needed support, I can't think of any time I was snubbed. Not once I even reached out to that lady in Australia, the skin skin fairy. She answered me straight away. I remember when she messaged back my now, GM was sitting in the clinic, and I said, Oh, my God, she messaged me. Carmen messaged me back. So it's like the world is so small, like if you're a business in America, in Australia, New Zealand, yeah. I just think it's funny. It's the perception that if we don't want to feel stupid if we reach out to this person, that they're not going to respond, I would say that's that's where the magic is. So step cross that barrier, and instead of comparing yourself, try and repurpose and optimize that fear and that energy and put it to something good. Okay, so instead of comparing yourself, instead of putting yourself in a little tiny box in the world and saying, I'm not good enough and I can't reach out to that person. 


Debbie  26:09  

Channel that energy. Alchemize it, reach out ,and use it as inspiration. Use it as a point of a goal vision. Emulate that person and use it to your advantage, and use it to power on your goals and encourage you, but yeah, just to always, always bear in mind that any of these challenges and growing pains that you're experiencing, they're so normal. They are part of, you know, business and part of success. And it's like that whole thing about skiing school is snowboarding, if you're not falling, you're not skiing hard enough, or if you're not, yeah, if you're not falling, you're not snowboarding hard enough. So if growth is your goal, and you are in growth, then expect the growing pains. All right, that's all for episode one. I hope you enjoy the pod, and I am so excited to hear from you. 


Debbie  27:00  

You can reach out to me on beautybusinessmastery.com, if you want to share your takes, maybe give me some feedback, or if you have any burning questions that you would like me to cover on the pod, go right ahead and ask me there, and I will do my best to deliver some interesting, helpful material for you over the coming episodes. That is a wrap on today's episode. I hope you're leaving with fresh inspiration, new ideas, and the confidence to take some action in your business, because, trust me, you are so capable of building something amazing. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I love having these chats, and if something in this episode lit a fire under you, please let me know. I'm always up for a good conversation, so feel free to reach out, ask questions, or just tell me what you're taking away. And remember, sharing is caring. If you know another beauty pro who needs to hear this, send it their way. Let's spread the loss and help more beauty business owners step into their CEO power before you go, don't forget to check out all of the goodies in the show notes, I've got some incredible resources waiting for you, including my free guide on the biggest profit killers in your business. Trust me, you will want to see these plus links to my programs if you are ready to deep diver and work with me. Alright, beauty, boss, that's it for now. Keep growing glowing, and I'll catch you in the next episode.