Most New Skin Businesses Are Set Up Wrong... Here’s Exactly What I’d Do Instead

Most new skin businesses are set up wrong… and it’s not your fault.

The industry is louder than ever.

More courses. More treatments. More pressure to do everything.

But no one is actually teaching you how to build a business that works.

In this episode, I’m breaking down exactly what I would do if I had to start my skin business from scratch in 2026… with no clients, no following, and no reputation.

This is the real foundation.

The stuff that actually gets you clients, builds trust, and makes you money.

We’re talking about:

• Getting your back office organised from day one

• Building a strong social presence that actually converts into bookings

• Creating a clear, recognisable brand that people trust instantly

• Finding your niche and becoming known for something

• Understanding your ideal client so your content actually speaks to someone

If you feel like you’re doing everything but not seeing results… this is your reset.

You don’t need more courses.

You don’t need to do more.

You need to do the right things.

And we also have an EXCLUSIVE at the end of the podcast that can help you take control of your business even more 👀 

🎯 If this episode helped you, share it to your story and tag me @foxieskinclinic & @theskindustry_

💬 Need help with your business, your content, or your positioning? 

My DMs are always open 🤍 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, happy Easter Monday. Is it is that what it's called? Yeah, I think it is. Bank holiday Monday. Whatever it is. Hope you are having a gorgeous time. I'm actually recording this on Good Friday. Um I'm off work today, so I've come in just to do this. I have been unwell this week. So if you can hear it in my voice that I sound a bit croaky, then my apologies. But I have been waiting all week to film this episode, and I'm kind of glad I did actually, because I have been doing some reaching out to a lot of the girlies that listen to the podcast on Instagram. So a lot of our followers, people that are like engaging with our content and stuff, to basically just ask what you want. Um, I have a massive list of stuff, but if I'm not like covering the things that you specifically want covered, kind of in the order that you want covering, what am I doing? What am I doing this for, you know? Um, so I thought this is a good place to start with this episode because I feel like we've kind of covered some bits and bobs already in the last like five episodes. Episode six is gonna be for the girls that are at the very beginning. So the girls that have only just trained or only just opened their business or haven't just only just done it, but are only like are quite new to the industry. This one is for you girls. But before the girlies that have been doing this for years, tune out. I would stick around because there might be some little bits of information in here that help you. Um yeah, there could be some little bits of bobs that you think, oh I've I don't do that, and I've been doing this for five years, however long. So definitely because this is aimed at the new girlies, this doesn't mean that you need to turn off because you've been doing it for a year, two years, three years, however long, there is gonna be information in here that will help you. I have had so many messages asking me where do I start? How do I actually get clients? What am I doing wrong? Why am I not getting clients? Why am I not busy yet? And I get it because I started 10 years ago now. Well, technically 12, but 10 years of being self-employed owning my own business, and she is a different beast nowadays. This industry. When I started, I think I said it before, you could open Instagram, whack whatever picture you'd taken on there, no lighting, no edits, no nothing, reels didn't exist, stories didn't exist, so all we had was grid posts. But anything on there, whack 30 hashtags on, you'll get clients. Like, woo, great, clients are coming in because they've seen you on Instagram. Nowadays, that's unfortunately not the case. There's so many more people doing it, which is obviously great, but it then obviously means that we have a lot of like noise to fight through to get clients to see us first. So yeah, it's a lot louder, it's a lot more saturated, and if you don't have a plan and know exactly who you are, what your business is, and who it's aimed at, you're kind of setting yourself up to fail. You need to sit down and do the boring bits before you can do the frets, get the clients, do the treatments, get the before and afters, like all of that sort of stuff. If you sit and do the behind the scenes work, it will honestly will make all the difference because I didn't do this, it wasn't a thing, I didn't really need to do it back ten years ago. Like I say, you could just stick a picture on Instagram and that was it, like that was literally all you needed to do. Like there was literally nothing else. So I am gonna go through what I would do to you with what I would do if I had to start all over again tomorrow, which in a way I kind of am because I'm starting. I don't know if you saw on my clinic Instagram, I am starting to do a monthly clinic, so twice a month, over at a salon in Manchester. So Manchester's an hour from me. None of my clients are travelling there, like that. That's quite a while. So I'm basically having to start again, build my clients up, build my business up over there because my goal is to eventually be there full time and live there, um, because my partner lives over that way, so yeah, I'm gonna tell you what I would do if I was starting fresh and basically step by step how I would do it. Okay, so step one, get your back office sorted. There is nothing worse and nothing more off-putting to a client that goes onto a booking system that just makes no sense, and the treatments don't make sense, and it's too difficult to understand, and they don't know what to book in, and rah rah, they're just gonna go, I'm not doing it. I'll just go somewhere else. Or they'll look at it and go, mmm, eh, and book the wrong thing. So then you it takes you more admin to then be like, oh, actually, you need to you need this, you need that, whatever. If you set it up well, it will make your life so much easier, like so much easier. So, your booking system, your pricing, and I am gonna do a whole episode on pricing because I I just honestly have no words for the prices that some people are charging, like it's actually crazy to me how little profit some of you are making, like, and not only that, charging an insane amount less to not be the most expensive in your area or make sure that you're being affordable, rah rah rah, it has a knock-on effect of the whole industry, and I know that sounds really really dramatic, but if you are charging 30 quid for microneedling, let's say, god forbid, then people like me that are charging£180 for skin pen, clients are gonna look and go, Why, well, why is yours so expensive and hers, she could do it so cheap? I'm not gonna go into that right now because I will go on a rant about it, but it really does, it devalues the industry, it devalues our work, it devalues our time, it devalues our level of education. You need to be charging accordingly, and you need to work out what your treatments are actually costing you, not just in product, not just in product, but in time, in education, in your behind the scenes admin posted on social media, all the stuff that you're doing to run your business. These treatments are what it are paying you to do that. If you're not factoring everything in, you're losing money. This is a waste of time. So we'll cover that like I say in a different episode, but I will go over it a little bit more in a minute. Your treatment list, so if you have a million and one different treatments: a treatment for acne, a treatment for pigmentation, a treatment for aging, a treatment for this, a treatment for that, a treatment for this, a treatment for that, high frequency microneedling, derma pain and if your treatment list is 30 treatments long, how on earth is a client supposed to know what they need? How are they supposed to know that? How is somebody that isn't in this industry who has potentially no idea what they want, what they need, what they're like after, anything? How are they supposed to look at that list of 30 treatments and go, oh I need that? That's the one that I need. They don't know how. So you're actually putting clients off booking because it's so overwhelming. Your treatment list should be as simple as humanly possible. You want your treatment list to be that simple that somebody with three brain cells could understand it. Because, and I say this so respectfully, dealing and working with the general public is like working with people that have three brain cells sometimes. Sometimes I'll get a question and I just think sorry, what what do you mean? What is that question? And then I have to just think, do you know what? I'm the professional, of course, that's obvious to me, but it might not be obvious to somebody else, somebody that isn't in this industry, somebody that's looking for help. So work on your treatment list and your finances. This is one that I always struggled with. I never planned, I never organized, I still struggle with it a little bit even today, because me and money are just there are some issues, we shall say. I am actually working with a new therapist at the minute. She's not a therapist, she's a therapeutic coach, is I think what she refers to herself as.

unknown 12:27

April, May, June, July.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Six months, and then we were closed for another month in November, and then we were closed January to April, so January, February, March, bit of April, so we'll not count April, but that's 11 months out of a year. Is it? Yeah. So realistically, out of that like tax year, I worked for two months, two and a bit months, because we were open in December, but I actually got COVID. Mm-hmm. I went back to work after the November lockdown. I was back at work for ten days, and then I got COVID and had to close for two weeks, which meant that took me right up to the 23rd, so then I was closed for Christmas. Went back in between Christmas and New Year. I think I did three or four days, and then they were like, oh, lockdown again. Lol. So yeah, about two months in the whole year I worked, so I was like, Tax bill who? She's not gonna have to pay any tax because she's not earned any money. Wrong. I had been getting all of the grants. I got the£10,000 grant that they initially gave, and then I was getting the monthly grants from the government that was all taxable. So I actually that year had the biggest tax bill I have ever had. I had a£10,000 tax bill. How much money had I saved to pay that? None. Zero. I didn't have a penny saved. Of course, because why would I think to do that? I was being given free money in my head, spending it on keeping the salon going, paying the bills, the rent, everything rah rah while it was closed, and then living my best life in lockdown, doing ASOS orders every week, like sorry, sorry about me for just trying to have a nice time while the world was swallowed to pieces, you know? Had I actually used my brain and listened and considered the fact that this money wasn't just free money, it was taxable. I should have, every single time I got one of those grants, taken 20% straight out, put it in a pot. Tax money. Because then if I'd have done that, then in January when HMRC would hello, we'd like our money now, please. I'd go, ah, sick, here you go, I've got it. Instead, I had to go, I don't have it, so I don't know what to do about that now. So I had to go on a payment plan. A payment plan that I've only just paid off this year, as in a month ago. I have been paying that for five years.£300 a month I've been paying with the interest as well. So not only was I paying my tax bill, I've been paying the interest on top because I was stupid, didn't think about it, didn't plan for it. And that was what I did every year. I never saved my tax. The first time I ever saved for my tax as a business owner was last year. So the first tax bill that I've been able to just pay off straight away, no questions asked, or was it last year actually? I think it might have been last year actually. It was last year. I was gonna say it was this year, this January. It was last year, I paid last year's. Before that, my man's been struggling, scrambling around, because as well, I also wouldn't actually do my tax return until January. So I never had any idea what I actually owed until two weeks before I owed it. So then when my accountant would come back and say, uh,£3,000, please,£4,000, please, however much they were telling me, I'd go, Don't have it, and have to put it on a payment plan. And then the year that the whole COVID situation happened, I said, I'm gonna have to put it on a payment plan, I don't have that money. They said, This is the last payment plan you can have, you cannot have another one, and I was like, Oh HRC, unhappy with me. So let that be a lesson to you to not do what I did, because that is why I have been in such a shit situation over the past since COVID basically, five years, literally paying debts off left, right, and centre, having no money, and I earn good money, like I do well, so for me to not have any money is silly, like it's actually silly. Like when people would say to me, How do you not have any money? I'd be like because I'm I have made some silly decisions, I have not planned very well, and I'm paying the price, but it's all done, I've paid it all off, it's sorted, we move. Lesson learned, won't be doing that again. So I am pleading with you. Do not do what I did, be organized with your money. If it is the only thing you are organized with, be organized with your money. I beg. And make sure that you are keeping on top of your books, getting them done. Whether you have an accountant that does it every month, I do that now because I just can't be trusted. I hate doing that. It is honestly my least favourite thing in the entire world is to sit and say, I've earned this much this month, this is much how much money I spent. These are all my receipt. Don't care, don't want to do it. So I pay an accountant to do it every month. She's great. I pay I want to say it's like£140. Maybe it's a little bit more, I can't remember. The best£140 a month I spend, truly. All I have to do, every receipt, invoice, whatever I get, screenshot it or take a picture of it, upload it to QuickBooks, she does everything else. Oh, quadreen. I need to upload my like last couple of bits and bobs from March, and then she will do my tax return. So in April, I will know what I owe in January. So then I've got all that time to make sure I'm putting money away for it to pay it off, so then when January rolls around, I can go, Here you go, Mr. Taxman. Here's my money, even though I'd really like to not give that to you. It is just what it is, and then I can move on. Problem solved, do it all again, you know? It just makes life so much easier to not have to stress about it. So if you're like me and genuinely just cannot be asked to do it, spending the money and outsourcing that is a great thing to do, like truly great thing to do, and a good accountant will make sure you're paying less. So it's worth the money. The money that you pay the accountant is also like taxable, reduc you reduce- I don't know what the word is, but they take it off. So it's a like you know what I mean. You know what I mean. So would recommend that. If not, if you are doing it yourself, you can either just do your books yourself each month and then get an accountant to just do your like self-assessment like tax return at the end of the year or whenever you do it. Um again, they'll pick things up that you probably wouldn't pick up on, make sure that it's all done right. Or you literally can just do it yourself. Like I do my partner's tax return for her. She is a tattoo artist, so she just rents like a chair in a tattoo studio, so there's not really an awful lot, like she has money coming in, she has her rent coming out, and then like whatever stock order she does, that's it. Pretty simple to keep on top of. Does she? No, I do it. Won't do my own, but we'll do hers, obviously. But hers is so much more simple, so it's actually dead easy. So I just do hers for her because she doesn't want to paint an accountant, and it'll take me like 20 minutes max. So yeah, those are your options. Personally, would get an accountant to do it. Obviously, if you are just starting out, you might not have like the money available for that. So do your books every month. Pay somebody to do your self-assessment, ideally, like I say, can do it on your own, but just to make sure that everything's right and nothing's gonna come back and like bite you in the arse, would probably pay an account to do it. You can get it done for like a couple hundred quid, it's not it's not that expensive. Another thing, make sure you're putting money aside to pay your tax. I use Monzo for my both my personal and my business account, actually. I have a pot set up that every pound or even penny that goes into my account, Monzo automatically takes 20% out, puts it in a pot. So because that happens, you kind of just don't really notice it. Like it just is taken before you can even spend it. You're not having to physically go, uh, I need to put 20% in the pot. I'm not gonna do that. Clearly, otherwise, I would have been doing it for the last 10 years. That has been a godsend to me. I've always got money saved, and it's always more than I will need because you're never gonna pay the full 20% because of your outgoings and like your expenses. So you'll always have money left over, which then nice treat. Treat yourself. It's January, everybody's depressed. Buy yourself something nice. That's what I do anyway. Whether my whether my financial advice is viable, I wouldn't be so sure, but learn from me. Make sure you are putting the money away. And especially now that this whole making tax digital thing is coming in, because if you have a booking system, that booking system legally has to share your details like finances and stuff with HMRC. So if you're somebody that is taking a lot of cash, you know what I mean, they will know that. They will know that you're doing that, and if you're not putting it through, they will know. So once that comes in, I think it's if you earn over£30,000, you have to do the tax-made digital thing. Don't know what the case is with the booking systems. I think all of them share with HMRC. Don't I'm not like£100 sure on that though. Um, but yeah, bear that in mind if that is something that you do. I do actually, and not this isn't not me just saying it, but I do actually put everything through just because that when it comes to like buying a house or getting anything on finance, or ROR, I'll let my cars on finance. Obviously, I'll want to be buying a house in the next couple of years. If I'm not putting everything through, like on paper, I don't really earn enough to get a mortgage. Whereas if I'm putting everything through, yes, I'm paying a lot more tax, but it means on paper I have that like money to show kind of thing, so obviously bear that in mind too. Um but yeah, booking system-wise and treatment-wise, I am actually in the process of like planning and tweaking mine at the moment. So it's something that I've been wanting to do for a while, just haven't got around to it. Like, I actually just genuinely feel that it's not enough hours in the day sometimes. But I feel like having every single individual treatment that you do listed on your booking system is confusing, and clients find it confusing because they don't know what they need or what they want or what their skin needs. So, and I've seen this a lot on socials as well. I am changing mind so that basically all of barman, like skin pen, the decor, algae peel, and the breath of life, the decor breath of life facial, everything else is gonna be a bespoke treatment. So I'm gonna have a bespoke 60 minute and a bespoke 90 minute that way, clients book in and they're not having to pick what they're having, they're coming in, you'll have a consultation with them, you'll have a chat, you'll like do your skin analysis, you'll see what their skin needs, and then you will just do a bespoke treatment on the day. I'm gonna set up a like pricing structure to determine how much people will be paying for what because I think that's where people get a little bit confused over well, what do I charge for that? Because what if somebody comes in and has dermapled and high frequency, and that's you know not a really expensive treatment, but then what if somebody comes in and they need the like they need like three or four things, or they want three or four things, and you can like obviously piece that together without it being way too much for the skin, you would price it accordingly. So I think what I'm gonna do is like have a basic facial price and then have each device, modality, whatever you want to call it, as like an add-on. So they would start off with the basic facial price and then each thing they add has its own price, or the 60-minute will be a set amount, and that will be two modalities, the 90-minute will be a set amount, and that will be three or four modalities, depending on which they pick, or which one we pick, haven't decided 100% yet, and that's why I'm like I'm in an hour and where because I can't decide which one I want to do. Um but yes, that is, I feel like what a lot of people are sort of like moving more towards now is bespoke treatments because if you've got like set protocols, like you've got a pigmentation treatment, you've got an acne treatment, you've got an aging treatment, what happens then if somebody comes in that either needs both pigmentation and aging, or they have acne, but their acne is very inflamed, and you might not necessarily want to do a chemical peel on them because it's going to inflame the skin even more, rah rah rah, then what do you do? Because you've got your protocols set, and that's what that client's expecting. So if you basically don't set out your stall, and you say what we'll do is when you come in, we'll have a chat, we'll go through everything, I'll have a look at your skin, then we will decide what you need. There's no expectation from the client, there's gonna be no disappointment of like, oh well, I really wanted this. They can obviously like say what they want, say, Oh, I kind of wanted a chemical peel, or oh, I was hoping that I could get a dermaplane in. But so then you know that you could try and factor that into the treatment, should their skin allow it, but there's no like definitive, oh I'm having this, or you get the situation where someone just books in for the cheapest facial you do, and that's actually like just not what their skin needs, and they're just not gonna benefit from it, and then you have to say, Oh, that's kind of pointless to do that. We should do this instead, but it is more expensive, and they're like, Well, I don't want to pay more. Okay, cool, cool then, thanks. Like, I think it just avoid it takes away all of that because you're nothing's set in stone, and like I say, it's just not confusing for people that really just don't know what they want or need to have to look through this like crazy long list of stuff that half of it they don't even know what it is. Okay, so step two, and this is a big one, and a lot of people aren't gonna like what I'm about to say because it's to do with your socials, it's to do with building your presence on socials, and that means you have to be on the camera. You have to be on the camera, you have to be on the grid, you have to be on the stories, you have to be talking at the camera, you have to be showing up and showing your face and showing who you are. Unfortunately, we are not in the era anymore that we were when I started, where you have a business page and it's the business page, and that's all it is. You have to now essentially to do well, to have any business really, it's not even just this industry, but to have any business now, you have to be an influencer because the influencers are now acting like they are the skin specialists, they are showing up in that way on their Instagrams, and that's why people buy their recommendations, that's why people are buying the celebrity skincare lines and whatever products that this TikTok has recommended, or that influencer's recommended, like whatever. That's why they sell so much, and they earn the commission, they all live in their big mansions because they're showing up, they're showing their face, they're showing their personality. That is what you need to do now to get the clients to build that brand, to build that trust. You have to show up with your face on the camera. And I know a lot of people struggle with this, and I'm gonna put it as bluntly as I can. You are just gonna have to get over it. Unfortunately, if you look at any big skin specialist in this industry, like whoever your sort of like idol in this industry is, go on their Instagram now and tell me how many videos and pictures and whatever there is of them, specifically them, on their grid right now. It's not non, it's probably the majority of their posts because they are what sells, yes, your results sell, yes, clients want to see the before and afters, the treatment processes, rah rah rah rah. But more than anything, they want to see you. I personally wouldn't go to somewhere that I was gonna have to have like a personal relationship with them in a way that I didn't know who they were, I didn't know what they looked like, I didn't know what their personality was and their energy was like, whether we were gonna vibe, whether I think, oh, kind of not the kind of person that I was looking for, like that vibe just doesn't sit well with me, or oh yes, that is exactly the vibe I'm after. Like, she is the person that I want to do my hair or nails or skin or whatever. You have to give that to clients now because that is what builds that trust. Somebody coming to you for skin treatments, there's a lot of trust involved in that, especially if they're coming to fix a problem because that problem is an insecurity, they are insecure about their skin, and they are coming to you for you to fix it. So if they are coming in and they don't feel that they have like a level of trust with you already, do you think they're gonna be comfortable coming in and showing you what is potentially their biggest insecurity and laying there and let and like talking about it and being able to be as open as possible if they haven't seen who you are, if they don't have that level of trust in you already from what they've seen online? Obviously, I know that people will, and I'm not saying that nobody's gonna book with you if you don't put your face on your Instagram, but what I'm saying is more people will book with you if you do that. So many people I'll go on their Instagrams and I couldn't tell you who they are. There's been times where I've been at events and obviously these people that I'm with at the events, like the skin and kin event in January, for example, I've spoken to every single one of those girls because we're in a big WhatsApp group. I have never seen I would say the majority of their faces, because they don't post on like post themselves on their Instagram. There was a couple of girls I thought, oh, that's you, I've seen you, I've seen you, I've recognized your face, your brand is called this, whatever. That's like that speaks volumes to me. Like if I can be in a WhatsApp chat with you guys and still have no idea what you look at. Like, I'm in a WhatsApp with you, I follow you on Instagram still when I see you. I have no idea who you are. I think you don't post yourself enough on your socials, you don't post it. Whereas, like, and this isn't me being big-headed, like, at all, it makes it makes me feel weird saying it, but like just to prove the point of like I do this, this is something I actively do, and I am trying to redo even more of it. Is people in these settings, so like at this King and Kin event, people recognized me because I post myself on my Instagram, because I'm talking on my stories, because I'll put myself on the grid, like it's it's really important. People the clients aren't just booking a facial either. People buy from people, and I will die on that hill. I will say that over and over and over again until I am blue in the face. People buy from people, they're looking for you, they're looking at booking you. If you can then also give them what they want and what they need, great, add a bonus. But if you are posting all these amazing before and afters that look incredible, you're getting the best results, but they have no idea who you are as a person, are they gonna book you? They might, but they also might not. Whereas if you're posting all of these amazing before and afters, getting the results that the client wants, and then also posting you a lot and putting your personality and your energy and your vibe into the brand, they're gonna be like, Oh my god, I need to book with this girl, like she's great, she's unreal, she's so funny, she's this. I feel like I can trust her, I feel like I already know her. Your energy, your vibe, your personality is what people are looking for on socials, and it's what gets the engagement. Any post that has me in that I put up does ten times better than a before and after post, and it could be the best before and after picture in the world, but if I do a post that's got me in it, immediately, automatically, better. I know a lot of people feel really uncomfortable with posting themselves, and you don't have to do it, you genuinely don't, but if you want to grow to be like a big league, trusted, well-known person within this industry and get the clients, you have to do it, and I know that that's not what a lot of you want to hear, but unfortunately, that is just the way things are today. Like, it just is the way they are to do this job and to be really, really, really successful within the industry. You have to post your face, you have to post your personality, you have to show who the face is behind the business, and I hate to be the person that tells you that, but you will appreciate it, you will appreciate me saying it one day. So, next step, so step three, is to get clear on who your ideal client is, and I was gonna put this in the the next step, but I feel like it needs to go the other way around. Um, so getting clear on your ideal client and finding your niche. So I think maybe finding your niche needs to come first, actually. So I'm gonna I'm gonna do that bit. I cannot stop coughing. I'm obviously editing that bit out because I don't want to be coughing in your earholes, but yeah, so I'm gonna jump to the next step, which is step four, but I'm gonna call it step three, and then we're gonna go back to step three as step four. So step three, building your brand and finding your niche. So this is where you separate yourself from everybody else. Your brand isn't just your logo, like that's that's not what a brand is. Logo is part of a brand. Your brand is everything else. Like everything else. It's the feeling, it's the energy, it's the voice, it's the tone, it's the colours, it's the fonts, it's literally everything to do with your business. It's how people experience you and your business before they've met you or experienced your treatments, and this needs to be so clear. So it's always best to sit and like write this down. You can have a little chat with our friend ChatGPT about it, you can just do it from your own head, but sit down, write it down, write it out, define it, and then you need to own it, you need to be that brand, and you need to use it on everything, and I mean everything. You will have all noticed my branding. My branding is the green, that specific tone of green, the specific fonts, because I had the same branding for the skin industry, the podcast, and my clinic, so that people if they see the two together, they think, oh, they're connected, they're they're the same, they're the same vibe, we're getting the same energy, kind of thing. Those colours I use on everything, so I have the green, and then I have like a really it's like a dusty pink, and then a pink that's almost white, so I mix between the three. I use it on everything, I never stray from those colours ever. Everything I do is in my brand colours. Um yeah, everything on my socials is in the brand colours, the brand fonts, the brand style, my emails, my websites, my captions, like the tone that I use when I speak, the energy that I give off in like the captions in any like written words that I use. And using Chat GPT to do that is a really good tool. If you can write down exactly the kind of like voice and tone and like energy you want your brand to give and input that into ChatGPT, then every time you need something writing, or you want to write a capture or an email or whatever, you can write out exactly what you want in there, put it into Chat GPT, and it will give it you back using that like exact tone and voice, it's great, it's brilliant. So you train it to sound like you, you train it to sound like your brand, you train it to sound like your energy, and then you're consistent across everything, and consistency is what builds that trust. If somebody can read a caption and know it's you before they've even seen it's you, you've won, you've done it, you've got it, you've like bottle that up and keep it and keep like replicating it basically. In terms of finding your niche, this is something I tell people all the time, and I feel like it. A really important thing because I did the opposite of this. I used to do everything, and when I tell you I have done everything in this industry, brows, lashes, nails, spray tans, semi-permanent makeup, skin, makeup. Is there anything else? I went on a blow-dry course at one point. Why I felt like I needed that, don't know. But they were big at the time. Big bouncy, like curly blows. So I thought, well, I need to do that because nobody else around here does it, so I'm gonna do it. I used to do everything. Literally everything. As soon as the trend dropped, when brow lamination became big, it was before anybody did it, right? It was like starting to sort of break through on socials. Nobody did the training for it. There was one place in Scotland that did the training. Your girl went up to Scotland, didn't she, and did the training up there. Everything, but it just meant that like I was known for doing everything, and I had a lot of clients, and that was great, but I could never really specialise, I could never really focus on one thing, I couldn't ever put my all into something because I was always doing a million and one different things, and I feel like by being a jack of all trades, you just kind of blend in. Whereas if you have a niche, like a very specific niche, or you specialise in something specific, that's what makes you stand out. That's what people go, oh so and so does that. That's what that's her thing. Like, oh, if you do acne, for example, like I my specialisation is in acne. So I would like to think, or what I want, my goal is for if somebody is chatting with their friends and going, Oh god, I'm really really struggling with my skin at the minute. Like, I'm just breaking out loads, it's not seeming to go away. I don't know why. Somebody in that group will go, Oh, Paige does that. You need you need to see her. That's the goal, that's what you want. You don't just want, oh well, just go to this random girl that does facials because acne is so much deeper than that. You can't just do facials and treat acne, it doesn't work like that. So think about is there a specific condition, like skin condition you love treating, or a special a specific treatment that you love doing, like that's your like thing. Is there something you personally struggled with, so like a skin condition you've struggled with? I have struggled with acne. Therefore, I feel so passionate about treating people with it because I know how hard it is, I understand the like mental toll it takes on you, feeling that you have to wear makeup every day and you can't leave the house without makeup because you think everybody will be looking at you and rah rah rah, and just the constant struggle of your skin, like just being shit, like just never being able to do anything that works, and just not knowing where to turn next and feeling like you've done everything. Those clients are my vibe because I can sit there and honestly say to them, I've been there, I get it, and I still go through it every now and again. Like, I've been ill this week, I don't know if you can see it, I have broken out because of how unwell I've been. I've had the biggest like boil on my face, and a couple of like little pimples. Like, I had one on my nose. I never get breakouts on my nose ever, and I had the biggest, like, most yellow spot there the other day, I could have died. So I get it, like I get that it's one of those things that like it never goes away. Like, you have to just manage acne basically for the rest of your life, it's not something that's ever you're never gonna suffer with ever again, you're always gonna get the odd breakout here and there. But I feel that I am so passionate about treating it, and that's why I sort of specialise in it because I get it, I understand it, and I know how much people want it as well. So if you find your niche, you find your thing, and then you own it, you learn about it constantly, always be picking up the new information. If there's new info that's come out about it, learn it. If there's new treatments, learn them, if there's new products, learn them. Be that person that does that thing. Does that make sense? Like that thing, that one thing, you want to be known for that, rather than just doing everything in the world that comes out to do with skin. If you do want to be that person that does everything, that's fine, you can do that. I'm not saying that's not okay. What I'm saying is you will probably benefit from specialising. If you uh become known for something, you then become the go-to for that thing. So if it's anti-aging, people are never gonna stop aging, people are always gonna age, and there's always gonna be women that want to not age. Me being one of them, I will age like Christianna. I will be 70 and look 30. Like, I do not plan on this face changing ever. So I would be your like target audience in a couple of years when I think, right, what next? I'm starting to I just hit 30, so wait till I'm 35 and think now what? Things are starting to real show here. I would then look for somebody that specialises in that because I don't want to go just any random person that just is like, oh, I do facials and I can help you with aging. I want somebody that specialises, that knows everything there is to know about age and is gonna tell me how to never age. People will travel, people will wait, and people will pay more for a specialist. If you are a specialist, think about it. In terms of go to the doctors, you see a GP, it's free. They're shit, they don't really do much in the like in terms of helping you. They'll give you some antibiotics. I don't know why they're antibiotics, always antibiotics, but they'll give you antibiotics. Versus seeing a specialist, a consultant, somebody that specialises in this one specific thing that you need, you're probably gonna have to pay. You might not, but you probably will. But you will get the best care, hopefully. You will get the care that you need, you will get the answers that you need, and you will feel more confident in the person that's giving you this information because they're a specialist. So, bear that in mind. How you position yourself is how other people will see you, and even if you don't believe it, right, if you don't believe that you're good enough to be a specialist, lie. Just lie. That's what I did. I lied and I pushed it, and I told myself, just say it, it'll be fine, just say it. And now I feel confident. Now I am in that place where I feel like, yeah, I can say that because I believe that I should basically gaslit myself. Like, and I feel like lying to yourself is kind of a form of manifestation in a way, because the more you say things, the more likely they are to happen, the more you believe in something or don't believe in it, but keep telling yourself it's gonna be the case anyway, the more likely that is to happen because you're doing it. Does that make sense? Because or am I insane? Who knows? Um, so yeah, then going back to what I was saying uh before. So then once you've chosen like your branding and your niche and what you want to offer, you then need to get clear on like who your ideal client is. So this is where a lot of people go wrong, they try and appeal to everyone, and everyone's a lot of people, like an awful lot of people. So to get that many eyes on you is gonna be really, really hard. If you're trying to speak to everybody, you can sometimes connect with no one because you're not actively directly speaking to a person, you're just throwing it out there and hoping it sticks, kind of thing. You need to know exactly who you're talking to in your content, in your marketing, in your emails, in everything you do, you need to know who it is you that you want on that bed or in the chair, however you obviously do it. So, who are they? Who do they struggle with? What are they insecure about, and what have they already tried that hasn't worked? Write it down. Make yourself a whole situation where you can write down, do like a spider diagram. I love a spider diagram, or like a mind map. That was very feels very like back to school of me, but that sort of thing can be really helpful. Just actually just taking the time to sit down and write all of this down, and then you've got it clear in your head, you can put it into Chat GPT if you want to, so that then if you ask it questions, it knows what it's giving you back. You can have it in your phone somewhere, whatever you need. But once you sat down, spent that hour or two actually getting clear on all of this. You then know how to go forward, you know then how to plan your content, how to do this, how to plan your emails, what treatments to train in, what courses to do it really makes your sort of like vision for the business so much clearer. So all of your content, your treatments, your messaging, everything should be speaking directly to your target client, you're like your specific client that you want. You don't want to be vague, you don't want to be general, you want to be specifically targeting that person in all of your like wording, so in your captions, in your captions over your reels, in your stories, in any emails you do, in any ads you do, you want to be speaking to that one person that's looking at it and thinking, oh my god, that's me. I need this, this is what I've been looking for. Because if you're just throwing something out there and hoping that it sticks to somebody, it's probably not going to be that strong. Whereas if you're specifically targeting people with pigmentation, for example, you then don't need people that have got active acne or people that have like aging concerns. Maybe you do because the two of them can have the pigmentation as well. But if your speciality, for example, is melasma, you only want to speak to people that have melasma, you only want to be speaking to those people directly, pulling on their pain points, talking about your experience with it perhaps, so that they can have that like mutual sort of trust with you, speaking about how you work with it, how you're better than other people that work with it, not like in a shady way, but just like why your way of doing things works, how you get the results, etc. etc. So that then when that specific person that has melasma lands on that ad or your post or whatever it is and sees you know what you've said, they think, oh my god, she's talking to me. This is aimed at me. This is this is me, like this is what I need, and then that's when they book because there's that connection, there's that like instant, oh my god, they see me, they understand me, they are doing, they're gonna give me what I need, and that clarity in the like content is what creates connection, and connection creates clients. So that's a super super important one. So, all of this that we've talked about today, you can sit down, you can get a little plan together, you can write it all down, you can make a little mind map, you can make a can of a post with it in obviously not to post, but like just for yourself, to then stick on your wall or whatever, you save it on your phone so that then every piece of content you make is centered around these things. It's brand focused, it's ideal client focused, it's niche focused. Those three things want to be incorporated into everything you do, and show your face on your socials. But yeah, that's about it for this week. If I could leave you with anything, it's this you don't need to do everything, but what you do needs to be intentional. Build your foundations, show up consistently, define your brand, and know exactly who it is that you're talking to. Because the girls that build successful clinics are not the ones that are doing the absolute most and doing everything and have every single treatment on board and have every single product on board, they're the ones that are doing the right things consistently. As always, if this episode has helped or you've enjoyed it, I would love if you would share it on your story and tag me in it. You can tag us at the skin industry underscore or at Foxy Skin Clinic, so it's F-O-X-I-E Skin Clinic. I love to see who's watching, love seeing the same names popping up every week, love seeing new ones popping up as well. And if you're listening to this and thinking I could actually really do with like some help on defining all of this and like working out what I can do, and what my niche is gonna be, and what my branding is, and what energy I want to give from my brand. I am launching one-to-one skin specialist virtual coaching. So, what is included in this is it's an hour and a half call where I will sit down with you and I will go through whatever it is that you want to go through with me. We'll sit down, we'll brainstorm, and we'll get a strategy in place so that you can then go away and implement all of these things. You will have my full attention and all of my experience basically given within these sessions. I will help with anything that you want to help with, where it's behind the scenes stuff, so your like planning, whether it's your brand stuff, whether it's social media and like planning your socials, you don't know what to post, you don't know how to post, blah blah blah, anything at all to do with like your business, I will help. I'm here to help. I love to have these like chats with people, so I want to be able to give you my full time and my full attention that's not just a bit of an Instagram message back and forth. I have I've done like a bit of a pre-launch in the DMs for these, and I've sold quite a few already. So my initial launch offer is the first five people to book them, get it for£100 instead of£150. Three of them have gone already, so I actually only have two of these spaces left. If you want to grab one, DM me now and we will secure it for you. I cannot wait to help you work it all out and get a strategy in place so you can go in to whatever it is that you need help with, feeling more confident and feeling like you've got it, and you're not just struggling along and fighting for it by yourself because being self-employed and working on your own can be really isolating, and this is something that I wish I had 10 years ago when I first started because I had nobody to go to, and now I want to give you guys that. So, yes, I am always here for help, I'm always here to chat, and now we've got a dedicated hour and a half session for whoever wants one for you to take. I hope you have a lovely bank holiday Monday or whatever day it is that you're listening to this, and I will see you next week.