Being able to attract clients without having a traditional shopfront is key to the success of running a nail business at home – here's what to consider when it comes to marketing, charging for nail services and more.
If your ambitions are to have a six or seven-figure beauty business, then a traditional high-street set-up with a team may still be the way forward for you.
However, many of the nail technicians I work with are striving for a decent income and a great work-life balance.
They are setting up work spaces from their own homes, such as in cabins or converted garages, working mobile or renting a space in someone else’s salon.
It’s easy to see why – lower costs, less stress and yet many charge the same as those on the high street.
If you’ve been thinking about making that transition to work from home or you already have a non-traditional set-up, check out my top four tips to having long-term successful business without a shopfront.
Know your worth
There is no need to charge less for nail treatments when working in a less traditional way. In fact, techs are often charging more than the salons on the high street.
This is down to confidence, marketing and understanding why coming to you is still special. Don’t underestimate the value of convenience and a high level of personalised service.
Mastering marketing
When you don’t have the advantage of footfall you have to know how to successfully raise awareness of your business within your local area in other ways.
You need to be able to use online and offline marketing strategies to make sure as many local people as possible know you even exist.
Building trust with potential clients
You must learn how to create trust among your audience online (because they can’t peer in through the windows to see if you’re any good).
Great branding, lots of reviews, having a website and showing your personality day to day as part of your social media content strategy can all help with building up trust with your audience.
Look after loyal clients
It can be harder to get clients booking nail services in the first place, so you need to make sure you have great rebooking rate.
Sole trader business owners that are bringing in £1k a week over four days can do so because they have lots of regular clients, they rebook about 90% of their clients. This makes life so much easier than finding new clients each month.
In the free Nail Tech Tribe Facebook community, we have lots of free training and advice to help you grow a sole trader beauty business.
Find out more by attending the "Success without a shopfront" talk at PB London. Register for the show here.
Jo Tompkins is a business mentor for sole traders in nails and beauty
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