4 Things You Can & Should Automate In Your Beauty Business

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist podcast. So, if you've been listening to me for a little bit, or if you know who I am and what I do, you know that I love systems and automating the shit out of everything. Listen, I grew up with a laptop in my lap.

Like, I'm not even kidding. I recently just asked my family, like, what age I got my first laptop at, and I swear, they said, like, "Five or six." And I was like, "Holy shit." And I'm so grateful to have grown up in my generation where, like, I have the experience with technology and the love for technology that I have, because it's allowed me to do some really good shit with being a business owner and really embrace a lot of the changes that we see happening, and also allow me to streamline my business as much as possible.

In the past, um, two years, at the time of the recording this, the exponential implementation of using automation and technology in people's businesses has just, like, skyrocketed. Because what ended up happening was pandemic hit, and a lot of these corporations, a lot of these Fortune 500s, they have, for a long time, wanted to implement these automations in their business, but they never actually had the time to because transitions like that are really crazy. And in those times of the pandemic, everybody had a lot of time. All of everything was shifting.

People were being super innovative. People were figuring out how to move things onto online instead of being in-person and relying on the in-person situation, right? And, um, learning how to streamline and make things more efficient. The little boring shit that nobody ever does, but it actually can move the needle forward the most in your business, right?

And so I've been really lucky to be able to adapt to that and do the same thing in my own business, and now teach people how to do those same things growing up being so obsessed with technology. Like, I am a nerd. Anybody on my team, any of my students will tell you that I get so obsessed with technology. I'm so critical of technology 'cause I always love to have my own opinion about it.

But I think that technology is really truly the answer and the way for keeping up with this crazy new standard that we all have to be meeting to be a super successful stylist moving into the future. And that's exactly why I teach people how to automate and systematize their businesses and how to really utilize technology to make cool shit happen. A lot of the times, people will come to me, and they'll say, "Well, I'm already really techy, and I already have, like, a form that I have people fill out in my business," and I'm like, "Oh, girlfriend, you haven't even cracked the surface of what you can actually make freaking happen." Caitlin, were you one of those, were you one of those people before finding me?

I, you know, I didn't think that I was, but I definitely was. Like, everything that I learned from you, like, absolutely blew my brain. Like, I, it just... I don't even have words.

Like, I was just in awe. I was like, "You can do what? I'm sorry." <|agent|><|en|> Well, 'cause I know that you had, like form- you had, like, forms and stuff, and, like, you were, like, you were, like, a modern hairstylist.

Like, you were implementing the things and doing the damn things. Yeah. But I feel like people don't really realize, like, how far you can take it, and like, like, how you can bring it to the next level. 100%.

Period. Thank you so much. So, if you're listening to this, and you're intrigued, and you wanna talk about, and you wanna learn about all of the things that you can actually do as far as automating and systematizing your business, we're gonna be breaking it down for you today. These are all strategies that I teach within my programs, and, um, I wanna just let you know what's actually possible for you and your business moving forward into today's day and age.

So, let's go. Let me guess. You are a hustling, bustling hairstylist behind the chair, working so hard to build a beautiful career for yourself, one that gives you time, freedom, and energy to spend with yourself, your family, and your friends. But you feel like you're always working in your business, even when you're not behind the chair.

My name's Hunter Donia, and I help you automate your systems and implement really beautiful strategies so you can grow your business without the overwhelm, and this is the Modern Hairstylist podcast. Okay, so I'm gonna start off by talking about actually how important it is that you are streamlining and automating your business as much as possible. Like I teased a little bit already, and as you may have experienced as a beauty professional in today's day and age, there is a whole lot of pressure, right? The standard is so high.

There are so many more tasks that we have to be completing on a daily basis to make it so our businesses excel past the $25,000 a year range, right? Like, we have learned how to excel past that industry average, and the flip side of it is, is that it takes so much time, right? Like, you might be able to make more money, but it takes so much more time to be doing all of those backend tasks. Like, we're not just showing up and doing the hair anymore.

Like, you are now a marketer. You are on social media. You are an influencer. You're an educator.

You are the, uh, front desk, and you are doing all these crazy things. And I wanna teach you how to make it so your time is being used so preciously and so importantly and to take things off of your plate to be able to focus on the most important, highest dollar sign generating task. That is how scalability happens. That is how it works, and we're in a unique industry if you- especially if you're an independent stylist who doesn't want to open up their own salon or hire a team or have a virtual assistant.

We're in a unique industry where when we start our own businesses, it's really hard to scale because we don't oftentimes hire somebody else to do things for us. It's still up to us. There's almost... A lot of the times, there's things where, like, there's nobody else who can actually carry out this task, or it's really expensive to hire somebody to do a task for us, and hiring out and delegating, that is how you scale as a business owner.

That is how you truly reap the benefits of all the hard work that you put into your business day in, day out.And so if you want more time in your life, and, and you are still maximizing and sustaining the amount of money that you're earning, you need to make sure that you are delegating and systematizing and taking things off of your plate as much as possible, so that way you can spend the most time on the things that make you the most money, and bring in the most growth for your business. So, the way that we can look at this is, we have three different categories of different systems in your business, okay? Like, we have a bunch of different systems, and you can think about that as like a C-suite of any Fortune 500 company.

So, we have operations, sales, marketing. We have finance, all of that, right? Like, we have those different, like, categories of our businesses, and we all have to step ... we have to step into those roles, you know, depending on what we're working on.

If you, you can ki- you can mostly dial it down to these three things, okay? There's marketing and sales, okay, marketing and sales, fulfillment, and administrative. Those are, like, the three categories of all the systems in your business. So, marketing and sales is how do you drive revenue through your business?

How do you get new potential leads into your business so that way the money's actually coming in? How do you get people to return and come back and buy more from you? That is marketing and sales. You're going on social media, you're posting, like, all that shit.

That is marketing and sales, okay? Then we have fulfillment, okay? Fulfillment as a service provider, specifically to us, looks like doing the hair. Fulfillment is the guest experience.

It's like you ... like, them actually coming into the salon and you delivering on the product that you promised and the product that they're paying for. That's fulfillment. And then you have administrative.

So, administrative is everything on the back end that needs to happen for fulfillment and marketing to actually ... and sales to actually happen, right? So, administrative is things such as, you know, like, communicating with the clients. It's, it's getting your schedule all booked up and, um, making sure that everybody's booked in at the right times and the right dates.

It's dealing with any type of data that you're handling with your clients or emails, whatever it may be. Like, all of that back-end shit that you as a stylist have to do all the freaking time, that is administrative, right? You could even, um, think about administrative like, like inventory, right, like managing your inventory, manage ... and, and looking at your, um, looking at your sales and your reports and your numbers, all that stuff.

That's all administrative, okay? Now, Caitlin, are we clear on those three categories? I'm about to put you on the spot here, girlfriend. We have marketing and sales, fulfillment, and administrative, right?

Yes. You have a clear idea about what those three categories are? I think so, yeah. Which one do you think moves the needle forward the most?

What do you think makes the business grow the most, marketing and sales, fulfillment, or administrative? Grow the most? I would say marketing and sales. Period.

You got it. So, marketing and sales is arguably our highest dollar sign generating task. It's our highest dollar sign generating category in our business, right? It w- like, that is where we need to be spending a lot of our time to make it so we are making more money, is in marketing and sales, right?

That is where you as the CEO should be spending your time, okay, to be making more money and growing your business. Out of these three, Caitlin, I'm gonna ask you another question. Out of these three categories, which is the one that we absolutely have to do as hairstylists? Marketing and sales, fulfillment, and administrative.

Like, literally, from a very literal sense, not a philosophical sense, a literal sense. What do we literally have to do? Uh, fulfillment, 100%. Period.

We have to fucking do the hair, right? Like, that's what we're promising. That's what our job is. We have to do the hair, right?

So, if we have to do the hair, like, we are the ones who have to be in our fulfillment. There's no way we can delegate our fulfillment unless you hire other stylists to do the work for you, right, which is not what everybody wants to do. I know it's definitely not what I wanna do. So, fulfillment is something that we literally have to be doing as hairstylists, right?

And if marketing and sales is where we need to be spending the most of our time to be generating our dollar, our high dollar sign tasks, right, and to be generating more revenue and leads into our business, then administrative needs to be taken off of your effing plate, right? Because it takes up so much of your time, where you need to be spending that time doing those other things in those other categories. That is why automation and systematizing is so important. Are you clear on that, Caitlin?

Do you feel good about that? What are your thoughts about that? I feel so good about that, and I just- It was just, that was just so powerful, and I'm just, like, over here, like, "Yes, yes, I'm I wanted to, like, lean into the mic and be like, "Period." Period.

Thank you so much for letting me put you on the spot for that. I really appreciate it. So, so that is the tea, right? That is what I'm talking about here, and that's why I'm so passionate about this, because it really is the secret to you feeling like you're not so fatigued over all of the marketing tasks that you have to take care of, right?

Like, like, you are taking so much away from going and posting on social media, showing up in your stories, figuring out how to make your client experience better, from ... because all of your energy is being used on all these, all this back-end shit that we have to do. So, if we want to bring our client experience to the next level and if we wanna be showing up consistently in our marketing and sales category, right, then administrative, the thing that we actually can automate and systematize and delegate onto technology as much as possible, that's where we should be focusing if we wanna make the most money in our business and if we wanna grow quickly, period. Like, all of the little administrative shit that you have to do in your business is holding you back from growing and ge- hitting your goals.

So, with that, let's talk about what can you actually automate, right? Like, okay, like, you guys get it now. You guys should get it by now. You get my point.

What can you actually automate in your business? So, I'm gonna go over four things that we can automate. I'm sure there's way more than this, but we don't wanna keep your time here and, like, have, like, an hour million long episode, okay? So, we're gonna dive into these four things that we can automate.

Number one, your consultations. Listen, do not get it twisted. I always get so much hate in the comments when I talk about removing consultations. Listen, an in-person consultation does not go away, okay?

An in-person consultation is obviously going to happen every single appointment, every single time, okay? It just is what it is. That has to happen, right? However, in today's day and age, in the way that clients are looking to find service providers, you now are so much more vulnerable to your time being sucked up by these consultations that happen over the phone, on DMs, on emails, whatever it may be, right?

Or through texts, ugh, the worst. Texts, all of those things, your time, you are so val- vulnerable and opened up to these people wasting so much of your times in these different communication channels, right? And so, again, a p- a place where something can be streamlined and is taking away so much time from you actually showing up where you need to be showing up. We can streamline that by implementing our digital forms and by making sure that we have automations on the back end to understand, based upon their answers, to tell them what they need to book online in a very streamlined, automated way, okay?

Like, when I tell you the way that we set up our shit in PBP is they fill out a form, you get all the information that you need, everything that you need to understand what they should book online, or if you need more information, and then you can literally click a button and an email is sent telling them what to book online, how to book it, and they can go do it by themselves. So, you're still in control 'cause I know everybody's so scared of letting people take care of their books. But sh- you're not having to be the one who's communicating that stuff. That is what true automation and systematizing looks like.

That is what delegating to technology looks like. So, our consultations, we can 100% automate. And the more that you can streamline and get that information in advance, before the actual in-person consultation, you'll have a much more effective in-person consultation, period. Booking appointments, okay?

Booking appointments. Like I said, you can be in full control, okay? You can still have control, and you can, on the flip side of that, trust your clients to be doing the right thing. Like, you can make this work for you.

I truly believe that anybo- anybody with any business structure can make online business work for you. Whether you double book, triple book, I don't care, you can make this work for you if you set up your online booking the way it needs to be set up, if you simplified your menu, and if you've communicated with your clients exactly what they need to do. If they, if you've made it easy for them, if you're using a right, uh, uh, software that has an easy user experience, you can make this work for you, and it is so important that you do if you wanna be streamlining and not spending all your fucking times in the texts and DMs rescheduling people's appointments. And if you want to be setting boundaries, if you're guilty, if you're somebody who's guilty of coming in early, staying late on your days off, and having a hard time saying no, this is how you do it.

It's a system that supports you, right? Let's get into systems that support us and take things off of our plate. So, booking appointments online. We should be leaning into online booking, and again, you can make this work for you.

You totally, absolutely can, okay? Communication, right? Communication, like streamlining the way that we're just talking to our clients, right? With auto reply emails, with shortcut text replies, with booking reminders, automated booking reminders, having your own client app where you're answering frequently asked questions, um, having forms where it's not just for new clients, it's also for your existing clients, such as a VIP guest wait list or an existing client consultation form.

So, that way, when your client is texting you at 2:00 AM inspiration pictures saying, "Do you think this'll look good on me?" you can send them a form where they can just fill that shit out by themselves instead of going back and forth with them in the texts and not having, wanting to have this stupid conversation. So, with communications, that is 100% a place where you can streamline and still give your clients solutions, right? Because when I say streamline and automate and all those things, I don't mean just ditch your clients.

That's not what I mean. I'm saying utilize technology as much as you can to still give your client that excellent experience and give them solutions and resources without you having to be the one who is on top of it all the time. So, communications, 100% is a way that you can do that. I cover a lot of communication, a way that you can automate your communications in, of course, p- Pre Visit Pathway, but also in my Five Ways to Automate Your Beauty Business, uh, free PDF guide, which you can find normally in the link in the show notes or in the link in my bio, wherever you want.

Then, email marketing. This is why I say booking software sucks for email marketing, okay? It doesn't work. Don't pay for it.

Don't use it. It's trash. When you're ready to send out an email, the fact that you have to go and manually, like, open up the booking software and, like, write it all out right then and there and you can't schedule it...And then even then some, I could go on a whole rant about this.

Then even then some, you're, you're not customizing the email. The email doesn't look branded to you. You can only use so many characters. You can only figure out, like, who it ...

You can't, you can't very well filter who it's getting sent to. Eh, all of the above, right, that is annoying. That is not real email marketing. A real email marketing software will allow you to create automated email sequences, so when somebody, a, a certain client enters a certain workflow, then you are in control of at what times they get these specific emails that can be personalized to them, such as a welcome email sequence.

So, if a new client enters your business, you can give them an automated three to five emails that welcomes them into the business that will increase your attention, plant seeds from the very beginning, and blow your new client away. Make sure that they know what the T is, make sure they know where the parking is, make sure they bring the right payment method, all of those good things. That is what you can do with email marketing. But when you have ...

Like, w- let, let's say, let's say you do, like, nurture emails in between the appointment. Let's say that you do, like, an email, like, once a, once a month to your entire, uh, your entire clientele, right? Instead of having to go in, like I said, and, like, write out the email right in the moment when you want it to be sent, you can batch your 12 months of existing client emails all in one day and schedule them out to automatically send on the s- on whatever time that you want them to for the next couple freaking months, for the entire year, right? You can't do that with a booking software.

And so email marketing softwares are where you will be able to really take that extra task off of your plate and allow you to show up and do that high dollar gen- uh, high dollar sign generating task. So, I burned through those four things, my friend, and listen, there is so much more that you can automate, so many more things that you can organize and delegate to technology, and that's all what I teach in my programs. That's all what I teach in Pre-Visit Pathway. Pre-Visit Pathway, at the time of recording this, or at the time that we're releasing this, is open for enrollment right now, okay?

And so if you are ready to, like, really step into the CEO role of your business and to be spending your time and, and having actual energy and motivation to be spending your time in the spaces that you need to to grow it the most, then it's time for you to delegate. It's time for you to automate. It's time for you to lean into what technology can actually take off of your plate, 'kay? One little new client form is, like, not delegating.

That's just, like, taking one little thing off of your plate. That's, like, a crumb of the entire plate that you could be freaking delegating, okay? And so if you are interested in Pre-Visit Pathway, there is a link in the show notes of this episode for you to go ahead and sign up right now. If you have any questions about it, please feel free to DM me.

I'd be happy to walk you through it and see if you'd be the right fit for the program. We, we are gonna help you set boundaries. We're gonna be helping you, um, set up this tech by step, by step, by step. I give you templates.

I give you tutorials. I give you everything that you need to be successful and to adapt to this crazy-ass market and time that we live in nowadays as beauty professionals. So, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I hope that, if anything, that this has woken you up to what the power of technology actually is, and I am looking forward to supporting you in that journey of implementing it.

Peace out, girl scout. See you in the next episode. Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2022 Hunter Donia LLC.