Episode 20 - Lashes, Beauty, and Education with Lash Veteran Kayla Hertz

Episode 20 - Lashes, Beauty, and Education with Lash Veteran Kayla Hertz

This episode features Business Coach, Kayla Hertz on the Ready.Set.Glo! Podcast 💫


Kayla has been a licensed esthetician and lash artist since 2015. She's a college dropout that was told the beauty industry was “a cute hobby”. Similar to many, Kayla has been through burnout many times and understands the struggles mentally and physically that come with building a successful business.

Kayla created Educated Artistry Podcast to give free resources to beauty business owners by pulling from her 7 years of experience, interviewing industry leaders and professionals such as CPAs, Attorneys, and Money Mindset Coaches to help you make educated decisions in your business.

She's a firm believer in encouraging and supporting badass women business owners to build their empires!

 

Tune in as we talk about: 

  • Pricing in your business
  • Education
  • & Sharing your wealth with others!

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Lashes, Beauty, and Education with Lash Veteran Kayla Hertz

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Transcript

Mary Harcourt  0:05  
Hi and welcome to Ready Set glow, a podcast where I interview entrepreneurs, brands and idealist, people and the stories behind it all. Discover what it took to get started, lessons learned along the way, and the advice they have for you starting on your own journey. So join me and my guests as we talk about all things business, beauty and brands. I'm your host, Mary Harcourt of Cosmo glow as we discover the stories behind the names Welcome to another episode. I'm so happy you're here. Today we have an awesome guest Her name is Kayla. You may know her from her own podcast, the educated artistry podcast. Kayla started in lashes in 2015 which in my opinion makes her a veteran lashes are getting such a big boom in the last couple years but 2015 really you have been through so much learn so much and have so much advice to give so I'm very excited to have her on the show. We're going to talk all things lashes beauty industry, education and she has some courses coming out how to price yourself all of that good stuff wrapped up into one little episode. I hope you enjoy. Kayla, tell us all about you and what's going on in your world lately.

kayla hertz  1:27  
I started the lash industry in 2015 I was freshly 21 dropped out of college I was like ready to go to esthetics school. I didn't really know what an esthetician was. I was like just sounds cool. I like skin care and makeup. And then I learned about lashes. And so right after I got out of school went and did lashes. I got a job as an employee for the first year. And then at 22. A year later, I went and started my own business. So that was fun and scary all at the same time. I did feel lucky though, because I stayed within my studio that I was an employee and and I just leased so that way I still it's kind of like you had that support system, the familiarity of the space and your clients and stuff. Then I moved into a Salon Suite and then kind of went into my own salon in 2020 After everything opened back up from, you know, the great Coronavirus. So then I opened up my own space to where I have booth renters in here now. And now I'm kind of in my transition phase of transitioning out of taking lash clients and going into more on like the coaching side and the course creation side. And then podcasting of course to which the podcast educated artistry was born in 2019. So it's been a couple years that we've had that going. And it's like my favorite. It's just my favorite thing right now.

Mary Harcourt  2:48  
I have so many questions. First off, like a 21 you got into the business 22 You own your own business. That's a really aggressive like risk taking a challenge. Did you always have the entrepreneur drive? Or was it kind of a sink or swim moment?

kayla hertz  3:07  
Since I was little I can remember when people were like, What do you want to be when you grow up and I just knew I wanted to be my own boss, I had no idea. I was like, I just wanna be my own boss. I want to do things my way. That's what I wanted. And as a kid, I was in Girl Scouts and I was always like the top cookie seller, I loved making things I learned how to crochet. So I would like crochet little things and sell them you know, as a kid. And it's cute because people buy them because they're like, Oh, you're adorable. Even though this is super ugly. I was just always gonna have that drive to make money. And I don't think I realized it at the time of being young. But I knew that I wanted like financial freedom. And I wanted to be able to just do things on my own terms. So I think I always knew I just didn't know it'd be lashes. So when the opportunity presented itself, after I was an employee for a year, the salon owner had kind of talked about, you know, maybe transitioning everyone to lease. And so we were like okay, I was I was scared at first I was like, I don't know if I'm ready. Like I've only been doing this for a year Am I ready to like take on you know, paying my own taxes and being responsible for all that stuff. And that kind of push because they were really pushing us to do that. I think they were just kind of trying to transition out of the W two employees. So I mean, it helps because they were kind of just like this is what we're doing. So if you want to stay here then you know least it is so

Mary Harcourt  4:21  
it's impressive because I was never that kid I was like Lottie, Dottie not at all who cares about life and world and how money works like let's just go have fun explore the world. So it's always so interesting to hear that people really did have that drive at such a young age. From what you thought you wanted to be as a kid where you are now where do you feel like you are on that spectrum? Have you like hit it exceeded it still working on it?

kayla hertz  4:47  
I definitely think so working on it. I mean, it's changed a lot since I was a kid as a kid. I was just like, I want to be my own boss and I want to set my own schedule and I want to have my own rules and do things on my terms. And now you know, it's It's so much it's so much bigger, too. I mean, those are still big parts of it too. But yeah, there's just so much. I don't know, there's just so much more that it can go to now.

Mary Harcourt  5:09  
So let's talk about that you're in lashes, you do some coaching, you do courses, What all do you offer? Like, what are you into these days?

kayla hertz  5:20  
I offer one on one business coaching, that's kind of my favorite part is the business side of things. I think even if I didn't do lashes, I would have been somewhere and like, building a business or being in like the business world. I love talking about money. I love talking about, you know, business stuff. And I do feel like when I was younger, or maybe when I started my business, I had a good sense of knowing. And I don't know if it was people around me, my parents talked really early about like credit scores, and the importance of building credit and how to be responsible savings, stuff like that. And I thought that that was just common knowledge. When people you know, I understood Oh, I should open a separate bank account. And I need to do this. And I need to keep track of things because I didn't want to get in trouble with IRS. And I, I thought that was common knowledge. And then I found out as I talked to people, and I started training, like it was not at all I was like, Okay, this is actually something that can be really beneficial to help other lash artists get started and start their business like legally, you know, on the right foot and everything. So that is where I really wanted to get into business coaching and just kind of helping lash artists one on one with that part of it. And the podcast was just kind of an extension of that just to bring up parts of the industry that we don't really like talk about to bring perspective, insight and knowledge into the industry. So if somebody wanted to learn more, or they may be wanting to get into the lash industry or be introduced to people that maybe they wouldn't have been introduced to before then they have that kind of like sneak peek of that.

Mary Harcourt  6:56  
I love that. And I don't know if it was social media or just a movement in general, were about I would say, in my opinion, six, eight years ago, people maybe not even that long. Let's just say five years ago, people started opening up and being sold transparent about how things work in a business behind a business, grabbing more business and having people walk through the door. And it was never like that. When I went to beauty school everyone was like hush hush, you don't talk to anyone, if they even tell you what hair color line they use. Because I was a hairstylist, like you're so lucky, where now I feel like it's so transparent, where people would tell you like, Hey, I'm using this exact color. I'm using this exact lash, I'm using this brand, this tweezer here's how you do it, follow me. And I think that's so cool, because there really was a need for that in the industry. And why can't we all just help push each other ahead. And when it comes to business, it's the same way. I feel like there's such a lack in understanding how businesses work that people like you and your podcast. And I know there's a bunch of other ones out there that really helped to kind of see you where you are and pull you forward in the industry. And I love to see it's great.

kayla hertz  8:05  
I really think like one, it was like that for me too. When I first started, especially with products, we taped our adhesive, so nobody could know what we were using. I think it's the same with business too. And lashes, you can put this in both ways where somebody can completely copy your blueprint, whether it's the way you do lashes or the way you run your business, it doesn't mean it's going to be the same. For one and two, there's enough money out there for everybody to have successful businesses and us all be happy and thriving in our own business. So it's like why not share, share the wealth, share the knowledge and help each other grow. And as I feel like especially as women too, it's proven that when women have more money, we get back to more charities, we actually usually do better on our investments. So it's like we do so much good to when women have more money.

Mary Harcourt  8:48  
So what do you hope your clients gain when they go through your coaching programs?

kayla hertz  8:54  
Main thing is I hope that they gain confidence in themselves. A big part of business coaching is a lot of mindset. Because a lot of the times, especially in the beauty industry, we hear that our job is a hobby, it's not really taken seriously. So you know, it's like, Oh, that's cute. What like what's your real job? And you're like, No, this is my real job. So I think a lot of it's coming out with confidence and just the knowledge to have that basic understanding of how to run a business and to you know, not be afraid of money and be afraid of looking at your numbers and growing too because a lot of people are actually afraid to make more money because they feel bad about it.

Mary Harcourt  9:33  
Well, it's also terrifying to build a relationship with your clients and you know them and you love them and you know that they love you and they enjoy the work you do at that price to come back through and have a face to face conversation of next time you come it's going to be this price. It's necessary and when it's done you feel so good and you're so glad you did it but it is really hard to do sometimes. What advice do you have for people that maybe are thinking about raising their prices, they're on the verge of doing it. How do they give that information to their clients?

kayla hertz  10:07  
In my experience, most of my clients haven't really pushed back, nobody's going to tell you to charge them more money, right. So what I usually do with my clients, when I'm doing a price raise, I always give them a 30 day notice that way, they're at least going to see me probably for one more, Phil, before the price goes into effect, I really don't like to spring it at all them like hey, next, Phil, it's going to be $15 more or whatever. So I always give them that notice, and then they can ask questions. I like what you said about saying it face to face, I do think that's very important, because just sending them an email seems kind of cold, and maybe not everybody will see it, sending them a text, same thing, I just think like seeing it face to face. And you know, just just saying like, hey, like, you know, my prices are going to increase August 1 by this much. I always have a list to have other artists in the area that might be closer to my price point. And I try to always let my clients leave. Like, if they decide to leave, I'm not offended, I will help them I will give them the notes that I what I do on them, and I will let them go find somebody else. And that's that's totally fine. Because if their budget, like no longer fits me, then that's okay, I want them to not have a bad feeling leaving me your clients have an expectation level of whatever you do in your service, whether how it's a lashes loss, how your customer experiences, how if you're on time, if you're rescheduling them, they have that experience. And if they go somewhere else, and even if it's $20 cheaper, but their person is always canceling last minute they're on their phone the whole time, the lashes aren't lasting, leaving them on a good note and being helpful and leaving them with Grace is going to probably open the door for them to come back and be like, okay, you know what, it's worth it extra 20 bucks, I'll skip out on something else. If my budgets tight to get the quality that I was getting.

Mary Harcourt  11:54  
I agree with that. That is amazing advice. I love that it is so true. I raise my prices multiple times. And the first time I was freaking out, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I'm gonna lose all my clients, they're gonna hate me. And they didn't, they actually congratulated me and cheered me on or like, Finally, girl, you've been working for way too little money for so long. Not that I ever was gonna say that. But I'm happy to pay more. And then by the fourth time I raise my price, they're kind of like, you got me I'm not leaving. But you're making this tough on me. But it was exactly that we're like, Okay, I'm gonna stop spray tanning or I'm gonna stop doing this or doing that. But I'm not giving up my lashes. And I've been to other people and nobody doesn't like you and I, I'm yours. And it was like the nicest thing. And I think it's a progression of like you said, your confidence. As you go through your business and learn more about money and learn more about your cash flow, learn more about how to price yourself and really get that life that you want. Because we all have been through the hustle lifestyle. And if you haven't been there yet, you may be headed towards it. But I think once you go through it, you kind of walk away going, Okay, that was a time and a place. But I can't do that forever. And a big part of that is raising your prices.

kayla hertz  13:11  
I always tell artists, at minimum you need to raise them every year. Inflation. We've seen it huge this year, we're definitely way more than usual. But I mean, this happens every year, inflation goes up, you know. So even if you stay at exactly your same price for three years, maybe your bills stay about the same, you're still making less money at the end of the day, just because the expenses of everything else has gone up or the dollar value is less. So I always say to me, like if you worked for somebody, would you expect to not ever get a raise? You'd be a little pissed off. If you never got a raise and you got better at your craft, you got more efficient. You know, you would be mad, you'd be like Why? Why am I not getting a raise?

Mary Harcourt  13:51  
Yeah, that's a very good point. Very, very good point. And I think you can relate even back to like rent, your rent goes up. I don't know how often I was always in like a three or five year lease. But every time I renewed my rent, I knew it was going up. And that was a big part of it. Or it's I can no longer offer the service at the price I was because I am no longer paying the same bills that I were they went up so my price must increase as well. You entered the lash industry in 2015, which was really early for lashes. Is there anything that you've noticed that has changed in the industry since the time you started to what's going on right now?

kayla hertz  14:26  
Oh my God, so many things. I mean, even just with like, the quality of products, the amount of products, we have the adhesive, the things we tell our clients, we had this huge list when I was an employee at my first salon, and I wish I still had it where we would read it off to them after they got their full set. I just remember we'd be like don't get your lashes wet for 48 hours. Make sure you don't watch any sad movies, no breakups or anything because you can't cry. I listen now and I and I have some clients that are still with me from the beginning. And even now I I ingrained in them so hard when they were new with me. And that was always the excuse. If you had poor retention, it was like, Oh, you must get your lashes wet. Oh, you must have teared up. When that wasn't what it was, is application and technique it was on me. And I still have clients. So today where they're like, oh, I can get my lashes wet. I'm like, girl, I've told you this, like 500 times, it's like, you have to re re reverse what you taught them and be like, it's okay, because I made them so terrified of getting their lashes wet in

Mary Harcourt  15:25  
the beginning. Anyone that's been around for a few years is totally guilty of that. And it's the evolution we learn so much more now things have progressed. And I love where we're at, I think we're just on the tip of the iceberg for where things are going. So it's super exciting. What advice you have for others who want to grow their business.

kayla hertz  15:46  
Number one is to make sure that as we talk about pricing and businesses to make sure that you're actually making money, I think a lot of people set their prices because they base it on their competition, or people around them or they think that's just what they should charge. And I think really dive into your numbers. I know it can be scary to look at your bank statements and look at your spending and, and all of that stuff. But really make sure that you're actually understanding your numbers. I mean, you think people would go on Shark Tank and stuff, they have to know their numbers or they're like by You're not serious about anything, you should know what your business is doing. So I think really getting familiar with that is just number one. Otherwise, I think with growing any business is again, it comes to mindset for me. I think, being really careful of what you consume, and what makes you feel good and doesn't and who you follow makes a huge difference to in growing your business.

Mary Harcourt  16:40  
I love that. And when it comes to social media, what are some ways that people can market themselves? What's something that really worked for you?

kayla hertz  16:46  
Definitely what's worked for me, and I'll say, especially with the podcasts lately, we've gotten a huge influx of listeners and downloads this year, this past seven months now. And showing up showing up on your stories on your feed is number one, you got to show your face you are your brand. Whenever I look at somebody's page, and I'm like, oh, like who are you? What's your name? What do you look like? And you have no idea who the person is behind the chair. For clients. That's super important. They want to kind of know who you are, know what your space looks like. But for the podcast definitely utilizing tick tock I still think a lot of people aren't really utilizing it as much as they should. Showing up on there and repurposing your content that you're making on Instagram on there is huge. And I mean, I don't know about you if you've done a lot of Tik Tok and Instagram reels. And I know there's people that are successful on Instagram reels, but for me, I feel like reels the people it pushes out to tends to be a lot of like spam accounts, and not really your target audience and I feel like on tick tock, I'm able to really niche down and get my target audience of beauty business owners, my video out to them.

Mary Harcourt  17:55  
Interesting, I never quite thought about the two of them like that. But that's a really great point and putting it that tick tock curates your feeds. So as people are looking for that and gravitating towards it, it's applying more, where Instagram lately seems to be to sell advertisements and do all this stuff. Which brings up an interesting point. Do you feel like social media is dying or getting stronger?

kayla hertz  18:21  
I don't know if it's dying. I feel like it's definitely pivoting. I do think that with anything you just have to kind of keep up on what's going on things are constantly changing on social media. I do think Instagram isn't my favorite personally right now. I know a lot of people that still use Instagram for their main marketing strategy that they connect their clients and they love it and have great results. For me it hasn't been my favorite lately tick tock has been more where I like to be and spend my time and also Pinterest which is really weird but Pinterest is something that has been growing a lot lately to that can give you so much reach to to get people to your podcast page or your website or your training because it's like a search engine really but your people are searching for your service or whatever you're talking about for like the keywords

Mary Harcourt  19:10  
so when you're on Pinterest are you creating pins How are you utilizing Pinterest? I feel like it is a long lost forgotten platform that we all use. But not many of us really post on it.

kayla hertz  19:24  
Yeah, no. And I've had Pinterest for years and I've had a business one for years soon I never utilized it so and I'm new to it. I've been really testing and stuff to actually pushing business content out. And right now I've really just been repurposing so any like Tic TOCs I have that maybe it's steps to better lash retention things that you think that your ideal client or target audience are going to search for. I did like a lash bed. What did I call it? It was like the perfect lash snap or something like that. And then things like that. Do you think that people are going to save they're going to be searching for and that's kind of how I've been utilizing it Lately the results so far have been great I'm going to keep it's like been a month that I've been consistent with it but just repurposing content for now and we'll see how it goes.

Mary Harcourt  20:08  
Yeah I love that I think I need to check out Pinterest a little bit more it's always my go to when you're looking for cute stuff last room inspiration outfit, but I I'm just haven't quite gotten there as far as a business side but maybe that's my new venture because Instagram lately is not it for me.

kayla hertz  20:27  
I don't know what it is if my engagements down, I'm always like, it's probably me. I try not to blame the platform, right? It's probably me in some way. But lately I'm like, Oh my gosh, nothing is being nobody's seeing anything and it's just wild. But that's why like Tik Tok, I just kind of got burnt out on Instagram really uninspired. So, I started utilizing Pinterest, I started seeing a bunch of people actually on Tik Tok talking about growing their Pinterest and stuff. So I was like, I'm gonna try this out. Let's see. And so I think anybody listening like if you love, you know, creating content, and you already have reels and graphics to post them there and just start repurposing and then kind of see where it goes.

Mary Harcourt  21:06  
So let's dive into a little bit about what your podcast is about. I know we've touched on it throughout here. But how did that get started? What was like the light bulb one day where you're said, I'm going to do this?

kayla hertz  21:15  
Well, I had a co host in the beginning, her name was Taylor, or is Taylor. She's still she's still here. But it's funny because she actually had interviewed me at my first job. She was another girl that worked there. And I thought she was so intimidating and scary. And then we ended up becoming friends and stuff. And it was all good. But we took a lashing Arcus class actually together into I believe it was in 2019. With ally Yeah. And we kind of were just talking about a bunch of stuff in the industry that nobody talks about, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but we're like, gosh, somebody needs to talk about this stuff people need to know is sniffing signer accurately like armful for you, you know, let's start talking about stuff that nobody wants to talk about. And we both had been in Taylor was she's about 10 years older than me. So she had a lot of experience in the beauty industry with makeup. And she helped her mom open a salon have employees and I had my like solo lash artist experience. So we just kind of pulled together and wanted to share business stuff, give, you know, knowledge perspective and insight into the lash industry. And then in 2020, she had decided to leave the beauty industry altogether. Maybe it was early 2021. So I was like, I still love this podcast, I want to keep it going. It was really scary for me because I was actually pretty shy, like when we first started. And if anybody knows Taylor, they heard the podcast, she's a really big personality. And she's amazing. And I just kind of the first podcast episode, I barely spoke a word, I was so nervous. And so I was scared to kind of do it on my own. But it just pushed me out of my comfort zone. I was like, No, this is something I love. And we were getting really good feedback on it. So I wanted to just keep it going and, and just help people just help talk about things, introduce them to other industry leaders, or CPAs, or attorneys and money mindset coaches and just really introduced them to this whole space.

Mary Harcourt  23:06  
I love it. And so how do you feel like it's been growing and what has helped that over the years?

kayla hertz  23:12  
I think being consistent has definitely helped. And like I said, this past seven months is it's grown a lot being consistent. And just I mean, really tick tock I think helped my help to the podcast a lot because I started posting little clips on there and talking about it people to ask questions, I would say, here's a little bit of an answer. But if you want to dive deeper, like more details this episode. So I think just being consistent and being like vulnerable and transparent has really helped with like my connection with the audience that I have. And I think that's really what's like helped. I mean, I think that's with anything being yourself, right? I'll never forget. And my very first job when I turned like 15, or whenever you can have a job. And I was so shy that they made me They forced me to stand in the front and greet everybody, because I would barely I was just like, I don't want to talk to anybody. And I think that kind of helps, too. Because it was like, No, you have to talk to every person. You're the greeter the first week, I was just like, I do not want to do this. I've always kind of been a shy person and quiet. But I do feel in the past couple years. I don't know, maybe it's just coming into your own and not being afraid to be who you are. And I think as you get older too, you stop caring what people think. I do think that's true. I used to think it was crazy when people would tell me that but I do think you just kind of stop caring what people think and you're just like, I'm me, if you don't like me, it's okay. Have a good day.

Mary Harcourt  24:30  
I am much older than you and I can assure you, that is the transition. So you have a new course coming out. That's exciting. What is your course all about?

kayla hertz  24:40  
It's called pricing our lean with intention. So we talked a lot about price raising and pricing your services so I knew we're gonna relaunch on it because I put it out about a year ago and I just wanted to kind of revamp it add more stuff. So that is going to be the course it's all online and I really just go over how to do a price raise how to compete integrated with your clients really had to figure out what your hourly rate should be, because I believe we all should be charging hourly rates, not just like a lot of people that I see. And I used to do it myself where they would make way more for a full set compared to a fill. For myself, I had my volume fills used to be $95 for an hour and a half. And then I had my classic Phil's for $75 for an hour. And after I actually heard about hourly rates, and I was like, oh, what's mine, I don't even know. And I broke that down. And you know, so for classic, I was making $75 an hour, but for volume, it came to $63 an hour. And I'm like, what, because of the time, I was adding $20 But 30 minutes, and I was losing money, essentially doing volume lashes, it took me education to learn why making less money on this. So I wanted to make a really easy blueprint and formula for other artists be able to figure out what their hourly rate should be, because it's different for everybody. Everybody has different living expenses, different lifestyles, different overheads, but I think it's important to understand our numbers.

Mary Harcourt  26:04  
Yeah, it is i as well ran my salon on hourly. And I didn't use too. And I got caught into the whole system that I think a lot of people go through where I was so booked, I literally couldn't take one more client and I couldn't work one more day. And they still felt like I was not making money. But I was slammed. And then I learned about numbers and my overhead and how to adjust for the money. I want to make her hourly and started charging hourly and the game changed. All the sudden, I went from like bending over backwards to thriving, I was able to cut down my schedule a little bit, I understood how to price hourly is everything Tim was for me, were a same thing. It didn't matter if you came in for this thought or the other, I have an hourly rate. And that's what I charge. And I love that I think it's a huge part of the industry. And I think so many people skip that step because they're like, Well, I hear this is what you charge for that. And that's what you charge for that. And then my product costs this much. So I'll just charge this much. And there has to be a little bit of profit in there somewhere. And I think it's great that you're coming out with a course, because it's a very needed topic of education to learn, that's going to really help people become more profitable and more successful in their business because you only have so many hours in a day and so many hours in a month. And you're probably doing your best and your hardest because you're an artist and you're making these beautiful lashes. Or if you're doing facials or whatever service you're doing that you do want to make sure that you're getting compensated for that. So I think it's great that you have a course that breaks that all down I'm sure it's very palatable, easy to understand bites that they can go back and do and reassess their business and really come out ahead on top because of it.

kayla hertz  27:50  
That was my main thing when I made it is I want to make it easy, because a lot of people get scared of numbers money and the math too. So it's super easy math, I try to be getting is like less scary as possible. And it's designed to to where you can use it over and over again when you want to do a price raise. So you can say okay, now I want to go down from four days a week to three days a week. So what are my new hours available for sale? And if I need to make X amount of dollars, what is my hourly rate need to be there for how big of a price increase do I need to do? So that way? You can't question numbers, right? If you can't put anything behind it, they are what they are their numbers. So it makes it a little bit easier to to just be confident in why you're raising your prices. And by how much I know a lot of girls, too will be like, Oh, $5, that sounds good. And it's like, you really want to get to the point where you're probably not taking as many clients but you're making that same amount of money. And so you have time to hang out with your family or your friends or work on a project that you have or start your own course or anything like that.

Mary Harcourt  28:51  
Do you think you'll ever do more courses? Or are you kind of just happy with this one and seeing how it goes?

kayla hertz  28:57  
No, I definitely want to do more. It's in my plan to transition out of lashing hopefully by the end of the year. So it's just hard to I mean, I think anybody listening that does lashes and does courses and has like maybe they are a trainer. It's hard to balance everything I really value my weekends off and my time off. So I try not to work 24/7 And I try to give back to myself first take care of myself first before the business. I've been burned out so many times that I've learned to really put that as a priority. So I do know I need to scale back on lashes to be able to really go full force into creating more courses. So I can give my all in the courses too because I never want to give anything that's like half done or half effort.

Mary Harcourt  29:41  
Absolutely. So let's pivot a little bit into a deep dive of what is it like for you to make your course. How do you go about that?

kayla hertz  29:51  
The lovely thing, especially since the Pricing course was my very first course I ever made I actually had hired a VA that was within course creation. And that was amazing because she really gave me kind of a template to break down my course and just brainstorm and kind of put everything out there and gave me good bullet points and just how to structure it and everything. So that was the number one thing was just kind of just getting it all out there and then being able to organize it. And then for me after that is just deciding how you wanted to present your course. Do you want it to be live? Where they come on? Do you want it to be more of like an ebook? Do you want it to be online? Do you want to have time limits for them to finish things, so you want to be work at your own pace, so kind of figuring out what kind of course you want to create. And for me, I knew that since it was money, but I wanted it to be at work at your own pace type, of course. So I think figuring that out. And then if you decide for me, I just decided I had to record and thankfully my VA made all the graphics and stuff. So I didn't have to do all that. But you can Canva has amazing presentation modes on stuff where you can make all your graphics, I use teachable, you can upload them there, and get it going.

Mary Harcourt  31:02  
And I love it. Those are great tips. So let's talk somebody who is still growing their business. They're not fully booked yet, but they want to be what are some areas of their business that they can work on when they're not being fully booked.

kayla hertz  31:14  
One of the biggest things when they're not fully booked or they're struggling to find clientele, is they need to look at who their target audiences, and they need to look at their Instagram or wherever they do their marketing and they need to actually see if they are speaking to that target audience I used to do this like Instagram right on tick tock, right be like send me your Instagram and I'll give you a rating on your your page. And majority of people was one didn't show themselves on their page at all. And two, they talked when they wrote on their captions and stuff, they were talking to other lash artists. So saying, this is look at this cat, I see curl point oh seven, you know, seven do 13 Set clients have no idea what you're talking about at all. So speaking to a lash client versus a lash artist, I think that is one of the biggest things you can do when if you're looking to build your clientele. I actually just did an episode on educated artistry, where I talked about leveraging doing free model sets when you're wanting to build your clientele to actually help get your ideal client in instead of just constantly deeply discounting your set. Because the more you just discount all the time, the more you're gonna get people into your chair that are just price shopping. They're just coming in because you they had a deal, they might they probably have friends that also want deals, so you're going to kind of cultivate that kind of clientele. So there's that resource if anybody's interested in learning about how to leverage presets to gain ideal clients. Having a Google My Business and making sure you have a website is huge, because Instagram is great. But it's not forever. So make sure Well, I mean, maybe it will be but if your account gets hacked, which we've seen a ton of that happened to a ton of people this year, with huge accounts that they got hacked and their Instagram is gone. And if that happens to you, you have no connection with your clients. So a website, a Google My Business, ask your clients to leave your reviews, even if you have one or two. And then my last tip would be to remember that if even if you have two clients, in your books, make sure that you are treating them like gold, and you're giving them the best customer experience because they're the ones they're paying you right now. So treat them amazing. Always think of how you can elevate the experience because the higher you elevate it, then they're going to want to tell their friends. And just make sure you're treating them really, really good because they're they're they're they're already giving you their money,

Mary Harcourt  33:33  
giving out free sets to get your ideal client. How do you ask someone because I feel like if you're not a people person, that's a really big wall to kind of conquer,

kayla hertz  33:46  
you can put out like a model call where you could be like apply to be a model, get on my model list. And then you could sift through, you could have some requirements, so that way people are coming to you, and then you can reach out to them when you feel like they're a good fit. I personally like to reach out to people. So I would look at my area, I would look at high end restaurants, shopping areas, like orange theory, or hot yoga, or any of those things that require extra income and start engaging with them, even if it's just following them on Instagram, and then maybe responding to stories building a connection with them. And then I usually just start a conversation and I say I'm a lash artist in the area. Have you ever had lashes before? Kind of just starting that conversation? And then usually what I'll do, what I think a lot of people too, will benefit from is I say I would love to do a free set of lashes on you. I'm really working on getting my customer experience nailed down and getting reviews back. So I would love to just get your review on your experience and that's all I'm asking for you getting video testimonials because those are super powerful. That's how that was like one of the biggest ways like leveraging because if you're getting those people that are in those areas, and they're once again your ideal client they're probably probably hanging out with people that are also your ideal client.

Mary Harcourt  35:03  
Yeah, I totally agree. Absolutely. Great advice. So what is your favorite part of your business right now?

kayla hertz  35:10  
Definitely the podcast. It has been my favorite just creating episodes, getting to talk to an interview people and meet more people. And then whenever you get a message of somebody being like, Oh, I had a light bulb go off, or I loved this episode, or I loved the guests you had on. We actually just started a Patreon page, which is like a membership program for the podcast. So if you love the podcast, you want more content. You want bonus episodes, you want more one on one like community then that is something to that we just started so that way it's just more more educated artistry.

Mary Harcourt  35:44  
I love it. That's great. Where can people find you?

kayla hertz  35:48  
You can find me on Instagram and Tik Tok. KK artistry is going to be my main business page where the course is the trainings, all the lashes and stuff, and then educate artistry podcast on Instagram for all the podcast stuff.

Mary Harcourt  36:03  
Kayla, thank you so much for being a part of this today. We had so much fun with you. You gave us so much business knowledge and I can't wait for everyone to take it home and apply it in real life.

kayla hertz  36:13  
Yes, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the invite to come on. This has been so fun. And I hope everybody did learn something and I appreciate it.

Mary Harcourt  36:22  
That wraps up today's episode. For more information on our guests. You can find them at Mary harcourt.com under the episodes tab. You can always find me on Instagram at Mary Harcourt underscore in app the cosmic glow light. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and many more to come