Thinking of closing your books and putting your feet up?
Think again!
If you take anything away from this post, please let it be this: Closing your BOOKS will close your DOORS.
That’s not an exaggeration, it’s a warning.
When you close your books and stop accepting new clients, you go into hibernation mode. You become so busy with your current clientele that you barely have time to use the restroom, let alone anything else.
One of the worst things that you can do for your business is not only close your books but to follow it up by broadcasting the news to the world via your social media channels. When you do this, potential clients gradually begin to drop off your radar like flies.
Then, January comes along, or a recession hits, and all of a sudden, your so-called ‘loyal clientele’ aren’t so loyal.
When you start telling everyone that you’ve closed your books, it becomes so much harder to re-build your clientele when something unpredictable happens and you end up losing a bunch of clients. If you ask me, closing your books will close your doors faster than anything else and here’s why:
{If you want to listen to the podcast episode on this topic, click on the player at the top of the post. Alternatively you can watch the video below, or read on…}
1. When you stop marketing, your business stops growing
If you want your business to continue growing, you need to keep marketing like your life depends on it. When you reach full capacity and there’s no way you can fit in another client, it’s time to RAISE YOUR PRICES!
You can’t keep offering the same low prices forever, especially if your services are in high demand. Instead of closing your books and calling it a day, raise your prices.
Clients who are truly loyal to you and value your lash services will have no problem paying extra for their appointments. And, those that complain and throw an adult-sized tantrum, will probably never come back but that’s actually a good thing.
Now they’re gone, you can focus on building a higher-paying clientele that won’t drop off the face of the planet as soon as a recession hits or something else goes wrong because they’re the type of clients who value your services. They’re your MFC (most favorite client!).
Even though your books are almost full or bursting at the seams, you should always be marketing your business and getting new clients through the door.
Just because you’re in demand now, doesn’t mean you’ll be in demand forever.
Don’t cut potential clients off by marketing that your books are closed, that’s a huge mistake that you’ll regret soon enough.
If you want to be in business for more than the next 12 or 18 months, I suggest you NEVER EVER close your books!
2. Why you should raise your prices
If you reach the dead-end point where you’ve closed your books and you don’t accept new clients, you’re working from a place of scarcity. You can’t get any new clients and you can’t raise your prices. Or at least, that’s what you think.
The truth is that when you raise your prices, you need to assume that clients are going to drop off.
The clients that will drop off are usually going to be the ones that are only with you because of your price point.
Clients who only care about prices will be the first to go.
They’re the ones who will cut you out of their spending habits as soon as something comes up such as car payments and so on. This type of client isn’t sustainable for your business long-term. So, when you raise your prices and start attracting the right type of client to your business, it won’t matter so much that you’ve lost a few penny pinchers along the way.
3. How to price your services RIGHT
Profitably approaching your pricing is something we focus on inside of The Lashpreneur Society. You should learn how to price your services in a way that enables your business to continue growing year after year. The last thing you want to do is grow and then plateau or worse, drop down in revenue and profits until you feel like you’ve got to offer loads of discounts to anyone who will take them.
Instead of assuming you’re fully booked when 100% of your time is spent on clients, you should look at yourself as fully booked when 80% of your time is with clients.
If 100% of your time is with clients, you’re going to be nothing but miserable. Working yourself to the limit puts your health (and sanity) at risk. Once you reach 80% booked, you should start thinking about increasing your prices to make room for more high paying clients. That way, you can increase your revenue increasing your workload.
To make a real difference to your business, I suggest you raise your prices by 20%.
Yes, you’ll lose some clients but like I said, in losing clients, you’re making room for higher-paying ones who’ll actually stick around for the long-haul.
To pick up more clients and build your clientele of people who are actually willing to pay a fair price for their lashes, you’ve got to start marketing to the right people!
What are your thoughts on all of this?
I would love to hear from you! So, please take a screenshot of you listening to this episode (or even reading the blog post) and share it on your Instagram stories and tag me @thelashpreneur so I can see your opinion on the matter!
Have a Good One!
Tara Walsh
The Lashpreneur
