So you don’t have to work evenings & weekends

This is a question I get over and over, and I love to help fellow lashpreneurs structure their businesses so they can attract the clientele they need so they don’t have to work evenings and weekend.  And since I was able to do this myself in my own lash business, I’m going to share with you what it takes to achieve this biz dream!

There’s actually a few deeper questions behind the question of “How do you attract high-paying daytime clients in order to not work evenings and weekends?” and those are:

• How do you attract high-paying lash clients?

• How do you build a lash clientele of daytime clients?

• How do you not work evenings and/or weekends as a lash artist?

We need to break down the big question into these question “bites” because it’s not like clients who come during the day are always the high paying clients, and it’s not like high paying clients can only come on the weekends, right?

So if we’re uncovering the deeper meaning behind this question that ALL lash artists can relate to it’s the question of “How do I draw in my ideal type of client and create boundaries to have a schedule that works for my life?”

This STARTS with knowing who you want to attract into your business. And when I use the word “attract” it means who will you market to in order to bring them into your business.

Step 1 of marketing is knowing who you are talking to.  This is the first lesson we cover in the marketing module of The Lashpreneur Society (my group business coaching program) because understanding WHO you are talking to sets the foundation of all aspects of your business from marketing to the experience to your price point to the style of lashes you offer.

Obviously, if you don’t want to be exclusively working every night and every weekend, you can’t market your services to those with 9-5 jobs, right? So that would be the first step – start to market yourself towards the rest of the world who doesn’t work 9-5 jobs.

Step 2 is to stop offering evening and weekend appointments. If you don’t want to work nights and weekends, don’t work nights and weekends. I know, MIND BLOWING. Don’t over complicate it.  If you don’t want to work those hours forever, then don’t offer them.

Many lash artists operate from a scarcity mindset, especially when they’re new to all the freedom and decisions that come with running a business. So they open their availability up 7 days a week, 12 hours a day and let anyone book at anytime. Their hours are all over the place, and clients get “trained” that they can pick whatever time works best for them and that you as a business owner will bend to accommodate them.

This is not a sustainable way of growing a business and how a lot of lash artists, once they start to get busy, end up working 6 days a week, 10 hours a day. New lash artist business owners – I’m talking to YOU! – you must set the expectation from the start that your business hours are your business hours and anything outside of that either comes at a price, like with an after hours fee, or is simply not available, end of story.

So who are the types of clients that work non-traditional hours?

Back to what types of clients would fit the bill for someone who doesn’t want to work nights and weekends.  Here are some examples of people who would fall into this target market:

Anyone who works shift work, such as:

1. Hospital doctors and nurses
2. Firefighters, EMTs and police officers
3. Flight attendants

Or it could be those who have flexible hours or who work nights and weekends themselves, such as:

1. Waitresses and bartenders
2. Real estate agents, as they usually show houses nights and weekends
3. Business owners who often have more daytime flexibility
4. Stay-at-home moms
5. Your fellow beauty practitioners that usually work nights and weekends including hairstylists, estheticians, nail techs and massage therapists

The bottom line is don’t wait for someone to give you permission to not work nights and weekends cause that “OK” is not coming. You are a business owner and you make the decisions. If you’re whining about working too much, guess what… you’re the one in charge and the one who made your schedule. Nobody did that for you, that was and still is within your control to change.

And I know what some of you who still operate under that scarcity mindset are thinking, “But I will lose clients if I change my hours.”  

Yes, yes you will. And so what? Didn’t you just build a clientele with the wrong types of clients? Didn’t you just build a business that doesn’t work for your life because you want a schedule that allows you more time with your loved ones?

What if you were intentional about marketing your services to clients who value the same availability you want to offer? And this shift doesn’t happen overnight. You have to start to pull back your hours over time so you don’t kill your income. Start by only working 1-2 nights a week and every other Saturday. Start to open up your daytime hours as you start to intentionally market your business to daytime-availability-loving clients.

AND BE OK WHEN A CLIENT IS UNHAPPY WITH YOUR NEW SCHEDULE. They will move on to someone who hasn’t learned this lesson yet or who prefers to work evenings and weekends and that will then open up your time to either start taking the right client or free up your nights and weekends.

To wrap up and quickly address the other question of how to attract a high priced paying client… have high-priced services.

Don’t expect to draw in the Louis Vuitton customers

when you’re the Wal-Mart of Lashes.

If you need some more help on changing your mindset to that of a successful business owner who attracts your ideal client and loves the business and lifestyle you’ve built, then check out my training video below where I covered the Top 3 Mindset Shifts to Be Taken Seriously as a Business Owner and grab your FREE copy of the Lash Biz Policies HERE to help you get started shifting your business {and mindset}!