Are you feeling like maybe you are not as successful as you thought you were going to be as a lash artist? Are you getting not so stellar reviews online from unhappy clients that state they expected a bit more? Maybe this is just an “unlucky” season for you. . . Maybe you are not attracting the ideal clients, maybe you’ve set your business up in an oversaturated market. . .

Unfortunately, looking at life through your circumstances will always keep you treading on that hustle hamster wheel to nowhere. It will leave you exhausted, burnt out and completely unmotivated. We also like to play the victim in our business when it comes to unhappy clients.

Often times we can play the victim in scenarios like this:

A new client comes in, already late for her appointment, talking on the phone, taking up more of your appointment time to use the bathroom and get herself together, because you know, she was running late and she’s “flustered”. You accommodate her jarring energy and even skip the usual paperwork, consultation and evaluation of her natural lashes because you are thinking about not only this already seemingly difficult client but also of how late you’re going to be for the back to back clients you have scheduled after her. . .

You work diligently and efficiently and even go above and beyond (against your better judgment) by putting in 13mm on her 8mm natural lashes because she demanded “long and fake looking lashes”. You want to make her happy since she was a referral from another client who has always raved about your work.

You want to keep your momentum and at a quick pace.

After you are done, she gets up and looks at her new lashes on the mirror and her reaction is simply underwhelmed at its best. A complete heartbreak for you and now you’re just irritated because she was late and you just couldn’t do your best work in the given timeframe.

And even though you hear the next client coming in for their appointment, you still cater to this client and spend an extra couple of minutes adding 5 more lashes on each eye where she saw “gaps” (no honey, you don’t have any lashes there for me to lash… but sure, I’ll magically make something appear there). Still, however, this client doesn’t like the end result. And you’ve run out of time. You hate unhappy clients and bend one more time for this client and offer to squeeze her in the next day. . .

Sure enough, the next day comes, she complains of losing a lot of lashes overnight and admits she didn’t follow your aftercare instructions, you do what you can in the 30 minutes you squeezed her into (which was supposed to be your lunch break) and she’s still completely dissatisfied, a seemingly impossible to please client, that has the audacity to leave  you a really bad review on Yelp or Google. . . And then even threatens to get her girlfriends to write nasty comments on your social media if you don’t refund her money.

So, what happened here? Is this a bad client who didn’t listen? Was she simply a troll who would be unhappy with your work regardless? Or did you have a part in this situation and how can you set up expectations and responsibilities in your business that would have set up a healthy boundary for your client in case she didn’t get the service she expected?

Here are three takeaways and possible reasons why that one client transformed in a client of our nightmares. . . and here’s a hint: This may not have been her fault at all.

#1 – YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BOUNDARIES YOU SET WITH EACH CLIENT.

Instead of blaming your circumstances or the client, we should first take a look at our business processes and make sure that we’ve covered all possibilities : Do our policies cover what happens when a client is late, doesn’t follow aftercare, comes back with little to no lashes, cancels last minute, doesn’t schedule in advance, gets lashes done from another artist, etc?  Did we have them sign the policy terms and communicate to them all of the policies in person so everyone’s on the same page? Or did you let a client’s bad day, emotions, lateness stop you from going through your normal consultation process to where you didn’t create the opportunity to discuss your policies?

We could say that the client was “rushing” you so you felt forced to skip your normal process. But that’s also blaming your circumstances (i.e. the client). In the end, you have to learn to stick to your guns in situations like this and respect your own business if you ever want a client to.

This is what blaming your circumstances looks like:

• “The client was difficult”
• “The client was late”
• “The client didn’t follow aftercare instructions”
• “The client had unrealistic expectations”

Set those expectations, highlight those boundaries, develop policies, AND ENFORCE THEM as needed. It is your responsibility to educate your clients regarding how YOUR business is run.

At the end of the day, you are not the victim in this situation, you are the business owner and the one responsible for all situations that occur in your business (good or bad). Unfortunately, you allowed a client to dictate how your business is run.

#2 – YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHOICES YOU MAKE IN YOUR BUSINESS.

Here’s another scenario: Maybe you are struggling getting clients in the door. The “competition is stiff and they are charging way lower than you”

The truth: Your saturated market is not the reason why you’re slow, have to charge low prices, can’t find enough clients or can’t make ends meet. The marketing of your business is why you are not seeing the results you expected, wanted or NEEDED for your business to be successful.

It’s time to stop blaming every other lash business owner for the decisions they’ve made whether they are poor decisions or whether they are decisions that have actually worked for them because they’re business goals differ from yours.

A lot of us take the “If you build it, they will come” approach in our business. When, in reality, we CANNOT have a thriving lash business WITHOUT marketing ourselves or our businesses. Perhaps you thought you could open a lash business and never have to market yourself or your services. . . because you’re under the impression that lashes are in HIGH DEMAND nowadays and EVERYBODY wants em!

Maybe you thought your location was a no-brainer to get tons of walk-in customers.

Maybe that super sweet salon room rental with all of their promises to “promote you on our social media” or “refer our current clients to you” was a slam dunk and you’d just sit back and watch the dollars flow in!

If this is your hope, if you’re crossing your fingers that your location, your landlord or salon owner or your best friend’s 16-year-old daughter will do all the marketing for your business and you can just lash until the cows come home and never market another day in your life … may this post serve as your wake up call.

Your business is slow, you fear your competition, you charge low prices, or you’re not paying yourself because you haven’t learned how to market yourself.

Marketing is non-negotiable to business ownership. Talking about your services, establishing your expertise and authority, posting regularly on social media, having a marketing strategy are essential parts of running ANY business.

You (ahem… not your competition) are responsible for establishing a price point for your services that will cover your expenses, your taxes, and your living expenses and as an added bonus… if you are willing to invest in yourself to master running a business and kick some butt at marketing, you can also include some fun money in your pricing that can include your vacations, a comfortable lifestyle, something other than a 1996 Pontiac Fiero (ah… my first car), and ultimately some breathing room in your biz and life to fulfill your reasons for starting this business

#3 – CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE: YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF WHY YOUR LIFE IS THAT WAY IT IS.

We tend to try to protect our egos and motivations by saying our unhappiness, our struggles, our situation is everyone else’s fault. Because at times it can feel very uncomfortable realizing that we are the cause of what we allow to happen in our lives.

When we are the cause of something, we take ownership and responsibility for it, which means we are also within our power and our control to change it. By placing blame on external forces, you then give away your power. You end up feeling like you cannot change or control the situations around you and you are again, waiting for someone or something else to happen to you to change your circumstances.

Be the force of change in your life, take responsibility for your actions and thoughts. If you’re afraid to raise your prices, yet you hate refusing clients and you’re taking more than 5… maybe even 6 clients in a day, then can I ask… what are you waiting for? YOU are the person with the power, control, say and sole responsibility to give yourself the “OK’ to change ANYTHING you don’t like about your business. The bottom line is that is all about perspective. Think about how you can take 100% responsibility and control of your business instead of allowing clients and external circumstances to dictate or run your life and business.

If you need help implementing healthy boundaries in your business with policies, I have a FREE download available to you. It is my Must Have Lash Biz Policies, fully customizable to your business download for free: www.thelashpreneur.com/lashbizpolicies