How To Be An Inclusive Beauty Professional for All Clients
When you chose to steer your career path toward cosmetology, hair, esthetics, beauty, makeup, and more, you likely did so knowing that you were choosing a flexible, inclusive career that everyone can enjoy (it’s likely one of the reasons that you decided on this industry, too).
The beautiful thing about the beauty industry, in fact, is that this biz is for everybody – no matter who you are, what you like, or what you’re looking for, you can likely find it in the beauty industry.
By its very nature, this industry is extremely versatile and inclusive.
However, if you, as a professional in the biz, aren’t doing your all to ensure that you’re being as inclusive as possible, you’re likely going to miss out on some awesome clients because of it.
Take a look at your business and ask yourself a few vital questions:
Am I doing my all to make sure I’m being inclusive?
Does my business offer services, products, and experiences that invite anyone and everyone to enjoy your business?
If you feel like the inclusiveness of your services are due for some improvement, then we applaud your analytical skills and would love to help!
Check out a few of our favorite, must-know tools for improving your inclusivity, diversifying your clientele, and overall, boosting your business below!
Know Your Strengths and Weakness (Then Work to Improve Your Weaknesses)
The first step in diversifying your clientele and ensuring you’re being inclusive is to take a good, hard look at what you need to work on, and being honest about what you’re lacking.
Are you only working on a specific hair texture? Have you only been trained to work with one specific skin tone? What about your services – can you offer more than just hair? Nails? Skincare? Makeup?
Take a look at what you can offer your clients and assess how you can improve, tweak, and boost your services to become more inclusive in the ones you already offer and how you can add more services to draw in different types of clients.
Invest in Education
As a licensed professional, you know how much education matters.
When you were working toward your license and certification, the classes you were enrolled in (no matter how challenging and frustrating at times) made you who you are as a professional. It’s likely that your classes were one of the most instrumental tools in honing your skills (aside from hands-on experience at your apprenticeships and such).
If you’ve analyzed your services and realized you’re lacking in the inclusiveness department, enroll in classes to learn what you’re missing.
Don’t sit on the problem and ignore it – you could be missing out on an entirely new section of the market (and thereby missing a lot of good business). Think about all of the clients you could be offering your services to if you just put in the time (and invested some money) into learning a new skill.
Check out your local programs, see if there are viable online options, poll your cosmetology friends and ask if they can teach you the basics of the skill you want to develop– however you choose to do it, educating yourself is going to make a huge difference!
Do the Work: Practice, Practice, Practice
Classes are vital for your education, but you’ve been in the biz for a while and you know that your education means nothing if you get down-and-dirty and hands-on with what you’ve learned. Check out apprenticeship programs after you’ve finished your classes, try to find an internship in that specific skill, or even recruit your friends to allow you to practice on them for free!
No matter how you choose to do, know that you can only offer a quality service if you’ve put the work in, so practice, practice, practice. Even if it doesn’t automatically make perfect, that practice is going to be super beneficial for your business and skillset.
Market Your Services on Diversified Outlets
If you’re taking the steps to become a more inclusive beauty professional with a variety of services that cater to all sorts of clientele, you’ll need to make sure you’re marketing those services correctly.
Think about it, how will people know about your diversified and inclusive services if you don’t market them in multiple outlets.
Diversifying your marketing outlets and tools is going to be just as important as putting in the time, energy, and investment into re-upping and acquiring new skills. If you continue to market in the same places, you’ll continue attracting the same clientele (hypothetically speaking). Utilize social media, do you research to find new platforms, and take a chance on a new marketing outlet – in the end, if you’re marketing in a new, untapped area, it’s likely you’re going to reach new, unique, diversified clients.
Offer Multiple Services to Attract New Clientele
While it’s definitely important to ensure that the services you do offer are accessible and available to all kinds of clients, it’s also incredibly important to diversify your clientele by adding new, exciting services to your repertoire.
Consider hair techniques that you might not offer that could cater to certain hair types (straightening, blowouts, perms, and coloring techniques), makeup services that cater to a variety of skin tones, and even all-out new services in different branches of the beauty industry like nails, esthetics, and massages.
Keeping your services fresh, exciting, and modern can draw in a whole new market to your business!
