“I can do this but I don’t have the time..”
Most entrepreneurs have this mindset and usually end up as a train wreck.
What’s the best way to avoid this? Delegation.
Find out how you can get comfortable with delegating your team business tasks to help you achieve your business goals without the ‘overwhelm’ from Beautique Canada’s founder and CEO Sam Clancy.
1:54 Sam’s story
5:25 how delegation into her business came to play
36: 30 her eyelash business’ story
More Sam:
Beautique Canada’s website – https://beautiquecanada.com/
The Lash Podcast – https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-lash-podcast/id1518939105
Hey, guys. Megan here. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am here with Sam Clancy. Sam is the founder and C.E.O. of Beauty Canada. Despite a bachelor’s of business admin and being a certified public accountant, she knew she wanted more. So she built Beauty Canada from the ground up and now runs a staff, including service providers and assistance. She has learned that delegation is the key to growth, and she wants to share her experiences with you. You’re going to have so much fun listening to her story. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
So let’s start. You have such a crazy history. Let’s start with getting into business, Business administration and then saying like no, not for me. Let’s try something new.
So I always was kind of into accounting. Like as I was in high school. It was something I was good at. My mom’s an accountant, so I came by it naturally and so when I finished high school, I actually started in an accounting program and ended up moving schools and moving back home and did just business admin and then I got super, super lucky. Got hired with the government, like basically right out of school, which is like, unheard of because I’m from a small town too. So I just happened to get in with them for a year where they were hiring a bunch of students and they actually paid for me to get my accounting designation. So like, as the rest of the world would see it, I was basically, like, set for life. I had this really good government job like pension benefits. They were super flexible, but, like I just never felt like it’s where I was meant to be. So I didn’t. I got to the point where I hated going to work every day and not because, like, I wasn’t working with really awesome people. It was just like I wasn’t getting out of it, what I wanted to and so I kind of got into the beauty industry by accident. I say I had moved into this big house, and I had two kids and separated from their dad when the youngest waas, just before she was born, actually, and so I didn’t want to have to move out of this house on and I started doing lashes as, like, a side gig and, like, just fell in love with it compared to telling people they owe the government money all day and then at night I would do lashes and, like someone would open their eyes and be like, Oh, my God, I love this so much like thank you. I feel so good. And so like, once I had that comparison of what I was doing during the day versus helping women feel good about themselves, it was never the same again. So I knew that I wanted to make that what I was doing, and then it was just a matter of how to do that. So the transition from being a full time government employee to doing that on the side. And then I gradually, I, like, gradually reduced my hours there as I built my business and then finally left a job in October, actually to pursue this full time.
Congratulations. That’s so exciting.
It’s been a long five years, but I’m really, really happy with where things are at now and super excited when you posted about talking about delegation because I feel like that’s made such a huge difference for me while I was trying to work a job and build a business at the same time. It’s something I kind of like, learned the hard way. I feel like I was cheap at first and I tried to do everything by myself and like, what do you think? Totally differently, if I had to do it all over again.
I was totally the same way I was. My first business was in skin care, and I was totally afraid to spend the money on someone else because I was like I don’t have the money like it’s not even like there’s no money here And it was such a shitty way to think about business, you know what I mean? It was just like that’s how I burned out, so that’s why delegation is super important to me and why I was so interested in hearing about your story. When did you first decide that it was too overwhelming to be doing this on your own and that it was time to start getting help coming in?
I think the way I first did it and some might not consider this delegation necessarily. But the first time I realized that I needed someone else was when I was going. I was already at the point of burnout trying to work and do lashes and like I had so many clients coming to me, like as really lucky and how fast my business grew kind of organically. I was like promoting on social media, but really a lot of it was word of milk and so I started to burn out and I was having to take time off, like so my back would get, like start tweaking. I have five bulged discs in my back, so my back would start like, really going crazy, and then I’d have to take a few weeks off. So then I was having to, like, send my clients somewhere else and then I was back to work. But then I couldn’t handle my client load. So the first delegation that I did was realizing I needed to have someone else doing lashes or else I was literally just handing money to other people in our area because I was like, Oh, sorry, like, I can’t do your lashes. Go see my friends. So and so. But then I was like, Why am I doing this? Like I could be making money off these people with me, not doing it. So, like that was my first real like, if I’m going to grow, I’m gonna have to, like have someone else and especially if I’m going to grow and be able to leave my government job and justify walking away from pension and benefits, I’m gonna have to grow this and so like my first employee, I trained her and we were both working out of actually, this room used to be my last room in my house, so we were both working out of here sometimes at the same time. But often it was. She was working while I was putting my kids to bed. So, like I was literally making money while I was still in the same house. But upstairs and so that’s kind of how it started and then as I started to grow the brand somewhere in there, I started testing products, realizing the money was in the product so you could make good money on the services but really the money is in the products and so once I kind of figured that out. I started testing products and again I was starting to burn out because I was working all day. Then I was trying to do lashes, like I put my kids to bed, do lashes at eight o’clock at night and then a lot of our suppliers are overseas. So then I had finished doing lashes and then just as I was ready to go to bed, that’s actually their day over there, so then I was sitting up to, like two and three in the morning, like sourcing out products and talking to suppliers and all that stuff. So I started to delegate little bits of that too, actually one of my friends, that she had been in a car accident and was kind of looking for something to do, so she was the first person that really helped me like she’s like if I could do stuff from home for you, like just let me know what it is, even if it’s like scheduling or anything like that. So she was like the biggest help. Once I would be like, Oh, hey, like I have to make up an email to send the clients. You think like you could do that? She’s like, no problem,let me do it like and within like, an hour. She’s like a don just go look at it and then you can send it off and so she was kind of my first. We’ll call her assistant, but it was really just she was there to help me, and it was kind of a mutual thing because it was giving something for her to keep her mind off everything at the same time and then as I have grown and we’ve scaled up it, I needed more than that so now I have a receptionist at the spa that also likes those orders for me and that’s cleaning there and does a whole bunch of stuff like that. Then I have a virtual assistant that works 40 hours a week, so we have set times where she’s online. She does a lot of our social media stuff, so she does like all the graphics. She does all my podcasts editing. I don’t touch any of that. I just literally send her stuff and she creates, like, snippets and all that stuff and I would say, like, so that was, like, three months ago. Maybe that I got a full time assistant and that has been like life changing. I wish I would have done it, like three years ago.
Well good, so let’s talk about you having a very interesting perspective in that you were a professional whom someone would outsource things to a C. P. A. and now you are an entrepreneur who has delegated to a number of people. So I think that I’m interested to hear your perspective on overcoming the fear of spending money on people. I think that accounting is something that people are terrified to spend money on, like I think it’s either they’re afraid they get scammed or something. But also, they’re afraid to kind of open up their books and show all their mistakes and I’d like to talk to you about that about, like, delegating to professional, but also the flip side of that of being the entrepreneur and saying like, Okay, it is not serving me to be doing all this shit by myself.
So as far as being a professional, I have a bit of a different perspective on that because even though I’m a designated accountant, I was actually an auditor for the government. So I was auditing other people’s books for nine years, and I can speak to the fact that a lot of people try to do their own books and it ends up costing them way more in the long run because they screw it up and then they will pay the government penalties and interest and all of that stuff. So that was something that I ran into all the time, especially like smaller businesses or start up businesses. They’re just trying to do everything by themselves in an excel spreadsheet, but they don’t really know any of the rules, like they just think they figured it out all on their own and haven’t even looked up anything and so accounting is something that’s really important. If you don’t know what you’re doing, at least get some basic information on how to keep proper books and records. It’s funny that we’re talking about this because right after this I’m recording for my podcast with another C.P.A. and we’re gonna have this exact conversation but people get overwhelmed, and there’s so many AP’s and stuff that you can use now or every time you like having expenses. You could literally take a picture of your receipt and like record it right there. What It was. But what ends up happening is and like I should be really good at this. I’m not that good at this. My mom is a C.P.A. She does all of our books because it’s something that I just don’t have time or the passion to do anymore but what ends up happening is people start throwing it into a drawer for a year. And then when tax time comes, they are like, Oh, shit. I forget what this was for, or like it could be really messy. So I’m a big believer in, like do what you’re good at and delegate the rest of it and I’ve learned the hard way on some of that. One thing that I delegate now is Facebook ads, and I try to do that myself. I spent thousands of dollars trying to do it myself and not really understanding how it works and so now I have a company that does it and like, yes it costs me money. I have a minimum ad spend with that company, but it’s totally worth it. They can actually show me how much they’re getting per dollar I spend. So I know that it’s actually worth the investment that I’m spending every month but I feel like I learned that the hard way and like I remember Facebook sent you this thing that was, like, spent to date on your ad account, remember being like holy shit. Like, where did that money go? Like? I didn’t even get that much back in sales when I was trying to do it myself. So that’s one that I’m big on. Like delegate that out as you can, and then as an entrepreneur,like that’s one thing I learned the hard way, and then the other thing was like I started realizing. Okay, have all this stuff on my to do list. If I had this done, I could be making money because I could launch this or like if I try to do this myself. I might not get to it for six weeks, but if I had an assistant, well like she could probably get to that next week. so for me. When I got the assistant, it was about I’m not going to grow as fast. Any day I want to If I don’t just bite the bullet, even if I can’t necessarily justify the cost right now, it’s going to come back. You just have to trust that it will and it already has, like my assistant has literally I probably in. like, three years ahead right now, but I would have been just having her because I’m delegating what I’m not good at and she’s good at it, at times and so she can not only get it done because that’s all she is doing. But she also could do it 100% faster, like another thing that she does with social media content. It could take me like 17 minutes to do one instagram post because I’m like brain dead and, like, I don’t know what to post today and then it’s like all this pressure and you get overwhelmed, then you’re not as productive doing other stuff because you’re thinking about this pressure of posting on social media. Then you’re just posting and it’s not even necessarily good content because you’re like, I would get brain blocked. Well, I wouldn’t post for like four days because I’m just like I don’t even know what to post right now, like whatever. So now she does that dump content plainly for me, and I just schedule it out. So I’m posting way more and the content is way more branded and way more specific to my audience because I’ve given her that direction, and that’s what she’s good at.
Side note. I love to plan early. This is like my favorite, I love it so much. It saved my life and I completely agree. It’s so interesting to me that you had this. That’s adult talk with yourself. Basically like I’m going to run my business. I’m not going to be doing all this shit that is giving me anxiety is, you know, back logging my brain when I could be doing other things that are earning money. I think that is very, very mentally healthy for you.
I mean for me covid, It has also, like I have two kids. So I’ve had them since March, so I don’t have the time. I mean, I’m here, but I don’t have, like, the eight hours a day when they’re normally on the bus and that school to do whatever I want. I kind of work in pockets now and like a work a bit and then go hang out with them and like so, in a way, I hate to say it like this, but in a way, covid it was a bit of a blessing for me because it forced me to really think about what was important and what I needed to do and then take action on that because we lost a big part of our business. Like a huge part of my business is small, so we were closed from March 16th. Most of our girls couldn’t go back till July 17th. So, like four months of literally no income coming in. Thankfully, I still had the products, but we sold products to lash artists that also weren’t working so like you can only offer so many sales to try and get the cash flow in and so it really forced me to pivot. I did an online course. I started the podcast when I hired the assistant. But so in a way, like for me, that was a big pivot point because I had no other choice than to start taking some serious action because I could just ride the coattail of the services and do lashes myself if I wanted to and stuff like that because we were all sitting at home.
So what kind of this is a little bit of a side note? But what kind of decisions do you make when you have to go mostly online for your business?
Really for me it was just taking the action. I had already been considering online courses. It was just something that I had been putting to the side burner. I had it in my head so I quit my job halloween and then I was like, hey I’m gonna jump right in here like, I’m gonna be working so hard on the business. Well, then it’s like I went on a trip and then it was christmas and then when I got back from the trip. My daughter ended up in the hospital for a month, so I had a whole month. So basically not until the beginning of February. So I was just like, getting back on my feet, trying to figure out what my next step was for the business and then covid hit. So I had kind of all these plans, and my decision was just basically like, I need to take action. I invested in a course that was all about creating online courses, and they did like a portal as well. That was included which was super awesome because I just had to start feeding my videos and my like modules into the portal but that like, I just was forced to kind of make investments like that because before I might not mess, I might have been like, I’m just gonna wait till, like I get settled again or like i’ll just see if there’s other courses and and once covid hit, I was like no, I’m doing this. I have the time. I’m at home. I could learn how to do this. Like I took a podcast course and literally started the course. I set a six week date this is when the podcast is gonna launch, like created in stream for it that day and just hit the ground running. So it was the decision that was just action, like to finally get off my ass and like actually do it instead of just talking about it.
That’s so cool and incredibly impressive. I mean that’s I think so many people just get caught up in their own heads of like, I’d love to do this or that would be so cool and they just never do it. And I love that you are just like, fuck it, we’ve got we’re starting side. That’s exactly what we’re stuck inside. Let’s just roll with it, so let’s talk about what suggestions you have for people that are just going to start delegating and it doesn’t even have to be for people exactly like if they want to do more APS or things like that. But how do you think people should get started? Sort offloading their tasks?
I think for me, what I remember doing was I wrote a list of two different lists. One was what I felt like I was good at and what I wasn’t good at. So like one thing that I’m not good at social media like I can post and I can write the post but the actual graphics, I don’t consider myself a very creative person. So it was so stressful for me to do that part of it and then I felt like I would run out of content. So that’s one example of something that wasn’t good at, when it comes to my own business, I’m not good at the bookkeeping side of that and that’s something my mom was willing to do. So like very early on, I actually hired a bookkeeper and then like I knew so much more than her and I remember just kept catching all these mistakes and I’m like, why am I paying her to sit here three days a week when she’s not doing it? So my mom ended up taking that over, so even though I shouldn’t say I’m not good at it, I just wasn’t good at it for myself, You know what I mean? It’s just like I was like, just put it to the side because I have so much other stuff to do and I also made a list of what I liked doing and what I didn’t like doing. So I guess the counting kind of falls under that, too, because I am good at it. But I don’t like doing it for myself. And so from that list, I started then making a list of things I could delegate and what that would look like. So Facebook ads, for example, I started kind of booking discovery calls with different marketing companies. I love to support locals, so I always like to try and look local first. But to be honest for almost everything, I’ve ended up going outside of the local, just because I felt like they didn’t have the experience I needed or whatever. But for me, I always try to look local first and then go out from there. So like my marketing company for example, there is only an hour and a half there in Toronto but I’ve dealt with companies in the states and all of that too and then I started just to kind of figure out okay, if I delegate this, how much time is? It’s going to save me. And then how much is it going to cost me? And then you kind of have to start weighing the pros and cons of that. If it’s going to cost you a shit ton of money and only save you two hours a week. Well, maybe that’s not worth it. But if it’s going to cost you a lot and save you 40 hours a week like my assistant, it’s a no brainer. So that’s kind of where I started. The other thing that I had to get around was investing money before I had it. So to be completely raw I grew up in a family. You don’t spend money if you don’t have it. You don’t have a credit card that you don’t pay off the balance like it’s just like you. Just a huge no and so I was like that, like O.C.D. Like that I would literally balance my excel budget every night and like what? I had spent that day, how much money I had left in, like my fun budget for the month and all this. Like, now that I think about it, I’m like so for me I had to get past it. Started this business and I have invested all this money and inventory. I’m gonna have to spend some money on advertising to make some money. Even if I don’t have that cash flow right now, I have good credit. I know it’s going to come back eventually. I’m not scared that I’m gonna, like, get myself into all this debt that’s not going to be figured out. So that was, like a big mindset shift for me and once I got past that, then I just saw okay, if I spend this much money, this is how much time I’m going to save. This is how much I could do with that time and how it can grow. So that was kind of a big shift for me that I know a lot of other people struggle with, Like, you have to spend money to make money. I remember hearing that and being like, no you don’t spend money if you don’t have it.
Wait, in laws the exact same way where they were, just like I mean, they’re way better with money than my family was. My family was more like interest is just a part of life and so I had to figure out the middle of that. But in the same way where I was like, I can’t spend that, I’ll never make it and that’s just of course, we’ll make it back. You’re making it back by running your business.
That was a huge thing for me and like I felt guilty at first. Like I remember one month I didn’t pay my full credit card balance. I paid, like, 75% of it, and I was like, my God. So I’m over that now. And I know, like, Okay, you’re spending this money. This is how much our sales are increasing. Like I mean my business went from when I was working out of my house like 12 to 15,000 gross a year. We did 140 in our first year, then to 260 I think in our second year. So like it’s working you know but you also have all these expenses when you first start up on getting your name out there and advertising and Like I said, I made some mistakes. Not some a lot of mistakes with, like facebook advertising and stuff like that. So there’s or even like, I spent thousands of dollars on my website like trying to get people to fix it. Before I finally realized I needed to hire a marketing company. I need to pay whatever it was like almost five grand to get them to completely revamp it. But before that, I was spending like, 500 here for them to fix this issue and then 300 here for them to fix this. And then you start adding it up and you’re like, wow, have spent thousands of dollars here trying to, like, cheap out on people that don’t really Maybe not that they don’t know what they’re doing, but not to the scale that I wanted. Or maybe they’re really gonna graphics, but, like, not necessarily the e-commerce side of things Or like, whatever it was, right. Like I spent all this money making mistakes that now I’m like, No, I’m gonna hire a professional to do it. I’m not going to try and hire someone that half knows what they’re doing to save money. That was like a big thing for me. When I first started, I tried to save money and it ended up costing me way more with a lot of things.
Agreed. I’ve done the piecemeal like you’re saying, like just this one project because that’s all I need and then that one project begets a whole new series of problems and I have. It’s so funny because you think that you’re finding all these ways to save you money and it’s just like this trickle out of more money.
So I always like when? Because I coach lash students. And so when we start talking about even websites and branding and stuff, like I say you can totally do it yourself but if you can find a way to make the investment, spend 1000 bucks to get yourself a nice branding package and, like have all that from the from the gecko because like I like I said, I wish I would have done things differently, so I’d rather people learn from how I did it, then make kind of the same mistakes themselves.
So where have you been able to find people that you have had success with delegating to so you know I have found that for like V.H.S. and stuff. I usually just go to work or something like that where there’s a whole bunch that I can kind of vet and choose from. But for, like, professional marketing companies and things, I have had a hell of a time trying to find good people. What are your suggestions for stuff like that?
I just booked a lot of discovery calls with marketing companies and like I found one thing you have to be careful with is like, really being specific about what they’re going to offer because, like for example I did, this discovery call sounded amazing. They were out of the States like super professionals. But once I looked at the fine print, so the idea was they were managing my social media and it was like, I don’t know. I want to say it was like 800 bucks U.S. a month or something, like Okay. I mean, that’s a lot of money for me right now, but like, if it’s gonna, like, really helped me grow and like, they’re good at what they do, whatever but then they sent me the contract, so somehow I paid a deposit or something. And then they sent the contract and it was like they were only posting four times a week. And then they would answer one D.M. a day and like, comment five times a day or something like it was like barely anything and so, thankfully I had an email where they had actually told me something differently. So I was like, hey, you guys need to refund my money. This is not like for $800 U. S. a month. That’s not what I’m looking for, so I found you had to be really careful on really specific and not going in. After that, I didn’t say, okay , if I’m going to pay somebody to do this, I want them to post X amount of times a day and I don’t want them commenting or I don’t want them answering DMS because I want that to be me. So there’s certain stuff that is okay, cool. I’m really fine with someone else doing this, but then there’s other stuff from like no, I am the face behind my business. I want to be the one answering DMS or answering emails right now because there’s no one close enough to me that knows the whole picture. Like I do but I would say before you even start being really specific with yourself about what exactly you want and then for marketing. I just literally Googled and started googling like social media management and different stuff like that for the Facebook ads for the marketing company I used for my website. It was a referral from somebody I knew. And I love when that happens because you know that they’ve already had a really good experience with them. So that’s kind of how I got onto them. And then my V.A. is actually from the Philippines. So her company contacted me on my personal instagram and said, like, I see that you’re whatever a business owner, this is the service we offer. We offer you a free day to see it for a good fit and I had already known before one of the courses I did, they had a program of people down in the Philippines that they worked for kind of all of their students like you could hire one of them to work for you and I was really at first I was like, no, I feel like they’re not going to get paid enough and, like, I was kind of worried about the moral side of it. And then they explained, like they’re getting paid more than like a university professor does down there, because this is their specialty. So once, I kind of got more of a background on what they’re getting paid in comparison to, like what? The average wages and stuff down there. I felt a lot better about it. Like, you’re actually doing them a favor because they want that employment. Anyway, I had already kind of been hearing about that company, and they’re people that did that for them and then and then the V.A. company reached out to me and I did a free day, and it was like I’m like can she start Monday like this is for sure for me, and so they have different packages, and she’s like, Okay, you want to start with, like 10 hours a week, and I was like, No, I’m like, top package full time and like what happens if I need a second one? Like I’m already considering getting a second one because you basically tell them what you want. So I said, like a big thing for me was podcast editing and social media, and then they will pick someone that specializes in that. So, like they have people that specialize in that they might have people specialize in copyrighting or Facebook ads or whatever. So, essentially, whatever you need, they’ll try and fit you with someone that covers as much of that as possible and then what’s really cool is say that I asked her to do something, and it’s not something that she really knows where she’s really good at. They can flip time. So, like so, if there’s another via that works for that company and says his client wanted something that my V.A. could do, then they could flip like he would work for me for five hours and she would work for him for five hours just so that you have more of a specialty.
Can I ask What’s the company is?
Yes, pardon.
Can I ask what the company is?
It’s called Ripple. Va’s Okay, I can send you the link there. I’ve been really happy with them and like there’s a time difference. But they don’t care when they work. So I remember being like, Okay, let’s figure out the time difference. Like we’ll figure out your schedule and she’s like, No, no, like, we’ll work whenever you want And then I like set hours. So we set ours so that I know when she’s on social media commenting and all that stuff. And I remember, like setting the hours and I I did it like she only worked four hours on Saturday and off on Sunday because I don’t like working weekends. I was like, I’ll just four hours on Saturday and she’s like she answered me back and she was like, Well, is it okay if I cut time for Monday and Tuesday and then I’ll work 125 on Sunday, too, because I think we should have someone on social media every day, and I was like Whoa, like okay, like, yes, that’s great. I’m like, Are you sure that’s okay? that’s like 1 to 5 in the morning. Your time just like no, like it’s like they’re so accommodating.
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It’s so nice for me. Like if I’m like, for example, the other day, I’m like, Okay, I see there’s updates that need to be done on the website like can you take care of that? I’m not gonna do it. I’ve tried to do it myself before, like literally pressing the update button and like, literally blew up our site like it went down. So I’m like, I don’t I’m not allowed to touch that button anymore. Could you just, like, do that for me? So little stuff like that? Or like, I just finished a manual. So I did it in word I literally just sent it to her within a day, she branded the whole thing, put it as a P.D.F., and then we can upload it into our course. So it’s so nice to have like, I do my part, like all the information is in my brain, But the rest of it I’m not good at, so I type out what I need to, and then I send it off for her to make it pretty and all that stuff. So that’s been literally life changing for me to have her.
That is so cool that I have also pressed the death button before, so I understand.
It’s scary and I’ve done it before and we didn’t realize it, like I remember one time I’m like this So weird. We haven’t had any sales in, like, two days on our website. I’m like, I don’t know, I just did a sale, so maybe, like, everybody bought a sale. But I remember being like, this is really weird. Well, the website has been down the whole time and nobody told us so like people were going and getting this error message. And then finally I got this, like D.M. or something, saying, Hey, I’ve been trying to order on your site for a few days, like just wondering what? It’s gonna be back up and I was, like, so mortified. So now if that happens, if I’m like, Hey, this is a bit off I’ll go like chap, right? But I don’t touch any of that stuff anymore because we’ve had a few situations like that.
Well, I want to talk about lashes. I want to talk about how you got into this business because this is completely new for me. I mean, I know that last business exists, but I’ve never talked to a lash entrepreneur before. So how’d you get into this?
So for me, it was I mentioned that I had split from my ex and I was pondering like, okay, when the girls were gone with him, Do I go work as a server? We had moved into this big house and I could afford it with my income and his child support. But I didn’t want to rely on him. I wanted to be, like, fully functioning as an individual by myself, in case he didn’t have a job or like whatever I just wanted to be, like set myself and so I toyed with the idea of, like, being a server or something, but, like, I could either only do that when the kids were gone or if I had a baby sitter and, like, they’re already going to take care all day Once I went back to work because I actually got into it when I was on maternity leave. So lashes came up. I had got them down myself, and I was getting them done and like talking to the girl that was doing them. And she’s like, You should totally do this. I was like, Okay, like, I like, let’s talk about it and and for me, I had had, like, a really good experience with lashes in a really bad experience. So I knew that there’s like a lot of people out there that were shitty and not taking the proper amount of time to do it. And the girl that I was going to was the opposite. She had been trained by somebody really good and was really passionate about doing the job, right, not getting lashed this stuff together and stuff and so I literally ended up getting trained, like a week later and like my plan was that I could put my kids to bed at night and then do it at night. And so I was able to make money without having to pay for daycare or have the kids be with somebody else. I still was able to like, put them to bed and it worked around. Why Schedule? So that’s kind of how I got into it like accidentally. It wasn’t really accidentally, but it was. I was never intending to make it like this big business or leave my other job at the time or anything like that and then I just fell in love with helping people feel good about themselves. That’s really what it was. And now that I’m into, like the training and coaching side of things, my passion isn’t helping. People do it the right way because there’s so many shitty people out there that are just in it for a quick buck. And they’re like destroying people’s natural lashes and so I like I take pride in teaching people the right way to do it and making sure that they have, like mentoring after their training and stuff. So that was kind of growing the industry, because there’s a lot of negative experiences that people have had with lashes, and so, like, say, they get their lashes done once and they’re like hurting because their stuff together or whatever, they might never come back. So my goal is to help people have these good experiences. So the industry as a whole grows and has like a better kind of name for itself, and that definitely has changed in the last five years. Even since I have been in the industry, there’s so much more kind of education around what you need to do and not damaging people’s lashes and all that stuff because it’s still a fairly new industry. So that, in a nutshell, is how I got into it.
That’s so cool. So for people who can’t visit your spa, do you have recommendations for what people should look for for someone when they wanna get a last extension?
A National association of wash Artists. It’s called Nala when they’re based out of Edmonton and they, like basically the founder of Nala, took, I think, three years or five years and traveled the world in interviewing just not only last artists of beauty professionals as well, and then came up with these standards that are basically like the highest of the highest. So say they were looking at standards on whatever cleansing the lashes before they would take the country that they went to, or the person that interviewed with the highest standards. And that’s their standards. So they like I love them. They have a gala every year. I went to the lost when they had, and so I recommend looking to them. If you’re looking for not only a last artist but also a training academy, because you could get accredited through them. I’m just in the process of working on that, but they have a listing on their website of their members. So if someone is another member, it means they’ve taken the time to pay and learn kind of all those standards and that they’re really committed to doing things the right way. And then they also have to send in their work and actually get approved before they could make it onto the Nala website. So people can go in there and put in their area and then see who is another member in their area. And I’m pretty sure it’s worldwide like anybody can kind of join them.
Once people are ready to come to you for either lashes, lash coaching or more info, tell me about your podcast to like, How could people find you?
My podcast is called The Lash podcast, and it’s basically what it’s intended for is for Lash artists. But it’s not just about lashes. So, like I was telling you, I’m gonna be talking to an accountant today. I just had someone who most listened to the episode so far is one about self care and confidence, and so, like that episode was all about as service providers not just lash artists like any service provider, your client comes in and they lay down even like a massage therapist or hairstylist. Your client comes in and alot of them, like you’re literally you turn into their therapist so they like, tell you everything wrong in their life and bitch, brother, husband and all this stuff. But then, like, you don’t realize that you’re, like, taking in all this kind of negative energy. And so, like, the episode was about kind of how to set up your day And okay, if you know, this person is coming in and they have this negative energy what you’re gonna do after to kind of take some me time for a minute and get rid of that and sort of different stuff like that because you don’t realize I do this to myself, I booked myself back to back sometimes. And then at the end of the day, you’re like holy shit like that was a long day and a lot of information to take in from, like, seven different people. So the intent of the podcast is to kind of help people navigate their lash business and grow a business. And like there’s one I’m balancing work, life and family and like different stuff like that, so that the instagram for that one is at the lash podcast. And then as well I’m doing. I trained in person, and then I’m also just getting into the world of online training. So we just launched an online course that comes with some coaching with it. And I’m kind of exploring and getting into coaching. Lash industry professionals as well, on like all sorts of stuff, like pricing, growing their business, how to transition from like a corporate job, to making lashing your full time or what that looks like like some people. So people are happy to just be a lash artist on their own, and that’s totally fine. But then there’s other people that know they want to grow, but they just don’t know how to do it or how to go about it. So I’m lucky in the sense that I have all this business background that I can help people with that kind of side of things, which is it’s fun to mix the two like on my own terms rather than working just in the business world.
Fantastic. Well, we’re nearing the end, but is there anything else you wanna cover before we go?
I don’t think so. I think just telling your listeners that delegation can be like life changing if you do it the right way. So if people are thinking that they need just to start writing those lists about what they’re good at, what they’re not good at what they like doing what they don’t like doing and then just, like, even start doing research. So you have it in the back of your head. Like when you’re ready to do that, you have the information to be able to take the next step rather than kind of just sitting on it.
Fantastic. Thank you so much, Sam. I really appreciate you being on.
You’re welcome. Thank you.
Hey, guys. Megan here before you go, I would love to ask a favor of you. It’s so helpful to have reviews on new podcasts as it really helps iTunes, stitcher, Spotify. All of those guys find out that you’re really enjoying it and that they should show it to new people. So if you wouldn’t mind just leaving a quick review about what you think about the podcast. I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much again. I’ll talk to you next week.
In the next episode, you could specialize like copyright and trademark and like small corporate stuff. And so that by the third year, you’re half kind of hanging out and half like taking the classes you wouldn’t like to get into and so what a lot of students did. And what I did is that you start to work, probe, but Bono and, like, get clients through that.
