We recently connected with Jorden Swain and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Jorden thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?
People understanding your value is the biggest challenge to profitability in my industry. Giving quality results in the makeup industry typically requires high quality (and priced) makeup products. Setting your prices for the service is setting yourself up for, hopefully, a profit so that you’re not coming out of pocket too much when purchasing the necessities.
Jorden, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Jorden Swain. I am currently 27 years old, and I have been an aspiring makeup artist for almost 8 years. I grew up in a single father household, so I had to learn all things “girly and beauty” on my own. As hard as my daddy tried, there’s only so much you can tell a teenager. I began watching Jaclyn Hill tutorials on youtube while I was in high school, and when I was in college I started doing my own pictures and videos that I would post to my Facebook. I caught the attention of our family photographer (Melanie Paterak-Fletcher). She reached out to me asking if I’d be interested in working with her to do her clients makeup. Of course I jumped at the opportunity! Once I began gaining clientele through Melanie, I decided to go to Esthetician school to get my license to do more in the beauty industry. Since then I have collaborated with multiple hair stylists and other makeup artists and grown my clientele. I have traveled all over Arkansas, and even once to Texas. Makeup is not my full time job at the moment, but I’m striving for it to be. I am a single mother, who works two jobs, a third one being a mom. He loves being my little assistant when it comes to appointments and picking out products. He’s the reason that I work as hard as I do. I wouldn’t know the true meaning of being beautiful, if it wasn’t for him, he reminds me daily. My weekends are spent getting women ready to marry the love of their life, taking milestone pictures of mothers during and after pregnancy, preparing for prom, or celebrating graduations. There is no limit to the occasion that my skills and industry can be useful for.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
Networking and collaboration with other beauty professionals, photographers, and venue owners, has been an effective strategy for growing my clientele! I am always meeting new business owners in my industry, that give me the credit whenever they post to their social media and word of mouth moves very quickly in this industry.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Building my audience on social media started with me posting my work on my main page and getting engagement from family and friends. After I was successful with that I made my own business page and gained followers, that’s where I post all of my content now and respond to bookings. Tiktok has also been a recent impactful platform to post my work and get a lot of engagement!
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Najee Fletcher
Halen Laine