We were lucky to catch up with Anna Khita recently and have shared our conversation below.
Anna, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share a customer success story with us?
There is a long list of patients whom I have helped to restore their looks and confidence. Each and every client that walks through my door is a huge part of my story and business sucess. It is not easy to outline someone specific, as each client has its own long time appearance goal and once we achieve it. It is their sucess and victory. I would say though, biggest victories happening when I get to fix previosly done botched permanent makeup and restore my patients beautiful appearance , or help my breast cancer survivors feel confident again by recreating their areolas. Seeing tears of happiness is really what makes my day. Just recently I had a patient who couldnt walk in the public without wearing the mask, due to poorly performed lip lift plastic surgery .i was able to reconstruct her lips shape and color, relax the scar tissue on both under her nose and around lips areas and camouflaged her scars. She was crying and couldnt believe she is mask free now. I had a patient with severely scarred and botched brows, eyeliner and lips and she lost sleep over her appearance. Yes, it was a long road of removal, scar relaxation,color cancelling and total reconstruction, but this patient keeps sending me Thank you cards every now and then , thanking me for saving her life.With medical tattooing, I have restored confidence and a more pleasing aesthetic appearance to people with scarring from traumatic accidents, dog attacks to the face, skin cancer removal and facial reconstruction and even cosmetic plastic surgery scars. Additionally, you have people with metabolic and medical issues that cause hair loss such as alopecia. I have several patients with alopecia, where I restoreed their confidence by giving them natural looking brows and lash line. I have helped great number of vitiligo patients , cleft lips reshaping , post facelift surgical scars and many more . I have helped great number of patients from the LGBTQ community nationwide and helped them achieve their desired looks with facial feminization or facial malization permanent makeup and medical tattooing.
For me every single day is a new challenge and a unique opportunity to make a huge positive impact on someone’s life. For some women, it is the convenience factor of not having to apply daily makeup to enhance sparse eyebrows or wear eyeliner that smudges. From career women to full-time busy moms, virtually all women benefit in some way from permanent makeup.
No matter which service I perform it is a magical transformation of someone’s life so as my life as I know that I do make the difference.
Often I get patients who have been sent by surgeons who have done all that they can surgically to restore someone’s appearance, yet they still feel self-conscious due to the scarring, or missing eyebrows or asymmetrical contours to the face. I have patients that have been horribly scarred by laser treatment burns gone wrong – the list is extensive.
By matching the patient’s skin tone with specially developed pigments, scars can be blended into the surrounding natural skin color and no longer become the point of attention. As a woman I can one hundred percent appreciate the benefits of permanent makeup for eyebrows, eyeliner and lip color, which I wear myself, for me the real magic happens when I can help my clients with restoring their sense of confidence with the correction of botched permanent makeup procedures and medical tattooing.
To see the look on a woman’s face when she goes from a blank breast mound to looking like herself with unbelievably natural and realistic looking areola/nipple – well that is for me the ultimate finale’ in physical and emotional healing after a long and challenging journey. It is a gift that I have been given to be able to use my talents and strengths to provide these services to my patients and I am thankful for the extraordinary people that come into my life and teach me lessons in humility and gratitude every single day.
Over 80% of my business comes from referrals, and I have clients that have been with me for almost fifteen years. It took years, but with the relationships that I have developed, the respect that given me by surgeons, dermatologists, medical estheticians, among other professions, and the caliber of clients that I serve, I feel that I have accomplished more in this role than any piece of paper could ever validate.The level of experience, the credentials, the education and the way that I interact with the client sets me apart from the average. I know this to be true based on results, patients retention and referrals. What I do every day is often so challenging that I have had moments when I ask myself if it is still worth the pressure, the liability, and the emotional intensity often required of me to do my job . And I always confirm that it worth every bit of it. I am so proud of the path I have carved, the solid and professional reputation that I have built and the results exceeding the patients’s expectations. So every client is a sucess story and a little victory .
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
It is my absolute pleasure and honor to interview with you today. Thank you for having me. My name is Anna Khita. I am an Expert Master & Trainer of Permanent Cosmetics,Paramedical Tattooing & Non laser tattoo removal with the over decade of experience and over 10,000 happy patients. I specialize in correction of botched permanent makeup, funny, but even my patients nicknamed me ” Botched PMU Doctor” lol. Sadly, within at least the past 7 years, 80% of my work covers correction of poorly done permanent makeup. Seeing my patients devastated with the initial outcome breaks my heart, but they are coming to me for help, puting all their hopes into my skills and knowledge. That’s where I know, I can not fail them. To be honest, I do love perform correction procedures as it is certainly very challenging and exciting as every case is so unique in its nature.
Correction cases are challenging but so rewarding at the end because it involves many unknowns like:
• brand and composition of the pigments line used by the previous practitioner
• color or mix of colors used
• fading
• clients skin’s natural pigmentation
• length of time since the most recent application
• number of previous procedures
• structure of the skin
• scar tissue due to poorly performed precious permanent makeup
• There are many factors that might cause a color shift, like the melanin in the skin and skin undertone, climate, and lifestyle.
Additional factors behind pmu discoloration:
• Medications
• Health
• Client’s ethnicity
• Skin condition
• Skin-care products and treatments
• Sun exposure
I work with a lot of patients with mature, aging skin, which certainly requires way more skills and expertise. My career is my absolute passion and nothing can be more rewarding than seeing happy tears and smiles from my patients as well as receiving a ” Thank you card” in a mail. I serve patients nationwide and worldwide and have patients flying in from all over the states and the world .
I have always had passion for makeup, and since I was 18 years old I worked part time as a makeup artist preparing models for the photoshoot for my photographer friend. That’s when it striked me, why not to enhance someones beauty permanently?! I started digging into the classes for PMU and that was an absolute disaster, as no quality education was offered. I took so many loans to attend different classes , but upon graduation , I never felt I was trained the right way , as it was a group training, and if a trainer would spent 15 minutes of 1: 1 time , that be the most you would get for your money. I am a go getter , therefore I wasnt discouraged, I started to research, analyze and keep my own dairy of case studies with achievements and errors. That’s where my happy journey began, as I developed fundamental understanding of each platform of permanent cosmetics and started implementing it . In the beginning of self establishment I worked in the construction corporate world as an executive assistant, but I would take patients part time until I felt I am ready to leave my full time job and devote myself to the tattooing industry . When I look back, the only question I ask is why didnt i pull the trigger earlier ?! We all have fears and back then I was a single mom and I was scared to give up the security of a weekly paycheck. One day, I woke up and I said ” Today is the day . Today is my declaration of freedom and I will go above and beyond to suceed”
Being a business owner certainly entitles you to wear several hats, take risks , adopt to amicable problem solving , develop a strong business integrity, be courageous. Do not let your fears control you. Take baby steps in the beginning and increase those steps day by day with a daily thought in your mind ” What can I do to serve my community better ? How can I become the better version of myself ?” Learn from your mistakes and convert every little failure into wise experience.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Growth is exciting but requires attention.
I have been blessed with my patients, and my advice to my fellow colleagues of PMU industry would be to never stop learning and excelling your skills, take classes as many as you can , analyze each case and keep developing an absolute eye for detail , as Perfection is what makes our work stand out and be unique with every prient. To attract more customers , I would recommend to be honest and transparent with your patients from the moment you meet and greet them. Always explain every step of the way, means , times and costs associated with the achievement of the desired healed results.
Your patients are the reason for your success. Keep them happy to keep them coming back and sharing your name in their social circles.
Keeping your social media presence, maintaining your Google My Business accounts are a must.
Do not photoshop or apply filters to your before/after/healed pictures portfolio , so that your patients do not feel being mislead or disappointed. I do not advertise, actually never did. For me , it has always been a word of mouth , my business integrity and transparency. Do not cut angles when it comes to your own and your patients health and safety. Always use sterile, single use disposable materials and individual aftercare kits. Do not try to chase the dollar, rather chase the best results for your patients and develop an algorithm of work based on individual anatomical features and patient’s beauty enhancement goals.Keep medical records for each and every patient. Always provide free of charge, no obligation consultations and let your patients sleep on it, as it’s their face and they have to live with it every day.
Be extremely responsible. Work gently with clients’ skin as if you are not just a PMU artist, but a real jeweler. Care about your patients faces the way you care about your own appearance.
Put your heart in your craft. Dedication, hard work, and daily practice will take you far in this field.
As a Master Trainer , I do not believe in a group trainings . I only teach my students 1:1 as it is a lot to learn and digest yo gain confidence. Don’t try to learn every procedure at once! Master one area ,i.e. brows before moving to lips and liner or medical tattooing and choose a trainer that cares more about you than the money they get from you.
It is important to always have a listening ear for both appreciation and complaints.
Pay attention to client feedback, and make sure you are responding to every message, review and email. Your clients are looking for communication that is genuine and personal.
Learning to hand over your workload to someone else can be the most challenging part of growth,but eventually you just need to trust the process of delegating .. baby steps .
Join PMU communities and organizations as it provides a blend of networking opportunities and educational resources for growing PMU professionals like you.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
The secret of my resilience is constant strive to provide better results, to exceed my patients expectations and to never stop learning and excelling my skills and techniques . This industry is so diverse, ever changing and ever evolving, there’s so much knowledge out there that even as a master artist you’ll always be learning new things! Changing lives of my patients every day, helping them regain their confidence and listening to their goals. The most important thing I would say is to treat each patient as a family , which certainly means an absolute care and attentiveness. Love what you do, work from your heart , connect your heart with your hands to stand out in our artistic community of PMU. The paycheck that comes along with it is only the bonus
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fnspmu.com
- Instagram: @fns_pmu_academy
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FNSPermanentMakeupAcademy?mibextid=ZbWKwL
- Other: FACE NAKED STUDIO, PERMANENT MAKEUP ACADEMY AND SPA (727) 773-7710 [email protected] https://maps.app.goo.gl/eSmiCygkxCYifNHT6 Booking appointment: https://square.site/book/H9HWN0EGGHEBC