We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Liz Smith. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Liz below.

Liz, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

Scaling up isn’t as easy as it seems in the beauty business world. Getting clients in this economy takes a lot more commitment and you have to provide value for them to spend their hard earned money. One of the biggest factors that has taken me from 20 clients to a six figure business is my marketing, personal touch, and social media. I kept putting myself out there daily on social media, showing up, and showing my work. I gained over 50 clients by doing this. I also made it a priority to reach out to clients and check in. I value my clients and want them to know that I care so I will always be involved in asking about them and making sure they are getting the most out of their services with me. When it comes to marketing, I would send routine emails advertising my specials, updates, or anything else that might keep the client engaged. I received a lot of feedback that my clients loved that. I also would put myself out there by networking and by driving bookings through a scarcity tactic. I would say that through all of these things and my actual talent to back my business, has excelled my business in the short two years of me being open.

Liz, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have been fascinated with the beauty industry from a very young age. I have always been doing friend’s hair and makeup. I always envisioned myself as a hairstylist but I never knew that estheticians were a thing. I have a pre-existing back injury that has affected a lot of what I do and I knew that standing all day would bother my back as a hairstylist, so my hairstylist is the one that told me about esthetician school. Ever since then, I never looked back. I first attended college for a Marketing degree and then went straight into beauty school after. Once I graduated, I worked at a spa for about 8 months and left due to a toxic environment, bad boss, and low pay. This pushed me to go on my own while I had the opportunity and from there I have been growing my own business successfully.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I would say that it’s easy to get caught up in seeing other people’s success. It’s easy to feel like you aren’t doing enough or excelling fast enough. I got caught up in doing well so I worked hard to create other opportunities for income that ended up just stressing me out even more and causing me to shut down mentally. I realized that while I had one business still growing, I would have to grow my other venture at the same time and that wasn’t a wise decision for me. I decided to scale back instantly and continue to work on my beauty business, without the peer pressure of other people’s success, so I could continue to gradually grow my one business. Success isn’t lineal and I don’t want to distract myself from my main passion. I will revisit my other business one day, but for now, I’m going to focus on the main task at hand until I can get that to exactly where I want it to be.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I would say the biggest thing has been the economy and starting my business fresh out of Covid. Not everyone has had the budget to get beauty services done like they did before Covid. In the beauty business there are slow months and there are busy months. Which can really affect how you feel about your business and the success of it. I think that the biggest factor in my business continuing to do well has been my mindset and motivation to continue to provide the best that I can for my beauty business. My clients can see that I face adversity well and continue to invest for them. This has really helped me be resilient through some uncertain times and months.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Beautyalignedesthetics.com
• Instagram: Beautyalignedllc
• Facebook: Beauty Aligned Esthetics (page)

Image Credits

Kahms Photography
Annakahmsphoto.com