We were lucky to catch up with Michelle Sanchez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michelle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Becoming a business owner is the biggest risk I’ve ever taken!

One thing about me is I can be a little bit of a control freak, especially since I handle the finances in our house so I know what we need to support our family.

I’ve always worked since I’ve hraduated high school as a W-2 employee and would do hair and makeup here and there but nothing crazy.

Until 2020 hit and because of all these canceled weddings, my makeup business started to take off.

I moved in 2019 to Missouri and didn’t know a lot of people or have many connections at first so I never though is grow as fast as I did towards the end of 2020.

So I was working weekdays at a salon, Saturdays doing weddings and Sunday serving at my church. I was working 7 days a week for 3 months straight and I knew I couldn’t do this forever.

So I’m 2021, I kept saying I was going to quit and do makeup full time but I knew that was a risk because I was only really busy maybe 6 months of the year. What would I do during slow season.

So I prayed about it, talked to similar and non-similar field entrepreneurs and they all said, “GO FOR IT.”

Of course, me as a control freak knew how scary it would be. So I went one more wedding season working every day again.

This time I knew I couldn’t keep doing that.

So I talked to a friend who had just quit her job to be self-employed and asked her how she knew it was time.

And what she said was, “I didn’t. I just took a risk and since I freed up my time to focus on what I really wanted to do, the jobs came and I’ve been able to increase what I was making before working for someone else.”

I knew then it was time.

So I was started to get booked for spring and was needing a lot of time off. So I decided instead of requesting the time off, to put in my final notice at my salon.

Everyone was so supportive and just like my friend had said, jobs were coming in, I was getting booked even during slow season.

And even though sometimes I question if I made the right choice, I would never go back!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I always loved makeup and art since I was little. I knew I wanted to be an artist but didn’t know it would lead to a makeup artist job.

So when I was 14, my mom took me to buy my own makeup for a dance at ulta and I would play with it every day. I would do anyone’s makeup that would let me until I graduated hair school and high school. Then I took a job at MAC and also did some weddings in the weekends. I knew then that I lived to serve others, educate them, and make them feel like their best self.

My ultimate goal is to make people look like the best version of them. And thanks to my supportive friends and family, letting me practice all the things in them, I’m now able to say this is my full time job!

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

One of the best ways to gain clients and build loyalty is becoming friends with them every appointment, offering to follow each other on socials and to share useful information they can use at home when it comes to all things beauty. Social media is a great way to keep clients enhanced and build a fun community with each other.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

The best way I was able to build my makeup kit and what I needed to get started was working for retail stores where I was able to earn Gratis to put in my kit and also take advantage of subscription boxes that would allow me to get discounted products and tools to supplement my kit. Also, pro discounts are offered by many brands and most times free. It can be pricey but start with a few things, be intentional with what you put in your kit, and the rest will follow.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Instagram.com/michymakesup
• Youtube: Youtube.con/michymakesup

Image Credits
Photos by willow rae photography