-Jennifer Lopez; Actress, Pop Star, Dancer, Fashion Designer, Producer, Businesswoman
Fresh out of a knock-your-socks-off YN Mentor Weekend, we sit down with YN Senior Mentor and serial entrepreneur, Brittany Hogan. An incredible 14 year nail veteran with a great salon business and strong social media game, Brittany is a multi-hyphenate hustler who is currently writing a book and spreading the love with her own brand of clothing. Here we share a few gems from our exchange.
HABIB:
There is a false claim out there that a nail career or even the nail business, is not a “real business”. People are scared of getting into nails. Why did you get started in the nail business? Were you driven by a deep passion for it?
BRITTANY:
I really wanted to do hair, originally. My mom did hair and insisted that I go to college instead. So I got through it and locked in my degree. I loved nails. I love getting them done. I have been getting my nails done since I was in junior high school. It looked so easy. I thought, I could totally do that. Before I was a nail tech, I did the call center thing and hated how redundant it was. I quit when I got my degree. I looked back into beauty schools. Hair programs are typically a 1 year or 1 ½ year commitment. I discovered they had a “nails only” program that was a much shorter amount of time and way cheaper. I started in the salon, doors opened and I never looked back. I love the live environment of the salon. It’s fun. It’s the opposite of working in a cubicle with 200 calls coming in a never-ending queue.
BRITTANY:
For my readers, the entire nail industry is starting to shift. The old school nail tech and their ways of marketing are gone. Now with social media, nails are changing a lot. Nail (looks) have gotten crazier. There is more competition, “friendly” competition. What advice do you give to people who are starting out at this crossroads in nails? How do they make the change over to new shapes or new trends that they might think are ugly (compared to traditional pink and whites)?
HABIB:
This is a real thing happening. The majority of our YN customer base is/was made up of this group of nail techs. We came up in a time before social media even existed. We grew up together, where old school hand-shaking and trade shows were the only effective ways to market yourself. If you stay stuck in the past and refuse to embrace change; you and your business are also going to stay stuck and be in trouble. You will have to compete with the new nail techs arriving to the scene who have zero issues with social media. It comes naturally to them. Even we as a company have had to choose to make the transition from the familiar to the new way of doing things. We get it. People really hate change; but in order to continue to exist as a company we had to evolve and embrace the growing pains. Listen. I’m 45 years old. Just so you know that uncomfortable feeling doesn’t last forever. So we just started posting and figured it out along the way. Try to frame it as a positive opportunity and don’t make it out to be the devil. There really isn’t a choice. You have to expand your mind, your technique and your talents to stay relevant. Unfortunately, we don’t get to decide what the latest nail trends are. We do have to know how to execute them. Can you imagine? Someone before you probably hated the way pink and whites looked, too? There are wonderful mental and financial benefits of connecting to it all at this level.
HABIB:
Building a clientele, you have a great following. What was the main key for you to build it?
BRITTANY:
I learned to focus all my energy on one thing. I’m very motivated. I like to do a lot of things, all these random things for example. I’m uber driving. I’m bartending. I’m teaching yoga. I’m doing nails. I’m doing massage. It really took me dialing down and doing the reverse. I put all my eggs in just a couple baskets instead of all the baskets. I decided to dedicate myself. So I made the shift to doing only the things I love the most. When I did that, everything started to shift, especially energetically. It changed the game for me. This was also around the same time that I started to post everyday. Before I had hundreds of nail pictures and didn’t really care to post them. It was too daunting. I was only posting for a few weeks, then I started getting messages asking if I was accepting new clients.
BRITTANY:
What would you tell someone brand new, like fresh out of school who doesn’t know much about marketing (as creatives it’s not our strength)? What would you say is the top thing you should do?
HABIB:
Basically, there is just one thing that I would tell that person to do. The single most important key to unlock it alI, in terms of marketing, is to build their social media presence. Stop wishing and just start doing it. The biggest set back I see is that there’s way too much thinking/planning and overthinking/overplanning with no actual results. That is really just a stalling tactic. Instead of writing a ton of notes into your Iphone; start testing it one post at a time. Literally start there. Start posting to understand what it feels like to post. It’s the same with nails. How do you really get good at them? Watching hundreds of hours of online nail demos and tutorials is one thing. Seriously, how does one really improve their nail technique? You have to actually sit down and do them on people in the salon setting. The truth is you inch your way toward success one day at a time. Don’t let being scared paralyze you. The way past that fear is trial and error; less thinking and more doing until it becomes second nature.
HABIB:
You’ve checked off a lot of boxes. You’ve built a great clientele. You’re doing your own branding. You’re doing your yoga instruction. You’re making good money and it’s solid? Where do you want to go next with nails? Since you’ve done that, especially after this mentor week?
BRITTANY:
What was next for me was my apparel line because I have established clients, I wanted to move forward. Be stimulated. Be challenged. I love to be creative and design. I’m good at graphics. This led me to my own apparel line to create awesome and cute things that represent nails and how passionate I am about it. Then it turned into a beast. Do I want to just sell t-shirts and hats? It got to a point where I asked myself how do I stop trading my time for money? I work for myself and don’t have (certain benefits) like paid time-off, a 401K, or stocks. How can I find more security to give myself more freedom? What if I break my wrist and now have to take 3 months off. What am I going to do? That’s what started the ball down that path. I went into experimenting. I like designing; that was fun. Then it became an entire other animal and a lot of work. I have to do the marketing and run these ads for the apparel line. I’m a jack of all trades. I built my logo, did all the marketing and developed the website. All of this is so time consuming. Now I am at the stage where I am open to lots of ideas. I still don’t know what’s the perfect thing for me. But maybe, I can just post more and make myself more famous in my area (of nails)? Maybe I can start charging more money. I see now that might change how maybe I won’t care about not getting paid vacation because I can make more money.
HABIB:
That’s it, right? It’s super interesting to me that you can consider that as a new possibility... maybe I’ll bring in more clients. Ultimately, charge more and make more money. Even as just as a possibility this might be just another challenge. If you’re in the what’s next chapter. Ask ourself, can I build more demand through more marketing/branding. Roll in the apparel line. All these other things assist the nail brand. I love that right there and pose that challenge to everybody else. What’s next? What are you doing to keep yourself inspired in the game?
BRITTANY:
Last question. How do you suggest someone begins to brand themselves just starting out? Or in more basic terms, can you explain, “What is branding?”, for someone fresh out of school?
HABIB:
Branding for me means content marketing. Your brand is ultimately your reputation. For example, YN’s brand is my company’s reputation. Who are we as a company? It’s important that people are able to have a deep connection with who we are. How do we do that? For today, I believe that means creating a lot of content for the internet so that people can see who we are as an organization. Ask yourself, as a nail professional, what does your brand represent? Who are you and what do you stand for? Our YN brand creates value-driven content to help nail pros navigate and succeed in the business. We want everyone to know that we’re good people that genuinely care. We’ve been in the industry for a while and we give away all the tips and tricks, all our years of knowledge away. On our social media feed, we focus on being transparent. We want people to really getting to know who you are. So as a person just starting out in nails, share what kind of nail tech you are. We aren’t advocating for you to be something that’s scripted, superficially cool or slick. Use Instagram and IG stories to share daily snapshots of your work, your quirks and what it’s like to really be you having fun. That’s what we do because that is who we are. Who are you?
**This is an adaption from our YN Biz Talk playlist on YouTube, “BIZ TALK SALON BUSINESS Q&A W/ BRITTANY HOGAN”.
Follow our YN YouTube Channel and click here to watch the full discussion here:
11 November 2019