Looking forward

Ok I’ll be honest. It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog. I have so many things I’d love to discuss with all of you from salon life and behaviours too general beauty knowledge. But as I sat down and began typing out the first sentence to my ‘Client satisfaction’ blog (Will post at a later date) I stopped and realised that I actually had to write about something that was relevant to me at this time and stage of my business life.

I am a small local business owner. Small business is HARD! Especially when you just start out like I have. I love my job and profession and have been doing it for 8 years. This is a massive reason as to why I branched out on my own. You can only go so far in the salon environment. Climb so high before you’ve reached the top and everyday becomes mundane. So with the experience I had behind me thanks to my previous work place, I set out on my own small business adventure.

The freedom has been amazing! I love being in control of my treatments and product ranges, even the way I approach and handle my clients. I love it! However the reality of a constant flow of income (or lack of) was hard to adjust too. I have started my business with no more than $3000 behind me. I am not fortunate enough to be eligible for a business loan etc at this early stage. Or lucky enough to have family or friends who have the capability to lend out a helping (cash) hand. But I was ok with that. I knew that I had to work harder than most people who start out with big money behind them. I built my business slowly. Relying on good honest work and positive word of mouth. I started with a few family and friends who spread the word and the rest is history.

I found a cheap little room for rent inside a hairdressers and decided to give it a go. I told myself “one year. I just have to make it to one year and then I can reassess.” My back up plan was to change careers completely if I wasn’t happy with where the business is heading.

Fast forward to a year later and after a long hard haul over the year, a business move and a business revamp, I am still here! However, a year later and small business is still hard. Yes my business has grown immensely but there is such a fine line between growing too fast and not fast enough. This means there are some weeks where I can only eat beans on toast for a few days. Only just scrape by and pay my rent. Even put enough petrol in my car to get home and back to work the next day. But then I have weeks where my schedule is constant and looking great (from a business perspective) and I can start to see the growth. These weeks make it easier to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Each week I get new recommendations. Each month I grow. Hopefully each year will surpass the last and get easier.

I heard a fantastic saying today – “Fail early. Fail often. Fail forward.” All great businesses are successful because they’re an envisagement of the great failures that came before them. Take your failures and learn from them. Take your failures and make them your successes! Throughout my first year many failures have happened. Many boundaries have been pushed. I have learnt who I am as small business owner, what I want from business now and in the future and why I’m doing this.

So please support small business! We all do it tough and sacrifice so much to make sure you’re receiving the best of the best! It is our lively hood and our pay check. We rely on you to help our dreams and businesses become a success. Just by supporting somebody small and local you could be helping and changing somebodies reality. We are always and forever grateful to every single person who has shown their support. Whether it be family and friends, clients; regular or new, social media shout outs – even our once of walk in clients. You’ve all done so much more than you think. So thank you!

Beauty Matters will continue to grow and continue on into success. We are so thrilled and delighted to have such amazing support and genuine appreciation. Can’t wait to see where we are a year from now!

- Sarah