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“Any beauty artist worthy of his brand”

Interview with Pavel Grinishyn: how to start a beauty business?

STALEKS Journalist.
I write about the beauty industry, collect information, and share trends. I manage an interview column on the STALEKS YouTube channel.

Open your business in the beauty industry is a tricky case. It is not enough to invest money and hire a team of specialists. A complex approach is essential: leadership skills, the ability to listen and hear subordinates, as well as follow trends and suggest interesting ideas. Is it easy to say? Yes, in this case, the help just would not hurt. Pavel Grinishin is that person who knows how to set up a business in the beauty industry and not to go bust later. Both local projects and large-scale corporations are subject to this person. Pavel opens nail bars and beauty salons throughout the country, and also provides consulting support for business start-ups. As a joke, he calls his team “doctors” and says that his goal is to “cure” your business and breathe life into it. STALEKS found out all the secrets of this strenuous activity and will be happy to tell you whatwill help your project to stay afloat.

Personal brand – where to start?

«Grinishyn» is already a brand. You called the consulting firm of your name. I would like to know how this happened? What occasion is this related to? – I thought about this for about 2 years. The stereotype of thinking in Ukrainian society is tied to the individual. It is quite challenging to defend the copyright to naming, if you do not have a binding to a personal brand. Many nail technicians ask me a question: is it worth opening a studio of my name? I would advise manicurists to build a personal brand right away: to create an author’s space, to create products that will contribute to the formation of a personal image. – Do you recommend this even to novice manicurists who still do not have any developments in the business? – You need to think about this first. It is not such an easy way.  You need to think about the components of what “baggage” you have. You should develop a SWOT analysis, think up your motto, logo, slogan, and type of branding. At least you need a year to live with this idea, to create a specific product, to crystallize its advantages, a particular concept, why the market needs you. Every time I recommend the nail technicians to ask themselves: “If I will not be on the market tomorrow, what would my client lose?” – Did you have experience when novice manicurist came to you and said: “I want to be a brand”? -Yes, of course. And our recommendations: do not start with the legalization of your brand, not with the Ukrainian Institute of Intellectual Property, but with the answers to the main question: how many subscribers do you have on Instagram or Facebook? Be sure, with this; I recommend starting because the world has long been in virtual reality. As soon as you cross the line into the first 10,000 subscribers, you can start talking about your brand. When you reach 100,000 subscribers, this is already the next level, after “one hundred” you can already talk about monetization – the sale of advertising in your account.

“How do you call a salon”

– And what is easier: to develop a business “from scratch” or reanimate the old one? – For me, it does not matter. I am equally interested in dealing with the first and second case. Both have their pros and cons.  For example, when we develop an already established business, its advantage is that the underlying processes are already worked out. There is no need to optimize taxation, rent a room, negotiate with suppliers. On the other hand, the old system is challenging to change. You see, to bring in some innovative product is damn difficult. It is much easier to deal with the new salon in this case. All the innovations, starting with automation and ending with some original marketing solutions, the nail technicians catch instantly, you know, they are more open to this. At the same time, there are crazy risks, because the fundamental business processes are not established. It is necessary to re-adjust the accounting and to form staff. We recently talked with one of our favorite clients, the salon of which we managed, and I asked: “Dear, of those 132 people whom we recruited from the very beginning, how many people are left?” Answers: “After three years – 2 people left.” It is a normal process, staff turnover, but this is also time, strength, and nerves. -What are the requirements for the title of a beauty salon (or any other beauty project)? – Think about what all the titles of the salon carries? So you called your salon there, “Miruar” and why? When you come and ask the owners this question – what did you want to convey to the world with this name and how is it connected in general with the mission of your salon? (hinting to them, as it were). The answer is – I don’t know, beautiful title, French. My friends! In this country, not all still know English! So I want to give an example of a successful name. There was once a great beauty salon, “Orange.” Do you know what they were doing? They provided an orange to each client after the service. It would seem extremely simple. That is, we are as sincere; we are as real as this orange. -That is, ideally, the name should be not only euphonic, beautiful, and readable but also encrypt the mission that this salon is pursuing? – Absolutely. It is, in fact, another tool, thanks to which you build communication with a client and isolate your target audience. Aesthetics is essential to someone, safety, comfort, low pricing, whatever. For example, a salon with the title “Marina” or “Alyonushka” is a salon for whom? For housewives, right? For gossips, this is a great name that works well for a residential area.

Photos from the personal page of Pavel Grinishin on Facebook

Who is it – our client?

– The name came up; the mission was invested in it. What’s next? – The next step in the formation of a personal brand is a plan of action. Here it is essential for us to understand what tools we can convey to the maximum number of potential clients information about who we are, what we are, and how we can be useful to you. Budget planning is an important part. With whom we conclude partnership agreements, who we are looking for in our business environment and what kind of clients we want to attract there. At this stage, we are already drawing a portrait of our client, and we are looking at where we can find it. And, of course, you need to collect feedback.In a monthly format. This is the fourth or final stage – to analyze the results of our advertising activity, how many primary customers have arrived, what is their average bill, are we happy with the turnover, are these clients left with us (what is the retention rate). – Are the target audience calculated at the third stage, where we draw up a business plan? – Absolutely true. – It is interesting to find out how expedient it is to take a small audience, or is it better to strive to expand to mass one? – The world goes to a narrow specialization.All Western education is built on the knowledge of a narrow profile.  For example, the same barbershop, tanning studio, nail studio – these highly specialized enterprises are focused on one service in which they are good. And as experience shows, they are successful. A very dangerous thing – to work for a broad audience, because the economy segment needs what? Minus 10 UAH prices.The luxury segment is interested in entirely different parameters: interior, how popular is this place, image, is the famous people use its services. And these two audiences very rarely intersect. Therefore, it is impossible to work at all, it is not rational. Branding by itself, of course, it will not save your business, but you need to start with this, it will pleasantly distinguish you from everyone else, and this will give you a bright competitive advantage in the first stage.

“We will become antiques.”

– How long does the brand live? – If earlier we said that the duration of the brand’s life is five years, at the moment in the beauty industry, from my point of view – three years. Three years before the rebranding, renaming, some reconstruction (internal, value). So that you may learn to carry new meanings. You see, it’s no secret how sales of the same UV lamps for home use have grown. You know what extensive advertising on the Internet and the media all kinds of gadgets that were originally provided for salon care! Excuse me. You can already become a nail technician almost at home, buy a machine yourself. Yes, I laugh a little cynically, but the fact remains that demand creates a supply. – Aren’t you afraid to lose your job? – Absolutely not scared. Sometimes I laugh and say that we will move into the “antique segment.” – What is it like? – There are also antique shops that sell items that are already 100-200 years old. Beauty salons for special connoisseurs will remain the same antiques. It will be ultra-expensive. It will be a small, narrow segment; most people will go into an automated business because it will be trite faster and cheaper. But for those for whom human warmth is essential, conversation, who has a need to talk with a person – for those we will work.

We count a math

-Tell us more about the action plan. To establish a personal brand – what do you need for this? – We count math. We start with pricing: we calculate the cost of our services and their accordance with the current market. We form the advertising budget and follow the feedback. That is, how much did you spend on this or that advertisement, what result did you get? We add up the amount of spending, we look at the number of customers and follow everyone who came after seeing this advertisement. It is also a big job. It must either be delegated to the administrator or done independently. Calculate your production capacity, your prices. You know, to make it all pay off. No need to hurry, how many examples when our nail technicians are disappointed. They say: I’ve spent 500 dollars on advertising, I got zero, I will not advertise anymore. – That’s about it. How at this initial stage does not go bust again so that development goes only upwards? – At the start, we need to understand how much we invest in this business and when this amount will return to us. It is the key technical answer that we must receive before the investment. For this, there are our classic four reports: it is cash flow (control of money, expenses, and incomes), the number of primary customers and their cost, the percentage of customer retention and, lastly, it is management report, in which we have our payback, profitability, turnover. It may sound difficult at first, but believe me, modern software allows you to automate all this. But initially it, of course, need to be adjusted to understand what output you will have the result of and how to monitor it in dynamics. Not waking up at the end of the month: oh, you have nothing to pay salaries to staff or taxes on rent!


Dream Team

– And if a person dreams of a personal brand, then, in the beginning, he will still have to assemble a team, am I understand correctly? – It is desirable, because united we stand, divided we fall. A talented nail designer cannot be just as gifted a marketer, accountant, or administrator. He does not have enough 24 hours a day, you know. You should learn how to share profits with the people who would help you to be better. By the way, one more life hacking: look for people who match your values. Look for like-minded people. On the other hand – respect people, someone else’s opinion, which does not coincide with yours, learn to accept this someone else’s opinion. And, by the way, probably another trend that I wanted to share with you. From my point of view, the future is a kind of mini-co-working of like-minded people, but beauty artist of different profiles. I think that personal ambitions for a long time will not allow teams of the same profile to team up. If you know that you are a very emotional person, find a person who will bring you to the ground in time. -Do you focus more on the individual peculiarity of a particular business, or is there any particular pattern, canon, in which you move? – Both the first and the other. Of course, enterprises are individual. There are no similar manicurists, no similar salons, spas, nail studios, networks. It does not exist. But there are specific structural or patterned approaches. I am talking about the same necessary four reports. The cash flow needs to be controlled by anyone, a private manicurist or beauty salon chain. Both should do the management report at the end of the month. Friends, you should have a personal growth plan, scheduled, preferably for a year, you should attend events, forums, conferences, seminars, workshops. The girl says to me: “Pavel, I have been working on this cosmetics for 5 years, everything suits me”. My dear bird, why do you close yourself up in your shell, do not limit yourself. It does not mean that you take other cosmetics or equipment. New lines, new brands – you need to know everything about them. You should be at these seminars, and you should be open for information because trends are changing, really. Therefore, communicate, be open to something new, always grow, learn something new, attend professional events, and you will be happy. It is one of the keys to your success.

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