Hello and welcome to another blog. Hope you are all enjoying the Spring weather and I hope you have all had a wonderful Easter. Whether you have been away on holiday or just relaxing at home with your family hope it has been a nice peaceful one!
What do we have new at the academy? Well we have just celebrated our 7th anniversary of opening our wonderful academy. We ran a competition to celebrate 7 great years in business on our Instagram and facebook pages for a Free Pedicure course or a Free Spray Tanning Course, we have announced the winner of that competition, so well done to Emily who shared the post the most on Instagram, Emily has chosen the free Spray Tanning course so we cannot wait to train her in Spray tanning it really is the season for getting that tan on.
If you can follow us on our instagram page @wmnailandbeauty and our facebook business page is: West Midlands Nail & Beauty Academy. We will be doing regular competitions on these pages, we have previously done Afternoon Tea, free Manicure courses etc. Everyone needs a freebie in their lives especially now with the rising costs of living etc.
We are seeing an increase currently in people wanting to set up part time beauty businesses currently to supplement their own income with the rising costs of living. We are becoming more enterprising as a nation. Getting the right training for your needs is so very important.
As on my previous blogs I write about this all of the time. The question is where do you set up a part time business? From home or from a salon renting a room on a weekly or a daily basis, mobile beauty-visiting people’s homes to carry out treatments, if working from home please read below on considerations you need to be aware of.
Working from home
You may have a dining room that you could convert into a treatment room, a spare bedroom, a conservatory, a garage converted into a treatment room etc.
Making sure when you have qualified in the treatments you want to offer you need to make sure you are legal. What does that mean?
Ensuring you are fully insured firstly. Secondly you have informed the Inland Revenue you have set up your own business, please be aware this should be done within a certain timescale to avoid any penalties.
Local council permission
You may need a business licence to run your home based salon. You may also need planning permission if you make alterations to your home to accommodate your salon. The local council are now sending emails to any businesses that do aesthetics ie non surgical cosmetic procedures and they are looking to implement a licensing scheme. Please do your homework and your due diligence in this. Most councils require you to have a licence now. To be able to get a business licence you need to make sure you have the minimum requirements/qualifications to be able to gain the license.
Ensuring the training is adequate and you haven’t just been fast tracked to a level 4 qualification without the pre requisites as this can impact on insurance further down the line should you need to be represented in the court room due to a client making a claim. Insurance companies will insure you without asking for the necessary documentation initially. It is only when a claim is made against your business that they will want to see all of your qualifications and if you do not have the underpinning qualifications for any advanced course you will not be insured, resulting in the insurance company not paying out a claim. Again do your due diligence in this. We do try to provide the right advice for the courses that you wish to train in. We will not cut corners as we believe in quality advice, quality learning, our trainers haven’t just trained in industry, they have years and years of valuable on the job experience. We provide you with plenty of business ideas, trends in the industry, experience, the list is endless.
We are an excellent VTCT awarding body centre and very proud of it. All of our students are doing extremely well in industry, we still follow them on their Instagram pages, facebook pages etc. We are a training centre that prides itself on award winning accolades too, but most of all we understand our industry inside out.
The industry is now becoming more regulated for non surgical procedures which is a refreshing change and will only improve the quality of work carried out and the safety of work or procedures being carried out.
Business rates
You may also have to pay business rates on part of your property that you use for your business. This depends on whether the Valuation Office Agency has given a rateable value to a part of your home. To find out more contact your local business rates department at your local council to ask about this.
Another Award
We are proud to announce another award win with UK Enterprise Awards 2022 In April for the ‘Most Inspiring Beautician Training Organisation’- West Midlands. This is another great award which we really need to shout about. We believe we truly make a difference to student’s lives! How do we do that? We show genuine, authentic compassion, understanding of our students needs, we mentor and provide a pastoral environment for each and every student. Yes, we are a small training academy however, we have certainly made our presence within the industry and will continue to do this by providing knowledgeable, excellent training, continue to support every student who trains with us to support their future needs for their future business.
Course Combo- NVQ Level 2 & Level 3 Beauty Therapy
We have recently added this course to our website, it is a 40 week course and it has a saving of £200! By studying the 2 NVQ courses with us we will give you that discount. The first 20 weeks you will study level 2 beauty therapy NVQ, then automatically you will then start on the level 3 beauty therapy for a further 20 weeks, completing the two courses in a short time frame. We run this course over 10 monthly payment plans of £360 per month. The normal cost of this course is £3800 however discounted to £3600. This course will then allow you to complete the aesthetic route for Level 4, 5 and level 6 if you wish to follow that route.
https://westmidlandsnailandbeautyacademy.co.uk/product/nvq-level-2-nvq-level-3-beauty-therapy-bundle/
Having a long term plan for your beauty business will allow your business to grow for the future. The ever changing world of the beauty industry and new standards coming out at times you need to change with the times and keep constantly updating your skills to also build new clientele for your business.
Becoming Instagram savvy and setting up these social media pages for your business will help somewhat grow your beauty business as I have discussed previously on my blogs Creating content ie videos for your Instagram and facebook business pages will help so much. Instagram loves reels/videos. Creating sponsored ads on facebook and Instagram really do help, they can cost as little as £1 per day for a period of 14 days or however many days you wish, you can set your own target, daily costs, period of the sponsored ad, from 7 days, 14 days, 30 days plus.
Google adwords is also a great way of getting your website to the top of the google search page. We have done google adwords ads since we started up the academy so for a duration of 7 years now and have gained quite a lot of business from it, yes it does cost per click and per ad created, it is great if you are new in business with a new website as it takes a time to grow organically on google, creating great blog posts really works with your SEO, it gets you up the ranking as google loves key words for your business which are picked up from blogging, hence why I love to blog when I have the time to and have good content to write about.
Word of mouth too and referrals really help and getting your clients to write reviews for your business on google or on your facebook and Instagram pages. The consumer is getting ever more savvy on researching, therefore having great reviews will really convince them to invest in your services.
Dropping business cards through letter boxes or business leaflets through peoples doors in a certain postcode can also help. Business cards in Bridal shops, hairdressers, sunbed shops etc is also a great idea. Offering student discounts on your beauty treatments is another great way to attract custom. I go could go on and on.
Hope these useful tips have given you some insight on what to do to get your business up and running, I will write more about the business side of things on future blog posts. So watch this space. For now I look forward to writing another blog post and will try to write regular posts for you as I really love enjoy helping people and inspire people to become beauty entrepreneurs!
Sending plenty of positivity your way!
Lyndsey xx
Academy Director