Ep. 142: The Cold Hard Truth About Making Money In The Beauty Business
I've got to be honest with you...
2020 was one of my worst years for my business. I know a lot of people could probably say the same thing. But here's the thing: it was also the best year for my business.
I know you're like "what Sheila? How can it be both?" And I understand the confusion. When quarantine started in March, I came crashing down. I was at my lowest of lows, the brokest I'd been since I'd started in PMU. BUT I turned it around and ended up having my most successful, most lucrative month in my business ever, this past December.
I don't say it to brag. I say it because I want you to know that you can do the same thing. I made a lot of money last year and I plan on making more this year. But in order to get to this level - we have to talk about the cold hard truth of making money. We're lifting the veil, okay? We're talking about it. So if you want to know how you can make this your best year yet, if you want some serious truth, then let's get into it.
Here are the episode highlights:
‣‣ [02:59] Last month, December, was the most lucrative month I've had in my online business, ever. Like it was crazy. Because I never used to make anywhere near this much.
‣‣ [03:38] This is what a lot of people don't seem to realize about building a business and building up to this level of income.
‣‣ [05:22] You know what the difference is between entrepreneurs who burn out and those who reach success? It's that continuous reinvestment.
‣‣ [09:00] A lot of people seem to think that success is just a straight shot up. But there are a lot of dips on your journey. Like, 2020 was the best year for my business, in the end. But it was also the worst year for my business.
‣‣ [11:28] So it's 2020, I'm at my lowest low financially since I started in PMU - what did I do?
‣‣ [13:22] Why am I so passionate about coaching?
‣‣ [56:45] A lot of people are afraid of failure - but failure often teaches us some of the greatest lessons. So I ask Ali for her favorite failure.
GIVE ME THE COLD HARD TRUTH I NEED TO SUCCEED! (Listen Here)
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Here are the links that were mentioned in the podcast!
Pretty Rich Bosses
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Text me! (310) 388-4588
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You can enjoy a transcript of the podcast here.
Sheila Bella:
This past month, the month of December, were supposed to be really slow for everyone amidst even more COVID death rates, the highest it's ever been. I had the biggest month I've ever had in business. It's crazy. Anyway, I'm not telling you guys this to brag. I'm telling you this to be transparent because I'm all about transparency. I don't BS people and I try to be as transparent as I can. I don't want to be dishonest with you guys. I want to be the most honest coach, person, human being that I can with my audience. Why not talk about it? Why not? If it's going to help somebody else, yeah, I'm going to talk about it and I'm going to show you exactly what I did to get there. And that's what we're going to talk about today on Pretty Rich podcast. Here we go.
Welcome to Pretty Rich podcast where you're totally the heroine of your own story. I'm your host, Sheila Bella and I built a seven figure PMU beauty biz and a seven figure online biz without a degree, without a fancy website or a sugar daddy. And if you and I hang out on here long enough, you're going to start to believe that you can do it too. How about that for a side effect of listening to this podcast? Because you really can. I know you think I don't know you. I have no idea who you are, but I do. I really, really do because I am you. I was you and I believe we are all on the same journey together. My perfect job didn't exist so I created it. The job I wanted wasn't hiring me, wanted nothing to do with me so I skipped the line and hired myself as CEO, just like you can. Consider me your secret beauty biz BFF. In case you need to be reminded on a weekly basis, that power is never just handed to you, you have to take it. Are you ready beauty boss? Let's jump in.
Welcome guys to another amazing episode of Pretty Rich podcast. So, so, so, so, if you're tuning in for the first time and you're like, who is this? Who is this girl? What's going on? What's going on with this picture? It looks so pretty. It looks so proper. This is not a proper show. Okay. I am far from polished, but I like my pictures to look that way. My name is Sheila Bella. I'm a beauty business coach and I'm not just a coach that coaches, that's not the most successful business I've had. I have a brick and mortar business as well as an online business that both generate over six figures a month in revenue. But this past December, I want to talk to you guys because I had the biggest, craziest most lucrative month I've ever had. It was an amazing New Year's Eve. I was like, what? I can't believe we're closing the month like this. This is crazy.
Okay. I made $300,000 in sales. And the funny thing is my online business used to make, I don't know, nothing, not even that long ago. I think the most money I've ever made online with my online coaching business is about 20k, 20k a month. And yeah, I think that a lot of online entrepreneurs and beauty entrepreneurs don't realize that building to this level is all incremental steps. The things that get you to 10K a month, won't get you to 30k a month. The things that it takes to get you to 30k a month is not going to get you to 75 and so on. And the other day I was talking to my girls inside Pretty Rich Bosses and I showed them the repeatable sales process that I use in my business that has gotten me to this level and I've taught it. And their minds were like, pow, my gosh. The reaction we got from the students after that one class was like, holy moly. That was insane. Thank you so much. They had so much more clarity on sales and that's why we get the results that we get.
Yeah, just sales is repeatable. Yes, it's repeatable and that's what we teach. We teach you how to cut, paste, repeat, cut, paste, repeat. And every time you paste, you get paid. That's what we teach you inside Pretty Rich Bosses. But here's the thing though, you also need new tools. New tools and new strategies to utilize in order to get to that next income goal, in order to get to that next bracket. Because if you're cutting and pasting, cutting and pasting the same things over and over again, yes, it's a repeatable process. You're going to get the same result. It might be a steady result, but it's the same result. If you want to get to the next level, you have to use better tools. And the reason why I talk about this so much is because I'm so passionate about it, you guys. It is the number one thing that has changed my business.
People who say that they need to wait a few months to sign up for business coaching, or they say, ah, they know that it's worked for other people. They look at my testimonials, they watch my stories and they see all the screenshots of people killing it in our program. And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's worked for others, but I'm not sure if it's going to work for me." And then here's my favorite when they say "Oh, no, no, no, I'm not questioning the value of coaching. No, no, no, I see the value in coaching. I'm just not ready to invest." That one is my favorite because the sentence literally contradicts itself. They say, "I'm not questioning the value of coaching. I see the value but I'm just not ready to invest." If you saw the value and you knew for a fact that it can in fact double your income within the first 30 days of investing in the program, then why wouldn't you invest if you knew that that was the case?
Sheila Bella (ad):
Hey guys, do you want to know the number one tool that I use for business? I pretty much use one tool to do everything, to access my website, my products, host my online courses, do my marketing, build my email list and to stay in touch with my community. And I even use it for payments and recurring payments. That tool is Kajabi. Kajabi. Kajabi, K-A-J-A-B-I, like wasabi, but Kajabi. Speaking of wasabi, one time, I thought it was guacamole and I ate a bunch and it went up my nose. It was not fun. They were both green, okay?
But let's go back to how Kajabi is this simple, seamless integration with all of your payments, to host all of your online courses and do your marketing for you and your website all in one place. Guys, I tried other platforms that wasn't as good. Wasn't as good. It ended up costing me more time and more money.So take it from me, if you want to make more money and keep more money, you got to go to sheilabella.com/kajabi, with a K, and see what it can do for you. And oh, you're welcome in advance. Back to the show.
Sheila Bella:
And I'm going to tell you guys, my story, because you might be like, oh my gosh, Sheila's talking about coaching. She's talking about coaching again. I'm so passionate about this, you guys, because I feel like I have the antidote to a lot of people's pain. In business, okay in sales, maybe not your marital problems, talk to a therapist. There's a lot of things I don't have the antidote for, but when it comes to sales in the beauty business or people who want to start an online business, heck yeah, I have it and I so badly want to share it with you. And that's the whole mission of my platform. And I'm going to talk to you guys about my story. The most recent hardship, actually that I've gone through just in this past year.
But before I do that, hey, I just want to remind you that if you leave a five star review of this program, of this podcast and you leave your Instagram handle with it, you will enter in a chance to win a free program inside Pretty Rich Bosses. We have tons of awesome programs. If you write a five star review on iTunes with some honest feedback and if you screenshot it, post it on Instagram and tag me, you're going to enter yourself in this contest and I will choose a winner at the end of every month.
Okay, so my story. Okay. Guys, this is hard for me to talk about because I'm supposed to have it all together. I'm supposed to have it all together, but we're all on the same journey and businesses ebb and flow. I've been in the permanent makeup industry now for about 11 years, approaching 11. And the beginning of 2020 was really hard. I was the poorest I had ever been, even with my business making seven figures, already gotten to that point, COVID happened. And we're in California, I'm in Los Angeles so March came around and we were shut down by the government.
And not only that, my event that was sold out, my first live event, the Pretty Ambitious Summit sold 420 tickets, we couldn't do it. We couldn't do it at the time. And it was canceled or postponed rather the day before. The day before. Okay so put yourself in that situation. You've been working on this event for about a year. Okay. And then the freaking apocalypse happens in Los Angeles. My salon was shut down. All of my girls, I had to lay off or something at that time. I've all rehired them now. And no money was coming in. This strange coronavirus thing was so apocalyptic and mysterious. It was raining like sadness all weekend and my event was postponed. There were several people who flew in from all over the world here in Los Angeles who were stuck here and here I was with zero income, so much uncertainty. All of my girls, I couldn't pay because the business was shut down. The business was closed and my online business was only making about $20,000. Yeah, $20,000 a month.
And I was like, who knows if people are going to be willing to buy anything right now, even if it's online. And 20 grand sounds like a lot, but I have overhead. I have rent in two separate places. I have staff to keep alive. I was the poorest I'd ever been in March. While I was down and my financial state was the most unstable it had ever been, I saw that as a reason, not an excuse. I saw that low as the perfect time to spend the most money I had ever spent on masterminds and business coaching. I didn't have the money. I borrowed it.
I ended 2020, fast forward seven months later, I ended 2020 with the most money I've ever made, working less than I ever have, completely debt free. And I even bought my dream house. Is that a coincidence? No, because business coaching works. Having guidance works, being in community works. The universe rewards risk. It's not an excuse. Being down and out is not an excuse. Having not enough money is not an excuse. It's a reason. You're being called to show up for your future. Take a leap of faith, whatever it is that's in front of you. You have to see the obstacle as the reason to do it sooner, not as an excuse to let life happen to you passively because you will never feel ready. It will never not be scary. When it feels scary to jump, that's exactly when you should jump, because otherwise you're going to stay in that same place your whole life. Not even your whole life.
Imagine you staying in that same exact place for another year. You can either have a year of progress or a year of staying put in worry. This is why I'm so passionate about business coaching because it's the very thing that had turned my life around. And at the worst time, you guys, at the worst time, how do you choose a coach? You choose a coach based on a few things. Number one, does this coach have success in the area that you want success in? And to me it didn't matter who it came from. It didn't matter. Is it going to come from your assistant? I don't care. Is it going to come from you yourself? I don't care. I just really needed a lifeline. I needed the anecdote to my pain and thank God I was sold to. Selling is a loving act.
When I talk about this program, it's because I know that there are people out there who are on this boat right now, on that boat, on that sinking ship and I know that they need saving. And if I don't talk about it, how are they going to know? When I think about all of the people that are in my program who are so grateful. I had a girl the other day, oh my gosh, she was so cute. She entered our program and she left a comment in the Facebook group. And she was like, "I've only been in this thing for an hour," and she said, "I'm crying." This is exactly what I needed. And thank God, I don't know if she heard this podcast and that's where she found out about Pretty Rich Bosses. But guys, when you guys talk about your products, know that it's a loving act.
And if you don't feel that way, then maybe you don't see your product as something that truly changes lives. I do. And that's why I'm offering this blatant opportunity for you guys today to connect with us and to see if this is a good fit for you. If you're 90% sure that Pretty Rich Bosses is the program for you because you see what I've done, you see that I have the tools to help you get there, let's say you want to be where I am too, where your business runs basically on autopilot. I don't go in to microblade as much anymore. Not at all. I got out of that brow robot life years ago. And now I have seven artists who've all been with me for five years or more that do all the services. You got to learn how to scale.
If you're 90% sure that I'm the coach for you. If you are a beauty entrepreneur and you're looking to create online courses and you want to learn how to also be wildly profitable online as a PM, you are a lash artist, you want to learn how to pivot in that way, then yeah I can totally help you there. I'm confident there. That's what my program is designed to do. If you are any of these things, if you're in the middle of hiring or maybe you've been burned before and you don't know how to hire, how to find people, how to get them to stay, what agreements you should have in order to protect yourself, yeah. That's I only teach what I know. And I know that very well.
If this is you. If I hit any of those pain points for you, maybe a couple of them, maybe just one of them. Guys, go to apply for a free strategy call so you and I can connect, either with myself or one of my advisors. And all you got to do is go to sheilabella.com/apply, fill out the application and let's see if you'd be a good fit and if we'd be a good fit for you back. Hey, if you made it to the end of this episode, geez, tell me, I'll thank you so much. I am not BSing you guys. Anyone who makes it to the very end of my episodes, of my videos, oh my gosh. You guys are my people. I wish I could give you a virtual hug right now. Or a real hug.
Dude, thank you. Thanks for sticking around. And guys, when you look at your social media and you see the stories number dwindle all the way, but anyone who watches it to the very end, I look at that list and I'm like, oh my gosh, I love you guys. I don't take that for granted. Let me know that you made it to the very end. Screenshot this and tag me and yeah, I'll send you a voice note if I see it. Till next time, have a great day.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode of Pretty Rich podcast. If you want to continue the conversation longer, check me out on Instagram. It's my favorite place to connect with you guys @realsheilabella. I'm happy to answer any of your questions or simply to chat and get to know you better. And if you end up doing something super awesome, like screenshotting this episode and reposting it on your stories, that would put the biggest smile on my face. Don't forget to tag me. I appreciate every share and love feedback from my listeners. Also, do you have my number? Do you have my number? Because if we're going to keep hanging out, you should probably have my number so you can actually text me. That's right. You can text me at (310) 388-4588.
And if you're sick and tired of doing business alone and you're interested in accelerating your success by hiring a business coach or joining our mentorship program called Pretty Rich Bosses, go ahead and just apply. Why not? Check it out. Go to sheilabella.com/apply and we'll schedule a free strategy session with either myself or one of my advisors. And of course I got to include my kids. Here to send us off our Beau and Grey.
Grey, say share with your friends.
Grey:
Share with friends.
Sheila Bella:
Please review my mommy on iTunes.
Grey:
Please review mama iTunes.
Sheila Bella:
Thanks for listening.
Grey:
For listening.
Sheila Bella:
Hey Beau, can you tell everybody what our family motto is?
Beau:
Yeah, I can do hard things.
Sheila Bella:
I can do hard things. Good job, buddy.
