Ep. 122: Predicting Your Sales In Your Beauty Business Before It Happens: Tips To Provide Stability In Your PMU, Lash Or Microblading Company
Not having a way to predict your sales is hurting your business.
You know it, I know it, we all know it. When you don't have a way to predict your sales you're basically just sailing the ocean without a map and no way to guide yourself, just hoping for the best. It's just not sustainable.
You go into every month not knowing how much money you're going to make or having the vaguest idea. If you're not aware of your numbers, how are you going to grow? I know what this is like because I experienced this too when I was first starting out in PMU. I had no idea how to predict what my income would be and I was constantly stressed out!
Listen, mama, you're already trying to run a business by yourself. That ish is hard. If you want to make it work, you've got to get a handle on your numbers. This is something that we cover with all of our members in Pretty Rich Bosses because I know that having a predictable income is KEY to the longevity of your business. It also protects your sanity, okay? In Pretty Rich Bosses our students can work with their coaches to develop a much more in-depth plan to be able to forecast their income, but I'm going to share with you why I think that predictability is so important and some ways you can start to do that today, in this episode.
I don't want you to wait anymore, okay? Let's get into this.
Here are the episode highlights:
‣‣ [02:46] What is the WORST thing you can do for yourself and your business as a solo entrepreneur?
‣‣ [06:13] I want to talk about what it was like for me at the beginning of my career when I had no way to predict my income.
‣‣ [07:21] Why is the ability to forecast your sales so important to the success of your business?
‣‣ [09:15] How do you predict your sales?
TEACH ME HOW TO PREDICT MY SALES TO GROW MY BUSINESS! (Listen Here)
You can follow me, Sheila Bella, on Instagram @realsheilabella!
Here are the links that were mentioned in the podcast!
Pretty Rich Bosses
Microblading Sales Script
HYVE Beauty *Code SHEILA15
Text me! (310) 388-4588
FOR MY LISTENER BOSS BABES
You can enjoy this podcast by downloading it on iTunes here.
(Life Hack: Subscribe to Pretty Rich Podcast to get the LATEST EPISODE downloaded to your phone AUTOMATICALLY)
FOR MY READER BOSS BABES
You can enjoy a transcript of the podcast here.
Sheila Bella:
Most of you can predict your overhead. You know exactly how much money needs to be spent next month. But what you can't predict, a lot of you can't predict your income. And I think that's scary. Guys, sales is just numbers. And by looking at the numbers and focusing on the numbers, a lot of you guys avoid the numbers, you can predict the outcomes so easily. So easily. So if you want to have $50,000 a month, you can plan for it. And I'm going to show you in this 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 felt 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've no idea who you are, but I do. I 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 hurting me, wanted nothing to do with me. So I skipped the line and hired myself as CEO. Just like you can. So 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.
Hey friends, it's Sheila Bella. So it's a good one for you. This is a topic that I feel really passionate about, and you're probably like Sheila, why you're so passionate about being able to predict your sales numbers. Because, I have a story that goes with it. I know what it feels like to be a duck treading water, because from above the water, a duck lucks like they're calm and everything's good, and they're smiling. It's very graceful. But if you look under the water, their feet are moving so fast like in a panic. They're in a state of panic actually. But that's not what the rest of the world sees.
And I remember my business used to be that way. That is before I learned how to predict my sales. One of the worst things that a solo entrepreneur can experience is that feeling of immense anxiety and worry because you know the numbers don't look as good as last month and you have a family relying on you and you have employees relying on you and you don't know what the heck you can do to make this work, to stabilize the business, to make it predictable. When so much is riding on the success of the business, on the numbers to be what they need to be in order to stay afloat. I remember that so well. Is that you? When I was starting out, all I wanted was to have a predictable business. And I almost did it care how much it was. I just wish it were more predictable. Well see, that's the thing.
As a solo entrepreneur, things are more unpredictable, but you make more money. But when you work a nine to five for someone else, you know exactly the paycheck that you're going to get at the end of the month. It's nice. It's so nice. And that's something that employees have, right? And that's one of the pros about being an employee and working for someone else. But what I've learned is how to have that same predictability as an entrepreneur. And I want to encourage you guys to focus on that, because once you learn how to have predictability and stability in your business, you're just a much calmer, happier leader, right? This is exactly the kind of thing that we teach inside Pretty Rich bosses.
Today I'm going to give you guys a little taste about what you can expect inside the program, but if you already know you're ready to crush your 2021 goals and make it a new year, if you want to have that stability, that predictability, if you know that you're trying to build a house on a marshmallow, come on. Is your business a house on a marshmallow? Pretty much. If you know that your business was meant for so much more, you wish that you could get in a time machine, talk to your future self and ask your successful future self, "Hey, what did you do to make it? What did you do to make it so I can do it faster?" Well, time traveling is not a real thing, but you know what is a real thing? Mentorship. I've built a seven figure permanent makeup business and a seven figure online business. And I am your future self.
So if you want to sign up for a complimentary strategy call with either myself or any one of my advisors, go ahead and click on the link in the show notes, or just go to sheilabella.com/apply. What are you waiting for? At the very least, you can get some clarity on your business. It's completely free. Okay. So before we get to today's lesson, I wanted to remind you that I am giving away a free online course at the end of every month, to anybody who leaves me a five-star review on iTunes. Well, not just anybody. I will be choosing one winner at the end of the month, who leaves me a review for that month. And all you have to do is leave me a five-star review and make sure you include your Instagram username so I know how to contact you. Okay. Let's get to today's topic.
Okay. So when I was starting out, all I wanted was to have a predictable business. I was always stressed out. I questioned whether or not entrepreneurship was for me. I would look at my friends who were nurses and teachers, my husband's a teacher. And I'm like, dang, life is so easy because you know exactly what you're going to take home at the end of every month. And when things got hard, I had fantasies about going back to that life. Thank God I invested in coaching. Because I learned how to have a predictable sales process. I didn't know anything about sales processes. I didn't know anything about setting up your business so you can literally predict the future. But now I do, okay? And gosh, what a difference it makes in my overall mood and my relationships. Instead of being super stressed out, now I know that if I hit certain numbers here and follow the system, I will have a profitable outcome and I know exactly based on history, how much I will profit.
So with any business or development strategy, you need to be able to forecast your sales. It's such an important component to any business. It's a prediction of the approximate number of deals that you're going to be able to close or number of appointments you're going to be able to book or number of students you're going to be able to enroll, whatever it is, for any given timeframe. And don't let the word prediction mislead you. I'm not talking about Cleo. Remember Cleo, the psychic on, it's like a 1-900 number? How old am I? I'm 38.
Hey PMU friends. Listen, I don't talk about or promote anything on here that I don't believe in or use myself. And right now, I got to say my favorite place to shop for quality PMU and beauty supplies is HYVE Beauty. They have the best selection. And my favorite part about shopping at hyvebeauty.com, is getting the package. It feels so personal. It always makes me so happy, opening up a HYVE package from the mail because it feels like I'm getting a package from a friend. I don't know how they do it, or make people feel this way, but they managed to do it with thousands of happy customers all over the US and Canada. And I'm definitely one of them. And you should really go check it out so you know what I'm talking about. And if you want to save 15% off store-wide, guess what? Today's your lucky day. Just type in the code Sheila S-H-E-I 15 and get 15% off store wide. So check out hyvebeauty.com. Link is in the show notes.
PMU sales is a forecast, right? And it's kind of similar to a weather forecast. It's all about collecting and analyzing your past data. So how do you do this? Well, before you can predict your sales, first you need to set up a sales process. You need to set up your sales pipeline. And when you look at your pipeline, you can estimate the probability of closing that deal. How you do this, is through historical figures. So first things first. You need to understand what a sales funnel is, and everyone has a sales funnel or some sort of sales process. It doesn't matter what you do, whether you're a real estate agent or a dentist or a permanent makeup artist, or an online course creator, you have a sales process.
Sales process is basically the path that somebody takes from discovery into finally deciding to work with you. Some people have a shitty sales process, but others, especially if you're in Pretty Rich bosses, you have a killer sales process. So once you've set up that pipeline and identified what that pipeline looks like, what I suggest is that you give it a full quarter. You give it a full three months to run exactly as is and take the average. See what the data is like. Kind of works like this. If I reach out to 100 people a day, I know that 50 of those people are going to get back to me. Out of those 50 people that get back to me, I know that 25 of them are going to book a consultation. Out of the 25 that book a consultation, I know that 12 of those people will actually make it to the consultation and out of those 12 people that make it to the consultation, six people will make an appointment.
Now that is just an example, whether you're bringing people in through Google ads, Facebook ads, content marketing, which is free or referrals, it's really important to track where your sales are coming from. Because if you know where they're coming from, you know how to duplicate that process. If you have people coming in through Facebook, but that will double down on your efforts on Facebook. If you know for everybody before and after picture you post on Facebook, you get about three increase, then I would post two. And guess what? Six will come in. Let's say you run Google ads. If you know for every $5 you spend on Google ads, you get about 10 inquiries, and out of those 10 inquiries, five actually make it to a consultation with you. And out of those five who experience a consultation, you book three, and maybe you know that because you know that your close rate for consults is 60%.
It's really important to pay attention to your numbers. Pay attention to where your leads are coming from, where your sales are coming from, how often you're closing and what that percentage is. Because here's what's happening. Most of you can predict your overhead. You know exactly how much money needs to go out. You know exactly who to pay, how many hours they're working. I mean, it doesn't change, who's on salary, how much the electricity costs, how much your rent costs, how much your mortgage costs, et cetera. You know exactly how much, what your cost of living is and what your cost of your business is. You can predict that, but you can't predict your income. And that's a problem. This is why I always say that sales is just numbers. And by looking at the numbers and focusing on the numbers, you can easily predict the outcome so easily. So how did I learn all this. Experience. But honestly, I didn't guess this. I hired mentors because I knew that mentorship is the quickest way to my destination.
I myself, I'm always investing in business coaches. I'm in two masterminds right now. I'm a beauty business coach, but I also invest in coaching because if you have a coach that doesn't have a coach, it means they're done learning. And honestly, I believe that coaching and hiring consultants should be in everybody's yearly budget. If you know you're going to make $200,000 next year, you should set aside some of that money and put it towards coaching. Put it towards your personal development and your business growth. Big companies like Apple and Amazon have a budget for consultants.
So if it's good enough for them, it should be good enough for us. So if this podcast was helpful and you think you're ready to take charge of your 2021, and you're sick and tired of the guessing game, not knowing how much your business is going to be bringing in every month, you don't want to be stressed out anymore. I want to invite you to change that. Stop the worry. Stop the fear. Stop the guessing game once and for all. What have you got to lose? Go to sheilabella.com/apply. Let's make this year, the year where everything changed for you, like it did for me.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode of Pretty Rich podcast. If you want to the conversation longer, check me out on Instagram. It's my favorite place to connect with you guys at 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? 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 include my kids. So here to send us off our Beau and Grey. Grey, say share with your friends.
Grey:
[inaudible 00:16:17].
Sheila Bella:
Please review my mummy on iTunes.
Grey:
[inaudible 00:16:23] iTunes.
Sheila Bella:
Thanks for listening.
Grey:
[inaudible 00:16:27] 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.
