Mastering the Art of Talking About Your Esthetician Business

In this episode, Brittany Hagemann discusses the challenge of talking about your business and offers tips on how to have effective conversations. She emphasizes the importance of being yourself, listening and responding to the other person, and tailoring your message to the conversation. She also encourages estheticians to feel confident and proud of their business, even if others may not fully understand or appreciate it. By practicing and improving communication skills, estheticians can have more successful conversations that may lead to business opportunities.

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Brittany Hagemann (00:00.59)
You are listening to the Estheticians Earning More podcast with Brittany Hageman, episode number 159. Hello, happy Monday. Welcome back. I'm so excited to be back with you today. I want to talk about something that I've been talking to so many of my clients about that I really hope will help get you moving in your business. It seems like a really simple topic. It seems like something that...

shouldn't be a thing to figure out, but it is. And it is a really challenging thing for a lot of people. So if you find this to be challenging as well, please don't have any shame around it. Please don't make it mean anything about you. It's just scary to do these things. So the subject today is talking about your business to people. Again, it seems like...

Yeah, how is this the subject of your podcast this week? But the reason that a lot of people find this hard, and I would say a lot of people find this hard, not all of my clients or not all of the people in the world, but the reason that it's hard for most of us is it feels very vulnerable. It feels like you are turning a regular conversation

into a sales conversation and you're trying to like have a transaction with someone and it can feel like your business is your baby and it's this very precious, beautiful thing to you. And if you tell people about it, they are going to insult it and you cannot handle it. It's like how people like we didn't, my husband and I didn't tell anyone the name of our daughter before she was born because it was so…

It was also precious that we didn't want anyone's negative opinions to talk about our baby, right? We didn't want to be like, really? Why would you choose that name? We didn't want to do that, right? We wanted it to be like, this is her name. And if you want to be a person who's rude, then you can be a person who's rude, but most people aren't going to be like, no, don't choose that name. Like it's on the birth certificate. This is her name, right? So it's the same idea about your baby is your business and it's so precious to you. You've worked so hard.

Brittany Hagemann (02:23.374)
You've invested a lot of money. It is exhausting. You're putting everything into it. And anyone to have a reaction that isn't like, that is the best thing I've ever heard in the entire world, I can't wait to come and book an appointment with you. It feels like a rejection. It feels like they're rejecting your baby. It feels like they, you know, don't.

like you or they're putting you down and you can make it mean all of these really hard things. So I just want to like, you know I like to normalize feelings on this podcast. I just want to normalize that like the feeling that your brain is having, if that is how you think about it, is a survival mechanism.

Brittany Hagemann (03:21.358)
Meaning that your brain has detected talking about my business could be a threat because they could be putting it down. Maybe you've had experiences, you've talked about your business, people have not responded in a kind and excited way. So it's either a real perceived threat. So your brain's like, no, we are not putting ourselves out there that our baby could get hurt. Right? Totally makes sense, right?

If you know that this tiger is right outside and you have a baby, you're not going to let your baby go out walking around by that tiger. That's a hard no for you. You are not going to do that. If anyone's like, no, I promise the tiger is not going to bite your baby, you're like, yeah, tigers would. Your brain is very hard to convince you otherwise. I don't think that's true because I've actually seen tigers attack children. Someone's attacked your baby. Are we following the analogy with these still?

But right, so it's the same thing that's happening in your brain. Obviously, if you talk about your business and someone doesn't have a great reaction, whether it's neutral, they're like, okay, or they're just confused, or they're just uninterested, or they even have the...

Brittany Hagemann (04:36.846)
reaction of being rude and mean, which has happened to you, I'm really sorry. It's not you, it's them, I promise you. So if anyone has these experiences, it's like, I'm just going to not. And I have to say that when I was working in San Diego in my business, Beg LH Beauty, I found talking to people, just, you know, people I would meet, acquaintances, friends of friends, you know, at parties or...

Whatever.

I would say I'm an esthetician. A lot of people don't know what that is. I'd be like, I help people with acne. Sometimes people would tell me like, I had acne as a teen. I would never tell it to someone who had active acne. I had acne as a teen. Or, I should have known you when I was a teenager. That kind of usually is where the conversation ended. Occasionally it would go further than that. Sometimes it would end there and then down the line I would get a referral from that person. That happens a lot. That's usually how that conversation went. But I like…

didn't have a conversation and people would be like, my gosh, you, this is so great. I want to come book with you. Give me your booking. That just never happened. And then I became an esthetician coach. And now I'm coaching estheticians, consulting in their businesses. Nobody knows what that means, including my dad and my husband. I think my husband knows. He definitely knows better than my dad.

If you ask a lot of my friends that are not estheticians, what do I do? They'd be like, I don't know. She works with estheticians, I think. And I don't know. I think she helps them with their business. No one knows. They don't know. So you have to be OK and comfortable. The first thing is them not knowing what it is that you do and them also thinking it's not that great. I remember when I went from Target to becoming an esthetician, huge pay drop.

Brittany Hagemann (06:37.262)
huge expected pay drop. If I had stayed with Target, the projected earnings were much higher than if I started brand new esthetician. And when I started making money and all these things, I remember being like, all these people are like, what did she do? They don't have any clue of who I'm helping and how much money I'm making and how great it is. So you have to kind of have that self -knowledge of what you do is what...

you do something that isn't acne, which isn't as maybe altruistic as you may think as like other services, it doesn't matter. People still come to you. People still want the service. It's important to them, right? And I think it's really important to like be in that. It's like, this is important to people. So what usually happens when we talk to someone about our business,

someone who we either know or we don't know, this happens both ways, is we get really weird. We are afraid of being salesy, yet we kind of go into salesy mode where we start talking a lot and telling them a lot of details and giving them a lot of information and start to explain how acne works or how lash lifts work or...

like how important it is with ingrowns and hair. Like, you know, like we can kind of get weird about it. We tend to usually need money if we get, if you get weird talking about business, usually because you need money. If you don't need money, it wouldn't be as weird for you because you're like, yeah, I'm making money. It's like not a thing. It's not weird. It's not like I am hoping every conversation will lead to a sale because I just need business so badly.

If you're in that mindset of like, I need to make money so every person I talk to, I hope they are like, tell me more. What's your website? That's how it goes. When in reality, that's not really what happens, especially in casual conversations. It's not they learn about you, learn about your business and book with you. It usually doesn't happen that quickly. Sometimes it does, but it usually doesn't happen that quickly. I guess it depends on what service you have.

Brittany Hagemann (09:01.55)
Hair removal or other services people are very familiar with, it could happen that quickly. But other services, like if you do advanced skin and care treatment, or you even do like eyelashes, or you do acne, or like anything that maybe is more of an investment or something that people don't understand as easily, it's not gonna be like they meet you, they know about your business, and then they book. It just doesn't happen that way. So getting that idea and expectation out of your head, like this conversation isn't going to end in a booking.

This conversation is just going to be people talking, right? And then what happens also is if your brain goes right into, my gosh, this person could be coming in for an appointment with me, is it can kind of come across as insincere because you're thinking about yourself so much in the conversation that you're not even really listening to what they say because you're thinking so much about like...

I don't wanna be salesy, but I want them to know what I do and I want them to maybe refer someone or come in themselves, maybe their book and I have a book opening this Friday, maybe I can get them to come to it. Your brain's like in your head about yourself and you're not connecting with that person in front of you. So I have three steps that I recommend to do if this is a situation that you find yourself in when you are talking about your business to people. The first step, and I've talked about this in the podcast before, it's like one of my...

first episodes, but I want you to talk like a person, like a real human talking to someone, just like your normal self. Don't go into work mode. Don't be like a buttoned up professional out of nowhere if you kind of were having a much more casual conversation beforehand, right? Like just be yourself, like Aladdin.

the genie in Aladdin where he's like the bee flying around Aladdin's head. He's like, be yourself. That is the same thing. Just really just be yourself. Just talk like you normally would talk to them if you had a normal job that wasn't your business. You're still an ascetician, but you're an ascetician for someone else's business. You're not even thinking about it being weird if they ask you what you do. It's not a problem, right? Hopefully.

Brittany Hagemann (11:16.878)
And then the second step in that is having that real conversation. Like, really be interested in what they are saying and respond to what they say. And answer their questions or comment on what they're saying. Because I think what happens is we're like, OK, I can talk to the person about my business. OK. And OK, I am.

Okay, so they asked me this and they're asking me this. Okay, so now I'm gonna talk to them about my business. And again, you're so focused on you and what you're gonna say. They've told you something that maybe you could connect with them on, maybe you could build a relationship that could be a friendship or a business. They actually could be a client or someone they know. There is something there that could go further, but you've missed it because all you can think about is you.

I actually linked a YouTube video. I'll see if I can find it and link it in the show notes today. But I learned this very early on in my business. And I watched this YouTube video that I swear changed my life about a woman talking about how to listen and respond to people in a conversation. It was so life changing because I kind of grew up in a family where people just dominated conversations. People just like...

my brother or sister or whatever, my mom, they would just dominate the entire conversation at dinner and then the next person would dominate it and the next person would dominate it. And we didn't just like talk and like listen to each other. It was just like one person would just take turns like the talking stick essentially. And so then that's kind of how I thought conversations were. And then fortunately working at Target, I learned a lot about like how to effectively communicate with people. That was actually one of my opportunities. Target, we called them...

I think strengths and opportunities. I can't remember now. I think the verbage is different now. But it was my opportunities is communicating effectively because I didn't really know how to listen and respond. I know this is going to sound really weird. So then when I opened my esthetician business, I had already gotten better at it and I kept really perfecting it with my clients. I learned that the more I listened to what they were saying and responded to what they actually were saying, they got better results.

Brittany Hagemann (13:32.654)
in their skincare and their acne, then if I just told them what I think it was and what I think they should do, and I really listened and allowed that conversation, it was life -changing for me in my business. Then I think it's a skill that I've actually developed quite well.

We're not talking about me here, we're talking about you. See what I did here? Anyways, but so that's my point is you want to have them talk and them be the center of the conversation, not you and your business. And this is not manipulation, this isn't a sales technique. I know this can be a sales technique that you can learn is like make them talk about themselves and then, but just genuinely talk to them. Okay, just genuinely talk to them. Show interest, like if...

If they say something that you're not interested in, don't be fake in interest. If they say something that you find interesting, talk about that. If they say something that you don't know what that is, ask about it with actual interest. Not just like, what is it that you do or whatever. Focus on what they're saying. Then if the conversation, they ask you about you or what you do, the conversation naturally goes to you.

Tell them about your business in a way that follows the current conversation. Again, this is where people get weird, people trip over their words, people get uncomfortable.

But...

Brittany Hagemann (15:10.574)
Generally, people you talk to, maybe not at a party or like at a baseball game, but generally when you're talking to people, they generally are asking you questions about yourself and they want to know for the most part what you were saying and you can gauge very quickly how interested they are in what you said. So, you know, I'd have people that now ask me what I do and I say, you know, I'm an esthetician and I had my own business in San Diego and now I can sell other estheticians in their business.

Nine times to 10 people are like, that's really cool. And that's where it ends. Some people are like, what does that mean? Do you help with what? And then people have more questions about what I do and how I do it. do you do it online? Whatever. And then I answer it. And I've had some people be like, my friend's a statistician or whatever. Maybe I should tell her about you. I'm like, yeah, I have an Instagram here that is like, that does happen rarely. Most people, the conversation ends when I tell them what I do.

But I tailor that message. I'm not like, well, I'm an esthetician and business coach and I help people make over $100 ,000 in their business and I did this by doing this and I teach them this. Even if they're interested in what I do, I don't even go into that spiel usually unless they're really, unless I had someone who's like, my gosh, I'm an esthetician, tell me more, then I would give them a lot more information.

But I kind of cater it to what the audience that I have based on the conversation that we've already been having.

And there's no right or wrong way to do this. The best way to do it is just to be yourself. So if you're a person who just taught like, I'm quite talkative, I had to learn how to like pull it back because what I found was my natural talkative self would just keep talking about my business and you can just see the look in people's eyes when it would like, ooh, like, you know, they have stopped understanding, listening to what you're saying. The light has gone out.

Brittany Hagemann (17:15.598)
They're like, okay, great, I don't know what you're saying now. That's when you can tell you're losing your audience, right? You're losing the person that you're speaking to. I keep saying audience, but I know it's not an audience, but you know what I mean? That for me was something that I had to pull back so I could stay with the flow of the conversation. For you, it may be that way, or maybe you're talking, you're talking about whatever in life and whatever, you're having a normal conversation.

They ask you at your business and you completely pull back. And now the conversation pace has changed and it's gotten weird because now all of a sudden you're like, I don't know what to say. And you kind of like, you're saying too little. And then the conversation flow isn't there. So I don't know what that is for you and what that means for how you are approaching these conversations. But I encourage you highly to figure it out. I encourage you to have these conversations.

and generally evaluate to see how they went.

Let's say a successful conversation. And a successful conversation does not mean that you have a booking at the end of the conversation. That's like a very unusual experience. Again, unless you're maybe doing hair removal or something, that's a very simple thing for people to understand and like, I need that, yes. That does happen, but not always. But if you're doing facials, things like that, it can take people, it's a slower burn to get people to book. They're not usually going to be like, you do facials, how can I come see you?

So knowing that, you need to evaluate the conversation that you had with that person or person talking like in a group, like four or five people are talking together and they all are listening to see what you do. And you realize at, when you started saying whatever, people started checking out that, ooh, that's a good indicator. That's where you gotta, that's not a good, that's where you gotta work.

Brittany Hagemann (19:15.854)
That's where you gotta work on, that's where you gotta see where that didn't work, what else can work, right? And so, this is not easy. If we go back to what I talked about in the beginning of this episode, your brain has your precious baby and you're talking about your baby and then you're seeing whether or not people are interested in your baby. And most of the time people are like, mm -hmm, that's a nice baby and they keep, they move on. And you have to be okay.

with being like, yeah, my baby's great. And no one's gonna love a baby like me. Like I have a child, no one loves her like me. Maybe her dad. Nobody in the world. She's the most precious to us. And it's okay that she's not the most precious to everybody else. And some people are gonna see her and think, my gosh, she's this remarkable, wonderful, beautiful child. Some people are gonna look at her and be like, she's just a kid. Or whatever.

There's different perceptions people are gonna have, but I have to keep my thoughts on her is the most important and the way that I think about her and treat her. So same thing with your business. Like if you're proud of your business and you are excited about your business, that will come through in the conversation. It'll flow very easy. But if you're insecure about your business, if you're worried about your business,

If you don't feel confident about what you do or how you do it, you don't feel confident about your prices, you feel like you're charging too much money or you're afraid that people are gonna come in and not, you know, you have all these things. It's such a complicated thing, you and your business. And talking about it, it just is so hard. It's so hard. So you gotta get clear on your relationship with your business and feel really good about all the aspects of your business so that when you talk to people, you're like, yeah, look at...

Look at this business that I have that I love. Isn't it great? You want to know more about it? Here you go. You don't? No problem. To other people that are interested in it. I've met a lot of mom friends moving to Georgia in the last year. None of them are estheticians. Actually, a lot of times I'll tell people I'm an esthetician. They're like, don't look at my face. Don't look at my skin. I'm like, I'm honestly not looking at your skin. But I haven't gotten any clients, esthetician clients, from talking to people about my business. But that's not the point.

Brittany Hagemann (21:35.822)
The point is to get really good at talking about it. So when you do talk to someone who is potentially interested in your business, it's an easy conversation. Me talking to people that I meet in my life here in Georgia about what I do makes me better at talking to actual estheticians who are interested in working with me because I've gotten so good at talking about it.

I feel confident talking about it. I can say exactly what I do, how I do it, answer questions people have in a way that anyone can understand. But that did not happen overnight. That wasn't a simple thing that I just like, hmm, I just do this and that's easy. I had to spend months, years figuring this out and realizing I lost people in this conversation.

Brittany Hagemann (22:26.478)
This is part of being a business owner. This is part of it. This is an important part of it. And if you find yourself being like, I don't want to do this, Brittany though, because there's something else I can do, we have to talk because that is probably what's holding you back from making business. That's probably what's holding you back from making money in your business. Making more money than where you are. Even if you're making money, you may be stuck at a certain income. There's something there that's holding you back.

that we have to get past. Okay, have a fantastic week. I'll talk to you next week. Bye for now. Thanks for listening.