Elaine Sterling: Beauty Business Secrets Revealed

I opened my school with a credit card and the first thing I did was I made myself look huge with my website and my social media presence so your branding and marketing of your target audience is important if you're finding value in what you're watching consider hitting the Subscribe button and turning on the Bell notification oh and don't forget to drop a comment I love hearing your thoughts and ideas by the way we have got a ton of other videos waiting for you and if you are ready to level up your mindset come hang out with us in our private Facebook group called mindset for business success welcome to Super entrepreneurs podcast everyone today we have with us Elaine Sterling Elaine is a well-known figure in the beauty and wellness industry she's the founder of elain Sterling Institute Welcome to our show Elaine thank and thank you for having me I'm very excited to be on my pleasure is great to have you how do you keep your creativity alive while D dealing with business pressures keeping your Branda I yeah can you share that yeah doing things like this you I'm very creative all the time and some of the ideas that I have don't work and some of them are just to feed me I wrote a book Beauty Beyond the mirror so that fed me because that took about six to eight months doing podcasts started a podcast of my own always looking at what is innovative and what is also happening on social media we do a lot of social media work a lot of speaking engagement so all the things that sort of feed my creativity and then I can p back because it's a strange world now being in business being an entrepreneur because you don't know what this where the consumer is going because the consumer is so influenced by what's happening on social media but then brands are now copying what's on social media as opposed to they always used to be the the Forerunner of what's going to be the next greatest They're copying social media and I'll give you an example I'm very up because I'm in the beauty industry I'm very up on these Tik they call them Tik Tok beauty hacks so I I did a talk on it and I I like to see what the young ones are doing and then I saw that a very well-known brand had copy exactly almost word for word they were doing in one of these Trends so it's almost like we are guiding Now The Branding and marketing so I try and stay on top of things and I also have I have a very young social media person which really helps because she'll know what's trending and and she's following it so that's helpful too to have some young ones because when I opened my business remember we had the trifold that was how we did our branding and marketing and that was only 16 years ago so I don't don't know where this is going but feeding the creativity is huge for me also I belong to associations and we do a lot of stuff with them because when I have one business well actually I have a business within a business because I have my beauty school and then I have and I have five probably eight programs and then I have my skincare line I have a lot of things lot of moving parts so it's really important to always be what I call Future planning I'm a big future planner so I do a strategic plan every year for three years but guess what I updated every year because the world changes so much think of Co I I was thinking my goodness I can't believe that Co was 2020 and then we now 2025 but Co felt like three years in one how things had moved so quickly I was just looking Miami has the newest massage robot I don't know if you saw that on social media but you know what it has and I don't know if you're a fan of of um of Science Fiction and now I'm talking about old sence it has a kill switch so I'm like if a robot's giving a massage and there's a kill switch stay clear yeah so what steps do you take Elaine or any strategies that you could share for future planning which is part of your it's an important part of your business so I actually have a I set goals right first of all I go back and I'm marinate I always say marinade because in South I'm South African so we marinate anything everything I marinate on the what I wrote for the last three years and then I do a synopsis of did I meet those goals right are there some goals that still need to continue or have I have I adapted it because you know everyone's you got to have your fiveyear plan have your 10 plan no that's too far into the future have one to three years at this point and so then I say okay what what does my company need because there's no crystal ball I always say where's your customer who's your customer right and now I don't somehow I don't know I'm always thinking okay we need to rethink what we're doing because some things work really well and something there's something new and creative out there that we need to do and it's I say throwing spaghetti on the ceiling kind of what sticks right because we used to do things like Billboards and the mar which is our public train system having our information in there and all the old school stuff and now I think that reals are just huge our tension span has gone down to a real so that's really big now that really catches somebody's attention a very short real on what what you're doing what's trending the podcasts are huge I think the podcast new for my industry so I'm doing a really big beauty industry is a $500 billion doll industry globally so sometimes we like a Beauty School Dropout we poo it right but it's in when I came to Atlanta in 98 spa and sort of self- Wellness or Wellness was a very New Concept which was not a new concept as I know in Canada and because I trained in South Africa and I have international certifications so I'm always going overseas it's Spa and Wellness has been so new to America so it's had such a huge growth SP and still growing because of the amount of people we have so you've got to say on top of Trends and yeah Trends are shortlived and then I try and think of how we can create our own Trends there's so many influences now you like the really influences I don't know when you're going after those goals or when you're setting those goals do you tend to be more logical with your goals or do you you think big when creating them both so I pull reports obviously and I see where we are we we're up we're down we're upside down we're moving and so what part of my business do I need to focus on so obviously that's going to be part of my goal and I think a big mistake a company makes and I've seen recently without naming names but I've seen a company that was in business for 36 years go out of business and that shouldn't happen because that's your hist history there right and the only thing I can say to to a business no matter how small you are you've always got to be growing always so where would the growth be for my company and that's what I look at because you that'll be the key Focus for the go Advisory Board and I have Advisory Board of not just industry people I have people that are investors or that own buildings that are doctors attorneys lawyers so business people and Industry people and then we talk about because even if you're a doctor or lawyer you're also an end user of our industry so I I listen to them and what the industry needs and for example a lot of The Advisory Board said that people in my industry the technicians really need financial literacy that and Financial Health because they make a lot of money but they've got to understand how much my students who graduate that go into the industry that are open business they have to understand how much money they need and how much and and how to pay their taxes and what does that all mean so I put a a learning module into the the tuition and in into the all of the programs on how to understand a p&l how to understand how to break even how to understand how to build a business plan all of those things because now they because you become like a mini entrepreneur when you leave my industry so that's one thing that we put in the last time last year that I updated it but I really do listen to my industry because they're hiring they're hiring my people right so even if I was if I was an HVAC school or if I was a truck driving school I would be listening to people who are employing my and and I would be hearing them of of what they feel they need whether it be professionalism or a certain skill and that goes into the plan and then am I growing my school am I adding more programs are these programs that lining do I need to add something in it's a big you've got to do a big self-analysis of yourself and each aspect and sometimes it's hard because some things aren't working and it's a time to let it go and can you share any unconventional strategies that you used to grow your business that could help someone I'm very unconventional so I think the thing share your top one uh have a website I know that sounds I opened my school with a credit card and the first thing I did was I made myself look huge with my website and my social media presence right okay so your branding and marketing of your target audience is important you don't have to say oh I'm just a small guy so that position yourself as not only a leader but also somebody that people can believe even in trust right like I'm a bestselling author so I have legitimacy I am a technician myself I have legitimacy so what is your legitimacy within your industry shared that with the world I speak to a lot of people that call me about I see you wrote a book should I write a book and and I said yes because you have a story and I speak to people in Industries all kind safety industry all kinds of Industry I I spoke to a woman whose child was murdered and they have this amazing story and and I'm saying share your story because stories are powerful because I also say to yourself is Apple really selling devices or are they selling Innovation you know so think of your favorite company what are they actually selling is Nike really selling a shoe so think about what you're selling what is Disney World selling it's it's selling a feeling a good feeling of family of fun so you also got to think about what you're selling and really promote those good feelings right I'm selling hopes and dreams and saying that you can build a career for yourself right and and that career that you always wanted right because Beauty has been Beauty and booze have been around since the beginning of time Cleopatra was the first esthetician and the Roman the men in Rome were makeup they had a little makeup case under their chairs at Parliament and then they would touch up their mineral makeup so I'm like saying Beauty and booze right away we're not selling tires but even though we all need tires so that's in Atlanta they are building like crazy so I change a tire a year it's incredible can you share what would you do that one thing that you would do different if you had to start all over again tomorrow try find investors because I probably could have grown so much more so many different ways had because I invested my own money to grow s times so it's have maybe have an investor look at that and so that you're not always using your own money to grow and so I think that's I would have been more open to that now that I'm looking back so can you share how you work on your own personal development personal growth as a leader and can you share how has helped you run and grow your business right I well I listen to a lot of podcasts which I love to do on a lot of the self up gurus whether it's Tony Robins or others I I listen to them I listen to other podcasts with business people on it so that's really helpful to me I'm a visual person reading books is not my thing even though I think Anan must reads like three books a day or something so if you're a reader then read I I found for me podcasts are so much easier and then I belong to associations so that I I'm going to one in October so that I can hear from other business owners what their strengths and struggles are because when you are an entrepreneur it's lonely I want to tell you because you are so knee deep in that minutia you don't have time to to really go out and network the way you should so though and then I I always try to take a class A year whether it's a class on a Hands-On skill that I can bring back into the school or whether it's a being a technique or whether it is a business class whether I can feed myself I'm going I'm I go to a lot of workshops I'm going to one also I believe in October and they have people from cocacola and Home Depot on a panel it's gear to female empowerment and going to listen to those top leaders and what they're doing and listen to their round table so that's really important to me to not stay in my bubble because you get so busy and I I wrote a have to on business as a battlefield because I really do think it's like a battlefield and you have to put on that armor every single day and it's a fight every single day whether it's your competitors whether it's the government relations whether it's new rules and laws whether it's new taxes it's a lot that you're and then of course your customers and your clients that are happy that're aren happy the biggest one of the second biggest challenge I think for any business owner is employees I was looking do you know that SpaceX just SpaceX employs 14,000 people and that got me thinking because I have 60 employees and my 60 employees are are it's a challenge because I don't believe you can actually manage people I think that you people follow their natural Incarnation and I think people manage themselves you can only give them the tools and Inspire them so I started thinking I was like could you imagine managing 14,000 people but then I started thinking that everything these people do at face facex means life or death now could you imagine if my 60 employees had the same attitude that this is life or death think about your your students they have so many stories and we're building lives is what we're doing at my school and imagine if that meant life or death would perhaps my employees have a different attitude so it's yeah that's a that's a big St especially today because we have different age groups right I come from what am I 56 total different age group to my 26y old that has had everything handed to them and her and I come from a very work ethic get it done work till the job is done type of attitude the younger one what you think is the most overlooked aspect of Entrepreneurship in this industry that new entrepreneurs should be aware of is that it's not for everybody the first book I read which I think everybody should read and it's really thin and and you can even get online it's the emth I'm sure you know the emth what is it sorry the emth e-m y t the emth I guess short what I what it says in a very small nutshell and it's a very old book and there's emth weev visited and is that just because you're a electrician or you're an amazing hairdresser HVAC Tech think of all of the different attorney doesn't mean that you should be an entrepreneur right that so you I think that you need to check yourself because the biggest thing that an entrepreneur needs to know is that you will fail and not be afraid to fail yeah and not be afraid to take chances and if there's two types of people in a kind of a mean way it's makers and takers that's like a mean way to put it but there are people that are excellent at what they do and they work very hard and they like to know how much they're going to earn at the end of that two weeks they're going to work really hard they're G to do what they do but they want to know how much their paycheck is then there's somebody like me like I'm like how much could I make in two weeks what are the possibilities and sometimes s that will mean earning less so I think it's really important is do you have the the makeup or are you just really good at what you do and I think that's something that you need to decide because we all want to work for ourselves and then I I tell my students why not do a little bit of both why not have your side gear because America is the world of multiple streams of income because we're very used to here working three or four jobs and having our side gigs so maybe do that first because what's very hard is to work in the business and on the business because I tell everybody your job does not finish at 5 or six o'clock because now you got to go home and you got to check your numbers your books your clients for the next day you've got to build you've got to build you got to build for the next day so you're now working in and on the business and you've got you you can't stop what you're doing to go fix a problem if you are a technician so th those are hard things you got to think about is that right is that something for you yeah definitely as great suggestions also the fact that the the the makers and takers you mentioned the the takers can become makers and the makers can become takers it's just at the end of the day it's a mindset and the Beautiful part about human beings is that it can be shifted it's just having that desire to to want to do something for yourself is this something that needs to be more powerful than any of that yeah I I spoke to I also have a a psychologist because I think everybody should have and I said to her some things are hard when you have to let people go that you've built relationships with that there's some hard things you have to do as a business owner when you have to Pivot and you have to say Okay that's not working and that person's got to go and then I I said to her I said how do these people like the brands and the mus and the that have huge companies and the trumps and all of them and these people have lives and and livelihoods and how do they do this without feeling my therapist said they're sociopaths narcissistic sociopath so I'm not a narcissistic sociopath but I have to think about okay can I create those boundaries because if a business is a microorganism and if one part is sick if one part has cancer then it can start affixing the other organs so you're going to have to either let some people go or or regroup in that department it's really tough decisions yeah and it has to be done but it's it doesn't make it any easier it's especially when you built relationships with these people and I've been with some of my staff when a child has died or a child is in hospital I'm a single mom so I I have a lot of heart but then I have to put my armor on and I have to go to battle I did my DNA thank God I'm part Viking right the Viking history that's another thing like I didn't enjoy history in school because history especially British history is like names and dates but if you have a look at history and Vikings like how they destroyed they were destroyed each other how the Greeks and the Romans was if you think about it the entrepreneurs of their time and today they're not so I think we can learn a lot from history and learn a lot from leaders love the film Napoleon oh my God some of the things in there were really you know rough to to see so those things feed me too because I learned from a really amazing business Guru about patterns of behavior and businesses especially family-owned businesses have patent Behavior you think of the Ford Motor Company or Walmart or any familyowned it's there's two parts to that it's not only the the business aspect but the family Dynamic can force a lot of issues as well and we call them patterns of behavior and businesses have to change patterns of behavior and so do human beings you grow you're born looking like a parot right but you die looking who you want to yeah yeah I would add on to that instead of focus on the actual Behavior because they tend to just end up being temporary as you go to the source of that behavior and make changes there elain it was a pleasure having you on the show today it was great talking to you I know that you're going to be going places with this brand especially when you're helping other people do this business and and sharing your wisdom in the world keep at it definitely keep in touch and I appreciate your time today thank [Music] you girl