Happy YOU Year! Setting Yourself Up for Sweet Success in 2023

[00:00:00] Shannon O'Brien: Welcome to this sugar show. I'm Shannon O'Brien, body sugaring expert and licensed esthetician who's taken my own skincare business from zero to multiple six figures and has helped over 3000 students learn how to do the same. Now, lemme tell you, it wasn't all that long ago that I lacked the time, budget, and knowledge needed to grow my small business as a body sugaring pro.

[00:00:12] If we were to press rewind, you'd see the many failed attempts and lessons learned that have helped me build the profitable business that I have today. One that runs on it own and gives me the lifestyle and freedom that I only used to dream of. I created the Sugar Show to hand you my secrets and give you the simple step-by-step strategies to help you do the same.

[00:00:24] So if you're a cosmetologist or aesthetician or wax professional who's looking to fill your books, make more money in your business and enjoy a greater balance between your work and home life, you are in the right place. Let's dive in

[00:00:38] a, we are a week into January, and what are your resolutions? I'm sure that you have watched all kinds of social. Prompts and people getting you excited about the new year and you know, making your resolutions, making a list of goals and dreams and all of that. And it's kinda how the new year starts for everyone, right?

[00:00:51] But you're a weekend. How are those resolutions going? And if you're listening to this midyear, do you remember what your resolutions are? Because what happens is we get so excited and we have such good intention for the new [00:01:00] year that we really go out strong, right? With just dreams and goals and views.

[00:01:04] And we're gonna mix six figures or seven figures or whatever that next goal is, and we're gonna have work-life balance and all of the things. But we get into a week or a month or three months later and think, oh, I'm just back to my old habits. So this podcast episode, I thought that we would talk about sustainability and how going full throttle this week and in January will actually burn you out.

[00:01:19] And as my dad used to tell me how he ate an elephant one bite at a time. So we are gonna do this one bite at a time. I'm not sure how we're eating elephants. I don't know where he got that, but it was a dadism for sure. And if you've heard any of my. Previous episodes about my dad, he was my hero. So anything he said is gold.

[00:01:31] Um, so we're gonna do this one bite at a time. And I think back to my , let's see, 20 years ago when I was running marathons. Yes you can. I did say that I used to run marathons and my coach used to tell me, you know, don't go out hard in the beginning. Work up to your goal of running 26 miles. You know, take it in small chunk, smile after mile.

[00:01:45] Cuz if you go out hard in the beginning he said, go out like a pig. Die like a pig. So as hard as you go in the beginning where you just hit the accelerator, hard will be as fast as you burn out. So our goal here is to make sure that you do not. So I've got some thoughts for you. If you are walking the dog and you are not somewhere where you can sit down and, uh, take a pen and paper to this, [00:02:00] I would advise you to listen first and then re-listen when you have a planner and your pen in front of you.

[00:02:04] Okay? Now we've done this in the Sugar Tribe. We've walked through the year in the Sugar Tribe. Um, and we're gonna do it again this year because you should be doing it every year. So if you're in the Sugar Tribe and you're listening to this, go get yourself a new planner. Or you can, even if you have one that's, um, not your specific, you can go back to your old one and take a look at what you did.

[00:02:16] We're gonna get a fresh new planner. That's the only requirement for this podcast. And a couple of pens that work, maybe some colorful pens. I like to doodle and draw, so I like things to be in different colors. And whether you are a solo owner, a day spot owner, or an employee, which is amazing, if you are an employee, this actually is for you too.

[00:02:28] So this isn't just, if you are a business owner, it's also works if you're an employee. So what you're gonna do with that planner is you are going to break your year down into quarters. So q1, q2, q3, and q4, those are made up of three months each. Obviously, you're gonna break that quarter into the three months.

[00:02:41] You're gonna break those months into just a. And break the week into your workdays. So use as many colors or stickers or whatever motivates you and makes your heart happy. You need to doodle and draw hearts or smiley faces or you know, arrows or whatever This is when you start to do that. So I like to hand do this.

[00:02:54] You can absolutely do this online. If you are a a, you know, someone lights everything in your phone, you can absolutely do that. I like to use good old fashioned calendar and [00:03:00] pens, so I highly suggest that you do that. So we're gonna start small. Just go to store and grab a monthly planner. I like to have the kind of planner that gives you more on the page.

[00:03:07] So not just the month with the squares, but where you can really break down your. So maybe there's seven pages for the seven days of the week, and there's also a month. So you can kinda see a snapshot and you can dive deeper. Okay. But grab that planner and take a breath and realize that it is going to be December 31st, 2023 before we know it, friends.

[00:03:23] Because think back to, doesn't it feel like we were Christmas shopping and now it's already the first week of January, or it's the six months in, or maybe we're in June. When you're listening to this, no matter where you start, realize that the end of the year is coming quickly and you absolutely can hit your goals if you break them down small.

[00:03:35] So when you think. Your goals and dreams and all of that, I want you to break it down into smaller sections. Okay? So you grab that planner and maybe pick a color for each goal, green being your money goal, maybe. Um, uh, pink is your fitness, blue is nutrition, whatever. Whatever it makes sense to you. And grab those pens and write down your goals on each day.

[00:03:53] So this calendar and planner can be used for your personal life, but I really want us to focus on your business life. And what I want you to [00:04:00] do is take a pen, maybe it's a black pen, brown pen, whatever, color and outline or star or circle the days that you. Okay, because this will help us to understand how many more or less days you need to work as we move throughout the year.

[00:04:10] Okay? So focus on the days that you're working and the days that you're not working will be your balance days, your rest, your rejuvenation, your time with family, your your, anything that you're doing on your days off. You can go back after this podcast and start doing this with your work life balance, but we're gonna focus solely on your work.

[00:04:23] Okay? So start the days that you work, and for the day, put at the top what your money goal. If you just wanna put a line for now, you absolutely can. It could be the green line or the green box, and then you're gonna put it at the end of the week as well. So if you wanna put blank lines in for now, we'll start with the first month that you're doing this.

[00:04:38] You can absolutely start with the blank lines now for your money goal, and then go back in and decide. Okay. I'd like to make a thousand dollars a week. If you work four days that week, that means you only have to make $250 a day. Again, we're talking about gross numbers, not the net after your profit. So that's another podcast that we talk about what it takes to make six figures.

[00:04:53] So go back and look into a hundred k the sugar way. That podcast in that class is really great for that. So we'll just make it round. If you work four days, you need to make $250 a day. You'll put that [00:05:00] at the top in green, and then you'll put the thousand dollars at the end of the week, and then you'll put a blank line.

[00:05:04] Because the blank line next to it is what you'll end up. That's your actual, okay. The next color is going to be for your fitness. And I'm not talking about, you know, whether or not you went to your yoga class. Maybe, maybe it's, maybe that's your fitness for the day, but I'm talking about stretching in the treatment room.

[00:05:14] Um, maybe walking into work, maybe getting a walk in at your lunch break, whatever your fitness goal is. For me, it's stretching after every client, which is really hard to remember. But if I stretch after every client, I'm gonna put like a star or a circle or a line through and cross out that I made that fitness goal.

[00:05:26] Then as well, I want you in maybe blue to do any sort of, Whether it's, I need to be drinking one big jug of my water, so I'll put one square and as soon as I finish my water jug, I've had a big Yeti, I can put a little check marker or smiley face or something inside that box. And absolutely you need to have a snack plan.

[00:05:39] So have snacks in your room, make sure you're bringing your lunch, and if you have done that, put a smiley face on your snack plan or put in what your snacks are gonna be. Kinda like that, you know, meal planning for the week. We have to meal plan for our work days as well because we wanna make sure that we're super nourished in order to get through the day in order to hit that financial goal.

[00:05:51] Right? And it's all about work balance. Your work balance is gonna be inside of this calendar. Okay, so you've heard when people do this before, weight loss say, And they talk about how you wanna hit your [00:06:00] goals, you wanna hit your goal weight and your goal for the week. And when someone's trying to lose weight and they decide usually on a treat, and it's called a non-scale victory.

[00:06:05] Okay? So obviously when it comes to your workday, we're not jumping on the scale to decide our, uh, whether or not we, we made our goal or not. We are taking a look at our reports at the end of the day, and. Your non-scale victory as it relates to your finance goals inside of your treatment, around your fitness goals, your nutrition goals, your non-scale victory might be, I'm gonna treat myself to X at the end of the week or the end of the month.

[00:06:21] If I hit, you know, five figures this month, or maybe even if I just hit four figures this month, I am going to do this to treat myself. It might be you get yourself, um, you know, a new sweatshirt. It might be treat yourself to the movies. It might be that you have a glass, raise a glass of wine. Whatever it is, it's a non-finance victory that you just baby celebrate.

[00:06:36] Maybe you just put a sticker in your planner cuz you're, you like that kinda praise to get a sticker. Maybe you get a Estee bestie and you call her at the end of the week and you. Non-scale victory, so to speak, of calling your SD dusty and saying, I did it, girl. I hit a thousand dollars or hit that $10,000 or whatever it is.

[00:06:47] Decide what you're going to do when you hit that goal in the week or the month. Okay? So at the end of the month, you're going to look back on those goals and you'll see your colors Now. Hopefully you will have at the end of the week written in whether or not you've hit your goals for the week. You've done a little evaluation of what [00:07:00] you can do better next month, next week, and those are kinda a week to week small bites at a time.

[00:07:03] And pretty soon you'll be four weeks in and the month is over. Okay? At the end of the month, you can look back and make adjustments. And again, this matters. No, this doesn't matter where in the year you are. You can be starting this in June and still do this, right? Each month is a chance to start new. So when you get to the end of this month, January, you're gonna look back and say, gosh, you.

[00:07:17] I should have hit, I think there's five weeks in January. I should've hit $5,000 this month and I, I came up short. I was 4,900. Okay, looking back, where did you miss? Now it might be that you're picking the wrong days to work. Maybe the majority of your business is at the end of the week, which is pretty common for Sugar Pros.

[00:07:30] Our business is usually the strongest Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Well, if you're only working Mondays and Tuesdays and you're only making 150 bucks that day, you need to ask yourself, do I need to adjust my hours? Do I need to adjust my days? If you can, do I need to adjust the parts of the day that I work?

[00:07:41] So maybe you're someone that says, you know, I probably should add a day, an evening in there. Cause there's a lot of people that come, can't come up before five. , right? So maybe you need to adjust and say, you know what? I really should add an evening, or I really should add a Saturday. Now, keep in mind Sugar Pros and anyone that does hair removal, it's cyclical.

[00:07:53] So when my staff says, gosh, I had a really slow week. I don't understand. I always tell them, I bet this time last month was the week that you were out for the holidays or the week that you were out for when [00:08:00] you were sick, because four weeks ago is when they would've been making their appointment for this week.

[00:08:04] So you can look back at your month and go, gosh, yeah, this time last month, you know, I was, I was out because I had the flu, or I, you know, decided to take the day off and I didn't make it up in later in the week. So if you take a day off on Monday, I highly recommend you are scheduling yourself in on a Thursday or Friday to make up for that time.

[00:08:15] Even if you never work on Thursdays, if you have the ability to go into that treatment room and work, you should. Now, if you're listening to this as an employee, you need to say, okay, that's probably when I took those sick days. And I probably need to maybe offer up some extra hours, maybe if your, if your employer will allow you to do that or spend a little extra time in that day to make sure that you're making up for that time off.

[00:08:30] So you really can look back at the last month to see, pretty much predict how you're gonna be for the month ahead. And then in that way you can say, okay, I just hit my 5,000, right? And I worked four days a week. And I look at my hours when I look back and I realize that the book of my business was done in the early mornings.

[00:08:43] Okay, well maybe you need to do, make better use of your time and say, okay, well my clients all love to come in the morning instead of staying open late. Maybe you need to adjust to five morning. Or maybe you need to add a weeknight in there because you're missing out on all those folks. Make those adjustments and look back on the last month and say, gosh, you know what?

[00:08:56] There is some truth to month to month. It. Make those adjustments [00:09:00] and take a look at the next month and say, okay, where can I add on a day? Where can I jump in again as an employee even and say, I'd like to, you know, add on another couple of days, or gosh, I know I'm gonna be out, say for, um, you know, a trip that you're going on second week of February.

[00:09:09] Well, where can you add in hours with your own self boss or with your, uh, your salon boss to add more hours in to make up for that time? Because our clients are pretty flexible, but they do need to come in every, say, three to five weeks and you need to be available for them or you're gonna lose 'em and they'll go somewhere else.

[00:09:20] So take a look at next month and prepare for your days off. Prepare for some time off if you can. Life happens, we get sick and don't expect it. I understand. Then you can take a look at your, so say you got sick last week, take a look four weeks from now and say, okay, how can I make those people up and how can I make sure that I'm not dead in four weeks next month?

[00:09:33] So it really does help you to look, you know, forward and back and say, okay, how can I work my hours to, to be able to hit those goals and take, be able to knock 'em outta the park. So when you're taking a look at your calendar as well, make sure you layer in holidays so that you can accommodate for them.

[00:09:44] So if there is a three day weekend of President's weekend, are you gonna work? Is that Monday actually a day off that a lot of clients have off, and maybe those evening people can come in on Monday. Maybe you can jump in on Monday and work on your quote day off. That's an awesome way to make up money and work towards your goals.

[00:09:55] A lot of clients have those days off. It really is helpful for them if they can come in and get sugared on a day That's, you know, an off day. All right. [00:10:00] The other thing I want you to do if you're a OR day spa owner is make sure that you are accommodating for sales tax that's due and expenses that are coming up.

[00:10:06] So if you know, for example, your A S P membership for insurance is coming up, put that down on your. Layer that into your calendar. When are your sales taxes due? At the end of each quarter, you have to tally up your sales for any retail products and make sure that you're reminding yourself, okay, I gotta save that money so that I can pay for my taxes.

[00:10:18] Layer that into your calendar as. Now if you're an employee, remember you absolutely need to be planning ahead, so still treat your job as a business. You might not have things like sales tax or you know, expenses that come up like insurance. Maybe you do, but you can be promoting yourself and regulating and being aware of opportunities.

[00:10:31] Make yourself available for your boss on a holiday. Make yourself available for an evening or an extra day. That's how you are going to build your business, and that's how you're gonna build your clientele so that later in the year, It's easy peasy. Now remember, summer's usually pretty easy for us. It's like, you know, all kinds of fish have been put put in the pond fresh for us to fish from.

[00:10:46] But these slower months, like January, if you prepare now and build up your year, by the time you hit January, it's not gonna feel like you have any slow seasons. Cause that's the goal is to not have slow seasons. All right. Now let's talk promotions, um, on this. We're gonna talk promos, um, in the next podcast, but in general, if you are [00:11:00] aware of the events that are coming up, say it's holidays, say it's a girl's night out that your shop is doing, or any promos that you're gonna do, don't let them sneak up on you.

[00:11:05] So be mindful of, for example, Valentine's Day or graduation and prom is coming up. Make sure you're mindful of local community, of community events that people are gonna wanna be in. Edit summers easy, like I said, but those holidays, like, like Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day, where people are gonna wanna do some fun things with, uh, dates or whatever.

[00:11:18] Make sure that you have Mother's Day scheduled and that you are prepared a month in advance, two months in advance for those. And if you are an employee, make sure that your shop is aware of those in advance, and that you all are on the same page as what your promos are gonna be for those holidays so that you can prep your clients and you're ready to go.

[00:11:31] Don't let 'em sneak up on you or else it'll send you scrambling, I promise you. Okay. So, uh, promos, we're gonna talk about those in the next podcast next week, uh, specifically, but let's get back to the planner. So as you move through these months, Keep that planner on your desk. Keep it right where you sugar somewhere, easy access, where you can take notes on your day and your week.

[00:11:47] So if you know you have someone, for example, that's having a baby, make a comment on that so that you can make sure you backfill your appointments for her so that you can get her in sugaring as much as possible because you'll lose her as a client for the next six weeks while she's healing, okay? Be prepared for those things and you will absolutely hit your goals and crush them.[00:12:00] 

[00:12:00] Okay? Be focused on your planner and every day at least once, schedule focusing on your planner. Now, a lot of times we, you know, we find that we run into the shop and we're running late. We gotta make towels, we gotta make sure everything's prepped. We gotta make sure your supplies are right. Maybe you're an employee and the last girl left your room a mess and you're frustrated or whatever.

[00:12:13] Um, maybe before your shift might be difficult for you, or if you're super organized, I suggest coming in 15 minutes earlier or doing at home the night before, or at the end of your day, you can look back, but at least one day. I want you to run a report of how much you made that day. Put it next to what your goal was.

[00:12:24] Pat yourself on the back if you killed it. Right? Take a look at that day and say, okay, I just sold Sally her in-row serum three months from now. When Sally's appointment hits, I need to make sure that she's getting that serum again. That's how you're gonna keep your retail flowing, and that's how if you take a look at your day, you'll be reminded of the all the clients that you had that day and what you can do moving forward with them.

[00:12:40] Okay, you will take a look and say, wow, you know what? I had four hours of work, which means I should have made about $400. Uh, I only made two 50. Where are my holes? How can I fill them? Did I really ask the, these Brazilian clients, if they wanted their eyebrows lip under, I'm done. Did I really do that Or did I just kinda slack and talk personal?

[00:12:54] Did I really offer up retail today or did I really just stop personal? And for those of you that have been doing this a really long time, I promise you [00:13:00] that. It is difficult, especially for someone who's been doing this for like, shoot, what I doing this for 14, 15 years now. There are some times we never talked about the sugar, never talk about their skin cuz they take four seconds from me.

[00:13:07] Sugar, we have a hug, we're talking about life and they move on. And I have to take my own medicine. So I'm gonna be working on this this year where I turn to Susie, who I know so well and say, girl, we haven't really talked about are you exfoliating, your skin looks good, but I wanna make sure that you're keeping hydrated so we can prevent any problems in the future.

[00:13:18] Whatever. It's, I promise you, if you've been doing this a long time, you're getting lax on talking to 'em about their skincare. Okay? For those of you that are new at it, you're, you're hungry and you're probably asking, uh, for those of you who have been doing this a long time, there are guaranteed, there's at least one.

[00:13:28] Two products that you could be selling, people that have been coming to for a long time that you've never talked to 'em about. So you're a vet, that's your goal. Okay? Um, and then on the last day of the week, I want you to sum up the week. So we're gonna take that thousand dollars example. If you hit a thousand dollars, awesome.

[00:13:38] For you look back and say, okay, where could I have improved? And then look back on the next, on the next, or look forward to the next week, sorry. And say, okay, all right, well, I've got these people coming up. Or maybe you have a day off because you know you have something that you're not gonna be there for, right?

[00:13:49] How you're gonna now need to make up that extra money in only three days instead of four. What are your plans for that? If you have plans for that, you can easily hit your goals again. So don't let us sneak up on you and at the end of the month, take back a look at the, look at the weeks and say, all [00:14:00] right, this is about what I made this.

[00:14:01] This is what I made this week. This is probably where I could have gotten stronger. I do have room for about this many more clients. Next week should look pretty good too. That way you can take a look and say, all right, if I keep up at this, I can do this four days a week. I can do this three days a week, or just nights or whatever your game plan is.

[00:14:13] You absolutely can do it because you're not afraid of those numbers and they will not sneak up on you. So the planner program is, I promise you, just keep, keep it in your treatment room and get into the habit of doing it every day. First thing in the morning. Take a look at what your day looks like. Take a look at what your opportunities are.

[00:14:25] Take a breath, go sugar. Focus on your sugar the end of the day as you're cleaning up. Take 10 minutes, go back in, run your report, put your actuals at the top. Take a look at where you could have done better. Make a note for this time next month and prepare yourself for your. Employee or solo or day spa owner.

[00:14:37] You all can do this. Okay? Now, quarter to quarter, you're gonna look back, obviously at the last quarter and be honest with yourself, what worked and what didn't. Could you have been more organized? And I'm gonna be talking to you about this inside the Sugar Tribe. We're gonna talk about the end of the month.

[00:14:46] We're gonna talk about the end of the quarter. We're gonna talk about the end of the second quarter. And we're gonna say, okay, what could have been more organized? What could you have done to get yourself to that next level? And by the end of the year, I promise you, you will be so grateful that you took these baby.

[00:14:57] You didn't go out hard and then just burn yourself out. [00:15:00] You'll be shocked at how fast the last year went. I mean, think about it. We were just excited to get out of lockdown back in 2020 and 2021, and it's already 2023. It felt like the years would never end. And boom, 23, gone 20 or 22, gone 23 maybe Gone minute.

[00:15:11] Gonna be 24 before you know it. So we can talk about year to year goals. Absolutely right. I'm 52 now. Like I gotta make a 10 year plan. Ladies and gentlemen, a five year plan. What is, what is Shannon Sugar Mama gonna be doing in five years? I have to ask myself the same thing. This isn't just for when you're beginning.

[00:15:22] This isn't just for when you're employee. This isn't just for when you're an owner, spa owner, right? This is your entire career. What is happening five years from now? And if you keep these planners, you can look back and see how far you have come. You can look back and say, wow, you know what? My goals in the beginning, I remember when I was so excited to get five plans today, and now I get five plan in two hours.

[00:15:37] It is possible for you if you break it down in baby steps. Okay? Identify what worked and what didn't for the next. It will be Christmas before you know it again, my sweet friends and I absolutely know that if you have a planner, if you're in my sugar tribe and your planner is all marked up with all of your goals and all of your dreams that you have hit, make sure you send me a DM and I'm gonna send you a present because you, that absolutely means that you've hit it, right?

[00:15:55] So if you have a picture of your planner all marked up and beautiful, you can kind of fuzz out the the goals if you wanted the amount that you want. Or [00:16:00] heck, you made six figures show us. Send it to me in, in, in the dms or send it to me via email and I absolutely will celebrate you with you cuz I wanna put you on a success story.

[00:16:07] You know, on this podcast we have the sweet success stories and that's the goal I wanna have so many people to interview. I can't do enough of these Sweet Success podcasts. In fact, we have another one coming up, uh, this month. We had Angie Patterson last month and she's killing it. She only does one client an hour.

[00:16:17] And if you haven't listened to Angie's podcast, go back and watch, listen to the December Sweet Success story with Angie Patterson, cuz she talks about how she runs her business and plans her business. She only has one client an hour. She hits six figures. It's a totally different way of doing business and it might fit.

[00:16:26] So my sweet, sweet friends, whether you are doing hair removal, sugaring, a little bit of sugaring, you wanna be more sugaring, a whole lot of sugar, and you wanna be smarter about it. No matter where you are at on, you are out on this journey. Planning is absolutely the key to your success. Promise you whole lot of technique would be nice too.

[00:16:40] Perfect technique is always good, but planning is right up there with it because you can have great technique, be completely unorganized in your business and never make it so. Next week we are going to be talking about, uh, some promotions, what you can be doing in the winter and what you can be doing for your content calendar and that goal setting.

[00:16:53] So stay tuned for next week because we've got you covered on that area. And we also have our partners that we're gonna be podcasting with. So you can start to hear from industry leaders in the [00:17:00] sugar industry. And we have partners that are gonna be rolling out in these. Um, third week of, uh, January, we're gonna be rolling out some partners.

[00:17:04] So take a listen back to previous episodes. We a hundred k. The sugar weight episode is phenomenal. We have lots of tax planning with Kenisha Coleman, the beauty cpa. We have so many free resources for you and. We are constantly uploading information into the app and we have some pretty big trainings are coming up as well.

[00:17:16] So be in the know my friends. How do you meet that elephant? Thank you, dad. One day at a time. I got you covered and we will see you next week. Have a sweet, sweet week. In meantime.