Bridal Makeup Q&A | June 2018

Love your content! So informative and helpful. Thank you!!!! I have a bride who would like makeup done in the morning and hair done four hours later after her traditional ceremony. How do I go about charging her for that? Also, how do you nicely word “I will have to charge extra for the inconvenience” lol!!

I look forward to all your videos, you have helped me out so much! Thank you! I'm slowly building my business, I've finally set my rates (this was hard for me to do) and I'm firm on them, but I've had a few issues with family & friends assuming these rates don't apply to them. How can I address this without damaging my friendships/relationships? Thank you in advance for your response.

You are absolutely amazing!! Thank you so much

Do u ever use airbrush makeup? Just foundation

Hi Angie thank you so much for your videos. I apologize in advance for the length of this comment but I really want to dive into the topic of pricing, if you don't mind. I've been through this process with several businesses, and specifically in the wedding industry, and with the beauty industry, and having done it wrong myself back when I started, I feel a calling to share what little insight I have on this topic so others don't make the same mistakes…

I agree that part of the pricing strategy should be checking out the competition, but so many artists pay attention to ONLY that, even though there is so much more to it than that. Startup businesses fail to recognize that their scenario may not match that of their local competition, and (like I did at one time) they justify their pricing on criteria that has no logical basis.

So if some extra perspective is okay to add, I wanted to give a few more variables for people to think about:

There is the obvious "cost of doing business" – how much it costs to buy makeup, gas in the car to drive to and from the wedding, and the physical and tangible components. The competition may charge X, but you don't realize they're billing for fuel/travel. The competition may charge XXX, but you don't realize they're using a super-premium product, giving a full tube of brand name lipstick and throwing in a bridal robe with their rate.

Then there is the administrative/time cost – the value of one's time spent dealing with each client. Just because it isn't spent with a client in the chair doesn't mean there isn't a cost associated with it. The competition may charge Y, but you don't realize their process for booking is very fast and simple, and they spend very little time consulting with the bride before the wedding day. Another may charge YYY, but you don't they produce a series of instructional videos for their client to help them prep for the wedding day, and they faithfully check in by phone and email once a month leading up to the wedding day, and give advice on things like florists and caterers.

Then there is the factor of billable dates – the number of bookings one company or one person can physically take, and ensuring that the rate charged x the number of billable dates is sufficient to gross a total that covers costs, pays additional team members, and leaves some leftover for profit.

And there is opportunity cost and that "minimum break even" – the value of taking one booking at the expense of other booking opportunities. You touched on this with the fact that you have a 4 service minimum, which is great, as some don't realize that just because a single makeup "only" takes 45 minutes, there were still hours of marketing, administration, consultation, phone calls, emails, drive time, setup, and breakdown, that now render that rate basically worthless at that point.

To use myself as an example, my team ONLY does weddings, so unlike hair and makeup folks who work at a salon, we have essentially 52 days a year that we earn our income, with a sprinkling of weekdays and Fridays here and there, unlike a salon that is open about 360 days a year….if I compared to them, I'd go broke….they can afford to charge less for bridal, because that's not where all their money comes from, so comparing to them wouldn't make sense.

Also, like many of the other mobile beauty teams in my area, we are mobile and provide services on site, but unlike many of them, we do have a commercial makeup studio space that clients can come to. So for me to compare to their rates, when their expenses aren't the same as mine, also doesn't make sense.

Another variable is that I as the owner only do a very small portion of the services myself. Out of 150-or-so weddings per year, I might be at 30 of them, so I have to also base pricing on a commission structure that leans very heavily on paying the team, which drives my overall cost of business up.

I did not always do this right, though…despite buying a well-established bridal beauty business that I grew 36% in gross revenue to a sizeable six figures per year, I had done so using pricing that was all "what someone else told me" and no amount of bookings could solve the gushing hemorrhage of red numbers on our spreadsheets that meant we were nearly about to run us into the ground.

The rates that the previous owner had established, had been based more on that "competitive comparison" model you mentioned….Company A charged X, Company B charged XXX, so she charged XX. I kept the rates the same at first, because I assumed she must know better, AND she had me convinced that she had perfected the art of pricing over her many years of experience.

A year in, we could not seem to run a positive cash flow to save our lives, despite cutting every expense possible (and we run a very lean ship as it were!), and me personally not taking an income despite working full time on the admin side, and only getting paid myself when I was physically doing the services. Well…that's not sustainable. Why would I have a business where everyone else in the company makes money but me? Through a business coach, I learned the benchmarks for a profitable hair and makeup business, and adjusted accordingly. It meant some of the rates had to go higher than the competition, some could stay the same, and one service we were actually able to lower! It was all about knowing our numbers, and what it REALLY took to operate. Only then did we end up with pricing that reflected an ability to (A) pay the team, (B) pay an office/admin assistant because I can't possibly field the amount of leads we get every year by myself, (C) cover the expenses to market the business and keep the lights on, (D) pay me a small portion even if I wasn't physically at every wedding, and (E) have some leftover!! In other words, I was finally operating like a business, and not like a "creative outlet that sometimes makes money".

In my journey through this, I learned that a successful, profitable beauty business needs to keep their staff costs at 45-60% of the total revenue, hourly payroll for people like assistants, etc should not exceed 8%, rent should not be more than 7%, and other such benchmarks that I had previously been way off.

In my other business (not beauty, but still wedding), the benchmark is that total Cost of Sales should not exceed 25%, so if my cost for something is $25, I need to be charging $100 in order to stay profitable by the time overhead and all other expenses are paid. I know my admin costs there shouldn't exceed 12%. And I know my other overhead shouldn't be more than 28%. So let's say I want to hire someone and pay them $30,000 per year, I divide that into that benchmark (30,000 / 0.12), and I know in order to not throw my other numbers off, I have to have a business that makes at least $250,000. With that gross, minus admin salary of 30,000, minus cost of sales (that 25% I mentioned above) of 62,500, and minus the rest of the overhead (the other 28%, or 70,000), that leaves $87,500 for me to pay taxes, pay myself, and leave some in the account as profit for the next year. It doesn't go far, but it's sustainable and scaleable.

Point is, once I based my pricing on MY situation and how WE handle our clients, not on how others run their business, we were able to turn it around and I'm proud to say we're now another 40% up year over year, even though we suffered a hurricane and were out of work for 2 solid months while the location got put back together. It makes a difference, and it's important to know, which is why I felt strongly enough to chime in on this. I don't want others to make my same mistake.

Thank you for sharing yourself with us x

You’re so informative 👌🏻 can you tell us how you film your videos?

The best video ever. Thank you so much for taking the time to make this video.

Seriously you are the best teacher! I love all of your videos and have learned so much from you. I have two questions; Can you use the RCMA no colour powder on deeper skin tones or will it leave a white cast and 2) will products like Becca backlight priming filter or L’Oréal magic lumi primer or Mac strobe cream cause flashback?

I can't get rcma and cinema secrets in India…are there any other long wearing foundations u would recommend?
Also thank u for the video..it was really helpful ❤️

You helped me a lot by your informative videos! Its like a free master class by a skilled and well experienced makeup artist! Your videos are really different from what we usually see in the social media. Specific, real, and by years of your experience speaks in your every video! All of the upgrade and new touch i do in my makeup business comes from you! I want to thank you for the bottom of my heart! You really a blessing to us who cannot afford makeup school bec it is really expensive. I pray you don’t get tired on sharing your talent to us and maybe years from now we can have your Published Book regarding makeup❤️ loveyou Angie!!!! ❤️❤️🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

This is going to sound like an infomercial (because i bought it from one) – HAHA – but I just bought the LightBar! (lightbar. ca) – its a totally portable, battery-powered/rechargeable light that is super compact and just slides right into the tall part of my kit – it even has a kickstand and a hook for hanging. I haven't used it yet – i just store it in my kit just in case – but I know I will be in a dimly lit hotel room at some point and will for sure use it in a pinch. It was like $30!!! woohooo

great video, Angie! i'm very grateful for all the time and effort you put on doing these videos 🙂
i think when we are starting our business, we tend to forget that it's not about what WE like. of course we want to do our best and it's kind of an ego boost when people book us because of our style of makeup, but it's not our special day where we are the center of attention, so what you said is a good reminder of how our mindset is supposed to be.

As a wedding photographer, I appreciate this video so much! When wedding season comes around I strive my hardest to get photos to the vendors who worked hard on weddings but some times it definitely falls through the cracks. Whenever vendors reach out to me, I am happy to get them photos of their work and it's super helpful to reestablish a connection a few months after the event. When I work with vendors who put this kind of effort in, I generally keep them in mind to refer them to my brides.

How did you make the contract? Thank you for all this information! ❤️

Angie, please do some bridal hairdo videos in the future also💕

Extremely helpful video as usual! Thank you so much, Angie💕

thank you so much. this video is amazing

New subscriber. Love all your content have found it so helpful. Literally have binge watched all your videos 😂☺

This so video is awesome!! I’m just starting my freelance business on my own (I worked for brands and counters but ready to be on my own now) and stumbled upon you and I’m SOOO glad I did! Your videos are so helpful and I love them!!

Thank you!!!!! 👏🏻

Great great GREAT video😁🙌 I was right!!! Thanks girl

This is exactly what I needed! Thank you!