Ask Me Anything: We're Talking About Pricing, Jaggery, and Keeping Your Kids Busy When You're with a Henna Client
Ask Me Anything!
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In today’s Ask Me Anything!, we’re tackling the following questions submitted from hennapreneurs like you:
[00:00] How Do I know which way to price my designs - hourly vs. per piece?
[06:58] Have you ever used jaggery in your paste?
[08:13] How do you keep your kids busy while you're working?
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+ Read the transcript here
Chelsea: There are a couple of different ways that you can choose to price designs and choose to price your work. Um, and there's not a right or wrong way. There are definitely ways that I recommend more than I recommend others. But it's a very personal decision. And so, for that reason, I'll just kind of outline both.
So there are- the first way that you'll most often see, is pricing per design or pricing per piece. You will find price per piece options when you are at events, if you're working at a festival, if you're working at a setting where you haven't necessarily been paid to service those people.
So let's say you're working in a pop-up or any sort of public event, right, where you are selling directly to the attendees. That's where I- That's where you will find yourself most commonly using pay per design pricing.
For my own business that's the only time that I use pay per design pricing because if you go- if you try to apply this pricing elsewhere, um, the odds of your time not being the best leveraged, the odds of you being taken advantage of, the odds of you not being compensated at all, are significantly higher. So the only time that I choose to use pay-per-design pricing is when I am in those festivals settings or in public pop-up event settings. All right, so there's that.
Then also there's pay by time, right? So that's when you have those artists who are working at an hourly rate or even if it's not an hourly rate, let's say you are, you know, working with someone just on like a small individual appointment sort of basis. Even there, you will price by time. So in my business, this is what I love most.
Like I- when I'm out at events, like private parties, private events, um, where I've been hired by a host to come in and service the guests, then I charge at an hourly rate. And then I even apply that hourly rate to my individual appointments. And so when I service any sort of- any clients on a kind of one-to-one basis, then they pay me based on the time that they spend with me and not based on the piece of the design. Um, there's a few reasons for that. First, I want to make sure my time is being leveraged appropriately. So if someone is late to an appointment, if someone decides that they want a design from their phone, if someone comes and, um, is a challenge to work with and is consistently, like, nitpicking and it takes more time for me to build and to work, then I don't want to be penalized for that process. So by booking based on time, it's very easy. You can come and you can arrive timely, you can be easy to work with and you can allow me to create freely and you'll get more henna done during that time. Or you can choose to, like, run the show and things might not be as- you might not get as much service, you might not get as much coverage as you would if you allowed me to go through my creative process. So I love that, even in working with my, just, daily clients.
Normally my smallest appointments are 15 minutes. Um, and so I charge- for 15 minutes I charge $35. I have a half hour session that my clients can book that's $60. And then my hourly rate is $100. If they're booking me for a private appointment one-to-one. For hourly rates that are outside of that, so let's say like private parties, private events, then my hourly rate is a little bit- it's structured a little bit differently. Um, I charge $300 for two hours of service and that's my minimum. And then after those two hours, they can add additional time for $100 an hour. So they get a little bit of a discount if they add more time in.
So those are the two most common pieces, charging per design or charging per hand versus charging my time. One of the things that I wanted to mention because this question came in from someone who's new to henna and as she put those questions together as, you know, how to price and also how you create those designs, I want to be sure to mention that when you are charging per piece - which is a great route to go - especially if you're newer, if you aren't that proficient yet with working, if it takes- if you like to take your time or if you need to take your time in order to design effectively, then your best r- your best bet is going to be charging per design or per hand.
Now, in that case, just so that you're not penalizing your clients for the time that it takes you to build that design, but then also so that you're not feeling the pressure of the clock ticking, then you should know how to go about pricing your pieces, right? And so there are a lot of different methodologies out there about how to price a piece per design.
Um, but what I would recommend as like just a general rule of thumb and it's really just easy, is to use the Oreo Method. The Oreo Method is where you imagine like the Oreo cookie, right? Um, that size piece. Um, so for every Oreo that you're placing on your client's hand, that's approximately $5 worth of service. And so this is a method that works really well if you're, like, sitting there and you're kind of on the fly or if you're really not comfortable or familiar with how to price designs. That gives you a great baseline.
Understand that as your designs improve, as your work starts to become more intricate, then you know, you'll learn that not all Oreos are equal, right? There will be Oreos that are much more intricate versus Oreos that are a little bit more simple. And, um, so you'll be able to make adjustments at that point. But for the new, new artists who is starting from scratch and is just like, "I just need to know how to price something, period." Then I would recommend just going with that Oreo technique. I think that it works great. So let's see, how are we doing? Does that makes sense to everyone? Is everyone like, "Yes, we got it."? Because that was one question that I felt like was a really good one to start on because it touches on so many different ways that you can work pricing in your business and um, yeah, I really loved it.
Like directly? Like jaggery in the cube-cone thing? No, I've not used that. Um, I have used brown sugar and actually I really love the texture that brown sugar gives, but um, I don't- I haven't used jaggery that like is in the cube. And the only difference between- okay, so jaggery is, like, cane sugar that's been minimally processed and it has date syrup or palm syrup added into it, rght? And then brown sugar, the two of them are very similar, but brown sugar is white sugar cane that's been mixed with molasses. Um, I imagine that the two would behave very similarly. Um, but I hav- I can't say from experience that jaggery will work any differently, um, or would have any like pros or cons about it. What I will say about brown sugar is that if you do use brown sugar, because of that molasses content, you have to be a little bit cautious with it. Molasses pulls more moisture from the air and so you have to be cautious when you're using molasses in your paste. So Brown sugar because of the molasses content has that quality about it as well. But I really, really like it. I like how it makes the paste nice and smooth.
Normally I don't book clients when with them, um, because, because they're kids. Um, but my kids have- I've been doing henna since my eldest. My eldest is nine now. Um, and I've been doing henna since he was two. Um, just under two. He was 15 months. So, um, they're all like- they've all grown up with henna, like, they know that when mommy's in the working space, like, they don't come in and they don't like- they'll know. But normally I tell them like, "Oh, there's an aunty that is coming to get henna done." Like, like every- all of my clients are aunty and so they'll- they're like, "Oh, don't- y'know, leave mommy alone. She's with aunty." So you see how they carry on and whatnot when I'm on here? It's because they're obsessed with being on video. But, um, when I have clients they're not that way.
Normally I try to avoid- like, it depends also on what sort of session I have. So like, if I have someone who's just getting their hands or feet done, then I don't worry about it. Like I- normally, I'll book them out at one of the coffee houses that I work at and if I booked them at home, then I'll just try to book them when the kids are busy with something. And then when I have clients who, like those boudoir clients or those specialty clients, then those are ones that I like- I book those and the kids have to be out of the house because they're just- normally those experiences, those boudoir sessions, henna crowns, bridal sessions, those are just very emotional sessions anyway. And so I like to make sure that the energy is like always at a low, you know? I just like everything- like, I want the vibe to be really chill. So I don't even- like, you're not invited! You're not allowed. Um, but yeah.