ep. 017 • How to Attract Quality Clients to Your Henna Business

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Chelsea Stevenson: Welcome to the Hennapreneur podcast - the exclusive podcast of its kind, dedicated to giving you an honest look at the reality of making a living as a henna professional. I'm your host, Chelsea Stevenson, professional henna artist and business strategist. I teach budding henna artists and seasoned henna pros alike how to build vibrant, profitable businesses doing what they love. I went from being the girl who could barely piece together a fluid design to being owner of the most celebrated henna boutique in my city and with years of experience growing my own business and helping others to do the same, I'm here to spill all the tea on what it takes to be a bonafide hennapreneur. Our show starts in just under 60 seconds, but first, here's a quick shout out to my sponsors. This episode is brought to you by my new free, on-demand training “The 5 Mistakes New Henna Artists Make (And How YOU Can Avoid Them)!”

Are you an aspiring henna artist or a henna enthusiast who has really big dreams about working with henna? Maybe you're struggling with sourcing quality henna paste or preparing it yourself is really more challenging than you expected. Perhaps you're curious about what it takes to work as a henna artist professionally or you think you might be ready to start taking clients, but you're just not sure where to start. If so, this training is for you. Inside of this training, I'm teaching all of the foundational information you must know about henna before you ever take your first client. I also lay out the basics of what henna is and how it works so that you can get started confidently working with henna moving forward. I teach you some really insightful tips about how you can protect yourself and your budding business from the very beginning with a number of best practices, and I'll outline the five most common mistakes that I see new and aspiring henna artists make so that you can get started without all of the hassle and the headache of falling into those traps. To register for the training and to watch it instantly on demand, you can visit hennapreneur.com/biggestmistakes. All right, let's get to the show.

Hey, hey hennapreneurs! Welcome back to another episode of the Hennapreneur podcast. Today we are going to talk all about how to attract quality clients. And I'm going to start by saying: hey, listen, you attract what you put out there, okay? Now I know that so many times, listen, I feel like on every episode I'm like, you know, this sounds woo, but for real, guys, there is something to be said about mindset. And there is definitely something to be said about the energy that we put out in the world and what we can expect to receive and return and uh, to, you know, to expect to be reciprocated based on whatever that is, right? And so when it comes to business and when it comes to putting yourself out there and attracting quality clients in your henna business, this is something that rings true as well. So I want to talk to you guys today about a question that I received recently and I actually, I felt it was a really good question and it's not that I've received it once over, but this is something that tends to be recurring and so I felt like it would be a great opportunity for us to have some discussion today. When it comes to attracting quality clients there is something that needs to be said right from the beginning. The last thing that your clients should be asking you about is price. Now, you might be like, well wait, okay. But like, you know, people want to know what they're paying and they want to know how much it is and they want to know, yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear that 100%. And you should be open and honest about your pricing and all of those things. Like I think that of course we can all agree there. However, however, pricing should be the last thing that you're discussing with your clients. And there's a reason for that, okay.

When it comes to attracting quality clients. Quality clients are not making decisions based on how much you charge. The type of of client who is going to value you, who is going to appreciate your work, who is going to tip you well, who is going to leave reviews and, you know, pass your information to others, that person who's going to become a raving fan. That person is looking for much more than just your price point. The type of client out there who is only price shopping is typically also the client who is going to take advantage of your time, who's not going to be respectful of your policies, who is going to want to overstep boundaries that you have in your professional relationship with them. And this is not me just saying it, this is me speaking not only from personal experience but also from the experience of my students and my clients who hire me to help them to have better business policies and practices in place. So if you want to just, like, take— before we even dive into the hows and the whats and the whys, if you take nothing away from this episode, please understand that the last thing that you should have in your conversation with your clients should be price, okay? And the person who comes at you immediately asking about price, please accept that as being a red flag. That things are likely not going to go the way that you hope with this particular person. Okay? So now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about, let's take a couple steps back. Okay?

Take a couple steps back. Anytime you're thinking to make a purchase, right? And this is, this just comes down to buyer psychology. When you're thinking to make a purchase, there are a number of things that might motivate you to make that purchase. Price is normally the last. First you're going to look and see is this something that, you know, something you thoroughly enjoy? Do you love it? Does it excite you? Does it make you happy? Right? Does it bring you a feeling of joy? Does it in some way benefit you? What we're looking for here is value, right? And so as a consumer, when we see something that we perceive to be valuable and valuable can be very different depending on who that person is. So for some people they might value quality. For others, they might value the experience. For others, they might value the exclusivity, that air of, well, you know, I've got it and only only a few people can afford this. Or only a few people can have this or can access this, right? So it's not so much how much does this thing cost, it's how much value, how much benefit does this thing bring to my life? Okay, how does this thing make me feel? How does this thing make me look to the world? And this, again, this is going to vary depending on the type of client who you're dealing with because some clients might, you know, they might value one thing over another, um, more than you know, more than the next. And that's just comes down to personality. However, those types of considerations, that consideration of value and the benefit to one's person and the benefit to one's life, their lifestyle, their experience in the world, the way that the world perceives them, the way that they perceive themselves, that my friends, is what motivates someone to buy. And so as a hennapreneur, if the first thing that you do is put yourself out there and say something like, Oh, I have really affordable pricing, or you, you only put yourself out there in the world and um, compare yourself when it comes to the dollar amount of what your services are versus your competitor. Immediately you take all of the value, all the benefit, and you put it on the back burner and you give people a decision based solely on a number and the number, that number is normally not enough to motivate someone to buy. I mean, people buy really crazy things, let's be honest, right?

There are times that, you know, people will purchase things that they don't, they can't afford, but they'll purchase it because it makes them feel good. You know, you've got that friend or that family member who falls into this boat. Heck, you might be someone who's done this as well. I remember years ago, years ago, before I started my business I worked in the mortgage industry and it was something that was always very perplexing to me, is the fact that you can have someone who is in foreclosure, their home is about to be lost and they would still have pizza boxes in the garbage, in the trash, you know, the trash bin on trash day. And what does that say? People purchase things based on how it benefits them in that moment. How it makes them feel in that moment, even despite if that decision makes sense to them in the long run, right? And even despite what the dollar amount or what that monetary exchange actually look like or how that might have implications on them as a whole. So this is something that we need to be very mindful of as hennapreneurs. Why? Because so often as artists, the first thing that we do is we put our art on a platter, be that Facebook or Instagram, our website, whatever, and we put it out in the world and we say, "Hey world, look at our art. Look at my art. Look at this. I do a great job. And not only do I do a great job, but also I charge X-amount less than so-and-so." And what that does is it takes away from our clients, our prospective clients, opportunity to evaluate for themselves what value you bring to them, what benefit you bring to them, how you're going to add something unique, useful, fun, inspiring, beautiful to their life.

And once you make that secondary and the price is the first and primary point, you kind of lose all of the weight of those initial values and it's the values that's going to sell them, not the price point. Okay. So, recently again, I had a conversation with someone. I thought it was a very, very interesting conversation and I felt that it would benefit the community at large to kind of hear some of this experience, if you will, wherein the question was asked, "How can I increase my business? How can I increase my business? I'm finding that people are coming to me and the first thing that they ask about is price." And when you consider someone coming out of the gate and immediately only asking about price, then you know that that person is just price— they're just price matching you. And the type of client that's going to just price match you, they're not— they don't care so much about the experience and they don't care about the quality and they don't care about, like, those aren't the things that are motivating them. And so they are coming from a different mindset. They're coming from a different perspective. So the experience that you will have as a service provider there is going to be more— it's going to be subpar in comparison to the person who's seeking out someone who is going to provide benefit to them. Why? People treat others who have a thing that's going to benefit them, right? They treat them differently than the person who they just see as, like, the help. Right? Okay.

So do you, as you show up on social media, as you're advertising your business, as you're, you know, making yourself visible in the world as a hennapreneur, are you presenting yourself and your business as the help or are you presenting yourself as someone who can bring unique and valuable experiences to your clients if they choose to hire you? This, my friends is where you start to get into the gold. What is it about you? What is it about your art? What is it about the experience with you? What is it about the quality that you bring? What is it about working with you that makes it such a no-brainer that you are the artist for them? Ask yourself that question. What are you doing different from your competitors? What are you doing that's making your business so much more effective at delivering a top-notch experience to your clients? What feelings are you inspiring in them through the booking process? What feelings are you inspiring within them during the session? Or after the session? That's something we always forget, right? What are you doing to build in convenience? What are you doing to build in quality? What are you doing to build in something for the that perspective client so that when she goes to your Instagram feed, she feels like, "Oh yeah. Yes, I have to book with this person because what they're saying, what they're doing, the way that they make me feel feels great to me, feels well aligned with me and I know that if I go and get a design with this artist specifically, I'm going to come out feeling better afterwards."

That, that is how you attract quality clients. You have to know what value you bring. You have to know what benefits you bring. You have to know how the way that you service your people helps them in the long run. Now I know that this can be something that's kind of challenging sometimes to wrap our heads around, especially because henna is ultimately, it's a luxury service, right? No one is going to die if they don't get henna today. So when it comes to selling our services our first thought might be, well I don't, I don't know what benefit I bring. I don't know what value I bring. I mean they don't need me. That's true, but they might want you and it's your job as a marketer, right? It's your job as a hennapreneur who is wanting to see your business expand, it's your job to identify how to make yourself and your business irresistible for the person who is prone to wanting henna this week or next week or next month or next year. Is 2020 the year that you launch your own 5-star henna business?

If so, I want to take just a second to talk to you about the Accelerator by Hennapreneur. The Accelerator is a 100-day online program for high-aspiring henna artists who want to build a profitable business doing what they love — creating with henna. Whether you hope to start your henna side hustle on the right foot, make henna your full time career or even take your existing henna business to the next level, the Accelerator can help you in so many ways. Inside of the program, you'll have the hands on guidance of a 5-star, seasoned henna professional, AKA yours truly, helping you and supporting you every step of the way as you do things like clarifying the direction you're going in your business, identifying and maximizing your competitive edge in the market, developing your brand's unique aesthetic and culture, communicating with your target market effectively and with authenticity, designing a website that converts browsers into bookings, pricing and positioning your services for maximum profitability, establishing really sustainable business practices, and introducing things like automation to protect your time and your professional boundaries. See, the Accelerator provides you with both the targeted guidance and the invaluable support that you need to successfully launch a henna business that's both profitable and sustainable the first time around. You can learn more about the program, check out some additional details, see if you're a right fit, and get on the program wait list by visiting hennapreneur.com/accelerator.

Once you can pinpoint what it is about you and what it is about the service that you're offering and what it is about the experience that you're creating for your clients, then you can start to create marketing collateral and conversation, honestly, conversations what you need around your business and around how, what you do benefits the person who hires you. Now for some people that might look like self care, some people take the self care aspect. Some people take the exclusivity aspect. Meaning, you know, I only accept three brides each month, will you be one of them? Some people talk about their connection to henna. They talk about their, you know, perhaps they grew up in a henna using culture and the traditions of henna bring them joy and in sharing some of that experience and allowing their clients to also experience those thing, they create something that's valuable. They create a connection. They create something there, a space there that their clients or prospective clients appreciate and want to also participate in. It just depends on you. I'm not here to give you the answer on what that is for you exactly. You know yourself. You know what you offer. You know what's unique about what you do. You have to. And if you don't know that thing, then I suggest that you really spend some time with yourself and with your business, right, and consider what it is. You've got to pinpoint that thing. Once you know what it is about you and about your services that's going to bring benefit to your clients, then you can begin to address them in a different way.

When you're starting to have a conversation with a prospective client, when you're working to attract quality clients, you always are leading with value. You're always going to lead with what you can do for them, what you can do for them, how you can make them feel. You're always going to lead with what it is about you that's going to seep into their life by way of this exchange that you're going to have over henna, right? So it may be that they're, you know, their friends are going to appreciate them more. They're going to receive more complements. Or maybe, you know, if you're coming at it from more of a quality perspective, it may be that that person, you know, they're very much motivated by the use of organic products. And you can lean into that. You can, you can speak to that. You— these are things, the way that you're going to create conversation about your business prior to ever booking that appointment and certainly prior to ever talking about your pricing is always going to be, look what I can do for you. I know that you value this. Whatever this thing is for your clients, right? Well, this is why you need to know who your ideal client is. I know that you value this thing and because you value this thing, let me tell you about how working with me is going to benefit you. Working with me— choosing to hire me is going to align with those values. Align with that thought process. Align with what your goals are for yourself, for your henna experience or for your life experience. I'll tell you many times my clients come to me not because they thought that they wanted henna.

Oftentimes when I find new clients come into visit me at the boutique, they're coming because they had an exchange with me on social media or they saw a conversation on social media and many times it related to their experience in the world and the value that I was bringing them was how empowered I made them feel in that space. On social! And we're not talking about my prices and we're not even talking about henna. We're talking about our experiences as women of color working and living inside of a world that's not always to our benefit, but that we are continuing to move through and to challenge. And so many times by creating this alignment with my clients, with my audience, around what's valuable to them from a lifestyle perspective, then they say, "Okay, I really like this, the energy that this person has. I really like the way that Chelsea speaks to me. I identify with what she's saying. Her messages resonate with me." And then they make the decision to hire me. Not because they planned to get henna, but because henna was, it came afterwards. The value that they saw was how I made them feel. Then after that became, I'd like to spend more time with this person. Or I like to engage with this person. What's the next step in engaging with this person? You know what it is? You book a session. So then they book a session and then after booking that session where I, again, create an experience that is in alignment with the direction that you know, with those, the values that they have and with the, um, with what's authentic also to me, right?

And there in that space is where you start to build true raving fans. But notice that we never talked about price, right? It is very rare that I have someone ask me what my prices are. It's very rare that I'll have someone ask me, "What do you charge?" And it's almost, it almost never happens that that's the first question that's asked. If that comes up, it comes up much, much deeper in conversation later. So for you, if you're finding yourself challenged by attracting the right type of people, if you're finding yourself, um, just, you know, being, being sticker priced, "Hey, how much do you charge?", "Hey, how much for this design?", "What's your hourly rate?" without leaving like a hello, this happens, if that's the experience that you're having, know that now is a great time. Look, we're at the beginning of the year. Now is a great time to start to change the way that you show up on social media. Now is a great time for you to change the way that you show up and represent your business and now is a great time for you to also change the way that you position yourself as a resource for potential clients and not as just some sort of cheap commodity.

Let's get away, hennapreneurs, from being the help. Can we do that? I'd love to see more artists step away from being "the help" and move more into being that service provider who's bringing a benefit, who's bringing a value, who's bringing an experience that's exceptional and that's worthwhile. That's where you earn the respect of your clients. That's where you earn a different type of work environment. That's where you start to earn those, again, raving fans who leave reviews, who come back regularly, who make referrals, all of that. So if you want to attract quality clients, first things first, let's stop talking about money. Stop putting your prices on a pedestal. Definitely stop taking pride and being the most affordable. Recently a henna artist approached me and she was sharing some of her social content and she was asking me for some feedback about her social media.

And so I asked her to send me a couple of her posts, right? Give me a couple of your posts that are an example of how you show up on social media. Like, send me a couple of your posts, some of your best posts. And the posts that she sent me included the hashtag, #cheaphennaartist, #cheaphenna. What does that say? What message does that send? I'm cheap. What's— what feelings do we have around the word cheap? Let's explore that, right? Cheap. Less than. Cheap. Not the greatest quality. Cheap. Probably not going to be the best experience. Cheap. I mean, just think about, hey, even if you're going to, if you're price— if you're comparing items, right? And you have two items that are a very similar quality and one of them is, let's say one of them is $40 and one of them is $7. The pictures look the same. The descriptions look the same, but that $40 one why is it have a $40 price tag and why does this one over here have a $7 price tag? We, from a buyer perspective, we look at those two things and we go, there's something wrong with that one for $7. I should probably go with the one for $40 because the price is telling me a story here. The price is telling me that this is better quality. I am having a hard time maybe identifying what that difference is, but the price difference is enough to let me know that there's something going on here and that these two things are not the same.

So for us hennapreneurs, we have to step away from leaning into that sticker. We don't want to be the cheap henna artist. Honestly, I was appalled when I saw this. I, like, we had to have some real heart-to-heart conversation, this artist and I, because it's not something that you want to create an air of distrust around your business about the quality and the experience because you're marketing yourself, actively, as being the cheapest option, not a thing. Okay? If you're doing this, stop doing it instead. Instead, let's stop being the help. Let's start being a collaborator. Let's start being someone who provides such great quality, such a great experience that our clients can't help but to rave and sing our praises and tell the world about what a great time they had getting their henna done with you. Can we do that? And so before you ever have a conversation with your client about price, be sure that you first identify what it is that they value, what it is that they're looking for, what benefits they're seeking, and then tell them clearly, or show them if you have photos, perhaps this is photos, perhaps this is video, perhaps. Whatever this is, show them how working with you is the ultimate answer for getting those results. How that's the ultimate answer for getting that experience. And when you do that, it becomes a no-brainer. It doesn't matter what your price is at that point because you're so well aligned with what they want that they're willing to pay whatever price point, whatever number, whatever dollar amount, because they know that working with you is the only thing that makes sense. Okay?

So as you're attempting, again, as you're trying to attract these quality clients, make sure that you're doing so by leading with value, by leading with benefits, not by leading with price point. I would love to hear from you about your experience in attracting quality clients. Do you find that you're having difficulty also with people who are just wanting to price match you or price shop you?

If so, I'd love to hear about that. You can join me inside of the Hennapreneur community. There we're going to be having some conversation about pricing. We're going to have a little bit of conversation about making sure that we're well aligned with our clients so that we are attracting the right people versus attracting those people who might be tempted to treat you like the help, which you're not. You are a whole CEO of your whole henna practice and you deserve to be treated with respect. So I'd love to see you inside of the Hennapreneur community on Facebook. You can visit the show notes for the link and there, let's talk about it, right? Let's talk about it so that we can make sure that this year you're attracting those people who value you, who want to pay you, who want to work with you, and who are ultimately going to make your job so much more fulfilling as a hennapreneur. All right, until next time.

Hey babe! I wanted to give you a quick thank you for tuning into the show today. That was super cool of you to hang with me all the way until the end. Of course, I've got all the links that you might need from this episode inside of the show notes that you can find at hennapreneur.com/podcast.

If you enjoyed the show and want to stay in the loop with Hennapreneur, be sure to subscribe to the podcast too. You'll get all of the new episodes as soon as they come out. I'd be so grateful if you'd take the time to rate or leave a review on Apple Podcasts while you're there. That tells iTunes that, "Hey! Hennapreneur is about something good!" and it helps us to reach more artists who would love the show. All right, that's all for today. I'll be back soon with another episode but for now, let's get back to work, hennapreneurs!