If you are in the wedding industry, 2020 was likely not your best year of business. In fact, MOST service-based business struggled this year as a result of the restrictions and shutdowns. Loss of business means loss of income, which is just about as stressful as it gets. As a professional hair and makeup, I saw the dwindling bookings, and I watched as friends struggled to figure out how to move forward when everything was changing SO quickly.
Listen up. Last year was hard. This year is still hard. This is why I want to encourage service-based entrepreneurs to diversify your offerings and expand your revenue streams.
This was something I identified in my personal business over four years ago, and I didn’t even realize how it would fully pan out until I needed it most. Like when the wedding industry was drastically affected by the COVID regulations & shutdowns in California.
When I started my Hair and Makeup business, I was working a full time job. I was growing my business steadily, but it wasn’t my main source of income, and I wasn’t building it as if someday it would be. My H & MU income was the side hustle I used to pay off my car and student loans.
Once Jaxlee was born and everything changed, I knew I couldn’t go back to my 9-5 and give her all the care and support she needed. So I quit my day job and poured everything I had into that “side hustle” to replace my full time income.
This is when I went from “side hustler” to business owner. I built my first website and paid for marketing. I gained exposure in the wedding industry, booking weddings nearly every weekend.
For a couple of years, I did over 60 weddings a year. Yes, you read that right. If you do the math, that means some weekends I would have 2-3 weddings in one.
Once I got to this point, I thought to myself… How can I make more money? There are only a certain number of weekends in a year, and I’m only one person. One way to make more money was to raise my prices, so I did. And kept booking the same amount of weddings.
Then I started to think, what if I don’t always want to work 60 weddings a year? At this time I was thinking about our family, our future children, how I didn’t want to miss out on weekend activities because I was working.
Enter Beautycounter.
I began considering new ways and opportunities to grow my business outside of the wedding industry. In June of 2016 I found an incredible opportunity to grow and diversify my business through Beautycounter. As I was looking into the company I learned I could make a generous commission by selling skincare and makeup.
This wasn’t just any skincare and makeup though, this was nontoxic skincare and makeup that actually worked. At this time in my life, I was walking through my own revelation of clean living and how all the toxins in the environment and our daily life were affecting my health and well being as well as the health and well being of my special needs daughter.
The beauty industry that I loved so much and my newfound love for nontoxic living connected at the perfect time.
I saw the opportunity to sell skincare and makeup– AND make a difference in people’s life by educating them about harmful ingredients. One of the best parts? I could work my business from my car while my daughter was in an hour-long therapy session. From my computer on the couch after I rocked my baby to sleep. From my phone using social media as free advertising.
I could do this any day of the week, any time of day, from any location. My success was up to me, and what I put into it. It wasn’t specific to a bride booking me for her wedding at a given time on a Saturday.
Fast forward to 2020. As most service-based industries were, the wedding industry took a major hit by the COVID regulations and shut downs. Weddings were canceled. Work was canceled. Income was canceled.
That new opportunity I took advantage of in 2016 became my main source of income in 2020. I knew growing a second revenue stream all those years was a good idea, I just didn’t know how well it would serve me in the future.
If you find yourself wishing you had something else to offer, wishing you could sell something other than your services, wishing you could simultaneously build something else alongside your main business, I would love to chat with you!!
xoxo,
Emily
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