5 things makeup artists can do, to cut down their admin.
I bet you didn’t realise, when becoming a makeup artist - just HOW much admin is involved. I swear sometimes, I am doing more admin than makeup! Between sorting out client admin, website updates, invoicing, marketing my business - it can seem to dominate your life! But I have some tips and tricks up my makeup artist sleeve, that can majorly help you cut down on the admin, so you can focus on growth and your clients!
1) BATCH YOUR CONTENT
That had to be in caps because I really really want to drive it home. If you are struggling with staying active on Instagram, or getting stressed because you are manually posting or just not having enough TIME to dedicate posting every single day and creating the content, you NEED to batch. Batching is when you time block a certain day, and a few hours in your calendar exclusively to create content AND schedule it. I spend a good bulk of my Tuesday morning, creating content for By Kayleigh. I then dump ALL that content onto Planoly and spend the afternoon scheduling it out. This has been game changing. No longer am I manually online at 5pm to post on Instagram. My content is batched, pre scheduled and ready to go months ahead, allowing me freedom and space to be present on social media on my own terms, but also freeing me up in the week AND keeping me consistent on socials. If you struggle with consistency, time or organising when it comes to your content, this is the one.
2) Automate everything
If you struggle with admin, automation is about to be your best friend. Automate anything you can, be it your food shop, your bills, your kit orders (I now have an amazon order scheduled for the same time every month, giving me lashes, wands and wipes), your social media. Automate it! Some of my favourite things that I am currently automating: my clients. Most email responses, invoices, contracts is all automated on a CRM system. I automate my social media, so all my posts, stories and ads go out without me having to be physically there - pressing go. I automate my day to day tasks via Asana, so it tells me exactly what I have to do without me thinking about it. Work smarter, not harder friends. All those minutes add up and could equal some lovely down time OR some time spent scaling your business.
3) Hire a VA
A lot of makeup artists have a bit of a scarcity mindset when it comes to hiring or outsourcing. But i’m here to tell you, it is THE best investment. If you are feeling a bit wary of paying £10 a month for an app that will save you endless time, DO IT. Paying to get time back is a very worthwhile investment, because this is time that can be spent on business growth. Only YOU can grow your business, but you can’t do it if you don’t have time. If a £10 a month app (hello Planoly) can help save you HOURS a month on socials, it’s a worthwhile investment in the time you get back. If a VA can help take hours out of your business, doing the tasks that hold you up - DO IT. It might seem scary, paying a wage to someone per month that could be eating your profit. But imagine what you can do with that time. You can invest that time scaling your business, to earn even MORE - which can only be done if you trust in the process and outsource.
4) Write the list, then delete the list.
Did you know only 20% of our to-do list ACTUALLY makes us money. The rest, is often pure fluff. Little things we put on ourselves, which actually end up taking away from the crucial tasks that move our business forward. So write the list, and then cross off everything leaving only 3 things. Amazing right? The 3 things you leave are often the very important and very key things that end up needing to be done and promoting business growth.
5) Go digital
Not exactly groundbreaking advice, but one HUGE difference to my makeup business, was going digital and adding bookings to my website. I have clients now booking in, during hours that I have set, and paying there and then on the system. No admin, no fluff. Wix sends them an email with the address of their appointment and I have nothing to do but wait for the date and ensure I am giving them the best makeup of their lives! I can have brides book in trials via this system and it just means that I am really freeing up my time, which is spent back and forth, checking my calendar, creating them an invoice and generally spending time that could be better spent elsewhere. I can’t wait to digitise my business further!