5 untruths I hear from makeup artists.

Being a full time mentor, I hear a lot of things which aren’t true. These are often called limiting beliefs or lack mindset and today I wanted to address them and give you guys some truth of the matter.

1) “I don’t like outsourcing. I prefer to do things myself”

This comes from fear I believe. Outsourcing IS scary. Giving control of your business baby over to someone else, or letting someone else in - its scary when you first do it. Looking at Planoly for the first time, I would say “but what if it forgets to post for me, I know I can always rely on myself!”. We need to release this control. You don’t see Elon Musk doing everything in his business. You don’t see Riri physically packaging up every order. We NEED help in order to grow. We need to take our place in our business, which is sometimes not everywhere. Edge out of this mindset, by outsourcing some free things, such as social media scheduling or customer CRM. Dip a toe out of that comfort zone, because it will only hold you back in the long run. You are the CEO, you are steering this ship and you are meant for bigger things than physically sending contracts and invoices.

2) “I can’t charge that”.

Here’s the thing - if you say that. You won’t. Mentally, you are putting yourself down, into a box where you are not worth that rate, but someone else is. You CAN charge that, when you step into that energy. You can charge that when you know your work’s worth. This limiting belief fuels the belief that you will never make it, you will never be fully booked and you will never make a full time income from this. You CAN charge that, you just have to own it.

3) “I don’t feel confident putting myself out there”

This one isn’t so much a truth or a lie because I get it. Putting your face on social media or going live IS scary. It took me years to pluck up the courage, but guess what. It wasn’t that bad! I actually kinda enjoyed it! Confidence is subjective and not everyone NEEDS to go live or go on stories to get the bookings. I know plenty of successful businesses without a face (think of Apple for example). But you gotta own that. You gotta get rid of the doubt and the comparison that you should be doing that, and instead own the fact that, that is not where your business growth lies. And if you DO want to build a personal brand and want to show up more and connect with your audience more, then trust me, it’s not as scary as you think. Do one little scary thing every day - until this doesn’t seem that scary anymore.

4) “I need a full time job to do makeup”

I gotta put this one to rest. Here’s the thing. A dentist, a doctor, an accountant, you wanna know the one thing they have in common? Their income is capped. They have a glass ceiling over how much they can earn and how much they can quantum leap. The amazing thing about us? We don’t have that. We can earn as much as we like, often surpassing them. I want to put the time old tale, that makeup artists earn £12k a year to rest. That our career is looked down upon because we didn't need to study for 10 years to do it. I once had a lawyer talk down to me as I did his makeup for a headshot. He discovered I studied law and said in the most pompous voice “Why on EARTH did you decide to go into this”. I wish I had the confidence back then to tell him, 1) HAPPINESS, but also 2) my earning potential IS unlimited, despite what they think. You DON’T need a full time job to be able to support your makeup career. You might at the start sure, as you build up your client base. But the full time job IS the chains, not the makeup career. Once you break free of those chains, you can be earning up to 6 figures or more, which can’t easily be said of the other careers.

5) “The market is just SO saturated. That’s why I can do X”

Another HUGE limiting belief. I hear this excuse a lot for not raising rates or for not advertising services or going full time. If rihanna had sat there and thought “well, the makeup industry is a bit saturated. I won’t compare to MAC or Nars” - then we would never have Fenty. Yes there are artists charging £15 a head. The question is, do you want those clients? Are you aiming for the £15 clients or the £50 clients? There are a lot of makeup artists. Just like there are a lot of photographers, podcasters, skincare brands and restaurants . But there is always room for one more. We all have unique ideal clients and we all have unique ideal talents. The £15 a head makeup artist isn’t a competitor or saturating the market UNLESS, that is your exact ideal client and you are both absolute twins. The market is only saturated if you believe it is.