How I Built a Full Clientele in 60 Days From Scratch (part 2)

Hi Insiders! I hope you had a chance to check out part one of this series where I talked about the very first step I took when I moved to a new city and started over from scratch. I was able to build a full clientele within 60 days and I don’t think I could have done it had I not taken that first step. So, if you haven’t had a chance to check it out, go read the article now and come back here to learn the second step I took to build a new business quickly.

The second step to establishing a digital footprint isn’t necessarily one that involves a lot of time, money or effort. But it’s a critical step to make clients take you seriously and respect your business.

GET A BUSINESS PHONE NUMBER

Have you ever called a phone number and it sounded like it was a total scam because you could hear the person driving and the wind blowing into the phone? Or kids and/or pets making noise in the background? I know I have and I’m not judging here because I’ve also been the one answering business calls on my cell phone while driving on the highway with the windows down. But I’ve got to tell you… usually potential clients don’t an appointment with you when you don’t sound professional.

So the second step I took to building my business and setting myself up for success is… I got a dedicated business phone number.

Having a dedicated business phone number that’s separate from your personal phone line is good for one BIG reason.

You establish boUNDARIES

The most important reason in my opinion is that having a separate line for business allows you to create boundaries in your business so clients don’t cross over into your personal life.

Many times, clients have a totally different schedule than ours so they’ll call you when it’s convenient for them. That time could be within your normal business hours or it could be in the middle of the night if that’s the first time they have a little down time. Naturally most people won’t expect you to answer the phone if its in the middle of the night but do you really want your personal line ringing with clients when it’s outside of your business hours? I sure don’t.

So, having a business line in place that’s separate from your personal line is a great way to keep business and personal separate and train clients that if they contact you outside of business hours, you’ll respond to them within business hours.

Starting out, I know this can be a challenge because the idea is you want to get as many clients as possible so you can start making money. But I promise you, you’ll thank me down the line if you have these boundaries in place from the start rather than apply them down the line. It’s a lot more difficult to pivot and set boundaries after you’ve already been in business or a while.

When you put these boundaries in place from the start, you’re not only training your clients to respect your boundaries and see you as a professional, you’re also training yourself.

That’s right. You’re training yourself to honor your personal time and keep business separate.

I’ve seen time and time again where artists are annoyed that their clients are calling while they’re spending time with family, on vacation or asleep at night. By handling calls within your normal business hours and not allowing them to spill over into your personal life, it helps YOU to have work/life balance.

I can tell you from personal experience that seeing a client call coming in while having dinner with your loved ones immediately puts you in a position of feeling anxious. You know that you should be focused on your loved ones but it also makes you feel compelled to answer. But if your phone doesn’t ring in the first place with clients during personal time, you eliminate that stressor and can focus on what’s most important.. your personal time.

Now that you understand why its important to have a separate business line, I’d like to share how I got my business line and set it up. I promise, if you decide to duplicate the steps I took, it’s free and super easy.

For my business, I opted to use Google Voice. The reason why I chose to use this service is because it’s free and you can get a local phone number through their service. With Google Voice, you can handle calls on your laptop, tablet or mobile phone using their app. And that app allows you to forward phone numbers to your device, make phone calls that show the Google Voice number on the caller ID of your clients and they even give you free voice mail where clients can leave you a message.

Since I’m a solo artist that runs a lean business, I’m not always able to answer the phone during business hours because I’m working on clients. So I use the outbound voicemail message as a compliment to my website. On the voicemail, I leave instructions that guides callers to my website so they can book an appointment or send me a message via email.

Another feature that I absolutely LOVE is Google Voice allows you to set a schedule within the app. When you set your schedule within the app, it will automatically stop forwarding calls to your device outside of your scheduled hours. That way you don’t have to ever worry about receiving calls when you’re on personal time.

There are many other ways to set up a dedicated business line within your location and by not mentioning them in this article, it doesn’t mean I’m opposed to them. This is just the way I structured my business and I find it to be free and easy for most lash artists in the long term.

I really hope this information helps! If it did and you learned something new, drop a comment below and let me know.