Beauty Schools Directory: Tell the world a little bit about BeautyPRPro – what exactly do you do?
Alex Irving: Sharon and I started BeautyPRpro in 2008 to meet a real need. Salon professionals and salon or spa owners had nowhere to go to learn about “real world” beauty public relations and how to “get good at getting press.” There’s a lot you can do for yourself without the assistance of a public relations firm, you just need to know some of the tricks of the trade. Doing PR is like doing magic. It seems impossible until you know how the tricks are performed.
Before we started BeautyPRpro, putting all that basic info into one place, it was either the school of hard knocks, or you had to be lucky enough to work for a salon owner who was good at it and willing to share their knowledge with you. Young stylists, colorists, nail techs and estheticians learn many things in beauty school, but PR isn’t one of them. Neither is marketing, photography, or business/people management – all critical tools for financial as well as creative success.
We began blogging last September on our niche topic – beauty and salon public relations, which, in many ways, is uniquely different from general business PR. Although all the basic principles of good public relations apply, the beauty industry has special needs. When you first subscribe to the blog, you get a free copy of our e-Book Life-Changing PR for Salon and Spa Owners and that’s a valuable starting point to get you ready to get more out of what we go on to discuss and explore in the twice weekly blog posts. There’s a great deal of excellent reference material there.
Beauty Schools Directory: In your blog, you mention helping industry professionals “grow their public persona.” What does that mean to a beauty professional or business?
Alex Irving: It means how do people really see and experience you? How does a camera see you? How does what you say make people feel about you. It relies on your ability to tell a “story,” the story of “you” and what you believe, and that takes some thought and practice to have it flow naturally. It doesn’t mean you become actor pretending to be other than who you are. It means you need to look at yourself a bit more critically and understand how what you do and say is perceived by others.
Your image is a unique selling proposition. What is your image? Ever thought about it? What do you wear to work? How do you speak? What drives you and motivates you? How do you feel about your clients? How do you feel about fashion? Where do you see hair, clothes and makeup trends going next season? Are you concerned about leading the pack, bringing the most current looks and styles to your clients? Can you communicate who you are and what you believe to others? Bottom line is, you need to craft your story, rehearse it and know what you have to say. That is every bit as important as having good technical and creative skills. That is your public persona. We wrote a couple of posts on this topic – How Do Your Clients See You? and All The World’s a Stage – Are You Ready?
Beauty Schools Directory: What would you say are the most frequently missed opportunities beauty professionals should be seizing on to grow their business and clientele?
Alex Irving: From the PR point of view it is industry professionals not leaving home to broaden their horizons. Too many professionals are stay-at-homes. The beauty industry is worldwide and the most successful beauty pros are those who are out playing in the bigger ballgame, learning, growing, meeting people, making beauty industry contacts and having experiences they can talk about with (and impress) their clients and the media.
I’m talking about getting involved with beauty industry organizations such as the Professional Beauty Association and attending events such as PBA Beauty Week in Las Vegas, International Haircolor Exchange (IHE) in St. Louis in 2010, American Board of Certified Haircolorists (ABCH) Summit in Los Angeles, etc. It’s about going to the fashion collections for the Milan or Paris Fashion Week. When you are there amidst the action, you are sipping the future, taking pictures of yourself in context and sharing all that with the media and your clients when you get back home. Here’s a post we wrote on that topic as well — Seeing a Beauty Industry Event through the Eyes of a Beauty PR Pro.
Beauty Schools Directory: How do you feel the recession has impacted the beauty, cosmetology and esthetics industry? Is there still opportunity for new beauty professionals to break in?
Alex Irving: Beauty is one of the most recession-resistant industries there is. Of course there has been a downturn in retail sales and clients are creating longer times between services, but there are always services! Women, men and children do not stop getting hair color, cut and styles, facial treatments don’t stop. In fact salon and spa skin care business increases as plastic surgery and more radical and expensive anti-aging solutions become too expensive to do right now.
And, yes, beauty jobs are just a bit harder to find. But they are there in any economy. Applicants need to have their skills, personality, and attitude ready for work and ready to come to the fore during the interview. A good job in beauty is always there for the right person. If someone motivated, ready to work hard, learn and contribute comes to me for a job, even if I don’t have one I hate losing a great applicant. I always try to find a way. Beauty is all about people – finding great people with good skills.
Beauty Schools Directory: Your PR agency, Esche & Alexander Public Relations, and your BeautyPRPro Blog have a huge presence online. What role do you feel the web currently plays or will play in marketing oneself as a beauty business?
Alex Irving: Make no mistake, in today’s world, marketing is every bit as important to your financial success as your skills with color, shears and razors, nails or skin care talents. People look first to the web for what they need and want. Google is not just a noun, it’s an action verb. Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, Twitpic, YouTube, Google, and all of today’s web marketing tools are mandatory to reaching out and touching your clients when they are not in your chair. Make no mistake; you need the web to be successful in beauty in the future. We’ve blogged on this topic here with Show Yourself! – Get a ‘Gravatar’, The World Wide Web Is a Very ‘Sticky’ Place, and Twitter for On-Line Scheduling or What?
Beauty Schools Directory: What marketing advice might you offer to newly graduated cosmetology students who are just beginning their career path in beauty?
Alex Irving: Well, it’s sort of marketing advice. Don’t become a booth renter out of school! I don’t care what anyone says. Our industry loses too many talented young professionals who hear how great booth renting is, but don’t yet have the marketing skills to develop their own traffic or the business savvy to run their own business. They end up falling by the wayside and leave the industry feeling like failures. We all lose.
Find a great salon owner that offers their staff ongoing training and continuing education, brings in the clients through their marketing efforts, and supports you in achieving your personal and professional goals. There are many good salon owners are out there. Your first job is to find them and let them help you grow.
Final thought? I say congratulations on choosing the beauty industry as your future. Your cosmetology license is your ticket to ride in one of the most exciting career tracks in the world. I look forward to your comments on http://www.beautyprpo.com.
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Shara Stevenson
