Planning For Success In The Beauty Industry
We had a great workshop last week with a group of new beauty students. The topic for the workshop was 'Planning for Success as a Beauty Therapist'.
We set out to discuss the components involved in planning for success and to devise a simple method for documenting and implementing elements of the plan. The class involved lecture, discussion and an exercise on how to move forward with the plan. The workshop mainly focused on starting a career and working freelance.
We started of by talking about the reasons and motivations for wanting to start a career in beauty, and what students ambitions were when they qualified.
Some of the reasons or motivations for doing a beauty course stated by students were
"Change of Career" - "always loved beauty so thought it would be good to make a career from it" "Want to help others look and feel good" "Want gain confidence" "Wanted to do something for myself e.g., its me time"
Students ambitions when they qualified were varied and included, "Work as a mobile therapist" "Start my own salon" "Get work in a salon and build my experience and see were I go from there" "Get part-time work to fit around my children" "work on a cruise ship" "Use it to start a career that I enjoy doing"
My role as the facilitator of the workshop was to help students link their motivations with expected outcomes, e.g., how did they could get from A to B. It was agreed that it would be impossible to achieve ambitions without some form of a plan. So we went on to discuss 'The Plan'. The main topics to be discussed within in the plan were
Getting to Know Yourself
Being Realistic about Outcomes/ambitions
Aim for Greatness
Brand You
Target Market
Skills and Attributes
This article will discuss 4 of these topics:
This article will discuss 4 of the above topics of: Getting to know yourself, Confidence, brand you and aim for greatness
Getting to Know Yourself
Getting to know yourself is something seldom discussed in planning for careers or a business, and it is probably the most important topic of all. For if you can understand how you operate as a person, e.g. your strengths and weaknesses, well then the planning process will run a lot smoother and your end goal will more likely be achieved.
It's a topic that requires a bit of soul searching, and can be a little bit challenging for most. But it can bring great clarity to important areas of your persona that may need to be worked on. In fact, the exercise and its implementation, can have great benefits in many areas of your life.
The following are some of the topics we discussed in relation to getting to know yourself
Self esteem (how do you value yourself - what is your self image)
Confidence (self confidence - your ability to take on challenges and work towards your goals)
Dealing with the ups and downs (how do you react if things don't turn out as you want)
Ability to see things through (do you have resilience, willpower, determination and the energy to 'get things done')
'Knowing yourself' is a fascinating subject to discuss and many positive contributions were made by the group. Some of the key action points that came from the discussion were
Confidence
That everyone has the ability to be confident. It is not a gift given to a few, but can be acquired and learned. We also discussed some methods for developing confidence and it's most likely that we will do a follow up workshop around the topic.
Ability to see things through
Ability to see things through comes down to mental strength and we briefly talked about some role models (Irish) who could be used as great examples, e.g. Katie Taylor, Michael Flatley, Brendan O'Carroll. It was agreed that trying to adopt a positive mindset, e.g. believing in your ability to succeed, was a vital part of developing mental strength.
People Skills
It was also agreed that people skills would be a vital aspect of achieving goals as the fitness industry is very much a people business; particularly for working as a fitness professional or personal trainer. This is something everyone agreed they would need to work on. It was discussed in more detail in the next topic 'Brand You'.
Brand You (e.g. Who do I need to be)
This was another fascinating discussion and was well received by all students when it was outlined that a brand is not just for big corporations (Apple, Microsoft etc), or for those with lots of money, but a brand can be created by anyone. Also, a brand is not a logo, but that a logo is designed to trigger an emotional reaction to a brand (or a product). So we discussed how to create a brand and that that brand would be 'You', e.g. everything you say, do and communicate. You are the Brand. It was recommended that students do some internet research around the subject 'Personal Branding'.
One of the key learning points from this topic was that'Brand You' needed to be created whether you were becoming an employee (e.g. working in a gym) or setting up your own business (e.g. becoming a personal trainer). Everything you do, say and communicate is the brand. How you dress, your body language, your interactions on social media and your face to face contact with clients is all the Brand.
Aim for Greatness
The aim for greatness topic was started by posing the question 'Is passion enough to be successful in your fitness career'. In other words, just because you have passion for something (in this case becoming a fitness professional) does it mean that you will be automatically successful as your passion will carry you through.
No, was the general sentiment. Students said that hard work, proper qualifications and being confident were also important. But this opened up the debate to what some of the leading experts in success psychology believe is important for success. And that is, a positive mindset coupled with the will to become great at what you do. The question was asked 'How do you become great', and the answer is - practice. Practice, practice, practice. A laser like focus and hours of dedication towards perfecting your skills and knowledge are the ingredients for becoming great at what you do.
There's no magic formula or hidden secrets. Success as a fitness instructor will require many hours of practice and study. Greatness has to be the goal. The discussion on this topic would overlap into the next topic, Skills and Attributes, which would also be vital to building Brand You.
Skills and Attributes
We started this topic off by having a quick brainstorm on what were the main skills and attributes needed to be a successful fitness instructor. It was also clarified that attributes and characteristics are very much the same with both of them relating to the general term 'Personality'.
One of the main factors to be discussed was as a skill was communication skills. We went deeper into communication skills to define what it actually meant and ended up with a list that included the following
The way you walk, talk and dress
The way you listen to others
Your body language
Your communications by phone, email, in person, tone and pace of voice, your website, Face book page, Linkedin
It transpired that communications was all encompassing and that in fact, communications was a core part of the 'Brand'.
Other skills and attributes that were clarified and debated were
Sales Skills
Building Rapport
Presentation Skills
Planning and Organisational Skills
Time Management
Career & Business Skills
We finished off the workshop with some suggestions for building some elements of the plan.
Suggestions for building 'Brand You'
Get to know yourself
Work on building your confidence levels
Believe in your ability to succeed
Adopt a winning mindset
Surround yourself with positive people
Start thinking about the image you want to project and how you want to be perceived by your customers or employer
Think about branding yourself as a product with value
Suggestion for Building Rapport:
Building rapport will be crucial for growing your client base and retaining customers. It will also have a big impact on you been able to motivate your clients towards their goals as they are more inclined to believe in you if you have a good working relationship with them. And remember, rapport is the new motivation. Students were advised to conduct some internet research on the subject as it is vital to customer acquisition and retention.
The workshop concluded with a suggestion and demonstration of how to devise a simple plan using a blank piece of A4 paper turned on its side (landscape).
It was suggested that students take just 3 elements from the workshop and write them into the 'Plan' column and make a commitment to start tipping away at these elements of their plan.
Summary
7 top Tips For Successful Careers In Fitness Instruction
Get to know yourself
Work on building your confidence
Know how to create brand you
Develop great communication skills
Aim for greatness in every thing you develop mental strength
Believe in your ability to succeed
Surround yourself with positive people
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