15 Jan 2018

Beauty therapy is all about making people feel good about themselves. If you’re the friend who needs to get to the party three hours early so you can do everyone’s makeup, helps your mates who over-plucked their eyebrows in Year 7 or can apply a fake tan perfectly every time, then starting your very own beauty business could be on the cards.

With the beauty industry growing, and the demand for people who can provide beauty treatments through the roof, there’s plenty of opportunities to get your own beauty therapy business going–here’s how.

1. Get qualified

The first thing you need to do is get qualified. Even if you’re self-taught in areas like make up, it’s important to get some credentials behind you if you want to turn your skills into a legit business. Ella Baché College offers a Diploma of Beauty Therapy. This 13-month on campus, or 15-month EdFlex (a mix of online and face to face practical training) course includes 150 hours of hands on work experience. This qualification teaches you how to provide a range of beauty therapy treatments, plus learn how to market a small business and manage a small business financially. Basically, it’s everything you need to get started on your own beauty business. Ella Baché also offer a $10,000 grant every year to a student with the best small business plan assignment to use toward purchasing their own Ella Baché Salon.

2. Legal stuff

Even if you don’t have your own salon, it’s important to take note of all the legal stuff that comes with starting your own business. You’ll need things like an ABN and it’ll be up to you to keep an eye on tax and chase up invoices. 

3. Decide how you want to work

Once you’re qualified and have sorted all the legalities, you can start to figure out how you’re going to make beauty therapy work for you. There’s heaps of people out there that set up salons in their own home which means you’re completely in charge of when you work. It’s also possible to set up within an existing salon as your own business, or there’s the option of travelling to where your clients are (like for weddings or other big events). It’s basically up to you how and when you want to work as a beauty therapist, but it always helps to have a plan of how you want to work from the start.

4. Find your clients

You probably found the girl who waxes your eyebrows through a friend and now, whenever someone asks, you’ll tell them how good she is every time you have an appointment. Getting recommended by friends and family is a key part to building a solid client base as a beauty therapist. It’s okay to start small and work within your own circle, but if you’re good (and the Ella Baché diploma will make sure you’re good), you’ll be able to expand past this and build a bigger set of stable clients.

5. Build a brand

If you want to make this into a solid career, you need to build yourself a brand and use it to market your skills. Even if you’re providing treatments in your home, or are travelling to your clients rather than setting up your own salon, it’s still important to have a brand for yourself. You’ll want to have your own pricing list, brand name, logo, social channels (like Insta and Facebook) as well as a website so that you can set yourself apart from other beauty therapists.

6. Get a salon

Or, another option is to buy an Ella Baché Franchise salon and benefit from 60 years experience in the beauty industry. As a potential franchisee, Ella Baché holds your hand every step of the way to owning and operating your own salon and beyond. Sounds too good to be true? Many college graduates are now salon owners and managers. In some cases, the support and financial backing of mum and dad means a successful family business is created.

Reckon this is something you’d be keen to do? Like we said–the first step to starting your very own beauty therapy business is to get qualified and Ella Baché College takes care of that for you. Their Diploma of Beauty Therapy will teach you everything you need to know so, if you’re keen, sus more info here.