You Are The Problem In Your Business (Here's How To Know)

You blame the economy. You blame your competition. You blame your coaches, your clients, your suppliers, your staff.

When you look at the one consistent factor across all of it, it's always the business owner.

In this episode I walk you through the exact 10 problem framework I use to diagnose what's actually going wrong in a beauty business, the same process I use with my own clients, so you can stop guessing and start focusing on the one thing that will actually move the needle.

→ Why an inconsistent brand is quietly killing the trust you need before anyone will buy from you
 → The free strategy for getting your content in front of people who don't already follow you
 → Why volume in your marketing means nothing if it's not creating connection
 → The gap between engagement and actual enquiries, and what it means if you're stuck there
 → Why "it's too expensive" is almost never really about the money
 → The two reasons clients don't rebook, and which one is costing you more
 → How to be fully booked, six days a week, and still have nothing left over
 → Why cash flow and pricing are two separate problems that get blamed on each other
 → Why overwhelm in your business usually means a systems problem, not a hours problem
 → The one question I watched every seven figure business owner in the room answer the same way

If you've been blaming everyone and everything except yourself, this is the episode that changes that.

Resources mentioned in this episode:
→ Profitable Pricing Calculator: https://beautyindustryleaders.com.au/profitable-pricing-calculator
→ Breakeven Cost Calculator: https://beautyindustryleaders.com.au/breakeven-cost-calculator
→ ATO Industry Benchmarks: https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/income-deductions-and-concessions/small-business-benchmarks/in-detail/beauty-services

Connect with me and join the Beauty Industry Leaders movement:
→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedycoach/
→ https://www.instagram.com/beautyindustryleaders/
→ https://beautyindustryleaders.com.au/

If you have any questions about the episode, have a burning question you would like me to answer on the show, or want to join our movement of ambitious beauty leaders, connect with me and the rest of our incredible community on Instagram:
→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedycoach/
→ https://www.instagram.com/beautyindustryleaders/

Transcript

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I cannot tell you how many times I've had conversations with business owners who are blaming the economy, they're blaming their competition, they're blaming their coaches, they're blaming their clients, they're blaming their suppliers, they're blaming their staff. When I look at the one consistency amongst all of that, it is always the business owner. And if that's the issue, you're probably stuck in some kind of negative mindset. I never forget when I was at a business retreat. We had been put on different tables. So they had the up to 10k months table, they had the 15 to 30k months table, and then they had, I think it was like 30 to 50k, and then there was the $1 million table. And everyone who was at the seven-figure table, we all got this question in the group and they said, who here goes to therapy? And everyone on the seven-figure table put their hand up. And I think that moment of just seeing how all the high performers look after their mental health. They need the support in the back end, like it's a lot of pressure and weight to carry. But if you are the type of person who can't take personal responsibility or accountability for your actions and you are blaming everyone and everything else, you are the problem in your business. Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Beauty Industry Leaders podcast. I'm your host, Sammy Kennedy. Now, recently, if you've been following along with my journey, I wanted to give you an update. Unfortunately, I did not take out the win for the Brian Hart Young Leader Award, but I still had an incredible time celebrating the night with my mum, my dad, Nick, and also my beautiful grandparents, Pop Pong Gungung came along too. Being at the Seven News Awards night for the Young Achievers, it was just really inspiring because usually when I'm in business, I am sitting at tables with people who are almost twice my age, and I'm almost comparing myself in a way that I see what they've got, and they've had another one or two decades above me to achieve that. And I'm like, how do I get it now? But then coming into a room where you've got people under the age of 30 who are taking risks, trying to make an impact and just going gung-ho, it really does inspire you in different ways. And it actually made me feel like I belong somewhere. So for whoever complains about Gen Z being the lazy generation or unmotivated, I promise you, if you go to the Seven News Young Achievers Awards night, you will be blown away. Now, for my category specifically, I was in the Reinhardt Young Leader, which means if you are in a family business or a private enterprise, you are leading change, you are challenging the stereotypes, you're creating innovative pathways, you're helping others grow. And so I was the only person in my 20s for that category, which felt really crazy when you think about it, because a lot of the other finalists were in their late 30s. And the woman who won, she'd been working for Hancock Prospecting since 2012. So I can't really compete with someone who has essentially 14 years more of experience and career growth than me. However, I didn't walk away from that event feeling like a failure. I didn't walk away feeling like, oh, it's not worth it because it actually gave me the time to reflect on my progress. It gave me a lot of inspiration. And I think moving forward, being intentional about where do I want to focus my efforts, what type of entrepreneur do I want to be, what impact do I want to make in the world? That is the beauty of attending these awards and being involved in them because you stop, you pause, you reflect, and then when you get the outcome, you think, okay, if I were to do this whole process again, what needs to change? What can I improve? How do I actually do something that 12 months from now, that future version of me is going to be looking back and saying, wow, you did such an incredible job. So I'm very excited for that. And I also wanted to say, if you are someone who has been applying for the Abeas or the Wasabra Awards, I think it's such a great opportunity for you to create something like this for yourself where you're taking that moment to really dial in. Like, what have I been doing? How am I improving? What impact am I making? Because as much as I do think behind the scenes, some of the awards can be quite rigged or they can be a little bit questionable, I still do think that doing awards has allowed me to refine my message, get really clear on what I'm good at, and keep improving. And so if you're gonna use it as a way to then leverage more PR or increase your credibility, then that's an awesome pathway. But also do not overlook the value of just reflecting and refining your business model. Now, with that being said, I wanted to do an episode today about how you can actually diagnose what the biggest problem in your business is. I know that we get so caught up with the amount of information overload there is out there. You've got experts on TikTok, you've got Instagram gurus, you've got podcasts, you've got books, and we're in this kind of world where we're consuming so much knowledge, but the biggest challenge is actually figuring out what is the priority and what should I be focusing on and implementing to actually improve where I'm at in my business. And so today I want to talk to you about the way that I diagnose what's going wrong in my business and where I need to intentionally focus my time and efforts. And I've used this process with so many of my clients too, because once you start to see how one thing not working can impact another, it's really easy to get clarity and go, okay, I'm gonna focus on this one thing. And then once you've solved that, you can start looking at, okay, what are the other things that I'm gonna focus on? But when you're the type of person who jumps from one AI platform to another, signs up to every course, every coaching program, and doesn't implement anything, it's really hard to ever feel like you're getting ahead because you keep getting distracted. And so we're gonna give you some laser focus, we're gonna help you get to the root cause, and more importantly, I'm gonna support you so you can empower yourself to understand what is going wrong and what do you need to do next. So, one of the first problems that I always see is brands saying, I feel like I'm not getting any eyeballs on me. I'm not growing, maybe you've got a social media account, maybe you keep putting content out there, but you're not actually getting any new people following you or engaging with your content. If that's the issue, you probably have a branding or a brand awareness problem. So, number one, let's look at branding. If your brand doesn't stand out from everyone else's, it's a copy and paste or it's lacking, it's just super inconsistent. It's Canva templates, Etsy templates, it's photos of your work and then different fonts and colours all about. Like if there's no consistency in your brand, people lack trust towards it. And so, in order for you to create a brand worth following, you need to get clear on your point of difference, your mission, your vision, your values, your messaging behind it, the entire identity. I want you to think of your brand as if it was a person. It's not just the clothes that you wear, it's how you make people feel. And so being able to build out a strong brand identity that people want to engage with, that people want to be a part of your community, that they want to follow you, that is number one. The second part of this is brand awareness. If you don't have a strategy to get your brand out in front of new people, it is going to be really hard for you to grow. One strategy to get more brand awareness that is completely free is to create top of funnel reels. And so when you post a reel, it's not just showing up in the home page, it's also showing up in your reels feed. So then that way it's pushing out more content to people who may, yes, already be following you, but also the people who aren't. Now, specifically, I would recommend doing trial reels. That strategy alone will push your content out to people who aren't even following you. And if it performs well, then you can bring it back onto your main page and it will post to your audience. So that's a really simple strategy that you can start to use. Another way of getting more brand awareness or visibility is PR. So getting on podcasts, pitching yourself to local newspapers, magazines, TV. Anywhere where you're borrowing someone else's audience, you're able to get your brand in front of new people. It's really important that you don't just try pitch to anyone and you find the types of businesses or media outlets that actually have your ideal client following them, because there's no point you going to get in front of all these people who would never even want to buy from you in the first place. Now, another way to get good brand awareness is for you to start doing things outside of the box. Go to networking events, go to expos, go and get your brand, show your face, talk to people, build connections. Because in a world full of social media and all this noise, sometimes the level and the length of time it takes to build that trust, it's so much longer on social media. So if you meet these people in person, you get your name out there, you focus on nurturing those relationships, you start to grow your brand awareness. And we all know word of mouth is always going to be the strongest form of marketing. Now, another issue that might come up in your business is that you're posting content, you're making so much time and effort to get stuff out there, but no one is engaging with it. If that's the case, you have a problem with your marketing. And the reason that I know this is because there's people out there who will post and there's no result. And then there's people who will post, they get engagement, they nurture, they build relationships. And so when you look at your content, you don't just want to focus on volume anymore. It's about connection. And so you also want to ensure that the people that are engaging with your content are actually customers who want to buy from you. Now, in the beauty industry, they are notorious. Like if you put up a post, it impresses everyone else who's in that industry, but it doesn't serve the customer. And if that is the case, then you need to focus on using messaging that speaks to your ideal client. So build out your ideal client profile. Look at who they are, what their current problems, challenges, fears, frustrations are. What is the outcome that they're looking for? What are their hopes, dreams, and desires? The more you can speak exactly into the daily situations, the dreams that that person wants, how they're feeling, what they're experiencing, they're going to feel seen, heard, and they will want to buy from you. And that's when you get that engagement. Now, I found with all my content, the really valuable educational stuff, it doesn't pop off nowhere near as much as the things that people feel so seen by. So recently I spoke about the F-POS surcharge fees, and then I spoke about how little profit some of these businesses in the beauty industry are making. And it went gangbusters. People are sharing it because they want other people to see what they're dealing with, how they're feeling. And when you can create content that speaks to that, that's when you'll get that virality in there. Now, going viral, that's not always the goal because it doesn't always equal dollars in the bank account, but it is a great sign that your marketing messaging is hitting the point and you're also getting more brand visibility and awareness. Now, if you have this issue where your marketing is getting a lot of engagement, but you're not getting any new leads or client customer inquiries, this is usually a sign that you don't have a lead generation strategy in place. So the way that I like to explain it is most of the time your content in your feed is actually designed to nurture your current audience. However, the stories and the CTAs at the end of your carousels or your reels or your captions, they need to lead people into your DMs or into your sales funnel so that they can then become a part of your ecosystem. If you are just posting content and you're providing value, but you're not actually getting the customer to take action, that's when you'll start to go, okay, well, I'm putting all this stuff out there, but why am I not getting clients or making money from it? So with lead generation, you can do it so many different ways, but essentially you want to call out who the ideal client is, the problem that they're facing, the solution that you can help them with, your point of difference, and how they can take action. This can be done in email marketing, it can be done on stories, it can be done in carousels, it can be done in reels, it can be done in Facebook ads, it can be done in Facebook groups. Like there's so many different ways that you can actually use this lead generation strategy. The goal is to call out the ideal client, highlight their problem, and give them a solution and the next steps that they need to take action. There's no point just giving so much value, so many tips, so many behind the scenes, but then not actually showing them how do you get started? What does that process look like? So if your marketing is getting engagement, but you're not getting any customer inquiries or leads, it is definitely a lead generation problem. Now, if you're getting lots of leads, you're getting customer inquiries, but somewhere along the way, they are not converting. So this could happen on sales calls, it could be happening in your DMs, you might have this conversation and things seem like they're going well, and then they just drop off the face of the earth, or they don't buy. This is a sales conversion problem. So somewhere in your sales funnel, there's going to be a hole. And it might be that they don't see value in it, they don't understand how it works. A lot of people will always give you the price objection and they'll say, oh, I don't know, it's too much money. It's never the money, it's usually the value. And so if they don't feel like the value is there, it's going to help them solve their problem, or it's going to get them the problem solved in a fast enough time, then usually they will default and find something else. So in your sales process, you might want to look at things like have I got urgency or scarcity in there? Urgency being you need to take action now. Scarcity being there's only a limited number of spots available or left. The other thing that you might want to speak into is your objection handling. So, what are the things that they're saying or they're thinking that are stopping them from buying from you? The more clear that you can get on their objections, the easier it is for you to start using this in your content. So when you start marketing, you can speak into their objections, how you can reassure them, how you solve that problem for them, how you give them more value. And by the time they come to buy, they've already been preframed. They don't have those objections in mind because they know how to handle them. So your sales process needs to be clear. You need to have essentially, it doesn't have to be rigid where you've got these are the set questions and they have to do it. But for example, for me, I have a sales call process. For you, you might have a consultation process. If you don't have that dialed in and it's not actually getting the customer to identify what their current problem is and how they're going to get a result with you, then they're probably not going to sign up. So if there's all these leads, but then they're not converting, it's either going to be your sales call or your consultation process. So get that dialed in. Now, if you've got your sales process dialed in, you might have customers coming in the door. But what happens when they don't rebook? Now, usually this will be one of two things. Number one is generally speaking, most people don't have good sales skills. So they kind of freeze up when it comes to asking the client to rebook. So if your team, if or you, if you're working by yourself, if you're not getting that rebooking rate up there, you definitely want to invest in learning sales skills. Now don't think of sales as like, hey, you have to buy this, it's 20% off. I want you to think of it as how am I actually servicing this person? How am I providing them with value? If they've invested all this time, money, and energy into your service and you're not offering them the aftercare that they need to follow or the maintenance routine they need to maintain those results or enhance those results, then that's not really fair on them. So think about okay, what is the value? What is the benefit? What do they get by coming back on a consistent basis? How is this helping them achieve their goals? That's like one part of that client customer experience, getting them to rebook. The other side of it is you don't have a good client experience. Maybe you don't come across professional, maybe they don't feel like the value that they got from your service was equal to the amount that they paid. And so there's some kind of part of them that's thinking, I don't want to come back here. If that's the case, I want you to like step by step write out what is your client experience? What do you have to offer these customers? And how are you making sure that they actually want to come back, that they're getting an incredible result, that they're feeling like they're safe, they're comfortable, they're able to relax and wind down. You want the experience for the customer to be so valuable that not rebooking is out of the question. You know they want to come back for the next appointment. You know that every time they come and meet with you, they're walking away feeling 10 times better in their day. So if your staff or yourself have a low rebooking rate or a low return rate, focus on your sales process and your sales skills. How are you doing that rebooking process? I've actually got an episode from ages ago on how to rebook clients. So if you scroll back, you'll be able to find that. And then the other side of this is if you're not getting good client results, if you're not having positive feedback from customers, if you don't feel like the value in the service is actually equating to what the price point is, then you need to invest in either upskilling to get better results for your clients or intentionally improve the customer experience so that when they come in, they want to keep coming back. Now, I experienced this one firsthand when I had my beauty salon and it was you are fully booked, you've got all the customers coming back, you've got money hitting your bank account, but after you pay all your expenses, there is nothing left. Now, this can come down to two things. One of them, as we have spoken about many times on the podcast, is your pricing strategy. If you copied someone else's prices down the road and slightly undercharge, you're probably gonna find that you're not actually making a profit. Because I can say with full confidence, 95% of the businesses that I work with have no idea what their numbers are and they're running at a loss. Now, after they go through the profitable pricing strategy, they understand what they need to actually be charging. They're usually in for a bit of a rude shock, but that way they know, okay, there is at least a 30% profit margin in my prices and I am financially sustainable. Now, if you go through the whole profitable pricing process, you know what your break-even costs are, you know what your cost per minute is, you know what the F POS surcharge fees are, GST, how much profit you make, how much you pay to tax, and what you're actually walking away with. You know you've got that pricing strategy downpacked. Well, if you do have profitable prices but you still have no money, it is a hundred percent a cash flow management issue. If you have no control over your spending, if you go, oh, I've made more money this week, and then you just go buy $10,000 worth of products, or you invest in a new piece of equipment, or you decide to, I don't know, go on another staff, training, holiday, who knows? These are the kind of things that no matter how profitable we work on making your prices, if you keep just spending money as soon as you get it, you will never be left with anything. And so coming down to your cash flow, you need to get clear on like how much money is the business bringing in, how much is coming out each month, subscriptions, wages, rent, utilities, being able to project when money comes in, when money goes out, and how much is left over. If you can do this on a weekly basis, what you'll start to see is patterns. So some weeks you might have a lot more money coming out. Maybe rent's due, maybe you've got electricity bills, you've got wages, and it all happens on the same day. But then you might find three weeks later, You've got a higher profit week. And so when you're looking at doing big investments or you're looking at jumping into paying for that stock order, you can actually time things so it works better with your cash flow and you're not in this reactive state. So once again, if the money's coming in, you're fully booked, you're probably burnt out. It's usually going to be a pricing strategy issue. Now, if you've got the pricing strategy down patched, you know that your services are profitable, then it comes down to your cash flow management. Now, in the back end of things, sometimes you might have some inconsistencies or inefficiencies. If you're the business owner and you feel overwhelmed all the time, it's probably because you have a lack of systems and processes. If you've hired staff and you feel like they're not really doing things the way that you want, or you're micromanaging them a lot of the time, this will usually come down to not having clear protocols, not having clear systems, not having a policy or a procedure that they can follow. And so it's really important that you, as a leader, you set the standard, you empower them with the tools and knowledge, and you give them the support so that they can carry out the task that you set them to do. If you're the type of person who keeps it all up here and then you get overwhelmed, you get upset, you then try to take over, that is destructive and it really undermines your employees and doesn't make them feel like they can come to you with problems or like they can grow or thrive. And this is where you find you'll have high staff turnover and it's not a good workplace for a the business owner to be running, but B also the employees that don't want to be a part of that. So if you're struggling and you're finding that, okay, we're doing the same processes, but maybe they're really inconsistent or things are taking longer than they should, I want you to look at your leadership. How are you implementing these systems and processes? And then how are you empowering your employees to carry these out? So are you giving them enough training? Have you got a little cheat sheet that they can follow? Have you got time to actually check in with them, give them feedback and help them improve and grow? There's a lot of pressure in today's world when the business owner is stressed out and burnt out and they know they need to hire someone, and then they just kind of bring them into the business and expect them to sink or swim. That's not the best way to make decisions because it's reactive, right? And so, of course, when you're stressed out and you want someone to just magically fix things, it's not always going to work that way. And sometimes you might blame other people, you might blame other things. And this is leading me to my last problem, which is if you are finding that everyone and everything else is the problem right now, you are the problem. Like I cannot tell you how many times I've had conversations with business owners who are blaming the economy, they're blaming their competition, they're blaming their coaches, they're blaming their clients, they're blaming their suppliers, they're blaming their staff. And when I look at the one consistency amongst all of that, it is always the business owner. And if that's the issue, you're probably stuck in some kind of negative mindset. Maybe there's been a bit of trauma, there's been a negative experience, maybe you're feeling a bit down in the dumps and you just want to give up because you're so burnt out and exhausted. And trust me, I get it. It is tough. It's tough running a business, it's tough carrying a team, and it's tough having to deal with the amount of fires that keep coming up every day. But if you are the type of person who can't take personal responsibility or accountability for your actions and you are blaming everyone and everything else, you are the problem in your business. So, more than anything, you need to work with a mindset coach, you need to see a psychologist, you need to do some kind of reflection and move through whatever is keeping you stuck in that negative cycle. I never forget when I was at a business retreat, we had been put on different tables. So they had the up to 10k months table, they had the 15 to 30k months table, and then they had, I think it was like 30 to 50k, and then there was like the $1 million table. And everyone who was at the seven-figure table, we all got this asked this question in the group, and they said, Who here goes to therapy? And everyone on the seven-figure table put their hand up. And I think that moment of just seeing how all the high performers look after their mental health, they need the support in the back end, like it's a lot of pressure and weight to carry. And when you talk to these people on a one-on-one setting, you know that they're going through hard things. You know that they're dealing with a lot higher pressure and stress than the average person. And so, in order to look after yourself, you need to do something that's going to keep your mindset in check. Whether that's talking to someone, whether that's having some self-care, going and doing breath work, going and do a sauna ice bath, going and journaling, meditation. If you hate all of that, go for a massage. Just allowing yourself to slow down, kind of reset your nervous system and be with your own thoughts so that you can process things. Now, I know that we've covered a lot of ground in this episode. There are so many issues that are going to pop up in business, and you might find if you listen back to this episode six months from now, there will be another topic or area that I mentioned here that becomes more relevant to you based on what might feel most relevant to you right now. But what I want you to do more than anything is not just walk away from this episode and think, oh, I'm failing. Because you're not, every single business is struggling with something. It's just going to come at different times. It's all ebbs and flows. And so if you can sit down and ask yourself, okay, what was the one thing that resonated with you the most in terms of the challenge that you're facing and then what you need to focus on. If you can identify that one thing and focus on that for the next quarter, imagine where your business is going to be three months from now. Imagine how much better it's going to be instead of holding all the stress up here and actually having clarity, focusing on the problem, creating solution, and then being able to move on to the next thing. You don't need a hundred more strategies. You don't need to listen to all the internet gurus and try to implement a thousand things at once. All you need to do is figure out what is my current problem and where do I need to focus to remove the bottlenecks, to create solutions and improve my business. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune into today's episode. I hope you found a lot of value in it. If you did, leave a comment in the YouTube comment section below and let me know which one you'll be focusing on for the next quarter. If there's another business owner that you know would really value from listening to this episode, please send it to them. The more we can grow the show, the better quality the episodes, the better quality the guests, and the more you'll learn and grow as well. Thank you so much, and I will catch you for next week's episode. Bye.