My business week v. 19

If I were to sum up this week in two words, I would say "creativity" and "tear myself in the hair and bang my head on the table" hahaha.

I started the week with CANON mood and lots of energy! But then it has gone up and down with quick turns during the week and if I had written my Sunday post on a weekday, it could have been two completely different posts depending on what time I had written it haha.

But right now I'm happy and inspired again, so it's a post with a lot of text this week :) And not a lot of pictures because I have mostly worked from home.

Self-esteem and new tagging
I have always seen myself as an entrepreneur who will work with speed and fan, great challenges and new adventures all the time. But just this week I ended up in a slump, I have already come out of that feeling but just then I just wanted to be alone, creative and not have responsibility for anything. Live desolate in the mountains of Spain, sew my own clothes, make my own jewelry, grow my own food and make money from me and Miska writing, painting paintings and really successful stock purchases where we get interest on the interest rate effect;) Kind of like that.

I do not really know if it is my self-esteem that is trying, I feel happy and valuable as a person etc :) But there is nothing wrong with self-confidence either, I know that I am good at everything I take on and am not afraid of to work! But can you call it self-esteem at work perhaps? Because it is nothing concrete, but suddenly I suffered from the salon-would-go-better-without-me-thoughts.

We made the salon self-sufficient to have a safe company, but just because it is calmer now, I suddenly become aware of my own value in a different way.

From the time we merged my individual company with Creative Makeup and started a new salon and web shop with employees etc., Miska and I worked from early morning until late evening every day + weekends and still did not take a salary for two full years. I did not even have to tax in the declaration. So pure crass I could stop working for two years and still consider myself worth my salary now haha.

But still I am struck by the thought that; how good the company would feel if Miska and I jumped out completely (note we should not do that and it hurts in the stomach to just write the words, now it was my brain ghosts talking). But in practical terms it is so, now we have done the hard work of building a well-functioning salon and then Annika can take over the company alone again and with two salary costs less and then the whole company becomes very financially secure. For it goes really great for us! It's just that 2/3 of the revenue goes to staff costs and the last third is not really enough for all other costs as well. So this week when we received reports for our business year July-March, we have gone minus. But if I had deducted myself and Miska + the rent reduction we made with the move, we would have had a superb profit!

Meen these negative thoughts were not long lasting, sometimes you have to think about them and get an outlet for your feelings to get the motivation to change. So I sat down and made a list and vips so I had more motivation again!

1. What is my place in the company? Back to basics
I did not start the salon because I wanted to work in a salon, but to be able to work with what I thought was the most fun and still make good money on it. It only took a few years to start up to get it that way. So what was it I wanted to work on? Well beauty writer, webshop and marketing. And now I can do it!

I'm thinking of reducing creative make-up in various combinations and instead spend that time on more "beauty articles" for the webshop, such as "10 tips for —–" etc. Such useful posts that we can post on Facebook as a sponsored article.

Would be fun to use more exercise models as well, e.g. make-up droopy eyes, etc.

It would be a pretty big turnaround for me, not to do "today's makeup" in the same way. But before, it was important to increase the number of followers and I thought a lot about doing make-up that "attracts attention". But I now need posts that market our website, products and treatments, not just "fun to watch". And if I should do both such make-up and well-crafted beauty articles, only that part becomes a full-time job (and other things still have to be done as well) so I feel that I have to choose one or the other now.

What do you think?

2. Other - Prioritize more things that are visible
In addition to my make-up, all my work consists of lots of little things that eventually fill an entire working day. Things that are needed but not seems that one did as well. I need to do more things that are noticeable to feel that I am contributing! For example. website updates and such things. Projects that are not urgent and therefore should be done "some day when I have time left" but I never get time left if I always prioritize all the little things first.

Oh how far I wrote about this now, do not know if it became interesting for you but I had to get it out of me haha.

Here I sit and take notes about my brain ghosts and listen to music. Most important half hour of the whole week I think :)

Planning an autumn schedule
What has taken up most of my time this week is that it is now time to plan the autumn schedule.

In January, when we changed salons, we changed our schedules and opening hours completely. I did my best then, but there have been two significant problems that I could not predict:

1. Since the salon is quite small, the makeup artists have worked two and two and have a change of passport at 2 pm, so all four work every day but not at the same time. Everyone is happy with it, but it also means that if a colleague is ill or free, the other person works alone all his shift.
2. We increased the working hours of two makeup artists so that we have more staff than 2018, but the customers have not increased so we now have the border with customers to cover the staff.

= The sum of these is that no one wants to work alone when a colleague is away, but we can also not afford to bring in extra staff on these occasions (which happens quite often) but must be able to cope with the four makeup artists we have.

And I absolutely do not want to reduce staff, so I made a schedule with a focus on increasing the number of customers and adding the schedule so that they work three people at the same time more (so that when one person is away the other is not alone the whole shift) .

It took time, I promise you, jisses what I have puzzled. Then I also made a super clear document and sample schedule for the staff so that they would see and understand all the improvements. Only it was a big project!

In addition, I added scheduled time without customer bookings of a total of 9 hours / week (2.5 hours per week per person) so that they will have time for other work (cleaning, orders, etc.) even if they are fully booked. There are many customers you lose a month if you had bookings then instead, but that the routines at the salon work well is more important! :)

Here I sit and make an example schedule so that they would see how the days turned out.

However, it was not cheers and applause as I had expected haha, so now I still have to do everything again. But you learn from your mistakes and that's always good :)

Creativity!
It was only during the autumn that I was a stressed person, but for several years I have been so busy that I have not had the time or inspiration to be creative. But now that we have had a calm spring, it has really kicked off - with flying colors! :) What a creative flow I had this week!

I'm almost scared to cut back on creative makeup for the blog (which I wrote about later in the post that I'm thinking about) because if I do not get an outlet for my creativity in the makeup corner several times a week then maybe it explodes in other areas instead haha !

Last weekend I sat in Annika's sewing room for a whole day and made a baby hoodie for Mileya! It was not really that complicated but it took time with small details and so I sewed white lining throughout as well (even out of the sleeves) so it is very well made :)

What do you think? Annika has sewn trousers in the same star pattern that also match!

In addition, I have made four rings of shells that I found in Thailand before! So much fun to make your own jewelry !!

Pimped hands, right :) I ordered ring frames in rose gold for the round stones, and the one on the little finger is a round seashell that I filed a hole in with a nail file. These three are mine and then I made a round for Frida too!

And today I thought I would try to sew some children's trousers as well. So fun!

Stina - New fringe stylist at the salon!
Now I have just written that we can not afford extra staff haha, but this only applies to the autumn schedule because in the summer and on Saturdays we always have lots of customers so then the schedule is filled up anyway! :)

My and Annika's journey started with me having an internship with her and even though there were other interns there all the time, she saw my ambition and how much I wanted to learn! And that is the start of our journey. Now we have a new "intern Helena" at the salon named Stina and goes the makeup line in high school. I had not been there as much at the beginning of the year but it was a heavenly talk about this Stina;)! So now after six months she has got an extra job with us!

For people who are just ahead, we are probably a boring internship because then there is not much to do, wash makeup brushes, polish testers, etc. But then there are some grains of gold that are with us every week for six months who learn to answer the phone etc. and then it is both fun and helpful! In addition, we are very generous with materials if they want to test treatments and make up on friends.

But for the first time, we now have a person who really took advantage of her practice and did so many practice treatments, came in several days (often Saturdays) and practiced, practiced, practiced and helped and really shows both how talented she is and how much she wants and fights. A real grain of gold!

So now you can book a lash lift with her and by the summer she will be bookable for eyebrow picks and color as well :)

So much fun with driven people, oh what I enjoy about it!

When you wake up from job dreams at 03.47
On Thursday, I woke up at 4 in the morning because I dreamed of schedules, times, etc. and could not fall asleep again because my brain was going at full speed. So 04.40 I got tired and got up instead.

First I wrote on my book (fun !!) and then I put on make-up and was done before breakfast.

Still a little nice to have a super long day like that. When I stopped working at 18 in the evening, it felt like midnight :)

Accounting, end of month & Annika job
Annika takes customers on Mondays and Thursdays now, but on Thursday Miska was the baby manager alone because I worked from home. It had gone well! He handles bills and documentation for the books that were to be submitted now that he fixed while he rocked Mileya in his arms haha.

I myself have also done a lot of "month-end work" a week with reports, statistics and salaries to be paid on May 25th.

Sending in the salaries is just super boring, comptimes, holidays, overtime, etc. So you are only happy when it is done. On the other hand, the reports are a bit funny because when you keep track of the finances and compile statistics, it is very fun to enter a new month and see how it moves closer to the financial statements :) In June, our financial year ends (ie the business year, because we started the company on July 1, our business year will always be July-June) and then you can compare with previous years!

And we do all this while Annika creates magic on customers at the salon! She did this brow tattoo on a woman with alopecia who does not have her own brow hairs herself. How nice! :)

Yes no now this week is over and it may be the end of the brain ghosts for a while ska Now I will sew and congratulate my mother-in-law on Finnish Mother's Day and tomorrow I am tagged on a new work week again with new healthy days! A new schedule proposal will be put together and a new work structure for little me I will refine.

Hug you and have a great Sunday! ♥