FingerNailFixer

Nail Cruise Recap: Day Two of Education

by Holly Schippers | March 2, 2018 | Bookmark +

As promised, here is part two of three in the blog series about the nail cruise! Today’s post is going to cover day-two of education. After three days in different beautiful parts of Mexico, everyone was eager to get their hands on some nails and heads back in the game. The day began with me!

I’m ready to go for the first class on day-two of education.

I’m ready to go for the first class on day-two of education.

On this trip my class focused on color theory and skin tone, and how much of a difference they can make in your services — from a simple French to your design work. Once everyone felt like they could put these two important things to use, we touched on #naileyes briefly in order to show off the newly learned skills and color choices.

Elizabeth Morris, creator of The Nail Hub podcast— now sponsored by NAILS Magazine — was the next presenter of the day. Elizabeth asked attendees if their businesses were bleeding cash. She delivered some tough love in the form of practical business advice. At the beginning of her presentation she pointed out that some of the most common problems we all have are:

> The wrong mindset

> The wrong price

> The wrong clients

> The wrong services

> The wrong investments

Just looking at the list when I was taking notes was a little daunting; however, as she explained everything by breaking it down, it was easy to see how and why we all make many of the same mistakes. I would gladly take this class from her again, since each time you heard the information new lightbulbs would go off — there were too many to catch the first time around!

Elizabeth also brought up the idea that your peer group is “other businesses of similar ilk.” What does this mean? It means that in order to be your industry peer, that salon down the road should have a similar level of education as yours, follow the same disinfection procedures, and adhere to the same rules and regulations. A lot of nail professionals get hung up on price and service time. If you are comparing yourself to true industry peers, is this as great a concern as you imagine it to be?

Elizabeth Morris gave attendees solid business advice. Make sure you follow her on The Nail Hub.

Elizabeth Morris gave attendees solid business advice. Make sure you follow her on The Nail Hub.

Ms. Morris suggested creating an outline of your ideal client, then asking yourself if your service offerings match what your ideal client is looking for. Do you present yourself and your salon to attract that ideal client? Are your nail skills consistent and memorable? How about your customer service? She really gave us all a lot to think about. If you have the chance to take a business class from her I highly recommend it. You can also listen to her podcasts for great business advice anytime!

The final speaker of the day was Phoenix VanDyke, who took on extreme nail shapes. While not everyone may choose to offer an extreme nail in the salon, some of the information is important even for an average salon nail, especially the custom form fitting.  You can use several of the fundamentals from the extreme shapes to do good salon nails.

Sticker forms are helpful for customizing a more precise fit to the nails. They can be cut to match odd hyponychium shapes, widened to fit all size and shape of nail bed, or match a damaged edge. Regardless of the type of service, forms should always fit the nails precisely to avoid seepage, which can lead to service breakdown.

Phoenix covered extreme nail shapes and how the fundamentals of the technique can benefit all of us.

Phoenix covered extreme nail shapes and how the fundamentals of the technique can benefit all of us.

Extreme nails can be easier to achieve using the reverse application method. While applying the extension edge first is a handy technique for the average salon nail, using the reverse method for an extreme nail makes it easier to elongate the illusion of the nail bed and get an extremely crisp smile line. Phoenix performed several demonstrations of technique, then set attendees to work on themselves or their practice nails.

After this day full of information and nail fun, there’s only one more day full to go before the cruise comes to an end. Keep an eye out on the blog next week to see what the final day of education included!

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.

a Bobit media brand

Create your free Bobit Connect account to bookmark content.

The secure and easy all-access connection to your content.
Bookmarked content can then be accessed anytime on all of your logged in devices!

Create Account