Just to continue on the theme a little here, aside from Facebook updating, what about all the other free marketing venues that are available?

Every day I encounter another nail tech (or two or three or a dozen) asking for marketing help and advice. Sometimes techs want genuine advice and ideas; sometimes they really just want to vent about being slow at work; sometimes they want to whine and gripe about their situations.

And I totally understand why the average solo tech isn't spending hundreds of dollars every month on advertising. For most of us, a small ad in the yellow pages is a splurge. When you start looking into the cost of newspaper, radio, and television advertising, it can be downright discouraging. Not to mention how many ads don't pay for themselves. That really hurts.

But I don't understand why so many of us aren't taking advantage of all the free advertising opportunities that the Internet offers? Have you ever sat down and done Internet searches for a nail tech in your area? Really put yourself in your potential clients' place and started doing searches like you were trying to find a good nail tech?

This is totally different from Googling yourself — this is like trying to find you without knowing you exist. How easy is it for potential clients to find you if they don't know they're looking for you?

Every time I try this, my search results bring up a ton of new websites that I've never heard of before. The best ones will let you claim your business or add your business to their directories and most of them are free.

New customers are out there looking for nail techs and they are doing it more and more via Internet search engines. You need to be aware of what sites pop up in these searches and do everything in your power to make sure that you are listed on those sites and that your listing makes people choose you.

Seriously, if things are slow, you might as well be using that down time to promote yourself. It'll have a much better result than posting about how slow you are on networking forums.