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Beauty is big business, and if it’s something that you’re passionate about, you might be able to make it your career as well. However, there’s a lot more to building a beauty business than starting a social media account and waiting for the sponsors to roll in. The influencers and other entrepreneurs you see in the industry might make it look easy, but that’s because all the hard work and sweat are happening off-camera. If you are considering turning your love of skin care or side gig creating makeup tutorials into a full-time endeavor, the points below may help you take the next steps.
And before you start any serious planning, make sure you set up your legal issues straight. Because selling beauty products can be quite risky. So it’s very important to limit your liability as a private individual by incorporating an LLC. We recommend starting right away and reading about the most popular LLC formation services here.
Consider an Education
Before you assume that you should put every spare cent into starting your company, take a step back and ask yourself what you really know about running a business. While it’s true that you could do like many others have and learn by trial and error, a degree in business or entrepreneurship could give you a real advantage over your competition. In addition, it could present the opportunity to actually work on building your company as part of your class projects, getting feedback from your professors and fellow students as you go. As for the costs, a great way to pay for college is with scholarships. Unlike loans, you don’t have to pay these back, so you can still set money aside to build up your brand. To find scholarships you’re eligible for, you can visit a free scholarship search and application platform and create a profile to get personalized suggestions along with help in applying.
Choose Your Niche
Beauty is a big sector, so choosing the right niche, and one that is narrow enough, is critical to your success. Don’t make the mistake of trying to do or focus on too many things, at least to start with. Choose one thing that you do well and that you want to help people with and scope out the competition. With any luck, there won’t be any. And with finding your niche you’ll need to use a business name service to come up with the perfect business name. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that you will come up with an original idea, so the next step is to figure out what the competition is lacking that you can provide. Also look at this from the angle of beauty treatments worth spending money on, where are consumers willing to spend their money and how does your business fit into those parameters.
Create a Business Plan
This is something every business needs. It covers everything from your funding to marketing to your plans for expansion and more. One its most important functions is helping you to see where there may be gaps in your planning. However, it is also important if you are taking out loans or seeking investors.
The Fine Print
You need to make sure that you have everything in place legally and financially. You may want to work with professionals, such as a lawyer and an accountant, to help ensure that this is the case. If you are selling beauty products, there may be FDA or other regulations around what you want to sell, and you need to make sure that you are compliant. While you may hesitant to pay for some of these professional services when you are just getting started, it may save you a great deal of stress and money in the future.
Photo by Guilherme Petri on Unsplash