“Why we in the nail industry stay broke & must work into our decrepitude while watching our…
By: Jill Wright
Tags: Clients, Nail Art, Nails, Discount, Nail Technician

“Why we in the nail industry stay broke & must work into our decrepitude while watching our clients prosper” Jill Wright Feb 12·16 min read

(by Jill Wright, longtime nail tech & Event Coordinator for the Nail Tech Event of the Smokies, a yearly nails-only trade show in Gatlinburg, TN)

Remember how it felt the last time your child or grandchild asked for something special & you had to tell them “no” because you didn’t have the money to buy it? It sucked so bad to see their little face crumble & cry with disappointment, didn’t it?

Here’s the truth you must realize if you’re a nail tech who gives discounts & freebies, plus spends excessive money on all sorts of nail supplies……you could’ve HAD that money to make their wish come true, but you didn’t. Why?

Because YOU gave it away to others via discounts & freebies, plus by overspending on non-essential nail supplies.

That’s the truth in a nutshell & I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Now I’ll be really brutally honest…. most of us are lazy about managing our money & we have little to no real business sense. We typically go from high school to beauty school & then into the salon to work for 30 or 40 years. We spend money on all sorts of fun nail art classes, but be honest…most nail techs really aren’t interested in taking business classes or reading business books, right?

2020 has been devastating for our beauty industry.

It’s imperative for survivors to look ahead to our future years & plan for the inevitable day when our bodies (aka our most valuable tools) start breaking down, many times long before we reach social security retirement age.

Our jobs as nail techs create excessive wear & tear on our necks, backs, shoulders, arms, hands & fingers, not to mention hips & eyes. Rare is the person who retires with a fully functioning body & has never suffered from painful arthritis, vision problems nor a job related surgery.

FACT: we are not Walmart where we can afford to roll back prices nor are we a charitable organization funded by gifted donations.

We are a small business offering nail services. Therefore we cannot afford to give discounts & freebies, which has unfortunately been the norm for as long as I can remember (cosmetology licensed since 1987). This harmful behavioral pattern was already cutting our own throats (financially speaking) long before the additional PPE burden was thrust upon us by the Coronavirus. Every day we jeopardize our own retirement years when we discount our prices or give “family & friends” freebies to the benefit of others, but to the detriment of ourselves.

Why do we do it?

Most often we discount prices to attract potential new clients instead of rewarding our existing faithful clients for their referrals (which is the only way I’d advocate giving any kind of price break when trying to build your clientele).

We routinely give discounts to college students & senior citizens because we assume they do not have the money to spend on our salon services instead of we nail techs targeting other types of potential clients who have good paying, solid jobs.

Most business executives working for corporations have the money to spend, but lack the time in their busy schedules, so the majority of them value our services by booking standing appointments & paying full price because we speedily provide what would take them hours to do themselves at home (if they were inclined to become a DIY’er, which they aren’t because they’re too busy earning good money in their place of employment which leaves them no time for that sort of messy BS).

So let’s do the math regarding discounts to see how it affects us.

The math for discounting $2 off a weekly manicure is $2 multiplied by 50 weeks (52 weeks in a year minus 2 weeks off for your vacation/sick days throughout the year) = $100 “lost income” a year on just 1 client. That’s not so bad you’re thinking….until we multiply that by 10 of your discounted clients. $100 x 10 clients = $1000 a year in forfeited income. If you give 20 clients a price break then it means you’ve given away $2000 a year.

And that’s just for manicures.

Discounting $5 off a monthly pedicure costs us even more. $5 x 12 months in a year = $60 a year in lost income just for 1 discounted client. Multiply $60 by 10 of your discounted clients = $600 a year in lost income & if you give 20 clients that same discount it = $1200 per year in forfeited income for your family.

If you only do 2 discounted pedi’s a day that = $10 lost revenue each day. Multiply that by 5 work days in a week means you’re losing $50 a week in discounted pedi’s. $50 a week x 50 weeks in a year (2 weeks off for vacation & sick days) = $2500 in 1 year of income that you voluntarily gave up.

Now combine that mani AND pedi discount for clients who get double services & it becomes $160 of forfeited income per year just for 1 client ($100 for 1 mani discount client+ $60 for 1 pedi discount client = $160 per year in lost revenue just for 1 discounted mani/pedi client).

Why do we give discounts to clients who book a double service (mani/pedi)?

Do hairstylists give price breaks for clients wanting a shampoo & style or a cut & color? No ma’am, they do not. So why do we nail techs feel obligated to lose income on similar double services?

It really gets sickening when you realize you’ve not only lost $160 a year on just 1 double service (mani/pedi) discount client, but multiply $160 by 10 double service discount clients & you’ve just given away $1,600 per year of your income.

Then if you’ve given 20 mani/pedi clients that same discount it equates to $3,200 a year in income you voluntarily gave away (20 clients x $160 = $3,200). Let’s use me for an example. I’ve been doing nails 34 yrs, but lets round down that number to just 30. If we multiply $160 a year on just 1 double service discounted client x 30 years it = $4,800 in FORFEITED INCOME over the lifetime of my nail career on just 1 discounted client.

Shocking, isn’t it?

And if you work for 40 years it = $6,400 LOST INCOME over the lifetime of your career on just ONE (1) discounted mani/pedi client. Some of you may be thinking “holy shit, I could’ve paid cash for a used car with that money”! Yep, that’s what I did for our last 3 vehicles so we’ve not had any car loans in almost 2 decades.

But wait, there’s MORE!

We haven’t even touched on all the free nail repairs & free nail art techs give away on a daily basis because they’re thinking “hey, it’s only a few minutes out of my time & I can quickly whip that up with a little bit of product”, right?

Now multiply that $5 nail repair or nail art you gave away for free by 10 clients per week = $50 a week in lost income. Then multiply that $50 x 50 working weeks in a year (minus 2 weeks for vacation & sick days) = $2,500 in lost income per year just by giving away 10 nail repairs and/or nail art each week.

That’s not even counting what those nail supplies originally cost you to purchase nor the minutes out of your work day that add up where you weren't getting paid.

5 minutes here, plus 5 minutes there & before you know it you’ve worked an additional 30 minutes a day longer with no pay. You could’ve been home with your family or out having fun with friends for those extra 30 minutes every day, right?

Meanwhile, you could’ve also used that lost income to:

▪ fund a comfortable retirement by maxing out your yearly IRA, Roth IRA, 401-k & other mutual fund investment contributions.

▪ paid for your kids & grandkids tuitions in cash.

▪ took them all on fabulous vacations each year to create lasting memories.

▪ purchased necessary insurances to protect your family, such as health, long-term care, disability, life, critical illness, business liability insurance, etc.

▪ donated it to your church so it could flourish by spreading the word of God.

▪ created a beauty school or college scholarship in your family name that would last generations & positively impact so many lives.

▪ bought a vacation home or income producing rental property for when your body can no longer physically do nails so it could replace your wages, plus increase in value to leave an inheritance to your children & grandchildren.

But NO…you decided it was more important to GIVE it all away to others via discounts & freebies, plus by squandering money on excessive nail supplies (which we’ll cover further down in this article).

FACT: TIME = MONEY.

We can always earn more money, but we cannot manufacture more time. Once time is gone, that’s all she wrote & we cannot ever get it back. Compound interest works better when you start saving & investing at a younger age, but any day is a good day for us to make positive changes in our lives, right?

Discounts & freebies mean WE are the ones losing income + time.

The time that we could be servicing a full-price paying client is being squandered earning less money on a discounted client.

Your Mom & Dad may deserve to get free services (it’s 100% your discretion based on your own personal family relationship history), but just remember this…..what you start allowing when fresh out of beauty school is what will continue for years to come. It’s much easier not to start bad habits than to try to quit them years later (which often damages family relationships forever when you suddenly try to set healthy boundaries where before there were none).

So after reading this if you continue to provide discounts or freebies, then YOU must accept the fact that you are CHOOSING to take money away from your own family’s future.

Whether you wish to face it or not, eventually everyone “owns” the decisions they make in life.

It’s called “unintended consequences” or “opportunity costs” & we each have a personal responsibility for our life’s choices (I know that’s not a trendy viewpoint, but it’s an undeniable fact of how real life really works).

Newton’s Third Law is: “for every action, there is an equal & opposite reaction”.

Another example of “cause & effect” is “what goes up, must come down”. Up = the opposite of down. Giving away discounts & freebies = less money for your own family.

Spending excess money on nail supplies that you don’t really need = less money to invest for your family’s future or use to pay off your debt (or buy a car with cash). Yep, no one can escape unintended consequences.

See how all of this works now?

We can still love people & care for them while we have them as our clients, but we do NOT owe it to anyone to provide discounts or freebies which hurt us & our families in the long run. The ironic reality is that every one of these very same clients WILL leave you one day.

Many of you insist they won’t & you truly believe in your heart that they won’t…. but I can 100% guarantee you that they will because I’m older & more experienced (aka jaded).

Either they’ll die, move away, give up their nails for whatever reason, go into a nursing home due to ill health, run out of money, develop an allergy to nail products or just start going to another nail tech for their own personal reasons (which most keep to themselves). Hey, they don’t owe you or me an explanation because ultimately they are the consumers & we are the service providers.

That’s just life & the sooner we nail techs realize it, the fewer struggling nail techs & destitute retireees there will be.

FACT: not all college students are broke. So why should we feel obligated to give them discounts?

Many have parents who are supporting them & their Starbuck’s habits or the students work jobs to afford their own discretionary shopping habits (#1 waste is dining out).

FACT: not all senior citizens are poor. Again, why should we feel obligated to give them discounts when they’ve had their whole lives to prepare for their retirement, just as we should be preparing for ours?

Many seniors indeed are poor though because they fell into bad habits of squandering money throughout their lifetime of purchasing stupid things that didn’t bring them monetary value in return. I’ll be the 1st to admit it….I’ve bought plenty of stupid shit before & lived to regret it, too, so I’m no exception. But I learn from my mistakes, whereas many people do not.

The older me wants to bitch-slap the younger me for the foolish & reckless spending of my hard earned money because we’d be so much further ahead now in saving/investing for financial security in our old age if only I had used common sense back in the day.

Those badass, knee-high, white furry winter boots I saw on a 1980’s Charlies Angel’s episode which cost me an entire paycheck & left 18 year old me with $2.38 in my bank account that had to last me 2 weeks ranks 1st on the list of financial lessons I learned the hard way (never made that mistake again as I nearly became homeless in the middle of a Colorado winter!).

Ask yourselves this question:

Do you want to be old, broke & still working hunched over the nail table with your arthritic spine on fire while watching your clients retire carefree to spend the money you saved them on some other nail tech while they’re in Florida for the winter months (which means you’re also missing out on those lost months of income while they’re away enjoying sunny weather being snow birds)?

I sure don’t, so I changed my bad spending habits 1 day at a time. And if I can do it, so can you. I’m nobody special nor do I think that I’m better than the next nail tech. I just have a way of recognizing my mistakes & taking action to change the outcome of things to something more desirable.

Which brings us to techs buying excessive amounts of nail products.

Girlfriend (or boyfriend)….y’all better get ahold of yourselves while you still can before it’s too late! EXAMPLE: buying 200+ gel polish colors just to give clients a wider selection of nail color choices…duh, how wise is that?

What I’m saying will benefit you in the long run AND it’ll benefit the nail companies you patronize for products, too. I am not discouraging anyone from purchasing nail supplies that are legitimately necessary to performing their daily business functions. I am emphasizing putting your money where it will work FOR YOU instead of against you because I really want everyone to succeed in life.

Oh, by all means let’s attempt to justify the 200+ gel polish colors for 1 nail tech!

Let’s just say we spent $10 on each gel polish (on average, but many professional products cost more) & then multiply it by 200 bottles/pots = $2000 sitting on nail techs shelves. It’s ridiculously “normal” to see techs with 300, 400 and even 500 to 1,000 or more gel polish choices for their clients.

Not me, man. I think I have around maybe 65–75 color choices. As I use 1 completely up, then I’ll replace it with a different new one. If my clients can’t find something they like out of all of my options, then they are welcome to spend their own money buying other random gel polish colors for me to use on them instead.

Know how many of my clients actually choose to do that? Exactly 2.

So let’s do the math: 500 gel bottles x $10 each = $5000 decorating the walls of their salon. If each bottle actually averaged closer to $15 then that means they have $7,500 sitting on their shelves with looming expiration dates just for the sole purpose of offering a wider color selection to their clients.

WTH kind of business logic is that?

“The only reason I patronize my nail tech is for the wider gel polish color selection” …said NO nail client EVER!

We need to stop fooling ourselves about why clients choose to spend their money with us & instead get serious about handling our nail business like a real business instead of like an expensive hobby. Successful businesses keep expenses LOW & profits HIGH (not the reverse).

That means we must stop buying nail products on a whim because we lack the maturity to have developed self control & a logical thought process.

How many techs families could’ve really used that $7,500 they spent on gel polishes as an emergency fund in their bank when the Covid lockdowns suddenly came last year?

I could rest my case on that one alone, but let’s venture further.

If we invested that original $7,500 (the cost of shitloads of gel polish sitting on nail techs shelves) & then multiplied it by an 8% average interest rate over 30 years (length of your 30 year nail career) factoring in monthly (12/yr) compound interest and adding not one more thin dime to that $7500 until we retire, the final balance = $82,017.99. The total compound interest = $74,517.99.

The same mathematical formula for working a 40 year career breaks down to this: the final balance in your retirement investment = $182,050.45. The total compound interest = $174,550.45.

But if you do none of this, the estimated average Social Security retirement benefit in 2021 is $1,543 a month. Multiply that by 12 months in a year means there are techs retiring this year who have not saved nor invested a penny, so they’ll be existing on $18,516 a year (poverty level for 1 adult is $12,880).

The average rent in 2021 for a 2 bedroom apartment here in our mid-sized town is about $900. Subtract that from $1,543 (the average social security benefit per month) which leaves just $643 per month for food, clothing, transportation, cable tv, Wifi, cell phone/home phone & medical expenses not covered by Medicaid or Medicare. Notice how there’s no money left over for entertainment like movies, dining out or vacations?

These equations are examples of “opportunity costs” which I mentioned earlier. The simple definition of opportunity costs: what you could have spent your money on (retirement investments) VERSUS what you actually spent your money on (excessive amounts of nail products which fall into the “want” category as described coming up below).

Nobody wins when they go broke, right?

It took effort & practice, but over the years I learned how to become a smarter shopper & I promise that you can do it, too. The #1 most valuable lesson that I taught myself was the difference between a “need” versus a “want”. Before buying any more nail supplies, techs must ask themselves 3 questions. If the answer is not “yes” to at least 1 of these questions….then that product is a “want”, not a “need”.

To discern a “want” from a “need”, the 3 questions you must ask yourself before making a purchase are:

will this product save me money or can I charge more for it? will this product save me time by speeding up my services? will this product make my job easier or less stressful on my body?

If the answer is “no” to each of those questions, then that product falls under the category of a “WANT”. If the answer is “yes”, then that product is a “NEED”.

Making wise, adult decisions means not spending money on “wants” until all your “needs” have been met. Then if you have extra discretionary money left over that you’d rather spend instead of investing for your family’s future, that is totally your choice. Just remember that each of us will inevitably reap the fallout or the rewards of our own financial decisions.

If you are a solo nail tech, having 15 different shades of blue glitter gel all only 1 shade different than the next is simply wasting money. Yes, I said it because it’s true. Techs can custom blend 2–3 blue glitter colors which they already own by mixing them into empty gel pots to create additional NEW blue glitter shades without spending any more money.

Admit it: you cannot charge clients more money for their nail service simply based on them choosing 1 of those 15 shades of blue glitter gel, now can you?

So that means those 15 shades of blue glitter gel do not save you money nor earn you more money; they do not save you time & they do not make your job easier nor less stressful on your body….which means they do NOT fall under the “needs” category. They are definitely a “want”.

Now here’s how it benefits the nail companies:

it saves them money on customer acquisition costs (CAC) if techs manage their money correctly to stay in business for the duration of their career. Simply put, there’s a dollar amount spent to gain each new nail tech customer by proxy of how much money companies put into marketing & advertising, not to mention the manufacturer’s initial R&D (research & design money spent to create each product).

It’ll be a different monetary number for each company & there’s a mathematical formula they all use to pin down that number, but it boils down to every company must spend money to gain each new customer.

We’ve all heard the old adage “you’ve gotta spend money to make money”, right?

When techs go out of business because they overspent on products (plus gave discounts & freebies), then the nail company has lost that nail tech as an ongoing customer. This does not benefit the nail company because they must now spend more money to try to gain a replacement client to purchase products from them.

It’s much more cost-effective to keep an existing nail tech customer than it is to find a new customer to replace them. So it’s in the nail companies best interest if you spend your money wisely with them.

It’s the same thing for us nail techs. It’s easier & less costly to keep an existing client as opposed to spending more advertising money plus time to find a new replacement client, right?

Techs/salons that go out of business are why we see professional nail products being sold on eBay, Craig’s List, Facebook Marketplace, plus in sundry flea markets, resale stores & yard sales. Smart nail company owners are in it for the long haul, not the quick buck.

They know that it’s better for techs to purchase hundreds of dollars in what they need each year & have that spread out over the course of their 30+ year nail careers as opposed to companies making 1 big-ass thousand dollar sale online or at their trade show booth which results in that tech financially bankrupting their family & leaving the nail industry because they mismanaged their money.

In closing, I recommend you discuss everything printed here with your spouse so you can understand the many ways that all of this impacts him/her and your kids future (plus anyone else who may depend on you for support, such as elderly parents or other relatives). Then tell me exactly HOW are discounts, freebies & buying excessive amounts of nail products really benefitting any of us in the nail industry?