Choosing a Location Series: Working From Home
The third and final blog in the Location Series: Work from Home. Here are some of the pros and cons of working from your home for you to consider when you're just starting out on your Lashpreneur journey.
Pros:
Cost Savings
You've got to live somewhere, right? Why not leverage your rent/mortgage as a business expense too? There's little to no additional overhead costs to running your lash business out of your house than what it's already costing you to live there. You're able to take a percentage of everything that helps your household run smoothly as a business expense. Say if you use a 10x10 sq ft room to run your lash business from and your total home sq footage is 2000 sq ft. That means 100 sq ft of the total 2000 sq ft (or 5%) is used for business purposes. So 5% of your rent/mortgage, your electric bill, what you pay a housekeeper or gardener, water/trash/internet, any remodeling you do to your house could all become a write off for the business. When I first started out as a lash artist and I was in between jobs, I took friends and friends of friends on as clients. I charged $75 for a full set of Classic Lashes (which is about half the average price of a full set in my city) and charged $35 for touch ups. It was all straight cash to my pocket since there was zero overhead and product costs are minimal in our line of work.
Convenience
You can't beat the commute! I mean other than maybe brushing your teeth and hair and putting on a couple swipes of Lipsense, you could wake up 10-20 minutes before your first client and you're good to go! Comparing working out of your home versus being mobile, the convenience (for you) is a no-brainer!
Cons:
Regulations
First and foremost, at least as far as the USA is concerned (and please leave a comment below about regulations in other countries around the world), it is probably VERY difficult or illegal for you to offer beauty services out of your home. Most government regulating agencies prohibit beauty practitioners from offering these types of services out of their home do to sanitation and regulatory issues. How can a governing body keep up with and track how sanitary your home is if you're unregistered with them? How can they ensure the public is safe if you don't "technically" exist because you can't register your business or your home is not zoned to provide commercial/business services.
For example, California does not really want beauty services being performed out of people's homes. They require a completely separate entrance that does not take someone into private living quarters (including the restroom). It's actually a misdemeanor if you do not meet this requirement which is a criminal offense, say what?!?
Liability/Risk
As far as California (and most of the states in the USA), your homeowner's insurance will not cover any liability claim if you were providing business related services out of your home. You would need separate business insurance for any business related activities to be covered and if you're violating a law by offering these services out of your home illegally or "under the table" then if someone has a boo-boo in your home or damages something in your house, your business insurance will say "sorry not sorry" and you, personally, will likely be on the hook for it. Yikes!
Client Experience (Big One!!!)
The amount of interruptions and distractions at home is the number one reason I personally vowed to not provide services out of my home again. Now maybe you live by yourself, don't have pets, and NEVER order anything from Amazon... but I'm guessing at least one of those three distractions probably rings true to your situation. A client wants to experience "me time" with their beauty services and if you're yelling at "Little Jimmy" to stop throwing a ball against the wall, or your husband drops a glass and it shatters everywhere, or your dog can't stand you being in a separate room and is incessantly whining at the door to be let in, you are not putting your client's experience first and will likely only appeal to a very small clientele who may not mind everyday life happening around them while they take a "lash nap". Dogs, cats, furry babies, little babies, and the opportunity for interruptions to happen, like the UPS guy or your friendly Girl Scout stopping by to offer you cookies make controlling the client experience unpredictably challenging when you work from your home.
Now, if it's your friends, family, acquaintances, that's one thing because they know you personally, and they're probably just happy to have you work on them at a discounted price because your overhead expenses are minimal. But for those out side of your inner circle, no matter your price point, eyelash extensions are a luxury service. It's not like going to the doctor or the dentist or the OBGYN. This is not a necessity in life, therefore, it is deemed a luxury service. It is something that people do to make themselves feel good. If client's are coming into your home, regardless of how gorgeous of a space you have, it's still your home and it still feels like someone else’s home. Personally for me as a client, if I'm going to pay for a service to be done, no matter what I'm paying for this service, I would like to have an experience that makes me feel like I'm taken away. I'm escaping reality just for a little bit and where I feel at peace enough to rest and relax. Your spare bedroom with Grandma's quilt on the wall isn't exactly the height of luxury, albeit very homey.
Safety
Inviting strangers into your home for business purposes just tends to set you up for the unthinkable to happen. If you're planning to make this a viable business and not a hobby, you likely do not personally know the client prior to them showing up at your door. Doing a background check on a prospective client seems a little less than ideal! Now this stranger knows where you live whether you invite them back in again or not. I have has a few clients in my day that I for sure would not want to know where I live.
LASHPRENEUR LIGHTBULB: If you're trying to build a clientele, one that you can take with you and scale your business to something bigger than just a one woman show working from home, you're going to need to market yourself to the general population and sometimes that means the crazy clients come through your doors. The boundary of personal and professional gets very blurred when someone is coming to your personal domain for professional services.
Working from home can definitely be a great option for anyone who is BRAND spanking new looking to practice their techniques on friends and family or if you're in-between locations and in a pinch, but it is not a place to build and grow a thriving lash business. Even if you do attain some level of success with building a clientele at home and are ready to branch out to a more professional location, you will need to assume that you'll lose some clientele who have become accustomed to the home-y experience. If you plan on scaling your business (growing it in a way that can be replicated by adding on staff and other services) then working from home is not your best business model. If you're happy to provide services on a part time basis and have no intentions of ever growing your business beyond just you, then I encourage you to know your limits as far as number of clients you'll take a day/week and know your city's regulations, then Lash On my Lash Sisters!
I'd love to hear any experiences or opinions you have about lashing out of your home, especially those of you outside the USA as my understanding is working from home is a very viable business option for the solo Lash Artist. Educate me, my worldwide Lashpreneurs!
Have a Good One!
Tara Walsh
The Lashpreneur
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