52
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Welcome to episode 52 of the Artist to Artist podcast. This is the podcast for self-taught and undertrained makeup artists who are ready to stop second guessing themselves and start showing up like pros. My name is Angie. I am a full-time freelance makeup artist. Today we're talking about why chasing that viral content is keeping you from building a real business and why consistency is actually your secret weapon as a makeup artist.
I have to start this episode by saying this as MUAs. We do need to pay attention to viral trends and what is happening in pop culture. It affects what we do, what our clients expect of us, and we need that general awareness of the climate of what's going on in the world. I think being completely out of touch doesn't serve anyone.
I see a lot of newer MUAs becoming obsessed with going viral instead of building a business, and I think going viral puts a lot of energy into something that might happen. It's not even guaranteed to, I think, even be a short term [00:01:00] reward. And I think the bigger problem, if you have nothing to sell. And a post goes viral.
What happens then if a post goes viral and you don't actually have the experience, the technical skills, or the business acumen to handle an increase in client requests, you've actually just set yourself up for failure. I am not sure why going viral has become so, so important to new artists because a viral post doesn't actually turn into money in your bank account unless you have the wherewithal to capitalize on it. We are here to build businesses and relying on a viral post is not a business strategy.
Going viral is not a strategy. I speak to a lot of new artists who are becoming so obsessed with the idea of viral content. They look at the analytics of everything that they're posting, thinking it's their ticket, and how this hurts new artists is simple.
There is no golden ticket guys. There's no single moment that. Going to create this dream business that you have in mind for yourself. It's not [00:02:00] gonna make you rich. This is just not realistic and it doesn't happen. It's extremely dangerous to think that this is how our industry works, because you waste your time on things that make absolutely no impact and don't move the needle in your business.
So what should you focus on instead? I think it's consistency For new MUAs, this means practicing frequently, posting frequently, visual consistency on your feed, messaging, consistency, so all of the above. Our business is very slow moving.
I mentioned this on the last episode, and you have to build very slowly. You have to learn as you do things. That's how we learn this business. We learn by doing. If you think about it, let's say you wanna be a nurse or teacher. You learn a lot of the skills that you need to do the job in school. You graduate and then you graduate into being that thing.
I'm not saying there's no learning on the job with these occupations because there definitely is. With makeup artistry. A lot of us go to schools that don't prepare us properly or we [00:03:00] don't go to school at all, . We learn this job fully by doing, and that's the hardest part because there's so much failure and so many mistakes made because of how a lot of us get into this industry.
The consistency piece is how you approach the job. You build everything slowly over time. I'll give you an example from my own career about. What this steady approach actually looks like in practice. I've talked about one of my clients before, velure lashes. I took a job with them when they first started, right when they were launching in Sephora.
At the time, I was represented by an agency. No one else was interested because the pay wasn't the best.
I showed up. I did really good work. I tried my best. I was dependable. I gave my 100% effort. And I think that reliability is what turned into a 10 plus year relationship that put a lot of my work in Sephora stores internationally.
It's not something I could have ever thought would be possible for me. And I have so many stories like this in clients like this. The [00:04:00] key wasn't the one amazing job. It was showing up for all the unglamorous terrible work that other people didn't want, that I gave my 100% to.
I have mostly done very unglamorous work. I'm very honest about this. My whole career has been very average. I've done so many things that other people did not want to do, but I approached every single job with the same level of professionalism, and I've built really great clients out of this who have kept me going for a very long time.
And there's something I think that is also important to mention. While we're talking about career progression, I've also made a career out of being a second and third choice for people, and that's a reality as well. I have clients who, their first makeup artists may not have been available, so I became the backup or the backup to the backup, and that's.
The kind of work that filled in a lot of those slow spots for me and help me build a sustainable business. But here's why this worked. I was dependable. I was reliable. I was professional when people [00:05:00] needed someone that they could count on, my name always came up. And I think this should be really emphasized as a legitimate.
Business strategy, not something to be embarrassed about or ashamed of being reliable, being available, being the person who says yes, that is what builds a career. Steady work is not glamorous. I will be the first person to tell you this, but it pays the bills and it creates opportunities you don't see coming.
Now, how does consistency actually connect to your portfolio and attracting clients? Our clients spend so much time on social media and they put a lot of their faith and trust in what is shown on social media like so many people do. We're in a business where image is everything. It's not like you're gonna get the opportunity to really sit down and have a heart to heart conversation with your clients before they book you.
We don't pitch in person. Your clients are gonna book you based on what they see, whether they're searching for a makeup artist where they live, or they're referred to you, the first thing they're gonna do is look at your social media.
If you're [00:06:00] not telling a story of someone who is continuously working at your trade, it makes you seem less trustworthy. It's not just about these beautiful retouched professional images. There's more to it. Now. Our portfolios are really multidimensional.
I see artists make the mistake of posting very randomly versus actually posting with a strategy. I see the mistake of not sharing enough. I see the mistake of being lazy and posting things people shouldn't be posting. And what do I mean by that? Blurry photos, bad lighting, um, looks that are not finished properly.
Images where there are stray hairs stuck to the face, or the wardrobe looks terrible, or there's stuff in the background that just shouldn't be there. Things that are not in focus. Just lazy things that you should be taking care of.
Not paying attention to details in your own work, in the way an image looks in the creation of these images. These details matter because they reflect your standards, and this goes beyond your portfolio or your social. It also means how you show up in [00:07:00] person
, Because that's another part of this. When you do get the opportunity to be in front of people, showing up as the best version of yourself, giving your 100% effort even when the job is unpaid or absolutely terrible, that's also part of it.
Part of doing this job means doing unpaid work or doing portfolio shoots. I show up to these, I give a hundred percent effort. I may not get a job immediately after I do something like this, but my name will come up and be referred, and eventually I'll attract paying clients.
What has happened to me so many times is I have done some work or a TFP with a creative team, and then a few months later, sometimes years later, I will see some of these images in mood boards from my bridal clients or mood boards from other types of clients that I have. So I think you don't really know sometimes where things are gonna land.
But what I can tell you is that when you give your 100% effort and you show up with a positive attitude ready to work, that helps your reputation, which increases your referral [00:08:00] rate, which turns into paid. This approach should be embedded in all elements of your business. How you practice, how you post, how you present yourself, how you show up.
All of it matters and all of it builds on itself over time. These viral moments, they come and go, but steady work is what is gonna build your career. I think if you're someone that's listening right now and you are ready to stop chasing things that are not moving the needle in your business, like viral posts, if you're too caught up on the likes on posts that you're sharing.
And you actually wanna start building systems that book clients this month. In the Artist to Artist membership, we're covering exactly that, how to build a portfolio and brand that reliably attracts the right opportunities. We're diving into the strategy, behind posting the multidimensional approach your portfolio needs, and how to show up professionally in every aspect of your business.
There is a seven day free trial so you can see if it's a good fit for you, and this month's content will help you build the foundation that actually pays the bills. I will include the link to this [00:09:00] in the show notes. I will see you next time. And remember, slow and steady wins the race. Thank you so much for listening.
Bye.
