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is episode 59 of the Artist to Artist podcast. This is the podcast for self-taught and under-trained makeup artists who are ready to stop second-guessing themselves and start showing up like pros. My name is Angie and if you're tired of feeling like you're faking it until you make it, you are in the right place. Okay, everybody, it's December. Everyone's starting to set their 2026 goals, new year, new me, all of that stuff.
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Here's what's going to happen. You're going to sit down, you're going to get excited, you're going to write out your goals for 2026, book X number of clients, charge X dollars in rates, build your portfolio.
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by February, you'll have done nothing,
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because you're lazy, but because you skipped a step that actually matters. And I know this because I did it forever.
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I made the same mistake over and over every single year, setting goals without ever assessing where I actually was at in my career or looking critically at myself and my work to figure out why I wasn't moving ahead. I just kept doing the same things, expecting different results and wondering why nothing was changing in my business.
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of us jump straight to planning, what we all want without looking at why we don't have it yet.
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And that's why nothing changes year after year.
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month inside the membership, we're doing something a little different. We're going to be doing a full career audit, looking at what's working, what's been holding you back,
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you can't plan where you're going if you don't know where you actually are or where you're starting from.
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And if you've never worked with a mentor before or done any kind of coaching online, here's what that actually means. It means you get access to someone, hopefully me, maybe it's someone else, who's further ahead than you, who's already made the mistakes, who can help you think through your business decisions, challenge what you assume about the industry and yourself, and course correct when you're going in the wrong direction.
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That is what is going to help make you more confident, gives you a clearer understanding of how to move in this industry, and ultimately is going to help you earn more money and make things happen in your career much faster than trying to figure it out all alone. That's the value of mentorship and coaching.
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Someone who's done this before can help you make progress in your career faster.
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I'm going to walk you through the four categories you need to assess if you want to go through with this process of doing an audit of yourself and where you're at in your business. I'm not giving you the framework,
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I do want you to understand that knowing the framework and actually doing the work to get from A to B are two different things.
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If you want to just listen to this episode and move on, that is totally fine, but if you actually want to change something in 2026 for yourself, you're going to need some structure, you're going to need some accountability, you're going to need some support, and that's what the artist-to-artist membership is for. So let's get into the first category, and that is infrastructure.
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And this is basically just the systems you have in place that make your business actually run.
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And the question is,
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Can someone who wants to pay you figure out how to do so, or do they have to ask you a bunch of questions?
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Are you quoting your rates confidently and directly, or are you just throwing numbers out there saying you're flexible with your rates because you're scared to commit to a number?
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you have a booking process, or are people DMing you, what do you charge for makeup, and you're kind of scrambling to figure out what to say?
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Do you have a system to track your availability? Or are you saying, "Yeah, I'm totally free," and then you double book because you're tracking everything in your head, or you've written it down somewhere, it's just in your notes.
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The infrastructure of your business, it is the boring stuff, but it also is the stuff that makes a difference between looking like a professional and looking like someone who's still just figuring it out, or looking like someone who just does this as a hobby.
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lot of people don't realize is that the quoting process with all of your clients, sometimes it isn't just about your rates. Artists are feeling out whether they can trust you or not, how you communicate, what information you ask for, how you structure your emails. All of that tells them if you're experienced or if you're just winging it.
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Inside the membership, we work on things like how to structure your client communication so you sound professional.
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We talk about how to make sure you're getting all the information you need to quote correctly and book clients correctly because many artists know they need these systems, but they have no idea what professional communication actually looks like. But for now, just notice, where is your booking system or the back end of your business, where is it chaotic? Where are you winging it?
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If there is someone that wants to pay you, is there any part in your booking process where they may hit a wall or where things might be unclear, which would make them second guess actually hiring you for something?
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So write that down.
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the second category is confidence. And it's not the kind of confidence where you fake it till you make it. The intro of this podcast says if you're tired of faking it till you make it, you're in the right place because faking it till you make it can only get you so far. It's the kind of confidence where you actually believe
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worth what you're charging.
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So the question is, do you apologize for your rates when you quote for a job?
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you say my rate is $300 or do you say my rate is $300 but I'm flexible if that doesn't work for you?
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Do you pursue opportunities or do you wait for people to come to you? Can you clearly say what you do as an artist who you serve as an artist or do you kind of stumble through this part of the interaction with your clients and sound like you're unsure?
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Are you undercharging because you're actually underpriced for your market or because you're scared to ask for more? Or on the other end of things, are you overcharging because you don't know anything about your market? You don't have a network of artists to talk to. You don't have a mentor to check in with. You haven't researched what artists at your skill level are actually earning. So you're pricing based on what you think you should make instead of what the market will actually pay. Okay.
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This is one of those things that's kind of difficult because confidence isn't just how you feel. It shows up in how you talk about yourself, how you price your services, how you show up for opportunities. And what I see a lot of is that there are so many artists with amazing skills who are charging half of what they should because they don't believe anyone will actually pay them.
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And this took me personally a very, very long time to overcome. And on the other side of things, there's artists pricing themselves out of work because they have no idea what's realistic.
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Inside the membership this month, we are going to be doing a deep dive on passive versus active behavior
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Because confidence isn't just a mindset thing. It's about how you move in the industry,
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how you speak to people, how you speak about yourself.
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you pursuing what you want or are you waiting for permission? Whether it's
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somebody in the industry, other artists in the industry, are you waiting for validation from social media?
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These are all things I want you to think about. But right now, just assess where are you hesitating? Where are you playing small because you're scared of what happens if you don't and notice that pattern in your business?
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The third category is visibility and this is about who actually knows you exist. Question for this category, who knows you exist outside of Instagram?
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And I mean who with money actually knows about you, not other makeup artists, not your friends, not your followers who just like your posts but have never booked you for anything. I'm talking about clients, photographers who have access to client money or who are paying for makeup artists themselves, agencies, brands, the people who have budgets and hire makeup artists.
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the last time you did real outreach? Instead of just posting and hoping someone finds you.
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I need to be clear for us that visibility does not only mean having a big Instagram following. That's not the only definition of being visible as a makeup artist. I know artists who have
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50,000 followers who aren't booking regular work. And I know artists who have 2000 followers who are fully booked.
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But if the only people seeing it are other makeup artists who are scrolling Instagram or people just, you know, doom scrolling at night.
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You're building a portfolio for people who cannot hire you. They don't have money to hire you. They're never going to be in a position to hire you.
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So I think strategic visibility, which we have covered in multiple lessons in the membership, how to actually get in front of people who have money, what it means to market yourself, how to do outreach that doesn't feel kind of weird when you're networking.
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Not just the post and pray method, actual outreach and actual relationship building. These are things that you have to think about. So notice right now or when you're going through this audit where you might be invisible to the people who actually matter and write that down. Maybe you're not posting enough. Maybe you don't put any stock in your social media.
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Maybe you're hardly doing any networking or maybe you're networking with the wrong people. These are all things that you need to reflect on.
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The fourth category is momentum. And this is about what you're actively creating versus what you're passively waiting for. This was a big realization for myself.
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And I will ask you a question that I often ask myself, not just once a year at the end of the year. Did you create opportunities this year or did you wait for them?
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What did you avoid that you knew you should have done? This is really important to think about. And were you passive when you needed to be active?
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So what I mean by that is,
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reach out to people or did you hope that they would reach out to you after you posted something?
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Did you actively pitch yourself at any time this year? Did you raise your rates or did you keep charging the same thing because that was the safest move for you?
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the category that I think separates the MUA's who grow from the MUA's who stay really stuck. And I was stuck for a long time in my own career because I did not create momentum for myself. And momentum isn't about being busy. It's about being intentional. Many artists are passive. They post consistently. They practice their skills. They wait for things to happen and then they're frustrated when nothing changes.
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but the artists who are actually building careers and who are building careers in a direction that is visible to others, in a direction where they intentionally want to go in, they are making themselves uncomfortable. They're reaching out to people who have not responded or who have ghosted them. They're pitching themselves for jobs. They're not sure if they're going to get them or not, but they're pitching anyway. They're raising their rates, even though it can be scary.
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thing that is difficult about momentum is that it requires action and it requires continuous action, which can sometimes be hard because we go through so many ups and downs working in this industry.
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Action requires also that we get uncomfortable and we do things that are risky, which is difficult, especially if you're risk-averse like I am. So you have to assess what patterns do you keep repeating in your business? Where have you been waiting for? So you have to assess what patterns do you keep repeating in your business? Where have you been waiting instead of creating change for yourself?
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now you have the framework, you have the four categories, infrastructure, confidence, visibility, and momentum. You can take this, listen to this episode a couple times through, grab a notebook, you can take this, listen to it a couple of times if you need to, and you can go and do this audit all on your own.
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And I think something that I learned about myself when I started taking this more seriously is that knowing what's wrong is not the same as fixing it. And I think so many people get stuck here and I was stuck here for a very long time.
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And we know we should be reaching out to people, but knowing and doing are two completely different things. And this is why I built the membership. Because you don't really need more tutorials and more information shoved down your throat. You need someone to actually help walk you through this whole process. You need structure, you need accountability. You need someone that's been doing this for a long time to tell you what's actually holding you back versus what you think is holding you back. Inside
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There are a couple lessons that I just wanted to talk about so you understand what we're doing in the membership for December. If you're curious about joining or you want to join because it's the end of the year and you really want to get focused for 2026, we're going to be doing a lesson on passive versus active behaviour. So what it actually costs you, I guess is the best way to explain it, when you wait for things to happen,
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of creating opportunities for yourself and how to shift into a more active mode in your business without burning out.
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The second lesson is going to be... This is more of a mindset lesson and it's something that I really want to focus on because this was for me one of my biggest obstacles.
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it's really on the identity shift that is required to actually be in control of what is happening in your career as a makeup artist and not just putting stuff out there and hoping things work out. Not waiting for opportunities to come to you, taking charge of the career that you want instead of being passive about what you get and just convincing yourself you're happy with whatever comes.
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We're also going to be doing some Q&A sessions in December where I can help you figure out what's working for your business,
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be missing, what you're avoiding.
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so
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some time, do this audit, listen to this podcast again if you need to,
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assess the four areas that we talked about infrastructure, confidence, visibility, momentum,
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you really cannot plan your 2026 and where you're going in your career if you don't know where you actually are.
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what I have seen based on my experience with members that I've been working with so far,
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the artists who grow the fastest are the ones who are not trying to figure it out on their own and isolating themselves from other people in the industry.
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Do you need another tutorial? Maybe you do, but I know that what I would have needed for myself is mentorship. You need someone who's already made the mistakes, who knows what works, what's a waste of time,
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who can look at your specific situation and tell you exactly what to focus on. And that's what the membership is. It's 20 Canadian dollars a month, you get a seven-day free trial,
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Even if you don't join the membership, please do this audit and take some time to sit and reflect on some of the things that you're maybe repeating that are holding you back, because this is what is gonna help you get a head start on 2026.
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next episode, which will be in two weeks, I will be
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up the year with my year-end reflection on running my business, what worked, what didn't, and what I'll be changing in 2026.
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until then, thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope this is helpful for you and I will see you on the next
