The HONA Podcast - Episode 2 - The Work Life Balance One
In this episode of The HONA Podcast, hosts Mike and Charlotte dive deep into the crucial topic of work-life balance, specifically tailored for nail technicians. The duo candidly discusses their own struggles and hypocrisies in maintaining balance, provides practical tips on setting boundaries, implementing booking systems, scheduling content, and even using subscriptions to streamline inventory.
Additionally, they share some of the craziest nail art requests they've encountered, adding a light-hearted twist. Whether you're a seasoned nail tech or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights to help reclaim your time without sacrificing your passion.
Don't forget to like, subscribe, and join the community!
Charl: [00:00:00] Episode two.
Mike: Hello, hello, hello. All right, all right, all right.
Charl: So welcome back to everyone.
Mike: The HONA podcast with Mike and
Charl: HONA.
Mike: So today's episode is the work life balance one.
Charl: Yeah, I feel like this is going to be a really good one for us to Talk about, because
Mike: Because we're hugging hypocrites.
Charl: Absolutely. Can I just say, you've turned up very, very casual today. I'm not cash.
Mike: I've got gym afterwards.
Charl: I was going to say, you either look like you've just come from gym, or just straight away going after.
Mike: I have new sliders guys. Crocs and
Charl: all. Part of the croc gang now. We've just come
Mike: back from Florida, and Charlotte treated me to some clocks because my feet kept on [00:01:00] burning. Clocks? Fuck. Clogs? Crocs? Clogs. So, yep, uh, for those coming back for an episode two, welcome. For those just finding us, enjoy.
Mike: Hopefully. Or potentially, we could already have had 200 episodes and somebody's going back to the very beginning.
Oh my god. So if that's
Mike: you, comment below. Imagine
that.
Mike: I will look out for that very first comment saying, guys, I've just, I've just heard your 200th episode and I've come back to listen to the beginning.
Charl: I did that through lockdown. I think when everyone was listening to podcasts and like you, you find one and then you go, do you know what? I'm going to have to listen from
Mike: the
Charl: beginning. So hopefully that's it. So this is
Mike: the Horner podcast with Mike and Shao. Um, again, welcome to everyone. Uh, make sure you like subscribe.
Mike: If you like what you hear, join in our community outreach and stuff like that.
Charl: Absolutely. So today, like you say, we're going to talk a little bit about work life balance and kind of like what that means to us, what it [00:02:00] should mean to everyone, maybe give some
Mike: tips. What you've got to remember is that the chances are you became a nail tech to have more freedom to be your own boss.
Mike: And they may not necessarily have happened and you may find yourself working every hour under the sun to make your business a success. So we're going to give you some little tips, tricks, help from our experience that will help you. But before then, I
Charl: was gonna say, it's
Mike: Mike's favourite
Charl: part. We're
Mike: gonna do,
it
Charl: is our community
Mike: shout out.
Mike: So the community shout out is for a little acknowledgement to anybody who's been in the industry who's done something notable. It could be a beautiful nail art design, it can be something inspiring, something, an achievement, a milestone, or it could be something As literally somebody just needs a pick me up.
Charl: Mm. And, you know, last week You had last week, can I add one? I was gonna say, I had last week, you can have this one.
Mike: So I [00:03:00] came in here thinking who should I turn? There's always loads of candidates, but
Charl: yeah,
Mike: I think the lovely Abigail Has just opened up her salon.
Charl: Aura.
Mike: Aura.
Charl: Aura by Abigail Kate.
Mike: Is that her Instagram?
Mike: Yeah. I'm so glad. So that's her
Charl: salon name, that's her Instagram. So congratulations on
Mike: the new salon opening. Uh, really proud of you, feel like proud parents.
Charl: I was going to say, I actually remember having a conversation with Abigail. at our last event and we were chatting about, you know, she wanted to open this salon and I was like it's gonna be hard work.
Charl: It's a big
Mike: step, it's a big step. But it's a huge achievement. Going from working in your own salon or having your own bedroom to paying rent, utilities, potentially hiring staff, refurbing something. I was gonna
Charl: say she's done it beautiful as well. It's a challenging
Mike: move and it's a daunting move and well done.
Mike: So that's I wanted to give a little acknowledgement and say clapping, jingle. [00:04:00]
Charl: Or jazz hands.
Mike: Our podcast, the podcast will get better guys, I promise you. You never
Charl: know, we could be on our 200th one and then just be adding some nicer jingles. Yeah, so this is, this
Mike: is week two so far. This is week two. So babies.
Mike: This is exciting. But if you refer back to what Holden was like in week two, he was embarrassing. So if we're, if we're, if this podcast is still embarrassing, This is all it is. Small baby steps. The hardest one is the first step. And we're in our first podcast steps.
Charl: Technically second now. Firsts.
Mike: Firsts.
Charl: First baby steps.
Mike: So congratulations, Ab. I really, really, really, really hope it's a massive success and we look forward to seeing you at one of our future parties.
Charl: I know she's already bought her ticket. So all good.
Mike: Are we recording?
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: Sorry, I didn't press the record button.
Charl: I pressed the record
Mike: button.
Mike: Bit of editing magic going to happen here, probably.
Charl: It is red when it's recorded, isn't it?
Mike: I [00:05:00] don't know now, you're making me panic.
Charl: Yes.
Mike: Like I said, baby steps. We will get better.
Charl: We will get better. I was gonna say, the red's good. So let's get into it then, shall we?
Mike: So yeah, this episode, work life balance.
Charl: Why do you think it's good to have a healthy work life balance?
Mike: Well, everyone, look, everyone knows it's healthy. We all say that we want it. My general impression from the industry is that Neotechs have become Neotechs because A, they want a better work life balance, they want freedom, they want the flexibility, they want to be able to take their kid to school in the morning instead of having to rush off to work, they want to be able to maybe pop out for lunch when they want, they want their own independence.
Yeah.
Mike: And I feel like every Neotech gets into, not every, but the majority of Neotechs have that vision and goal.
Yeah.
Mike: And, I think it soon happens and you fall into bad habits and traps that [00:06:00] your traditional 40 hour week, whether it's Tuesday to Saturday, turns into, I don't know, an 80 hour week, a 60 hour week, whatever it is, because you work before you get to do, into the salon, or you get your first client, you work after your last client, you work, you're watching telly, you're probably DMing, you know what I mean, like you're non stop working, and there is habits and tricks and tools you can put in place that will minimise this, impact into your, into your, your personal life.
Charl: I'll always remember that one. Thing that you said to me when, you know, you used to see me every evening, sat down with my paper diary.
Mike: Oh. And I would be paper diary messaging
Charl: people back and forth, waiting for responses on like where I was booking people in. And it, it wasn't just an hour out of the evening.
Charl: It was, it was a lot of time. And that was every evening. It was every morning before we ran into work. Mm-Hmm. . So when you suggested,
Mike: so before we get into our suggestions, please, please, please, can [00:07:00] everyone. Just, if you think you've got a great work life balance, or you think you've got a terrible one, just For one week, just clock yourself.
Mike: So just remember how many times you're working before and after your traditional shift in the summer. So how often you're working before your first client and how often you're working after your last client and just write it down on your notes on your phone and just accumulate it at the end of the week.
Mike: And you're gonna find that, like, it's probably hours and hours. You're probably, over the course of a month, working three, four, five days extra. So just, before you think, before you listen to us and go, I don't need to listen to this, I've got a good work life balance. Or if you think, oh, I've got a terrible one.
Mike: You may not find out you're as bad as you are. Or you may find out you're not as good as you are. So just, you know, Take these tips with a pinch of salt, like, they may apply to you, you may be already doing them, uh, it's just a little reminder for you guys to that there are things you can do to help get that balance back.
Charl: Done? [00:08:00]
Mike: Hahaha! Preach your mind!
Charl: Hahaha! I
Mike: do waffle. I
am a
Charl: waffler. I think. If anyone knows Mike, they know he loves to tour. I'm passionate. You are passionate. More passion, more energy.
Mike: I've got a lot of fire on show, haven't I? If you had a fire I'm
Charl: very, very much covered today. I even got Should I
Mike: put on my shirt?
Mike: I probably should. Sorry guys. It's not that type of podcast yet.
Charl: Anyway, back to the topic. Put my shorts down. I
Mike: have been working on the old five. Shut up! Anyway, work life balance. Tell me tips and tricks. Tell me what you used to do that was shit and what you've done that is better.
Charl: Like I was saying, paper diary.
Charl: I would spend loads of evenings waiting for DMs and, you know, responses to get people booked in and then you suggested a booking system.
Mike: Right, guys, if you're not got an online booking system and you're, you're [00:09:00] stuck in your way saying, it's easier with a paper one, it's better with a paper one, I've got more control.
Charl: I remember that argument that we had though. It's just
Mike: so much more beneficial to be having a booking system. And even though you've got to pay for them, it's going to be more profitable. And you were so reluctant to Oh, I was so reluctant. The very first argument is that your booking system is going to be open 24 7.
Mike: So if you've got a client who wants to book in at midnight, who's a nurse, who's on a night shift, and she's like, oh, do you know what, I need to get my nails done this weekend. she's gonna look around and she might be able to book Sally down the road straight away because she has an online booking system instead of waiting for a DM response from you saying, can you do Tuesday at 5 p.
Mike: m. or whatever.
Yeah.
Mike: You're always available on your booking system with your time. And by always having your times available on there, It cuts down on the back and forth, the end, which is time, which you're going to have to spend doing.
Charl: Yeah. So, I, I originally [00:10:00] hated the thought of almost like relinquishing that control.
Charl: Why? What's that?
Mike: What, what, what would the nail techs say to me going, no, public systems don't work? What, what would they say to me?
Charl: So, from when I was working on my own in the house, for me personally, I loved having the paper and pen because if I can, you know, keep a slot open for my regulars, And I know that Sally down the road isn't going to be able to book and take that slot for my regular.
Charl: That, that gave me a little bit of like, peace of mind. So
Mike: an argument is you're, you want your regulars in, you want to be able to give your regulars their regular slot.
Charl: Yeah, but then It was when we sort of moved, well, when I moved from the house to the salon and I had
Staff.
Charl: Staff. My god, the difference then because obviously you're managing not your, not just your diary but you know, three or four different diaries.
Charl: And like you say, It's impossible to
Mike: do my paper then. Oh, absolutely.
Charl: And it just gives, because it's all automated as well, not only does number one it take all your client [00:11:00] details, I had a, an option on there for them to fill out their, um, consultation form. So again, less paperwork for you to do in the salon.
Charl: It sorted how long each treatment took as well. So I didn't even have to think because the amount of times that I would mess up. Booking
Mike: systems give you buffers as well. So if you say, It takes an hour and a half to do a set of nails. It'll give you that ten, ten minutes before, ten minutes after as a buffer.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: So it's not, you don't have to be rushed on the clock, give yourself that extra little bit.
Charl: And that was the thing I think with Paper Diary, sometimes I'd mess up.
Mike: Note to self, podcast on booking, on booking systems. Yeah, so I think that's a completely separate one. There you go, that's a deep diver, that's a deep diver, we haven't got that in a half hour.
Mike: But
Charl: yeah, it was, it, it was, great than having that, that online system where it kind of did take the stress away from me and people were able to. It will reduce, it
Mike: will be a balling to set up to start with, but it will become the new normal for you. It will reduce admin for you. And as you scale up in a business, if that's your goal with multiple staff, it will become, it will be a lot easier.
Mike: the new normal for them. So they won't [00:12:00] have to then re learn all these stuff to use an online booking system.
Yeah.
Mike: Your chances are your social media will be able to link through it. Your, your website, if you have a website, it'll be linked through it. So anybody who doesn't have an online booking system already, you should really, really, really look into getting one.
Mike: We'll do a big podcast on it next time.
Yeah.
Mike: Um, and we'll go through. But that is something that'll save you a lot of time. Yeah, and we'll go through all the different various options because. Me and Charl, when she had her salons, we went through all this, this pain of finding the right one. And there is no best.
Mike: It's wondering what's best for you. For you,
Charl: definitely. So
Mike: booking system will reduce your admin.
Charl: Yeah. What's another
Mike: one?
Charl: Boundaries, I think. Boundaries. Yeah, boundaries as clients. yeah.
Mike: NailTex, I love you all so much, I honestly would have bought my hat but most of you were pushovers.
Charl: Oh yeah.
Mike: Like, and do you know what?
Mike: Well we're
Charl: natural people pleasers. Yeah, yeah, do you know what
Mike: pisses me off about NailTex? And they say NailTex is NailTex friends. You've all got, and your friends are the worst. Sorry if you're listening guys, I love you, but like, stop taking [00:13:00] advantage. You will always fit your friends in. Oh, fit them in.
Mike: Oh, this is my friend, I'll fit him in. Oh, it's my mother in law, I'll fit him in.
Yeah.
Mike: It's my cat's brother's mum's. I'll fit them in. Do you know what I mean? I do cat's nails now. Whatever. You will always fit in. You always manage to fit people in, but you're not fitting them in. You're taking your time away.
Mike: Time which you should be spending on a date at home with your family. you're working on, I don't know, going to the gym, whatever you do to wind down, relax, by fitting in your friends, because they're your friends, it's fun, it's nice, it's, you've got to remember it's your time that you're sacrificing to fit your friend in, not necessarily the money, do you know what I mean?
Mike: It's the time.
Charl: And that's, but that is the other thing, is the money side of it, is because I don't think, me personally, I don't know whether like anyone else does it, but I never charge my friends full price because I just see it as like, Oh no, my friend does it, so. Whereas, I don't know, like, if [00:14:00] I go and have my hair done by your best friend's sister, I overpay her.
Charl: Do you know
Mike: what I mean? Yeah, it's because you know you're in the industry. I think,
Charl: yeah, because you're part of that industry. Anyway,
Mike: pricing is not the subject of the day. Pricing's another Boundaries is the So like, it's incredibly important to have boundaries. If your shift pattern is Tuesday to Saturday, uh, 10 6, stick to those times.
Mike: If you have your, your best friend's sister, or your best friend says, oh look, I know it's Saturday, I've got a real nice, I'm going out on a date Saturday night and I haven't got my nails done. Aww,
Charl: fitter it.
Mike: No, like, do you know what I mean? So like, we're hypocrites, do you know why we're hypocrites? Yeah.
Whose nails are you doing?
Charl: I do my best friend's nails Tuesday at 7am. Why?
Mike: And so, bear in mind, we have a baby, so that means she's waking up, what, six o'clock? Six o'clock, so that means instantly, I'm not going for my morning run because I've got the, so this was news I found out [00:15:00] when we were talking about boundaries this morning.
Mike: So I'm not going for my morning run. I've got the baby in the morning. Hypocrites. Yeah. So I've got to do all the morning, admin or whatever you call it, life.
Charl: Yeah. For Nikaela to have nice nails. Do
Mike: you know what I mean?
Charl: She's got a wedding.
Mike: You're not even affecting Charlotte's boundaries, you're affecting mine.
Mike: I've got jack shit to do with your nails. This is what I mean. That's a perfect example of how we're a little bit hypocritical. But like, we know what we shouldn't do. So having boundaries, you've all got favourite clients.
Do you know what
Mike: I mean? get them in to fit your schedule. Yeah. They love you for a reason.
Yeah.
Mike: Like, they will accommodate around you and if they don't, that's an issue. Like, they don't value, they don't care about your time. Like, that's, that's a problem in my eyes. I think boundaries is a big one. Stick to your boundaries. Be ruthless with it.
Charl: Definitely. So, if
Mike: you get your best friend saying like, hey girl.
Mike: Tinder swipe right. Look at his abs. [00:16:00] I need good nails. No, no. Screw your nails.
Charl: Have you seen the state of my nails? This is what I'm working with right now. If only you had a
Mike: friend you could take advantage of. I know. I
Charl: don't even have time to do my own nails. So,
Mike: right. On task. That's our problem. We waffle.
Mike: We're wafflers. First one was booking system. Second one, boundaries. Be ruthless. Boundaries means more time for you and your partner and your baby or whatever. If you want to get healthier, have more time for you, cook that nice meal, go to that gym, don't worry about Becky's pissing nails.
Charl: Waffler. Anyway,
Mike: number three,
Charl: block content scheduling.
Mike: I think it's, do you know what, I think time where it can be spent in a free time. The actual doing people's nails.
Yeah.
Mike: Yeah. And then you've got the admin, and then you've got the marketing, the social media. I think those are probably what the most time is spent on. And I would say content creation would be your [00:17:00] marketing, wouldn't it?
Yeah.
Mike: So, yeah. There's so many ways that you can save time with marketing, content creation, um.
Charl: I think I was very much guilty of always waiting until I had, like, that perfect client's nails in for me to post and to feel like it was worthy of me posting about it. But I remember you saying to me before about breaking that one treatment up into like five different posts.
Mike: So yeah, so you're looking at it from. Apply it, like using your client's console. Without fear, I know everyone forgets, even if they're not good enough for your social media, chuck them in your story. There could be a design with somebody who's just a client going, Oh, they would suit me. Or they would suit my mum, they would suit my friend.
Mike: So just make sure you post that to your story after each client, make it become a habit.
Yeah. Just
Mike: as soon as they, as soon as you pop that cuticle oil on it, Just whip your phone out, take quick, get a quick photo or encourage your clients. Say, Oh, get a photo and tag me. I'd love to reshare it. Get them to post [00:18:00] it.
Mike: Something like that. But I think where there's time that can be saved is in the content creation, blocking out an hour instead of doing content every single night. So getting your phone out, creating the nails and stuff like that. You could have a block of content for like two, three hours where you get multiple stages of the same design, which can create multiple, Instagram posts, TikTok, whatever.
Mike: What I mean by that, instead of getting a photo of the finished design or a video of the finished design, get a photo of the removal of the oval, get a video of the removal of your oval design or whatever. And if your hand's bare, get the photo of the bare hands and the transformation.
Yeah.
Mike: So get the, the builder, if you've got builder or whether it's hard gel or whether it's, um, extensions.
Mike: There's
Charl: nothing better than seeing the full or swift tips or whatever you call them. Yeah.
Mike: Use that as a before. So like want to get, do you know what I mean? Like the process, that's one piece of content. And then when you've got your first block [00:19:00] color on, that can be another piece of content. And then when you've got the nail art, so break that design into multiple content ideas.
Mike: Do you know what I mean? This is what, this is what, and then you don't even necessarily have to have that design on your hands. Use like almost every brand's got a Peely base or a content base or whatever you want to call it. Like, utilise what brands are creating to help you. I know a lot of Like, Honest Peely Base, like, it's, it's honestly, like, we're obviously biased, but it's, it's so good for content creation.
Mike: But I
Charl: know a lot of nail techs that will specifically schedule, like, say, maybe two or three hours out of their working week to do just these Peely Base content pieces. And they'll whack out, like, say, five, six different designs. It will be
Mike: quicker, you doing it in one block than at the end of every shift or trying to remember so and it doesn't necessarily have to be you creating the content if you just want to use your clients now be consistent make it a habit of you taking that [00:20:00] photo each time
Charl: but as soon as you take that photo as well Schedule it because that's one thing that I was massively guilty
of.
Charl: My camera roll, if you were to look at it, would just be nails upon nails upon nails. It was never the taking the picture that I was bad at. I always made sure that I took a picture at the end of it. But it was, but it was the actual physical posting of it and writing your captions. Is that, is that part
Mike: of?
Mike: point three or is this a new one? Scheduling? Schedule
Charl: and post, I think. I think yeah, utilize all the social
Mike: media tools that are available to you. So,
Charl: saving your notes, all your different hashtags that you want to use or save.
Mike: Save it as a quick reply. Even better, you can go on your iPhone, Google this now or YouTube or whatever and Google, um, when you start typing in certain characters, an automatic, Automatically will know what you want to say, save all your hashtags as that if you want to use hashtags or if it's certain type of content you like to say, [00:21:00] like pop a little thing on our story to show that, but, um, There is so many little shortcuts you can do that will help you.
Mike: So scheduling posts. So you're not sat there when you're,
Charl: when you, when you, when your fella
Mike: sat there on the, and you know, you go like, do you know when your fella or your missus always go, you're always on your phone and you're like,
Charl: Oh, Are you quoting me? You're always on
Mike: your phone, but like, it will stop that.
Mike: If you do your scheduling on your content day or whatever, like I have your content like schedule then. And then all you have to worry about is your stories after each client that will help you.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: So honestly, like be, have it, form a habit with it.
Charl: Whether
Mike: it's in the morning, like that's your, you do it in the morning on a Monday or a Tuesday or whatever.
Mike: Like, form your habits with the content creation blog and then scheduling the post.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: Because, there's nothing Again,
Charl: that's just going to save you time out of your Yeah,
Mike: like, nobody wants You, you don't want to be on your phone when you're sat on the sofa at 8 o'clock, when the new shows come on, which you've been doing.
Mike: [00:22:00] Whether it's Selling Sunset or No one wants to
Charl: miss Strictly, darling. No one wants to miss Strictly or
Mike: X Factor. Is X Factor still a thing?
Charl: I don't know. I don't think so. I don't
Mike: watch TV.
Charl: No. I don't know. Alright. One other thing that I, um, always find myself doing as well because I am a very terribly unorganized person would be, I'd panic at like a Sunday evening or a Monday evening and think, I haven't done my orders for, like, the week coming up.
Mike: See, this is where the benefit of you being, like, an experienced nail tech who's been through, like, is that, like, I wouldn't say I'm organized, but I don't think I'd ever forget to order what I need. It's like, it's like being a delivery driver and forgetting the fuel. No, no, no. It's
Charl: weird you say that because I think when I was, Is that a thing?
Charl: Let me know if that's a thing,
Mike: you forget to order stuff.
Charl: Yes, you do forget to order stuff. So when I was on my own, Because it was just me using these products, I could see how much I've got.
When I'm in a salon, and
Charl: I [00:23:00] have staff that, uh, say one has been like crazy with brows all week. And then all of a sudden I've gone to do a set of brows, and half of the stock is gone.
Charl: Because she's forgotten to tell me how much she's used. For example. So
Mike: where are you going with this? Where are you going with this?
Charl: So where I'm going with this is, I think it's an incredible thing now that we do, just to our own horn, is subscriptions.
Mike: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, great one. Sorry, I'm about to take over now.
Mike: Oh, you say subscription. I love subscription. I've got, I've got everything on subscription. I've got my Toothpaste, I've got my deodorant on subscription. It is
Charl: great because it's We've got
Mike: HelloFresh.
Charl: Oh my god. I love a subscription.
Mike: There was a, there was a dangerous time we had wine on subscription.
Charl: That was the best time.
Charl: Oh,
Mike: dangerous. Oh,
Charl: shout out to the regular wine deliverers. I'm gonna get back on that.
Mike: No, but anyway, yeah, so I think like Horner's does a subscription. I'm almost certain like any reputable brand would do a subscription.
Charl: I'm not too sure that they do. I don't know of [00:24:00] a lot of other nail or beauty brands.
Charl: But if we do
Mike: it, like everyone else. I know that obviously there's like the beauty
Charl: boxes and stuff. Yeah, they
Mike: will. They will. So when I mean subscription, um, you can go on the Hona website and you can order your top coat to come every month.
Charl: And guaranteed you go through. I would say base, top and your favourite
Mike: builder.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, so you know what you're going to use. So you can order it on, so A, you save money because there's a price reduction for subscribing with Hona and I'm sure it is with any other brand. B, you don't have to remember, uh, C, you can even change the date. So if you want to go for, if you don't go through every 30 days, you go through it every month and a half, you change it to 45 days, or if you go through, I don't know, it's every two months, change it to 60 days.
Mike: You can even swap it out. So if you go through, um, say you got a red gel polish on subscription every 45 days, You can change it to, oh, do you know what, it's coming into winter. I'll have, I know I'm going to be going through pink sparkly, uh, glitter gel polish. Pink [00:25:00]
Charl: sparkly?
Mike: I don't know.
Charl: As through winter?
Mike: I don't know.
Charl: Into the darkness, get on that. Yeah,
Mike: yeah, you can swap gel polish, I think you can, I'm almost certain you can on most brands. Like you can swap out as well. And I would almost
Charl: rather have too much stuff there and then think, Oh, I've got to pause. Yeah. I've got to pause it rather than not having it when I
go to use it.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's all on your, your account. You can just go on your account. So easy. So easy.
Mike: So subscriptions are good. That's a good one. That's a good business minded as well. That's a very good one. I have toys in Tahona well.
Charl: Thank you very
Mike: much. Naggy. So do you want to recap of
the five? Yeah.
Booking system. Four or five.
Mike: Booking system is a no brainer.
Yep.
Mike: If you don't have a booking system, please DM me. I will tell you and I will vent and I will be passionate about what you should get a booking system. Trust me, you don't want to get
Charl: into it with him. You'll be stuck there for hours.
Mike: Equal.
Mike: [00:26:00] Equal. Boundaries. neo tech, uh, the loveliest people is the most, you are the most passionate, creative, lovely people in the world. And, but we are ERs I think we're people pleasers. You just like to make people pretty and there's always a reason.
Charl: Yeah. Do
Mike: you know what I mean?
Charl: We like making people, people feel good and may
Mike: think Yeah.
Mike: So boundaries.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: And people should respect your boundaries.
Charl: Definitely.
Mike: After boundaries. It was
Charl: creating content.
Mike: Have, have your content creation. it's like spot, keep it the same time every week. If you don't create content and you just use clients, be consistent with your client posting. Okay. And then that leads us into the next one.
Mike: Get a phone, you know, you're like, you know, you know, if you've got a removal coming in, pop a camera above that removal. People love a removal video. They love them. They go mad for removal videos. Do
you know what I mean? People love to get a little, a little scrape. Prep videos I love. See?
Charl: And you prep every single [00:27:00] client's nails.
Charl: You're
doing the work.
Charl: Literally. Do you have
a fucking camera there? Do you know what I mean? You know, everyone's so worried about stuff being perfect. I know. My jumper's not even ironed yet. I know. It doesn't have to be perfect. What a scruff.
Charl: It doesn't have to be perfect. Just get the content on there.
Charl: But then that leads nicely into the next one of schedule and post. Wait, this
Mike: is bad. I
Charl: wouldn't really call it
Mike: a fixed habit. I would just say like, you know, uh, I'll schedule for this Monday, which is one of my favorite days of the week. And it. Like, but it's just like, there's just this way it works. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't measure that out because that's just not But I would say, you know, the, uh, we've all been through it.
Mike: Like, and, you know, the biggest thing you can do is always have an existing habit. I love it. This is my favorite thing to try. It's my favorite thing to try and get uh, new habits formed. So if you know every single day, if you're doing something, so here's an example of a habit stack. You driving, you [00:28:00] got the drive to work every single day.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: Yeah. So stack a good habit on that. So whether it is manifestation, so every time you're driving to work, You put your,
Charl: yeah,
Mike: manifest that can be your manifestation time. So you're stuck, you're stuck. So
Charl: you're already doing a habit and then you're putting something else on top of
Mike: it. Every time you brush your teeth.
Charl: Yeah. You
Mike: know that's a habit.
Charl: Use your cuticle oil.
Mike: Put your cuticle
Charl: oil, put your cuticle oil
Mike: next to your toothbrush.
Charl: Yeah. And
Mike: then it will become, you're, you're, you're stacking a new habit with an existing habit. So it's more likely to happen. So if you're going to, so this leads me on. So if you go to the salon.
Mike: He's like,
Charl: there is an end to my story. If
Mike: you go to the salon. Every single day you turn the light on, the first thing you do is flip that kettle on or pour that coffee and you sit down and enjoy your coffee. Do you know what I mean? Stack that with, maybe that's my, I answer my DMs there. That's my DM answer time.
Mike: Or do you know what? That's when I schedule my posts. So you stack a new habit you want to form with an already existing one. Love that. Habit stacking. [00:29:00] It is not my idea. I read it in a book.
Charl: And then finally, subscriptions. My favourite
Mike: thing. Subscriptions, yeah. So A, it's business sense. You save money. Um, I don't know about any other brand, but we, we fulfill our subscriptions first.
Mike: So they get, they get priority. Um,
Charl: just so that you know that you've got that stock coming in it they subscribe
Mike: to it like they could be on like the 10th subscription they get the stock first like revenue somewhere. Um, it just saves you having to rem You should always probably subscribe, your your most used one.
Mike: You know you're going to use a top coat, you know you're gonna use your your favorite builder, you know you're going to be using your bomber or your base save the money. Just save the money. It's all profit at the end of the day. Every penny counts.
Charl: Yeah, absolutely. Five tips. Five little tips. Love that.
Charl: Amazing. So, I feel like we very much rounded that off quite nicely. So, should we go into a little bit of a fun part?
Mike: Fun [00:30:00] part?
Charl: Question of the week again.
Mike: Oh, question of the week jingle. Go for it.
Charl: I can't remember what I did the first time. We
Mike: will get better at this podcast.
Charl: I'm going to leave it to Grace to sort out a jingle for us.
Charl: Definitely. Um, I
Mike: do have, sorry to interrupt. I do have a theme song in mind, which I heard driving here.
Charl: Don't say a little less conversation.
Mike: I really like Elvis Presley's Little Less Conversation. Like it's my karaoke song. So it's got a bit of me in it. I was just about to say. It talks about conversation.
Mike: This is conversation.
Charl: I will never forget that video of you singing
Mike: karaoke. Thoughts on a, what's the phrase? Thoughts on a postcard? Notes on a
postcard?
Charl: What? I've never heard that in my life.
Mike: For us elders, for the elders in the group. Showing your age there. For the elders. No, was it? Note to the postcard.
Charl: I've never heard that in my life.
Mike: You're a kid, ain't you? But anyway, so this is our community Q& A section. Every week we throw [00:31:00] a question out to the community. It can be via our Facebook, it can be via Instagram, on our TikTok, or it could be in our email. So look out for that question. If you've got something that springs to mind, Jump in there.
Mike: It helps fill out content really nicely. So Charlotte, what was this question?
Charl: So the question this week was what was the craziest request of nail art that you've ever received?
Mike: Craziest request of nail art?
Charl: Yeah, and I feel like I kind of led The question last time, so I've
Mike: Oh, I haven't seen any and no, so have you seen them?
Charl: I've seen some of them. Come on, let me, oh, you want
Mike: me to read them? Yeah, you read. So what we are, so
Charl: I want, I want your genuine reaction. So this was some of this, this was
Mike: via our email. Yeah. So you signed up to our email and you reply to it. Oh God. There's loads, . Um. I want my nails to look like slices of pizza with pepperoni, cheese, and even little bits of oregano.
Mike: Oregano, oregano.
Charl: [00:32:00] All right
Mike: then, howdy. I want my nails to look like slices of pizza with pepper and, oh my god, pepperoni, cheese and even little bits of oregano. Can you add dipping sauce on the thumb please? Like a garlic and herb dipping sauce.
Charl: I think that was Georgina.
Mike: Filth. If a nail tech, if a client came to you, could you do that?
Mike: Or would you say, Nah.
Charl: Oh, I think that'd be hilarious. I have had some clients come in and ask for the craziest things. I don't think I ever told you actually about one of my favourite ones that I ever did. I'm just going to interject now because literally just one has sprung to mind. I drew tiny little penises.
Mike: Pee noy.
Charl: Pee noy on one client's nails.
Mike: Male or female?
Charl: Penis? I
Mike: don't know. Female. Oh, you're
Charl: asking was the client female or male? Yeah. [00:33:00] It's like, how can you get male and female penises? I don't
Mike: know, Attenborough's probably seen it somewhere. God
Charl: knows. Um, no, she was a female and it was a different little penis.
Mike: A different penis. A
Charl: different penis.
Mike: Was this from, uh,
Charl: Cock and
Mike: Balls! Cock and
Charl: Balls. Was this, uh,
Mike: was this penis from memory or imagination? It
Charl: was purely imagination.
Mike: Purely imagination, no, you had no resource, no, no research? No? Were they, were they nice looking penis, or?
Charl: No, some of them were rather, rather flashy.
Charl: I'm guessing,
Mike: I'm guessing, aww, you went floppy. You
Charl: drew a floppy penis. He had a floppy penis. If I'm drawing
Mike: penis, if I'm drawing penis, I'm going, you know. The
Charl: rager. Rager,
Mike: aww. We can't, we can't say rager. Drop a comment if you've had to draw a rager on a nail before. Is that a, is that a, I'm guessing it was a hen do.
Charl: It was for a hen do, yeah. It And the best thing was, [00:34:00] she was like, I love them, but can we have
Mike: chrome? You had, what, metal dick?
Charl: Just to add that next level.
Mike: Was it, was she dressing up as the Terminator or something?
Charl: Can you imagine? She just wanted shiny dick.
Mike: What makes, what makes me laugh, what's funny about that is like, I A, it's a handle, so I get it, but what about week two,
three,
Mike: week two, week three? Like, you know, she's, she's, she's in Audi buying her milk and she got the cashier and then she just like, you know, nice, nice nail. Is that a conversation starter or a conversation avoider?
Charl: Oh, I would 100 percent start a conversation. If I saw that Hi,
Mike: why have you got a dick on your head? I'd
Charl: be like, oh my god, that's insane. The best thing was, do you reckon it was the [00:35:00] bride?
Mike: No. No brides having that on their hand, surely.
Charl: It was the mother of the bride.
Mike: Always the mother of the bride.
Charl: Oh, it was amazing.
Charl: Anyway, back to, back to yours. I think
Mike: you've stole, I think you've stole the thunder there. Right, here we go. So, metal dick aside. Uh, can you, people, I'm just gonna let you know, some people are weird. Can you paint my cat's face on each nail but make it look different on each finger?
Charl: Like a portrait?
Mike: I don't know, but like, like one in a tuxedo, one in a spacesuit, and one maybe with a cape on like a superhero.
Mike: Are people okay? People like cats too much.
Charl: I had somebody come in and ask for the Ramona Lisa once, but she was, she was genuinely like, taking the piss.
Mike: Alright, good. Uh, can you, another one? Can you do full themed [00:36:00] Christmas Halloween nails? Christmas and Halloween. With a spooky Santa, and then a ghost in a Christmas jumper, please.
Mike: Oh for God's sake.
Charl: That would look good! A ghost in a Christmas jumper, I actually would love that.
Mike: Gonna have to, I suppose. That's a fun one. Jack
Charl: Skelton is very much like Halloween. Halloween Sta Christmas. I don't
Mike: know if Jack Skelton is a Christmas film or a Halloween film.
Charl: It's very much both, isn't it?
Charl: I feel like he always pops up at Halloween, though.
Mike: That's Christmas in the title.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: Nah, I'm not a fan. . Uh, one more. Yeah, go on man. I should put in a good. I'd like to have different emojis on each of my nails, please.
Charl: I've done that before!
Mike: I'd like the eggplant,
Charl: penile,
Mike: the poop, and if possible, the dancing lady.
Charl: Oh, I don't think I've done a dancing lady. Is that the
Mike: salsa?
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: Who in their right mind, can you draw I've
Charl: done the
Mike: poop. Yeah, the poop one I get, you [00:37:00] know, shit nails. The eggplant, you know, girls are filth. I
Charl: like that one. I've done a few of like, just emoji faces.
Mike: I've had the smiley face. Yeah, you've had a smiley face on a few.
Mike: Shout out to our stickers, plug. Hey, hey.
Charl: But yeah, there's some crazy people in the world that like crazy, crazy designs, so. And if
Mike: you're the mother of a bride thinking about what nails you would like for your daughter slash son's.
Charl: Metal dick.
Mike: Hen slash stag. Metal dick nails.
Charl: Absolutely for the win.
Mike: For the win.
Charl: But like you say, it's the two, three weeks afterwards. Like, I just love it.
Mike: I think that's probably the only time when you would advocate pick off your nails, permitted.
Charl: Really?
Mike: Oh my god, yeah. You can't walk around with metal penis nails for three weeks in the office. Do not.
Charl: Absolutely do not pick off your nails.
Charl: I would 100 percent rock those penis dicks for as long. She's going to give me sticks for this. Do [00:38:00] not advertise picking off your nails. I really enjoyed those. I thought they were quite funny.
Mike: Little insert about, uh, behind the scenes with Hona this week. Yeah. Insert jingle. What's this week's jingle? Dee dee
dee dee dee!
I'll get
Charl: better! Promise! Pathetic. Pathetic. We've
Mike: got this purpose
Charl: built studio
Mike: just for you. And I can't even do a
Charl: jingle. In the
Mike: attic. The skylights need washing, you know. Absolutely. Nobody can
Charl: see
Mike: them I hope. But anyway, yeah, so behind the scenes of Hona, what is Hona done that is worth mentioning now?
Charl: Again, I don't even know what we haven't released
Mike: our first one yet. When is this going out? We don't want to give away too much or we might be giving away something that's happened. I
Charl: am gonna, I'll do this one because I feel like this is quite relevant now and if it does come out a little bit later, [00:39:00]
Mike: I think
Charl: you know what I'm gonna say.
Charl: We're
Mike: gonna start. a hard gel trial soon. Is that what, was that
Charl: what
Mike: you were going
Charl: to say? Yes. Oh, phew. Oh god, you've got, you've got a habit of like letting things go before. Go on,
Mike: go on, you go, you go. I'll be quiet.
Charl: Yeah, you take a sip of your water, you be quiet. Yeah, we have hard gel being released and this is really, really exciting.
Mike: What's the hard gel called?
Charl: The hard gel is called TrueSkull. Spoiler. Um, so yeah, we are in testing phase and So
Mike: explain what testing, so in case anybody's listening don't know what we do, when Hona develops and releases products, we don't just, um, white label a product, get it out, chuck our label on it and then send it to people to buy.
Mike: No, we've never once done that. We're not able to do that because we know what we like and we go really specific and safe with our ingredient profile that we [00:40:00] do have to do this study. Because we go so safe, for lack of a better word, uh, sometimes the performance isn't there with the safety, do you know what I mean?
Mike: And we have to be really careful. So we've created our TrueScope, our agile range in three versions, another spoiler, shit, you shouldn't be seeing this. But anyway, and, um, cause the formula is completely unique. I don't think there's anything out there like it. We have to do our community studies. We, and so we literally give hundreds and hundreds of pots away for people to test.
Mike: to give us feedback, tell us a, Oh, I love the way it adhered. I love the viscosity of it. I love the pigment of it. Did it give a heat spike? Did it give no heat spike? Did it work with your lamp? Did it not? Do we have to do more testing with more lamps? We do, we do this entire like two month, three month phase of trial of our community trial to get as much feedback in because that's where we then go back to our chemists.
Mike: Yeah. We go back to our [00:41:00] chemists and say, uh, this was our feedback. let's get to the drawing board and let's see what we can do to fix it. It's what we did with Pure Foundation, it's what we did with our Swift Tips, um, gels and it has proven to be successful for us.
Charl: I think because that's the thing, I, I don't know whether everyone just presumes that we've got loads of like in house testers but I am literally the in house tester.
Charl: We're,
Mike: we're, we are so passionate and biased about our products so.
Charl: It's good to get other feedback as well. We,
Mike: because we, because we've developed these. we'd be like, yeah, it's like, of course, why, why would no one, why would somebody choose a different heart jail? Look, it does everything what it should do.
Mike: It ticks all the right boxes. It's super, super safe. It's got no haemorrhaging, no TPO. It's got no dihaemorrhaging. It's got no HPMA. It's got no YBA. It's got, it ticks every box you could imagine, but we're biased. So we, we're so passionate. We can't see past our own, um, views on it. So we have to send it.
Mike: And we don't even just send it to, HONOR uses the community. Oh
Charl: god no, we sent it to like [00:42:00] people.
Mike: It's the hard gels, experienced users who don't even use HONOR.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: Because their, their, their feedback is probably as unbiased as you can get.
Charl: Yeah.
Mike: So touch wood.
Charl: Yeah, I think I revealed
Mike: too much there. Yeah,
Charl: kind of already said we were sending it out, but there
Mike: we go.
Mike: So, yeah,
Charl: if you are one of the lucky people that have it. Yeah,
Mike: so look out for our, um, yeah, look out for our, um, Our outreach, it'll probably be for our community on our Instagram. You might see people tagging it and saying, so sorry if you go to buy it, it's not available yet. We have to wait for our, our feedback to come in.
Mike: Fingers crossed. If there's no tweaks, it'll be out sooner, but that's unlikely because this is the first round of testing we did. With Pure Foundation, we did.
Charl: We had two or three. Three. Yeah,
Mike: we did three. But we fucking nailed it. Yeah, Pure Foundation is a winner. If you haven't tried foundation, get on that boat.
Mike: I think that
Charl: was kind of like,
Mike: Just a turning [00:43:00] point. Yeah, definitely,
Charl: definitely. It was amazing.
Mike: Behind the scenes of Chona. Yes. So, thank you for tuning in guys. Always appreciate it. Um, whether this is your third, first podcast listening with us, jump back and check our previous episode. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and whatever your audio source is, is that the right word
Charl: Audio source?
Charl: Streaming platform, I would say. We're still learning, we're still learning.
Mike: So, do you want to give a little teaser on next week's episode?
Charl: Yeah, so, I feel like we could, uh, leading quite nicely to either booking systems or potentially pricing next week. What are you feeling? Pricing
Mike: is a biggie. Let's go booking systems because I was quite passionate about booking systems earlier and I wanted to delve into that.
Mike: So I'll tell you what, the next episode we will talk about booking systems, why you should have one, if you're reluctant and you think it's not beneficial. I'll see you then. It's my [00:44:00] job to convince you why you should have one. Um, but yeah, so again, thank you for subscribing. If you have, if you haven't, do it and we'll speak soon.
Mike: Okay guys.
Charl: Thanks for listening.
Mike: Peace and love.