Beauty Business School
Welcome to the Beauty Business School Podcast Beauty Business School is proving beauty therapy is more than ‘just’ a hobby. We’re your beauty business besties, your partners in crime, your ride-or-die crew with a sprinkle of Regina George’s confidence (But none of the drama). Picture us as your personal cheerleaders, the BFFs you’ve always wished for, as we tackle the beauty industry together.Beauty training taught you how to be really good at treatments, Beauty Business School podcast will teach you how to attract your dream clients by creating a beauty business that stands out in a busy industr...
E102. The Beauty Business Audit - Optimise Your Income and Your Books
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This one is different. I'm auditing your business.
Eight areas, five statements each, one point for every yes. Client retention, client attraction, revenue, cancellations and no-shows, occupancy, retail, client spend and branding.
It's the same diagnosis I run with my one on one clients. Grab a pen, be brutally honest and add up your score out of 40. Whatever you score lowest on becomes your plan: one area a month, starting now, so you head into 2027 with a plan instead of the same problems.
I also open up...
E101. Why Terri Stopped Doing What Everyone Else Was Doing And Got Fully Booked
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Terri from TK Lashes and Brows opened a shopfront salon at 23. Then COVID hit, she lost $30,000 in the first month and her accountant told her beauty would be first to close and last to open.
So she went home. Just brows and lashes, a separate studio entrance and set hours. She made more money than she ever did in the shopfront.
Terri joined BBS after hearing me speak at Salon First, where I told her to just put her prices up. She did it that week and didn't get...
E100. The Unspoken Success Ladder: How To Build The Business You Actually Want With Brooke Cherry
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Trigger warning: this episode mentions domestic violence, human trafficking and alcohol dependence if these topics impact you please skip this episode or skip to 18.26 minutes.
Our 100th episode is a collab with Brooke Cherry from the Beauty Boss Frequency podcast. Couch, uggs on, tarot cards out.
If you run your business solo and feel behind because you're not hiring, teaching or launching a product, this one is for you. We ask: do we actually want bigger businesses, or have we just been taught that bigger...
E99. Growth Is On The Other Side Of What Scares The Sh*t Out Of You
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I'm going back to ground zero and it scares the sh*t out of me.
In this episode I share why I'm starting a second podcast and a mindset course alongside Beauty Business School, the fears that came up (capacity, burnout, "who do I think I am") and the question my husband asked that stopped me in my tracks.
Then I take you through three moments from my own business where growth was on the other side of fear: being the first in my area to bring in deposits...
E98. From Homeless To CEO Of Her Own Beauty HQ (Chelsey's story)
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Chelsey Gardener came into the beauty industry in her 40s with nothing. A marriage that ended, a stretch of being homeless and no family to fall back on.
Two years ago she was doing lashes from home with a handful of clients and no plan. Today she's the CEO of Baddie HQ on the Gold Coast. Chelsea's story is going to BLOW your mind. She's gone viral on TikTok, gets recognised at the shops, hosts her own podcast and is building a beginner lash course. Let this be the...
E97. Why Memberships Are The Fastest Way To Predictable Revenue with aglow
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Memberships are the fastest way to predictable revenue in a beauty business. Set them up wrong and they become a liability you can't see.
Kimberley sits down with Karl Margrain (co-founder and CEO) and Jo Blundell (co-founder and CRO) of aglow, the only dedicated membership platform built for clinics and salons. Karl has spent 20 years in payments. Jo spent five years building Timely into a household name in beauty. Together they've helped around 1,000 salons across Australia and New Zealand move from feast and famine bookings to recurring revenue.
<...E96. You Have 5 Seconds To Convince A Client You're Worth It - Client Journey
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Getting clients through the door is the easy part. Keeping them is where most beauty businesses lose money.
If your clients stay for two or three appointments and then go quiet, that is not bad luck and it is not the economy. It is a gap in your client journey and it is showing up at the same point every single time.
In part two of the client journey series, Kimberley breaks down the 10 areas that decide whether a client stays with you for years or leaves...
E95. Half Booked to Booked Out - Client Optimisation
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This is the FREE RESOURCE I promised
"I need more clients" is the number one thing beauty business owners say to Kimberley. It is almost never the actual problem.
Most of the businesses she works with sit at 50 to 60% booked. That gap is not a marketing problem. It is an optimisation problem, and it is far cheaper to fix than finding new people. Katie added $10,000 a month to her business without a single piece of external marketing, purely by looking...
E94. Bonus Episode - Post Beauty Expo Debrief
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This one was meant to be about optimising the client journey. It turned into a full debrief instead.
Kimberley is a week off the back of Beauty Expo, still tired, still processing, and she recorded this one exactly as it came out. What travelling every two to four weeks for a year actually costs. Why she was nervous going into Sydney again, and what made this year completely different. The students who walked into expo, got overwhelmed and went home.
Then it turns into...
E93. 38 Bookings in 3 Days: How Rhiannon Launched a Salon in a Town of 1400
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Rhiannon Davis packed up her Queensland salon, moved her family to East Gippsland, and opened Skin Bar by Rhiannon in a town of 1400 people. She took 38 bookings in the first three days.
She did not arrive with a client base. She did not know a single person there. She built the demand months before she unlocked the door.
In this episode we pull the whole launch apart. The waitlist she opened on a whim that hit 11 signups on day one and 92 by launch. The local Facebook groups she posted...
E92. How I Doubled My Price And Signed 2 Clients In 48 Hours
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This one was by request, and there was no plan.
I had a tarot reading at a castle in Ballarat with a woman who did not know my name, could not have looked me up and proceeded to describe the exact thing I had not been able to put words to for six months. Then I had a second reading in Bali four days later and she said almost the same thing word for word.
So this is the full debrief. What was said, what I have actually done...
E91. The Client Complaint That Built A Waxing Empire With Lilliane Caron
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I have never sat across from a guest and forgotten my interview questions before. This episode did that to me.
Lilliane Caron has run the same salon for 45 years. Not a franchise, not multiple locations, one salon that now has 16 rooms and sees around 2,000 clients a week. She's waxing third generations of the same families. Then at the same time build one of the biggest waxing supply businesses in Australia (which is also in the UK and USA)
In this episode she tells me how it actually happened. Buying...
E90. Doubling Her Income in 4.5 Months From a Home Studio (with Rebecca MacArthur)
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Rebecca MacArthur is a solo therapist specialising in Brazilian waxing from a studio behind her house in Helena Valley. Two kids, eight and a half years of working from home and a business that had gone from busy to boring.
Four and a half months after joining Beauty Business School she is on track to double her income, she has a minimum of five people on her waitlist and she has not added a single hour to her week.
In this episode Rebecca walks through the whole...
E89. How To Get 30 New Clients From Your Next Offer
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My students are getting 30 to 60 new clients within days or months, at full price, with no discounting. In this episode I pull back the curtain on exactly how we do it inside Beauty Business School.
You'll hear the real numbers behind three students: Rhi, who moved to a town of 1400 people, put her prices up and booked 38 clients in three days with a 90% retention rate. Kayla, who consistently brings in 30 to 60 new clients from her offers. And Shanna, who built her audience before she ever opened and hit 69 bookings...
E88. How I Made $3,600 In A Week Without Posting Once With Email Marketing
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Email marketing outsells social media 3 to 5 times over, and most beauty businesses are barely using it. In this episode I break down exactly how I get 28 to 45% of my list opening every email (the industry average is 12%) and how email made me $3,600 in one week while I was in Bali not posting a single thing.
What's inside:
Why "I don't want to be spammy" is costing you sales, and the real reason people unsubscribeThe 3 emails to send every single week: social proof, education, connectionHow to turn a client story into...E87. How to Hire Your Dream Salon Team Member (Plus a Bali Debrief)
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The wrong hire will cost you more than no hire.
A team member who talks behind your back, ignores your processes or treats your business like "just a job" does damage you'll spend months undoing. So the vetting happens before they walk in, not after.
If a team member is anywhere on your radar this year, even 12 months away, listen to this one first.
In the episode I break down:
💋 Why skill set is the worst reason to hire someone
💋 The pre...
E86. How Rachael Kitto Turned A Collapsed Business Into Salon Snack Co
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Rachel Kitto built a product business, sold 10,000 units and then watched it collapse when her manufacturer swapped ingredients and went into receivership. She rebuilt it. It collapsed again. What she created from the wreckage is Salon Snack Co, a snack brand made exclusively for the beauty and hair industry that has never been done anywhere in the world.
In this episode, Rachel and I sit down in person to unpack the whole story: 17 years as a hairdresser, quitting the industry for three months, going mobile, building The Nourishing Bodyco...
E85. How To Make More Money Doing Less
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How do you grow a beauty business without burning out? After my ADHD episode blew up my DMs, the question I got most was how I manage it all without medication. This is the answer.
I used to think the 2am spiral was why my business worked. The anxiety, the can't-switch-off, the hyperfixation. I called it ambition. It wasn't. It was burnout, and I hit it twice. The full breakdown kind, not the tired-on-a-Sunday kind that takes a long time to come back from.
In this episode:
What...E84. Gry Tomte, HÜD: Building a multimillion dollar salon and navigating the hardest 12 months of your life
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Gry Tomte has run HÜD for eleven years and has two clinics that are booked out six months deep. She looks like she has always had it figured out and she is the first to tell you she hasn't.
Gry is one of THE most grounded people I have had the pleasure of interviewing. This interview will rewire your brain. I had a mindset of what a multimillion dollar business owner would be but Gry shook me to my core. Gry told me about how she hit a million in r...
E83. How To Launch A Premium Service Without Slashing The Price
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Want to sell more expensive services without slashing the price to get bookings?
If you've got a $500+ package sitting on your price list that nobody's booking, the price isn't the problem. The launch is.
High ticket services convert slower than a $60 brow dye. That's normal. The mistake is launching it the same way you'd launch a flash sale, then deciding it doesn't work for your business.
In this episode, Kimberley breaks down:
Why high ticket packages need a longer runway before they sellThe self...E82. How to Be Visible, Unshakeable & AI-Ready Online With Renee Andrews From Salon Society
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Renee Andrews has seen the behind the scenes of over 120 salons. She's managed social media accounts, watched what converts and what doesn't and built her own business to the point where she was flown to Budapest to keynote for Kevin Murphy with under 4,000 followers.
Renee is the founder of Salon Society and one of the most practical, data-backed social media educators in the beauty industry. In this episode, she brings the kind of clarity that most salon owners desperately need but rarely get, and she does it with warmth, zero fluff...
E81. Before You Run That Giveaway, Listen to This
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Everyone's got an opinion on giveaways. Half the industry says they attract the wrong clients and don't convert. The other half keeps doing them anyway and wondering why nothing sticks.
In this episode, Kimberley cuts through the noise and breaks down exactly why most giveaways fail. Spoiler: it's not the giveaway. It's the lack of strategy around it.
Covered in this episode:
Why visibility, not bookings, should be your actual goalHow to design a giveaway that filters in your ideal client and naturally filters...E80. Why Discounting Is Killing Your Beauty Business (And Why Strangers Pay What Your Family Won't)
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Why Discounting Is Killing Your Beauty Business (And Why Strangers Pay What Your Family Won't)
My daughter started doing press-on nails. She is gentle, she is talented and she told me she wants to charge full price for her services once she is trained. I told her to do exactly that.
Then she asked if she could charge me. And I hesitated.
That hesitation is exactly what this episode is about.
I have spent years telling beauty business owners to stop discounting, to charge their...
E79. Fear Is Making Your Business Decisions For You With Sherri Ponisi
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Your nervous system is running your business. And not in a good way.
If you've ever made a decision from a place of panic, said yes to the wrong client because you were scared of the quiet, or doom scrolled for an hour and felt worse after, this episode is going to hit close to home.
Kimberley sits down with Sherri Ponisi, breathwork facilitator, former hairdresser of 20 years and ex-salon owner, to talk about what's actually going on in your body when you're stressed, burnt out and...
E78. ADHD & Autism In Your Beauty Business
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What if the thing you’ve spent your whole life trying to “fix” is actually your superpower?
In this deeply personal episode, Kimberley opens up about something she’s never fully shared before being diagnosed with ADHD and autism as an adult while navigating motherhood, business, burnout, perfectionism and the pressure to keep it all together.
From feeling “different” as a child… to struggling with self-worth, hyper-fixation, comparison, relationships, and running multiple successful businesses this episode is an unfiltered look inside the mind of a beauty business owner with a “...
E77. Keeping Clients Long Term In Your Salon
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If you are always looking for clients.. You have a retention problem.
It costs five to seven times more to find a new client than to keep the one already sitting in your chair. And if you're aiming for a 70% rebooking rate, you're losing two thirds of your clients within three months. The maths doesn't lie.
In this episode, Kimberly gets real about what's actually keeping beauty business owners on the hamster wheel and it's not the economy, it's not the algorithm, it's...
E76. Scaling To 20K Months With Less Hours With Jordan From Wildfire Haus
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Jordan didn't need more clients. She needed to stop working herself into the ground for results that didn't match the effort.
Within four years she went from 60+ hour weeks, a team she resented managing, and burning out every Christmas, to 32 hours a week, books closed, waitlisted, and consistently hitting $20K months doing only the one thing she loves. Brows.
She let go of lashes even though they were 60-70% of her income. She let her team go even though one of them was her best friend. She closed her...
E75. What To Do In Your Salon When The Economy Is Sh*t
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The world as we know it is shifting and Kimberley isn't here to sugarcoat it.
In this episode, she gets honest about global uncertainty, what it means for your beauty business and where your real power lies when everything outside your control feels like it's on fire.
The short version? Economic downturns destroy businesses. They also make them. Which side you land on comes down to mindset, strategy, and how you choose to show up.
What's not in your control: the economy, inflation, i...
E74. From Skin Fairy to Baby Spa: Behind the Curtain of Success in the Beauty Industry with Carmen McNamara
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This episode of the Beauty Business School podcast is a real, unfiltered look at what it actually takes to build a successful beauty business.
I sit down with Carmen McNamara, founder of Skin Fairy and Little Sunshine Spa, who shares her journey from waxing in her bedroom at 15 to running multiple thriving businesses. But more importantly.. she pulls back the curtain on what most people don’t talk about.
We dive into:
Why business is never a straight line (and why that’s normal) The reality of building, growing...E73. Addressing THAT Post.. Bullying in the Beauty Industry
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After THAT post went viral… we need to talk.
In this episode, Kimberley opens up about the real story behind a post that shook the beauty industry and what it revealed about bullying and projection in business.
From being sent private messages and conversations to navigating the emotional aftermath, this is an unfiltered look at what actually happens behind the scenes in the beauty industry and how to handle it without losing yourself in the process.
This isn’t about calling people out. It’s about calling the in...
E72. Why Your Retail Isn’t Selling (And How to Fix It Fast)
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I need to say something that might annoy you a little bit…
You don’t actually hate selling. You just hate how it feels when you do it.
When it’s awkward… when it feels forced… when you can literally feel yourself cringing mid sentence because it sounds like you’re trying to push something onto your client… so you avoid it.
You don’t bring it up, you don’t lean into retail conversations in your salon, you just hope your clients will ask. And when they don’t, it tur...
E71. "I Nearly Packed It All In" Emma's $75k Beauty Business Comeback Story
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In this episode, I sit down with Emma, a registered nurse of 14+ years who completely changed her life in 2021 when she discovered the power of cosmetic medicine and skin - first as a client, then as a practitioner. What started as a $1,000 bank balance and a dream turned into a thriving solo clinic in Redcliffe, a $75,000+ revenue increase in just 12 months, and signing her very first commercial lease.
But it wasn't always this way.
Before joining Beauty Business School, Emma was juggling two jobs six days a week, second-guessing...
E70. Handling Complaints In Your Beauty Business
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The Moment Every Beauty Business Owner Dreads… A Client Complaint
That sinking feeling when your phone lights up with a message from an unhappy client.
Your heart races.. Your brain spirals... And suddenly you're questioning your entire business.
Sound familiar?
In this episode of Beauty Business School, Kimberley Haworth breaks down exactly how to handle complaints like a true CEO without spiralling, people-pleasing or burning your business to the ground.
Because here’s the truth…
One complaint won’t...
E69. Winning Beauty Industry Awards (Without Losing Your Mind) with Nicola from Red Lipstick Effect
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Awards in the beauty industry can feel intimidating… like something only the “big salons” or “industry elites” go for.
But what if entering awards could actually grow your business, sharpen your strategy and build serious credibility?
In this episode, I’m joined by Nicola from Red Lipstick Effect, an industry powerhouse who has helped clinics win 30+ beauty industry awards and judged some of the biggest awards in Australia.
Nicola shares her journey from a shy beauty therapist to becoming one of the industry's leading awar...
E68. The One Marketing Trick To Get Fully Booked in Your Beauty Business
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You’re hunting for the “one thing” that will change your business. Here’s the truth:
“There is no one marketing trick that is actually going to get your business to where you want to go.”
Social media? Podcasts? Ads? “If you are relying on one sole source of marketing in your business, I can guarantee you at some point it’s going to fall flat.” When it does, you have nothing.
The real trick isn’t a trick. It’s showing up, being seen, solving a problem. “If you are th...
E67. How Chantel 10X’d Her Retail in 3 Weeks
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Chantel didn’t need another qualification. She needed structure behind her brilliance. Within three weeks she took her retail from $300 a week to $3,000 a week.. not by posting more, discounting or hustling harder, but by niching properly, tightening her messaging and actually implementing.
And what makes this even more powerful? Her business isn’t built on wanting to make more. It’s built on heart and family. She got into skin to help her own family. She treats from the inside out. She leads with integrity.
The systems...
E66. The Top 10 Traits That Every $20K+ Beauty Business Owner Has
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Look, business isn’t supposed to feel safe.
It’s messy. Brutal. Sleepless nights. Crying kids. Living off coffee and still showing up.
If you think anyone hits $20K months without falling flat on their face first… this is your wake up.
So, what does it actually take? The 10 traits that push people past $20K.
Some are brutal. Some will make you squirm. Some will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about yourself.
Curious? Good. You should be.
Listen here an...
E65. Building a Salon Team That You Rely On - Kayla’s Journey
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Kayla didn’t grow her salon because everything went right.
She grew it while everything was falling apart.
Ever feel like your team is slipping through your fingers just when you need them most? That was Kayla Carlton’s reality. From losing staff during maternity leave to stepping back into a business full of uncertainty, she faced the kind of challenges that would make most salon owners freeze.
But Kayla didn’t just survive, she rebuilt.
With the right systems, leadership strategies and mindset...
E64. MotherHOOD And Owning A Beauty Business
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Mums, can I just say it? Running a business and raising kids is HARD. The guilt. The “I’m failing at everything” feeling. I feel this hard my loves!
In Episode 64 of the Beauty Business School podcast, I get real about what I am currently navigating and how I tackle this as it comes up:
🌸 Why “balance” is a myth and presence actually matters.
🌸 How to be a mum and a beauty business owner without burning out.
🌸 The small, crazy moments with your kids that a...
E63. How To Plan A Profitable Year In Your Salon
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Can I be honest for a sec?
If you don’t plan 2026, it will plan you.
And spoiler: chaos usually wins.
In the latest episode of the Beauty Business School Podcast, I’m walking you through exactly how to map out your year so you’re not:
❌ Throwing random specials at the wall
❌ Posting content with no direction
❌ Wondering why everyone else seems “luckier” than you
This episode is your roadmap for:
✨ planning yo...
