COSMETIC TATTOO TALK

Key Points

• 3 Ways to consult with clients
• How to incorporate numbing cream into each of the different ways to consult
• Exactly what to include in a consultation process

Ready to grow your business?

Get the exact training you need to create beautiful eyebrows, automate your business and become an expert in your area.

Show Transcription 

Hey, and welcome to this episode of cosmetic tattoo talk. So this episode is going to be a little bit longer than my previous episodes because today we are going to be talking about consultations.

Now, there are a number of ways you can be doing consultations in your salon. And it really does come down to what you prefer as a therapist but also how you provide your numbing cream to your clients. So let's start out with the first way to provide a consultation to your client.

The first way is you can get your clients to come in for a 15 to 30-minute consultation before the treatment and by before I mean anywhere from one to two weeks before the treatment. Now structuring your consultations this way allows you to definitely patch tests your client before the treatment. Patch testing needs at least 48 hours for it to be accurate. And you are also able to draw on their eyebrows using you know, eyebrow pencil or Bronson, like I've mentioned in my previous podcasts, so you can send them home with a semi-finished product and how they can expect the tattoo to look.

The second way to do consultations is over the phone. So you can consult with your client via telephone if they do live a little while away from you. This method of consultation is usually a lot quicker than the face to face in option one, however, you can't really see their eyebrows during the consultation because, of course, it's via phone, and they can send pictures. But often you can't really see the extent of overplucking, or if there's any scar tissue in the eyebrow or, you know, you get my point.

Now the third method of consultation is one that I used to have in my salon and I would consult with the client 30 minutes prior to their appointment. Now, this does raise concerns about patch testing, which I will have to talk about in another podcast because it's a topic all by itself. But what I used to do is I used to get my clients in and I would structure this into the timeframe of my treatment. So I would allow half an hour for a consultation to go over any concerns that they may have or any goals that they have for their eyebrows. And then we draw on the eyebrows from there and start the treatment.

Now the third option is obviously the riskiest option because if after the consultation, you've booked the full two hours for the treatment, and your client decides that she doesn't want the tattooing to be done that you have then just wasted two hours of your time in the day. So option one is definitely by far the safest because you get to know your client beforehand, and you can go over with them if you know they're the right client for you, and you're the right therapist for them.

Now, how does numbing cream come into play in these options? Well, a numbing cream really depends on how you decide to send your numbing cream to your clients.

As a therapist, numbing cream again is going to have to be a completely different topic because I could talk for hours about the legalities of numbing cream, and then what is actually happening in the industry. But we'll have to save that for a later date.

So numbing cream with option one, you can get the client's medical information, send it off to your preferred chemist, and then get the chemist to then send the client the numbing cream prior to that treatment. This allows you to abide by the legalities of numbing cream the laws and legislations, option two also allows you to abide by them, you can send the client, the consultation form for them to fill out at home and sent back to you and then you can forward that on to the chemist for then the chemist can then send them their numbing cream prior to their treatment.

Now with the third option, because we haven't talked to the client prior to the treatment, or seen them face to face, we would need to send them an email with the consultation form on it just for their medical history. And we would also need to then get that information back to then forward on to our chemist for us to be able to abide by the laws and legislations, our numbing cream is always a really tricky topic, but it is something that we're going to have to cover later.

So let's move on to what exactly you should be including in your consultation. So the things that you need to cover in a consultation, our timeframe, the cost of both treatments, the importance of follow-up treatment, so make sure that you're educating your clients on why they need to have a follow-up treatment and why it needs to be with you what happens during the treatment, so walk them through the whole process, tell them exactly what you're going to do, so there are no surprises for them. show before and after photos of your work, and what shape and color the client wants.

So make sure this is discussed with them to make sure you get an understanding of what their goals are for their eyebrows when to have the follow-up treatment, so when you're going to rebook them, any deposits that need to be taken. Now, deposits are usually no more than 10% of the treatment.

So if you have a $500 treatment, it's going to be $50 pre-appointment instruction. So what they're going to need to do before they have their treatment.

This would include you know, no alcohol prior, no coffee, no specific medication that you went over in the consultation, no makeup in their eyebrows, etc.

Aftercare instructions, so they can plan their week following the appointment, would really come into play for lip tattooing. So making sure that if they wanted to take a day off work following the lip tattoo that they could do that, making sure they're not going camping the week after, so they can you know, take care of their wound properly, then you tattoo patch testing in their consultation if this is something that is in your policies and procedures, color selection and what to expect when the tattoo is healing.

So again, make sure that you educate your client on the whole process and give them realistic expectations.

So there you have it. That is my process for consultations. As I mentioned earlier, there are hundreds of ways you can consult with clients before a cosmetic tattoo treatment.

If you have any particular way that you like to do them in your salon, I would love to hear please send us an email or a DM on our socials. And I will see you next week for another episode of cosmetic tattoo talk.