Long hair don’t care? Not quite for this enterprising 27-year-old with a passion for all things hair care and beauty.
Trina Graham is the founder and head stylist at Beauty on the Go, where she sews custom made wigs for women who are constantly on the go.
Trina’s clients include professionals, students, and women with busy lifestyles, who take pride in their appearance and want to look great at all times.
Influenced by her mom, who worked as a cosmetologist, Trina decided to start her side hustle to cater to women on the go.
Unlike traditional hair stylists, Trina is able to custom make wigs for her clients on her own time. This means she can spend more time making sure the wigs look perfect for her clients. This includes washing, treating, cutting, curling, or coloring her wigs to suit her clients’ style and everyday needs.
Inspiration
Inspiration for many businesses come in many shapes and forms, but for Trina, she found inspiration while scrolling through her Instagram account. We all know and love Instagram, but also know how addictive and time consuming social media can be. We spend hours scrolling through the gram liking and commenting on pictures and videos.
But for Trina, she started to notice a movement of women who were not only posting pictures and videos to their accounts, they were actually using it as a platform to market their businesses.
Scrolling on Instagram in the evenings after work, all I saw was people making money using social media while I’m here just scrolling and liking. I thought to myself I’m good at doing makeup and hair. Why not start a business and make some money as well.
These female entrepreneurs were turning their passions for hair and beauty and monetizing their Instagram to launch and promote their products and services.
Inspired by these boss babes, including @KeddyKure, @WeaveDarling, and @Fashionenira, Trina decided ‘why not her?’
I was just tired of scrolling on Instagram wasting time. Now I scroll for business ideas, keeping my page current, and interacting with clients and followers.
This can-do attitude led to the conceptualization and launch of Beauty on the Go.
Marketing a hair business
Instagram and Facebook
Trina is steadily building her social media following and takes advantage of both Instagram and Facebook to spread the word about her business. Utilizing Instagram and Facebook’s story feature as well as hashtags related to her business.
She tries to post on a daily basis with fresh content that showcases pictures and videos of her clients as well as testimonials. She also enjoys taking her followers on a behind the scenes look at how she brings her wig creations to life with videos and tutorials.
She also uses WhatsApp Business, a personal messenger app to communicate with her contacts. This app was built with small businesses in mind. It’s a convenient way to showcase your products in a catalog and set up automated messages to customers.
Along with WhatsApp, Trina also takes advantage of Planoly for scheduling social media posts, as well as Inshot and Ripl for video content creation.
I use myself to create an opportunity to sell anytime, anywhere. Who better to put my business out there than me?
But one of her biggest marketing tips is ensuring you are repping your brand 24/7. At the end of the day, you have to be your own biggest fan. That means using your products and services and showcasing how great they are.
I was never big on wearing wigs before I started my business. I even remember saying that I would never wear a wig, but now I’m always in a wig and representing my brand.
How to market a hair business
| Connects business with large audiences | |
| Interact and engage with customers | |
| Planoly | Visually manage, plan, and schedule your Instagram posts from your computer and mobile phones |
| Ripl | Create branded videos on social media |
| Inshot | Create videos for social media |
| Shopify | Create a website to showcase your products and to get more sales |
Challenges
With Trina’s confidence and can-do attitude, it’s hard to imagine that one of her early challenges was the fear of getting started. This is a big obstacle that countless entrepreneurs and creatives face as they embark on an entrepreneurial journey, but what kept Trina going was her faith.
Fear was a challenge initially, but it did not stop me from stepping out in faith.
Once she overcame her fear, Trina began to hand sew all her wigs which took, anywhere from 12 to 24 hours. She soon invested in a sewing class and sewing machine, which dramatically cut down production time to about one hour. This made it possible for her to ramp up production, and she could make more wigs for more clients.
First Sale
Everyone remembers their first sale, and for Trina, she was both surprised and delighted. But for her, it really reinforced her decision to launch her business.
I was surprised and excited in the same breath. I knew I had the skill but there is always the fear of what if I don’t get any sales. But to see that the client trusted me to create the difference they were looking for really surprised and meant a lot to me. It also boosted my confidence and showed me that I could really do this.
Making time for her business
It’s tough juggling a full-time job and a side hustle. You want your business to grow and someday hope that it can replace your income from your job, but it takes time. That means you have to juggle both priorities to ensure none get left behind.
What helps Trina is using a planner to schedule her daily activities. She uses it to schedule her daily and weekly goals for both her business and her work commitments. She also plans ahead and schedules her social media posts in advance.
“The key is to be consistent and maintain a presence on social media. This is why a planner is important because I have to maintain a strong presence on social media, plus completing new orders and meeting clients for consultations.“
Despite the challenges, Trina still persists each day because of the belief she has in her brand.
“It is all worth it, whenever I see my clients in their units, and they are looking fabulous.“
How to start a hair business like Beauty on the Go
Many people think to start a business, you need thousands of dollars worth of capital. The fact is you can start a business with just what you have and continue to grow from there. Once Trina decided she wanted to start a custom wig making business, she invested just under $150 to purchase the raw materials and supplies she would need.
She knew she needed to practice to get comfortable with wig making, so she started with just the essentials.
“I went to the wholesale store to purchase some cheap hair to test out my craft before I started with the more expensive virgin hair. After my first wig, I was ready for business.”
Start-up costs of a hair business
The day to day costs of starting and running any business can add up quickly, but Trina keeps her expenses low by operating her business from home. She incurs most of her expenses on the tools and supplies she needs to run her business. This includes shampoos, conditioners, treatments, wig caps, thread, bundles, shopping bags as well as labels.
“Most of my expenses are buying hair care products every two to three months and buying stock every quarter.”
To manage her expenses, Trina utilizes Wave, an accounting software that makes it easy to track expenses, inventory, and customer invoices. They have a free plan as well as a paid plan.
Advice + Future Plans
Bringing beauty to your doorstep.
As her business continues to grow, Trina intends to expand into other areas of beauty, including makeup and nails, with the goal of creating a mobile beauty empire that makes it easy and convenient for her customers to get top-notch service wherever they are.
“I want to have a team that will go to clients in the comfort of their homes. A full-on mobile business that offers makeup, hair, and nails.“
For other entrepreneurs looking to launch their own custom wig making business, Trina has these words of wisdom:
Just do it. Don’t think about the million other people that are doing the same thing. There is always room for you.
Follow Trina on Facebook and Instagram.
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