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ASCP Esty Talk
Ep 332 – Rethinking the Hustle
00:21:50
The beauty industry often romanticizes the hustle mentality—work harder, work longer, always be on the go. But for many, this can have a real impact on personal relationships, mental health, and overall well-being. In this episode of ASCP Esty Talk,...
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- [00:00]
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- [01:32]
Maggie Stasik
Hello and welcome to ASCP's eStatee Talk. I'm your co host Maggie Stasik, ASCP's program director.
- [01:38]
Ella Cressman
And I'm Ella Cressman, Licensed esthetician, Certified Organic Skincare Formulator and Content Contributor for Associated Skincare Professionals.
- [01:46]
Maggie Stasik
Ella, we know the beauty industry can often glorify the hustle mentality. Work harder, work longer, always be on the go. But today we're flipping the script. We're diving into the idea of balance and redefining what success looks like in our industry. So let's talk about the impact of this hustle mentality. For estheticians. The beauty industry seems to demand nonstop effort. The always be busy mentality is sometimes romanticized, I think with long hours, always striving for more clients, and constantly pushing yourself to be productive. But I think for many there's a real impact of this on our mental health, our relationships and personal wellbeing. What what is your take on this always hustling mentality? Do you think it's inevitable part of the business or are we being conditioned to believe it's the only way to succeed?
- [02:39]
Ella Cressman
Oh, I feel, I feel there's some a lot to unpack here.
- [02:45]
Maggie Stasik
For me.
- [02:45]
Ella Cressman
I feel like I want to announce my name is Ella and I'm a former constant hustler because I do feel that that is ingrained and conditioned and expected. What I noticed is when I was in the middle of that or when that was spawned, it was because I was in my practice and I needed something else. So I became a Rep and an educator. And then that led into doing this, and that led into doing that. So the pace was set at that point where it's constantly moving and shaking and moving and shaking. And I came to realize something recently when I was speaking to a colleague that I would talk to often during that time. What are you doing? What else are you doing? What else you do? What else are you doing? What else are you doing? Great. Sounds good. So a couple days ago, I was speaking with her. What else are you doing? And I was exhausted from the conversation. I'm like, nothing else. I'm just working on my practice at the moment. Working on my practice. And, oh, yeah, this one other thing. But rather than nine things in the fire had 12 things, right? So I do feel like we're conditioned. But now that my life is a little bit different, now that I have step kids, I have aging parents, I have my husband, I have this huge property that we live on, my time is pulled away, and my desire to be in those alternative times is greater than it had been before, because I loved hustling. I loved doing all of these things and being a part of all of these things. Or boasting. I don't know if boasting is the right word now I'm saying boasting. But when I'm in it, it's like, no, I'm always working. I'm always, always working. I'm always working. I'm always working because I was my business. I am my business. They were so intertwined that if I wasn't, then what else was I. What else was I doing? Again, I told you a lot to unpack there. But. So to answer your question, is this an inevitable part of the business? I've learned that it's not. I've learned that you can have a shop, you can be an esthetician. You can have that identity separate from this other thing. Like, it's not there, that there can be a disconnect. It doesn't have to be like that. And with that, you can be successful. I also recognize that that hustle, that constant hustle mentality can prove to be successful also. I feel like you can have success in both areas.
- [05:02]
Maggie Stasik
I agree with you in the sense that we are conditioned. You know, there's this phrase, what's your side hustle? And that is part of the beauty industry, because it's what we do. And something you said that stood out to me was, what else is there? And I think that part of it, too, is there's so much opportunity in the industry that estheticians are perhaps always looking for the next thing. We're very curious and also maybe we're getting bored to just sit at the treatment table and do facial day after day after day. Eventually, I think we get to the point where we love this and we're passionate about it, but what else is there?
- [05:50]
Ella Cressman
You know what it. Let me ask you this then. This kind of sparked an idea. In the hair industry, you have tiers of experience that's reflected really with their pricing. So you have master and apprentice and everything in between. Right. And the aesthetic industry, we don't really have that necessarily. So a cost of a facial is. What do people charge in your area for your facial? For a facial, there's not a real difference in mastery so much. So it just got me thinking, I wonder if it's this way to position ourselves as masters. Like, oh, yeah, I do facials, but I also do X, Y and Z. I also have a TikTok shop or a channel or I also speak at conferences. That shows that I'm on that track, that I'm not just fresh out of school. Because somebody who comes fresh out of school can charge the exact same amount that I do. Yeah, it's interesting to me.
- [06:47]
Maggie Stasik
Yeah, I, I think you're right. I think there's something to that that we are trying to always level up. And I think also to that just switching gears a little bit. There's burnout. Right?
- [07:01]
Ella Cressman
It.
- [07:01]
Maggie Stasik
And you spoke to that a little bit. You've reached a point in your life where you've realized you don't need to always be doing that and you're finding other aspects of your life that are more valuable to you than to constantly be hustling.
- [07:18]
Ella Cressman
But okay, yes. And then you're talking about burnout. Then you said something like trying, like being in the treatment room, at the treatment table, doing the same thing over and over and over. I've experienced burnout at least once a year. And it's just a different definition. I've experienced this like time consuming burnout. But I've also experienced dermaplane burnout. And I've experienced eyebrow or say eyelash tinting burnout. Like I'm done with that. I go through these phases of it's just not as much fun. At the same time, I do recognize that I experience like right now, I'm so pumped with the product line that I, that I'm using and the treatment opportunity that I'm like, oh my God, let's try this, let's try this. Let's try this. That I'm impassioned in those areas, and that could be why I don't want to do X anymore, you know? Yeah. Dermaplane imaging.
- [08:08]
Maggie Stasik
How do you define the difference between burnout and boredom?
- [08:13]
Ella Cressman
Oh, good question. Oh, they're so close. They're cousins, I think. I think boredom would be like, I'm. So I'm not finding the passion anymore and burnout is. I don't have the gas anymore. Yeah, maybe.
- [08:26]
Maggie Stasik
Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it. For sure. For me and the treatment room, it was probably a combination of both, you know, because I always am passionate about skin and educating and the science and telling my clients this is how we are going to achieve those great results. But sitting at that treatment table day after day, going through the rhythm, that's boredom for me.
- [08:54]
Ella Cressman
Or they're coming so long that they're in maintenance mode.
- [08:57]
Maggie Stasik
Right.
- [08:58]
Ella Cressman
Could be boredom. Like, give. Give me a pimple. Throw me some hyperpigmentation. Yeah, Yeah, I think so.
- [09:04]
Maggie Stasik
So to your point again, about, you know, coming into this new phase of your life, let's redefine what success looks like. And I think also the industry maybe is shifting a little bit where success is not this constant hustle. Would you agree with that?
- [09:20]
Ella Cressman
Yeah. Success isn't how busy you are, but it's like quality versus quantity argument in a kind of a different way.
- [09:26]
Maggie Stasik
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's maybe a generational thing too, because the notion of success, at least for me, and having grown up in. In this industry, success often is tied to numbers. It is, what is your revenue? How many clients are you seeing? You know, what were your retail sales, that kind of thing. And I think perhaps that there might be a shift in this. And we can also redefine what that looks like, including things like self care, which we have talked so much about, enjoying the work that we're doing, and then also having time for personal life.
- [09:59]
Ella Cressman
I think that is an individual answer too. I think we can take power in the definition to. To what we're talking about here. That busy, busy, busy. Hustle, hustle, get it, girl. Always on my grind kind of mentality. Or I saw three people today and I made a thousand dollars. Right. Or wow, my books are 80% filled. Whatever your gauge is. I feel like that could be. You get to pick that.
- [10:26]
Maggie Stasik
Yeah. So you're saying it's a personal thing?
- [10:28]
Ella Cressman
100. I feel like we need to remind ourselves that it's a personal thing.
- [10:32]
Maggie Stasik
Yeah. I don't know if it is okay. I mean, I could be totally wrong. What I'm saying for me is that. Okay, so I got my license in 2006.
- [10:42]
Ella Cressman
Oh, my God. That was a long time ago.
- [10:46]
Maggie Stasik
Thank you so much.
- [10:48]
Ella Cressman
Was it printed on paper? It was.
- [10:52]
Maggie Stasik
It was printed on an inkjet printer. I know. They faxed it to me.
- [10:58]
Ella Cressman
Mine was on a printing press. They did the pony Express and they sent it to my house.
- [11:04]
Maggie Stasik
Anyways, I think that for me, in that generation, it was ingrained that you are successful if you are selling X amount. If you. If your books are this full, if you are working five days a week and you can expect it will take you this long to get there. And places of business, we're saying, guess what? This is your quota. If you're not meeting this quota, you're out. And so for me, that will always be my measure and my gauge of success. I can't. I don't want to say I can't. I probably can shift my mindset. But at the present moment, my gauge for success are all those things that were ingrained in me when I first started out as an esthetician. And I guess what I'm saying is I think that there is a group of estheticians that grew up thinking that way as well.
- [12:06]
Ella Cressman
Oh, I would agree. I would absolutely agree. I guess there's this little bit of a relationship between goals and success. So I guess what I'm saying is you get to define your goals, or if you work for someone, your goals are defined for you. And so you get to choose if you want to work there based on those goals. Right. So it all comes down to goals. So if your goal is to have this sales to service ratio and you achieve it, success, you met your goal. If your goal is to have X many clients a month, success, you met your goal. My goal is something I used to do. I used to work in the clinic or in the treatment room six days a month. And I made great money. And then I could do my side hustle things. That was cool. I loved it. I'd brag about it. Now it's a little different. So my new goal is going to be to work X days a month, make x thousand dollars a month, period, exclamation point, not a dot, dot, dot, just a period. And once I get there, and I know I will, then I will be successful.
- [13:13]
Maggie Stasik
So you have redefined your measure of success. Indeed, indeed. Do you feel like the beauty industry pressures us to focus too much on the numbers?
- [13:21]
Ella Cressman
Yes. Yes, I do. For a lot of reasons. We're in a very visual space. We are connected socially. We're in a boastful environment. Quite often our education is led by brands. A lot of things are led by brands. Right? The brands jumped in at a time chronologically where the basic education hadn't caught up with a lot of the offerings. The brands have now taken control of specific areas of education. So we look to them, we put our confidence in them. We also look to brands to validate us as practitioners. So we're boasting about, look what I did. We're hashtagging them in our social media posts, hoping they see us and they repost us. We're doing a lot of their marketing for free and they're telling us, do more. That's the message that they're doing. They're leading us that way. When you get to a certain level, you're going to be a bronze, you're going to be a silver, you're going to be a platinum. And then you get this perk and you get that perk. It's very much rewarded based on these numbers. Who's setting those numbers? Vans. Brands. Brands are setting those numbers. But you, the business owner, get to decide your metric. You don't have to follow that. Is that fair?
- [14:32]
Maggie Stasik
Oh, yeah.
- [14:33]
Ella Cressman
Period.
- [14:33]
Maggie Stasik
You are a hundred percent right. My first job out of aesthetic school, and granted, I did not know anything, and, man, it was like whiplash when I was told, you're selling this, this and this, like, get it, girl, you know? And I thought what? I thought I was gonna do facials all day, you know? It was the brand that came in and said to the business owner, show us everybody's numbers. And the brand said, that's not good enough. We want everybody's numbers to be this, this, this. And I thought, holy crap.
- [15:11]
Ella Cressman
Yeah, I was part of that. I was part of that charge. I know exactly what it is. I was part of creating the education for that with a lean. Right? One of my favorite parts about where I'm at right now is I'm brand detached. One of the hardest things for me about working with the brands was putting a brand lean on a subject. A subject like rosacea, a subject like acne, a subject like even menopause. They did this really cool, great menopause presentation, or like, so detailed. And then at the end, you got to put the brand lean on it. Because the goal was to get, you know, the buy in or have the confidence be in the brand. But the brands at this point are really leading that section. So it's kind of convoluted. And what a great time when we have this opportunity for a new mindset to say what do I really want? What do I really want? What is the definition for me? Another Ooh, did you recently hear the girl who is the CEO of Skims and and Good American, she was talking about work life balance is not your employer's responsibility. Very interesting comment. But the sentiment was basically like you're in charge of your work life balance and you get to make those things and those decisions. So we hear a lot about that also. So as a solopreneur or a solo esthetician or even somebody working at a place and having side hustles, you are in charge of that balance too. So I agree with that sentiment from her. So what are you doing for it? And who is setting those goals that drive your or define your success?
- [16:50]
Maggie Stasik
I think that this side hustle culture is still very prevalent in our industry, but we are shifting towards this idea of work life balance is important. Self care is important. I think younger generations are helping to fuel this idea as well. And with that said, I think there's also this idea with this hustle culture that if you slow down, you lose momentum, that you miss out, that if you don't keep going, going, going, your clients are going to leave and go somewhere else or fill in the blank with whatever the thing is. But that's not always true.
- [17:28]
Ella Cressman
It's never true. If they leave and go somewhere else, you're gonna get somebody else. That's the thing. The best thing that you can do. Here's like my advice. All you hustlers out there or prospective hustlers, the best thing that you can do is provide the best possible service. The best possible service includes whatever you're physically working on. It does include recommending home care and, and it includes encouraging this long term relationship with that there you you might not need these side hustles to validate or to supplement your income as long as you're working on it. I think the side hustle piece is lack and scarcity mindset. Like I'm not this is gonna go away. Cause consumer confidence will change. Yeah, it's gonna change for sure. But the more you focus on your service, the service of your clients or of your patients, the better reputation we have. They'll come back to you. I just had a client come back to me five years. Hadn't seen her for five years and two months. She came in, she spent $756, she tipped me a hundred bucks and she rebooked she's back, you know, she's back in. And she said, I said to her, I think you tipped me. I think you made an error in your tip. So I'm going to save it for you for next time or I can reverse it. She responded back via text. She said, no, not in error. I forgot how much my soul needs you. Like my, like her soul needed it, not just her skin. So that customer service or that relationship building that you have, even if you don't see them, they're also potentially referring people to you and so on, that's where you're going to make the most. But what we do is we focus on the side hustle on our shops or our online presence or our opportunity to become an ambassador or some kind of an affiliate or something like that. We focus on that instead and that becomes majority. And I'm saying this out of experience.
- [19:26]
Maggie Stasik
Yeah, you get pulled thin. And I think that sometimes stepping back is exactly what your business needs. And as a business owner, you've probably had to do that many recently.
- [19:36]
Ella Cressman
Very, very recently I had to do that. And I, I was like, what is going. What don't. What are my deficits here? I had shifted my focus. I looked solely at my business, took all my other side hustles away. I said, what's not working right right now? Because the way you know, I'll give you an example. I had a booking software, I had a inventory management software, I had something this and something this and website host was over here and then the domain host was over there. So I took time and it was time consuming and I consolidated and wow. My business picked up different SEOs, different things. I don't know what happened, but it's like picking up. So I'm focusing on that part too, which is an indirect service to my clients because it's easier for them to book or it's easier for me to remind them that they haven't been in or things like that. So there's that part too.
- [20:29]
Maggie Stasik
Now, listeners, we want to hear from you. Do you feel pressure to always be hustling in your aesthetics career, or have you found a way to create balance share with us on social media through Instagram, Facebook or by emailing getconnectedscpskincare.com thank you for listening to ASCPSDtalk. And as always, for more information on this episode, or for ways to connect with Ella and myself, or to learn more about ascp, check out the show notes.
- [20:58]
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