Anxiety at First Beauty Professional Appointment

I can say for myself as a beauty professional, I experience anxiety at any first appointment I have with a beauty professional for the first time especially with nail techs. With Hairstylists, it's mostly due to the attitudes and demeanors we can carry unfortunately; not all, but most for sure. I've had multiple conversations with clients after completion of their appointment express to me how they had anxiety before coming to their appointment. One client told me she took anxiety medicine before coming to see me for the first time simply because she didn't know what to expect; not due my styling capabilities, but my attitude and professionalism. A lot of us can do hair, but a lot of us lack skills that some clients need in order to feel secure at their appointment.

Some clients prefer a more professional, intimate, and personable experience while others are more concerned about the professional's skillset. I care about the experience more because if a person is providing a service and needs to be in my personal space in order to provide the service, we have to vibe. It doesn't matter to me how great you are at what you do.

As a professional, I use to be excited to receive new client bookings. Now, I experience anxiety and can say that I don't anymore. You never know what's walking through that door. Usually we tend to attract the clients who are very similar to us in this industry. But unfortunately some do slip through the cracks that tend to make you want to give up on this entire career altogether especially when you know where your heart is while providing beauty services and they try to suggest otherwise. With one client, our encounter was so stressful I almost started to screen clients before they could book an appointment just to make sure psychologically new people were mentally well. Yes, that's how bad it was

So how do we fix this? Find a professional that offers consultations Offering consultations or scheduling a consultation prior to committing to booking an appointment can help ease the anxiety for you and the professional. Although they are completely optional, this can help save not only investing your money, but your time as well. This will give you and the professional both an opportunity to see if you all are a good fit. I've had a few clients to not book me after discovering we were simply not a good fit and that's not a bad thing. It was due to not offering all of the services they needed to prevent going to multiple stylists to get certain services done. Sometimes it can be simply due to an estimate of a price quote that's outside of their budget. Either way, get to know your professional and potential client prior and build a rapport ahead of time to make sure you all have a mutual understanding of each other's needs in order to have a healthy relationship. Hair appointments can be a minimum 2 hours. That's a long time to be around an aura you don't vibe or connect with.