I’m a multi award-winning nail tech – and here’s my strategy for business success

After building a successful, award-winning mobile nail business, Joanna Tompkins was awarded the Scratch Stars Nail Business Mentor Of The Year Award in 2023 for her work within the free Nail Tech Tribe community and the Nail Business Success Club (NBSC). She supports sole trader nail techs and beauticians, who work from home, on a mobile basis or rent a space, in earning £3-5k a month without burnout, a fancy salon or a team.

My strategy for nail business success

When it comes to earning £3-5k a month as a sole trader nail tech or beautician, I see a lot of skepticism. And rightly so, because it isn’t the normal outcome for most nail techs when they set up their businesses. But through my work inside Nail Tech Tribe and the Nail Business Success Club, we have started to see a huge rise in nail techs reaching these earnings. And they’re just regular nail techs and beauticians like you and I.

They’re not high powered business people working every second they have. They have families or other jobs, they still have self doubt and anxieties, but more importantly – they don’t have a fancy salon or a team like you might suspect. These nail techs earning £3-5k a month are working from home, on a mobile basis or renting a space in someone else’s salon.

Lots of people think earning this kind of money from their businesses will mean they will have to sacrifice in other areas of their life, but you can earn this money without having to even work 40 hours a week. You can actually take more time off, not less, because you’ll have more money for holidays and sick pay and your pension pot etc. NBSC coach, Jenny Harris, doesn’t even work the week leading up to Christmas anymore, because she earns consistently year round!

The truth is, earning £3-5k a month as a nail tech is possible for all of us – but it won’t happen by just hoping for a miracle. You need to follow a strategy, such as my six-step Client Magnetisation Method.

When I thought about what had led me to achieve such quick success in my business and nail career (I won my first Scratch Stars Award the first year I was eligible to enter and hit £3-5k+ months regularly), I put together a 6-step plan. This has now helped hundreds of other nail techs to not only get fully booked, but build businesses that support them financially and suit their work-life balance.

The strategy consists of six steps as outlined in the image. You can start with whichever one you feel is holding you back from earning £3-5k a month the most.

For example, if you have been in business for years and you’re fully booked all the time, you would probably need to focus on steps one and six first. You may currently be worried about losing what you have already built up if you raise your prices, or you may never really have thought about your service menu and how tweaks to it could mean you earn more without working harder. You probably require some mindset and confidence shifts, plus learning of some biz strategies specifically for fully booked nail techs.

Or maybe you have been up and running for a few months, but you don’t have as many clients on your books as you had hoped for. If so, you would need to start with steps two and three. This would mean taking a good look at how you have positioned your business within the market, the professionalism of what you’re doing and making sure you know how to raise awareness of your business within the local community.

You see, it’s not down to luck if you get fully booked, attract regular clients or hit £1k weeks in your business… it’s down to having a plan that goes beyond knowing how to post on your socials or getting a logo made.

Click here to join the Nail Tech Tribe Facebook Community for daily motivation and inspiration on growing your nail or beauty biz.

Follow Nail Tech Tribe on Instagram, and watch Joanna’s live interview with Scratch about her Nail Your Epic Life challenge and the NBSC below.