I thought I’d switch things up a little and give some feedback to the people who already have the skills to be a professional electrolysist. No, it’s not advice on method. I wont be talking about probes, or what modulation is best or how to avoid scarring . I’ll instead be talking about something much more dear to my heart.
I make no quams about telling anyone who asks, I’m transgender. I face enough discrimination in real life and have found the best way to combat issues is head on and honestly. Honestly, the best way you can be sure your electrolysis business succeeds, is to make sure people like me, are happy.
By way of example, I’m going to use the example of the place i have been getting electrolysis. I’ll get to more on this in a minute, because the experience of marketing to people like me starts before I ever pick up the phone. It starts with marketing.
The first thing you need to know about transpeple, and possibly the most important, is the financial impact we have on your business. Your average transwoman spends anywhere from 200-500 hours under the electrolysis needle on their FACE ALONE. Lets do some quick math, lets average and say 300 hours X $50 an hour over say 2 years.That’s 15000 or about $7500 per year from ONE CLIENT. And your average transperson doesnt stop there, they may seek laser first, and are likely to seek other beauty services like brow shaping, the list goes on. But here’s the even more important part, we are a very large part of your potential clientele, more and more transpeople seek electrolysis every year. And they TALK to each other.
I’m pretty low income. Alot of transpeople are. I have been having electrolysis done at a local electrolygy and beauty school. I was originally quite happy with the service. So I told some people. I gave the contact at my monthly TG group sessions to some of the other girls. I’m part of an adult community and run a group there, so I put information about what to expect up on that group. And, most importantly I mentioned my success during an appointment with my endocrinologist. He went on to tell a large number of his clientele who were having similar dysphoria about the hair on their face ( taht’s just about every transgirl). He’s the leading doctor servicing trans patients in a city of over a million. How many clients do you think that is? Lets be uber conservative and say, 300 ( very conservative since this doctor closed his doors to all but trans patients) . so 300 X $7500 year, lets see that’s $2, 250, 000 . Does it sound like we are talking about potential money yet? Do you think that the person responsible for bringing your business that kind of money deserves good service and respect yet? I read adds looking for electrolysis equippment quite alot lately and it amazed me the sheer number of “retired” electrolysists , mostly because they cant keep enough business coming in the door to keep said door open. If you see a transperson coming in your door and you dont see the potential to make some real money over the long term, then you are throwing dollars in the wastebin with every unbooked hour, plain and simple.
So what makes a transperson come to you in the first place? Well largely word of mouth.They’ve gotten your name , probably from another transgirl, because they have been searching for a way to rid themselves of every hair that is causing them to feel anything less than like the woman they are. Now about half these transpeople, will shun group meetings or online discussions and battle it out on their own. So how do they get your name? Probably marketing and advertising.
Have a look around at the elctrolysis advertisements both online and off in your area. How many of them seem to be exclusivly marketed to women? How many say “For WOMEN ONLY” ? You might as well put up a huge billboard on the front of your store saying “transgirls are not welcome here” if you do this. And yes, you are throwing away real money if you do so. No transperson will ever come near your business, nor will the potential money they bring with them.Recently I picked up a bunch of electrolysis probes from a retiring electrolysist. She gave me abunch of her pamphlets from her business, now closed. My partner ( a transguy) and i browsed through them the other night as we were sticking each other with probes. It talked about how Women have battled issues with hair for centuries. Every second word referenced specifically femle pronouns. As we read it, I kept transposing “person” instead of “female " or Woman” every time.Because yes, we transwomen do consider ourselves women first, but when we see the word stressed repeatedly in this manner we get the same impression as the add that says “women Only” , that you arent comfortable with anything but an extremely conservative environment and we wont be welcome in your business.
So enough of marketing, lets look at what it takes to keep a transwoman ( or transguy) happy as a client.Firt and foremost, we suffer something called Gender Dysphoria. We dont just think we are women ( or in the case of transguys MEN) we ARE women. That means when you address us using the appropriate pronouns, it makes us very happy. But if you call a transwoman “he " or " him” the reverse is immediately true, we are on edge, we are unhappy, and even though we may not say anything at the time we DEFINITELY noticed. We count our days by how many times we have our true gender recognized. I can ell you that today alone, in 6 different environments, I got called " She" “her” or “lady” and I noted and appreciated each one of them. I dont think I can think of a single occasion today I was called “he” so for me , this was a good day.
The other thing that makes transpeople happy, is GOOD SERVICE.Its the same as with every other client. We are NOT less important than your other clients. If you have overbooked, dont go toyour transwoman client and say “Sorry, I know you just paid for an hour, but I can only give you 30 minutes today” then proceed to rush through the session. Find another way to handle it. In this way we are the same as every other client, treat us well and we will not only continue to see you as a client, but likely refer you to a few ( or possibly hundreds) of her friends.
Now I said I would come down to a real life example of this. I’ve been having electrolysis done at a school, we’ll call “North Side Academy” ( not their real name but a variation thereof) located in the mall next to where I used to live. I first went there for laser. The very first thing that impressed me, was how quickly they adapted to my name. I made the appointment with a very obvius male face ( I was early on hormones at the time) and immediately thereafter there was no question of my status, and i was addressed by all, students, instructor , everyone with the proper pronouns.I was so happy about my first session I talked about it with other transgirls on the IRC chat at susans.org that night, and did a writeup about it for my locally based transgender group on an adult site i belong to. They started to get other business because of me. Soon after I had a discussion group for transgender and I mentioned to several there I was having laser done at this school, and at that point the school even reduced what I was paying them ( I had made them aware I had pimped their name a few times) . I also mentioned it to my endocrinologist.
Then I started electrolysis. About this time the lead instructor at the school left and was replaced by someone else. Instantly I saw the level of service drop. Instead of it being "She wants to make an appointment for tuesday, the front counter staff seemed to be reverting to “He wants to make an appointment on tues”. I definitely noticed.
Then scheduling got difficult. The school seemed to be getting more and more disorganized. One of the first times I had electrolysis the owner of the business was nearby and saw me, and immediately turned to the new head instructor and said “Seana is a very good customer, she gets it for $20.” That lasted about 4 sessions, before the new instructor decided it was too much labour and doubled it without the wner knowing about it. I quietly grumbled to myself, but paid. I also stopped using their services with anywhere near the same frequency. At one point I went in ( early as usual to take care of payment first as this had been biting into my session time) and was told I could only have 1/2 an hour , even though I had just paid for an hour and had booked the appointment days in advance. I’m not sure who was more disappointed, me, or the student who was working on me. I didnt go back for a month and a half.
When I did go back, one of the first things I noticed was the very obvious transgirl sitting waiting for her appointment.I had come in to make my appointment. It’s likely she was referred there by my endocrinologist. I made the appointment on friday.On friday I retruned to North End Academy, and was told they couldnt honour the appointment because they had no certified electrolysist to supervise the student that day. I remade it again for the next day, saturday.
As it happened, the student didnt show up on saturday. The Head electrolysist took the appointment instead. Now to be fair, i was extremely happy with her. She was brilliant. She’s offered to come to my home and do the work on me here with my machine. During the appointment she admitted to me "Seana, in 10 years teaching here, I have never seen the school in such poor shape. The place is a mess. I took longer to take you in, because I was cleaninglipstick off the magnifier and cleaning up 15 dirty cups scattered around the work area. " But I have to tell you, despite this teachers brilliance with the needle, it’s not enough to make me have another appointment there. I’m done with North End academy for good. I’ve again started looking for other qualified electrolysists. My group already knows of my recent issues, and are avoiding the place in droves. This month, I intend to quietly suggest to my endocrinologist to stop sending people there, as they wont have anyone qualified enough to work on them for 2 months anyway, and because of the steady decline in service.
So what does it take to keep the transgirls, and their wallets coming in your door and keeping a business alive in this economy? Simple things like respect. Like using the appropriate pronouns. Like using the right name. And like not allowing your prices to fluctuate from appointment to appointment. And by delivering the same professionalism and organization that the client has come to expect. Dont be like North End Academy, and dont throw away 2 1/4 million dollars a year .
Seana
