I finished up school and just about 6 weeks later, my own practice was open and taking on clients. I would have opened sooner, but I had a bit of an issue finding the right location*.
In a couple weeks, I’ll hit my one year anniversary and I must be doing something right since my business has been paying me enough to live on for 6 months already. I’m at my office 9 hours per day, 6 days per week and have only closed for 3 holidays in the past year and only because I didn’t have anyone scheduled for those days (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Memorial Day). Once my client base is big enough that I’m not worried about the effect of taking time off on my profit, I’ll cut back a more. I’ve also kept track of what times were extremely slow (first two weeks of September last year when the combination of Labor Day and kids going back to school left me completely dead, though I had only been open for 6 weeks at that point) and what times were particularly busy (35 new consults between March 1 and April 15, most of whom are now regulars). Use this knowledge to plan your paid advertising too - it might not make as much sense to advertise in late August as it does late February)
Above and beyond doing good work, which is absolutely vital, and continuing your education (there is ALWAYS more to learn and I highly recommend studying the tips you can find from the people here), the three most important parts of starting your business will be:
Demeanor - you have to be able to build a relationship with your clients, trust is key and being friendly and welcoming goes a long way. Get to know your clients and what is important to them. Take notes of these things and surprise them with just how much you care. Your consultation is your time to sell yourself and it’s extremely important to do a good job there too. I felt that the consultation process was critically overlooked during my education at school and I had to develop my own process for it (along with developing your consultation skills, you also need a paper workflow that is going to work for you including intake forms, treatment charts, etc. I ended up making all of my own stuff from scratch there).
Location - finding the right spot goes a long way in helping your business grow
Marketing - client acquisition and retention are vital. Whatever you think you need to do for marketing and advertising to start out with, prepare to put in 2-3x the effort and don’t be afraid to spend a little money here since, even if you do good work, it takes a way for word of mouth to work - you need a critical mass of clients first. In my case, I have ads on groupon, yelp, craigslist, in print (I’ve gotten 0 from my print ads, but it can help build awareness… just be prepared to not actually get clients off it and your expectations will be realistic), on the websites of local papers (the ad in their paper didn’t get me anything but the ad on their site did), facebook, google+, build a website, get to know your local transgender community, offer referral credit, find doctors and clinics willing to refer to you (and give them cards/flyers), find salons and/or spas that may be willing to refer people to you (they are out there, though the places that do waxing aren’t likely to refer to you), join local business associations (I have found businesses that will refer to me as well as clients there), etc.
Some people think that something like groupon or yelp are beneath them and I’m very thankful for that attitude, as groupon alone has brought me in 17 clients that go on to be full paying regulars.
My biggest area of client growth, is clients that have been to other electrologists in town and decided that the work they were getting there wasn’t good enough. They are awed at the difference when they come to me.
At this point, I’m already looking at options to expand my business down the road and have a couple other electrologists waiting in the wings that want to work for me once I decide that I have too much work for myself.
In the meantime, I continue to invest in more equipment, particularly things that affect the job I can do (extra lighting and magnification options, Laurier probes, more cataphoresis rollers, etc) or the client experience (a tv with netflix/amazon prime/pandora/etc, a refrigerator to chill my aloe, witch hazel, wifi for them to use their phones/tablets with, etc)
Don’t be afraid to ask your clients if they think you can do something better or if they like one particular option over another (say, aloe versus witch hazel after treatment). As part of my consultation, I tell my clients exactly what to expect and that they should hold me to it or else I’m not giving them the type of treatment they are paying me for). Be honest and think about how you would want to be treated yourself.
One more tip… recognize your personal limitations and find people that can fill those gaps for you. As a small business owner, we have to wear a lot of hats and do things that aren’t necessarily our strong points. If you have the money to do so, admit your faults up front and pay others to deal with them for you - have an accountant set up QuickBooks for your business if you aren’t sure how or pay them to do all of your accounting for you, ask for tax advice, find someone with some experience dealing with commercial leases if you’re going to rent a place, have realtors that specialize in leasing commercial space help you find a location, if you want a logo and have no artistic talent hire some college kid doing graphic design to make one for you (mine cost $75 that way where if I hired a firm to do it, I probably would have spent at least 10x that), etc.
- I was looking for an office around 150-200 square feet in the medical area of town or one of the higher end business districts. I ran into one of two issues everywhere - either they wouldn’t let me have a sink in my office or they wanted me to rent 1000-2000 square feet. Ultimately, I found a perfect 250 square foot office that is right next two two major highways, on one of the main city bus lines and is in the LGBT area of the city, right next to a barber school (and I toss them a little free demonstration once in a while so they’ll know what electrolysis is and exactly where they can send someone if someone asks them about it after they graduate).
, there’s something you have not done yet, a visit to Italy … after of course, a small stopover in Spain. 
