Create an Effective Makeup Artist Invoice Example for Supervision

Makeup artist invoice example for Supervision

hey everybody in today's video I'm going to be talking about booking policies and procedures for makeup artists now this is a really important video to watch if you are going to be doing any freelance work the other thing that I would recommend doing is watching my video on Bridal contracts if you haven't done that already you should go and do that before watching this video there are going to be some things that I'm going to refer to in this video that I talked about in more detail in my Bridal contracts video so I will link to it so you can check that out if you haven't already but definitely watch that video before in this video the other thing that I wanted to mention is that I am a makeup artist and not a lawyer so if you have any questions about any of the legalities surrounding working out the makeup artists in your city you need to talk to a lawyer I can't give you information about the requirements that you need to work as a freelancer I can't give you information about what a valid contract is all of these legalities differ from city to city state to state country to country and I know there's viewers from all around the world that watch this channel so if you are looking for legal advice I cannot give it to you if you ask me any questions about licensing or contracts or anything like that my answer will always be to talk to a lawyer talking to a lawyer is always the right thing to do and it's a great investment for your business the reason I want to talk about booking policies and procedures is because these are things that you're going to apply to every single client that you work with the contract that we typically speak about as makeup artist is going to apply to your large event bookings your wedding bookings things like that exchanging a contract with every single client you have outside of that type of booking in the real world does not happen when I shoot a commercial when I shoot a music video when I shoot a lookbook I don't give my clients a contract it's not something that we exchange it's just not something that is done outside of those larger event bookings but I do make them aware of are my booking policies and procedures and it acts as a formal contract and this way you don't have to present this 10 page PDF document to your clients you'll find onset other people are not going to be providing their clients with documents large PDF contracts the people on lighting people paying the people doing hair they don't have contracts with clients that's not how things work in the real world what we do have though are booking policies and procedures which acts as a contract so I hope this clears up some of confusion between contracts and booking policies and procedures for you this formal contract really doesn't exist outside of those special event bookings if you think it does you're gonna be in for a rude awakening when you get into the freelance world there are two elements to your booking policies and procedures that you want to figure out right away and I'm going to be focusing on these two things for the rest of this video let's start with the deposit so the reason that we asked for deposit is to make sure we don't lose any money if someone cancels on us last minute and I know a really common question is when do I ask for a deposit my rule of thumb is if you are working with personal clients you should always ask for a deposit and when I say personal client I mean a client who is just a normal person looking to have their makeup done this could be a wedding client could be a Bar Mitzvah prom special event Bachelorette someone that is just going out for a night out I would always make sure to ask for a deposit with a personal client personal clients can't cancel last-minute they can change their mind they can find someone cheaper they can go to them all and have their makeup done so there are a million reasons why a personal client can cancel on you to make sure that you don't lose any money I would ask for a deposit for clients like this another suggestion that you might want to think about in terms of your deposit is making your deposit non-refundable this is something that I do with all of my personal clients it attracts a certain caliber of client when they know that I have a non-refundable deposit it ensures that they're not gonna cancel on you last minute because when you have Mike at stake and you have a non-refundable deposit chances are in your experience I'm sure when you've had to put a deposit on something it just makes things a little bit more official and it attracts clients that are serious about working with you and this for the long term is a better client to have for your business the next question you're gonna have I'm sure is about how much of a deposit are you supposed to charge your clients there are no rules for this you can charge whatever you want for me personally depending on the total fee I'm comfortable with a deposit that is anywhere between thirty and fifty percent of the total fee it's reasonable it's not intimidating to your client and you have to make your deposit enough so that if your client does cancel last minute you are not at a total loss for the day so think about asking maybe between 30 and 50 percent of the total booking fee again though this is totally up to you and it has to be what you're comfortable with so come up with a reasonable amount for your deposit next thing we're going to talk about is your cancellation policy this is a huge part of your business and it's a very important part of your business because it prevents you from losing money when you're taking bookings it also like your deposit attracts a higher caliber of client and when you are establishing your business for the long term you want clients that want to work with you when you have a cancellation fee this protects you from losing money and this is a really important part of running your business when we talk about personal clients so your big money personal client bookings your wedding bar mitzvahs events prompts whatever it is there should be a cancellation policy that is indicated in your contracts and there is a fee for anybody who cancels last-minute I did touch on cancellation policy in my Bridal contracts video there's going to be a larger fee for cancellation when you have a larger group especially during wedding season you lose a huge chunk of money if someone cancels on you last minute so it's important to implement a cancellation fee you're gonna have of course your non-refundable deposits for these large bridal parties and events you may want to have them pay you the full amount you may want to charge an additional fee and this fee could be charged if they cancel within a month if they cancel within a week 24 48 hours but remember that for these parties and these large events like weddings people can book you a year in advance if someone cancels on you last minute chances are you might not be able to pick up another wedding because most people are going to be booking artists for their wedding far in advance but when it comes to these large parties you might want to have a greater window where there is a fee if they cancel on you when it comes to your smaller personal bookings cancellation policy can be a flat fee and you can implement this fee if they cancel 24 to 48 hours before the confirmed booking so think about that think about if you just want to charge a flat fee or if you would like to charge them the remainder of what they owe you if they cancel very last-minute again we'll attract a client that is serious about working with you and these are the clients that you want to keep as you go on in this industry for every other client especially when you get on in your career and you have larger clients with a lot more money at stake it is common in our industry to have a cancellation policy and the closer your client cancels you to the confirmed booking date the more money they're gonna have to pay you every time you confirm a booking with your client you are saying no to a bunch of other jobs and a bunch of other money so if they do cancel on you it is appropriate to ask for a cancellation fee traditionally there are cancellation fees that can be applied if they cancel within five days of your book date and of course if they cancel last-minute 24 to 48 hours the cancellation fee is gonna be a little heftier and you can ask at this point for a larger sum or the full amount that they owe you if they cancel very last-minute so with clients outside of your personal clients make sure that you think about this cancellation fee as cancellation policy so that you attract people that want to work with you and it's a more professional way to conduct your business an important thing to think about when you are looking at asking for a deposit for your services when you are thinking about asking for a fee for cancellation when you are thinking about determining your policies and procedures for cancellations is that what you are asking from your clients is fair things change last-minute in our industry all the time and you have to be a little bit lenient with this charging somebody your full rate if they cancel a month in advance if you're working on a commercial or a photoshoot or whatever it is this is not a reasonable ask if they cancel 24 to 48 hours this is something that is more reasonable to ask for your full rate if something happens where your client reschedules by a day or two days think about how valuable your relationship is with this client are you going to make them pay you the amount if they've just rescheduled last minute and they're still going to be hiring you what I'm doing in this video is just giving you a few things to think about I'm letting you know what is typical for our industry so that you can make a well educated decision about your cancellation policies deposits I am NOT going to answer any questions about specific things as they relate to your business if you charge $200 for makeup what should your deposit be I'm not going to answer questions like that for you it is important that you research so if you are still confused about what your cancellation policy should be should it be in five days should it be 24 to 48 hours research if the majority of your work is with personal clients research other artists in your area and see what their deposits look like see what their payment structure looks like if you are working on sets and not so much with personal clients you're gonna want to do some research and find unions that represent people who do makeup and hair what their fee structure looks like and how their cancellations work and I have a link for you that I'm going to provide in the description box that will give you an idea of how these cancellation policies are worded for people who are working on sets you can take a look at that so how do you communicate all of this information to your client if you can't send them a contract the biggest piece of advice and I can talk about this in more detail in another video for you if there are enough viewers who are interested in this is to communicate all of this very clearly in an email to your clients so you have all of it in writing and when I talk about this type of emailing of course you're going to do this for your bridal clients and your event clients but having a contract kind of covers all of that off I still reiterate important information to those type of clients in an email even if I have a contract by emailing all of these specific details and being very clear about everything in correspondence to your client is a great way to have everything in writing so when a client reaches out to you and we can really get into the specific details of this in another video it's important to make sure you send them the following information to confirm your booking you're gonna have the date of your booking the time of your booking so if your booking is from 9:00 to 5:00 you don't want to include that you're gonna want to include the location you're gonna want to include your rate including tasks what that looks like if there is a deposit you're gonna indicate what your deposit is in the body of this email you're also going to include your cancellation policy and what that looks like so you're gonna have that in writing and you can also indicate here that you're not liable for any allergic reactions if that's something that you want to put in there that's a great thing to have in your little policy section of your emails as well you've got all of the information about the booking very clearly laid out in this email you're going to send all of this to your client and you are going to ask them to confirm you for this booking by replying to this email and you can indicate that if you do not have a response to this email you are not confirmed for the booking that way you can get it in writing that they have acknowledged all of your booking policies and procedures your rate the location they've double-checked it everything's fine they can respond that you are confirmed for this booking via email so you have everything in writing and it's very clear and this is something you want to get into the habit of doing no matter what with every single client on top of this confirmation any further correspondence with your client you can take your little section on your cancellation policy and you can put it in tiny writing underneath your signature on your email so that with any further communication by an email to your client that cancellation policy is very clear and it's there so there's no way that they have missed it in any of your correspondence so that's another little tip that I think that is going to be helpful for you that is it for this video on booking policies and procedures I understand this was a lot of information the hardest part about this topic and even when I was creating notes for myself to speak about this topic is that there's really no rulebook for this what I'm talking about in this video are all suggestions there are things that work for me every client is also going to be different but I wanted to create this video for you because I wanted to make you aware that there are things that you can do in your business to protect yourself to make sure that you don't lose money to all of the people that are probably gonna ask me very specific questions about how much of a deposit they should charge what their cancellation policy should be I am NOT going to answer those questions for you it is really important that you get out there and seek the information that you need to make the best financial decisions for your business and that's really what this is when it comes to booking policies and procedures there is a big financial component to it you don't want to lose money on your bookings you want to attract a caliber of client wants to book you specifically having things like a deposit and making your cancellation policy clear to your clients shows professionalism and it shows that you are here to run a business I hope that through watching my videos you realize that this job is really about more than what's in our kit it really is about running a business and it's really about treating yourself as a business owner it's about putting these policies into effect and it's about communicating these types of things very clearly to your clients operating on a handshake operating on the text that says someone wants to work with you this doesn't cut it in business you need stuff on paper in writing you need to be very clear about what you're charging what your policies are if you need to really treat this as a business because at the end of the day that's what it is as much as it is about being creative and reaching out to people and making people feel great about themselves there is a huge component to your success that is going to be related to how you run your business as I said we are not here to run a charity we are here to run a business and you should never be ashamed to make money and you should not feel nervous or uncomfortable about asking for a deposit and having a cancellation policy it is important that you get out there and do the research that you need to do to make sure you understand why all of this happens why we have a deposit why we have a cancellation policy this is just going to make you more confident when you present this information to your clients I'm hoping this video gave you a little bit more insight on what to think about and also gives you the motivation that you need to take the time to figure out these types of policies and procedures for yourself this video is something that is helpful for you and you want to know a little bit more about this side of the business I'm definitely open to doing more videos like this I know talking about invoicing and asking for money is something that is challenging for a lot of you so this type of thing interests you let me know in the comments below and I can continue producing content like this so good luck with your research good luck in nailing down your policies and procedures of course I will see you back here next Wednesday bye everybody