Hi lovely,

When I started The Hideaway, there was one thing I did before anything else. Before choosing my treatments, before sorting my room, before touching Instagram. I got crystal clear on my message.

Back then, I was running a mobile beauty business, and I offered everything. Waxing, nails, facials, massage, spray tans, wedding makeup. If you could book it, I could do it. I was open to any client who wanted any treatment, because that felt like the safest way to build a business. More things to offer meant more chances someone would say yes.

What I didn't realise back then is this.

I started paying attention to two things: which treatments I genuinely enjoyed doing, and which ones were actually worth my time. Because there's a real cost to every treatment, not just in products, but in your time and your energy.

I know it can feel scary to let go of treatments, even the popular ones, even when you're worried it might cost you clients. But trust me on this one. When you align yourself with the treatments that actually feel good to you, the right clients come back, and it will be so much better, for both of you.

If you've got regulars booked in for something you're moving away from, you don't need to cut them off. Keep offering it to the clients who already love it, but shift your messaging, your socials, everything you're saying to new and prospective clients, to focus on the treatments you're working towards.

Over time, you'll naturally start attracting the right clients for those treatments, and the older ones will quietly taper off. There might come a point where you make the final call to take something off the menu completely, but you get to ease into that, rather than ripping it away overnight.

For me, that's exactly what happened. My treatments felt more aligned with who I was and what I was actually passionate about. I stopped dreading certain treatments altogether. That alone changed how I showed up for every single client.

So when I opened The Hideaway, I didn't bring everything with me. I built it around the treatments I loved and what made financial sense: massage, facials, relaxing treatments. That decision was made before I'd even opened the door. And that's when something interesting happened. My ideal client started to find me.

Because once I knew what I wanted to be known for, I could speak directly to her in what I posted and how I talked about my business. And she is a woman juggling everything, who needs a space to properly switch off. Not just a nice hour, but an actual nervous system reset. Once my message got clear, she started showing up.

Yours might look completely different. If you're a skin specialist, maybe your person is someone wanting a genuine skin transformation, or someone who's felt self-conscious about their acne for years and just wants to feel confident in their own skin. Whoever she is, the same thing applies: the clearer you are on her, the more she'll recognise herself in what you say, and the more she'll find you.

And there was a second thing that happened once I narrowed down. I stopped being “a therapist who does a bit of everything” and started becoming known for something specific. When someone needed exactly that, my name came up. Not because I was the loudest or the newest, but because I was the obvious person for that particular thing.

That's a very different position to be in than competing with every other therapist offering the same long list of treatments.

If you're starting out, or thinking about a reset, here's where I'd begin. Ask yourself two honest questions about every treatment you offer:

You don't need the full picture straight away. I didn't when I started out mobile. But the sooner you get clear on who you're speaking to, the sooner you become the obvious choice for the right people, and the sooner the right clients start finding you.

We're properly into September now, and I always find this time of year makes me reflect on how far things have come. When I look back at my mobile days, offering wedding makeup and pedicures alongside massage, it's a world away from The Hideaway now. I'm glad past me made the decision to niche down before I even opened the door.