Diverse Clientele, Diverse Services: Expanding Services to Meet Inclusive Needs

Embrace every individual’s unique beauty with these expert tips

Every beauty business says it wants to be inclusive. Even setting aside the obvious financial benefits of expanding your client base, delivering meaningful care to people from all walks of life feels good. But does your business actually walk the walk? And can it do so in a way that feels authentic to your community — as well as yourself?

In the third episode of our podcast, Last Client of the Day, we spoke with Sabrina Robinson, owner of Thrēo Skin, a skin care-focused medspa based out of Pasadena, California. Before opening her medspa business in 2019, Sabrina spent her career in medspa sales and makeup artistry. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience with her, helping other beauty businesses discover the right ways — and avoid the wrong ways — to cater to a more diverse array of clients.

Highlight your clients’ unique beauty

There’s a sentiment some medspas have about their service menu, where they claim that they “don’t see color.” While a statement like this can come from a place of tolerance and acceptance, this can be profoundly alienating for many — and instead of making potential clients feel included, you’re ultimately pleasing no one.

“If [your business] doesn’t see color, you don’t see me,” says Sabrina. “And I don’t see you.”

Beauty services aren’t one-size-fits-all. While you need to keep your service menu streamlined to some extent, trying to treat all skin colors, hair colors, body types, and genders the same means that you’re not offering that personal touch that will help you stand out from other beauty businesses.

“I’m not about to fight hard for somebody to see me; I’m going to go where I’m seen,” Sabrina explains. “That’s why my clients come to me. They know no matter how they come in the building, I see them…I take into account your background. I know how Indian skin reacts to chemical peels rather than black skin. I know how a redhead will react to certain products. I know the skin sensitivity levels of different races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. How do you not see color?”

Rather than trying to avoid the subject to make your business appear as neutral as possible, embrace the uniqueness of everyone’s bodies and experiences. Highlight your expertise in cutting and styling black hair. Flaunt your skills in making freckled skin glow. Point out that services can be customized to meet everyone’s needs, whether they’re a man, woman, or non-binary. 

All along the way, keep updating your service menu to reflect the needs of the diverse communities you serve. And if you’re unsure about what your clients need? Well, there’s a way to fix that, too. 

Want to cater to a diverse client base? Hire a diverse staff.

If you’re wondering how to make your offerings more inclusive, why not go right to the source and bring community experts on staff to help you flesh out your menu? This will give you new ideas and viewpoints to help expand your services and signify to the community that you’re uniquely equipped to meet their needs.

“Hire people who look and talk and speak like the people you’re talking to,” Sabrina explains. “Know your audience because we can tell. We need authentic people from our culture or our background to speak to us — people who really understand what our needs are. If you don’t understand where you need to start, you can’t talk to me about it.”

That’s not to say you can’t provide services for people of different backgrounds or ethnicities. But perception is important — and it’s far more difficult to develop trust with clients if you can’t show that you’ve done the homework. 

Bringing on a diverse staff — in both your leadership team and the workers providing the services — signifies to clients that you understand what they need and that you can cater to them. 

“I’ve seen people do multicultural classes on how to work with black skin, and I haven’t seen a black face in the room teaching anything,” Sabrina says. “I’m not saying you need to be black to work on black skin, however…If I don’t see myself represented and if I don’t see black people when I go down your Instagram page, if I haven’t seen you work on a black face but you’re trying to tell me how to do corrective work on black skin, I don’t trust you.”

Bring the community in and be authentic

With a diverse staff in place, you can make a community-focused approach to developing your menu feel legit — and you can do so in a way that feels authentic to your business and you as an individual.

“The first thing we do is bring the community into the studio,” explains Sabrina. “We don’t try to be anything that we’re not. I’m a black girl from Oakland. I wear Jordans to work. I’m not putting on a white coat. My arm’s not crossed. I don’t have a clipboard. It is what it is. Half the time, my clients laugh at me ‘cause I’m just in there chaotically living my life. I’m comfortable. But I give you that confidence because when I speak, I know what I’m talking about.”

Maybe the medical look is authentic to you — if so, that’s great! Lean into it and make that part of your brand. But if it’s not, don’t try to force it. What’s most important is speaking to your community in a way that feels true to you without trying to force your business into a box. Your services should also reflect that authentic approach. 

Striving for authenticity can also help you make a community-focused effort that feels like it’s coming from the heart, not the checkbook. It’s also an opportunity to expose a wealth of new ideas and viewpoints to staff and clients in ways beyond skin or hair care — and when you’re authentic about it, people will come.

“My marketing manager even started hosting local artists,” says Sabrina. “Downstairs for about six months, we had local artists in the community showcase their work. We put up a bunch of pictures of different ethnicities. You see brown faces, and then we try to put their QR codes so you can buy their artwork. It’s about bringing more than just skincare and service; it’s about creating a community.”

Put in the work to build relationships

As with any effort to build your beauty business, making your services more inclusive will be difficult work. But putting in that work is critical for helping you build trust and develop real relationships with your clients, which will provide exponential returns in the long run.

“Treating people like they’re people goes a long way, too,” says Sabrina. “And understanding that you don’t know everything. I have clients who bring their parents to me. Their parents don’t speak English, but they know I’m going to take care of them. I’m going to try my hardest to bridge that gap, and we will figure it out because they know I’m going to take care of it to the best of my ability. I’ll get a translator, and you can come sit in the room with them and help them feel comfortable. And I’m not going to make you feel bad because you don’t speak perfect English.

“Treating my clients a certain way has also made sure that the referrals they give me, I don’t have any clients that I dread coming in. I like my clients. A lot of people can’t say that. Building community and authenticity will always get you where you want to go, and you can get there in a way that makes you able to sleep at night.”

Learn more about Sabrina Robinson, how she brings the community into her medspa, and her skin care class horror stories by listening to Last Client of the Day, a beauty business podcast presented by Boulevard.