08/10/2026
Elevating your business does not mean losing its personality. It means deciding what standard of clarity, care, professionalism and experience you want people to associate with it.
When that standard is visible across the journey, clients have more reason to trust, choose, return and recommend.
Our standards say a lot about our businesses and this week I've been reminded of the importance of moral and professional standards. On a local group I witnessed a mum looking to get acrylic nails for a treat for her 14 year old daughter. Guess what happened next .....
Yep, you've got it a lot of recommendations and self recommendations suggesting businesses that would happily apply acrylic or gel polish products to a 14 year old child. As a nail pro of over 20 years and one who has worked on the standards, promoted those standards and worked to those standards, I responded on the post. Not something I do a lot, but the mum and those self promoting may need to hear the reality of what the standards are. It is not acceptable to apply nail enhancements to a child whether this is on safeguarding, moral, insurance, manufacturer's instructions, industry standards, HSE compliance. There is not blurred line.
I recommended that the mum treat her daughter to a luxury or spa manicure with regular polish as it will feel far more pamper and won't encroach on any businesses standards.
She was grateful for my advice and hadn't realised that this was the case. Lots of likes from other nail pros who probably, like me, had shaken their heads and face palmed with the numbers of 'pros' putting themselves forward for the service and ultimately the ££.
Soapbox moment over. The standard we work to can be inflammatory especially when we have an industry where they are questioned regularly or we fail to meet them.
If we say we have high standards where do they fit in your business? What standards do you uphold?
