HOW TO RUN A FACE PAINTING BUSINESS - HOW TO RECORD YOUR BOOKINGS

To run a professional face painting business requires for you to keep good records of all of your gigs. Good records allow you not only to remember every face painting gig that you have booked, but it also provides you with a guide on what information to get from your client and it prevents you from having to contact your client over and over again. Also, if you have repeat bookings, next time the client books your company, you will know what you quoted them and what you did for them.

When booking a face painting job it is important for you to get as much information as possible from your client. If you do the booking over the phone, make sure to have your "face painting booking spreadsheet" in front of you so that you don't miss any information. Once you are done with the phone call, send your customer an e-mail with all of the information you collected from them to double check and make sure you are both on the same page.
If you do the booking by e-mail, simply send them a list of questions for them to answer and then fill in your spreadsheet. I like to always keep written proof of everything that was said, so that is why I always confirm the information by e-mail, even if the booking was done over the phone.

To help you with the booking process we designed a spreadsheet that has individual columns designated for each piece of information you should have for each gig. The file has 12 different tabs, one for each month, so that you can easily find your face painting gigs when you need them. If you are missing a piece of information you can always highlight that cell yellow to remind you that you are still needing that information.

Once you have the information you need, it is important to put it all in a booking sheet or contract for your client to sign. Having your client sign on your contract not only makes you look more professional but it also makes them less likely to cancel on you or to fight with you about some of the details. If your client signed the contract then he or she agreed to the conditions.

Make sure to not only include the specific information related to your face painting gig, but also general information related to the way you work: your setup needs, forms of payment, time of payment, attire, liability insurance, line management, weather, cancellation policies, etc. Keep it short but don't leave any details out. You want to make sure that your client reads it and that it doesn't sound scary to them, but you also need to have everything covered.

Having said that, make sure to be flexible enough so that your client is happy with your services and wants to book you and recommend you again. Just because they signed the contract it doesn't mean that you can't make changes to it if needed.

On a future post we will talk about how to design a booking sheet / contract to send to your customers. In the mean time, download the face painting booking spreadsheet to start recording your gigs and don't forget to check our face paint store to get all of the face painting supplies you need for your next gig!