Finding Inspo To Create IG Reels

Show Notes

Are you seriously struggling with finding inspiration to create reels? Then this episode is for you! 

In this episode, I will give you my simple, step by step routine that will help you through your reel creation process. 

Instagram has been taken over with short videos and pictures have been completely pushed to the side. They have had less and less traction and reach on the social media giant we know and love. But with great change, comes great reward. 

Enjoy the episode!

What is Reviving the Stylist?

You're tuned into Reviving the Stylist, a business podcast for hairstylists looking to build a dream career that creates financial freedom and flexibility. I'm your host, Kristen Lumiere and as a stylist I've had my share of successes. Building a successful six plus figure business working only three days a week while being able to prioritize my family, travel and buy my dream home. I know it doesn't sound easy, but if you put in the work, I guarantee you'll see results. No matter what your goals are. I'm super stoked that you're here so I can help you crush them. Let's start today's episode.

Kristen Lumiere 0:00
If you're tuned into Reviving the Stylist, a business podcast for hair stylists looking to build a dream career that creates financial freedom and flexibility. I'm your host, Kristen lumir. And as a stylist, I've had my share of successes. Building a successful six plus figure business working only three days a week, while being able to prioritize my family, travel and buy my dream home. I know it doesn't sound easy, but if you put in the work, I guarantee you'll see results. No matter what your goals are. I'm super stoked that you're here so I can help you crush them. Let's start today's episode.

Well, hello, and welcome back to Reviving the Stylist, I am really excited to be here today, I'm actually recording this the day is going to release I am in New York. And if you follow me on Instagram, you can see that I'm doing something pretty incredible. And it's kind of like, it wasn't like super top secret or anything. But I wanted to wait until I announced it. And I'm actually going to announce it to you first, before I announced to anyone else out there. So if you're listening, around the time when this podcast goes live when this episode goes live, then you're the first to know that I recently did a thing. And there were some really good guests as on like, what exactly the thing was, and a few stylist guests that I was going to partner with a specific like product company, or the I was going to create my own product or something was happening. I did a really big photoshoot I had a big interview. And to say the least, or to at least cross one thing off the list. I'm not creating my own company. That is something that I've already done with lumir house, that is my company. But what I have decided to do was to kind of broaden my reach a little bit, because I don't know if you know, but it is really important to me that I change the industry that we love today for the better. on the education side. I feel like education in our industry needs to be more transparent. It needs to be so much better than it is I feel like stylists need to be able to walk away from classes, feeling like they've received everything and they've actually retained information and also get direct answers, not vague answers, or half answers or answers that are just good enough to say that someone gave them but still retain their secrets. And maybe you know what I'm talking about. I've definitely been to those classes where I've hoped that I would get like that secret sauce that the stylist or the educator was teaching. And at the end of the day, I just left not really knowing what the secret sauce was still thinking that maybe I understood a little bit, but I wasn't 100% Sure. And that for me is not good enough for stylists out there. I specialize in creating incredible business education for the individual stylist, that's you I want to specialize in educating and helping is the one person not the masses. And I think that's kind of where education becomes a little bit lackluster is because a lot of places try to focus on or a lot of companies try to focus on way too many people and way too big of a market instead of thinking about like the individual. Now I do know that there are companies that specialize in the salon as a whole, which I think is incredible. 100% necessary. But I also feel like there are companies that are completely missing out on the singular stylist. And when I say that, I mean the individual, you know the commission stylist in the salon who needs extra help on X, Y and Z, the booth renter in the salon who needs help on X, Y and Z, or the Salon Suite owner or even the salon owner themselves. That is what I focus on. I focus on the individual and delivering really impactful education and business advice that is going to actually change lives and isn't going to give vague answers isn't going to be giving the half answers or the maybe it's the secret sauce, I don't know 100% Still, I want to deliver the direct answers are going to be super impactful. And that is 100% My goal. So to uplift our industry, I have actually decided and here's the announcement, cue the drumroll. You drumroll in I am part of the artistic team for Cosmo prof and that is something that I actually signed on for in the middle of May. We were going back and forth and just really like in our negotiations I wanted to make sure that what I signed On for I was going to be able to help their community and I was going to be able to help more stylist within their reach and it was going to really be a partnership, not a, we're going to send you a whole bunch of product, and we just want you to market it and sell it. That is not what I'm about. And if you have been following me for a time, you'll know that I have never really held on to sponsorships for long periods of time where I would have to promote products, I was part of the BTC team for a little while. And it was really kind of a disappointing journey. For me, it was more about like, you know, we're going to pay you X amount of months. So that way you promote this specific product line that then decided not to continue their relationship with you because we have a revolving door of stylists that are going to continue to promote for a low fee instead of building relationship. So when I talked with Cosmo prof it was very much so like we want to build a relationship with you, we want to do better, we want to figure out how to do better, we want you to partner with us to figure out how we can better serve our community. And for me, that's where I was like being that is what I know, my heart is desiring that I need to reach more stylists. And I also need to help a company with understanding the individual and uplifting them to so I'm going to be partnering with Cosmo prof and really helping them and they're going to in turn, of course help me with creating this incredible network. So that is what I'm really excited about. That is why I am just I literally so stoked. First of all, I met everyone on my artistic team and not everyone I met two people, John Carlos and Brenda and they are incredible, like talk about your people. Like when you just like go into a room and you find like, these are my people. I will say I have so many like students that I have met so many educators, so many people, I just have so much love for that all over the country. I swear I have the best network of people. And I continue to build it. And I'm just so thankful to be able to fly around the country, fly around to other countries and just meet people and build real relationships, not relationships that are just like, Oh, I'm building it for something. It's like, No, I'm building it like because I genuinely love this connection. And I love this camaraderie. And it's just incredible. And I'm so thankful for it. But the entire cosmos prof team, I never felt like there were egos. It was just an incredible experience for me to go and do this photoshoot meet the models, meet the team that's behind the scenes meet the team that's on the social media side. It was just amazing. And I had a great experience. So I'm really excited to announce that hey, you girls part of the Cosmo prof artistic team, and I'm so stoked about it. And like I said, if you're listening to this around the time that is going live, you were the first to know that it's happened. It's happened and I've done it. So let's go ahead and start today's episode, I want to talk about something that's maybe a little bit more difficult. And it's like the creative side. And I know that like Instagram reels to so many people seem like really, really? How what's the word? What's the term I'm looking for? It seems really daunting. I feel like that is a good term. And when you think about it, you're like, oh my gosh, there's so much that goes into it. There's so much like we need lighting, we need cameras, we need all this stuff. And I'll tell you right now, if you've got an iPhone, if you've got a phone that is a smartphone, you don't need any of that stuff, give you some good and drive light somewhere. And you might even not need that if your content is great. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be talking about how I find inspiration to create reels, because when I first started creating reels, I mean, it doesn't even really feel like that long ago to be honest. It was difficult to find inspiration like think about tick tock like oh my gosh. Oh, so I'm starting like a tick tock. It's part of I guess I'm not like starting it. Technically. It's been around since like, I don't know for what since 2020. I've just not been active on it. So make sure you go and give me some love. Follow me on Tik Tok at Kristen dot lumir Still trying to figure out what I'm going to utilize the Tick Tock for I think I'm going to make it maybe an extension of the podcast or I'm not exactly sure yet. 100% I'm so going to figure out what I'm going to have my message be I know that I want it to be a little bit different than my Instagram. So what is it going to be not 100% sure yet, but we're going to figure it out. So how I find inspiration to create reels. This is a four step by step that I do. That is so helpful. If you can't seem to get inspired. For reals. This is going to help 100% And I created an Instagram post about this. So if you want to see like, a actual like, if you're a visual learner, like we know we have visual audio, and we have like kinesthetic, or I guess it would be like digital, technically you have digital audio, and you know all these different ways of learning. So if you are more of a visual person, and you need kind of that second support, then you can definitely go to my Instagram. If you click on my reels, there's one that says, if you're a hairstylist, and you can't seem to come up with ideas, for reals, keep watching, that's the one that you're gonna want to watch. So step one, what I want you to do is when you go to reels, you have to turn your mind on to scroll with intention, instead of Mindlessly scrolling, laughing every once in a while, just like going through because it's so easy to get wrapped up and forget what your goal is, you have to before you even open reels on Instagram, you're going to literally tell yourself, I'm doing this for a purpose. I have intention behind this. I'm trying to get my creative juices rolling, I'm trying to get inspired, what is my intention. So that's the first thing you have to do, instead of opening just to like, drown out some time, or because you're just like, not even thinking about it. And you've opened, you've picked up your phone, you've opened Instagram, and you just started scrolling and you've left here, you've left there, whatever you watch, typically on reels, I want you to go through and find inspiration instead, that is going to be your goal. So that way, you don't lose track of time. Because if you lose track of time, and you're really trying to work on your business, you're spending more time than you need to on this and I want to help you save time. And when you actually work on your business, you're doing it impactfully you're doing it sustainably, you're doing it without burning out, or you're doing it so that way you can push burnout away or revive yourself out of it, if that makes sense. So that is going to be step one, step two, you're going to copy the real link that has you feeling some type of way or some type of inspiration. So when you've scrolled, you've looked at the real, you found that inspiration in whatever it is, and I do it all the time, like I will go I'll find a real and I'll be like, Oh my gosh, that would be a great situation to be like, okay, instead of doing it, how they say like when my husband gives me business advice, and I just did this one recently. It's when it Karen tries to tell you that your prices are too high, and that they deserve a discount. And I did that one, actually while I was at my photo shoot in for cosmic broth. So you can literally create reels anywhere. And that reel is going viral right now like it is popping off. People are like, Oh my gosh, yeah, like I see that. 100%. So that is step two. And what I do when I find that inspiration, so you're going to scroll, you're going to watch real all the way through and you're like, Okay, this, this would be the situation that I would you utilize that for. So after step two, you're going to go to step three, you're going to go to your notes and your iPhone, and I'm pretty sure that most of the people that listen to this podcast are iPhone users. But if you're not, then I don't really know, like, what Android utilizes, but I will say get an iPhone that just let's just simplify things and get an iPhone. If not, then you could use like Google Docs or something like that some kind of Doc system. I love notes, because it's just simple. It's an app that's on my phone. And I can I don't know, it's just less steps than utilizing like Google Docs or something, which is another app that you can have on your phone. So I create a section I create a whole category or a folder for my notes that has separate things like tick tock hashtags, tick tock ideas, IG real ideas, IG hashtags, IG post copy, I literally separate everything. So that way, I have a direct resource. So if I'm like inspired or if I'm ready to create, I can go to that note, I can go to that folder, and I can go into IG real ideas. And I can figure out okay, which ones are going to be the ones I'm going to use. So when you create that note, I want you to write a little blurb about your idea so you don't forget and when you come back later, and when you've created that note, you're also going to copy and paste the real link just below your little blurb. So for instance, I'm going to go and use like an example that I have right now. So for IG reels, oh my goodness, I didn't even realize that I have so many right now I have limb give me a second to count.

So I have 12 Instagram reels right now with little blurbs and the very very first one that I have is a millennial and Gen Z getting their hair done. And it's like this reel that goes over like the songs like the I guess you could say and these are in quotes right now, old school and like I'm 30 So I wouldn't technically call these like again quotes old school but the you know that there's like make the stallion has like recreated different ones you know Eazy E those beats like maybe stallion has like gone and done this like the tap in song is off of blow the whistle. So there's like these different changes and I was just like man this is just funny like feel good when someone like watches this they can like vibe with it, you know. So that is something that inspired me another one that I have is when your husband tried to give you business advice or tries to give you business advice. And I actually changed this one instead of when your husband tries to give you business advice because like, ladies and gents when hobbies try to give us business advice, we're like I'm okay not listening to that. So that is something that I created instead on my Instagram instead of doing that when I had a different idea. And I posted, let me see, let me go to it really quick. When it Karen tries to tell you your prices are too high, and you should give them a discount. And that one is frickin hilarious. That's the one that I actually posted recently, while in New York, I filmed it in New York and it has done really well so far. But that is going to be what i Those are like three of the steps. And then the fourth and final step is going to be set a side time to record and create. And I do typically about like an hour or two, which creates about three reels that's edited. That's with the text that saved into my drafts. Right now if I go to my Instagram reels and I'm doing all this by the way, while I'm recording it, just to see how many I have recorded to post. I have three right now in my backlogs recorded to post. And it took me two to three hours to go in, do retakes. And what I will say that's also really helpful for me is to do at least two takes of the same reel, it's really helpful to do that. And I say, oh my gosh, first of all real and I say really helpful. Really, really, that's where it's a little bit difficult. I almost wish that they called Real something different because I say really and real like in the same sentence all the time. And it can get a little confusing, I feel like but when I am recording, I will do at least two different tapes. So that way I can make sure that one I'll find one that is my favorites. But I haven't least a backup just in case anything happens. So that is one of my success tips. And then the other success tip that I would have is keep it simple at first and make sure you start with a statement that grabs attention to increase your views. So that one is a big one, three seconds is all it takes for someone to either get interested or lose interest. So you've got to get someone's interest in the first three seconds. And I see this all the time. This is something that I feel like I could help so many stylists with, but it's when someone posts a real they'll post like a super like the start of the video will be really long and it will be like a before. And for me it's not grabbing my attention. If anything, I'm like, woof. And the first it's longer than three seconds. And I'm like my attention is not grabbed, or my attention is just like yeah, just whatever the like a before video of hair is basic, I'm going to scroll. Instead, you've got to have some kind of text there to grab and entice someone to keep watching. So I'm going to use a few examples from my reels. So one of them was question, how confident are you in your barley edge applications. And that is something that will have someone thinking, Hmm, I'm feeling pretty confident, but at the same time I want to watch and I paired it with a viral soundtrack or a soundtrack that is popular. And then I also paired it with a application video that is seriously drool worthy. So the text has someone reading they're interested. The video is droolworthy they're like okay, that actually application looks pretty bomb, and they continue to watch.

This is another one. Here's a myth hairstyles, believe for some reason and then an eye roll. And then another one is a big fat lie, hairstylist believe so you can kind of see that. There is like that, grab that text that's like okay, here's this, how can I transform it to where I get my potential clients to continue watching? What can I say? You can say something like something you never knew about split ends or something you never knew about oily hair or something you never knew. about your hair color, something that just entices them. Even if they may have known that whatever you were going to say before, give them something that entices them to continue watching to want to know what that is. And I will say right now, when I post, I want to make someone feel some type of way, they're either going to feel like hilarious, like, whatever I posted was hilarious, they're going to feel pissed off, like they don't agree, they're going to feel like I've spoken to them that I know what they are going through, they're going to feel something I am here to make you feel some type of way. Now, you don't necessarily have to agree with everything that I say, I don't want that at all. I want to however, push you to do better push you to be better, and help you get there, I want to be a stepping stone in your actual growth. And I don't know if you are coming to my classes Sunday, but I'm actually teaching a class on how to build a higher paying clientele, it is going to be really incredible. I want to invite you there. If you're listening to this around the time that's going live is this Sunday, May 29, at four o'clock, pm Central Standard Time. And if you're not able to make it live, it'll actually be available for at least 72 hours. So you can watch the replay. But if you join me live, you'll actually be able to ask me questions on that live stream. So it's going to be incredible. I'm really, really excited, please, please join me. But those are the tips. If you're wanting to find inspo to create reels. Those are just simplified steps that I created. That is really helpful for me going in, and let's just review them again, steps one through four, just kind of go over and give the impactful like, Okay, this is a recap of everything that we learned today. So the first thing that you're going to do, you're going to scroll with intention, no more mindless scrolling crap, like no, we have a goal, we're going to create and get inspired and not lose track of time. Step two, you're going to copy the reel that has you feeling some type of inspiration. Step three, you're going to create a note with that little blurb like the idea that you had pulled up in your brain, whatever you were thinking at that time, write it down, and then paste the link. So that way you have it nice and organized. Step four, you're going to set time aside to record and create about like two hours or so for three plus reels. So if you just spent like two hours each week or even just an hour each week, going in and creating reels, you're going to create a bunch of content that you can post and have a backlog of it. And the success tip is just keep things simple. You don't need to make things like super crazy, but always always, always grab the attention in the first three seconds and that is going to be with the actual video and the text or just the video. So make sure that that happens. 150 per cents. Thank you so much for listening to me today. I had so much fun actually recording this while I'm in my little like is a tiny little hotel room. But so cute like this mid century modern, like really cute in New York. Thank you again for listening. I'm really excited to be on the podcast next week, I have some good things coming. So before I leave, just make sure that you leave me a rating and review. But I will also leave the link to join the webinar in today's show notes. So you can go there, you can click on it and register remember space is limited. Please please join me I would love to have you. Thank you so much for joining me today on Reviving the Stylist. If something really resonated with you during this episode, take a screenshot share it to your Instagram story and let me know what you loved most don't forget to also send it to a friend so that way they can reap the incredible things from this episode too and leave me a rating and review. I'd also absolutely just love to connect with you outside of the show too.

So you can find me on Instagram at Kristen dot Lumiere that's L u m i e r e or my website, Kristen lumiere.com. And before I go, I just want to leave you with one reminder. It isn't about living to work. It's about working to live and that is my goal for you friend, because you deserve it. I'll see you on the next one.