By turning management chaos into meaningful growth, learn how HoneyBook helped Liz Gonzalez-Lara scale her beauty studio and triple her revenue.
For HoneyBook Awards winner Liz Gonzalez-Lara, beauty is about more than hair and makeup. It’s about creating confidence, joy, and connection. As the founder of the Colorado-based hair and makeup agency Beauty on Location Studio, Liz has built a business that’s as much about people as it is about artistry.
That people-first approach hasn’t gone unnoticed. Liz leads a team that’s grown from a handful of artists to more than 50 people, serving hundreds of weddings each year across Colorado and the Bay Area. What sets them apart isn’t just their technical talent, but the energy, sincerity, and genuine care they bring to every client and vendor relationship.
Behind the scenes, Liz has paired her natural entrepreneurial spirit with the systems and structure to scale—a journey that transformed her business, tripled her revenue and gave her the space to focus on what matters most: supporting her team, delighting her clients, and enjoying more time with her family.
Nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit
Liz’s entrepreneurial spirit was shaped early on. As the daughter of Mexican immigrants, she grew up working in her family’s stores and learning the value of grit, gratitude, and adaptability. Frequent moves and changes throughout her childhood also taught her resilience and how to connect with people, which are skills that would later become fundamental to her business.
“I’ve always been passionate about entrepreneurship because I saw it in my family as a first-generation immigrant. It’s very ingrained in us,” she said.
Still, Liz’s path wasn’t linear. She waitressed, went to community college, and started a family before realizing she needed a career that combined flexibility with purpose. That clarity came when a mentor introduced her to the wedding industry.
“Doing weddings showed me I wasn’t just providing hair and makeup—I was creating something beautiful and meaningful,” she said. “That’s when it clicked.”
With that realization, Liz embraced her calling. In 2007, after moving to Colorado, she launched Beauty on Location Studio and started building a business grounded in creativity, resilience, and the entrepreneurial drive that she’s had since childhood.
Discovering the solution to new business challenges
As a brand-new business owner, Liz didn’t have a business plan or a direction. “It was all just from my gut feeling and hard work ethic,” she said.
The grit and determination to create a thriving business paid off and very quickly Liz’s business started growing at incredible speeds.
But with growth came new challenges, and Liz found that most of her time was consumed by all the admin work.
“I was managing the business entirely through email,” she said. “At the time, I was sending proposals as email attachments, and clients had to print, sign, and email them back.”
This was incredibly unsustainable for Liz. The entire process would delay bookings by days or even weeks, and Liz couldn’t focus as much on her client experience. Instead, she was constantly following up, maintaining an archive of contracts, and getting lost in the back-end work.
This would last for 10 years, until 2017. It was then that her husband found the perfect solution that could get them out of admin land: HoneyBook.
“Implementing HoneyBook was a pivotal change for our business,” Liz said. “ It allowed us to streamline our entire booking process, close contracts faster, and eliminate paper files.”
Managing clients end-to-end with HoneyBook
Since implementing HoneyBook, the improvement for Liz and her team has been huge. Now, the entire process from inquiry to booking to project management is fully managed in HoneyBook–not Liz’s emails.
“There was a time when the day-to-day completely consumed me—working weddings every weekend and spending my weekdays buried in administrative tasks,” she said. “I was working in the business instead of on the business.”
“There was a time when the day-to-day completely consumed me—working weddings every weekend and spending my weekdays buried in administrative tasks.”
Now, potential clients find Liz through her website and easily inquire through her embedded HoneyBook contact form. The form includes a questionnaire, so she and her team immediately know what the potential client needs, as well as their wedding date and location.
Every time her team opens HoneyBook, they see notifications for new inquiries, so no one slips through the cracks.
From there, as long as she and her team have availability, they respond instantly with a HoneyBook proposal that includes the invoice for their retainer, a contract, and embedded payment processing. Instead of multiple back-and-forths over email, the client can move forward with zero friction.
“It’s so easy for our clients to pay their retainer and book their wedding, as opposed to waiting a week for them to mail a check,” Liz said.
A smooth workflow for a growing team
As her business has grown, Liz has added team members that are in charge of booking and managing clients. To make sure that they have everything that they need, seamless team access to all of her files and systems is critical, and HoneyBook makes that happen.
“Anyone can log in, and we all see the same information, so I don’t have to spend all my time forwarding emails,” she said.
With HoneyBook, her admin team can assign Liz to projects when she needs to be included or manage them independently. Each client has their own project space, where it’s easy for anyone to access their contract, invoices and payments, communications, notes about their event, and tasks.
“HoneyBook has brought structure and systems to Beauty on Location, and it’s been life-changing.”
Within each project space, her team also has control over what information is external- or internal-facing. Through the HoneyBook client portal, her clients can view files and updates, making them feel confident, cared for, and always in the loop.
With her systems and team in place, Liz can focus more on what she loves, which means growing the business, supporting her artists, and creating unforgettable experiences for their clients.
“HoneyBook has brought structure and systems to Beauty on Location, and it’s been life-changing. It’s amazing to feel organized.”
The HoneyBook impact
- Tripled revenue
- From 100 weddings to 300 per year
- Grew her team 5x
- Servicing Colorado and the Bay Area
With HoneyBook, not only did their client experience improve, but Liz and her team also became more efficient and organized.
Thanks to getting more time back, they’ve been able to prioritize the work they need to grow and scale, and consequently, the business is booming.
“Our business and revenue has tripled.”
“Our business and revenue has tripled, and we’re able to provide consistent work for a growing team of amazing artists,” Liz said.
Liz doesn’t think she could’ve done it without HoneyBook keeping them organized and structured.
“When I decided to scale, HoneyBook was a key player in the growth of the business,” she said. “I just don’t know how I would do it without the structure it brings into the business.”
What’s next for Beauty on Location
After growing her revenue, team, and capacity, Liz is now focused on expanding her reach. From her beginnings in Colorado, she’s since expanded to the Bay Area as well. Now, her goal is to grow Beauty on Location into other luxury markets.
“HoneyBook has given me free time, and I’ve learned how valuable and precious it is”
While she’s committed to making a bigger impact through her business, she’s also looking forward to enjoying more free time with her family. “HoneyBook has given me free time, and I’ve learned how valuable and precious it is,” she said.
As she looks to the next ten years, she’s dedicated to growing even more personally along with her business.
