Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva, and this week, we’re going to talk about why your business isn’t growing as quickly as it possibly could.
And it is the irresponsible business owner who says, “Actually, I’m pretty content with my business.” Content and comfort are where business goes to die, unfortunately, because the world around us is always growing. We don’t have to love that fact, but we have to understand that it’s the truth, that inflation is always happening. That cost of living is always going up.
You can look back historically a hundred years and more, like you can look back centuries. The cost of living is always increasing. So if your business is not growing, it is effectively shrinking.
There is no such thing as stable when it comes to business. There’s stable when it comes to lifestyle. But when people are living a stable lifestyle, it’s because they’re getting a bit of an annual wage increase, right? Maybe their rent wasn’t raised this year, but they’re making a little bit more money, so maybe their lifestyle could increase a little bit.
That is comfortable lifestyle-wise, but in our industry and in our business, we need to grow every single year. I talked very openly about some of my concerns about hourly pricing and things like that. You dance with creating this cap for yourself that doesn’t allow you to grow at the same rate that the world around us is shifting and changing.
If you are a stylist, if you are a salon owner, if you are an industry educator, even if you are a cattle rancher, because I have to tell y’all, we got a DM on this last week from somebody who is well beyond the beauty industry space who listens to the podcast every single week and says that it helps their business.
And I just have to give a shout out because it’s such an honor that this show that was started off as a little project for beauty professionals now gets 40,000 plus downloads a week and it’s impacting businesses well beyond our space. It’s just so rad. So thank you to that incredible follower who wrote in. It means a lot to me and my hope is that through this episode, everybody who listens rethinks their business and thinks about how they can get more clients faster, how they can attract the right people to work for them if you’re a salon owner, right? If you’re an educator, how you can get more people to come to your classes.
I want you to step outside yourself as we do this exercise. In order to do this properly, you have to check your ego, which is really hard. It’s something I even have a hard time with. My team will call me out on something and I get defensive because if my business is my baby. A lot of you probably feel that way as well, and then whenever I make a decision—if I put something on social, if I put something on my website, if I put anything out to the world, I don’t do it recklessly. I really think I’m making the best decision, and if my team comes to me and they’re like, “Well, that didn’t work,” it’s hard for me not to take it personally, but you have to not take it personally.
If you want that constructive feedback, if you want to find your blind spots, you have to be able to step outside yourself and humble yourself and say, “All right, what got me here won’t get me there. If I keep doing the things exactly the way I’ve been doing them, I will get the exact same result. If I ever want things to change, shift, and grow, I’ve got to change the way I show up.” So I want you to keep that in mind.
I believe that there are two reasons why businesses grow slowly. Only two. One is going to be positioning and the other is going to be facilitation. There isn’t really anything else.
Positioning is how a brand is positioned to a market. Facilitation is how the offer is executed.
Okay, so let’s pretend that I am a baker and I’m opening some kind of bakery. And let’s say that for brand positioning, I decide I’m going to make cookies and cupcakes, and they’re going to be specifically for kids’ birthdays. That’s going to be my target market and they’re going to be themed. So there’s going to be mermaid, under-the-sea theme, and then there’s going to be superheroes in action theme, and then there’s going to be a baby shower theme or something like that. They’re very fancy cupcakes and cookies.
Now there’s no doubt there is a market for that, right? There’s a need for it, but the facilitation or the positioning of that concept could have me shutting my doors to my bakery within six months of opening, absolutely. No matter how good the idea is.
For you in your business as it stands right now, no matter how good your specialty is, no matter how talented you are, no matter how fresh your concept is, you can actually shoot yourself in the foot if you don’t get the positioning and the facilitation right.
Let’s talk about how the facilitation can fail me. Let’s say my cupcakes are dry as heck. Let’s say my frosting is salty. Let’s say that. I think I’m a good cupcake decorator, but as it turns out, not so great—let’s say I go cheap on the sprinkles. I post a bunch of pictures on social of what the cookies could look like. But when you go to pick up your box, they don’t look anything like that. That means the facilitation is failing me. I’ve got a good idea. Maybe even I look good on social media, but if I can’t execute on the back end, my reputation’s going to burn, right?
Let’s dive deep into both. I want to start with brand’s positioning because like I said, and I might say this a few times in this episode, the best ideas, the best concepts, the most talented people destroy their own businesses in failed positioning, and I don’t want you to be in that boat.
We’re going to center around perceived value because perceived value is critical in today’s market.
There’s just pretty much nothing else that will win the battle for you. I’ve done a lot of recent episodes on it and so we’re going to stay in that zone for a minute.
Imagine this—I’m not a huge expensive purses, expensive shoes person, but I know enough about it to talk a game, so forgive me if I fail at this, but I’m going to try. Imagine if I had a Louis Vuitton handbag, okay, or some kind of a Louis Vuitton suitcase, and let’s say that the retail value of that is $5,000. It’s brand new. I buy it, and I’m like, “You know what, I thought Louis Vuitton was for me. Turns out it’s not,” which P.S., it’s not, I’m just not that cool. I can’t pull it off.
I buy it. It’s brand new, and I’m like, “I just don’t want this,” and so I call you up and I’m like, “You know what? I’ve got this Louis. I really don’t want it. I’ll sell it to you for a thousand dollars.” If you’re a Louis Vuitton fan, and maybe you’ve been looking for a handbag or looking for a piece of luggage, you’re getting that for 20% of the value. You might ask me questions like, “Well, why are you selling it for so cheap? Why don’t you want it for yourself?” But ultimately, even if you didn’t have the thousand, you’d probably hustle, scrape, and scrap to pull it together, because if nothing else, you can buy that suitcase or that handbag from me and sell it to somebody else and still make a profit. The value in that is huge. The perceived value in that offer is high to you.
Now, if I’m trying to sell that Louis Vuitton suitcase or that handbag to somebody who’s not even familiar with the brand, they’re going to be like, “A thousand dollars? That’s a rip off. And I can’t believe you pay five because I can go down to Target right now and buy a suitcase for a hundred bucks, so why am I paying a thousand dollars for anything?” because they don’t get the value of the brand. Do you see what I’m saying?
So when we look at perceived value, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder in all that we do and you need to be positioning yourself correctly from the marketing that you are choosing to serve, right? Your target market.
There’s a few different ways where perceived value can fail you, so let’s talk about the most obvious: your social media. If your social media, I’m not even going to say if it doesn’t look good, because like I said, we’re checking our ego.
As I go into this episode, there are some people who shall not be named that have hit me up in the DMs that I’ve given a little bit of coaching too. And they’ll be like, “My social looks good. I got the social all dialed in.” And then I look and I’m like, “No, this is not what I would call good.” Yeah, you’re showing up, the hair you do is fine, but your social presence is trash, honestly. It’s not what your target market wants to see.
So the idea of good, it’s good when your target market is saving, is sharing, is DMing, is booking appointments in response to what you’re posting. If those things are not happening, trust me, your content is actually not good. You’re falling flat somewhere if you are not getting new clients in the door with several—like several new clients a week should be coming in through the results of your social. I mean, two to three at a minimum as the results of your social efforts. If not, we’re likely doing something wrong, right? So that’s the first place we look.
And when I say doing something wrong, what they do is they look at what you’re sharing versus what you are facilitating, what your offer is, and for them, it’s a disconnect like, “Well, Austin does good hair, but not for $200.” That’s a perceived value issue. Now, if that person could see Austin for 70 bucks, they might say yes, but Austin’s like, “What? But the value of my time is 200.” That’s cool, Austin, but if nobody wants to pay it, it’s not going to pan out.
There’s a lot of people out there who are priced above their market and they’ve priced themselves based on their cost of living, right? They’re like, “Well, I hear you, Britt, but I need to make 200 bucks an hour,” or whatever. That’s fine, but you need to increase your perceived value to live in that price point. I can’t just go scoop people off the street and force ’em to come into your chair and pay you the 200 bucks. That’s not going to work if you’re not positioned as a $200 an hour stylist. We can’t help you. You will not grow at that rate.
Versus if you’re looking more like a 500 dollar an hour stylist on social, and you’re only charging 200. That’s when it’s like, you’re reselling the Louis Vuitton. That’s when it’s like, “Are you kidding? I’m getting the bargain of the century.”
You want to look like the bargain of the century. Do you see how I flipped it like that? A lot of people are like, “Well, I don’t want to be a discount stylist.” Do you know what’s trending right now? Look like a million bucks, but charge $50, like that’s sick. That’s how you’re going to grow business. People have to say, “I can’t believe I’m getting so much for this rate that I’m getting. You have to make yourself look like a really big deal. If you look like a mediocre deal, who’s going to take you up on that, right?
Then we have online reviews. This plays a huge part in your perceived value. If nobody is talking you up, you do not exist. You don’t.
Today’s consumer market, 70% of consumers trust online reviews more than a referral from a personal friend. So forget your referrals. If you don’t have a lot of online reviews, referrals ain’t going to save you.
And referrals that live on your online booking platform are not properly placed in your marketing funnel to help build and grow your business. Online reviews placed properly in the Interest level of your funnel. Photos. We talked about that when we got into social. You can’t just post whatever you have to post. You have to post photos that sell the promise.
I was coaching a salon salon owner recently, and they were explaining to me all the amazing things they had going on in their salon. I’m listening to them talk and I’m scrolling their Instagram, and I’m like, “Friends, this is not at all what your social media’s telling. In fact, this is not at all what your website’s telling. So unless I pull the trigger, I come in and I go to the interview, crossing my fingers on a hope and a prayer that you’ve got more going on in your business than you’re showing externally, I won’t know.”
It’s a roll of the dice, like, well, if somebody takes the leap of faith and comes in and gets to know us, then they’ll see how great we are. No one’s even going to take the chance so if, when I look at your social, when I look at your website, when I look at the perception of your business, if I don’t get the full picture, honey, you’re not going to keep me. I’m going to go somewhere else.
Some of you think that you’ve included everything on your social or on your website, but it’s because it lives in your head. You know it exists, your existing clients know it exists, but nobody else does.
I was coaching somebody recently through hourly pricing and they saw a little bit of a decrease in their clientele when they switched, but it was totally saveable. It wasn’t a problem. But I was like, “You’re not talking about hourly pricing anywhere on your website,” and they’re like, “Yeah, yeah, it’s right here.” There was this one line about it down at the very bottom of their services page. I was like, “Oh my gosh, you’re betting on the fact that somebody has all the time in the world to go through your website with a fine tooth comb to find this byline at the bottom.” It has to be screaming at people the value of things, right? Put that perception up high. Your messaging, the words you use, the verbs you use, your bio on your website.
I just shared with you a podcast where I said that a friend of mine was looking at bios on a website and that alone made her say, “I don’t feel comfortable going to that salon.” It’s not because she didn’t like what she was reading. She didn’t like that the bios weren’t built out in full. She said it was clear to her that the information was dated. She felt like the photos were really cheesy.
It’s funny the things that people get really picky about. Some of the bios said, “Nancy’s information coming soon,” and she was like, “I’m going to guess it said that for six months.”
Clients aren’t stupid. They see that kind of stuff and it feels like to them, you’re just not in it all the way. So that perception counts.
Online booking process. If you don’t have a structured, streamlined, online booking process to keep things moving, you’re going to lose people.
And then your branding, if your branding is dated, if your branding is mixed, if your branding is weak, if your branding is soft, if your branding does not speak to your target market client, you will not build quickly.
Here’s the thing that I think we do a lot on social is that we promote the process, not the promise, and that’s such a mistake. Nobody will ever buy the process. They’ll buy the end result. They’ll buy a transformation. That’s why—how well do before-and-afters do for you? They do great because you’re selling the result. You’re not selling the process. They’re seeing, “Oh, this person came in looking like this, they worked with you, this is how it showed up in the end.” You’re selling the promise, not the process.
Versus, I’ve heard this from clients. My friends, actually my personal friends are like, “I don’t want to see a stylist putting foils in somebody’s head. I don’t care to see what it looks like when they’re squeezing on the color.” That’s not of interest to a client. Now, if you’re an educator and you’re teaching formulation, all day long. If you’re teaching foil placement, all day long, do that all day long, because that’s what we like. Clients don’t like it. Don’t sell them the process. Sell them the promise. It is a completely different way of showing up on social. So something to really think about.
A lot of people are like, “Well, on stories, I want to show the guest experience. Showing the guest experience would make it pretty.” I don’t know about you. I look like a wet rat when my hair is wet, so seeing a client with wet hair being combed out, I’m like, “You better not show a video of that like me on social. Don’t you dare.” Really think about what are the things that are going to run through clients’ minds as you’re showing what you show on social, right?
Let’s talk about facilitation. However you show up with your perceived value, you’re selling a transformation, right? You’re selling a promise, not a process. If your facilitation is not in alignment with what you promise, you’re going to lose people. If you sell them on a pipe dream, you’re not going to retain and your reputation is going to die fast, real fast. Like “Don’t go see so-and-so, you’re not going to get what you think you are,” right? That’s what’s going to happen.
So when we look at facilitation issues, it can be guest service, definitely, right? That’s always going to be a part of it. A lot of people are still really caught up in like, “Ooh, what are your salon amenities?” That is 1% of what clients are worried about when it comes to facilitation and guest experience.
We look at your offering as a whole. Does it feel exceptional? Does it feel exclusive? Do I get the transformation that you truly promised me? Do I feel like you offered me something that I’m not going to get elsewhere, right? Do you show me how the transformation took place? If you are not taking before photos of every guest that sits in your chair and then taking an after photo and showing it to them, you’re missing out. You’re truly missing out because that is the subliminal message of “Look at what we achieved today.”
As I sit here, recording this podcast, I’ve got about a three-quarter of an inch root that makes me sad every time I look in the mirror, but I have not had time to fix it. And if my stylist were to say, “Britt, let’s take a before and take an after,” I know how I feel right now in this moment. And I confess to you, I’ve got a three-quarter inch root, and I know how badass I feel when my color is fresh. And just having that little subliminal reminder of “Ooh, look what we did today”? Powerful. That is facilitation. That is the magic.
What are you doing in your experience that’s beyond “You’re booked for a cut and color. We did the cut and color. I’ll see you in eight weeks.” That’s transactional. That will kill you in business growth. That’s not going to work.
Today’s business is experiential. The world of transactional business has died. We are looking for experiential business truly in all that we do. I need you to really think about how am I going to position my brand in a way that stands out? How am I going to increase that perceived value so people feel like they’re getting 10 times more than they paid for? That’s the question I want it to run through your mind.
You don’t want to overload people and you don’t want to overwhelm people, but the transformation has to be 10 times greater than what they think they’re paying for. That’s when your perceived value is so high that you’re unstoppable. That’s when all the competition starts to melt away.
If you feel like your business is growing too slowly, I promise you that when clients are considering you, when stylists are considering working for you, the promised result is not strong enough every single time. It could be your facilitation positioning. It could be your facilitation. It could be if you are a salon owner and you have stylists who work for you, it could be that you don’t pay them well enough. That’s a facilitation issue. It could be that your scheduling policy sucks. It could be that somebody can’t promote to a master stylist for five years because that’s what your growth path looks like. That is a 1997 growth path. Thinking about how do you need to change facilitation so that the perceived value becomes high?
Then there’s your positioning. You can have all of the facilitation completely dialed in, but if your positioning looks like trash or if you’re trying to make yourself look super fancy—here’s one of the things I see actually happening a lot. There’s a lot of luxury brands that are making themselves look almost unattainable. Unattainable isn’t working right now. Unattainable is not sexy. The days of I’m on a private jet, DM me, and I don’t respond, all of that has died.
If you’re like, “I’m a luxury brand,” and you look almost like “shing,” like a little bit too polished, a little bit too professional, like I’m sorry to say it that way. You’re going to turn people off because we’re living in the age of vulnerability. We’re living in the age of human. We’re living in the age of freaking empathy. And if you’re looking like, “…and we’re polished,” it’s going to be a rough road because your positioning is very intimidating.
Did you see Tiffany diamonds actually went through this really recently? If you’re familiar with Tiffany jewelers, that’s who I’m talking about. What was happening is Tiffany was becoming this very dated brand. So I remember , I graduated high school in the early 2000s and I begged for my boyfriend who’s now my husband to buy me one of those Tiffany bracelets. It had a heart charm on it. If you’re of the era that I am, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. It was like this ridiculous, chunky, dangly bracelet, and you could engrave the heart and I wanted one so bad and they were so super cool. There was rings and necklaces and all this kinda stuff. Anyway, Tiffany was kind of trendy. It was upscale, but trendy. Tiffany now is seen as an old folks’ brand.
What they did is they tried to have Beyoncé wear this Tiffany diamond and they did a whole marketing campaign around it because they had to try and shift their perception that Tiffany’s is luxury. They’re a luxury jewelry house and they always have been, but they became so unattainable and so stuffy and so out of touch that everybody was like, “Forget it. If I’m not good enough for you, bye bye then,” and they lost a ton of their market share.
So for those of you who are leaning into luxury branding, but you’re positioning yourself as, “..and we’re the best and we’re the shit and we’re exceptional and we’re a little bit unreachable,” you’re going to screw yourself in the process. You become so perceived high that I’m not even going to play your game, because I don’t know what’s happening here, but the promise ain’t there, right?
What I want you to do right now is I want you to look at your social. I want you to look at your website. I want you to look at your reviews. I want you to look at your messaging and ask yourself, “Do I look like I’m worth five times more than what people pay to come in to see me?” If not, you’ve got some work to do. If you do, amazing. See if you can make yourself a little six times more, right? But if not, your goal is to make you look five times sharper then the actual value of the transformation you deliver, all right?
You know your homework, get to it.
Y’all so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
