Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hairstylist, 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 weren’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 hairstylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt: What is up, and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist podcast. I’m your host, Britt Siva, and I don’t think I have ever been more excited to record a podcast than I am right this second. We are going to talk about the Thriving Stylist 60 experience. I know you have no idea what that means right now, but let me just at the very top of this episode say it’s totally free. You don’t have to register or subscribe to anything. This is like a giant social experiment for the industry. In order to participate, you’re just going to show up yourself and do the damn thing and what is do the damn thing? You’ll find out throughout this episode but essentially, this is kind of like a challenge to myself and to all of my listeners to see if we can really find our core inspiration in the industry.
One of the things that I’ve noticed coming up is that I think that our industry is quite tired, and I’ve talked about that a little bit and not that we’re not excited, and not that we don’t still want big things, but our industry is interesting where it’s one where you work really, really hard to build a clientele. Then once you have the clientele, there’s some things that start to feel monotonous and it always feels like, what else? What else? What else? There’s always something more and it can lead to overwhelm. There’s just no doubt about it. I still think we have literally the best industry in the world, but in any industry, things can get boring and things could get monotonous and people can get frustrated and overwhelmed. I got a DM a couple weeks ago and the person who sent this to me is going to know exactly who I’m talking about as I say it.
She was expressing that she was feeling just kind of burnt out by the industry. She’s a successful stylist and she’s like, “I have literally nothing to complain about. My business is going great. I just am bored,” essentially, more or less. I asked her a series of questions. “Is it because you’re not making enough money or is it because you’re not seeing enough clients?” She’s like, “No, that’s the thing is everything’s going great. I’m literally just bored.” I think that’s so relatable. Even if you’re not bored, even if you’re like, “Britt, I just need the money and the clients,” perfect, you’re still in the right place, but no matter where you are at in your season of business in the industry, this one’s for you. I’m hoping that we can come together and really make some magic happen. Before I get into exactly how we’re going to do this together, let me explain where the inspiration came from.
Several months back, this post hit my Instagram feed and it was from this baker and it kills me to this day that I did not save it because I would love to give this person all the credit in the world. If anyone knows who this person is, please DM me and let me know. I would love to give her all the credit. It was this baker and she probably hit my feed because I happen to be a baker. I love to bake. If you don’t know this about me, I make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. I am really extremely proud of that. I’m on a sourdough journey right now. I spent this year learning to master sourdough bread. I’m somebody who really enjoys being in the kitchen, and one of the things my husband has always said is, “I can tell you’re happy when you’re baking.”
When I’m down or I’m overwhelmed, I’m not in the kitchen, and it’s not because when I’m in the kitchen baking and doing things like that, it’s not because I have to, it’s ’cause I want to. Because he said that, I’m now very attuned to it. If you have tried to bake or you are a baker or you have an aversion to baking, you’ll probably relate to what I’m about to say. It’s one of those things where it does become a science, and a lot of people say either you’re good at it or you’re not. I don’t believe that that’s true, but you have a certain amount of baking fails and you start to feel very discouraged by the process because it’s not like cooking. Cooking can kind of be a pinch of this, a pinch of that, try this new thing. Baking truly is scientific, and so you do have to kind of dial in knowing of a lot of the different parts and pieces to get it correct.
This baking challenge was centered around the idea of for 30 days baking something every single day, and it didn’t have to be wedding cakes every day. It could just be very, very simple things. She was sharing these simple weeknight brownies and stuff like that, and it was so incredibly smart and there was no opt in or sign up. It was just like, let’s create habit together. I was like, bingo, bingo, bingo. If there is a way that I could do this for hairstylists, I think it could be really impactful. I think that we have. I spent the last few weeks, I don’t know, as I started kind of dialing in this episode, thinking about what format would work really good for us because for 30 days for everybody in here to do something repetitive for 30 days in the way that the baking challenge was, it didn’t really work because everybody here has different specialties and different interests and different schedules and all that kind of stuff.
I wanted to kind of modify. Then I went down the 75 Hard rabbit hole. Is anybody familiar with 75 Hard? I’ll explain it to you. Whether you are or not, it’s fine. 75 Hard is the brainchild of Fitness guru Andy Frisella. What he says is he’s created this challenge, and I’m going to explain it to you. He says that 1 million have attempted it and only 1% of people who have attempted it can complete it. That’s just such a great glimpse into consumer behavior and just human beings as a whole, actually less consumer behavior and just more human beings. For all of us, one of the things we struggle with the most is habit and accountability. Truly. Despite our best efforts, and it’s no judgment, I know everybody listening to this is a beautiful human. It’s just really, really difficult.
What Andy decided to do and what this baking blogger decided to do was to create an experience that would be kind of a personal commitment to yourself and it would force you to learn that you can do hard things, you can be accountable, and if you do really amazing things live on the flip side. The way that he described 75 Hard is as a transformative mental toughness program to boost confidence, self-esteem and grit, and that I absolutely loved. The way that his program works is he’s chosen five different things to do every single day for 75 days. I guess it’s two and a half months, and by the end, essentially you have kind of a whole body transformation. Now, he’s in fitness, I’m in business, two different sectors completely. For him, you’re seeing this physical transformation. One of the things that he coaches to is to take a progress picture every single day.
If you’ve ever been on a fitness journey, you work really hard for three weeks and you look in the mirror and you’re like, “Okay, nothing’s happening, just forget it. This is not for me,” but it’s because change takes more than 21 days. As human beings, so especially today like now more than ever, so conditioned to instant gratification that our tolerance for patience is extremely low, our tolerance for progress is extremely low. It’s like if it’s not going to happen tomorrow, I’m not doing it. Unfortunately, business doesn’t work like that. Really good, strong business today is about continuing to build bricks and building blocks over a period of years to keep your castle strong. I was listening to an economic space podcast actually before I hopped in to record this one, and they were talking about how commercial real estate bankruptcies are at an extreme high, haven’t been this high in over a decade or something like that, and talking about how business is kind of getting rocked.
I was also seeing an article that said Pixar laid off 14% of its staff. We’re in this really interesting season of business where y’all, things are going to continue to be hard and it doesn’t mean it’s not insurmountable. Some of today’s most successful businesses were built in recessions. What happens in recessions is they level the playing field and only the strong survive. Those who built businesses based on luck or charm will be washed out. Those who understand how to build business strategically do just fine. My goal of you listening to this podcast and being a part of Thrive for Society is always going to be that strategy piece. This kind of layers into that, and my hope is that if we can choose to do this together, we can all experience increased inspiration, feel really tremendous confidence as we walk into these next couple of probably tough years in business and find the mental and physical fortitude to keep elevating and doing the things that we need to do to stand out in this increasingly crowded market that we work in called the beauty industry.
What I’ve decided to do is a giant industry-wide social challenge, and I’m calling it the Thriving Stylist 60. What we’re going to do is for 60 days, we are going to do a handful of tasks that are designed to make us better, stronger, like mental clarity, physical wellness, hopefully connect with each other, network a bit more, build up our clientele, improve our relationships as a whole, all the good things. The best news is that if you choose to do this, it’s probably going to take you 20 minutes a day or less. Even if you’re like, “20 minutes a day, that sounds like a lot.” Well, just wait to hear what these things are before you cast judgment. Most of these things, you’re just going to integrate really nicely and effortlessly into your existing day. You’re not even going to feel it like a time spend, but I think that the impact can be massive.
I have chosen six different things that we are going to do every single day, those of us participating in this, and yes, I’m going to participate too, so you can follow along with me on my journey. We are going to do this together for 60 days and see where it takes us. This podcast episode is releasing in early July of 2024. We are going to be doing this. If you’re doing this live with me, we are going to be doing this into September of 2024. Now, if you’re listening to this podcast into the future, amazing. Jump on and you start your 60 days whenever the heck you want to. If we end up liking this, I am going to end the future, shake it up a little bit. We can try a new challenge, but I think this is a really good place for us to start.
The six categories I’ve chosen for this challenge are going to be connect, capture, give, reflect, health, and educate. It sounds good. Listen on. Let’s start with connect. For the connect portion, you’re going to choose to 20 Instagram posts, comment on five and start at least one conversation in the DMs daily with somebody you haven’t DMed before. That one is the most complicated. Don’t worry, and I’m going to break it all down a little further. When you’re trying to remember the rules of connect, I want you to think of it as the 1, 5, 20, 1, 5, 20, 1, 5, 20. Okay? The one is you starting at least one conversation in the DMs daily with somebody you have never ever DMed before. Now, there’s a caveat. If it’s somebody that you have not DMed in 60 days or more, I’m okay with that. You can spark a conversation, but I really challenge you to have some conversations with people you’ve never connected with before and just one every single day, and they can be about anything.
You can DM somebody, maybe an industry educator that you admire and just thank them for what they’ve done for you. Maybe it’s somebody who follows you on Instagram who’s never had any kind of interaction with you. They live in your community and you DM them and you say, “Hey, I noticed you were following me. Just checking in to see if there’s anything I can do for you as a barber in the area. I’m just here for you if you have any questions, hope you’re having a great week.” Light. These do not have to be heavy sales DMs, nothing like that. You’re literally just looking to connect, okay? Maybe it’s a client who still follows you, but it hasn’t been in to see you for six months. Again, as you do these DMs, don’t think of them as sales DMs. Think of them as connection opportunities. Okay, so that’s the DMs.
Then we have commenting on five posts. Now, there’s another rule to this. At least half of the posts you’re commenting on have to be non-industry. You can’t just comment on the posts of the other stylists who work for you. You can’t just comment on the posts of industry educators. You can’t just comment on the posts of industry brands. Half the people you comment on have to be existing clients, potential new clients. Half of them have to be people who could or already are a part of your clientele. The other half can be industry-related if that’s how you want to do it, you can navigate this however you’d like. But remember, this is all about connection. Think about what connections would serve you the best in this season of your life. Okay?
Then you’re going to like 20 Instagram posts. For the likes, I would also suggest half be at least half not be industry-related. By not industry-related, I mean, it can be your clients, friends of your clients, family of your clients, existing clients, past clients, people in your community you’ve never met before. All of those people are viable. Please don’t just like the posts on Pottery Barn. Don’t just like the posts on CosmoProf. Like don’t just like posts of big businesses or industry people. The point is to make human connections. Challenge yourself. In doing this, what we’re trying to do is unlock the power of social media. It’s not called postal media. You’re not just supposed to go on and post stuff and then leave and hope something great happens. You’re supposed to be social on the platform. By doing this connect piece every single day for 60 days, you should see really great results.
By the way, to pull this off, it would probably take you if you were doing it really full in with focus five minutes or less. By the end of this experience, I think you’ll be down to three minutes or less. It’s not going to take you that long, but you’re going to start using Instagram truly with intention. Why did I choose Instagram? Why didn’t I choose some other social platform? Or why didn’t I say, “Ask a client to leave a review?” How come I didn’t go that direction this time? Because Instagram is the only platform that over 90% of our industry is on, and it’s also the best visual platform for clients to see our work at this place in space. It’s still one of the core four platforms I coach to and for this particular opportunity, that’s where we’re going to be. Okay, so the 1, 5, 20, the one DM, the five comments, and the 20 likes.
Okay. Then our next component is going to be capture. Now, this one for some of you is going to be easy, and for some of you it’s going to be hard. I want you to capture 30 seconds, at least 30 to 60 seconds, anything like that is fine, of your day in micro moments to share to your story or feed. Okay? I know video is hard for some of us. Why am I saying micro moments? Because nobody wants to watch you shampoo your client, Jessica, for 30 seconds. That sounds really boring. You can’t just click record on the camera and let us watch 60 seconds of you putting your makeup on. That’s very boring. 30 seconds of you singing along to a song in the car, that’s very boring. So the reason I’m saying micro moments is I want you to find different components of your day to record.
Now, it may still be maybe you’re recording a bunch of micro moments of one visit with one client. That works too. I don’t need to see your entire day in a vlog. That’s not what I’m asking you to do. What I’m asking you to do is to create at least 30 seconds of engaging video content every single day, and we’re going to do it in micro moments. Now, for many of us, we’re going to need a new app in order to put those micro moments together into a 30 to 60-second Instagram story or Instagram grid post that you can add to your feeds. I like the app InShot. There’s a lot of really great apps out there. There’s some AI apps and some really amazing things. If you are not totally video savvy, InShot is a really great one.
You can literally just upload all the clips. It will edit them all together. You save it to your phone and you can post it from there. It’s super easy. You can trim clips, you can add an audio over it so you can hit the audio record button and you can talk over the video if you want to. Play with it, definitely for sure, but as you’re starting off, just play and see what works really, really well for you. Your first couple days you do this might be a little clunky, that’s okay. The point of this is progress over perfection. I want you to capture at least 30 seconds of your day in micro moments every single day for 60 days and share it to your story or your feed. If you need a good app for putting those mini videos together into one video. I like InShot, but there may be other really great apps that others as well, feel free to experiment. That is capture.
Then we have the give piece and to give, we’re going to do what I call being a day maker. I started being a day maker, gosh, it was probably 2012. It was before my son was born. We were still living in San Jose, California, and I just noticed that I had this innate habit of just kind of random acts of kindness is I guess how you would describe it. It didn’t actually ping to me that I was doing it until somebody with love in their heart told me, “Britt, for a long time I thought that you were really insincere because when I see you,” and this was a parent at my daughter’s school at the time, she’s like, “When I see you, when I interact with you, you are so complimentary. You really listen when people talk,” and she was like, “To me, it felt so forced because I’ve never seen someone interact like that before.”
She was like, “But now I’ve known you for four years, and I realized you just have a really pure heart.” It was, I’ll never forget it. It was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received, if not the best. It was something I was just, it wasn’t forced. I just like to make people feel better, but I decided to really own it. I was like, “Okay, if people are going to think that it’s wild for me to be that way, I’m going to double down on it. Watch me be the most over-the-top lover you’ve ever seen in your life. Watch me do it.” I picked up this day maker concept and I was like, every single day I’m going to do one little thing that makes somebody else’s day better.
It can be when you go to the grocery store and the cashier checks you out. You tell them, “I see you in the store every single week and there’s something about the way your hair looks today. You just look like a 10,” and you don’t come from a place of like, “So here’s my business card. Come in to see me.” You just give a compliment. Here’s another example. We had a major plumbing issue at our house. I live in a really small town. If you don’t know now you know, and it’s really difficult, if something goes wrong at your house, you’re screwed because it’s really hard to get help out here. No one wants to drive out here. We don’t have a lot of local people who do trades. We were calling around, calling around, water shut off, huge plumbing issue, calling around, calling around, couldn’t find anybody. I finally got a hold of this one really great woman, and I explained to her what was going on.
She was like, “You know what? We’re booked out for the next 10 days.” She was like, “But I can hear it in your voice. You’re in a bind. Let me see what I can do.” She called me back like an hour later and she was like, “I have a technician. I’ve moved a couple other non-emergency calls. We are going to get you taken care of today.” First of all, that made her a day maker to me. She moved heaven and earth didn’t charge me extra. I paid $150 for emergency service, which in California is literally nothing. It was nothing. I called her back after and I was like, “What is your address? I’m sending your entire team lunch today,” because they truly, I would’ve paid four times as much. I needed water for my family. I was desperate. They just went out of their way to make it easy and she was like, “You do not have to do that.”
I was like, “No, I need to.” That’s being a day maker, and it doesn’t have to be so over-the-top, like buying sandwiches for a team of plumbers, but what can you do? Little things. Telling a new mom who’s walking with her crying toddler and an infant in the car, “You’re doing great.” Stuff like that. Be a day maker. Find a chance every day to be one. It can be sending a DM to a client so you can even double up. You can connect and be a day maker at the same time. You can DM a client and just say, “Hey, I saw your story. The way you blue dry your own hair today looks like a 10.” That’s being a day maker. Just doing something that makes somebody else feel good with no expectation in return. That’s being a day maker. Okay, so that’s give.
Then we have reflect. On reflect day, we’re going to journal, and if you’re anything like me, you hate journaling, and if you love journaling, great. This will be easy for you. I hate it. I don’t like it. I’m a words of affirmation. I love the talking. I don’t love reflective journaling. I don’t know if it makes me feel vulnerable, not sure. I hate it. I’m going to do it anyway, but I made this super easy for all of us, and every single night at the end of the night, you’re going to write your daily peaks and your daily pits, your highs and your lows. That’s it. You don’t even have to write sentences. It can be words. You can have one each day. You can have five one day and one the next. Whatever you want to do, there’s no rules to it. If you’re like, “I don’t want to buy a journal,” then don’t. Then take a couple sheets of paper, fold them in half and write on those every single night.
It’s just the habit of it. This does not have to be formal. If you want to go to Target and buy fancy stationery, it makes you happy. I’m here for it, but you don’t need to, okay? That’s going to be reflect every single night, peaks and pits.
Then health, we are going to drink one gallon of water every single day. This is to combat the whole storyline of hairstylists live on starvation and coffee. We are going to make an effort to drink one gallon of water every day. You can if you want to buy one of those measured fancy gallon water jug things that people carry around to remind them to drink, I personally am not going to do that. I’m just going to drink four Stanley cups a day and water at dinner and water in the morning and feel really good about myself. We’re just going to make sure to hydrate every single day.
Then the last piece is educate, and we are going to read 10 pages of a business book every single day. Now, for me, if you’d rather listen to a book on Audible in the car, I’m actually totally okay with that, but it’s not a podcast, it is a book. I want you to make sure that you choose something business or mindset related. Either something that’s going to help your business or something that’s going to help your mindset. No fiction books, nothing like that. If you look up #BrittSivaReads on Instagram, I have a lot of books that are kind of floating around there right now that would be good ones. I’m going to read a book right now. It’s called Five Gears, How to Be Present and Productive When There’s Never Enough Time. It’s written by Jeremy Kubisak and Steve Cochran. I’m sorry if I said your name wrong, gentlemen, but I feel like a book on productivity when there’s not enough time is something that would certainly help me and hopefully it might help you too.
You do not need to read the same book as I am at all. I’m sharing the book I’m reading ’cause I know somebody’s going to ask, so if you want to read along with me, you certainly can. Zero expectation of that. I want you to read a business or a mindset book that is going to be most helpful to you. If you’re looking for a good book on productivity, Five Gears might be a good one to look into, but you can choose anything you want to.
Okay, so let me do a recap. If you are choosing to participate in this with me for the next 60 days, every single day, so that means seven days a week, whether we’re in the salon or not, we are going to choose to connect, capture, give, reflect, health, and educate. Okay?
How do you participate with me? If you choose to do this, when you do the capture piece, which is the 30-second share of your day in micro moments, and you do it to your story or to your feed, you can include the hashtag, #Thriving Stylist60. You do not have to do that. However, I’m going to choose two people at the end of September of 2024 and send them just a little gift from me, and there’s not necessarily any rhyme or reason to how I’m going to do it. I’m going to follow my heart on this one, and for choosing to participate in choosing to try and elevate yourself through this summer and through this season, I’m going to pick two lucky people and just send them a little goodie, a little something.
If doing this feels like something that might help you, elevate you, change your mindset, re-inspire you, get you more confident with video marketing, hopefully network you a little bit more, hopefully build your clientele, make you feel healthier, I would love to do this right along with you. I’m going to be doing Thriving Stylist 60. You can follow along definitely on my stories every single day, starting mid-July, and running through mid-September. Y’all, this has been so much fun to put together and I cannot wait to see what you all do, and as I always say, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you in Thriving Stylist 60.
