What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
I’m your host Britt Seva, and we have got our first ever business planning workshop coming up in just a couple of weeks.
This is for any stylist or salon owner who just wants a better, stronger, more organized plan for your business.
This is not your grandma’s business plan.
It’s nothing like the vague templates you’ll get from a Google search.
What we’re creating together is your own custom play-by-play for how to have the business that matches your lifestyle and your life goals.
We’re not talking marketing funnels, nothing of that stuff.
We’re just getting strategic about what your business and your life are craving in 2026, making balance, making money, mapping it all out.
You’re going to get a 20-page workbook to detail all of this out.
Head to www.thrivingstylist.com/successplan to register today.
That’s www.thrivingstylist.com/successplan.
I’ll see you there.
Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hairstylist?
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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.
What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
I’m your host, Britt Seva, and you read that title right.
Today, we’re talking about policies, the Salon Business Destroyer.
I have talked very openly about this for a long time.
The first time I shared concerns about policies was in 2022.
I said I thought the industry was over-policized, that we’d swung the pendulum too far, that I thought that would be backlash.
I started talking about the great divide and how clients were going to push back against us, and we were going to see this giant split in the industry.
Now, we’re in it.
I mean, now the industry is so deeply divided, and the split goes multiple ways.
There’s clients vs.
stylists, there’s clients vs.
salon, there’s stylists vs.
each other, there’s stylists vs.
salon, and there’s always been tension.
It’s like in any given industry, it’s never perfect, there’s always issues.
It’s never been so contentious as it is right now.
What I’ve been saying, I believe happened was, the industry became very reactive from 2020 to 2023.
I completely understand why.
The terms of what it looked like to be successful in the industry has been in flux.
Things have really changed, called for a decade for quite some time.
And then coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was all these rules and restrictions and things change.
I’ve talked about the artificial inflation that the industry felt from 2021 to 2023, where all stylists thought they were booked and busy and business was amazing.
And then when the water receded in 2023, they’re like, wait a second, what happened?
And it was based on the pressure cooker that the industry was recovering from over the pandemic.
And all of that inflation truly was artificial.
It was never meant to be long term.
But what had happened was a lot of stylists and salons created long term systems for short term problems, and they are still reeling from it.
Now, the biggest problem with those long term solutions for short term problems is they felt really good.
They felt really good.
They were very well celebrated.
So what are the solutions I’m talking about?
I feel like I’m dancing around the issue.
We’re talking about policies.
So the things that were put into place from 2021 to 2023, and they’re often still in place.
We’re seeing a massive softening right now.
We’re things like very strict cancellation policies.
You cancel, you owe me 50% of your service charge.
You cancel, you owe me 100% of your service charge.
Credit card booking on file.
I’m going to auto charge you if you don’t show up.
You call in sick, you owe me money.
You show up late, you owe me money, or I’m not doing your hair.
You want to be a part of my business?
You have to apply.
You have to fill out a form.
I’m going to review it.
Send me photos.
I’ll get back to you within three days.
I’ll let you know if maybe you can book.
Then there’s going to be a deposit.
It became so heavy and so complicated and so financially fragile.
I don’t know how else to say it, that clients started pushing back.
And what happened when clients are pushing back is we as an industry felt attacked.
And what happens when people get attacked is they get defensive.
And I think that is kind of where we are today.
I think when you look at the narrative throughout the industry, it’s clients are feeling exhausted by how the industry has changed.
And we’re seeing clients, and when I say, where are clients talking, clients are making very viral posts on social media about it.
Clients are openly, I mean, when I go to the baseball field, I overhear people complaining about it.
And a lot of people in my personal life have no idea what I do, no idea what industry I’m in.
But I just hear women, women in particular, could be anybody, but women in particular saying, man, getting in to see a stylist and everything that goes with it has become so messy and complicated.
And like, is it worth it is really a question that’s come up a lot.
And then we on the flip side are like, what are you talking about?
Is it worth it?
We can barely feed our families.
We’re working so much.
We’re working so many hours.
It’s exhausting.
The overhead to run our business is huge.
So we have to do these things.
We can put a flag in the ground and say we have to do these things and this has to be the way that it is.
We as an industry and any industry cannot force consumers to do things.
That’s not how any successful business works.
You have your needs and we call it boundaries, right?
And I think that even the word boundaries is something that’s become almost polarizing.
Like we as humans do need emotional boundaries.
Like we shouldn’t be human doormats.
I totally agree.
But it’s almost like we’ve adopted this idea that as long as you say something is a boundary, it’s off limits for anybody else and you could do whatever you want within that.
And you can, by the way, you can.
That is free will and you can do that.
The piece we’re not realizing is on the flip side of every boundary is a result.
You create a boundary, something changes.
You can choose to have a gajillion policies in your business and all these rules and all these fees.
And you could say, it feels good to me because I feel in control.
You are absolutely a liberty to do that.
But you have to understand that the natural repercussion might be, nobody wants to sit in your chair, though, because it feels so complicated that I don’t know if it’s worth it for me as a consumer.
And that’s the piece we’re not talking about.
And that’s where a lot of the division comes in, is we say things like, well, that’s not fair.
What about us?
Business was never designed to be fair.
Fair is an F word.
We have to, as stylist and salon owners say, how do we construct a business that doesn’t take over our whole lives?
Because I don’t think that it has to.
I don’t think your business should make you miserable.
I’ve never been a proponent of that.
But without drawing a line in the sand, how do we create systems and structure that still allow us to feed our families and grow and be appealing to clients?
And that’s what this episode is dedicated to.
I have a lot of sources I’m going to be showing in this episode.
The reason I decided to do this one is multi-fold.
One, last week we released Episode 404 publicly on the podcast, which was my 2026 Predictions episode.
What you may or may not know is Thrivers Society members got to listen to this, that episode ahead of time.
So at the time of this recording, as I’m sitting here, the Predictions episode has not been made public.
It will have been made public by the time you’re listening to this episode, but at the time I’m recording, it’s not been made public.
The only people who listen to the Predictions episode are Thrivers, and I have their feedback.
And there’s two things I said that were the most eyebrow-raising.
This was one of them.
The other one I’ll talk about next week, so you’ll get to hear that too.
But this was one of them.
And I want to give some context around why I’m going ahead and saying that policies will be a salon business destroyer for the next few years.
You can do with this information what you want to.
Something that you should know is my podcast listenership is not clients.
So the people who listen to this show are stylist salon owners, estheticians, tanning professionals, waxing professionals, makeup artists.
We have some people who practice medical aesthetics who listen to the show.
But beyond that, it really is very beauty industry based.
We don’t have a lot of mainstream listeners.
So the idea that like I would say this, the policies are bad and I would shift consumer behavior is not true.
All I am doing is reacting to consumer behavior and giving you the opportunity to take a fresh look at your business and really think about what is working for you and what’s not.
So on last week’s episode, I shared a full breakdown of all the things I think you need to relook at in your business heading into 2026 in order to stay, for lack of better words, relevant and successful.
There’s also a checklist that goes along with that.
If you haven’t read it yet, go to thrivingstylist.com/mustknow.
There’s a huge PDF checklist.
I think it’s 14 or 16 things that I’m suggesting you shift or adjust or look at in your business heading into 2026 to again, like I said, stay successful and I’m using the word relevant.
One of the big things I talk about was, I do believe a softening of policies will trend in 2026.
For some of you, you’re like, finally, it’s time.
For some of you, you’re like annoyed by that.
I’m just reporting on the trend.
It’s already starting.
You can do with that what you want to.
You can be the business that’s still charging lots of fees and charging lots of policies and having lots of restrictions and making clients fill out forms to even book an appointment with.
You can choose to do that.
But if your demand starts to wane, I invite you to think about maybe it’s time for a shift.
So if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, do it.
If you want to just read a PDF breakdown of all the things I’m suggesting, head to thrivingstylist.com for it’s just must know.
It’s a pretty robust PDF, so I would check it out.
So slip into my DMs with me.
This is a DM I got from a stylist named James.
James, this was on September 7th, 2025.
James says, Hi, friend, I just listened to your podcast about your recent boot camp and something stuck out to me.
I want more clarification.
I noticed you mentioned policies and how they can scare potential clients away, which if there’s better wording to use or simply to remove and more so to talk in person, I’d love advice or resources you have to offer to dive deeper.
I have been a sought out stylist in name of their city since 2020.
Recently, I’m slowing and noticing more gaps and I’d like to get out ahead of it.
I know this is a mouthful I’m excited to hear back.
So just breaking down the message that was sent.
First of all, this person is lovely.
I’ve had several interactions and they’ve all been very lovely.
So thank you, James, for reaching out.
Notice the timeline.
So sought out since 2020.
We saw this.
If you were booked and busy from 2020 to 2023, most people were.
That was the easiest time to build clientele that we will arguably ever see in the industry again.
I don’t know that that boom and that influx of clients will ever come back around.
It was artificial.
And so it was not something that we can control.
Now, some people created a huge natural demand.
That was the minority.
Most people from 2020 to 2023.
If you were booked and busy, a huge portion of that was based on client surplus.
And we’ve talked about that on previous podcast episodes.
You can go back and listen for sure.
So this person saying, you know, I was caught up in that because of that they put in these policies.
And the question is, is there better wording to use?
Do I simply remove them or talk about them in person?
They have been extremely caught out and now things are getting gappy.
So that’s coming from the stylist perspective.
And James and I went back and forth.
I do believe, James, that you’re in a good place.
If you have any questions, you know where to find me.
But very receptive.
And I said, you know what?
At the end of the day, I would soften your policies.
And that’s not just me like spouting off.
We ran a boot camp in March of 2025 where one of the exercises was pull back on your policies.
And when I said that, people got very nervous.
And if you were in the group or if you’re in Thrivers, you’re watching all the feedback of people being like, oh my gosh, it works.
I pulled back my policies.
I’m not like drowning in cancellations now or drowning in no shows or having all these problems.
I’m just busier.
I just I have a better demand.
It’s proven itself.
So it’s not just theory.
It’s fact.
Okay.
So then there was this viral post.
I’m going to guess you saw it.
It was made on September 2nd, 2025 by Landon Starbuck.
I have never been sent a post more times than this.
If you sent me this post, you’re one of probably 400 people who sent it to me.
I got sent this post.
I truly never.
I’m not exaggerating.
I’ve never been sent an Instagram post more than this one.
And when you look at the post, it has 24,000 shares, 3000 comments and 36,000 likes.
This is the most viral post on this person’s entire page.
And it’s a woman.
And I’m going to summarize what comes up.
It’s a woman and she’s saying, help me out, has anybody else experienced this?
I am an adult woman.
I don’t know how old this person is.
I’m going to guess 30s, 40s.
And she has a family, she says, and she has gray hair.
So somewhere in that range, I cannot find anybody to just give me a haircut.
And I’m feeling completely dismissed as a woman with gray hair.
Like it seems like all anybody wants to do is young blondes.
I feel like there’s not a place for me in this industry.
And she goes on to share how her experience in trying to find a stylist, she saw a, I don’t know if it’s a video or a photo, it doesn’t hardly matter, of a haircut that she liked.
And she was like, Oh, perfect.
So-and-so stylist does a haircut that appeals to me.
I’d like to work with that person, which that’s how we all want our social media and our marketing to work.
Like nailed it.
Perfect.
Like all’s going well.
So she reaches out to the salon.
I’m paraphrasing.
But she reaches out to the salon and is like, Hi, I’d like a haircut with this person.
And the response was like, Okay, perfect.
But you booked directly with that stylist.
No problem.
So she goes to this person’s social media.
And again, I’m paraphrasing.
But she has to go down this rabbit hole of like, reads in the bio.
If you want to work with me, watch the highlight on my feed that explains how my process works.
The way that the process works is before you can even book an appointment, you have to send me a photo of your hair.
It has to be in good lighting.
I need an inspo pic.
What do you want your hair to look like?
I’ll let you know.
The thing that stuck out to this stylist was, I’ll let you know if you’re a good fit.
I have talked about this in Thrivers.
I’ve talked about this in the podcast.
When we say things like that, it lands as elitist.
And some of you are like, good, my business is exclusive.
Okay.
But exclusive equals small clientele.
So long as you’re on board with my business is exclusive, I want a small clientele, then that’s fine.
Then you can totally do that.
You just have to understand what you’re asking for.
And so if that is what you want, a low demand, small clientele, choose that.
If that’s not what you want, you really have to rethink your positioning.
If you’re somebody who is struggling with demand, I don’t think that is what you want.
So go back and revisit that.
And then she goes on to explain the phrase that she used, and this is the one that I saw a lot of.
She said, I feel like I’m having to audition to get my haircut now.
I know we as stylist and salon owners want to be able to like live our lives and have balance.
At the point where clients are feeling like they’re auditioning to be a part of our business, I think we’ve lost the plot.
And this is not a new feeling.
This feeling has been around forever.
I grew up doing ballet and hip hop and modern dance and tap and all kinds of stuff.
That was like my thing.
And just even the word audition, like whenever I hear that, it gives me such massive anxiety because, and if you’ve been in any kind of like theater or sports and you’ve gone to a tryout, it’s the same thing.
When you hear the word tryout or audition or assessment or anything like that, and it’s based on your looks, the insecurity meter is going to run wild.
And so I understand when we as stylists are saying, no, no, no, no, no, the pictures have nothing to do with who she is.
I just need to look at her hair and decide if I want to do what she wants.
OK, but the person on the other side who’s receiving that message of, send me a picture of what you look like and I’ll decide if we’re a good fit.
It’s very difficult to say that in a way that doesn’t land as you might be too old, you might not be pretty enough, you might have bad hair.
And then I was reading the comments.
I’m going to read you some of the comments under this post.
So then we see something like this and we get defensive.
And stylists are saying like, yeah, but I have to I do have to decide if they’re a good fit for my business.
I’m the first to say, I don’t think that you have to do the hair of any client who walks in, if you’re not confident with barbering haircuts and that’s what somebody wants, yeah, probably not a good fit.
You’re probably going to give them a bad haircut.
I’m not saying you have to do the hair of any kind of cut or style or anything in the world you have to be an expert of.
That’s none of us are great at everything.
But when we create these processes and policies of, I’m going to screen you and let you know if you’ve passed the test.
We talk a good game about we love to create confidence and make people feel their best selves.
Then we do stuff like that and it is a bit counterproductive.
Something I’ve said for a long time too is, if you want a winning specialty, let me just give you a hack.
This is not even a part of this episode.
If you want to build Clientele fast, be a root touch up specialist because in a world where it’s trendy to do extensions in dimensional color, which by the way, I have extensions, so no shade.
I love a good extension artist.
Shout out to Alex, but I’m a great coverage girl and there’s nobody who’s promoting doing that in my area.
And that’s like the money shot.
If you were to just like get really good at promoting that, you would be booked and busy, but that’s not the sexy stuff.
So nobody’s doing it and I totally understand.
But to this woman who’s like, I’m just a mom in my 30s, 40s and I just want a haircut and I have to audition and none of the clients seem to get what I get.
And I fear that in this audition, I’m not going to be who you want.
So then how does it go?
And I don’t think she ended up booking with this person, to be honest, I’m not sure.
But imagine she submits the photos, explains what she wants and the stylist writes back and said, you’re not a good fit for me.
Imagine being on the receiving end of that.
And then we as stylists and salon owners say, well, that’s just good boundaries.
Well, on the receiving end, it brings up a lot of fears to the point of like, I don’t even know if I want to step in the arena, like I’m not even going to send the photo because the fear of rejection is so massive.
I just want you to think for a second about how it would be to be on the other end of that process.
And like I said, if you are booked, busy, you want to be an exclusive brand and do all these things, go for it.
And if it’s working for you, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
As is true with anything I say, anywhere.
If you’re not having these problems, then you can ignore everything I’m saying and you can just carry on.
Would you, as a consumer, I’m just asking you, apply to be a part of a business.
And let’s say your application to be a part of that business is approved, pay a non-refundable 50% deposit to somebody you’ve never met before.
If you have to cancel, I’m keeping your money.
It feels very high risk.
It feels extremely high risk.
And so you’re only going to get this echelon of people who has enough money to put on the line, believes in you enough so your marketing and your messaging better be really damn good because you are so hyper-qualifying somebody to be a part of your business.
It’s just very specific.
And doing a model like this with all of these cancellation fees and deposits and late penalties, and that is fine for a very small segment of the industry.
And the fact that it was shared as like broad advice at scale, I think became confusing.
And I think it felt good for a very short period of time when the industry was very inundated.
It’s simply time to roll it back.
It’s time to roll it back.
So I want to read with you just a few comments that were left under that post, because I think it’s important to understand both sides of the argument.
I see a stylist side.
I see a client side.
I want to read the conversation.
So Nikki, who I can only assume is a stylist, commented and said, This situation is a sign that you found a stylist that is so incredibly skilled and sought after that they now get to choose the clients they want to take and maximize their time and income.
These people are often fully booked and have very loyal clients.
They no longer have to take any client they can get.
This is the goal for many people in lots of different industries.
Being so good at what you do that you get to turn away business is the definition of success.
Agreed.
If you have a business in place where that is your situation, by all means, policy it up.
But if you do not fit that description of you are booked, busy, have so many loyal clients, you actually do not need any new business, then it’s something to reconsider.
This one was interesting.
This is from somebody named Marina, who I believe is also a stylist or salon owner.
She says, you called a salon that is booth renting.
I don’t know that that’s necessarily true.
I think it’s possible.
But there’s employee-based salons that have processes where it’s like, you need to go to the stylist, individual booking restrictions.
I’ve seen stuff like that too, so I think fair assumption that it’s booth rental.
We don’t know for sure, but it is how she starts.
Then she says, as far as the picture inspo part, I would assume that’s for color, but it’s not for color because this client said they were just looking for a cut.
So that’s already, I’m not sure about that.
And then says, so the stylist knows how much to reserve to make your hair dreams come true.
Any salon that is not booth rental will gladly book your appointment over the phone or online with ease.
I totally disagree.
I think that there are employee-based salons that have processes like this in place as well.
Actually, I don’t think that I’ve seen that I know that to be true.
The piece that I wanted to talk about was the part where it says, I would assume it’s for color.
So the stylist knows how much to reserve.
So I know times have changed and I know this statement.
I’m about to make me sound like a dinosaur.
I’m going to like Brontosaurus up and say it anyway.
When I joined the industry in 2007, 2008, 2009, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, when I was in the salon, we couldn’t pre-screen clients.
So you just had the supplies needed to do the job.
If our business model has really become, tell me what you want.
I’ll get the supplies for it and then I’ll make it.
It’s almost like McDonald’s.
Like let me take your order, please.
Versus showing up to a really nice restaurant and you can just have whatever is offered on the regular menu and the supplies to make the club sandwich are waiting in the back.
I’m sorry, I know this is going to make a controversial opinion.
I think it’s a little bit kitchen cosmetologist to be like, every day I go to the beauty supply store and buy the color I need for the client that’s coming in that day.
And we hope they don’t change their mind and we hope the formula doesn’t go sideways because it’s all we’re getting is the minimum of what we need to get through the day.
And I say that knowing that you’re running on tight margins.
And I don’t believe in overstocking color or having a ton of supplies.
You don’t know if you’re going to use or not.
But I hope that you’re not charging premium prices.
Because if you’re charging premium prices, you have all of these policies.
You’re running what feels like an exclusive business.
But then on the flip side, you are going to the beauty supplies store to get colors order.
There is some kind of systematic break that’s happening here.
The industry did not function like that for decades.
I know that running a salon business is expensive.
If it is a color based on the client that’s coming in today’s situation, I do think there’s something more structurally to look at.
As a client, if I’m paying a 50 percent deposit, I’m putting a lot on the line, you have all these policies, and you’re only going to buy the color the morning I’m coming in, it feels a little bit unprofessional.
Which leads into Mandy’s comment where she says, yep, I’ve run into this also on top of all of that, the pricing is usually as crazy as the booking process.
Rooted Wings says, I haven’t had my hair cut in over a year and a half.
All of this just cemented my decision to possibly never go back ever again.
LOL.
Tracy says, is the name of the salon narcissistic behavior?
I know these comments are extreme comments.
These are the real feelings of clients.
The last comment that I thought was very poignant comes from somebody named M who says, salons can do whatever they want.
If they’re going to do this, just say on the Salon website that a client has to check Instagram to book.
Our time as clients is as precious as it is for the stylist.
Don’t give us the run around by calling.
I think that sums up a lot of the feeling of like, I think clients, most clients, not all clients, but most clients know that you’re just getting by like everybody else.
You’re busy, you have a life, you’re trying to make this business work.
I do think that that is not something that goes over people’s heads.
I think that they get it.
But they have all that shit too.
Like that’s being an adult, that’s being a human.
And so when we’re asking for all this grace and all of this like rules and restrictions, my question just comes up.
Like if you call out sick, do you give all your clients that you called out sick on a 50% off their next appointment?
Probably not because you probably can’t afford it.
What you probably do instead is like scramble and extend your schedule to get them in.
But when we have policies that are like, if you no show on me or you cancel on me within less than 48 hours notice, you owe me 50% of your booking fee, that only works if you do that as well.
If you cancel within 48 hours, you get sick, somebody that you love gets sick and you need to call off, my question to the room, can you afford to give 50% discounts to the 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 people who were on your books that day that you now just pulled out the rug from under?
I wouldn’t suggest you do that.
I don’t think that that’s great business, but I also don’t think it’s great business to be charging a 50% cancellation policy.
I don’t think it’s great business to be taking credit cards on file at time of booking and auto charging them.
There’s a lot of legal guidelines around that, that you could be in full violation of and lose your credit card processor over.
So just make sure that you fully understand what you’re doing.
If you are going to be highly processed, highly politicized applications to book an appointment with you, lots of fees, lots of terms, agree to my policy before booking an appointment, just make sure that you know what you’re doing.
If you have not already done so, go thrivingstylist.com/mustknow.
Check out the podcast from last week where we talked about the predictions.
Do with this information what you want to.
I do think we’re going to see a trend in softening salon policies.
You can be on whatever side of that you want to be on.
Food for thought.
I’d love to keep the conversation going.
As I always say, so much love, happy business building and I’ll see you on the next one.
