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 hairstylist 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 this week we’re gonna talk about a topic that I think makes people a little bit uncomfortable. I did a podcast talking about retail in the industry in the fall of 2025. It’s episode 4 0 6 and I talked about kind of like the retail sales structure collapse in the industry. This is not a new topic, I’m not the only coach who’s talked about it. It’s been something that’s kind of been buzzing for the last few years. The reason I chose to tackle it head on now is in the last, just over a year, like I really started to see things get shaky for salons in early 2025. That’s not to say there weren’t issues before, but I really at scale started to see problems when I was looking at salon’s books in 2025 and I had this realization that I can either play nice and sit back and say nothing and let salon owners figure it out for themselves.
And if I chose to go that direction, at what point am I just being complicit in the downfall of retail programs in the industry? And I, I got to a point where I was like me turning the blind eye and only salon owners who are paying for me to come in and look at their books and analyze what’s going on or able to have the feedback like it just, it started to feel icky to me and I felt like I needed to tell anybody who chooses to tune in and listen what I’m seeing so that they can make informed decisions for themselves. So when I really started to see these drastic falls in numbers and retail programs, it just became something on my heart where it was like, we have to talk about this. We have to get transparent and we have to give the opportunity for honestly distributors and hair care companies to change because I do think that we’re still in a position where there is hope, like retail programs don’t have to have a negative energy around them, but something has to change for them to be successful.
The other thing I wanna talk about at the top of this episode is that I, for many years was a huge proponent of retail. Anybody who’s with me from 2012 to 2024 knows that I had an entire program dedicated to retail sales. It was called retail therapy. And I taught thousands of stylists and salon owners how to sell more retail and shared where the margin was and how to make a program that work for you and how to optimize displays, all kind of stuff, a whole program on selling retail because I believed in it so deeply and I felt like retail equaled retention and literally all the things I had to pull it back because it stopped being something that I could like really fully believe in because I was watching retail cripple businesses in such a huge way. But it couldn’t be all about it anymore.
And like I said, I think that question has been raised about retail for a while, but we’re not having the deep conversations around what has changed and what would need to change to make retail work in salons. Because for me, on the flip side of this best case scenario is retail programs become alive and well in salons. Again, when I’m looking at salons that I’m coaching right now, that’s not what’s happening. And I think that we’re at this critical point of either something has to change or we’re gonna see retail move outta salons at scale like the vast majority sooner than later. So when I released episode 4 0 6, something I didn’t expect to happen happened. And what happened was hair care companies and distributors came to ask me some questions. And what I was talking about was my concerns about the way that retail has been changed position wise in the industry, which we will talk about on this episode.
And a couple of companies came to me to have really actually very professional, lovely conversations about how they did not agree with some of the things that I said. And it was interesting because the things that they weren’t agreeing with were not like the facts and the data. Nobody came at me for those things. The things that people were saying was they didn’t like that. I used the phrase Get curious. And if you go back and listen episode 4 0 6, I didn’t come in with as direct facts and data as I’m gonna come in with today. Today I’m gonna be a lot more direct. I was probably 30% direct on that one. I’m gonna be a hundred percent direct on this one. So the reason why I took a softer approach is because I did not want hair companies to think I was like trying to start a rebellion.
That was not the whole point. The point was this is an opportunity and I’m gonna be much more clear about what the opportunity that I think exists. I’m just gonna be very transparent today because I think that’s what the ask is for. The reason why I kept saying get curious, which I guess landed as vague is because I didn’t want to come in as hard as I’m gonna come in as hard, right? Today I wanted to give the opportunity for salons to just look at their own numbers and make their own decisions and not feel like they had this like biased viewpoint. And I guess in me saying get curious, rather than coming in with the hard facts, it felt too unclear. So let’s just be clear. So I’m gonna do that. The reason why I said the phrase get curious is because in that episode, just like in this one, I don’t think enough stylists, what if you have a studio suite or
Or so salon owners who run retail programs are looking at the actual numbers, like the deep numbers, looking at the actual profit margin, the free revenue that is becoming available to actually reinvest back in the business. I don’t think that most salon owners or suite owners or people who carry retail lines are actually looking at what’s happening. I think they see the super sexy top line number and they’re like, wow, our program does, you know, $25,000 a month in sales. The sales is whatever. It’s, it’s the profit margin that’s left over and the retail and inventory that’s tied up on your shelves and the way that support has changed, like that’s the nuts and bolts and we’re just kind of like not looking at that and we’re listening to what we’re being told or we’re assuming everybody’s doing it this way. And when you see salons struggling right now, I think this arm of the business is one that we have to have a real conversation around and look at the numbers and look at the trouble spots.
With that, I think that we’re sitting on a huge opportunity for either distributors or salons, whoever chooses to do so, to free up more cash and to create a stronger relationship and a better dynamic. On the flip side of just being honest about what’s happening and what’s changed and figuring out a way forward together. For many years, salons and hair airlines and distributors were in deep partnership with each other and it was like this beautiful symbiotic relationship. I remember sitting down with these amazing haircare companies when I was in the salon and they would sit down and and talk to me about the possibility of of bringing their line in. And it was like we were almost going into business together and the way that they cared for us was just different. And the way that we needed each other was different. And it just has so drastically changed.
And I think we have to look at retail for what it is now and not reminisce about what it was in 1997 ’cause it’s just simply not the same thing. So let’s talk about what has massively changed and then we’re also gonna talk about a player that came into the space and really disrupted things in a way that has worked extremely well. And I don’t think that we can ignore it. So things really changed when distributors and haircare lines started going directly to consumer. It is just way harder to sell retail in salon right now. I know all the sales strategies. I know how to sell without selling. I know how to create FOMO for things. I got it. Sales is my game. I totally understand how to do it. The stylists with the best sales verbiage and the best sales strategy is struggling now more than ever.
I got a DM from a brand representative, somebody who’s worked with a major haircare line for many years and this person was like, Britt, I have been teaching product knowledge classes and giving my salon support for many, many years and in the last 18 months, no matter what I do, we cannot move the sales numbers. How do I convince these stylists to sell more? And I had this very transparent conversation in my opinion where I was like, I don’t think it’s about convincing the stylist to sell more. I think the system is so changed that stylists realize it’s kind of like fighting a, a battle that’s really hard to win. And so when stylists are saying things like, yeah, but my client picks up their phone and takes a picture of the product and then just goes to the website of the haircare company and orders it from there.
How do I combat that? How do I compete with that? Honestly, I can’t because when you order directly through the haircare lines website, you get free samples and free products and points. And I watch the Black Friday sales that all these haircare companies ran. How is a salon ever gonna compete with that? I don’t know. I seriously don’t know. Like how can I coach my way around that? The fomo, the FOMO factor is you need to have this product today. That’s the only thing I have in my arsenal. But for a lot of clients they’re like, yeah, I could have it today or I could have it in four days and get all the free samples and save whatever percent the the haircare brand is offering today and get points. It’s just, it’s hard. It’s just like so, so challenging when all these haircare companies went direct to consumer.
It put salons in a position where they are now competing with the people who used to be their partners in the game. When I first jumped into the industry in 2008, the best haircare was only available in salon. You could not buy it online, you couldn’t buy it at Sephora, you couldn’t buy it at Ulta. Like if you wanted amazing premium haircare, you had to get it from a salon. And so for us, we had a good chunk of clients who didn’t even come to us for haircare services but came to us for their shampoo and conditioner and styling products. And I mean tens of thousands of dollars in sales a month, no problem. It was easy to be quite honest because we had this like retail hub and retail arm of our business. It just worked. And so we were able to move inventory at scale and run the successful program.
And these haircare companies needed us ’cause we were the ones making the recommendation. We were the salespeople. We made the recommendations, we sold the product, we carried the inventory. Like we did it, they did it. It was working. When these retail companies started selling through their own websites and selling through big box stores, the partnership was no longer a direct partnership And now we’re in competition with each other. And it’s this weird thing that like we’re not supposed to talk about. For some reason that is what has happened. Stylists are having to compete with online retailers and it that competition is very, very challenging. And for many years I watched the industry do things like it’s diversion. Diversion’s the problem diversion’s not the problem. The problem is the online sales that you’re seeing are often completely approved and sanctioned by haircare brands. It’s not diversion that can’t be stopped.
It’s a business decision. I understand why the brands are doing it. They have to make money too. Like trust me, I get it. But then we also have to have the the honest conversation that like the model has changed, the model simply has changed. The other thing that is concerning to me and I always struggle with when I coach salon owners is the reinvestment suggestion. There is a very widespread suggestion that a salon should take 52% of the previous month’s retail sales and reinvest it to the next order. 52%. Can we talk about what that would do? So let’s say that I buy a bottle of shampoo for $5 from my distributor and I sell it for 10. That’s called keystone markup. You buy it for five, you sell it for 10. That’s pretty standard advice. So I sell it for 10. And the basic math, this is in my opinion, not the full math, but the basic math is I buy it for five, I sell it for 10, I’ve made $5.
Well now the distributor says, well now you’re gonna spend $5 and 20 cents and invest a little bit more and invest a little bit more and invest a little bit more. Where does the actualized profit come from? So I didn’t actually make $5, I spent five 20 to put another bottle on my shelf and a little bit more because you’re telling me to reinvest not just 50% but 52%. When I go to make my next order now over many, many, many, many, many sales cycles, a profit margin can be obtained. You are talking moving such scale and such volume that it becomes extremely challenging for a lot of, especially suite owners, man, but also salons to move product at that scale anymore. It’s just become so, so hard. So let’s talk about healthy retail programs. ’cause as I’m saying these things, some of you were like, no seriously, like we’ve turned profit in our retail program every month and if you do that amazing, like keep on keeping on.
I’m not saying that nobody’s making money in retail, I’m saying it’s incredibly challenging and in order to do it you have to sell at at such a scale and volume that it is, it’s hard. And when you look at business advice that has nothing to do with me. Like if you were to bring in an independent business advisor to evaluate your retail program, somebody who knew about retail and running profitable programs, they would say in the beauty sector you wanna be doing a a sell through percentage of somewhere between 30 and 50%. Meaning you’re selling through 30 to 50% of what’s on your shelves every single month. So if you have $5,000 in hair care sitting on your shelf right now, you should be selling, you know, 1800, $2,500 in product every single month. If not the sell through rate is not high enough to sustain the program.
And a lot of salons have so much tied up in inventory that they can’t move expired product products that they bought as part of a launch that they just don’t enjoy using. So they’re not selling all kind of things cause product to run stagnant and then you’ve invested in this inventory that you can’t move. And so the profit never comes on it. It’s just an expense. Now the other thing that’s the challenge and it’s interesting like this piece, like it’s exciting for me, the hair care brands listen to this conversation. I think it’s an important one and a transparent one that we should all be having. One of the things that salon owners are telling me specifically, if you work for a hair care brand and you own a hair care brand, one of the, the pieces of feedback that I’m getting from salon owners is that the way that the points work and the way that the support works from the haircare company is no longer working for the owner.
Like it, they’re not seeing it as valuable. And it’s interesting because I, I’ve had this conversation on both sides. So one of the, actually lemme pull up the quote, hold on. Okay, so I’m gonna read you pieces of this exchange I had with this representative from a haircare brand, but I’m gonna be as vague as I possibly can be because it’s actually completely irrelevant what this brand is. It doesn’t matter, it’s a huge player. I will say that doesn’t matter who they are and I don’t want anybody making the alignment ’cause it’s irrelevant information. That’s not the whole point of this. First of all, they agreed that retail sales is more challenging but they were also saying, you know, but there’s still so much value. And I was like okay great. Tell me what the value is. I’m here to learn as well. And they said we do our best to support our salons.
I do think that is true. Like I think these haircare brands think they’re doing their best, but what the haircare brands see as their best, it’s not landing for salons. And that’s the piece I wanna have the conversation about. So this person is saying, you know, for every a dollar you spend on buying products to sell to clients, you earn, you know, a specific amount back that can be used towards station product and back bar. So I’m certain that there’s a different scale for any haircare brand, but for every dollar you spend you get, you know, X amount back that can be used towards station product and back bar. What’s interesting to me is when I talk to salon owners and I’ve had this conversation with dozens of salon owners, I’ve coached one-to-one and I’ve seen hundreds of p and ls for salons at this point and I’m seeing the correlation across the board of these struggling retail programs that cannot run profitably.
And then I’m watching salon owners spend so much money to stock back barn station product and it’s like they’re like it’s a bleed, it’s a wash. Like where does the money come in? And I’m like, I don’t know, I can’t find it for you. Like I’m trying, I don’t, I don’t see it. And so what this system actually ends up being is if you want more back bar, if you want more station product, buy more retail. And so these salons are like okay I guess I’ll keep buying more retail hope my stylists can sell it as they’re competing against the haircare brand themselves. ’cause I gotta put shampoo and back bar there. And so when you look at like, well what I get is free back bar, you don’t get free anything you’re having to buy and stock your shelves more to get this thing that you need to operate your salon, you have to have shampoo and conditioner on the back bar.
You have to have station styling products to do a blowout. So the certain percentage back to stock, the back bar only works if stylists are selling product at scale and at volume. And we know that that is the breakdown is it’s so much harder to sell at scale on volume because they’re competing against the haircare brand itself. So that alone is causing this friction point. And when I talked to salons and this is new in years past, I would go into salons and they were like, well look at our cabinet full of like free station product and conditioner. At least there’s that. And it’s like, yeah at least there’s that, that does help. Now it’s like that story has changed and they’re like, we’re honestly having to buy a lot of it because we can’t move enough product to even get that. So it’s like that’s starting to kind of crumble.
And then they said in those, these other incentives that you earn as well. And for this specific brand it’s things like we bring in salon education, we do a like I know this is really common like a coffee machine for the salon or um, sometimes they supply like back bar towels or things like that or like tech stuff like iPads or cameras. I was just, I went outta state earlier this month and I was at a salon and they had something like, you know how the points look like you’re a billionaire. It was like they had, I don’t know, 600,000 points or something. It was like a huge amount they should equate to like thousands of dollars. She was like, we have you know, a gajillion billion points with this brand And she’s like, and I don’t want any of the prizes. Like I’m gonna give my team iPads like what am I don’t need a coffee maker.
Like what am I buying? Like what is even happening? And so they’re accruing all these rewards that they can’t even see as valuable because the stuff that’s being offered is not good. And I was like, this is so interesting. I was like, what would you want to use the points on? And she was like, well if they were redeemable for backbone a powerful way, that would be great. These points that she happened to have could not be used for backbar. They were allocated for something else and and I’m sure every brand does it differently but she couldn’t use it for that. That’s not what they were meant to be used for. It was for like stuff and she was like, I can bring in educators but the quality of educator that comes in when I use these points is not what my team wants. And that’s the awkward conversation that I think somebody has to have.
And so I’ll just have it, salon owners are saying I was looking at a different, not that person, somebody else I was on a call with and I said, how much do you spend on bringing in educators to your salon every year? She said $40,000. She spends $40,000 to bring educators to her salon every single year and has a huge retail program. Again this is another salon has a gajillion bajillion points, but her team doesn’t want the educator who they’ve never met before. They have no affinity for who is this person, what is their specialty, why are they here? Like there’s no oomph behind it there. It’s not interesting. It feels kind of biased because it’s this educator coming in who quite honestly like has this additional objective to like sell the product. It just, it doesn’t feel good. It’s not the kind of education that the stylists are craving.
So the salon owners are like, I guess I could do like another one of their like people comes in and does the class. She’s like, but my team is like not jazzed about it. There’s not an interest there. Versus if they could use the points, if there was some kind of exchange for cash value where they could invest in having the educator that they want to come in to come in, my gosh, you’d have salon owners eating outta the palm of your hand. Like that is what they’re looking for. They want to make the choice, they want it to be the person that their team is amped on because that’s something they can actually build culture around. And that’s what they’re saying. They don’t want the random person that the brand is willing to send or the who the brand has hired to be with them or whatever.
If their team is not jazzed about that person, there is no intrinsic value to it. So it doesn’t matter. And here’s the thing, this is like another one of those pieces where it’s like it just didn’t evolve. Like I remember being in the salon in like 2009 and we would have all these points and we would be like, let’s bring in an educator and we’d bring in educators a few times a year to teach classes and the team was happy. This was before the era of Instagram, like this is before we all drool over Instagram. Educators that we find are YouTube people that we find. And so our awareness of education was so hyper limited to whatever the brands presented to us. Like we didn’t even know who else was out there. You were like loyal to a brand. They had, we call them platform artists at the time and the platform artists you like really wanted to be able to see but you had to like travel to go see them.
But then they had these other more regional artists who would come and they would come to the salon and it was whatever was on the menu is what you could pick from. That model is not working anymore. And the reason why it’s not working is because stylists and salon owners have eyeballs now and brains now and the internet now and they can see there’s a whole world out there and stylists don’t care who’s on the menu. They care who’s on Instagram and they want to see who they want to see. They wanna learn the technique, they wanna learn. It just is what it is. And so so on learners are like, yeah, I could use the points to bring in the educator. My team’s gonna grumble about it, be mad that they have to be here on a Monday to watch the person. They’re not gonna learn anything.
But I guess I’m burning the points. It’s like the offering that used to work just doesn’t work anymore. That’s the feedback I’m getting from salon owners Now I have kept this brandless on purpose very, very intentionally because this is not about any specific brand, it’s about the way that the retail model in salons has changed as a whole. That’s the whole point and purpose. I’m gonna talk about one specific brand and I’m not gonna drop their name and you can figure it out if you want to. If you don’t know you don’t know, that’s totally fine. The name doesn’t matter what they’ve done to disrupt the industry matters. There is a haircare brand that came on the scene more than a decade ago, if I’m recalling correctly. And when they came on the scene, their model was that clients like normal people, people who were not in the industry could become representatives of this hair care brand and they could sell shampoo and conditioner and styling products to their friends.
Some of us call this model MLM, some of us call it network marketing, you can call it whatever you wanna call it. But it was in the era of like do you remember Saint Makeup or Beachbody Fitness? Like people could partner with these brands and become like, I’m gonna use the word ambassador, it’s probably a bad word, but like ambassadors of these brands and sell this stuff. Oh my gosh. Like Tupperware parties. Like same kind of thing. Like it just was like build your own business but you’re just selling products for a bigger company. Okay, when this company first came on the scene, that was their model. And what’s so funny is the industry just came for them so hard. There’s a few stylists who embrace them, but for the most part salons were like, this is, this sucks. We’re supposed to be the experts on haircare and this brand has come in here and they’re empowering clients to be the experts on haircare.
We don’t like it. We decided the brand was the worst. Like there was this whole movement against the brand. Flash forward to the last like year, I’ve seen this huge turnaround with this brand. I am getting dms of people who are saying, what do you think about this? This has really changed. I’m interested in jumping on board with this haircare company. And I kept asking lots of questions and I was like, I don’t know enough about it. I can’t say either way. I don’t understand. And finally somebody who is a stylist who sells this haircare line shared with me kind of the backend details of how the compensation structure works and how the payouts work. And I’m not gonna say who did it and I’m not gonna say the name of the company ’cause I don’t want this person to get in trouble. I don’t know if they were allowed to share whatever.
But I saw the documents and what was interesting, the things that I think this company has done that have created such a buzz is multifold. One, they’re offering commissions that are well above 10%. So the average stylist who sells retail and their salon is offered a 10% commission. You sell $3,000 in product, you get $300, 10% is pretty minimal to move $3,000 in product and get 300 bucks. It’s relatively small. And now I know sometimes there’s additional incentives like well you get to make more commission too. Well first of all, I don’t think tying retail sales into commissions is a good business practice. I think they’re two different arms of the business. I think that it works 20 years ago. I don’t think it works today. That’s a separate issue we’re not gonna talk about right now. But when you look at just that raw commission percentage, it’s relatively small.
This haircare company offers larger commissions, 15%, 20%, sometimes up to 30% commissions on haircare. So that’s something that salons aren’t able to compete with. 30% sounds amazing just at face value. It sounds great. The other thing that this company does is they don’t require the salon or stylist to hold inventory. The client decides what products they want based on the stylist recommendations and it ships to the client’s home because the salon is not required to hold inventory. It keeps the overhead low. And what they sell is just money in the the pocket. There is no loss. And because the commissions are higher, it’s really freaking juicy. And so when salons are asking me what I think about it, I’m like, you know it’s progressive. It’s a really interesting, it’s like they understood that like these are the challenges with programs and they figured out a workaround.
I just, I think it’s interesting. Now this haircare company does still sell direct to consumer in the very limited research that I did. I did see that. However, because the stylist or salon does still get a really good end of the deal, it’s for them. And the other thing, the reason I even bring this up is like the commissions are great, that’s cool. They’re not having to hold inventory is pretty significant. But the reason I’m bringing it up is because the stylists who are selling this haircare brand are making post after post after post after post about how amped they are about this haircare brand. I don’t know about you, I don’t see many salon owners who are getting their stylists to make super excited, genuinely authentically amped up posts about how excited they’re about a retail brand. This is genuine excitement that I’m not seeing salons being able to generate because I think there’s so many barriers and challenges to running the program profitably that the stylists just are not motivated to do it.
So let me explain where I’m going with this and what my suggestions would be. ’cause to be fair, the haircare brands that reach out to me said, if you have a better plan, what’s your better plan? And I said, I’m happy to hop on a call and neither of them took me up on it. Totally fine. So instead I’ll share here just some of the things that I think could be helpful. You probably already put the pieces together yourself. Also, I think there’s a huge outcry from salons to have the quality of education that is available by redemption of points to improve. I’m not trying to throw shade at any brand educators, I don’t know who you are. I’ve never seen your class. All I’m doing is sharing the feedback that is coming to me from salon leaders. I’m letting you know what the conversation and the buzz is.
Do with it what you want to, I think it’s an interesting suggestion that the points would be able to be invested towards the educator of the salon’s choice. I think the haircare brand that goes that direction could become a real power player. I just think it’s like free advice. Take it. I, I think there’s something that’s really interesting there and I feel like that does feel like a real true partnership with your salons that you are working with. I think it’s interesting. The other thing that I think we cannot, if you are a haircare company, the thing I think you cannot delay on like don’t be the next toys arrest. Does everybody remember why Toys Arrest declared bankruptcy? Because they were too slow to change. Amazon was destroying them. Target was destroying them. And the reason why Toys arrest was slow to the game is they did not institute free shipping fast enough and they did not shift their pricing model quickly enough.
I’m watching haircare brands do the same thing. If haircare brands were able to offer salons the opportunity to not have inventory in their salons and instead ship direct to consumer, compete with the prices that are on the, uh, haircare brands website and offer the same incentives, the salons would be your partner in making money again, the stylist would see value in that. Again, this is now a program that people can jump on board with. The money is there, everybody can be winning, and it just starts to meet the modern consumer where they’re at. Like we’re all used to ordering stuff and getting it on our porch. I understand the FOMO factor, but there’s also the factor of these salons that have dead inventory that they’re either throwing away, they’re trying to get the the hair care company to buy back. It’s collecting dust. We have to overcome that challenge somehow.
Something has to give there. And I think that if haircare companies are gonna sell online, that’s totally fine, but then there has to be a gap bridged as well. Another alternative could be that the prices on the websites of haircare companies are higher than what clients can get haircare at in salon. I think that could be a really interesting model because then at least the salon has some kinda upper hand advantage and can move more inventory for you. And by the way, my suggestions, I believe are in the idea of can’t we find a way for everybody to win? Like let’s just modernize and get with where we’re at. The other thing is, I do think that the education provided to salons on how to sell retail needs to improve. When I talk to owners and I say, tell me about the sales education that’s come your way.
Well, it’s not much. Oh, okay. How do you educate your stylists on how to sell retail? I I don’t really know what I’m doing, so I can’t teach them either. And then I, I literally have representatives from haircare brands in my dms asking me how they can sell more retail. Like this is the person whose job it is to go into salons and teach stylists how to sell retail. And they’re in my dms asking me how to do their job. That’s a huge problem. If the person you’re sending into the field doesn’t know how to do it, how will they ever teach a stylist or salon how to do it? I think we have to slow down and really tackle the issue at large that if retail programs are going to stay profitable and sustainable in salons, the model has to change. So I’ve given a lot of suggestions for like what haircare brands need to do because I, I honestly, honestly at this point, I have tried for many, many, many, many years to see how we as salons and stylists can tackle this issue.
I’m running out of solutions because the model is so broken that it’s just too challenging to compete. What can stylists and salons do? First things first, if you can’t partner with a haircare company that does not sell direct to consumer, which there are several that do, I would look into that. I think it’s a competitive advantage. I think it’s interesting and I think it’s something that works. The haircare line that I use does not sell direct to consumer. I have to buy it from a salon that sells it. I’m a licensed professional and I cannot get a login on the website just to buy the product myself. I have to buy it through a salon. So there are haircare companies that are going that direction. It works. The salon gets my business. So it works. I think that that’s a really interesting model as well.
So if you can find a, a haircare line that does that, I think that’s great. I think prioritizing haircare lines that do provide backbar at scale station, product at scale, quality education that really does support you and your team, I think that that’s really, really worth it. And the more education any stylist or salon gets, the more retail it’s gonna be sold and the the quality of the services goes up and everybody’s winning and everything is winning. The other thing I’ll say too is if you are a salon that has multiple lines, scaling back to one or two is a great place to start when you’re looking to find the profit margin, like you just might have too much going on. So scaling back is a great place to, A lot of haircare companies will do a buyback of products that you can’t move if you’re discontinuing to prevent diversion because they have gone to online sales.
The interest in buying back to prevent diversion has changed, but it’s worth the ask for sure. But I’m gonna say the phrase that I said last time that I know made some people upset, like literally get curious. Look at your program, look at your numbers, look at your investment, look at your sales, look at how much inventory you have tied up on the shelves. Look at the actualized profit margin. Look at how much your stylists are making based on the volume that they’re selling. Look at how much you’re making based on the volume you’re selling. Ask yourself how many hours a month you have to put into managing your retail program, placing the order, unboxing things, labeling things, entering it into your system as inventory. Does the money you make feel worth it? And if not, for me, I would really strongly consider partnering with the haircare company that wants to run a modern program with you. I think it’s a huge opportunity. I don’t think we have to abandon the relationships between haircare companies and salons. I think they have to change and evolve. My dms are always open, my email is always open. Anybody that wants to continue this conversation, I am here for it. Always So much love. Happy Business building. I’ll see you on the next one.
