Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit, just working in your business and start working on it, join us here, where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt: What is up you guys, and welcome back to The Thriving Stylist podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva, ready to really go there with you today. This podcast is dedicated to vaccine and mask talk in the salon. I mean, wow. Talk about a podcast I never anticipated having to record.
I want to start by saying, I know we’re all really tired of talking about this. I know you don’t want to talk about masks or vaccines or pandemics or illness or death or fear of travel or fear of going to birthday parties or what people might say if you do go to a birthday party or toilet paper shortages or anything like that anymore. I understand. Some of you saw this podcast come up and you’re like, oh my gosh, can’t we just get back to marketing? I feel the same.
However, I feel like I took this personal oath to myself when I decided to become a business coach in our industry. And this is a huge challenge that stylists and salon owners are facing today. Whether we want to talk about it or not, it is here, and I don’t want to shy away from topics just because they’re not fun or just because they’re painful to walk through. That’s not in alignment with who I am or who I want to be. So I want to walk through this one with you guys.
The reason I chose to talk about this is because I think it’s important to remember you can’t control what somebody else is going to do in your place and space. You can only control the way you react to it.
If a client or a co-stylist or a person has not asked you about your take on masks, or has not asked you about your vaccine status yet, first of all, I’m in shock. But second of all, it is coming. This is a huge part of salon culture today. I think it’s an important topic for me to tackle mostly so that you feel confident when you’re in that moment to navigate these conversations with grace and with efficiency in a way that allows you to just give back to the work that you love, right? To not stay stuck in that conversation, to move forward, and also to not let it weigh really heavy on you. Like I said at the very top of this episode, I know you don’t want to have to answer this question 10 times a day. Trust me, I get it. I can’t prevent clients from asking you the question. I can empower you to navigate it swiftly, effectively, efficiently in a way that hopefully will help to ease the emotional burden. That’s what I’m looking to support you with today.
Now my second caveat I want to say before we really dive in is that I’m not going to allow this to be a politically charged podcast episode. I’m not going to debate whether getting vaccinated is a good or a bad idea. I’m not going to talk about whether I think masks should be mandated or not. I will leave all of that to you, your beliefs, your local guidelines, and your research. I am of the belief that that is a really personal journey to navigate. I am certainly not the one equipped to support you in that journey. I am the one equipped to help you handle the difficult conversations. So I’m going to stay in my zone of genius on this one. My zone of genius happens to be good business practice, logic, and speaking a bit from my own personal experience as a consumer.
I want to start by talking about a personal experience. A couple of weeks ago, my very best childhood girlfriend and I were out at a wine tasting bar together. It was a Sunday afternoon. We left our husbands and kids at home and we were just having a girl’s day.
We sat down and maybe 10 minutes in, the wine bar hostess who had poured our initial tasting flight comes over and she must’ve thought we were just best of best girlfriends, the three of us, even though we’d never met this woman before in our lives. She came over and was like, “You guys, I just have to tell you–see that guy at the front? He just asked me if I was vaccinated and said that was going to determine whether he was going to taste here today or not. Can you believe that?”
My initial response–I’m so blunt, you guys. Initially, when she said that, I was like, “I can believe it. I feel like that happens all the time.” And I think she was a little shell shocked that I said it, but I could. I know that that’s happening, so I wasn’t super shocked that he asked that.
What she proceeded to do was to say, “Well, I told him flat out that I am not vaccinated, nor do I plan to be.” Then she went in to explain to us that she has an illness, and I’m not going to share her story here on the podcast. That’s not my place to say, but she is somebody who is determined that can’t get the vaccine and she was highly offended that this person asked her. I get where she was coming from.
The missteps she made with my friend and I is that she then went on and on and on about how terrible and wrong the vaccine is. The challenge with the way she handled it is she was speaking to a mixed crowd. I don’t know what she assumed our stance was, but it was me and my girlfriend sitting there. One of us is vaccinated. One of us is not. So she’s sitting here talking to this mixed crowd. Obviously one of us chose to get it–thinks it’s a good idea. And the other one of us did not for whatever those reasons may be. She is now making an assumption that we’re going to side with her, that we want to have this debate with her.
It was one of the most uncomfortable positions I’ve ever been in as a human being, not just as a consumer. I thought it was so wildly inappropriate. My girlfriend and I actually didn’t even finish our flight. She had this conversation, my friend and I looked at each other and we were like, “That was so strange. Do you want to just wrap up and go?” And we did. We just left everything, paid our bills, and bounced. I don’t know that we’ll ever go back because it was such a negative experience as a consumer, not because necessarily the topic of vaccines came up, but the way that it was handled.
I look back on that conversation and I asked myself a few questions. I was like, okay, I wonder what the couple sitting next to us thought? The wine tasting hostess wasn’t even talking to the couple next to us, but as soon as this awkward interaction happened, I looked to my right and they were sitting there staring cause they were a little bit in shock too. I asked myself, are they going to come back? What was their thought on that? How did they feel about that experience?
The ripple effect when you have just one conversation like that in a place of business can be massive. The other thing is, I’m going to assume this wine bar hostess was an employee. I don’t think she owned it. That wasn’t my perception at least. So to the owner of that business, my gosh, who knows what the impact is going to be long term.
What I want to help you navigate today is to not have difficult conversations that look like that. I can’t prevent the conversation from coming up, but I can prevent you, hopefully, from losing good business. I can prevent you from losing bad business, and we’re going to talk about that too. But I don’t want you to lose good clients because of your lack of savvy in navigating these conversations that will come up.
So going back to that day and how the vaccine even became part of the conversation–I’ll be honest. It was unexpected, but not shocking to me. I didn’t walk out my front door thinking I was going to have to enter into that conversation. And to be candid, I didn’t enter into the conversation. We got up and left. But I didn’t even think I was going to be faced with that decision that day.
That being said, the fact that I was faced with it is our reality today. That is part of our culture right now. I agree that vaccine shaming on either side is inappropriate. I don’t think anybody should be looked down upon for wherever they stand on on vaccines in general. I’m also of the mindset that anybody’s personal choice is just that, it’s their personal choice. It’s not dinner party conversation.
But the idea that vaccine talk is off the table, that piece is a bit conflicted for me because as the mother of a 17-year-old and a six-year-old, I’ve had vaccine conversations literally my entire adulthood. The idea that talking about vaccination, what it means, how people feel about it–I can’t say that the pandemic is the first time I’ve been asked about vaccines in general. So I wanted to just take a minute and step back on that. I want to kind of go back to a pre-2020 reality for just a minute with you, and I promise I’m going somewhere with this.
So one of my children happen to have developmental delays and we had a lot of vaccine conversations with a lot of people. And I’ve been involved with conversations talking about vaccines for school entry. I’m not going to say what my stance is. But it just comes up in conversation in the weirdest ways where I thought I was talking about one thing and suddenly somebody is saying they felt discriminated against for X, Y, or Z. It just kind of would come up.
Every flu season there was vaccine talk–signs, stances. We’re not in flu season yet this year, but I can’t remember a time in my adulthood where I didn’t walk around and there were those standing triangular poles on the ground that said like, get your flu shot. Have you got your flu shot? Free flu flu shots here. The idea that vaccine conversation is like, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we’re talking about this. Well, I can. I feel like it’s been a conversation.
The difference–and I know this is different, so I’m not saying it’s the same. I told you I was going somewhere with this. Go with me on it for a second. The difference is that everything is magnified right now. We are living under a microscope in this moment. This is the only time in most of our lifetimes that the world at large went through a long period of suffering. In a non-pandemic season of life, different people have different years that are good, different years that are challenging. But we’re in this really unique season of life where every single person on the planet was rocked by the pandemic. Literally everybody. So we’re facing these conversations we’ve never had to face before.
In previous years, maybe one person would ask me like, Hey, are you a flu vaccine person? Are you doing the flu vaccine? It would be a blip of time in a moment in passing. Well, now I can walk out my house and 15 people would ask me about my vaccine status in a day.
So I just want you to kind of reflect on that for a minute, the fact that vaccine talk isn’t necessarily new, it’s just exploded. I’m not saying it was ever appropriate. I’m not saying anything like that. What I’m saying is the fact that people are talking about it isn’t so, Oh my gosh, this is revolutionary. No, no, this has always happened. It’s just really happening at scale right now and that’s why it’s feeling so epically challenging.
Why is this the conversation right now? Well, I don’t know about you. I don’t watch a whole lot of news. In my house, we call it the bad news because it does seem so negative. I choose to educate myself on worldly topics, but watching the news in the morning isn’t the way I do it. But when you do flip on the news or when you do choose to read a magazine or newspaper articles or anything like that, vaccination is the number one news story right now. So the fact that it is coming up in the salon, again, is a little unexpected, but not completely shocking. It’s the number one news story. So it’d almost be odd if it wasn’t coming up because it is the conversation.
The reason I’m going here and the reason I gave all of that backstory is I want to remind you: your clients aren’t bad people for asking. They’re likely just overwhelmed by pandemic chatter, just like you are. These conversations happen to be the conversations. Maybe these are the conversations that are happening in their workplace, so they think it’s normal. Can we remember just for one second, take it with a grain of salt, that some people just don’t know. They really don’t. Maybe in their family, this is super normal.
The reason I want to bring this up is I don’t want to shame our clients, just like we don’t like vaccine shaming. Let’s not shame our clients because they’re asking. They just might not know that it’s uncomfortable and overwhelming for a salon professional to get asked that question 12 times a day. They probably aren’t even thinking, oh my gosh, I’m sure this person’s been asked this question 12 times. They’re not thinking that, you guys. They’re thinking about themselves, carrying on conversation, and talking about the number one talking point today.
I just want you to give your clients grace and remember they’re not bad people. A lot of them are just misguided and don’t know what the heck they’re doing now. I’ll be honest. Some of your clients might be bad people and we’ll talk about that a little bit too. But your clients at large, I don’t believe they’re being malicious or on the defense or even on the offense. I think that they just don’t know how challenging it is. So let’s give them just a grain of salt for a second.
That being said, I want to give you some grace too, and remind you that you’re not a bad business owner, no matter what your choices are around masks or vaccines. This is a highly personal journey. I don’t want you to have to be in a defensive position. All I want you to do is learn to navigate these conversations so that you can preserve yourself.
I don’t think you should ever, for one moment, feel forced to talk about your vaccine status if you don’t want to. I don’t feel like you should ever, ever, ever, ever in 2021 or back in 2018, have anybody in your place of business that is being disrespectful and making you uncomfortable. So with those things in mind I want to offer some conversation guidance and advice.
Let’s talk through some scenarios. What if it comes up in conversation, which likely for a lot of you it already has, where somebody says, have you been vaccinated or do you plan to be? They just ask you flat out? For me, I’ve seen lots of different types of verbiage on this. I’ve seen people say things like, my body, my choice. While I understand that, I personally go back to offering a bit more framework around my response. And so with that, I want to offer you a script of what I would choose to say.
So if a client asks me that, have you been vaccinated or do you plan to be? What I would say is I’m not going to discuss that. I won’t ask your vaccine status and I won’t be sharing mine, but I will say I’m following all guidelines to keep our salon space here as safe as possible. And if you ask the ladies who work with me, that is the response I give them. If you even ask people in my personal life, that’s the response I give them because I don’t want to get into a debate about it. I just don’t. I want to talk about other things. There’s so many other things to talk about.
So I’m going to say it one more time. If somebody asks you, have you’ve been vaccinated or do you plan to be? A perfectly appropriate response is I’m not going to discuss that. That is the first thing you have to say, create that boundary. I’m not going to discuss that, just plain and simple. Then you say, I won’t ask your vaccine status and I won’t be sharing mine, but I will say I’m following all guidelines to keep our salon space here as safe as possible.
That last part I do believe is your personal responsibility. We’re licensed by the board of consumer safety. That’s where our licensure comes from. So keeping our spaces safe is our job. That’s the commitment we took when we all got our licenses. Just no doubt about it, regardless of whatever your other beliefs are. It’s why the bulk of our cosmetology education program was around, what? Disinfection, sanitation, consumer safety. That is what our licensure is for.
I’m going to bet a lot of money that everybody listened to this is against deregulation of our industry, which is a hot topic right now. That is the regulation piece, the health and safety. That’s the piece we’re all fighting for. So let’s not forget that. So I think saying that last sentence is important, but sharing your thoughts on the vaccine is not an important part of that oath. You sharing that bit of information has nothing to do with our commitment to consumer safety. That’s something that you don’t need to disclose to be putting consumer safety first.
So let’s pretend you say that phrase and the client comes back and they’re like, oh my gosh, I get it. But I’m just so curious. It’s important for me to know. I would have a follow-up response and my follow up response would be, I know. I know everybody has lots of questions. I’ve made a personal and professional choice to lead the vaccine conversations outside the salon. I’m totally down to talk about what’s been going on with you beyond vaccines, but we’re starting to step out of my comfort zone.
Can you see how my boundary wall is getting a little bit higher here? When I first said it, it was quick to the point and surface level, and now I’m saying you were starting to go outside my comfort zone, meaning I’m getting uncomfortable. Let’s talk about something else we both enjoy and just relax together here for a bit.
So again, I kept it light and offered a transition. I’m going to say it one more time. I know everybody has lots of questions. I’ve made a personal and professional choice to lead the vaccine conversation outside of the salon. I’m totally down to talk about what’s been going on with you beyond vaccines, but we’re starting to step outside of my comfort zone. Let’s talk about something we both enjoy and just relax together for a bit here.
If a client continues to push–let’s say they say, you know what? I need to know. It’s important for me to know if you’re vaccinated or not. If you would prefer not to answer, you do not need to. And that point, when I was pushed for the third time, is the time when I would say I am uncomfortable.
I gave them a warning, right? The first time I said, I’m not going to discuss that today. That was the first time. The second time I said, we’re starting to go outside my comfort zone. The third time my stance is, I am uncomfortable. I’ve mentioned twice that I don’t want to talk about this. If we can move on, I’d love to continue with your appointment and hit the reset button. But if not, I understand if you prefer to end your visit right here. That’s it. There is no other choice at option three. It’s, we stop talking about this or you leave my space. That’s always within your right as a business owner.
I’ve had to use that verbiage in consultation about hair color before where a client was trying to argue with me about my knowledge or trying to formulate for me or do weird things. I have 100% said, I’m uncomfortable. I can’t continue going down this path with you. If you want, we can hit the reset button and start over. I can’t keep going like this though. So if you don’t want to drop this conversation, you are certainly within your right to leave the salon today. That is always their choice, but it is your prerogative to say, I’m not going to keep doing this.
For me, I always try and give the three chances pretty much with anything in life. So the first time short, sweet, to the point. You keep it light. I won’t ask you. You don’t ask me. Let’s keep it moving the second time. I’m starting to be pushed beyond my comfort zone. This is not working for me. Can we move forward? The third time is, okay, it looks like we can’t move forward. I’m uncomfortable. These are my terms. It’s very fair to walk somebody through that.
Okay. Let’s talk about a totally different scenario. What if somebody asks, have you been vaccinated or do you plan to be, and you want to talk about it? You don’t want to shut it down. It’s something that you want to engage with. Maybe you’re vaccinated and you’re super proud and you want to shout it from the rooftops. You’re like, come on, ask me, I’m happy to talk about it. You’re down to have the conversation. I have some guidance for you as well.
Keep in mind that this is a highly controversial topic. We all know that, right? You can absolutely say, I sure am and I feel good about my decision and I’ve been doing great so far or whatever. Again, short, sweet, to the point.
My only suggestions are number one, you don’t ask in return, “Have you been vaccinated?” Because like we said before, if we as stylists, don’t want to feel pressured to answer that question, you have to understand there’s a lot of people in the world who also don’t want to be asked that question. I don’t want to be asked that question. So we don’t want to assume that just because a client asks means they want to be asked in return because there’s a lot of times when they don’t.
I can speak to somebody in my very close, immediate family is battling terminal cancer right now, and is vaccine ineligible and believes in the vaccine and wishes that they could get it and they can’t. Just the thought and the topic of the vaccine coming up is highly emotional for this person. It upsets me to think about, because I’ve watched this person struggle so desperately with it. It’s one of those things where if somebody doesn’t bring it up, oftentimes it’s better left unsaid.
Remember, we’re in a professional environment. These people aren’t our friends. But if somebody does ask and you feel comfortable sharing and you want to say, yes, I am. You certainly can, but there’s no need for you to say, I am. Are you? It’s not like, are you watching the baseball game on Sunday? I am. Are you? It’s not that same level of conversation. So it’s not always appropriate to flip it on the other person.
Remember, your salon space is the oasis. Pre 2020, we knew we were the oasis. We were the escape. This is where you can just literally and figuratively, let your hair down, relax, and just escape the noisy world for a minute. We can still be that place. You guys can control that narrative. This is your opportunity to do so. So again, we don’t want to keep the conversation moving on. The best thing we can do is navigate with confidence.
Remember what I shared about the couple sitting next to us at the wine bar? They weren’t even engaged in the conversation, but they were listening to it. I can only imagine they’ve now passed judgment one way or another. So think about the other people who might be in your salon space listening. If you’re burnt out talking about it, some other people might be too.
Whatever that conversation looks like, whether you want to talk about it, don’t want to talk about it, want to want to talk about it but don’t have a vaccine, whatever your take is, the point is wrap it up and move it on. That’s super important.
Remember what I said at the top of this episode, I can’t control what clients will ask you. I can absolutely control how you navigate it. If it was possible–if I could do a podcast that all your clients would listen to, and I could just say, hey guys, let’s not talk about this anymore. I certainly would, but clients don’t listen to me. So I can’t do that. What I can do is help you to keep it moving and help you to preserve the oasis feeling in your salon space.
What about the flip side? What about if the client gives you the ultimatum? If a client says to you, I need to know if you’re vaccinated or not, cause if you’re not vaccinated, I’m not coming. My advice in that situation is be confident enough to let them go, almost either way because, you have to remember, it’s your job to stay in the driver’s seat of your business.
We have stylists today who are pregnant who are ineligible, or some stylists who just plain don’t want to. So if your clients don’t understand that there’s a chance that they’re just not your clients anymore, right? There are 300 million people in this country. Trust me. You can replace a guest who no longer fits your business.
Now, I can empathize with the client who asked that question. So like I said, I’m not going to do a political debate podcast here. There are some clients–the person that I know and love, that’s fighting terminal cancer, being one of them–who, it is important for that person to know who’s vaccinated and who’s not. This person that I know and love is essentially living in isolation because they’re terrified to interact with the outside world. So for this person, it gives them some peace when somebody might choose to be vaccinated. When this person asks, they’re not trying to pass judgment, they’re trying to protect their life.
So I can empathize with the client who asks that, but just know if they need you to be, and you’re not, it’s okay to just agree to not be a good fit. If they need you to be and you are, it’s okay to say, I certainly am. You can come into my space. But it’s your choice to navigate that, and you don’t need to own that pressure. There’s a good chance they’re not even trying to pressure you. They’re making a choice for themselves.
Like we say, it’s all about choice and we want to have choice as stylists. Our clients are entitled to that choice, too. Just make sure that you keep that in mind, that it’s going both ways. As always, everybody’s fighting a battle that we can’t understand, and so it’s just important to keep that in mind with every conversation we navigate.
It’s really hard in these times to not get on the defense and not feel frustrated and overwhelmed and burnt out, quite frankly. But when we can try and run the filter of like, close my eyes, take a deep breath, everybody’s fighting a battle that I can’t understand–it really does help and you start to bring that stronger energy into your space.
Let’s talk about masks for a minute while I have you here. At the time of this release, there’s a handful of states that have lifted mask mandates, making it optional to wear a mask in a business. However, as always, meaning pre-pandemic, it is the legal choice of a business owner to require the things that they believe makes their consumers safe. That’s always been our right. Again, we’re governed by the laws of consumer safety. That’s our licensure. So that’s always been our responsibility.
I actually want to quote ABC news. This is a quote directly from a recent article published. It says “Businesses have the right and authority to demand that customers wear masks on their property. According to law enforcement expert, Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent, moreover failing to abide by a business’s mask requirement could result in criminal trespassing charges.”
Do I think that if you choose not to wear a mask in a business, it will go there? Not every time, no. But it’s within the right of the business to do so and it’s important to remember that in our place and space, like I said, we made that oath to consumer safety.
Whatever you decide to do in your business, keep the health and safety of yourself, your co stylists, and clients front of mind. Whatever that means to you. I have family members who go both ways on both of these issues so I’ve seen it. I get it. I understand. I truly see both sides. I get it completely. Make the decision that is right for you, keeping consumer safety in mind, whatever that means to you.
The reasons I keep saying things this way is I want you to remember when we make decisions because we are afraid of losing business, we lose ourselves in the process. My entire mission is to remind you guys, you aren’t in this to just make a bunch of cash. That is a short-sighted business ideology. You are in this to create your biggest, wealthiest lifestyle.
What are the four pillars of wealth in my book? What are the pillars of wealth I always talk about? Love, time, money, and health. Health is the fourth pillar. Health is mental health, spiritual health, physical health, emotional health. Money is in there too, but if we’re not putting ourselves first and remembering those four pillars, we’re going to lose ourselves in the process. If we are willing to sacrifice our personal beliefs because we are terrified to lose clients, we’ve lost our way in business and in life.
My closing thought is it’s super important to remember who you are, what you stand for, what is important to you, what you can do to keep your clients and those who work for you and around you as mentally and physically safe as possible. That is your job.
I hope that going through this has empowered you with some of the conversation keys to just enter into these dialogues. To go ahead and say how you feel without dragging it on, without offending others around you, without losing yourself in the process. That’s my goal through this podcast today. I hope you’ve had some major takeaways.
You guys, wishing you health, love, and abundance. So much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
