Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit, just working in your business and start working on it, join us here, where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva:
What is up, you guys, and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva, really excited to talk about growing as an industry educator today. Now, this is a topic I don’t talk too much about mainly because it’s not something I generally coach to. I obviously am an independent educator in the industry. However, it’s not part of Thrivers Society. It’s not something I coach to privately on a regular basis. So I leave it to others to coach to this.
I’ve done a few podcasts on growing as an industry educator. If you head to thethrivingstylist.com, you can search all of my past blogs and podcasts there. There is literally hundreds of hours of content there, so enjoy the binge.
But I wanted to do this podcast today because I felt like it was important to release this podcast in this time and in this space. I will be candid, I’m seeing a lot of actions and behavior from up and coming educators today that makes me a little bit nervous, not for myself, but for the educators, because I see a lot of mistakes being made.
I am on a mission to elevate this industry. Don’t get it twisted. I want highly effective educators coming up. I want more incredible classes being taught. I want more business building training out there in the world. However, I want to keep the caliber of education high, and I want to preserve the financial future of everybody who steps into the space. I want to talk a bit about my journey, my advice, and what you can do to grow as quickly as possible as an industry educator in today’s climate.
So let’s start right there. What do I mean by today’s climate? I don’t mean sunny and 75, although it probably feels a little bit like that. I want to talk about the market. We can look at our industry almost as like a micro stock market, if you will, like any other market. And right now, the independent educator market is booming. Booming, booming, booming.
I think it is for two reasons. One, I think the pandemic rocked our world and for all of us, it gave us a chance to kind of take a step back and reevaluate our lives. For lack of a better way to explain it, from top to bottom. Who am I? What do I want to be? A lot of people felt that their business behind the chair as a stylist was quite fragile because it was like, if you can’t be in the salon doing hair, you’re not earning money.
So many people were asking me in 2020, how do I create passive income? That was the big question. The word passive income to me, it’s like a four-letter word. There’s very little income that’s passive. I’ve done a couple of trainings on this. Passive income would be like stock investments where, truly, you do nothing. I think there’s this misconception that as educators, we have passive income.
Friends, I’m here to tell you, there is not a dollar of my income that is passive. I work harder than I’ve ever worked in my life right now. I love what I do, so no regrets. But I think there’s this thought of, well, if I was not taking clients behind the chair, my income could be passive. It couldn’t be passive, but it could be different. I want to talk about, for a second, what the market looks like right now and then I also want to talk about what it was like being an educator in 2020 cause I think it’s important to hear.
The market right now being highly competitive, we’re almost in like an education bubble. You know how the people talk about the home market, like the real estate market, being in a bubble? We’re in like this education bubble right now. I watched the bubble pop in 2017. It burst and it was sad. It actually continues to be sad for me because I think we lost a few good educators in that burst and I don’t want to lose anymore. That’s why I’m here doing this podcast.
I have been coaching since 2012. I took my first private coaching client in 2012. By 2015, my business had exploded. It took about two and a half, three years to get to a place where I needed to scale. It wasn’t an option. It was like I either have to quit or I have to scale, and I chose to scale.
It was the end of 2015, early 2016–no more 2015, when I really started diving into Periscope. I know some of you were some of my early Periscope peeps and to you, I am forever grateful. You’re a huge part of why I’m here today.
When I was doing Periscope, I was hopping on and I was doing scopes, as we called them, every single day. I probably did 360 a day, maybe more, maybe like 362. Like maybe I took a couple of sick days, but every day you could count on me being on Periscope. I was not the only one. There were probably 100? 60? I don’t know–a lot of independent educators who were big on Periscope. That’s where we found our footing. That’s how we got the reputation that we did as independent industry educators.
Pre-Periscope and pre-social media, it was next to impossible, very challenging, for an educator to grow independently. The education market pre 2015 was largely based around brand education. You could educate for a specific hair care brand, a hair color brand. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. I’m a huge fan of brand education. I sat in the classrooms of some phenomenal brand educators. That was the way. It was like, we used X color line. They would send us one of their color educators or our staff would fly out to see a class or whatever. But being a brand educator was the end all be all goal.
What happened in 2015 in the last bubble of education business growth, which I was a part of, we had all of these channels that allowed us to get our names and message out there in a way that didn’t exist before. Periscope, which led into Facebook live. Facebook live was after Periscope. Instagram live was after Facebook live, right? It was a trickle down effect. Those of us who came up during that time were able to build a really good reputation for ourselves.
I was a very small fish in that pond at the time. Fast forward six years, and a lot of the people I looked up to where I was like, my gosh, I hope I’m able to have what he has this day. He was getting these amazing opportunities and standing on these incredible stages. I was watching some of these amazing stylists literally flying around the world to teach amazing classes. I was like, oh, I hope to get there one day.
I look at those people I admired, very few of them are still educating and teaching. I can count on one hand of the 60, 80, a hundred from back then who were still educating at all. Many of them are back behind the chair. Some of them are not even in the industry, and it’s really heartbreaking. It’s very sad to see how that went.
So now that I’ve had the hindsight and the fast-forward, I think back to what I did right that allowed me to stay and potentially what they did wrong that allowed it to kind of fall out from underneath them.
When I say “went wrong”, a lot of these people left their entire clientele or scaled back to just one day a week doing hair and were teaching the rest of the time. They’re now rebuilding, after having it all. They are struggling. And you might ask like, how do you know they’re struggling? Because I privately coached some of them over the recent years. So I know that they’re struggling and I tell them personally, I wish it didn’t have to be this way because that didn’t have to happen. These were people I looked up to who were wildly brilliant and talented. Unfortunately they just didn’t take some of the steps that were necessary to ensure they had longevity as an educator. So they didn’t.
And you might say, okay, so now are they working on becoming an educator again? Not any that I’m aware of. They’re going a different path. Could they? Absolutely. They’re brilliant, talented, amazing, and great educators. They could. But I’m not seeing a ton of that. I’m seeing them more focused on growing as stylist, growing as salon owners, and doing something different, probably cause that was a bit of a traumatic experience and they’re choosing to try something else. And maybe they’ll come back around. Who knows what they’ll end up choosing to do?
But I look at the decisions that they made and the decisions that I made and I try and find the parallels, the areas where we’re similar, and the areas where we are different, because if we can understand those things, we can create a formula for success. That’s what I want to create for you today.
So I want to start by saying, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I don’t think I want to be an educator. Do I have to be? No. What’s funny is that we’re actually living in this world where just wanting to be a bad-ass stylist is the gap.
I have always said, great business is grown in the gaps. I built in the gap. When I was teaching business to hairstylists, it was me and two other people and I was teaching it in a highly unique way. That was a gap. I taught something nobody even wanted to learn about and I had to make it sexy and exciting. That was my job if I chose to accept it, and I did. I built in a gap.
Your job as a business owner, whether you be a stylist, a salon owner, an educator is to find the gap. Not teach something somebody else already teaches, but do it better. Find the gap. That’s the secret to success.
I shared just a minute ago and I want to come back to it, why I think there’s such a boom in education right now. One was, I said, 2020 and a lot of people are looking for an outlet and another way to create revenue. I can fully respect and understand that.
The other reason is… drum roll, please… the Clubhouse app. When I watched the Clubhouse app launched, it’s very reminiscent to me of when Periscope launched because it was this highly addictive, highly engaging, incredible way to connect on this deep level that didn’t exist before. It allowed people to build a reputation really quickly. I’m watching that happen again.
Because the barrier to entry is so little, the market is competitive. When you go on Clubhouse, how many people are experts and educators? 80%, right? It’s funny because often you go in as a presenter and you’re an expert talking to a room of 80% experts. It’s just, that’s what the market is like on Clubhouse. It’s just important to understand that. It doesn’t have to change your actions on it or anything, but it’s that opportunity. The opportunity is there and people are flocking to it. That’s why the market’s become so competitive.
So it’s A) coming out of 2020, having the realization that maybe what we were doing, business-wise, isn’t what we want long-term and B) there’s a new opportunity to build and grow.
The other thing is, too, the business education is more appealing, more enticing. Learning to be a good hairdresser just got really exciting again. Those who’d become complacent and learning how to do formulation are now not complacent and are wanting to be highly competitive. So there’s this need, there’s this desire. I totally understand all that. Because of that, we’ve created a bubble and at some point it will burst and I want you to be on the good side of that burst.
So let’s start at the beginning. If you are choosing to become an educator and you are working on branding yourself, building your name, remember that the first phase–and for me, I have always said this–the first year, 365 days, friends, should be about building know, like, and trust. That is it. It’s not about making a dollar. It’s not about brand partnerships. It is about know, like, and trust.
You guys, it’s not even about getting on my podcast. If you think “I want to be an educator, if I could just be on Britt’s podcast, it would change everything.” I promise you, it would not. I could shout you from the rooftops. It won’t change a darn thing.
Because if the know, like, and trust isn’t there, nothing else matters. There is no fast track to know, like, and trust. You can’t fast forward that part. That is the part that takes time. And unfortunately, that’s the piece that burns a lot of great educators is that they don’t know to spend the time, or they’re not willing to spend the time, just nurturing that like, know, and trust before they try and monetize.
I understand the need to monetize. I shared the 1993 oxidized Mazda with my husband for two years because we couldn’t afford two cars. I know the need for money. I’ve been there. I got it. That being said, had I gone the fast track to monetization route, I would not be here today. I had to take a step back and build that trust first.
Listen, there’s some of you have been listening to this podcast for going on four years and have never invested with me. That’s okay. I love you all the same. I’m still working to build know, like, and trust with you. That’s the process. That’s how long it takes for people. And we have to respect that process. You can’t fast-forward it.
So when I say your goal as an educator is to build like, know, and trust for one year, the question then becomes, okay, how do I do that? So you’ve probably even seen this before, when you’re building like, know, and trust, you want to be known for one bad-ass thing. Not six things that you do real good. One bad-ass thing. My girl, Jenny, is the go-to for X-Y-Z. My main man, Mike, is who I go to to learn blah-blah-blah.
It’s really difficult to grow as an educator when it’s–you should listen to Meredith. She’s super smart. That’s a hard sales pitch. Okay. I like listening to smart people, but what I really need help on is learning to do short women’s haircuts. Oh, well the best person at that is…
Can you see how that referral comes much easier? It’s really hard to grow as an educator when you just know a lot of stuff. It’s very easy to grow as an educator when you are highly specialized at one very specific thing. Even when you look at my business, like if you look at me and what I have now, some people might say, well, Britt, but you don’t have just one thing. Yeah, you guys, I’ve been doing this for about a decade now. But for the first seven years, all I did was one thing. It wasn’t until year 8 when I started adding more stuff in. I did one thing for seven years and that’s what made the difference for me. Then I was able to expand, but I still just do that one thing, and that’s the main thing. And then there’s a couple of other little things. Okay.
So when you’re building that like, know, and trust, we want to find the sweet spot. Now, I will say finding the sweet spot takes some time. So when I first hopped on Periscope and decided to really scale, I kind of talked about a lot of the things that I was confident in. Notice that I just said “talked about” a lot of the things. I didn’t say “made eBooks” and all of these offers around all the things I was good in. I didn’t do that. I just talked about them.
I’d get on and talk about retail. I’d get on and talk about consultations. I’d get on and talk about–you guys, I dabbled in formulation cause I knew formulation, but it’s not my bag at all. I get on and I would talk about money. I’d get on and talk about marketing. I’d get on and just talk about stuff, and I would pay attention to the things that really resonated with people.
Here’s the catch to that. Some people resonate with everything, so every topic will be a hit to a degree. But you want to look for the topics that explode, the topics that fill your DMS, the topics where you talk about it and you pick up 200 followers in a day, the topic where you talk about it and people are begging for you to talk about it again. If you’re like, well, that never happens for me. Well, then you haven’t found it yet. I want you to keep digging and talking and talking and talking until you find the sweet spot.
Why is that so important? Because you will waste a lot of time, energy, effort, money, and emotional energy if you race to create products to sell without doing that deep dive of, but what’s resonating with people? That “what resonates with people” piece is how you solve problems, and people want to work with educators who solve problems. They don’t want to work with educators who just make cool stuff. Oh, this educator makes me happy. Happiness is great. It’s not something we can monetize though.
If you want to truly become an educator and scale as one, you got to get real good at solving problems and our super specific zone of genius, at least to start. So the way to fill that like, know, and trust and find that sweet spot of “But what do people like hearing me talk about?” is to talk about a lot of things, pay attention to what you enjoy talking about and what people resonate with, and then start to develop the patterns.
What people get nervous about early on is they’re like, well, I don’t want to talk about the things. I want to monetize. You’re not monetizing right now. That’s where you get it twisted. Don’t monetize that first year is my suggestion. Just talk, because it allows for nothing to be off limits and for you to just resonate and connect.
Now, when you’re talking, here’s what you don’t want to do. You don’t want to spill other educators’ strategies, because then you’re going to start burning bridges and that’s not a good look. But you want to talk at scale of the things that you do exceptionally well and that you’re really passionate about, and then you can really start to build and grow.
Now, another piece of advice layered on to that. As your talk, talk, talking, building the like, know, and trust, what I want you to be sure that you don’t do is pick something that is cool in the moment or gimmicky. This is something that I saw quite a few of the educators who boomed and busted a few years back kind of fall into is that they would be super good at something really hard. They would teach on that and they would be so amazing on it. Then their students would be super into it, foaming at the mouth, and they’d be like, okay, so what’s next? Then that was it. The educator didn’t have anything else to share. There was no other depth to the knowledge. There was nowhere next to go. There was no continuing piece. There was no element to continue seeking out.
So it was like, oh, well I worked with Jane Smith. She was amazing, but I got it. I got her things. So now I’m done. You don’t want people to be done with you as an educator. You want it to be an ongoing relationship. It’s a relationship that will have highs and lows and ups and downs and all those things. That’s okay. But you don’t want it to be like, oh, I’ve already learned the thing that he or she does. That’s not ideal.
That can feel tricky cause it’s like, oh my gosh. But if I’m only good at this one thing, if you’re telling me to niche down and only do this one thing, how can there be layers? You guys, I only teach one thing and there’s so many layers. So many layers.
Let’s say you’re one thing is retail. Do you not think that retail has evolved wildly in the last five years? Even if my specialty was retail, I could come on and do a weekly podcast just about retail. I could sell a course on retail. I could teach you a workshop on retail. I could talk about changes in retail. That is one topic with so many layers. I would never get to the center of the onion.
It’s the same thing with Thrivers Society. I teach you guys to niche down and find something super specific to get into. Same thing. The riches are in the niches. You’ve heard this before. You want to pick something you’re ultra passionate about and go all in.
Do you know why that passion is so important? Because when you’re passionate, the layers build. When you’re talking about something that you’re good at and that people like, but you don’t really love it–you’re good at it. People like it. They’re demanding it from you, but you don’t love it. There won’t be those layers of the onions that you can keep unpeeling. It’ll just stay surface level.
That’s part of what happened back in 2016. People loved it. The person was good at it, but there was no depth to it. So it couldn’t carry on. There was no natural evolution, so it just kind of fizzled. I don’t want that for you.
So let’s say you’ve spent the time. You’ve done the like, know, and trust. You’ve figured out your sweet spot. You know what you’re good at. You’re talking about it all the time. It should take some time to build your first offer. Here’s what you don’t want to do, is be quick to market and put together something that’s not well-crafted.
Part of the reason I decided to do this podcast is as a member of Thrivers Society–I hear about this all the time–members of Thrivers Society will come in all the time and be like, oh, Britt, I think one of your students is taking some of your material and trying to sell it, which obviously that’s a violation of my trademark. That’s a problem of itself.
But also, people see that stuff. Do you think that the students who saw the rip off content are going to invest with you again? No. And how many other–if they’re telling me, how many other people do you think that they told that the content is copied? So they spent money on something they’d already learned elsewhere. You’re going to burn your reputation down really fast.
Beyond that, even, let’s say that you have this really amazing concept. Let’s say you’re talking about hair color and you’ve got this incredible new technique and you create a program around it and you go to sell it. But let’s be honest. It’s not your best work. It’s good. It’s fine. It’s good. But it’s not great.
Again, I got a DM just last week from a student who was like “Britt, I had to tell you, I was super bummed. I actually invested in a course from another thriver thinking it was going to be great. I got in and I was so wildly disappointed. I probably won’t invest with that person again.”
You get one shot at a first impression. Why would you rush that? Why would you rush that? You don’t want to make the quick buck. You want to be in this for the long haul, right? So better to take your time and get it right.
If you talk to any successful educator, they will tell you they took their time and got it right. They didn’t get the quick upfront payoff, but they got the long-term success. Nobody wants the quick upfront payoff anyway. You want the long-term success.
If you really want to be an educator, if you really want to uplift the industry, if you’re really in this for the long haul, you don’t want a thousand dollars today. You want a hundred thousand dollars in two years. Can I get an amen? That’s what we’re going for. Don’t go for the low fruit. Slow and steady wins the race on this one.
I also want to ease you of the fear of, I need to be quick to market so nobody beats me to it. I said it before. I’m going to say it again. When you go in to grow as an educator, you shouldn’t be playing the better game of, oh, Susie teaches this, but I could teach a better cause I have these two quickie, nuanced things.
The better game is a losing game. You don’t ever want to enter the better game because what’s going to happen is you’re going to release your–I’m doing air quotes–“better” content today. Susie is gonna release something better tomorrow. Then you’re going to have to make yours better. She’s going to make hers better. No one’s ever gonna win. It’s going to be exhausting. You’ll get burnt out for sure, but no one’s ever actually going to win the better game.
Instead, you want to find the–I talked about it before. I’m going to say it again–the gap. Good business is built in gaps. What is it that you can teach that you’re super passionate about? You could talk about it all day, every day, and no one’s really teaching it. It’s this incredible opportunity. It’s shiny. It’s unique. It’s interesting. It’s fun. It’s fresh. It’s new. Just dive in on that.
Remember that when we dive into education, we’re solving pain points. We’re elevating the industry. We are playing a long game, not a short one. We’re looking to enhance what already exists. How can what you create be complimentary with everything that you do?
Wouldn’t the best opportunity be if some established educator saw what you were doing and was like, holy smokes, I’ve never seen anybody do that before. I’d love to work with that person. Maybe we can collaborate? That would be a dream. So how do you think you’d make a dream like that a reality? Do you think it’s going to be quick or do you think it might be slow and methodical, but worth it in the end?
Really think about as you’re stepping into this highly competitive educator market space, who you are, what you want to be known for, what your goals are, and what you think it’s going to take to get there.
Slow and steady wins the race, my friends. I am here so cheering you on, hoping I’m that educator who reaches out begging to collaborate with you one day. You guys so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
