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, and today we’re going to be talking all about commission and we’re going to talk about it as well-rounded as we possibly can.
I want this to be an episode that everybody listens to and appreciates. I don’t want it to be like, “Oh, I’m not a commission stylist, this isn’t for me.” Yes, this is for you. I’m talking about your industry. And I think it’s important to have a well-rounded holistic view of the industry.
I think that we, as human beings are really good at creating biases. We’re really good at creating false narratives. We’re really good at snap judgments. And when I say we as human beings, like I’m raising my hand, myself included. This is just human behavior and I think the more we know, the more our views become a little bit more broad and accepting and understanding.
And so I want to just talk commission at scale. I’m going to be looking at my phone quite a bit for this podcast because I put the word out to some of my followers on Instagram, which if you’re not already following me, follow me @brittseva, because sometimes you get to be a part of the show, which is always fun.
I put the word out that I wanted to do this commission stylist episode and you guys showed up, so I had some really good feedback to share. I have some really good questions that came through, and this is going to be kind of like a by-you-for-you kind of a show.
So I get asked to talk about commission stylists all the time. Let me just explain my commission experience. I have only ever taken clients as a commission stylist. The salon that I was the director of was a blended salon when I left. It had transitioned from being strictly booth rental I believe in 1991. It opened as a booth rental salon, and then it transitioned into full commission salon, and when I was hired on, it was full commission. Then under my leadership and through some of the things that changed and happened in the business, we shifted to a blended model. When I left the salon, it was a blended model still. So I only ever worked in that building as a commission salon.
When I was a new stylist, I was certainly seeking commission for most of the obvious reasons. And I actually openly shared that if I were to open a salon today, it would be commissioned and I feel really good about that. I feel good about that because I wouldn’t run it like a 1997 commission salon. I would run it like a modern day one.
There’s nothing lacking in a commission salon model for a stylist. There’s nothing that a commission stylist is being cheated out of. If the commission salon is run right (caveat!), if the leadership is there and is actually using modern business practice in place, working as a commission stylist is like gravy. It’s like jackpot. It’s a really good thing.
I want to talk about my experience as a commission stylist, what it was like leading a commission team, and then I want to take some of your feedback and your questions and dive deep.
So let’s start right at the top. I want to talk about the biggest misconception. There’s this conception that commission is good for newbies and ultimately you’ll have to leave because the commission salon is keeping all of your money. And if you want to make that money, you’re going to have to get out.
That was my mindset. Like that was fully my naive mindset when I was a new stylist, so I own it. I had planned to be a commission stylist until I could open my own salon. That was the dream and what I came to realize as the lady who did the payroll for the commission salon and the lady who saw the profit and loss statements, that’s not what’s taking place if your salon is being managed correctly.
There’s an exception to every rule and I wish that all leaders were good leaders. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Our salon was run profitably and above board. We did have great salon ownership, I will say that for sure. As far as like running the business legally, they did it right. And I do believe that they did the best that they could and were more than fair.
That’s the reason why they had commissioned stylists working for them for 10, 15, 20 years who chose not to booth rent is because they couldn’t ask for anything more. It was just such a sweet deal. I will say our top stylists, those earning 300 grand a year behind the chair topped out at 43% commission. So 57% stayed with the business. And for some of you, I’m sure that took your breath away when I said it because a lot of us think like, “Well, shouldn’t they have been making like 50 or 60%?” If we wanted to run the business into the ground, I guess. But I think that there’s a misconception and often you don’t realize it until you run the numbers.
It turns out it’s expensive. A salon is a business with quite a high overhead. It’s funny. Whenever I tell people I’m a business coach for stylists and salon owners, I almost have to like hold my breath and wait for the sideways comments or the misconceptions to roll in because they always do. One of the things I hear a lot is, “Oh, I’ve never understood that industry because so much money comes in. There’s hardly any expenses and people seem to always be broke.” And I was like, “Well, those are three lies.” What you just said, everything you said was wrong, but that’s the conception of the industry, right?
The reality is there is actually quite a high overhead in our industry. The cost of color is high. Even if you don’t do color, we’re looking at insurance, rent, backbar, retail. If you so choose to have some things like having your own cell phone. And I mean, all of these other things, it’s actually not a low overhead profession. It’s quite high. If you’re doing extensions now you’re in the method where you’re having to front sometimes to get supplies in. It’s actually quite complex.
When you are a commission salon owner, there’s even more complexities. Because often when we work commission, we want to offer things like paid time off. We want to offer things like insurance, like paid education. There’s a lot of perks. So all of those things have a cost associated as well.
The other thing is too, when you’re a booth renter, you stock what you need and you get by with what you got. When you’re a commission stylist, your expectations are different. The salon owner has to stock your backstock of color, your backstock of retail, your backstock of back bar higher. And that is expensive. Then we look at things like reception staff, salon amenities, towel service, if you should have it, things like the water heater goes out faster into a commission salon because usually volume’s higher. There’s all of these other expenses that get added on.
For me in the salon that I worked at and in the correctly managed commission salons I’ve walked into, the owners aren’t shady and they’re not stealing your money. They are doing what they need to do to keep the lights on has been my experience.
For every 10 great owners, there could be one bad one, but for the most part, it’s actually more expensive than you think it is to run a commission business. When I coach to salon owners paying commissions, I don’t believe you can pay at most over 45% and 45% is a stretch. That’s like you want to be generous. You’re likely not offering things like health insurance. Maybe you’re doing some paid time off, but your benefits package starts to dwindle the higher you go with the commission.
It’s not because you’re being cheap. It’s because the margin’s not there for it. So we could talk in another episode about how we created the margin to offer things like health insurance. We did 401k retirement matched plans, paid time off, things like that. We created that margin so that the stylists weren’t losing, but you can’t pay 50% commissions and have all the perks and whistles there. It’s just not there.
Now, the other thing is a lot of stylists think like, “Okay, well, if I leave my commission salon, I’ll make more money.” Sometimes, yes. A lot of times, no. There’s things that people take on when they booth rent that they weren’t expecting the cost to rent. The cost of color is always a shock to people. That’s whenever I asked booth renters, like, “Hey, when you first went to rent, what was most shocking?” They were like both costs of starting a color line was going crazy. That initial investment is heavy maintaining. It’s a lot of going back and forth to the beauty supply store. It’s taking on a lot of work. You also take on an additional 7.5% in tax.
Do you get the tax write-offs? Yes, but it doesn’t actually equate to this massive windfall. Sometimes it can, and that’s why I always encourage those who are considering leaving commission and going booth rent to run the numbers. Some of you listening to this may have worked for me before. I’d shout out to my JC family. Love you guys.
Because of the relationship I had with my stylist, if a commission stylist was thinking about booth renting, I would say, “Give me a week. Let’s look at it. Let’s figure it out.” I didn’t want my team to do poorly. I wanted them to have good lives.
So if somebody said, “I’m thinking about going booth rent,” I would say, give me a week. And I would look at how much they had produced in the last 90 days, I would look at the volume of color they had used to achieve whatever it was. they had done in service dollars. The retail sold, everything.
And I’d say, “All right, listen, this is what it would cost for you to stock your retail, stock your color. You told me you want to pay $375 a week in rent. That’s the weekly rental rate at the salon you’re looking to go to. You will take home 30% less if you go booth rent.” I leave them the numbers, and I’d be like, “You can run these numbers on your own. You can prove me wrong.” I would always come from the place of, “I’m not trying to keep you here. I’m trying to keep you housed. I don’t want you to lose the roof over your head because you’re chasing booth rental. I want you to make a really smart, educated choice.”
The myth of the money and booth rent is not always the case. The money is in the profit margin and it depends on where your margin lands and how smart you’re being with your money.
When I said I was doing this episode, there is a current commission stylist who responded and I’m going to share anonymously what she said. She asked some great questions, which we’ll get to, but I reached out to her and I said, “I won’t say your name. This is between us. Do you ever consider leaving your commission salon to booth rent? And if so, what makes leaving to booth renting tempting?”
This is for all of you commission stylists and salon owners out there. I think it’s worth a listen. She said, “At my commission salon, I have it all: full benefits, dental, vision, 401k. I work eight to four Wednesday through Friday and I make six figures.” She’s a Thrivers Society member and she’s working the Thrivers dream schedule: no evenings, no weekends. So she’s got it.
She says, “The only thing that makes me consider leaving is I feel so comfortable.” Ding, ding! Did light bulbs go off for anybody? They should have. “I feel like I’m made for more sometimes, but I love my lifestyle of making a lot and having my weekends with my husband and traveling with no extras. That’s my view. I’d love to hear this on a podcast. My temptations include being my own boss, decorating a studio, having my own space and doing my own culture. The cons for me are no more benefits, PTO, or freedom of my free time.”
I loved this because I think a lot of commission stylists feel like they would gain freedom if they booth rented, and in some cases, that’s true. In this case, it’s not. She works for a great commission salon owner, she’s able to work at dream schedule. She’s making six figures. She’s not working evenings. She’s got benefits when she leaves the salon at the end of the night, she’s literally done. There’s no going to the beauty supply, talking with the CPA, “Did I pay my quarterly taxes?” She didn’t have to do any of that stuff. She’s literally living the dream.
Did you hear what she said though? She’s too comfortable. What if I’m made for more? And the things that are tempting her are things like decorating a studio and creating her own culture. That is legit.
When I look at commission stylists who age out of their salon, it is because of that. Every single time it is “I’m too comfortable. I’ve conquered this, like checked it off the list.” It’s not that there’s anything to complain about. It’s the same “now what?” factor. So now what?
When you find driven stylists, “so now what?” is tattooed on their inner arm. “So now what?” is how they got here today, wildly successful. People are always asking what’s next, and this is where commission salon owners will lose their commission staff if they don’t create a so what’s next for them.
So then people start asking you, “Okay, so how do I create the what’s next?” The what’s next is going to be a little bit different for everybody. For some commission stylists, the “so what’s next?” is becoming the lead educator. For some commission stylists, the “so what’s next?” is I know a lot of commission salons that are building suites into their salon space. You may not have the space for that. That is like a whoa, that’s next level. But yeah, that’s what next level salons are doing so that you can graduate from being a commission stylist in our salon too.
She could decorate her own suite. She could create her own culture. She’s still in the salon. She’s still in the environment. She still gets all the perks and benefits, but now she still has her little space too. It’s like she had the best of both worlds all because you put up a partition and gave her a 10 by 10 space to do hair in or whatever. So that’s something else that people are doing.
She already has freedom of schedule, so for her, it’s something that’s not going to work. What I might encourage her to do is to see if there’s another outlet that she wants to explore.
But the thing that I always try to caution my commission stylists about, especially a stylist like this, where she’s living a lifestyle that makes her really happy. Her family’s happy. The money’s good. Often we do these things where we add a complexity to our life in order to keep things spicy, to keep it interesting.
She’s too comfortable. So in order to kind of challenge ourselves again, we get messy. There’s a difference between pushing yourself and getting messy. So you want to find a way to push without losing all of the beautiful freedom and flexibility you’ve built. That’s what we want to seek.
My advice to the commission salon owners is you’ve got these high achievers in your building. If you are so lucky to have them, ask them, “What’s next for you? What feels like a next evolution for you?” Open the door to the conversation. You will lose your commission stylist if you’re not asking them that, ‘cause if you’re not asking, then they’re going to feel like they’ve hit the glass ceiling. And you’re just happy as a clam with them where they are.
Driven people need to feel like they’re going somewhere. Sometimes I found this, even in my own space, some commission stylists just need to feel like they’re a part of the company’s future, that their voice matters, and we’re going to talk about that in an upcoming podcast episode as well. Sometimes it’s not like they need an individual challenge. They need to feel like when they say, “Hey, I’ve got a cool retail promotion. I think we should try,” the next month you’ve pulled the trigger and you’re doing it. They feel like they’re making an impact. And then maybe two months later, they’ll say, “Hey, can I be in charge of doing monthly retail promotions every month?”
Driven people like that need to feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves, so creating a space where they can do so, it’s really important.
Now here’s another comment that came through through a Thriver Society member that I know and love. So to the Thriver who sent this, thank you. I see you, and I feel you. She said, “As a commission salon owner, I feel like I never knew how hard my bosses had to work.”
And like I said, at the top of this episode, I think that commission salon owners and salon owners in general, like shout out to the good salon owners out there and this amazing person is a great salon owner, but shout out to the good salon owners out there. It is the one of the hardest jobs you can do to do it right because it is so mind, body, soul. You got to put your heart into that thing and you risk a lot on the line.
Like I said, margins are pretty thin until you get to a point of scalability and you have to put in a lot to make it happen. I think as commissioned stylists, we always think our owners are taking, taking, taking. They’re, generally speaking, giving a whole heck of a lot to keep things moving forward and they’re taking on the emotional and the mental stress so that you don’t have to. I think that’s an important thing to recognize as well.
A couple people asked, Robin asked and Lydia asked, “What is a fair commission rate or how much is fair?” I have actually a love/hate relationship with the F word. I think “fair” is an interesting concept when it comes to compensation in the salon. I think both sides need to feel like they’re winning and so that would make it fair.
I think there’s this conception that the salon owners should just be broke and the stylists should make all the money. Nobody would be a salon owner, though, if that was the case. Everybody would just—I don’t even know what that looked like. The industry would collapse. There’s not enough studio suites to house everybody. So we need owners to be able to make a profit margin or no one’s going to choose ownership ever again.
You, as the stylist, should make a great profit, the owner should make a great profit too. The owner is taking on the greatest risk and that is something we should have learned from the 2020 pandemic. Many of your salon owners still had to pay rent. Some didn’t, and that was gracious of the building lease holders. In California, we had some salon owners who, for seven months, were paying $3,000, $5,000, $12,000 a month in rents just for their space with no stylists paying them, commissions, rent, anything. So we’re looking at some of these owners who put out like $80,000, $90,000 just to keep the salon intact with no revenue coming in.
That’s the kind of pressure that somebody has to take on when they’re a business owner. So yes, business owners can make money when business is good, but they also have to carry the ship forward when times are tough.
I think it’s important that both sides win, but the F-word, the “fair” word, it’s tricky for me. I believe that stylists should be well compensated for the work they do. Most booth renters—this is a statistic. You can run the numbers. You can ask booth renters—most booth renters, if they actually do a PnL for the year, a profit and loss statement, their profit is under 50%. It would be very rare that a booth renter makes over 50%, and usually when they do, it’s because their rent is under market value or they are like the elite 1% where they’re charging $300 or $400 a haircut then because they’re able to generate so much revenue, especially sometimes in a shop where the rent is pretty cheap. They have this overinflated margin, but I’m talking about on average, the average booth renter takes home less than 50%.
When you look at taxes, rent, insurances, cost of color. If you choose to have it, all of the other pieces and liabilities, it’s less than 50%.
So for me, when I say I think it’s appropriate for commission stylists to be paid anywhere from 30 to 45% depending, I do believe that to be true. 30% is pretty low, however, in some cases, salons are doing things like they’re also floating your hourly pay. I mean, when we’re looking at legalities, if you are an employee and you’re in the building, in the business, you need to be supported with an hourly wage. You can’t just have commission stylists that are kicking it. And if they’re not taking clients, they’re not making money. That’s not legal.
If somebody is in your building as an employee, they need to be at least making minimum wage. Even if they sit in your room and they don’t take a single client all day, they still need to make minimum wage for however many hours they were there. And that’s on you as the salon owner to figure out how to pay for it.
So because of that, especially for up-and-coming stylists, I see why some salon owners pay a 30% commission because I’ll pay you 30% when you’re actually doing hair. But then, friend, I’ve got to front you like a hundred bucks a day, even if you’re not doing anything at all. And so there’s still the salon owners likely still taking home maybe 5%. I mean, they’re not actually taking home the 70 because of all of the costs that get involved in it.
So when I look for appropriate commissions for commission stylists, anywhere between 30 and 45%, depending. There’s so many dependencies: depending on the price per, the compensation structure is good. Stylists that have established a clientele aren’t in that space where most of the time they’re just making hourly wage should be making more in commissions. They’re doing it, they’re generating the revenue. They should be paid for it
But when you’re in the place where you’re still really leaning on the commission salon, you’re not generating your own clientele yet, you’re maybe just getting started in marketing and you’re being paid mostly hourly, you’re not producing enough revenue to be making a higher split.
I think it’s important to note if you are a commission employee, there is a cost the business incurs just to have you sitting in this space. Just you being there, not doing anything at all, you’re costing the business money because of the way insurance works, because all of the other moving pieces involved. The owner has to be able to cover that cost. Can’t just operate in the red because the salon operates in the red, it’s got to close and then no one has a job.
So I think anywhere from 30 to 45% is the industry average right now, anything above 45%. I got to tell you, I know there’s some commission salons paying like 60%. It always makes me nervous. I always want to be like, “Can I take a look at your books?” ‘Cause I wonder how long you can actually keep this salon open for. Usually salons where they’re paying these super high commissions, I’ll tell you why it’s fragile because likely what’s happening is the owner is still behind the chair doing hair. Am I right?
If you’re making over 50% commission, the salon likely the owner is still behind the chair doing hair. The revenue that they’re generating is keeping the salon afloat. So you better hope that owner doesn’t retire. You better hope that owner doesn’t break their arm accidentally ‘cause as soon as they go, the model is so fragile that generally speaking, the revenue isn’t going to be there to cover. So it’s just something to keep in mind.
Here’s another really great question. I get asked this a lot. Chelsea said, “Is it industry standard to take a percentage off the top for backbar products and credit card tips?” Is it an industry standard? It happens. It does happen. So I’m gonna say this in broad terms, because laws do vary state to state. A lot of times it’s legal.
What a salon owner can’t do is they can’t take a commission off the bottom. So here’s what happens is a lot of times salons will take color charges or backbar fees from each stylist based on the services done. For example, maybe if you did a balayage, there would be a $10 service fee to the stylist on that for cost of color or however, the salon is justified. The salon would have to take that $10 off before they calculate your commission.
So if you charge them to use easy math, $100 for the balayage and there was a $10 service charge, the $10 would come off first and the $90 is what the stylist would be commissionable on.
Is that legal in most states? It sure as heck is. Here’s my issue with it. Why are we doing that? To me, it seems so silly because then your stylists message me—I get this question all the time—then your stylist message me asking why is my salon owner nickeling and diming me? Why are they taking color charges? Why are they taking credit card processing charges?
Here’s another one I actually got twice. Kate asked the same things: product charges from owners, fair commission, running numbers to know if you can. Exactly. This question comes up all the time. Why am I getting these additional charges when I’m being paid on commission? And my answer? I don’t know.
If I was a commission salon owner, which I said, if I ever opened the Thrivers Society salon, it will be commission. Just noted. It would be commission. And I wouldn’t do that instead. My commissions would just be adequate and here’s what salon owners do, and this is worth noting. They’ll say, “Oh, we pay you 50% commissions.” And you’re like, whoa, that sounds great. And then you get in there and it’s like, “Well, 50% commissions, but there is a service charge and there is a credit card charge.”
So then you’re not making 50% commissions. You’re likely making like 40%, 45%, 38% commission, like I just said, but it sounds nicer to say 50% commission. Oh, and then there’s all these other things.
For me, I think it’s cleaner as the owner, as the stylist, upfront to say, “Listen, we’re shifting commissions. They’re going to be 42% now, but no service charges. So instead of having all of these and then you pay for this and pay for that—here’s the other thing,” and this all comes off before your commission split. Why don’t we just have a lower commission? And all of that is taken care of. It’s cleaner and it’s not questioned as much.
Now if you’re going to implement something like that, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, Britt, I can’t believe you just said that. You’re making a nightmare for me,” it doesn’t have to be a nightmare. I’ve walked this walk. What we did is when we decided to back out of that method is we ran the numbers for everybody, and we’re like, “Okay, if we pull out,”—’cause we did the service charge thing, I got it—“if we stopped doing service charges, what would our commissions end up being?”
So let’s say that you were touting a 50% commission, but you had color charges and credit card fee charges or whatever you had that were coming off the top before you split commissions, run the numbers and see what that ended up being and equate it to commissions, so you can show your stylists like, “Listen, moving forward, you’re going to be paid at a 44% commission instead of a 50%.”
At first, they’re going to be like, “Ooh,” but then you’re going to show them. “But it’s not going to affect your take-home pay,” and you’re going to show them, and you’re going to say, “Because what we’re doing is we’re just making it cleaner for you. It’s going to be straight up 44%, no more color charges.”
Salon ownership still gets the revenue. They still get their nugget at the end of the day. But for the stylist, it’s cleaner and there’s less funky stuff. The way this works is if you have your stylist charging properly—I’m gonna say it again—your stylist charging properly and with margin.
This is why this method does not often work and this is why salons often have to do things like product charges because their pricing model’s broken. It’s all an ecosystem. If your pricing model is broken, then you have to do service product charges because there’s no margin to do it. Otherwise it also affects your commission. It affects everything. It affects your budget to restock your color bar. It affects all of it. And this is why in Thrivers Society and then Thriving Leadership launching in the fall, we talk about those kinds of things because you can’t just fix one thing. It has to be holistic. The ecosystem has to work altogether, right?
For me, is it appropriate or is it commonplace, was the question, to take a percentage off the top for backbar products, color and credit card tips? Happens. And in most states, it’s legal. To me, I think there’s just a cleaner, better way to do it. But generally speaking, it is legal to do that in most states. It’s worth checking out your own local law though.
Okay, here’s a good question from Kate. She says, “How do you run numbers to know if you can go independent or become a salon owner?”
What I always say is pretend like you’ve pulled the trigger. Pretend like you’re doing it. Look and see what it would cost to open a salon, to rent a booth in your area. Do it, then look at your gross service dollars that you’ve produced over the last 90 days, and we’ll make an average.
Let’s say that last month you brought in five grand. A month before was four grand, and the month before you were on vacation, so you brought in one grand. Making easy math for myself. So that’s 10 grand in three months. Okay, so then you take a look at what is the weekly rent rate in your area? Let’s say that weekly, it’s about a thousand dollars a week. I’m in California. So my market might be higher or lower than yours. A thousand dollars a week would actually be a steal out here, but let’s say it’s a thousand dollars a week.
We just did the math and you’re averaging, let’s say an average of $3,500 a month in services. So now you’re down to 2,500 because you just pay the thousand dollars towards rent.
Then you’re going to look at your average cost of color, product and supply. So what I do is I look at over the last 90 days: How many highlights did I do? How many root touch ups did I do? How many extension applications did I do? How many everything. And then I ask myself, “Okay, what is my average cost of color per guest?” And I run the math on that.
If you did 50 color services and your average cost of color per guest is 10 bucks a tube plus peroxide plus everything, so now you’re at 50 times 10. So that was 500 bucks that you had to spend on color to get all that done. Now you’re down to $2,000 because you paid a thousand for rent, the $500 for color or whatever.
Then you would take a look at what tax bracket you’d run into. See how that affects your take-home pay, insurances, everything else. So you’d likely end up going home with like 1200 bucks. I don’t know how much you’re making the salon right now, but you run the actual. It’s like you look at the facts and the data and you run the numbers. The numbers don’t lie.
The reason why people get into a bind is they don’t bother with that. They live in denial land where they’re like, well, I’m producing $5,000 a month behind the chair. Rent’s only a thousand bucks. I’m going to make a killing. Well, no, there’s a gajillion other expenses to look into. When you go independent, your taxes increase. So you just have to run the numbers.
I’m not saying you can’t make more money when you go booth rent. Some people do all the time, especially depending on how their commissions farm was run. What I’m saying is it’s not a surefire thing and the numbers don’t lie. So run the numbers because that’s going to tell you the full story.
Okay, here’s a great one. I won’t say the stylist’s name. “How do you convince a salon owner to allow price increases based on demand like you do in Thrivers Society versus—” I’m going to say it this way—“versus prices based on a different method?”
This is a tough one. For me, I’m a business owner. I don’t love being convinced of things because I like to think of myself as the visionary for my business. However, if you talk to my leadership team, which those of you who don’t know, I currently have 19 employees working for me, all employees, not contractors, all full-time. So it’s not just me running the show around here.
I just have the best team on the planet, amazing people working with me. And beside me, I have a six-person leadership team. My leaders often tell me I’m wrong. I’ll want to do something and they’ll say, “Nope, we can’t do that.” Or “We can do that, but we can do it in nine months.” I get told no quite a bit and it’s what actually keeps the business on track often.
That being said, I don’t want to have an intervention. I don’t love it when somebody comes to me and is like, “The way you’re doing everything is wrong.” I’m likely to burn a bridge and maybe decide you’re not a good fit for this company.
First of all, if you believe that the method that your ownership is using is incorrect. I always say, it’s coming in hot. You don’t want to come in hot in that situation. You want to come in rational. You want to come in and explain your concerns and then share resources.
So I believe in, and this is the Thrivers Society methodology, pricing is based on demand. Period. It’s not based on being in level two or being a diamond level stylist, or you’ve been here for four years, so XYZ happens or it’s January 1st, we have to do a price increase. I don’t believe in any of that kind of stuff.
I believe in pricing based on what is actually happening in your chair. Not what’s happening in Jimmy’s chair, not what’s happening in Amanda’s chair. What is happening in your chair? That’s what I think that pricing needs to be based on.
The pricing schematic would have to be different for somebody who specializes in extensions versus somebody who specializes in haircuts because the margins and everything that goes on are completely different in both of those business methods. The pricing has to be different for the stylist who is only in the salon two days a week versus the one who’s in the salon five days a week. There’s so many factors that it is very difficult to standardize.
What I believe is there’s more profit to be made for all when we look at stylists more as individuals than as facts that we’re trying—like puzzle pieces that we’re trying to put together. When instead we look at them as individual unique beings, there is the potential to allow each stylist to reach a higher level faster. It allows the potential for referrals to come in more easily, and it allows for each stylist to feel appreciated as the person that they are with the passions that they have, with the services that they love to do, even if they don’t fit a predetermined mold. So the freedom and flexibility is really helpful.
That being said, you’re choosing to work for a salon that has chosen a method and I do think that we need to respect that. If you have different ideas of what might work, it is worth it to share the resources with them and be like, “Hey, listen, I know we got a thing going on. Can you take a look at this and just see if you think this is something that might work for us?” Allow them to make their own decision. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to share the information, but you made a choice to be there. You’re choosing to be a part of their culture. This is what they’ve chosen for their culture. You’ve got to respect that, but I don’t think there’s any wrong with sharing resources that you think can help the business overall.
I’ve got one. What are the reasonable expectations for duties besides servicing clients and forms of conversation? Our commission stylists, if you had to time on your books, you were doing work. We didn’t have people scrubbing the toilets or anything like that. We had a cleaning team that came in and supported with some of the things that are not covered by our licensure. Like as a licensed cosmetologist, there are certain things that we are licensed and able to do, and there’s certain things that are beyond our licensure that we did not expect our stylists to do.
So our stylists during downtime, were doing things like cutting foils and making foil boards. Not everybody does foil trays, but we had foil trays for our stylists. So any of our newer stylists who had downtime, or certainly our assistants were creating foil trays, restocking, backbar prepping things for classes. We were an education-focused salon.
If you are a commissioned stylist and you had a four hour gap in your day, come on over, ‘cause I have a list of things that need to be done. Creating marketing campaigns, supporting me in doing inventory, sometimes working a reception shift, there was a lot of things that needed to be done.
For me, if you are a commission stylist and you are making an hourly wage, you do whatever is expected of you because you’re an employee of that business.
Now the structure of each commission salon dictates what I think is appropriate. I don’t think that after listening to this podcast, you can be like, “Oh, commission stylists should do more than just hair. Sweet. I have a laundry list of things to do.” That’s not appropriate. It depends on the culture you’ve created in the salon you have. In our salon culture, we were a family. If somebody needed something you jumped in and did it. It wasn’t even a question. There was not like, is this fair? I did this last time. It just wasn’t part of the equation because our culture wasn’t like that.
The culture comes first. Then you decide what is appropriate within it. I had some commission stylists that if they had a two hour gap in their day, they were running down to Costco and getting food because we needed more amenities for the salon.
It really depends on the structure of your salon and the compensation. These were hourly employees who wanted to make their wage. They had bills to pay. And I was like, if you want to stay in the building, you want to stay on the clock, you don’t want to go home for the day, which I didn’t want them to go home, I wanted them here available to take clients. If you’re going to be here, you’re not just going to sit in the back room, playing Instagram, you’re going to do these 10 things I need to be done.
So it depends on the structure, depends on the culture. But for me, anything that’s in line with our licensure and anything that is appropriate to keep the salon functioning daily is fair game to a degree.
Here’s another question: structure in the salon, training new hires and how to prevent resentment when things seem unfair. Like I said, I have some feelings about the F word, the fair word. I will say, most things feel unfair.
Do you know where unfairness comes from? Unfairness comes from unspoken resentment. So I don’t feel like this is fair usually just means we need to have a conversation and we need to understand why one person feels a type of way and the other feels done wrong by it. People feel unfair when they feel like they’re being cheated so we need to get to the bottom of that and have an open conversation and figure out why that feeling of unfairness is coming up.
I don’t know exactly what you are alluding to when you’re saying structure in the salon and training new hires. Usually things seem unfair when there’s not an established success path or guidelines.
Like I said, this came up in the salon sometimes too, like, “Well, why does so-and-so get to do this other thing?” And I would realize when that question came up, like, gosh darn it. I didn’t create a system and a structure for that. The more system and structure you have in place in a commission salon, the less the F-word comes up (fair) because the question of, “Well, why did Annabel get to leave early? I don’t understand.” “Well, Annabel has achieved X, Y, and Z here in the salon. She’s now one of our peer educators and this is one of the benefits of being a peer educator is you have some schedule flexibility. Does that make sense to you?”
Asking things like that. Creating levels and levels that don’t necessarily affect your price point, but affect your freedom and flexibility. Like what if we were to say, when you have achieved so much in the salon, now you’re able to book yourself off for longer lunches, achievement based on what is actually happened, and perks and benefits of that versus XYZ occurred to now, you charge $80 a haircut.
If we think about achievement a little bit differently, the F factor really goes out the door and it starts to feel like anything is possible within this salon space so long as somebody is willing to show up and make their dreams happen.
Like I mentioned, I’m a huge fan of commission salons. I think that commission is here to stay in one form or another. Definitely more to come on that. I see an actually emerging trend in salon compensation, which I’ll be talking about more down the line. But I think that the idea of stylists being employees isn’t going away. I know that’s a rumor that’s happening. I don’t think it’s going away. I think it’s shifting and what’s happening is the old model has died. Welcome to the new new when it comes to being a beauty professional in today’s day and age.
More to come on that! You guys, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
