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 and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva and today I’m going to answer another beautiful question from one of you gorgeous listeners. So if you didn’t know, now you know, the best way to get a question into me to potentially get some coaching through this podcast is to leave me rating or review on iTunes. I go through those ratings and reviews every single week, and I pull aside the ones that I think would be best and most beneficial to the beautiful listeners of our program.
So today’s question comes in from Kyle. So Kyle, thank you for reaching out. Kyle says “I’m growing a little desperate as I’m reaching the point of burnout. Things are going really well in my business, but my demand behind the chair is taking away from all the other things I want to put my energy into as a salon owner. I know the easy answer is raise my prices, but number one, I already feel very pricey, and with the looming recession, I don’t want to price myself out. I also have not had luck with new hires to start giving some of my clients to. I know I need to put a bigger effort into hiring people, but I’m hitting a brick wall with it and getting discouraged. I feel very fortunate to be where I’m at and I have a lot of things going for me. However, doing hair behind the chair is the main source of income right now and it’s keeping my energy away from other things I would like to concentrate on. I’m building an education brand. We want to host classes. I want to help grow one of my stylists and I hope to hire a team of five or six. My partner and I have signed up for Thrivers, but I’m in a weird space right now and would love your expertise. Do I raise my prices again? Or do I wait this out?”
Kyle, this is such an excellent question and I feel like this dovetails so beautifully with the episode that I did on work from home and it worked so well with the episode I did several weeks back where I talked about the different levels of salon ownership, right? Are you a weight-bearing owner? Are you a freedom owner? And I think that Kyle, your question hits at a really important time because I get DMs like this a lot, like the overwhelm is so real, the burnout is so real.
One of the things that I think is really special about our industry is that most of those who join it are extremely passionate and very driven and often are multi-passionate, meaning we don’t just want to do one thing. We want to do 16 things, like we feel like we can conquer the world and we want to do it all, and we’d like to do it all right now.
Patience is a virtue and it’s one that many of us struggle with in the industry being the creatives that we are, and those who don’t struggle with those kind of things often find that they struggle with the career in general, because being multi-passionate is in many ways critical to being successful as a beauty professional, right? Like we talked about last week, you have to be multifaceted, you have to enjoy marketing, you have to enjoy money, you have to enjoy ops, you have to enjoy vision, you have to enjoy doing the hair. So being multi-passionate is par for the course.
Here’s the trick, Kyle. I want you to even listen back to what I said when I read your message. So you’re not having luck with new hires, but you need new hires for a couple of reasons. One, you’d like to step out from behind the chair a little bit so that you can be a leader and two, you, if you’re going to raise your prices, one to have stylists that you could then grandfather your clients down to, right? If the client can’t see you anymore, because you’ve priced them out. Well, then you’d like them to go see Shelly or whomever else it is that you hire.
So for all the logical reasons you need support, the challenge is, as I’ve talked about on the show, as I talk about on Instagram, as I talk about in Thriving Leadership, you won’t find great team members until you choose to be a leader. Great stylists today don’t want to work for the overwhelmed owner.
I’ve done the poll a hundred thousand times on Instagram, I could do it again, but the result is going to be the same. Stylists are going to tell you the reason why they leave salons is because the owner is burnt out and overwhelmed. The reason why they leave salons is that the owner is not a leader. The owner is not engaged. The owner is frazzled. The owner is trying to do too many things at once. The owner is so caught up doing clients behind the chair that they’re not actually showing up as a leader in any way, right? I mean, if you ask around, that’s the feedback you’re going to get.
So this is the irony of the situation. As you’ve actually got to step back from behind the chair, you have to step back from behind the chair in order to have the capacity to be the leader that you need to be to attract this dream team of five or six, but I don’t want to stop there. And the reason why I picked this question is because let’s read back for a second all the things that Kyle is doing. So Kyle is a successful salon owner booked to the max. Let’s just picture it that way. Building an education brand, wanting to host classes, mentoring one stylist, and looking to hire five to six. You are chasing like four or five passions at one time. You can’t do it.
I’m going to ask you right here, right now on this show, you can hit me up in the DMs if you’d like, what are you going to choose right now in this season of your life and your business? Do you want to grow your team of stylists or do you want to grow as an educator one or the other? Please do not pick both at once because if you listen, what will happen if you pick both at once, you’ll now be trying to sustain as a successful stylist, build as an educator, and hire a dream team. You’re already saying you don’t have time to mentor a team. You’re struggling. You actually mentioned here you’ve been struggling to find and retain top talent. Yes, because top talent today doesn’t want to work for somebody who’s already on thin ice, right? You’re just in the place and in the position where you don’t have the capacity to take on more than you’ve already got.
So what I want you to do is take a bit of a step back and I want you to ask yourself what is most critical for me in this moment and then what is most critical for me in the next three to five years.
I’ll use myself as an example. I am a business owner. I’m the Talent of my business. Now y’all know that term we talked about on the podcast, right? I’m the Talent, I show up and I do the videos. I teach the classes. I do the speaking, I do the podcast. I’m the Talent, but that’s actually where I spend the least amount of my time. You can check my team on that. They’ll tell you. I spend the bulk of my time managing my team. That is the majority of my workweek every single week. The majority of my week is meetings. It’s being visionary. It’s creating guidelines. It’s reviewing information. It is mentoring. It is being a part of the hiring process. It’s looking into what we need to do to improve our team culture, to revise things when they’re going sideways, to educating myself, to educating my team, right?
So being the Talent, a.k.a. for you the person doing the hair, cannot be center stage. And let me tell you, as somebody who has learned this firsthand, you think like, “If I do less hair though, I won’t be able to pay my bills.”
I know it sounds far-fetched, but you talked to anybody who’s done it before, until you insulate yourself with an incredible team, you will not be able to grow your business. You will stay almost like a prisoner to this business that you’ve built because as it is right now, you’re telling me, Kyle, “I can’t take any less clients. I have to be the one who does the hair because I’m the one who keeps the lights on. I can’t raise my prices. I’m already too pricey.” So you’ve basically boxed yourself in. You’re feeling like you don’t have any options, so ironically, the option is to release the pressure. And by releasing the pressure, you have to make yourself more available to be a true leader because in the long run—I know that short term, you’re like, “I need to sustain my income.” But if you could take your foot off the gas ever so slightly and create the capacity to truly figure it out what it means to lead and to create an onboarding training program for your stylist and to be the salon leader that stylists want to work for, my friend, you will fill those five to six chairs in no time flat and then six months from today, you’ll not be in the position anymore where the business is contingent on you doing the hair.
So what I want to do right now is actually go through all of the layers of our leadership funnel, because I think that it’s going to make this a little bit more clear as far as like, okay, so you’re telling me take my foot off the gas as far as taking clients, take my foot off the gas of building an education program. Now, you said, right here, “I’m building an education brand. We want to host classes.” You either have to build the education brand and host the classes and hope that that’s enough to bring the right people in. I don’t know how long that will take. It could be months. It could be years. I’m not sure. It depends on how long the education platform takes to get off the ground. But you will be working exceptionally hard and continuing to carry the weight of your business for so long as the door staying open is contingent on you being the one who does the hair. So long as it stays that way, you’ll never create more breathing room. And I can tell you’re multi-passionate. You want to mentor. You want to teach. You need to create a team around you so that becomes possible. And what’s incredible is once you have the team around you, they can see you’re showing up as a leader. They can see you want to better yourself. You’re then going to have the freedom and the capacity to build your educator brand. Your stylist will love learning from you. You’ll be able to have the classes and host them while working behind the chair part-time. You’ll get everything that you want, but having that team to support you is first.
Why did you become an owner? That’s a question to all the owners in the room. Why did you become an owner? Did you become an owner because you wanted to be the only person producing consistently? No, you became an owner because you wanted to have an incredible team, right? If you didn’t, then we really have to think about why you’re owning a salon. If the desire to be an owner is anything less than giving back to the industry and building a phenomenal team.
This is a really good moment to crosscheck yourself because that should be the driving force. So knowing that’s the driving force, do not lose sight of that. That’s the whole reason you decide to become an owner so that must take top priority. Everything else can happen in good time, but that’s eyes on the prize. That’s that CEO visionary stuff. That is what is critical to achieving your professional dreams so we have to make that happen.
What I want to do at this crossroads of the show is go over the profit pyramid with you, the Leadership Profit Pyramid. I think it’s really important as far as when you’re in a position like Kyle is where you’re like, “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” Like, “I can’t lose my income, but I need to build a team and I don’t have enough time.” Where do you start?
For me, like I just coached to, we go back to the business. So what I’m looking at right now, our Leadership Profit Pyramid that we coached to in Thriving Leadership, and it starts with the business foundation. And we look at the foundation of the business, it’s asking those things like, “What is my vision as the salon owner? What was I hoping was possible? What is the structure here? Is it commission? Is it booth rent? Is it blended? Is it hourly? What is it?” Right?
Then we get into purpose and culture. What is the purpose of working for you? “We’re positive. We’re passionate. We do good hair. We love each other. We’re a family,” blah. Everybody says those kind of things. Bigger, deeper, more.
Funny, ironically, I was talking to a team member today and she pitched me an idea. I actually hope she listens to this. She pitched me an idea and she was like, “You know what? I’m so sorry to throw you a curveball, but I’d really like to do X, Y, and Z in your business.” Meaning she’s a team member in my business. This is not in her current job description. She was like, “But I’d really like the opportunity to do X, Y, Z.” And she followed up and said, “I don’t just want to make a paycheck here. I want to serve a purpose.” And I commended her and I said, “You’re not throwing me a curveball. This makes me happy,” because when you look at the workforce of today, she’s not a unicorn in that. That is very much an example of what people are looking for today in employment opportunities.
People want to not just get a paycheck. People want to be a part of something bigger, and if you’re chuckling to yourself and thinking, “Oh no, my team just wants their money and to get outta here,” that is a reflection of your leadership all day long. A hundred percent reflection of you, because if that’s who you’re attracting or that’s the energy and that’s the attitude, you’re either not showing up in a way that’s motivating to your team or you’re just attracting the wrong people from the start.
So purpose and culture, then we get into roles and responsibilities. What does it look like to work for you? What are your stylists responsible for? Do they have job descriptions, like really clear cut job descriptions so that you can either say A) you’re hitting it, B) you’re not, right.
Then above that we have brand standards. So we’ve built the foundation. This is who we are and what we do. Brand standards is, “and this is how we do it.” This is how it all comes together.
So when you look at hiring amazing stylists today, they need to know these things. They’re going to want to know what your brand standards are. And they might not say to your face, “Tell me about your brand standards,” that’s not general jargon, but wait for it, ‘cause in five years it will be. I promise you it will. But right now it’s not yet.
So they’re going to be asking like, “How are things done here? What can you promise me as far as a clientele base? How long do stylists stay here for? What can I expect out of my career?” Honestly, these are the questions people are asking in interviews right now. You better have an answer and your answer better not be, “The sky is the limit. You can build whatever you want.” That’s not a success plan or a growth path. That’s like a pipe dream. People want to know more.
Then we get into training. You cannot possibly effectively train somebody who’s going to stay with you. Now you can train somebody who will stay with you for a year and leave. You can train somebody who’s a short term team member, who’s going to burn you for education and then move on. You can train somebody like that without any of the other things that I just mentioned. But if you want to have somebody train and stay, you can’t train without brand standards. You cannot train without roles and responsibilities. You’re just sharing information. That’s not training at all.
So the training program is based on brand standards, roles, and responsibilities, purpose, and culture, and then the foundation of your business.
Then above that, we have praise. So a lot of leaders feel like, “Well, I praise, and if I praise, that should be good enough. We do team lunches. I take people out for cocktail night. We do team photo shoots. I award people for the good work they did.” Praise is good, but it’s not everything and it’s very difficult to praise effectively or praise for retention, like praise in a way that’s actually going to keep people around without all the other lower levels that I shared.
Also, praise is not equal. The way one person feels praised is not the way another does. Some only feel praised if you give them money, truly, and don’t judge based on that. It has to do with their relationship with money. It has to do with their childhood. It has to do with their home life. It has to do with a million things, but there is nothing wrong with it, right? We all need money. We got into this career to make money. So there’s nothing wrong with feeling like that’s appreciation or praise.
Some are words of affirmation. Some like a beautiful handwritten card. Some like public acknowledgement, some hate public acknowledgement, so understanding what your team wants, what praise looks like, what acknowledgement looks like is critical.
Then we have trust. Trust cannot be built with your team members until all of these other things are in place. Some of you think you have faux trust with a team and you don’t.
Here’s a cross check. Have you ever had a walkout? You ever had a long-term stylist up and leave you? There wasn’t trust there. When I was a salon leader—I’m thinking right now, I’m taking a moment. I can’t think of any stylist who like—oh no, there was one stylist in all of my time who left and shocked me. Every other stylist gave me so much notice. I’m talking months’ notice, “I’m thinking about leaving. I’m starting to look at salons. Here’s what I’m considering. What do you think?” It was like I was a part of the decision because there was trust there, because I knew I wasn’t the salon leader monster, because they knew I cared about them as a human being and truly wanted what was best for them, even if it meant we couldn’t work together anymore. And so, because there was true trust, because we had all these lower levels in place, I never had to feel betrayed. That wasn’t a part of it. I was never blindsided. We didn’t have this walkout that was shocking. That never took place because I knew exactly what was going on. There was mutual trust.
The big running joke was Britt’s hair is full of secrets because I knew everything that happened in that building and I was able to manage it and control it. The communication was there and there was trust with my team and the fact that if I said, “I need you to be here at such and such a time,” they would be there, even if it was an opportunity that they hated, even if it took them away from their personal life and they were angry about it, they would show up and they’d suck it up because they knew that they trusted me and they knew that whatever I was asking them to was to their best benefit, right? But that came because of the lower level that I had built with them.
Then we get loyalty. That’s where you get the loyalty in place in your business, and then I put lead. That’s when people will actually be led by you. So like I always like to say, if nobody’s following, you’re not leading. There is no such thing as a leader who nobody wants to follow. So if you’re a salon owner and your team doesn’t show up to education classes that you plan, if you can’t attract good stylists, if you feel like your stylist team doesn’t trust you, if you feel like people talk badly about you behind your back, that is a huge sense that you are not a leader. You’re simply an owner. You can’t possibly lead if nobody is following.
So to Kyle, to the beautiful salon owner who wrote in to me and asked me this question, I really want you to refine your vision of why you became an owner, what you’re looking to achieve as a leader, and what you think might be missing, and what are the components that you need to put into place to ensure you are attracting the five to six beautiful souls that you’re hoping to mentor. I can read in your message that the passion is there. Your intention is so good. Anybody who works for you wants to know that your full intention all in baby is to build an incredible dream team. Your passion as an educator will have to take a backseat for a minute. And I know that’s super hard to hear, but if building the team of five to six is top priority, let it be top priority. Based on what you said, here it is and here’s the thing: when you have the team of five to six, you’ll have the capacity to be an amazing educator. You won’t feel shackled to the chair. You’ll feel like you have the freedom and the flexibility to do it, and you’ll learn so many beautiful lessons along the way that are only going to help you to educate further and deeper.
So to anybody who’s feeling overwhelmed, maxed out, multi-pasionate, if you feel like you’re an owner and you can’t hire effectively, if you feel like an owner and nobody’s looking to be led by you, I hope this has clued you into some potential blind spots. My program, Thriving Leadership, is always here to help, and as I always say too, if you want to leave me a rating or review on iTunes, let me know your questions and I will do my absolute best to serve you at my highest.
And as I always love to say so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
