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 the energy I’m bringing to the show today is if I don’t have the time and/or energy and/or desire to do a blowout or curl my hair, can I just do a power pony, wear big earrings, and pull it off? And the answer is yes.
Don’t you love the power of an accessory just to make a speedy morning that much brighter?
Let’s bring that energy into this episode. So excited that you’re here.
This one I’m dedicating to all the new beauty school graduates, those who are currently enrolled in beauty school. First of all, welcome to the best industry on the planet.
This is also going to be a really good episode for anybody who is struggling to build clientele. I know we talked about that last week. I’m going to stay on that just a tiny touch. But I realize I’ve never done an episode specifically saying, “Hello, if you’re in beauty school or you’re a newly licensed graduate, where do you start?”
I can just so deeply remember that feeling of—the only way I can describe it is almost feeling like I was on a canoe in the middle of the ocean. I was so excited to set sail, a.k.a., join the industry, and when I was in school, it felt like I had friends. I was deeply involved in the program. I loved what I was doing. I felt so comfortable and so happy and so confident in my choice, and then when I got that license and I was out in the real world, that’s when I felt in the canoe in the middle of the ocean.
Like oh my gosh, and now the expectation is literally, “Okay, figure it out.” It’s almost like if you’ve ever had a baby, your first child—actually your first or your second child. I had this both times with both of mine. We had the baby, we’re in the hospital, everything’s great, they send you home and you’re like, “They made a terrible mistake. I am completely unfit to do this job. I do not know what I’m doing here.” It can feel very much the same as you’re starting off in the industry. I want to speak to a lot of the feelings, a lot of the thoughts, and then some really tactical steps that I would take if I was starting in the industry right now.
I’m going to dedicate this episode to my daughter, Emily, who is currently halfway through her beauty school program as I record this episode. She was very much the inspiration behind this one for me because we talk every day and, up until this point, she’s been feeling really good about it. Now that she’s essentially a senior and is wrapping her program up, she’s like, “Okay, the reality is starting to hit and I’m scared.” We talked about her fears and her concerns and I gave her some tactical advice and I just want to share that with everybody.
Right off the bat, I want to be a realist. This is an industry of possibilities. That is one of my very favorite things about this industry is you can get into it and you can be a crazy successful stylist. You get into it and be a stylist who works one day a week, makes $12,000 a year, and is super stoked, or you could work three days a week and make $200,000 a year. Or you could work five days a week and make 400 grand, or you could work five days a week and make 30 grand.
There’s so many different paths and ways that you can do this industry, and so if you try something and you’re like, “Yeah, so this ain’t me,” it’s okay. It doesn’t mean you have to abandon your license or take another program altogether. There still might be a perfect fit for you here.
When I think about all the different positions or opportunities available in the industry, I think most of us get our license thinking we’re going to be stylists. I know some of the people who are getting licensed alongside my daughter, a good chunk of them want to be makeup artists. I think that’s great. A few of them, it’s been interesting to hear, started off wanting to do hair, fell in love with skin, and so they’re going to pursue an esthetics license after. I think that’s fantastic. Some are going to be doing a dual licensure and getting a barbering license. I think that’s fantastic.
Now those are all service-based professions. Wonderful. There’s also the path of leadership, choosing to open the salon. I want to make this crystal clear. Just because you’re a good stylist does not mean you are well-equipped to be an owner. Just because you’re a terrible stylist, it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t be a fantastic owner. Being the leader of a business with people working within the space is a unique skillset that not everybody can pull off.
Whether you want to be a commission salon owner, a booth rental salon owner, a studio suite owner, that’s not for everybody. And you don’t have to—I’m doing the bunny ears, the air quotes—you don’t have to graduate to being a salon owner to be successful.
You don’t have to stop working commission in order to have made it in the industry. Those are all very old school lies that you do not need to believe and we’re going to unpack all of those today.
Now beyond that, there’s also being a sales rep for a hair care company or a distribution company. I fell in love with the job that the educators that represented our hair care brands did. I actually applied for a couple of those jobs with a couple of different hair care brands who now hire me to speak. Thank you very much. But at the time I got turned down by both of those hair care companies when I wanted to apply to work for them. But let me tell you, the reason I applied to work for them is I think it’s a dream job. I still now, I’m like “Man, if they wanted to hire me for six months to go around and teach their salons, I’d be so game.” I just think it’s such a fun gig. There’s an opportunity there working with beauty supply stores.
Now, even if you want to still work on the one-to-one scale, being a salon manager, being a salon director, running marketing, like there’s so many different things you can do in the industry, so be open to the possibility, please don’t throw in the towel. It’s a really incredible industry. Stick with it.
Know that the first two years you should plan to work 40 hours a week. Sorry, I know that’s a heartbreaking fact for some of you on this episode, but I want to be realistic, and focus. My suggestion is to have 32 hours per week available to take clients and work eight hours a week on business strategy.
Let me explain that part again. 32 hours a week you are available to take guests: cuts, texture services, bridal services, whatever. I don’t care. Working with clients 32 hours a week. Eight hours a week, you need to be at minimum working on business strategy.
One of the things I coach to around here is the idea that good business isn’t actually built on doing clientele. Clientele is being the talent of your business. It must happen in order to make money. I totally get it, but the best and the brightest in the industry today, those who actually have achieved the freedom-filled life that we’re all looking to achieve understand that it’s the work that is done on the business strategy that actually earns you the money.
Isn’t that ironic? You think it’s the cuts the color, that’s where I make my money. It’s not. It’s on the business strategy side of things.
Now the reason why most new beauty school graduates don’t focus there is they don’t know that. In beauty school, they say things like, “You know you should be on Instagram,” “You got to market yourself,” “Going to hand out cards, you got to put yourself out there,” “You got to ask for referrals.”
Y’all, that’s not business strategy. Those are random thoughts and not all of ’em are even right. And so you join this industry and you just have such a lack of knowledge on what it looks like to actually build a real business, and that’s where I want to help you.
The other thing I want to share, I know when I say, “Plan to work 40 hours a week with focus” and some of you were like, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t plan to work that much,” hear you, totally understand it. Going back in time, I want to share my story.
When I was in beauty school, I remember celebrating my daughter’s second birthday in school. My daughter was young by the time I graduated. She was probably two and a half, or something like that. If I’m doing the math right, maybe a little bit older than that.
I had a young daughter at home, I was not married. My boyfriend, who’s now my husband, her dad and I were together. But for all intents and purposes, financially, schedule-wise, all the things, I was a single mom and so I totally understand when somebody says, “40 hours a week,” and you’re like, “Holy cow, how am I going to pull this off?” I totally get it.
If you can’t work 40 hours a week, it will likely take you longer to build a clientele. Now you can counterbalance that if you spend more hours a week working on the business. There is a chance that you can still build pretty quickly. But if you are able to work 40 hours a week, 32 hours a week taking guests and eight hours a week working on business strategy, I do believe that within two years you can have a beautiful career, financially independent, feeling really confident, and be really on your way to making it as a stylist.
There are four big concerns and four barriers when somebody’s just out of school: money, skills, confidence, and clients. Let’s work that backwards. The irony is you cannot get more clients until you’ve mastered confidence, skills, and money. That’s where you’re like, “I’m on a canoe in the middle of the ocean,” because you realize all I need is clients and I have none.
So what’s next? What’s next is the other three things I mentioned: confidence, skills, and money. The quote I say around here is that confidence comes when you’ve put in the work. The work is education and reps, so the more hair you do, the more confident you become. The more formulations you mix, the more confident you are. The more mistakes you make, the faster you learn. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about learning forward, failing forward sometimes. Confidence in this industry, but it most comes from education and repetition and sheer willpower to keep pushing forward.
And let me just say right now you’re going to mess up. You’re going to have redos, you’re going to do some real weird haircuts, you’re going to mess up some formulations. You’re going to have days where you’re like, “I’m not cut out for this.” That’s normal and I want to normalize that.
Can I just tell you there’s some really senior, seasoned stylists who make mistakes because they are human. I don’t want you to do four bad haircuts and say, “I’m the worst at this.” I want you to do four bad haircuts and say, “I’m not confident in this.”
Which comes back to point number two, which was skills. Skills are going to be critical. Now the challenge is you’re like, “But I don’t have the money to take classes. I don’t have the money to rent a booth. I don’t have the money to buy shears, I just don’t have the money.” Got it. So let’s talk about how to overcome all four of those things strategically.
First I would start by educating yourself. First and foremost. My daughter—now I’m like “Yeah, great, you have six months to graduate. You need to start educating yourself beyond what you’re learning in school.” Now. We don’t wait until she graduates, we start now.
I shared on episode 267, which was just a few weeks ago, several educators that I admire with great free education, so start with the free stuff. There’s so much good free stuff out there. I’m jealous. When I join the industry 15 years ago, we didn’t have all that. I’m so jealous of you guys.
So free education, YouTube university to start. Now I will say not all education is good education. Some of it’s garbage. Sometimes you’ll learn confusing things. Sometimes you’ll be taught bad habits. What I would do if I were you is find trusted mentors and advisors. I’d love to be one of them if that feels aligned to you. And if I suggest educators to you, they’re people that I trust, that I’m going to tell my own child to learn from.
When you find somebody that you trust, that you think gives good advice, see who they follow, see who they suggest, see who they interact with in the comments. That should give you a good sense of where to find good educators.
When it comes to the money, my second point is to invest more in education and less in coffee, cocktails, makeup, new clothes, et cetera. This is hard. This is so hard. I can remember when I was in the industry, being a young mother, I could not have invested in makeup, clothes, cocktails, or Starbucks if I wanted to. I was in so much debt, so much credit card debt, and the things I was putting on my credit card were like groceries and gas. Definitely not new shoes, nothing like that.
I can remember going into the salon in the clothes that I had bought at Ross Dress for Less and looking around at the stylists who were dressed to the nines and feeling like, “Oh my gosh, I must just look like a fish out of water,” in my mind. But the reason I’m sharing this is it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. Looking back, it was like something I was so insecure about. But what I want to be clear on is I didn’t show up looking like a mess. I looked like I was trying as hard as I possibly could, but I was young and I was new to the industry and I wasn’t trying to be somebody that I wasn’t. I was okay being like, “Hello, I’m the rookie of the year, I’m doing my best.”
But remember, I was prioritizing education and I wasn’t just making excuses. I never made excuses. I was like, “My focus right now is education and growth, period.” And because the owner of my salon, the stylists I work with, and the clients I was seeing—the client, well probably at the beginning, I had one client but the clients I was seeing understood that and they really respected my drive and that’s what made it work for me.
I invested all the time, any extra money I had in education. It was hard and there was some misunderstanding, definitely, from my family about that for a while, but not anymore. Sometimes it is a little bit of short-term sacrifice for long-term.
Number three, go all in on the industry. Be a sponge, learn all the stuff, explore, ask lots of questions, get curious, take a wide variety of clients in your first year.
I remember when I was in school, I was like, “Oh perfect, I want to do clients who look, talk, and act like me.” I wanted to do women in their early twenties who had very long hair. Extensions weren’t a big deal at that time, but it was highlights, men’s chunky highlights, but definitely lots and lots of foiling, weaving. Balayage wasn’t a thing. Precision haircuts were a really big deal. A-lines, really crisp, bobs, all those things were a big deal. I was like, “Cool, that’s what I want to do.”
I tried to build a clientele like that for probably about six months and I didn’t want to do men’s cuts ’cause they scared me and I didn’t want to do short women’s cuts ’cause they also scared me. I tried to stay in this little bubble, in this little box, and I realized pretty quickly that something was off.
It was after a few times that the salon gave me a couple salon clients. One was a woman and probably in her mid forties and she was an all over blonde, no highlights, so I had to figure out how to do an all over blonde just with color, which was scary at first. And then she was this precision bob and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I can do this.”
She was very patient with me the first couple times I did it. It wasn’t so great. Then she became—like I did her hair for probably all three years I was behind the chair, like a really long time. We had a really, really good relationship and connection, and she sent me a lot of clients. She was great. We really grew together ’cause I didn’t try to hide who I was and the authenticity really, really resonated.
What I realized is just because things scare me doesn’t mean that they’re not what I meant to be doing. From that moment forward, I was like, “Oh ho, I’m actually not very good at doing girls in their twenties. I’m really good at doing women in their forties, fifties, even sixties,” like that ended up being my sweet spot, probably because of the fact I was already a mother. I mean I wasn’t going out to the bars, I wasn’t going to school or frat parties. There wasn’t this level of connection I had with these people who were my own age and—oh and men’s cuts. I loved men’s cuts. Some of my favorite, favorite, favorite clients, most loyal, best tippers sent me the most referrals were men’s cuts.
That was a service that I really avoided for a long time too and had I not just put myself out there and realize oh my gosh, these clients are so fun, they’re actually easier to please, we have a great time together, they don’t argue with me about pricing. Why wouldn’t I want these great clients?
I found these segments of clientele that maybe had scared me before but were perfect for me because I was willing to go all in and just explore.
Next, build your website and Instagram while you’re still in school. Don’t worry about online reviews yet. It will be nearly impossible to get them, so don’t worry about it. But we want to start building your digital footprint and that’s going to start with both a website and your Instagram.
Questions that come up: “How can I build a website? I know I’m going to be a salon employee.” Listen to me: build the website anyway. Keep hanging with me, I’ll tell you why in future episodes.
Dip into Thriving Stylist podcast. Follow me on Instagram @brittseva. You’ll know why very quickly.
Instagram while you’re still in school. A lot of people were like, “Well, I don’t want people to know I’m a student,” but you are. Like oh, well. P.S. everybody knows that people start off in cosmetology school or an apprentice or everybody starts somewhere and everybody knows it so the idea of “I don’t want to be where I am.” Oh well, too bad, you are where you are. Everybody starts somewhere.
One of my favorite things to do is I go back and scroll the feeds of today’s most successful stylists and guess what? Their pictures are in beauty school, terrible lighting, haircuts on doll heads, color that looks awful. But they were proud of it at the time and I love it. I love it so much ’cause it’s like look how far you’ve come. That journey is what built the foundation for their growth.
You will not learn to be good at taking pictures on social if you don’t start with bad ones. You will not learn how to write captions if you don’t fumble through the first 30. You will not gain a following if you don’t start. So just start.
Seek a supportive salon who prioritizes marketing and has a growth path and seems progressive. That’s three things. Prioritizes marketing, has a growth path, and seems progressive. That’s what you’re looking for. If you can’t find that, that’s okay. You’ll have to invest in education yourself. And by invest, I mean time and money. If you just find a spot that’s cool and they’ll give you a chair, that’s fine, but you’re going to sink to the bottom if you don’t invest in education, time and money.
Something you should know, booth rental and studio suites are very expensive and unpredictable. I like both models. Huge fan of booth rental, huge fan of studio suites. If I opened a salon today, it would be employee-based for a lot of different reasons.
I like the idea of culture and, for me, I’m not saying that you can’t have really cultured booth rental salon, I know too many of them to think that that’s not possible. But for me and what I want to build, I think that would be the model I would prefer. I think I’ve seen it done really successfully where all the stylists and the owners are really profitable.
For me, that would be my preference. That being said, owning an employee-based salon is no small feat and not everybody’s cut out for it and I totally get that too.
But if you’re a stylist who’s going to choose to go independent, I cannot express enough how expensive it is to stock a back bar, to buy hair color, to even buy things like shears, brushes, combs, foils, quats. You can’t even—wifi hotspots. All the little things you’re going to need. If you have an investor, you can try, but there is nothing that will make you feel more small and more down on yourself than sitting alone in an empty studio suite, wondering how you’re going to build a clientele. Can I get an amen?
If you talk to people who jumped into studio suites too early, that will make you question all of your business choices and it shouldn’t have to. That’s not a necessary step. There are great team-based salons, whether they be booth rental or commission to work at, so you don’t build a clientele alone from the jump, like surround yourself. It really does make such a huge difference. Even if you’re an introvert such as myself, building with others always feels better than building alone to start.
Hourly salons are a great place to start to build confidence and experience. My daughter’s beauty school, what they were suggesting was for her to go to a franchised, low price point, cutting-specific salon chain, let’s just say that. At first, I was like, oh my gosh, that’s—and to be fair, it still makes me a little bit upset because that’s the only path they’re promoting and it really rubbed me the wrong way because I think this is such an industry of opportunity. I don’t think there’s one path for everybody.
At first, I was like, “You’re not going to do that. You’re going to find a great commission salon and you’re going to work there.” And then I thought to myself, “No, no, no, she’s going to do what she wants to do.” And there are really, really great benefits too, even if it’s cut-only, like just learning to do haircuts proficiently and efficiently and working with different personality types.
Going back to the four barriers when you join the industry, it’s money, skills, confidence, and clients. You would knock out skills, confidence, and clients right there. If confidence comes from doing the reps and the education, you’re going to get that. You’re going to hone in your skills. Even if it’s just in cutting or it’s just in color, well, that’s half the battle, right? Or just in styling. Good. That’s something you need to learn and then you’re going to start to work with clients.
Now, I will say when you go to a place like that, generally speaking, the clients are loyal to the franchise, not to the person. But that’s okay because if your purpose in going there is to gain confidence in skills and earn money while you’re doing it, you’ll check all three of those boxes. While it still grinds my gears a little bit that her beauty school is saying that is the only path for new graduates, ’cause I could not disagree more, I think it’s a real viable path. Definitely.
And then lastly, commissioned salons can be incredible for long-term employment so long as you find one that’s run by a leader. Some of my favorite stylists today are long-time employees who are making really good money and working really dream schedules and getting really great perks and benefits.
I just want to dismantle the idea that the only way to be happy or successful in the industry is to be independent. Like I said at the beginning, I think there’s so many beautiful paths that you can chase, follow, and find in the industry. Be open, find yours. Don’t catch the FOMO. Don’t worry about what anybody else will think.
That’s the one piece of advice I wish I had followed more when I was younger, is to worry about me and mine, not anybody else or theirs.
I want you to do a little soul searching. Start to follow some local salons in your area on Instagram. Start to find some great educators and just really dive into the industry. It will take such good care of you if you take good care of yourself.
Y’all so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
