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 this week, we’re going to talk about hiring the perfect salon manager. Salon leaders, listen up. This one’s for you. Even if you’re not a salon leader, even if you’re a solo stylist and you’re like, “Listen, I need help, I need a social media manager, I need support, I need an assistant.” And when I say assistant—ooh, that’s another podcast we should do. When I say assistant, I don’t necessarily mean somebody licensed. I mean somebody who’s going to place your orders for you, do social media for you, manage your clientele books, do your appointment reminders. There is some really fun stuff you could do with a business assistant.
But what I’m saying is when you’re going to make a strategic hire, let’s look at how we make that strategic hire in the most effective way possible.
I was in a workshop recently and to the salon owner I’m about to tell a story about, please know I’m saying this from a place of massive respect and reflection and from experience. She was saying, “I’m really excited. I’ve hired my first salon manager.”
I was like, “Great, tell me about this person.” It was this person where it’s everybody loves this person. They’re certainly talented, hard worker, magnetic personality. Often, we think, “Okay, for a salon manager, we want somebody who is all those things.” Hardworking, dynamic personality. Often it’s not that that makes for a great salon manager and I want to tell you why.
What I’ve noticed, and in my experience, a lot of times when we think like, “Great, I’m going to hire a salon manager,” you think they’re going to be the sun, moon, and stars for your business. They’re going to run your front desk, they’re going to manage your stylists, they’re going to place your orders for you. They’re going to run the social media, they’re going to deal with the angry clients. They’re going to plan the holiday party and they’re going to make the list for the potluck. Generally, no.
Here’s the thing. I understand that we as business owners are jacks of all trades. We will do everything. I always joked and I said when I was hired at my first salon, I would’ve licked the floor if they asked me to. I am very much wired that way. I am a workhorse to the bitter end, sometimes to my own demise. We’re a rare breed. If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably fairly wired like I am, where we understand the power of hard work and we’re willing to do a lot of whatever it will take to get the job done. That’s what makes us business owners.
If you’re going to hire somebody who’s an employee, every once in a while you can find somebody with an owner’s mindset, who doesn’t have the drive to own something themselves. Something to note: that person’s going to want to high salary because they do have that owner’s mindset and they will take on that personal responsibility.
If you have the salary to do it, when you’re making a strategic hire like this, I would hire somebody with the owner’s mindset. Somebody with the owner’s mindset is not necessarily the person who’s cute and charming and has a lot of charisma. That can be a really good face of the brand and we’ll talk about that.
There was one person in our salon who was those things, like literally was the face of our brand. Charming, told the funny jokes, great storyteller, terrible business manager, did not have the skills for that at all. Versus I came in and essentially I was the business manager. I don’t know what your impression of me on this podcast is or if you work with me in Thrivers Society, but my real personality is a little bit sharp. I’m a get-’er-doner. Whatever it takes to do that is what we will do. It made me an exceptional salon leader, but I’m not maybe the most charismatic, I’m maybe not the funniest. I’m not somebody who’s really great to go out with on a Saturday night in that sense of keeps the crowd roaring.
You can’t have people in your salon who are that, generally speaking. It’s not going to be the world’s best salon manager. Sometimes yes, often not. It’s a really different skillset.
I want to take a look at what it looks like to hire the perfect salon manager. What things are sometimes an unreasonable ask of that person, what their job description should look like, and what it should not look like.
First of all, I want to start with if you’re thinking about making a strategic hire, who does that strategic hire need to be? To uncover who that really should be, we start by making a list of all the things you’re supposed to be doing in a month yourself.
If you’re a salon owner, what are all the things you should be doing in a month? This should be a list of all the things you are currently doing, plus the stuff you should be doing that you don’t have time for or you’re not making time for. It’s going to be everything. I mean running payroll, doing the accounting, picking up supplies, whether it be salon amenities, color/texture products, anything. Setting up the wifi, managing the computer booking system, hiring/firing, employee training, taking clients, running social media. Then when you say running social media, list all the apps you should be doing, photo shoots, in-depth marketing, taking classes, literally all the things you could and should be doing to run your business.
Make a list of all that stuff. Whole thing. It should be long. If you own a salon and your list is not at least a full page long and then some, you’re probably missing some things you should be doing. Huge page and list of all the stuff you do okay and/or should be doing.
Then I want you to make a list of just the three to five things that only you can do, but preferably the list of three to five things you’re the best at ’cause I know for me, there’s some stuff where I was like, “Well, I’m the only one who can do paid advertising around here.” Well, that’s because I was the only one who knew how to do it. I could certainly delegate that to somebody else if somebody’s qualified and is able to be mentored. But I convinced myself for a long time only I could do it. That’s a lie. I was the only one qualified at the time to do it, but certainly somebody else could.
I want you to make a list of three things that you’re the best at. Maybe for you, you are the best at greeting clients, like literally nobody’s better and you enjoy it. Amazing. Write that down.
When you say three things you’re the best at, let’s be honest: are you the best at mentoring your team? Okay, write that down. It should be things that you enjoy as well. There’s a lot of junk that I’m good at that I call it junk instinctually because I hate it. There’s a lot of stuff I’m really good at that I cannot stand. When I start to get burnt out, my team will come to me and they’ll say, “Hello, what is the stuff that you’re not enjoying right now?” What they’ll do is they’ll work to take that off my plate because even though I might be good at it and even though I might be capable, I may not enjoy it. That’s a huge red flag too.
A list of three to five things that you’re the best at and that you really enjoy doing. That’s going to become your new job description. What we’re going to do is take a look at mega list and look at all those things and say, “Okay, great, based on mega list, is this one job description? Is this two job descriptions?” Then we’re going to find somebody to fill those one or two jobs.
Here’s what most people do instead. Most people meet somebody that they like and they’re like, “You know what, Adriana? You need a job and I need help. Come on in and let’s figure it out.”
Has anybody ever done that? Every once in a while that works. I’ve certainly made some hires that way and it’s worked out really well. Most of the time, it’s an epic failure and most of the time what happens is it actually works okay for a while, but over time, resentment builds and either the business outgrows the person or the person outgrows the business or the person starts to feel like, “This is not what I signed up for.” Like they got a little bamboozled and generally, they feel bamboozled ’cause you didn’t really know what you were doing either, right? You didn’t really have a job description. You were like, “Let’s just wing it. We’ll just figure it out together.” It seems like this fun adventure you’ll be on for some reason as if we’re like going on a camping trip.
But the reality is we’re building a business and that doesn’t make much sense, but we do these kind of things. I want you to resist doing that and instead make the job description before you hire the person.
Let’s talk about looking for the person. To do that, I want to lean into a book that’s been really beneficial to me and to my team. It’s called Predictable Success and it’s written by an author named Les McKeown and he’s wonderfully Irish. If you listen to his book on Audible, you get to enjoy his fantastic accent. But beyond that, he’s exceptionally knowledgeable. I’ve read every book he’s written and he’s an amazing leadership and business growth coach.
One of the things he talks about Predictable Success is the four working styles as he calls them. I think this is important to understand because often what we do is we hire somebody and like I said, we expect them to be the sun, moon, and stars, and then we’re incredibly disappointed when they can’t pull it off. Sometimes we’re just setting people up to fail.
Let’s look at these four different working styles to define what the perfect hire for you should be doing and what their work style should look like.
The four working types that Les McKeown talks about are operators, visionaries, processors, and synergists. Let’s actually start with the visionaries. More than likely, if you’re a salon owner or a stylist even, you’re a visionary. Very, very common. Visionaries are almost always founders. They come up with a business idea, the concepts, the branding, all that good stuff. If you’re like, “Ooh, I love that kind of stuff,” I know it makes you a visionary.
Visionaries are great at thinking big, dreaming big, brainstorming, being creative. Visionaries are also really great problem solvers. That’s why you know how your stylist will come to you and they’ll be like, “I have a problem, help me.” It’s ’cause you’re a visionary and they’re not. They’re not stupid people, they’re just not visionaries.
We say things like, “I wish they would take more accountability.” You just might not have visionaries in the house. Now, maybe they are being lazy. There’s some people who are visionaries who are just simply lazy or you’re making it too easy for them not to take accountability, which is a whole ‘nother issue. But visionaries are generally great natural problem solvers and they don’t need that much help.
They’re excellent communicators, huge risk takers and very visual learners, talkers, and thinkers.
The other thing is they’re very courageous. They’re not afraid to make big leaps of faith and just try stuff out.
Now their downside is they’re starters. They like the beginning, they like the impetus, they like the dream stage. They get really irritated in the details and in the process and how long it takes. Then something shows up and it’s not what they thought it was going to be and then that’s irritating. Then they need to take a step back and take a break and they get derailed because they want to get back to that visionary cycle.
What happens is visionaries often have a hard time getting things off the ground, so they surround themselves with—if they’re smart—operators, processors, and synergists.
Let’s take a look at what those things look like.
Usually the next smart hire is going to be an operator. Operators are categorized as bulldozers, so they will make the result happen no matter what it takes. A good operator will do that. They can’t figure out exactly what needs to be done. Generally speaking, that would be the visionary. The visionary would say, “Listen, I think we need to figure out how we can create a rewards program for our clients,” and the operator will be like, “Amazing. I can make that happen for you.” The operator will do all the research. They’ll figure out what could possibly happen for the rewards program and they’ll bang it out. Operators are great finishers.
Visionaries are good starters. Operators are good, good finishers.
Now there’s a problem with the operator and the operator is not very detail-oriented. Usually to balance out an operator, you want somebody called a processor.
Processors are very detail oriented. Have you ever heard about anybody being called type A? If you’ve ever called somebody a type A person, you know what I mean. They’re a processor, always. They live for the details, systems, structure. It’s very frustrating to them when there’s no standard operating process, when there’s no blueprint to follow to get something done.
If you have a processor on the team and you’re like, “Hey, I need you to figure out a rewards program,” what they’re going to say to you is, “Okay, what is it that you want that to look like? What is it you’re looking to achieve? What are the KPIs we want to make sure we’re hitting? What is the deadline for the rollout?”
Processors need the details. For visionaries, it’s almost like our arch nemesis ’cause we’re like, “I don’t know, that’s why I hired you. You tell me what all those things are, right?” But the processor was like, “Uh, no, it’s not my job to come up with all of those details. I can tell you what questions need to be asked, but, and I can create the process for you. I need you to clarify for me exactly what it is you’re looking for.”
There’s this beautiful marriage that happens with a visionary, a processor, and a operator because what happens is the visionary can share the idea, the processor can look at all the parts and pieces and make sure that nothing slips through the cracks, and the operator/the bulldozer can push it through to the finish line.
Now, that doesn’t mean you need to hire three people, but what it does mean is I want you to be aware of these different personality types.
What happens often is somebody decides they’re going to hire a salon manager or something like that and they’re like, “This is going to be perfect. This person’s going to do social media, they’re going to manage my team, they’re going to do the retail inventory, they’re going to create amazing rewards programs for the clients. They’re going to do all the client depreciation, they’re going to decorate for our holiday party.” Can you see how that’s a really big mix of skill sets?
Here’s the irony is that us as salon owners are like, “I can’t do all that. I can’t possibly do all that. I’m completely overwhelmed and burnt out. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to hire somebody and I’m going to burn them the F out and I’m going to give them all these things to do,” because certainly somebody else is amazing at social media can manage a full team, is inspiring enough to mentor my stylist, is researched enough to develop a rewards program. You can’t pull it off, but you think somebody else can somehow and we rationalize it, right?
Generally not.
What I want you to do is as you’re interviewing and as you’re hiring, start thinking to yourself, “Is this person a to-do list person? Is this somebody who’s going to geek out over the process?” Do you need somebody to come in and systematize your business? If so, you’re looking for somebody who’s more type A or more processor. Guess what? Processes are not charismatic. When you hire a processor and you want them to write funny, funny Instagram captions, they’re not going to be able to do it. Now they are going to be able to create an employee handbook for you though. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s two different skillsets. Stick a processor at your front desk, good luck.
Now, on the flip side, they will organize and optimize your books. They’ll be able to come up with incredible reports for you, but they’re not going to be the warm, fuzzy greeter at your front desk at all.
Now they will hold clients accountable to your cancellation policy without a doubt. Think of them as almost like the hammer, right? But they’re not going to be the warm, fuzzy, telling jokes at your holiday party. It’s just not how they’re wired.
Then there’s the synergist. The synergist is your party planner. The synergist is somebody who wants everybody happy. They want everybody satisfied, everybody engaged, everybody to feel motivated. They believe teamwork is absolutely critical.
Now, some leaders evolve from visionaries to synergists. What happens when a leader evolves from a visionary to a synergist is actually a beautiful thing. They become more involved with the success of the company and the success of the team than just coming up with new ideas. A synergist is okay with the boredom. A synergist says “That’s okay so long as everybody in the building is happy and the clients are happy, we don’t need to be creating new, sexy, exciting ideas all the time. It’s okay to just make sure we take care of our own.”
A synergist is generally a very evolved visionary and it can happen and it can be possible. A synergist is crucial to really great salon culture. I used to be almost like an angry visionary. That’s the best way I can describe myself. I love new ideas. It frustrated me when people couldn’t get to where I wanted them to be fast enough. I just want to chase new exciting things when things got boring, I would throw a wrench in the plan and now I’m at the place where I would like the balance, please. I would like the team to be content. I’d like the members to be content. I’d like those that I serve to be content and I would like everybody to just find peace. That is what the synergist does.
Imagine having a business where all you had was somebody who was thinking of wild ideas all the time. A type A person who is the hammer crushing down the rules. The operator who’s the bulldozer who will just make sure to get everything done no matter who gets run over in the process. And nobody who’s the synergist, who’s like, “Hey y’all, have we thought about doing team appreciation recently?” Right?
The synergist is like the tie that binds. When you have all these parts and pieces, that’s when you have a fully dynamic team. It took me about six years to have all of these parts and pieces.
What I’m saying is when you make this strategic manager hire, you don’t need to have all three of these pieces or all four of these pieces—depending on where you fit in this process—figured out. But what I want you to understand is if you hire somebody who’s a processor and expect them to run your social media, they’re probably going to be able to make a social media calendar for you, choose out a cadence for the post, and then they’re going to be like, “Yeah, but somebody else is going to have to manage this thing.” They can create a plan for you, but asking them to execute on it is probably beyond their skillset.
Versus you can ask an operator to do your social media. Don’t be mad when there’s typos in what they put together. Don’t be upset when they put content up that kind of doesn’t make sense. Don’t be mad when they forget to post for a week. It’s not their thing. They’ll do the social media. They told you they would do it, but don’t worry about the process. That’s not really their bag.
Generally, the reason why I said that before you make the hire, you make the job description is because my next tip is to hire for skill, not for salary or for personality.
When you say things like, “I need a salon manager, but I can only afford to pay $15 an hour,” now you’re at a place where you’re like, “I’m going to get whomever is willing to do the job at $15 an hour,” and you’re going to hire the funniest person who you want to go out to lunch with. That’s what a lot of people do and it’s such a massive mistake. I’ve certainly done that before. It’s bit me in the butt every single time.
What you want to be doing is hiring somebody who makes up for all your fatal flaws. For example, I hired an entire creative team to support me in this business. You know why? I’m terrible at making my own Canva graphics. Those of you who were in Thrivers in 2016 have a good chuckle when I say that because you remember all the gold glitter and the weird branding that I was using back then. Guess what? It’s not my bag. I can tell you what looks good and what’s bad. I understand branding to a fault. I understand what branding looks like. It doesn’t mean I can create it myself. I’m not good at it. So I hire a creative team who can do those kind of things, right?
Managing the day-to-day people in my business, guess what? I’m not that great at it. I hired somebody else who’s better at it than me. I’m good at being the visionary. I’m good at being the synergist. I’m good at being a motivator. When it comes to the daily grind details, I’m not so great. I’m not a good processor. I’m not even a great operator and so when I hired managers and a manager, I have somebody who’s an operator, I have somebody who’s a processor so that I cover my bases in those areas.
The person who’s my chief operations officer is a phenomenal operator. We have processors to support her so that she has the support that she needs. The people in my company who are processors are a freak in the sheets. Have you ever heard that? Saying they’re in the spreadsheets, they’re doing the data, they’re organizing our CRM system. If you want somebody to optimize your online booking system for you, that’s going to be a processor.
Again, that person is probably not going to be able to write the most incredible Instagram captions for you.
I want you to look at your list of things that you’re looking for in this hire and say, “Do I need somebody to create systems and process?” Great. You’re going to hire somebody who is a processor. They may never work the front desk and they’re probably not going to do your social media, but man, will they get those systems and processes put in place.
Or you’re going to hire somebody who’s an operator, who is going to be beloved at your front desk and may be able to write funny, funny Instagram captions. They may mess up the cadence on social media from time to time, but they will get the work done and they will be able to create amazing rewards program for you.
You need to decide what’s more important right now. Systems and structure or the charisma or the vision. What is more important to you right now? That’s how you hire.
Now, the reason I say don’t hire for salary or personality, when we hire for personality, generally we hire people that are like us. We don’t need another one of you. We’ve got you. We’re trying to hire somebody who makes up for where you lack. It should be somebody that you enjoy, but maybe somebody you wouldn’t be best friends with.
Somebody that can do the things you’re not so great at is who you’re actually looking for.
Here’s the reality, and you should know this: the best of the best talent don’t come cheap. If you hire the bargain employee, you’re going to get a bargain result. Now, sometimes we hire whatever we can afford. If you can’t afford to pay somebody a reasonable salary, then maybe you don’t hire a salon manager right now. Maybe you do just start with a social media manager or you start with an executive assistant. But often what happens is we wait to make the strategic hire until we’re at the end of our rope. We’re burnt out and we’re like F it. You put your hands up and you’re like, “I’m hiring a manager. I’m hiring somebody to do all of this stuff ’cause I don’t want to do it anymore,” rather than picking and choosing the three to five things that you actually are good at, keeping those things for yourself, and then hiring to replace the certain things that you’re not so good at, you will have a much, much stronger result.
Final tip, your job is to hire somebody more beloved than you. A lot of times when we make hires, we hire people, but we don’t want them to be too good ’cause we don’t want them to surpass us. We don’t want them to be better than us. That is so dumb. I want my entire team to be smarter, stronger, and more educated than me because that’s what’s going to uplevel the business. You should be doing the same. Hire a manager with more experience than you have, not less. That’s where your business really starts to uplevel. Hire the manager who has the skillset you’ve never been able to quite get. That’s who you want to bring into the business. Never feel threatened.
Now there’s a strategy that I want to talk to. It’s called the mailroom strategy and it’s where you hire somebody who’s a kid who’s green. I say “kid,” it’s because I’m pushing 40 now and so everybody’s a kid to me. But you hire somebody who’s younger and you say things like, “Well, they’ve got a lot of promise, I’m going to groom them up.” Okay, great. Just expect that your workload’s not going to change for two to three years while you groom that person up.
If you want to pay somebody a lower wage and and pour into them and train them, that is going to be a very heavy workload for you. They’re not going to take a lot off your plate, it’s going to put a lot on your plate ’cause you’re going to need to train and mentor them for the course of a couple of years. But in the long run, it might be worth it.
What is more important to you right now, time or money? If time is more important, spend the money to make the good hire. If money is more important, be willing to invest the time to train somebody else properly. Does this make sense?
I hope this has given you some clarity on what you should be looking for in a salon manager, things that you should skip, things that you should avoid, and things to think about when you’re making that strategic hire.
Y’all, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
