Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hairstylist? 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 social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you weren’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 hairstylists, 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 we are exposing industry education. And I’m full disclosure on this one, I’ve recorded this episode now twice because it’s a very complicated topic and I have so much data and so much information that… I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on a podcast. Trying to put it all together in a cohesive way that makes sense was admittedly a challenge. So, if as you’re listening you’re like, this is a lot of information or a lot of different perspectives, you are correct. I can’t lie on that. I did so much research on this and talked to so many people about it, and I don’t want to leave any stones unturned. I want to share as much as I can. But with that, it’s going to be like information overload. It’s going to be a lot.
And what I wanted from this episode was to represent the stylist, represent the salon owner, and represent the educator, and try to make everybody feel heard. So, the last time I did an episode like this was when I did the one about something funky in the air in the world of extensions, which is still one of our top-rated episodes. That was a great one. It was kind of like an investigative journalism style episode. This is of that same likeness. This is kind of like an expose. I basically want to share all of the conversations I’ve had. And I want to start the top of this episode by thanking everybody who participated. So, for me to gather this information, I did a series of Instagram stories letting everybody know I was doing this. And stylists, you showed up. So, big salon owners, you showed up so big.
But what really surprised me is how big some of today’s biggest industry educators showed up. They didn’t owe me anything. I think that it was very vulnerable and admirable for the truly big name educators in this space today to feel comfortable sharing their truth with me, knowing I wasn’t going to overly expose them. I’m not going to drop specific names, that’s just not how I roll. But we have some data from the dream wishlist educators of today. And I have a lot of data from up and coming educators too. And I just want to thank everybody for sharing your truth with me, because my goal in doing episodes like this is always to elevate the industry. And I think that a lot of frustration and resentment comes from misunderstanding, like the vast majority. And so, I hope that by doing this episode, I’m able to clear up all of that, if not a lot of that, and get us all to a place of like, okay, well, if nothing else, things make sense. If nothing more, that’s what I’m hoping for in this one.
So, I want to share where this episode started. It wasn’t something I was like, oh, let’s pick apart industry education. That’s not how it started. I got this DM. And the DM was actually on the flip side of, I did an episode a few weeks back now where I talked about if I were starting as an educator today, because I got a question about that. And I did an Instagram story saying it was coming up. And this salon owner reached out to me and in response to that episode said this, “My concern as a salon owner when bringing in educators to my space is that we used to be able to pay an educator a flat rate to come out. They would have a limit to how many people were allowed to be in the class, and it all seemed to work out. But now I’m finding it difficult to bring education into the salon because the educators are wanting to charge per person.”
That’s probably in the last, I don’t know, seven or eight years, the per ticket thing has become a really common model. If you don’t know now, you know. Back a decade ago, that wasn’t how education was done. It wasn’t per ticket when it was in the salon. It was per ticket when it was at a convention or something like that. But in salon was pretty much flat rate. That was very, very common. But listen, that was also what a time where it was almost all branded education. Independent education did not really take off until 2015. So, we’re not even a decade into that. So, anytime before that, it was basically flat rate. A lot of times I have people say they’re going to come to a class, especially if I’m providing it for my team members, but then they back out at the last minute. Ideally for me, I’d like an to charge me a flat rate, I pay them, and then I’d like to be able to make a little bit of income by hosting because it’s a lot of work.
So, I’d most likely provide the education for any of my staff members, but then sell tickets for the remaining seats left to be able to make a little return on my investment, if that makes sense. It’s pretty much impossible to do that. The educator is charging per person. So, much to unpack there. So, I was like, whoa. As this salon owner reached out to me, and thank you to the salon owner who did letting me know this, I was like, dang. That’s when I realized there was this massive disconnect because as an educator, I read this and understand what the issue is. But then as a former salon leader, I also understand what the issue is. I see both sides. And so, I responded and I said, “How much would you be willing to pay an educator flat rate to be able to do it this way?” In the way that she’s proposing, which is the educator charges flat rate and then she can sell tickets. I don’t even know that that’s a thing, but I just wanted to test the waters and see what’s possible.
She said, “When I first opened, I had a few people who would charge an hourly rate. I guess it would depend on what kind of education was coming in. If it was something in depth and hands-on, I’d be okay to spend a $1,000 and to $3,000 if I can get at least a little ROI. The last couple of times I’ve had an educator come in when they said they charged per person. So, for example, $150 per person. I asked if they’re okay if I charged $200 a ticket so I can make up some of my expenses. I don’t know if it’s just the area I’m in, but I’ve had a very hard time finding anyone that charges a flat rate. My problem is I always want to pay for my staff, but a lot of them don’t show up very last minute though, even though I do multiple check ins with them, it’s very frustrating. I can’t wait to learn more about what you’re finding out.”
So, there’s so many challenges and issues coming up in that. One, the salon owner feels like they’re struggling to get educators to come out within their budget. Two, they’re struggling to cover the cost of education. And then three, they’re struggling to get their team to show up for the education that they pay for. So, it’s this rough dynamic. So, based on that, I started asking more questions on Instagram stories to see if this podcast topic had legs. And I got a lot of feedback from salon owners of saying things like, “I can’t get big educators to come out to my space. Is it because of the city and state that I’m in? I have the budget, but I can’t seem to find people who want to come in and work for me. And/or lots of feedback like this salon owner is saying, I could pay for whoever, but if my stylists don’t want to come, they don’t want to come.
I see all sides. For me. I just want to start with this and then we’ll get into the meat and potatoes of the episode. When a salon owner is saying, “I have stylists who don’t want to come to education,” it just begs the question, do you have the right people in the building? We work in a trade. I think it’s so awesome that we say things like we’re artists and we’re creatives. We are artists and we’re creatives, but at the end of the day, we are tradespeople. And in a trade, you always have to be improving your skills. The work is never done when it comes to education in an industry like ours. You will never be educated enough because the industry is always evolving and changing. So, when I look back at my salon team, I had one stylist who absolutely refused to come to education. And that person was basically grandfathered in to this reality of I’m not coming to education.
By the time I showed up at the salon as an assistant, that was already the model. I never sat in a class with this person. Not one time in all the years I was there. So, when I came in as a leader of the salon, it wasn’t for me to say, “Well, now I’m the leader. Now you have to show up.” Because that system was already in place. So, I just stepped into that flash forward, that stylist is no longer in the industry, which no surprise. And by the way, it’s not because the industry flushed that person out, it’s because their goal was never to stay in the industry as a stylist. And I think sometimes we look at our team as the best that we can do or maybe this is how everybody is. If you want to have a team that loves education, then hire a team that loves education.
And then by the way, if someone chooses not to come to education, are you okay with that? If you’re okay with that, then that’s fine. If you’re not okay with it, you need to handle it. But I think that the idea of they don’t come, and it’s so frustrating, and I’m so annoyed by it, that’s just toxic. So, you either tell your stylist, “It’s a requirement of working here that you come to the education I bring in,” or you let it go completely. Humans have free will. And so, either if it’s something that bothers you, you set up terms and conditions of working for you that require education and/or you let it be. But letting it fester and let it be a frustration is bad for everybody and no one’s going to win. So, I’ll get off that soapbox. But just something I wanted to say to that point for a moment, really decide what’s critical for you and are you fostering environment where that is made critical.
Because I will say towards the end of my time in leadership, I did talk to that stylist and I said, “It’s become a friction point that you get to run through the salon in a different way than everybody else.” She gave her notice three months later. Do I think that’s because of the conversation we had? No. I think that it’s just where this person’s life was and I think that it made sense for them to move on. But there was nothing I could have done to change the behavior. That was the decision that person had made. So, just something to think about. Okay, so let’s go back to the core of this episode and I want to talk about the disconnect between the educator, the owner, and the stylist.
So, the friction to me is that stylist and salon owners want to get what they pay for, and I’m doing air quotes. If you’re not watching this on YouTube, I’m doing air quotes, get what they pay for. When I was asking questions about what are you looking for in educators, if I had a dollar for every time somebody said, “Get what I pay for,” huge friction point. And that could be a blind spot for a lot of today’s educators who are filling up classes or selling seats to their digital programs. That does not mean people feel like they’re getting what they paid for. And that was a massive pain point. So, something to think about. Number two, salon owners really want to provide amazing education for their teams but don’t feel like they’re getting the opportunity to do so. And number three, educators definitely want to educate without a doubt. That’s why they call themselves educators. But they need to make a living too.
So, I want to talk about the relationship between all three of those truths, the breaking points, all the stuff. So, let’s start with the educators. So, like I said at the beginning, the information I’m about to share from educators is a cross section. I have some of today’s literally leading educators, like hundreds of thousands of followers, $800 for a single day look and learn ticket, big, big name people. Then I also have educators who responded who I wasn’t even familiar with yet, and have smaller followings, are currently teaching within their own salon that are trying to branch out. I have some educators where I certainly know who they were. You may know who they were. They’re coming up. So, the educators I’m speaking from, it’s a good cross section. It’s a lot. And I’m going to break out their feedback whenever I can.
So, one of the questions I asked is, “Hey, if you’re an educator, are you planning to teach in person in the next 12 months? Is that a priority for you?” Educators with a smaller following, said, overwhelmingly yes, or, “I really want to be able to.” So, either, “Yes, definitely I am or I’d like to get to a place where people are willing to pay to come see me in person.” Interestingly enough, there was a strong correlation between bigger name educators, those with bigger followings, those who you’ve seen touring, those who you’ve seen traveling around to teach said, “Yes, but I’m feeling a little burnt out.” I got that a lot coming out of 2020 especially, a lot of educators spent two, three years pushing really hard. And right thing, right time. I don’t think there’s any regrets, but a lot of them are saying, “I just need to take my foot off the gas for a second.” There was kind of a cry out to that and I just want to make note of it.
When I asked, “What class sizes are you interested in working with?” Really, really good mix. So, for educators who are just starting out or educators with smaller followings, there seemed to be a correlation of around six to 10 people. So, they were looking for a smaller group. They’re saying six is enough to be interactive with and still feels worth it. And if you’ve ever hosted in-person education, you do have to find your sweet spot. And I don’t think all of us as educators have the same sweet spot. So, the sweet spot is somewhere where you can be effective in what it is you’re teaching and there’s still enough energy in the room where there’s like connection, camaraderie, networking.
So, often people are like, “I really want one-to-one education.” One-to-one education, you walk away with an incredibly different feeling than you do in any kind of group scenario. Almost feels like you got hit by a Mack truck. You’re like, you know how you walk away from a great in-person at class, whether it be small group or big group, and you’re like, “I’m fired up. I love it.” One-to-one doesn’t often have that same feeling and if the classroom is too small, you can easily have people walk out feeling like, “Oh, that wasn’t really what I wanted to be.” Also, if you have the room too big, people can feel like they didn’t get what they paid for. So, it’s about finding that sweet spot. When it came to the bigger name educators, basically it started at 25 people or more. So, one educator said 25 people plus if I’m traveling to them. So, if I’m getting on a plane, I need at least 25 in the room. Somebody else said it depends on the details. It’s got to make mathematical sense. Which again, you’re going to see this coming throughout.
We’ll get into the truth of it, but a lot of the bigger name educators are like it’s got to make sense on paper. Two industry educators who are a big deal said minimum of 40 plus, minimum of 40 plus. Right now I’m on tour, I’m doing the Thriving Stylist tour. We had a minimum of 50 plus. And that’s where again, the math mathed and it started to make some sense. Anything less than that, it just wasn’t working out. So, if you’re like, “I want a small group hands-on with a big name educator,” that’s fine, but there’s going to be a gigantic price tag on that because it’s a disconnect from what bigger educators are looking for versus what you’re trying to pull off. So, it’s not to say it’s not possible, it’s tricky.
Then I got into, what’s your rate? Smaller educators said 600 to 2,500 though 50 to $300 an hour was basically their rate for education. So, 600 bucks for the day or 2,500 for the day. That to me sounds like very reasonable. Bigger name educators were saying between 10,000 to $18,000 for a single day. Then I’d asked this question, which I thought was very interesting, would you ever teach for free? Very fascinating. So, a lot of the smaller educators were basically saying no, they wouldn’t. Like, “No, it doesn’t make sense for me right now.” There were a couple who were like, “Absolutely, I’m just trying to cut my teeth,” and those are my people. Because I taught for free for a really long time until I was sure that what I was doing was ridiculously effective, not just good but ridiculously effective. And that’s when I started charging. So, my rate was $40 an hour for years, a really long… I was definitely undercharging myself, but I wanted to under promise and over deliver until I knew that what I was delivering was banging.
And I think that in education right now, there’s this huge rush to monetize and I don’t think it’s working for educators. I think it’s working against them more often than not, versus bigger name educators. I mean I think it was a 100% said for the right group. Absolutely. And I still teach for free sometimes. And I think that you’ll find that people who are a little more seasoned in education, the reason why they do get so good at doing what they do is because they really freaking love it. They’re not just doing it to make a dollar. And so, when the right opportunity comes along, it’s like, hell yeah, get me in there. It doesn’t matter what the cost is. If they can fly me out there, great, but I don’t need to be paid to speak on the stage. I don’t need to be paid to be in the room for the right cause for the right person. Yes. But then it becomes like who’s the right cause? Who’s the right person?
And what I saw a lot of from these big name educators is the relationship. So, it wasn’t like, “Oh, I felt so sad for them.” Nobody was saying that It was like the relationship. And so, when I say your network is your net worth, I’m not joking. It really, really resounded that I wasn’t the only person with that outlook. That was a collective decision. So, here’s some education realities that I don’t think everybody fully understands. Big brands in our industry pay educators a fraction of what professional speakers would make working for corporate brands outside of the industry. So, it’s interesting. I’ve networked with a lot of people who are not within our industry who are authors, or professional speakers, or big name educators who don’t teach in our space. I’ve spoken in the same rooms as them and commanded the same rate as them before. And the rate I can get speaking outside of our industry is four times more than I can get speaking within our industry.
And that’s simply because the bar for paying for educators in our industry is low. And I don’t think everybody understands that. Even if an educator gets a big gig with a big brand, often it’s going back to what I just said, the would you ever teach for free thing? We look at those big partnerships and we’re like, they cashed out. They’re making all the money. They don’t need more. Y’all don’t understand. It’s not how the rest of the world operates when it comes to hiring a speaker or an educator or facilitator. It’s simply not. As somebody who’s worked on both sides, it’s not. And so, I’m not trying to be shady. There was a while where it bothered me and then I just realized this is just the norm. And sometimes things just are what they are. And you can be irritated by it for sure, but it just is what it is. You either accept it or you step to the left and let somebody else, because there’s no other way about it.
So, for me, I’ve just accepted it for what it is. I understand the bar is just different. And so, it’s tough to be profitable as an educator. There’s no doubt about it. Number two, it’s extremely hard to make in-person education profitable. I have said that very openly. I have never, ever, ever hosted my own in-person education profitably. Thriving Stylist tour, non-profit. Thrivers live, non-profit. Thrivers live digital, non-profit. We have gone over a million dollars in event expenses in the red. It is just really hard to make in-person education financially even a break even. And if you talk to a brand, you talk to an industry educator, it’s hard. Has anybody ever hosted a wedding or a big party and you’re like, “Wow, that’s more expensive than I thought?” Same. It’s like so many of the same parts and pieces exists with education.
Now, if we are blessed enough to get a salon space to host in, for me, that can get me to a break even. Where when I say it’s got to make sense, if I can make a break even, I’m happy. But coming up profitable, even if a salon owner donates their space, it’s really hard. And I just want to share that. I think it’s something that’s misunderstood. It’s challenging. Actually, I was going to talk about this later, but let’s talk about this now. When I say that, it sounds flippant, I think, and I want to talk about the variables of in-salon education or platform style education, like stage speaking that people don’t take into account. So, first of all is the cost of travel.
So, I looked it up. The average flight right now in the United States flying within the US boundary is running right under $400 for an economy level ticket. So, you can assume 400 bucks round trip for the flight for your educator at a minimum. So, if you’re only budgeted for $2,000, 25% of that just pays for their flight. So, then we have the hotel. I have taught in big cities and small cities. I would say on average small city, we can get hotel rooms for like $275 a night or something like that. Very doable, you got to say at least two nights. So, we’re at $500, $600, well let’s say 600 with taxes and fees just for the hotel. So, now we’re at over a $1,000 just for travel. Then we got meals, which you can assume is another what, a hundred bucks for both days if you’re eating pretty frugally. So, now we’re at $1,100 simply in travel. So, if you say, my budget for the educator is $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, okay, well, a third of that at a minimum is simply the travel expense. It’s just expensive now.
Then we have the cost of materials. So, for some of people it’s doll heads, bleach color. For me it’s projector, it’s a screen. We do chair rentals. So, when you look at things like that, we’re at a few hundred additional dollars, no doubt about it. And then there’s things like catering. Often you want to have at least something for the attendees, not required certainly. But if it’s an all day class, don’t you as the stylist expect a lunch? Usually, yes. So, now we’re at a few 100 more dollars, which either the salon has to absorb that, or in my case when I host education, my team and I absorb that. So, my overhead to run an event at a low end is easily $2,000 or more when you take everything into account. But generally speaking, that’s like tip of the iceberg. That’s not even all.
The bigger you get with the event, the more facilitations required. So, if it is a 40 or 50 person event, which is what a lot of educators of a certain caliber are looking for, usually at least one or two of their team members needs to come out so that the attendees get a good experience. Sometimes there’s printed materials. The cost just adds up quick. Now, if an educator does not have a salon to host it and they’re renting a space like a hotel or a ballroom, I mean now we’re at a $10,000 facilitation minimum, even at the bare, bare, bare minimum, no food. So, I think that just the cost overall is expensive. And we can say that’s annoying. I am certainly annoyed by it, but it’s also the truth. Now, point number three when it comes to education realities is that a lot of influencers fell into education and just need more time to get it right.
So, I’m going to go into some of the pain points that stylists and salon owners expressed about the educators they’ve worked with in the last few years. So, if you are an educator, take your breath. I heard a lot of information, people were dropping names. And it was across the digital education space and the in-person education space. And I found it to be very eye-opening. And what I ask is, if you’re a stylist who did experience education that you felt like you didn’t get what you paid for, ask yourself, is there a chance this is an educator who is simply very green and got caught up. They gained a following pretty quick. But let’s be honest, they’ve only been teaching three years or less or something like that and they’re just figuring it out. Me personally, I wasn’t a good educator until maybe seven years in, eight years in a really long time. It takes time.
So, there’s that dichotomy too of maybe the class is a little bit overpriced based on the delivery. But we’ll unpack that in a moment. But I do think that that’s a part of the issue is that I don’t think most educators are trying to do you dirty. I think some of them just got caught up in a whirlwind and they’re trying to navigate. Keep that in mind. Okay, so switching gears for a second, what stylists and salon owners want? So, a lot of feedback of I’m looking for smaller classes so I can get more out of it, which is great because that aligns with the up and coming educators wanting to teach rooms of six, to 10, to 12 people. Perfect. When I said, what do you want to learn more about? This was fascinating to me.
So, 7% said cut and collar, 5% said specialty education. 32% said, I’m burnt out and overwhelmed, and 56% said I need more money in clients. But overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, when I said, “Oh, okay, got it. So, what are you taking education on this year?” It was like skill-based certifications. What? Two seconds ago I asked you what do you feel you need to learn more about? And the vast minority of people said, cuts in color or specialty education. But then the majority of people were signing up for those things. Very interesting. I don’t know what to make of that if I could be totally honest, but there was a lot of that happening. And if you think taking a bunch more skills classes and certifications is going to decrease your burnout, I don’t know how that will take place, but just a call-out. Something I found interesting. Don’t know what to make of that data, but it was a thing.
Okay, when I said, what is your budget for education? So, salon owner said, a $100 per stylist per month. I’ve got seven stylists, so about $8,400 per year for education. Another salon owner said, my budget for my entire salon team is $8,000. Another salon owner said, I don’t have a budget as long as I keep getting and seeing results, I keep investing in educators who have helped my business. I love that. That’s very much of the way I’ve educated too. So, instead of taking a bunch of classes and getting a bunch of perspectives from four different educators or four different mentors, I stick with somebody until I stop getting results from them.
If somebody is improving my confidence, my revenue, my organization, whatever it is I’m taking a class for, why would I stop working with that person and go somewhere else? Because I’m bored or FOMO hits? What am I doing? And the naive, younger, less smart me would do that would educator hop because the FOMO would hit and now I’m like, “No, I just want to find one person who can give me a transformation and just be extremely loyal to them.” I thought that was interesting that somebody else echoed the same. Another salon owner said, “$20,000 for my salon team prioritizing how to push our business to the next level and reach a new audience.”
So, $20,000 for my salon team, and a lot of you hear that and say, that sounds outlandish. It’s not. So, the owner who said that is a salon owner who’s doing a few million dollars a year in revenue, I’m certain. And then when you say, “Well, that’s nice for them, if I was doing a few million dollars a year, I would spend that too.” Hold onto that thought. We’re going to circle back around to it. Then I asked independent stylists, how much are you spending on education? And I got lots of $500 to a $1,000. And then I also got lots of $2,000 to $5,000. I got, I take a class when it inspires me and I’d spend up to $5,000 for a good one. And then what I thought was interesting is people were willing to triple to 7x their budget for a dream opportunity.
One of the final questions I asked was, okay, I made people share their budgets. So, somebody said a thousand dollars. Let’s say I’m only willing to spend a thousand dollars for the year. I thought it was fascinating that people said, “But I would go up to $7,000 for a dream opportunity.” That says so much about consumer behavior and taking a step back from education for a second, most of the clients you’re trying to market to are wired the same way. So, when a client says, “Oh, I would never pay more than a $100 for my cut in color.” Well, not given the opportunity you’re giving them now, no, they wouldn’t. But maybe if you were providing a better opportunity for them, they would stretch their budget. Most human beings are wired like that.
If I’m going to buy a pint of ice cream at the grocery store, I’m not going to pay more than $6 for it or something like that. Yet, I’ll go down the street to the ice cream shop with my kids and I’ll spend $6 on a cone. It’s so wild because our perception of the experience changes. So, when I asked everybody how much they’re willing to spend on education, people were willing to 3x to 7x their spend for a dream opportunity. I found that very fascinating. So, then I asked, “What is frustrating for you right now about education?” This was so fascinating to me. Quote number one, “I would love a good haircutting class. Everything out there is balayage. I keep seeing the same techniques promoted over, and over, and over.”
I’ve said this several times in the podcast. If somebody would just come out with an education program teaching basic haircuts, you would make so much money. A lot of educators are trying to teach to the advanced, which is fine. I think that’s a great thing. There’s plenty of advanced people who need to push themselves even further. But the majority of our industry is not advanced. Less than 80% of our industry is making a livable wage right now. So, we can teach advanced skills all day long, but what about the 80% who needs the basic? We laugh and we joke about stylists who are doing hot roots and bleeds in their foils. Okay, teach them class. Teach them a class. And most educators are focused on being fancy because it’s sexy, and exciting, and you can go viral. The money shot is in the basic skill-based education. Basic, basic, basic. Just something to think about.
Next, “I am so sick of seeing educators coming up teaching more of the same stuff that’s already out there.” Lots of that being echoed. Here’s another one. “There’s so much noise. It’s hard to know who’s just good at Instagram versus who’s actually a good educator. I’ve been burned too many times and have fallen for it over and over and will not do it again.” Next, “I hate being sold to stop trying to sell products in your classes. If you talk about it and teach, well, I might actually be interested naturally.” Next, “It seems like branded education right now is a big sales pitch for their products instead of just being great foundational education.” So, those are the gripes. Then I said, “What have you experienced that’s negative in classes?” The price not reflecting, the education being taught. I get the whole demand thing, but these inflated prices for bad classes are getting to be too much.
This is an interesting one, and I heard a couple of stories kind of echoing the same and I want to unpack it to the best of my understanding. So, there a couple of people, I think three probably, reached out, dropped names. And the names they dropped were very big Instagram-worthy stylists today who are now educators selling single day classes at like $600, $700, $800 for mostly a look and learn. And they were basically saying, “I get it. They can command those prices because people are clamoring to get in there. But what I don’t think they realize is people are leaving their classes and talking about how terrible it was.” And I don’t think they realize that because I don’t know why people aren’t going to the educator and being like, “Listen, I took your $700 class and it just wasn’t very good.”
Here’s the thing too. Here’s something that stylists should know. If you have a bad experience with an educator and you go back to them and you’re like, “This was the worst. I want to refund,” you just look like that irate Yelper who’s demanding things and talking wild. It’s really difficult to take you seriously. Versus if you go to an educator and you’re like, “Listen, I’ve admired you for a long time. I took your class. I don’t believe it was as advanced as you’re promoting it to be. Here’s some of the things that were red flags to me.” Some of the things that came up were, somebody was saying they took what was shown to be an advanced balayage class with a very well-known educator, and they were like even we could see in the application that the way that the educator was applying was definitely going to leave bleeds.
She’s like, “People were whispering the back.” She’s like, “I actually felt embarrassed for the educator. And somebody raised their hand and was like, ‘Oh, okay. Are you worried at all about what’s going to happen as the bleach bubbles out of those foils?’ And the educator was like, ‘Oh, no, no worries. We’ll work a little magic at the shampoo bowl for that.'” Which correct, and I totally understand that. Yes, that is how you’d correct that. But imagine paying $700 for a class to learn how to do a toner at the bowl for when you screw up your bleeds. That’s when people say, “I’m not getting what I paid for. I came here so that you could show me how you do what you do without that.” And that’s where the promise and the delivery is having this big disconnect.
We’ve had two in-person classes this year. Both have been a bust. The quality of education just wasn’t there. I hate it when I spend time and money and what’s delivered is different than what was advertised. That’s a perceived value thing. Like promise one thing, deliver another. Here’s another one, “When I take a program and it’s clear they’ve just ripped off a piece of content from somebody else, it’s very obvious when that happens, somebody looks uneducated, it makes me lose trust in them.”
Next, “I brought a program with a 12-month payment option. I chose that option and when I got in there, the program just wasn’t as it was promised. It’s not that I wasn’t doing the work. It’s that the educator wasn’t delivering on what they said that they would do. I called them out on it and they said that I made a choice and if I didn’t make the payments, they’d send me to collections. I understand the terms, I get the conditions no problem. It bothers me when the educator is allowed to change the conditions, but there’s no flexibility on my end.”
You know what? Fair, fair. And listen, as an educator, you don’t have to like it. You just have to know that these are the things that people are saying. And I think this goes back to transparency, kind of like we talked about with the extensions episode, being transparent. So, I don’t know what the situation was exactly on this one, but maybe you’re an educator and a major life event happens, and you had promised to do a series of four life calls and you can’t. You can only do two of them. It’s now your responsibility to find time to make up those two calls you missed. So, if it means giving people an extra two free weeks in your program, you have to do it. You have to take accountability. Life happens. We’re all humans. I understand, but how are you going to make it right?
It’s the same thing we expect in the relationship with our clients as stylists. It’s exactly the same thing. How are you going to make it clean? How are you going to make it right? I heard another one feedback about two educators who were touring together. And it was the same thing, very high cost ticket. It was a look and learn. And they said, “I had admired these people for years and now I unfollowed them because I was so disappointed. If you’re going to charge that high rate, I don’t want to just see banter. I don’t want to hear chit-chat. I want you to teach me something. I see the banter on social media. I am here to learn.”
And listen, here’s the trick too and something everybody needs to understand. There was a season of time where I’m just going to say influencers. I’m not going to say educators, industry influencers were able to tour around and just banter, and take selfies, and people liked it. The challenge is that season doesn’t exist anymore and influencers are now needing to adjust to being educators and it’s going to take them time. It’s a friction point. Again, this is going back to that transparency of I don’t think educators fully understand what’s being said about them, and so they don’t know how to change. My hope is that this shifts that a little bit. So, here was the red flags. I thought this was very interesting. If you are marketing discovery calls on your website, instantly I think you’re a scam artist. Whoa, that was wild to me. Educators who are too woo woo, I don’t want to spend $300 for that, and that’s a personal preference thing.
Some people want that mindset stuff. But just make sure, this goes back to getting what you’re paying for it too. Just saying straight up, this is mostly about mindset. Don’t spin it as we’re uncovering your marketing potential. If it’s mostly about mindset, just call it what it is. I think that’s what that comes from. If you’re charging over $500 for a single day class and there’s no hands-on component, I find that to be a red flag. When educators post a class in a certain city with no specific location, it feels like the class could fall apart at any second. If I’ve taken time off and paid for travel, and the class gets canceled, I’m furious. And this is going to be a long episode. By the way, 40 minutes in. I’m giving you a heads up. This is going to be long. But we’re going to get into some of the formats that are common today and why this happens too.
When educators sell lots of tickets at a high price point, I don’t like it. So, again, people are like, if it’s going to be a high ticket, it either needs to be a stellar experience, which we’ll talk about in a second or low volume. Doesn’t feel luxurious at a high price point. Oh, this one was interesting to me. I do this. This was a note for myself. Trying to pack a ton of information into one day. If it’s a single day class, keep it simple. I thought that was interesting. I am so famous for expecting people to sip off a fire hydrant. And it is a fatal flaw. As an educator, I found that to be really interesting.
So, then I said, how are you currently choosing educators? Asking around in Facebook groups for feedback. I watch educators for several months and look for impact over fame. How educational is their content on social? Is it stuff I already know? Stuff I’m hearing from others? Stuff I’m always learning somewhere else? Or is it actually fresh and innovative? How long have they been doing what they’re doing to teach? Is it some trend that they’re trying to monetize or do they seem like a studied expert? I’ve chosen to shadow and learn from the same two people over and over for the last five years to become a master instead of a generalist. That echoes what we said before. Then I said, “What were your turn ons in education?” This gets interesting hands-on or workshop style, I’d pay more for that. This was a good one. A weekend class that includes dinner for $2,500. It specifically said that includes dinner. And they found that interesting. It’s like they want that networking. They want that connection. $2,500 they were willing to pay one single weekend.
This I thought was fascinating too. These are little like golden nuggets right here. I wish more educators would offer the opportunity to answer questions later when we’re back home trying the techniques in the salon. So, imagine if you’re an educator and you taught a class on gorgeous brunettes or I don’t know, balayage, or extensions, or whatever, whatever your class is on styling, bridal, whatever. And you said In 30 days I’m going to do a Zoom Q&A, and you’re going to be allowed to submit photos and questions to me ahead of time, and we’re going to do a master class unloading all of your most common questions. So, smart. I thought that was a really good one. A virtual experience versus having to travel and go live. This is hard because there’s a real push-pull. Some people much prefer in-person education right now. Some people still like the live stuff.
I will say as a facilitator, it’s easy as a stylist to be like, well, why can’t you just stream it virtually? It is so hard when you’re teaching an in-person class to make it interactive enough that it translates to virtual. I’ve bought virtual tickets to events before and been like, this was a waste of my money because the educator is clearly teaching to the person who’s there, which they should be. That’s fine. But when you’re watching in from the side as a virtual learner, unless it’s a virtually formatted class with the execution on that being totally different, often it falls flat. It’s really difficult to do a hybrid. So, just keeping that in mind. I understand the need in the request. I’m not negating what you’re saying. I’m just saying it is hard. So, I get why a lot of educators don’t do it.
And then again, clear transparency and promise. These were the suggestions that stylists and salon owners had for the educators. Listing if your class is for intermediate, advanced, or ultra experienced attendees. Loved that. And then be sure you have a depth of knowledge. Meaning if somebody asks you a question, it doesn’t feel surface level. It’s innovative. You have fresh ideas, your own concepts. It’s clear you’re not just copycatting. I thought that was really good. Okay, so let’s unpack common in-salon education formats. Another turn for a second and then we’re going to bring it home. So, going back to where this all started, the DM I got from the salon owner was saying, “I’m struggling to find an educator to meet my terms.” So, remember that the terms were they want to pay a flat rate. They’d like to be able to sell their own tickets and maybe even make a profit on it.
Okay. So, let me tell you about the three most common in-salon education formats that exist today. One, the educator fills the room. So, educator fills the room is like I find a host salon. And flying out to Florida at the end of this month for Thriving Stylist tour, I found an incredible salon owner who’s happy to host me. Then I promote the event and sell the tickets based on capacity. I said, it needs to be at least 50 people. I’m going to fill the space. This is the educator fills the room model. Sometimes the host salon gets some kind of free ticket package, sometimes not. So, I didn’t realize that. So, for us on the tour, there was a couple nuances to the tour. Some tour stops were Thriving Stylist method members only. So, you had to be a Thriver to come. In those instances, we gave salons a few free tickets and then said, if you have some stylists in your space who are not Thrivers, let’s talk about it and figure it out.
For most other locations, we said, just bring in your whole team. We’re in your house. Anybody who wants to come can come. But what I found was interesting is some educators are going with this model but are expecting the host salon’s stylist to then buy tickets. Yikes. I think that’s a hard sell. But then here’s the rub on that. And I get both sides because I can hear the educators screaming at me through the ear of pods already. Here’s the rub. If I’m coming to teach at your salon and you have capacity for 40 people, but you have 10 stylists on your team, well, now you’ve just reduced my capacity by 25%. So, now not only am I not running the event at break even, I’m losing money. It is a problem. So, it’s that push pull of if an educator says, “I need to be able to sell 40 tickets,” fine, then you need to have a salon with 50 person capacity so that your team can come for free.
But that’s a negotiation point. I’m giving you little golden nuggets here. So, if you’re a salon owner and you have an educator who’s pitching this idea to you of like, “Listen, you provide the space, I’m going to fill the room and give you a handful of free tickets.” If you as the owner say, “Hey, listen, I’ve got a team of 10. You can still sell the 40 tickets you want to, can my entire team of 10 come for free?” And then I ask, if you’re an educator, this salon owner is going to spend a few days cleaning out their space, making arrangements, what can we do to partner with them to make it make sense? So, with this model, the educator fills the room model, it’s low risk for the salon owner. They have to do a bunch of work to prep the salon, but their risk is very low because they’re not paying for the educator to come out.
It’s the educator fills the room model. So, the salon owner is paying like nothing. Financially, they’re paying nothing. The educator is taking the biggest risk. But I understand it’s expensive for both sides given that, because the salon owner’s got to clean the space, it’s very time consuming. The nuances of things like catering and chair rentals differ for sure. I do the educator fills the space model a lot. We do our own rental. So, I pay for my cost of travel. I pay for the chair rentals. I pay for the catering. I do that because I’m controlling. I mean, I have no better way to explain it. I like to know what I’m walking into. And so, I do it because it allows me to be fully aware and understanding of what the space I’m doing looks like. If I don’t do it that way, there’s the risk that I walk in and the salon owner is like, “Oh, half the people are going to sit on the floor.”
That’s their prerogative. So, for me, I absorb that cost. So, that being said, I can charge a flat rate for educator fills the room, but it’s going to be higher because I’m going to do the chairs. I’m going to do the catering how I want to do it, and I’m not going to compromise on it. My name is on this class. So, I want it the way I want it. Okay, so we’re going to talk about rates in just a second, but that’s something to think about. Flat rate exists, but for me to pull off what I just described at a flat rate, the rate is going to be high. It has to be. Then we have the salon fills the room. So, this is where the educator gives a set rate and the salon owner pays it. I do this sometimes too.
So, my day rate right now is $18,000. So, if a salon owner’s like, “Hey, Britt, we want to bring you out, we’ll pay the $18,000.” That’s great. And then they can fill it however they want to. If it’s seven people, awesome. If it’s 50 people, awesome. Usually the educator puts a cap on it. So, no more than whatever if 50 people or something. But however they want to fill it is how they want to fill it. Limited risk to the educator, like they’re getting paid. They get to call the shots on the format. They just show up and it’s whatever the salon owner has prepared is what happens. If you want a big name educator, it often looks like this. Not always, but often. You can have the flat rates, but it is going to be high. So, I just rattled off a rate to you. And I’ve never hosted education and made profit. And that’s not a brag or a flex. I’m still trying to figure out how to do it.
But when I go to speak somewhere, I’m rattling off $18,000, it’s two days away from the business that I run full time. It’s the flights, it’s the hotel, and I cover all of that expense. I’ve got to create a keynote for it, which is going to take me easily 16 hours. I’m not robbing anybody. It’s literally the cost it’s going to take me to pull that off is that rate. And so, when you say, I want a great educator to come in at flat rate. To get somebody bigger name, I rattled off what the rates would be. They were saying $10,000 to $18,000, and I’m in that category too. So, just know if you’re going to bring in somebody big, they’re not trying to gouge you. It’s that’s what it looks like.
Now, if you want somebody at a salon fills the room kind of set up, and you want to be able to sell tickets, and you want to be able to do it how you want to do it, you can do that. But you’re probably going to bring in an educator that’s at a little bit of a lower price point. So, just something to keep in mind. Then we have the hybrid model. The hybrid model is where the salon provides the space and gets some amount of free or discounted tickets, and then the educator and the salon owner fill it together. Both sides market the education heavily. There’s expectations of both parties to fill it, shared cost of execution. It’s risky for both sides. I hate this model. I don’t like the hybrid model at all.
I am trying to figure out who’s winning in that. It’s like the educator reaches out, finds a space, finds a host salon, there’s all these strings attached. The salon owner has to agree to do all this marketing. The salon owner has to agree to pick up some of the expenses. The educators got to maybe pay for their flights out. I have no idea. Both parties are trying to fill the room. I feel like it’s a recipe for somebody to end up pissed. It’s like a bad partnership. It’s common. It’s going around out there. I feel like it’s messy, and when we hear stylists saying, “I see classes promoted at locations and I’m worried they’re going to fall apart,” it’s because they do. It’s because sometimes they do.
And I think often when they do, it’s this hybrid models to blame. It’s just full of so many question marks and fatal flaws. I think that we as educators need to say, it’s either an educator fills the room or a salon owner fills the room, and you just draw the hard line. It’s either flat rate or it’s ticketed and the owner’s doing their own thing, and it just is what it is. I think this hybrid and messy stuff is where we really get into trouble. Going back to that owner who was like, “I’d love to pay a flat rate and to be able to charge tickets,” I would be okay with that. Just know you are running the risk. You are fully running the risk.
So, let’s say you’re like, “Okay, I’d pay $3,000 flat rate for an educator to come out.” If you contractually promise an educator $3,000, you need to pay them that money whether you sell the tickets or not. So, you can choose to sell the tickets at $200 a piece. That’s totally fine. If the value of the educator is really only a $100 a ticket, you’re never going to fill the room. You’re going to be out the $3,000 and now you’re going to be frustrated. So, I understand that want of the salon owner to create a profit margin. I personally, I can’t speak to what other educators do. I don’t know how they’ve made up their rates. Actually, I have a podcast episode on how to create your rates as an educator. So, if you Google search Thriving Stylist podcast educator rate, my episode on that will come up.
But for me, I look at what would it actually be worth to people? No one’s going to pay $6,000 to come see me do a three-hour keynote. A single person’s going to sit in a room for that, probably not. So, it doesn’t matter that that’s how much money I want to make. And I made that up. I’m not saying I want to make that money. But it doesn’t really matter what I think I should be making. It’s whatever somebody’s willing to pay. So, when a salon owner markets the cost of tickets 50% or 25% higher than what the educator would charge for themselves, the perceived value is not going to be there. So, you’re just really struggle to fill the room. It’s just something to consider.
So, all this being said, what do I think a win-win looks like? Here’s the reality. Educators need a place to teach. If they’re going to teach in person, they need a place in space to do it. They need to cover their cost and make a profit. It’s got to be worth their time. Otherwise, they’re just going to stay home. The salon owner needs to educate their team and cover their costs too. Salon owners are running on razor-thin margins. Razor-thin. And they’re in this dichotomy of trying to provide incredible experience for their stylists and being able to afford it and being able to attract big name educators.
Oh, going back to somebody had said earlier, “I don’t understand why I can’t get bigger name educators to my salon space.” It’s because I get these DMs too. There’s a lot of salon owners who reach out to me and they’re like, “Britt, we have a really big salon space. If you ever want to teach a class in such and such, and city we’ll open our home to you.” And it could be a salon that could host 60 people. But if it’s a salon that’s in a city that’s very difficult to travel to, like the closest airport is two and a half hours away, thank you for offering up your salon space to me for free. I am so grateful for that. But it is the logistics. How am I going to do that if I can’t attract 60 people to come in there? It doesn’t work. And it’s risky on everybody’s part to do something like that.
But could you bring in an up-and-coming educator who is brilliant, and hungry, and driven, and talented, who’s willing to do it for a 1,000 bucks and is happy if 12 people show up? Yes, you probably could. So, think about those options as well. So, for my owners, I suggest budgeting 1% of monthly service revenue to education. So, if a salon is doing $30,000 a month in services, my suggested allocation is $300 a month goes towards education. That’s a $3,600 education per year budget. Now, if you’re doing a $100,000 a month in services, that budget is $12,000 a year.
Now remember a while back, probably 30 minutes ago now, I mentioned that salon owner who said, “We’re spending 20 grand this year on education.” And some of you gawked at that. You were like, “Well, that’s nice for them.” I want you to remember, I have an episode on this too. Look up Thriving Stylist podcast, be, do, have. Be, do, have. And it’s this idea that if you want to be the salon that does $2 million in revenue, you have to do the things that they do, which is spending $20,000 a year on education. And when you do that, then you can have the money that they have. There’s this whole ideology in business, and 90% of the time it works out, where if you want to be a bigger dog, you have to play like the big dogs do. You can’t say, “Well, one day when I have more money, then I’ll do the things that they do.”
But how are you going to do that? How are you going to attract the stylists that are going to take you there? What’s your plan for making that happen? When you track and look at salon owners or stylists who are killing it, they were putting a lot of risk in the game and doing big scary shit so that they could become the big dog. You have to make big dog plays to play in the big dog arena. At some point you have to feel the fear and do it anyway. And I’m not taking make risky investments, but playing small, generally, people don’t come out ahead playing small. So, if you’re like, “I want to pull a power move,” okay, then pull a power move. But it’s difficult to play big and small at the same time, if this makes sense.
Next, I want you to bring in the educators that your stylists actually want. Often salon owners are like, “I want my stylist to learn this thing.” Oh my gosh, here’s a sad little story. When I was growing up, I did ballet, jazz, tap, hip hop, modern dance, six days a week. It was my whole life from the time I was three until I was 18. It’s all I did. I lived at the dance studio. I was completely obsessed with it. Then I had my little beautiful daughter at 19 years old. And when she was four, I enrolled her in dance classes. Obviously, like my little pretty pretty princess. This is what she’s going to do. And I was like, “You’re going to love it. You’re going to do it.” The shows, the costumes, like lipstick on my 6-year-old whole thing, I did it. She hated it. I loved dance so much that I wanted her to love it the way I did.
Flash forward, she was a four year varsity softball player. It wasn’t who she was. And I think sometimes as salon owners, we do that too, where we’re like, “No, you’re going to be a ballerina. You’re going to love it. Everybody’s a ballerina right now. Learn this thing. The master ballerina teacher’s going to come in here.” But if your entire salon team wants to be softball players, it doesn’t matter. And I think as owners we’re like, “They don’t know what’s good for them.” Maybe they don’t, but you got to meet them where they’re at. If you want them to buy into what you’re offering, meet them where they’re at and understand what it is they’re looking for is a lot of brilliance that comes from that.
The other thing is make them earn it. Make them work their booty cheeks off for it. That’s salon owner I mentioned, who is going to be investing $20,000 a year in education. She makes her team work for it. But they do it in a way that’s fun, like collaborative contests and things where it’s like, let’s all work towards this goal together. And then when they hit the goal, she rewards them really big. Can you gamify it? Can you make education fun? Can you make education exciting?
This was the longest podcast episode I think I’ve ever done, like an expose. I hope that you got some takeaways from this. I hope that it brought up just some ideas that make you think differently about education. Think about what’s possible. Think about what you want, think about what’s important to you, and think about how you can find success in education, whether you’re an educator, a stylist or salon owner moving forward. Would love to keep the conversation going. Leave a rating or review and ask your questions there. As I always like to say, so much love, happy business building. I’ll see you on the next one.
