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 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 hairstylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist podcast.
Britt:
What is up, and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva. And today, we are delivering the 2025 predictions podcast. If you have been a Thriving Stylist podcast listener for gosh going on, I think it would be six years now, holy cow, you probably are very well aware that usually the last week in December, first week in January, we deliver a predictions podcast. And historically, my predictions have been spot on. I’m actually going to go over the 2024 predictions now so you can decide how well I do. You can also go back and listen to those previous episodes and find out for yourself how well I did. But I wanted to get this year’s predictions podcast out a little bit early, one, because I think that we are stepping into an unprecedented time of the industry. I do believe that things are going to get harder before they get easier.
I’ve been talking about this for a couple of years, but now that I think we’re really at the crossroads, it’s important to give everybody as much time as possible to prepare. And two, I think that the industry is really ready right this second. I don’t think there’s a huge benefit of wait until December, and then I’ll tell you because I already have a really good sense of what I think, honestly, the next two or three years are going to look like. So let’s just get into it. The sooner I can get you the information, the sooner you can start to make changes to your business and actually be proactive. I also want to talk about why I do these episodes, because, by the way, there’s a chance I’m going to something totally wrong. I don’t have a crystal ball. I haven’t seen into the future.
All I know is what I’m seeing trend-wise in the industry. I can read economic reports. I can look at what all kind of different labor bureaus share and that kind of thing. I can look at all the data, and I can look at what I see, and read all my DMS, and kind of get on the pulse. But that being said, just like the pandemic, there’s things that are going to come up in life that are totally unpredictable. I didn’t predict that in 2019 in my predictions episode, right? We’re always learning to adapt to what is going on constantly, and your ability to adapt and stay nimble and change is going to make you or break you over the next two to three years. And I think that by the end of this podcast episode, you’re going to totally agree with me. So let’s first go through the 2024 predictions that I shared December of 2023, heading into this year that we’re kind of experiencing right now, and you can decide for yourself if I was on track or not.
So the first prediction, more clients will start to come from Google and Yelp as review platforms will surge. I personally believe that’s true. At least when I talk to stylists that are growing extremely quickly, they are saying Google Business, Yelp online reviews are their primary source. And we’re not talking about the reviews on your booking page or on your website. I’m specifically talking about review platforms, such as Google and Yelp. It doesn’t mean that Instagram and Facebook are irrelevant. They’re not. They’re still totally relevant, but we are seeing a shift in consumers to trusting online review sites a bit more than social media. Everybody should know this at this point. Social media usership is down at large. The average person is not spending as much time on Instagram. The thing I think is tricky about that is that we as an industry still really love Instagram, but we love Instagram because it’s where we hang out. It’s where our educators are. It’s where our peers are.
It’s a really great visual platform for us to show off who we are as a salon and what we do. We like it. And so we show up there more often, and it tricks us into thinking like everybody’s here every day, everybody’s obsessed, but they’re not. When you look at usership data on a platform like Instagram, it is declined. Facebook has been declining for quite some time. And so you have to save proof your business being at these other places. And go ahead and look up the reports. Consumers are reporting that they are finding their stylists on Google and on Yelp. I said that the whole model of filling out a form and having clients apply to be a part of your business is going to start to fail. We absolutely saw that.
I said expect lots of cancellations and reschedules, especially if you still offer pre-booking. Starting summer of this year is when I started to get a lot of reports of that happening. I said that price increases should continue based on the seven factors of pricing. I stand by that. And what was interesting is I shared that the top of 2023. People were asking me a lot in 2023, “Should we raise our prices?” And I said, “Yes, absolutely.” You don’t stall out price increases based on what’s going on in the economy. However, you have to be much smarter about them. And for over a decade, I’ve coached to seven factors of pricing. I call it the dynamic pricing model. And I said, so long as in the dynamic pricing model, you’re due for an increase. You do it. What I said was you don’t do a cost of goods increase, though. You don’t do an increase because it’s been a while. You don’t say, “I’m going to change my pricing method because this is easier for me.”
I really advised against that. And woe if I’m not getting gajillions of DMs right now, of people who didn’t take that advice and are now in an upside down pricing model that they don’t know how to get themselves out of. So pricing, it wasn’t something we needed to stall out on. It’s something we needed to be smart. I still feel that way. I did say last year would be the year of the great divide, and boy was I right on that one. We’re going to talk about that a lot more today too. Okay, so that was all of what I predicted would happen in 2024. That was a brief summary. The episode’s about 40 minutes long. You can go back and listen if you want to. So let’s talk about where we are at today as an industry, as an economy, as a people, and then I want to get into the 2025 predictions podcast. And I actually have some for end of 2024 as well.
So it is being widely reported, by business strategists, economists, world leaders, everybody, that we’re essentially, right now, in a bear market. So when you look at stock market lingo, there’s bull markets and bear markets. In a bull market, everything is high, high, high, and cash is flowing, and everybody’s making money, and everybody’s flying on private jets, and everybody’s carrying Gucci bags, and everything is super great. And we’ve been living in that reality, particularly as hair stylists, since 2014. So from 2014 to 2020, 2021, 2022 even, we were living this big fat life for eight years, and we got a little bit disoriented, I think. And now, as we step into what is considered to be a bear market, where money is not flowing as easily and the influencer market has flatlined and it’s not as easy to get business as it was over the last eight years, sales and salon owners are starting to panic. And compound that with the fact that you are tired. You’re exhausted.
Yes, it was significantly easier to build business from 2015 to 2022. I don’t think it’ll ever be as easy to build business again as it was over those eight years. That was a magical time. And I tried to tell you when we were in it, I was like, “The train’s leaving the station. This is the time to figure it out.” But not everybody was ready. Not everybody wanted to. And a lot of people were like, “It’s not so hard. I’m just going to do whatever and do fine.” Those days are gone, they will not come back. So now we’re in what’s called a bear market, and like I said, if you look at economists, business strategists, they’ll all tell you anybody can build business in a bull market. It’s like child’s play. Those who can either build, sustain, or scale in a bear market are true entrepreneurs.
And now, as things are getting harder, what we’re going to see is it’s not as sexy and exciting to be an entrepreneur anymore. It’s not as glamorous to be a studio suite owner. It’s not as wonderful to own a big huge salon. It starts to be a little more vulnerable and scary. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do those things. You should do those things, but you also need to prepare yourself for the reality of what’s to come, because what was either sustainable, or easy, or doable over the last eight years is going to be become more challenging. And I don’t want to sugarcoat that. I don’t want to scare anybody, but I also want to be a realist and say, if you want to continue doing business for the years to come, you will have to change your strategy heading into 2025. This is truly the year of what got you here won’t get you there.
It’s time to evolve. We have to, because the world around us is changing incredibly fast right now. You’re probably feeling it as just a human being. Take yourself out of the salon for a minute. You’re probably feeling it as the human that you are. We have to adapt our business to get there as well. So prediction number one, I do believe that this 2024 holiday season will be a bit lackluster. We reported on this last year as well. A lot of sales and salon owners were saying it was fine. It wasn’t what it used to be. So historically, I can remember late 2008, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, for a long, long, long, long time, perhaps the last 20, 30 years, maybe longer, some salons would make 30% of their revenue between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Wow, a ton of cash, a ton of volume in a very short period of time, and it was like the glory days. And I would teach sales and salon owners how to maximize their revenue even further during that time, how to push it without double booking.
I don’t coach the double booking. So we would look at how to push revenue in a way that served the clients better and allowed you to make even more money. Last year is when we started to see that all shift and change, and I believe it was because of the shifting consumer mindset. People got a lot more interested in quality time with family, simplifying life. People were saying, “So I’ll show up to Thanksgiving dinner and my roots won’t be done. Oh, well.” And I do think we’re still living in that era of that’s okay, accepting us for how we are. 2020 had all of us reprioritizing how we want to spend our time, our money, our life, our energy, our effort, and the ideals of perfectionism that existed before 2020 have shifted and changed. And I do think that this holiday season, some of you will see a bump. I don’t think it’s going to be massive. I don’t think it’s going to be hugely, hugely profitable for anybody. I think it’s going to be fine.
I was reading a quote from a CNN article that said, this is from another small business owner, “The December holiday season in 2023 was unexpectedly slower than it had been in many, many years, followed by a really weird January.” So if you felt like that, you weren’t alone. I do strongly believe we’re heading into kind of the same. I think that that holiday boom may in five, six, seven, eight years, come around again. I think it’s going to be a little while. So I think that December is going to be good, not great. So just something to keep in mind. Number two, I thought this was interesting, CNN reported that consumer spending slowed eight times more than expected. Another small business owner said, “The last eight of nine months have been terrible.” They said, “People have stopped spending money on things that are not necessary.”
I want you to remember that quote. Now, I don’t want you to freak out that CNN is reporting that consumer behavior slowed eight times more than expected. That’s more than expected. It doesn’t mean consumer spending slowed eight times over. It doesn’t mean that. It means, and you’ll probably agree me on this… I’ve been reporting that a recession was coming since late 2021. So for three years, I’ve been reporting on it. Mainstream media did not accept the fact that we were in a recession until late 2024. Summer-ish, 2024, people were like, “Oh yeah, unemployment is on the rise. Inflation is a problem.” There was this denial, denial, denial, denial, denial. And finally, we, the people, were like, “Uh, we’re in it. You can say whatever you want, but we’re feeling it.” And then everyone was like, “Oh, okay. Yeah, I guess we are in it.”
But for a long time, because media, government agencies, whatever, wanted us to keep our mindset high, they weren’t reporting on how funky things had gotten. So they had made this silly little projection that consumer spending might have a blip, but it’s not going to be a big deal. It was eight times more than the blip they predicted. And, again, I don’t say that to scare you. I say that to put you back into the reality check of the storylines you’ve been hearing for a few years about everything is normal have never been true, and finally, we’re reporting on the reality. Kind of positive news in the inflation front. Inflation will still be there but will stabilize. Average consumer price inflation should be 3.2% in 2024, it looks like that’s where we’re going to finish out this year, and only 1.9% in 2025. Staying at about a 2% inflation is what we shoot for as a people.
So 2% is average. Inflation happens all the time. The reason why we’re talking about inflation so much right now is inflation hit us at almost 10% in 2022, followed by 4% in 2023. So having inflation hit us at 15% in just two years felt heavy. 2% is normal. So next year, inflation wise, should feel a lot more normal, which is a wonderful thing. That being said, the damage has been done and the cost of doing everything has increased by 17% in just three years. So we’re feeling it. Good news it should stabilize, but it’s still there. We can’t ignore it. Unemployment is expected to rise. We expect the unemployment rate to rise from an average of 3.6% in 2023 to 3.9% in 2024, and 4.4% in 2025, followed by 4.5% in 2026. That’s important to understand. Finally, we’re getting real reports that are admitting to the fact that unemployment has been on the rise, that layoffs are happening.
And it is predicted that layoffs will continue to happen for at least the next two years. Something to keep in mind because it will affect your clients. And when unemployment goes up, people get nervous to spend. It doesn’t mean they don’t have money. It means they get nervous because, what if? So just keep all of these things in mind, that clients are just more nervous. Just keep that in mind. Next prediction, I strongly believe that clients will be more cost and service conscious for the next two to three years. Settle in my friends. It’s going to be a minute. And the way we’ve been marketing ourselves for the last five, six, seven years won’t work anymore. We need a new marketing strategy. Stay tuned for Thrivers updates. I’ll see you there. Appearing to live a simple life is going to be cool, and we’re actually already seeing inklings of this. Anybody else on TikTok? Go ahead and look up under consumption on TikTok.
It’s a huge trend right now. And under consumption means living on less, having less than you need, and it’s being prioritized is super cool. And it’s interesting how many of the under consumption TikToks I’ve seen are focused on beauty, like, “I use my drug store curling iron that I bought eight years ago. I, instead of using dry shampoo, just use cornstarch now.” Really extreme. Make your own shampoo. There’s so much of that. So this under consumption trend. And even if we’re like, “Oh my gosh, make your own shampoo, I can’t believe it,” it’s trendy. And things that are trendy, people like. Under consumption. Another trendy word right now is luxury minimalism. So we saw this in 2008, where it was like living on less is cool. That’s coming around again. Now, what I don’t think it’s going to come around again is coupon clipping, and like, “I saved $300 at the grocery store.”
That was really big, 2008, 2009. I think we’re taking a different approach. It’s not like, “I need to save money.” It’s, “I don’t need all that fancy stuff you need.” It’s like a really different positioning. It’s not like, “I still have all the stuff, but I saved $100.” It’s, “I don’t even need all this stuff.” Do you see what I’m saying? It’s a different approach. So it’s the same idea of making saving money cool, we are seeing that come around again, but the way in which it’s happening is changing. Capsule collections. Have you ever heard of a capsule wardrobe? That’s becoming cool. Okay? One of the quotes I saw on a recent TikTok was, “I’m choosing to be deliberate about what and when to buy and feel more fulfilled by the purchases I make.” That part, being deliberate about what and when you buy and feeling more fulfilled by the purchases you make.
So if clients are coming in and just getting their roots touched up, that may or may not be fulfilling. If they’re coming in and getting their hair cut down, that may or may not be fulfilling. Coming in and getting their extensions done may or may not be fulfilling. And the beauty’s in the eye of the beholder on that one. And that’s why I’ve been talking so much about perceived value this year in particular, is because it’s not just, “My hair looks better. My hair cut’s nice.” It’s, “Have I been fulfilled though?” That is going to be the key. There is something in consumer mindset around that that’s happening really big right now. Here’s something else I thought that was interesting. A lot of videos and energy around the idea that gym memberships are overpriced crap, paying for coffee is for losers, car payments are a scam, yet people are spending lots of money on pilates reformers, like, “Don’t go to the gym, buy a $3,000 reformer.”
Buy once, cry once. And that’s what’s important to understand, is it’s not about being cheap. It’s not about not spending money. It’s about, like this quote said, “being deliberate about what and when you buy to feel more fulfilled by the purposes you make.” Period. That’s the mindset, and you have to get into that as a stylist or salon owner. We’re going to talk a lot about that in Thrivers in 2025. Big, big, big point of coaching. Next, when I look at what services I think are going to do well in 2025, barbering cuts, root touch ups, hair thinning services, detangling services, things like that. Because if we’re looking at being deliberate, being fulfilled, doing the things that are minimalism necessary, I do think that minimalism luxury is going to be sexy. And the more you can lean that way, I think it’s smart.
High impact blonding makes me nervous. If that’s your specialty, I am a bit nervous for you. Big expensive, extensive extensions, I could be nervous for you, but put a pin in that. I’m going to come back around to that for a second. I think that positioning extensions as supplementary for people with thinning hair, fine hair versus let’s put some 30s in there, is going to be smart. I see a lot of people who are like, “Well, I can do that.” Yeah, but you’re not marketing it. And what I’m suggesting is a marketing pivot. So things to keep in mind. Next prediction, I believe that the great divide will continue, and I think it will get ugly. So I first started predicting the great divide at Thrivers Live 2022, over two years ago. We are now firmly in it. And if you’ve never heard me talk about the great divide before, I’ve talked about several times in the podcast. If you search “Thriving Stylist podcast great divide,” all those last mentions will come up as well.
It’s a split of the industry, and the split is going to be some stylists will choose to really get focused on building their business and running it like an entrepreneur, and they’ll continue to be successful, wildly successful, not a little bit successful, a lot successful. A huge portion of the industry won’t. A huge portion of the industry will stay stubborn, they’ll stay stuck. And they won’t make the changes they need to build their business forward, and they’re going to lose everything. And it’s going to be devastating. It’s not what I prefer, but I do believe it’s what’s going to happen. And because I think we are deeply in it right now, I think 2025 is where it’s going to really explode and blow up and get nasty. I think success shaming will be in abundance. There’s always been a good deal of success shaming in our industry of everyone roots for you until it looks like you’ve become a little too successful, and then we don’t like you anymore. I have seen that happen so many times.
If you’re a successful stylist, you know exactly what I’m talking about. People root for you until you look like you’ve made it, and it’s like, “Well, let me pick you apart now.” Success is a really tricky thing. And yeah, it exists in all industries, but there’s something really nasty about ours, where it’s like community over competition until I deem you to be too successful, and then I want you to lose. I don’t see that in other industries as prevalently as I do in ours, and it’s a shame. It doesn’t have to be that way. But as some really rise to the top, the tear down is going to be significant. So if you are a stylist or salon owner who’s like, oh, I want to be the part that really makes it and kills it in the next few years, put your battle armor on because I think it might get a little bit weird. I think false reviews will surge. Has anybody ever gotten a fictitious Google or Yelp review? Get ready. They’re going to come in hot.
Because as the success shaming happens, rather than people trying to focus on building themselves up, I do think there’s a high probability that tearing others down instead will become the mode that people go to. It just happens every time. We’re already seeing this. Rant social media posts that make stylists and owners look unprofessional will continue to be prevalent. And it is a way for stylists and salon owners to go viral, which we are an industry who’s been tricked into thinking that if you go viral, you’ll make more money. I know so many stylists who have gone viral who are completely broke and are like, “I wasted so much time. I burnt myself out. It didn’t get me anywhere, but I went viral.” That is not what the goal is, but we are still seeing so many posts that make us look extremely unprofessional and make clients be like, whoa, I think that person’s really angry, and it turns them away from wanting to work with you as a client.
Some people will love it, right? There’s always the fellow ranchers who are like, “I love it. Keep it up.” But at large, it makes people nervous. And what is cool right now will not be cool in a few years. And so we’re going to see a lot more of that, so get ready for it. I don’t think it’s going to do anything to build a stylist or salon’s business, but we’ll see. Next, we will start to see a significant exodus of experienced stylists and salon owners replaced by hungry, social media savvy new graduates. Our industry is one of the most highly impacted industries of new enrollments in any industry in the United States today. And whenever I share that statistic… The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics cites our industry is one of the top five fastest growing industries in the United States today, ours. That’s huge. And whenever I share that, people always comment and they’re like, “Yeah, but a lot of people don’t make it. A lot of people don’t stick around.”
That’s true of any industry. And also, let’s say… I’m making this up, but let’s say that historically, for every 100 stylists that enter the industry, 60 don’t make it, so 40% make it, 60 don’t. Cool. If 1000 are applying and joining the industry, well, now 600 are going to make it and 400 won’t. Do you know what I mean? It’s like sure, there’s still going to be churn, but the volume is higher. So no matter how you slice it, the industry is getting larger. Competition is getting stiffer. And what’s happening, and I’m already seeing it, is there’s just a lot of salon owners especially who are extremely tired. I’m getting DMs from them every single week, and they’re like, “This is getting extremely hard. The industry has changed a lot since I first opened my salon. I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.”
I’m getting that a lot. I’m also seeing a lot of messages from stylists who are like, “I’m bored. I’m burnt out. I’m thinking that maybe I need to join a different industry. I’m tired of the hustle. I don’t want to play this game anymore. I thought I was just going to be able to show up and do hair, and now I’ve got to do all these other things, and it’s not what I was looking for.” I totally get it. Because of that, a lot of people will choose to leave. We’re already seeing it happen. Experienced good people will choose to leave. You’re watching it right now. There’s a lot of big name stylists who were icons in the industry who are like, “I’m hanging out my shares. I’m done.” It’s happening because it’s gotten to be a lot. And that’s why I say those, who over the next few years, choose to scale their businesses as stylists or salonists, it doesn’t have to be a lot. It has to be very strategic.
And not everybody who has become successful or made a lot of money is doing it strategically. I’ll be the first to say. And so unless you choose to be strategic in the next few years, there is a risk there, and that comes with the great divide and the mass exodus we’re going to see. Now, this new generation coming in hungry is going to feed into, next prediction, a huge rush back to working as an employee-based stylist. There are quotes from a gajillion business mentors out there that will tell you being an entrepreneur in the last few years was made to seem like the coolest thing ever. Be your own boss, side hustle, multiple streams of income. You can do it yourself. Don’t work for the man. Love it. Do it.
It is challenging. I’ve certainly chosen to do it. I wouldn’t go back to being an employee right now. I totally get it. I have never worked harder and had more sleepless nights in my whole life than I have as a business owner. It’s extremely challenging. There’s a lot of sacrifices to be made personally, professionally, financially, emotionally, physically, everything. And it’s not for everybody. And now, as things get harder, some people are like, “F it. I just want to be an employee again. I want to make a paycheck. I want to have benefits.” So I think if you’re an employee based salon owner, you’re about to have a huge pick me up. If you are set up properly. If you have not modernized your salon setup, you will be in the same dire straits as you have been for years. But if you are an employee-based salon owner who is doing things correctly, and I can show you how to do that anytime you want to, I think you’re going to be deeply successful in the next five years. I’m excited for you. And here’s why.
Statistically, for decades, 20% of small businesses that open close within their first year. So 20% of people who start a small business, it doesn’t work out within the first year. 30% close within the first two years, 50% close within the first five. Okay? So five years ago was, oh, 2020. Interesting. Let’s lean into that for a moment. So historically, there was an uptick of around four or 5% new business applications every single year were filed to the US government, four or 5%. The self-employed or the small business population would grow by four or 5%. Okay? It grew by 24.5% in 2020. It grew five times faster than it ever had any time in American history. Five times more people, in 2020, decided they were going to be self-employed, five times more.
You’re talking millions of people decided they were going to do it for themselves. Okay? That was 2020. 2021, 23.5%. So it stayed high for two years. Then in 2022, we saw a 6% decrease in people wanting to be self-employed or be their own business owner. Now, in 2023, we’re back down to 8%. We’re starting to normalize again because people are realizing it’s harder than they thought it was going to be. And of that huge surge that hit in 2020, you’re talking about potentially a few million people whose business is going to fail. 50% of those who open their business in 2020, data wise, will not make it through the end of 2025. They’ll need another place to go. So employee based opportunities are going to have a pick me up statistically. If the history of our country repeats itself to any predictable standpoint, in 2025, we will, data wise, see an uptick in people choosing to be employees over being self-employed because of that huge boom of self-employment in 2020 and the historical data of failureship.
Combine that with the challenges of our economy, the data supports this is what’s going to happen. That being said, incredible, well-marketed stylist training programs, we’re going to become highly desirable. But listen to what I said, incredible, well-marketed. Incredible, well-marketed. It can’t just be we train new hires. Your program has to be well-designed, but there is going to be a huge interest in mentorship, true mentorship, not come on in and watch some training videos, and then you can work here. True mentorship is going to be extremely popular, and salons who choose to market those opportunities exceptionally well are going to do very, very, very well. Next, side hustles will become extremely common. Because of the few things I’ve just mentioned right now, stylists and salon owners feeling burnt out, they’re going to become exploratory. And by side hustles, I mean outside the industry. I don’t even mean industry education. I mean maybe I’ll start selling custom cupcakes. You know what I mean? I’m going to start sewing clothes for kids side hustles. True side hustles are going to become extremely popular.
My challenge with that is most side hustles serve as a really big distraction. When I started this business, this business that I’m in right now was essentially a side hustle when I started, but I side hustled at like 30 hours a week. So I was working 70 hours a week probably. I barely slept. I slept from 11 P.M to 3 A.M. every night. It was brutal, but I really wanted to build this business up. And I was still managing and leading my salon team at the time. I had to. I worked every weekend. Like I said, I slept four hours a night. It was awful. I can’t be like, “So do that.” So even though this business I’m in right now started as a side hustle, it was a full-time job from the start.
The reason why most side hustles fail is most people aren’t looking at it like that, so what happens is it just serves as the distraction. You know the whole saying, like the grass isn’t greener on the other side, the grass is greener where you water it? If you’re bored in your existing business, any business advisor will tell you it is so much smarter to figure out why you’re bored in the existing business you have and what you can do to revive it than to start something new. The reason we start something new is we need more stimulation, we’re bored, and we’re frustrated. Usually that happens because of lack of education and lack of results. I can show you how to get better results. It’s always going to be smarter to do that. If you want to start a side hustle, like a hobby that doesn’t have to do with generating income and still have your business in the salon be an income generator, great.
If you don’t want to be in the salon anymore, again, educate yourself and maybe choose a whole new career path. But the side hustle thing has proven, over the last few years, to cause a lot of overwhelm. So just be really careful of that one. Online reviews will continue to be the number one way to grow fast as a stylist building a clientele. We actually have a little mini presentation coming up on that at our X Club retreat, May of 2024. To those of you joining me and a very elite group of stylist, educators and salon owners in San Antonio, Texas, I cannot wait to see you there. Luxury salons and economy salons will thrive. Premium and premium economy salons will struggle. So in the last workshop I taught, I taught a standout and grow fast boot camp. I taught in August of 2024, and we unpacked what it meant to be a premium salon, a premium economy salon, an economy salon, and a luxury salon.
It doesn’t have to do with price point. So if any of you were like, “Oh, we’re a top tier price point,” you could still very well be premium or premium economy. That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s in the eyes of the consumer. And when an economy gets like ours is right now, it’s the middle class that suffers the most. So what happens is the middle class generally tends to sway economy. So they’ll choose to have services that are more affordable, even if it means sacrificing result. And the haves, those who always had an abundance of free cash to spend, they’re financially secure, they’ll continue to seek luxury experiences, but not premium experiences. Luxury, not premium, luxury. And luxury experiences today aren’t like fancy stuff. What’s being perceived as luxury today is caring more, giving more, more appreciation, making your customers feel seen and heard.
It’s different. It’s not, “And we have custom lattes.” It’s really different than that. I have lots of trainings on that in Thrivers, but really looking at, do you want to position as economy, or do you want to position as luxury? I do believe that if your position is premium or premium economy, it’s going to be a little more challenging. I think you’re going to be fighting over a tougher pool of clientele for the next three or four years. Just something to think about. It’s not to say it’s not possible. And the middle class will always still want to get their hair done. It’s simply going to be harder. So if you are down to work a little harder, amazing, and I’m here to help you do that. Just know it will be more challenging. There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s simply a harder economy or a harder market to attract right now.
Lastly, I think it’ll be very trendy to take me as I am. I really think so. I think that… Oh, here’s another specialty, I think is going to be really successful in 2025 and beyond, going gray. I think the whole natural beauty, minimalist, minimalist luxury, this is me, I think we’re going to see a huge push into that in 2025. Thrifting, I really think that’s going to be made to be sexy. And the people who are living in extreme affluence are going to be like, you’re a loser. I really think so. And it’s going to be interesting to see what trends kind of pop out of that. If you’ll remember lived in color, lived in color came out of the last recession. We made roots cool because people couldn’t afford to get their roots done. So there will be trends that emerge out of this as well.
My main goal of sharing this podcast with you is to get the conversation started. Let me know which of these things you have more questions about. Leave me a rating or review on iTunes and ask your question there. Hit me up in the DMs. If you’re a Thrivers, get in the community. Let’s talk about it. But I would love to help serve you in all of these areas, and I can’t wait to see at the end of 2025 where we land with all these predictions. As they always say, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
