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 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 life long career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy.
When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt:
What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
I’m your host Britt Seva, and today we’re talking about the client poaching trend.
So this is one that you may not have experienced before, but I think it’s important to talk about.
So there’s a couple of these kind of trending things that we’ve started to notice in the last six months I’ve been trying to do episodes on.
So one of the trends that we saw was chargebacks, and we have a whole episode on this where I talk about if you are a stylist or salon that has non-refundable deposits, or you do cancellation fees, there is a huge movement of clients who are doing credit card chargebacks.
And when that happens, almost always the consumer is going to win.
So they’re going to get their money back.
You’re going to pay a fee.
There’s a fee every time one of those chargebacks goes through.
And if you have enough chargebacks, your credit card processor could start saying they don’t want to serve you anymore.
So we have a whole episode on that.
Let me give you that episode number.
Okay, that’s in the episode 369, The Chargeback Crisis Causing Stylist Thousand.
So if you haven’t listened to that one, that’s worth a listen.
Now, the other episode I think you should listen to is 354, and it’s the 2025 Predictions Podcast, where I talk about a lot of the things that I think we’re going to see coming to our industry in the next year, but also in the next two to three years.
And something that I talked about was clients pushing appointments out, and we’re seeing more cancellations and less frequency in guest visit, the other trend I talked about in that episode and in other episodes is something I call the Ninja Turtle Strategy, which if you’re a kid of the 90s might make sense to you.
If you’re not, this might just sound bonkers, but that’s okay.
Go with me.
So the Ninja Turtles were a group of crime fighting turtles who lived in the underground sewer system and would come up and fight crime in the city that they lived in.
What we’re seeing right now is this big, huge trend in the industry of stylists who, instead of doing the work to build their business, have decided to market themselves as the low price leader.
And in becoming the low price leader, they’re marketing themselves as get good hair done for cheap.
It is tricky.
As an experienced stylist, a salon owner, to compete against the people who are marketing themselves as get your hair done cheap.
You’ll love it.
Amazing quality at a price point you can afford.
It’s almost like the fast fashion thing, where it’s like, man, how can you argue against that?
Like, who’s going to buy a $400 blazer when you can get a good enough blazer from Shein for 45 bucks?
Like, people are just going to buy the Shein version.
And we’re seeing that kind of fast fashion or the Ninja Turtle strategy come into place in our industry.
And here’s the real problem is it’s going to work.
It’s totally going to work.
Like what client is going to say, no, you know what?
I think I’d like to pay four times more.
Some will.
A lot would be like, wow, if I can get the same result, but save 150 bucks, I’m going to go for it.
It is an effective strategy.
The reason why I said I don’t coach anybody to using it, and they’re also the reason why I don’t think any stylist or salon should be so worried about it long term, is it’s completely unsustainable.
Stylists who do that will be operating on razor thin profit margins.
Like they will spend so much money and so much time doing these clients hair for cheap.
Thinking that they’re building a base clientele, they’re building a discount clientele, that they will never be able to become profitable off of, because you marketed yourself as the low price leader.
Good luck raising your prices.
You leveraged an entire clientele who decided to trust you based on the back end of I can do your hair and I can do it cheap.
So that was the promise you made to them.
So that’s not the promise they expect you to keep.
Those stylists are going to be in trouble.
They’re going to experience burnout, extremely low take-home pay, and they’re not going to have a scalable business forward.
But it’s going to happen.
It’s going to be a thing.
A lot of you have probably seen these promotions, and this is a tag on to that.
So let’s talk about a DM I received recently and unpack what I would do.
So this Thriving Stylist Podcast listener says, hey, long time listener and follower.
You’re my favorite Monday morning motivation.
Thank you so much for saying that.
I adore you.
I just listened to your podcast episode, and you mentioned the situation where other Stylist DM clients shown on other Stylist pages, offering them a discount to do their service.
So essentially that Ninja Turtle strategy or that fast fashion strategy I was just talking about.
She says, this has been happening to me recently, where I’ve gotten many screenshots from my clients saying that a Stylist near me has reached out to them, offering them a discount for all new clients.
It seems like they’re literally in order of the clients that I post on my page.
So this Stylist makes a post of her client, this Ninja Turtle goes ahead and DMs those clients saying, hey, I can do your hair and I can do it cheaper.
It makes me really frustrated because I’ve worked really hard to build this clientele and market it myself in the same way I respect her hustle.
What are your thoughts on this?
Should I be offended?
Should I be flattered?
Should I go about this in any way or address it at all?
Would love to hear your feedback.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Thank you for taking the time to write in such an eloquent question.
And what I love is I can tell you are a true entrepreneur at your core and that you really have a deep love and respect for this industry and an empathy for the stylist who’s doing this, which that empathy is something I am going to coach to in this episode because I think it’s really important and I don’t want to under emphasize it.
I think it’s really critical.
So first things first, I think you should feel all the feels.
You should be flattered.
You should be offended.
You should be threatened.
You should be all the things because it really is a mix of things.
I really do believe at the end of the day, happy clients can’t be stolen.
I think that’s the truth of any industry.
Try as you may, if somebody is happy where they’re at, you cannot steal them.
It’s the same thing like when salons accuse other salon owners of poaching their stylist.
If a stylist chooses to leave you and work for another salon owner, it’s because that other salon owner was doing something better than you were.
I’m sorry, that’s the reality of it.
I have always said to my salon team, to my team now, to my own child, like to anybody I meet, my friends, my family, if you find a better opportunity, you should take it.
Isn’t that what life is all about?
Like you’re actually not an intelligent person.
If a better opportunity comes along and you go, nah, you know, I don’t think so.
I think I’m going to say right here and just linger in this for a while longer.
Like happy stylist, happy clients cannot be stolen.
And if you are a stylist or a salon owner who is worried about the threat of other owners stealing your stylist, honestly, I know this is going to sound a little callous, do better because happy stylist cannot be poached.
It’s the same for clients.
Happy clients cannot be poached.
And this stylist is actually the perfect example because all the stylists who are coming to her who are like, hey, just so you know, I got this like random DM from this other stylist.
Those clients adore this stylist and they trust her.
And that’s why they’re coming to her.
It’s almost like a smirk and a laugh and of like, oh my gosh, is this for real?
And then those clients of hers who might be tempted to buy that offer felt like that other stylist was offering something that this stylist couldn’t.
Fair enough, like that is how humans are wired.
And maybe that the clients that do choose to lead this stylist did think that the stylist was overpriced.
No worries, I really do think that every stylist today can build a clientele no matter what market they’re at.
We just did an episode on Worth It really recently.
There is no evidence showing that Americans are living on less money.
Unemployment is not up.
The average American is making more money.
There is a lot of money in circulation right now.
American spending has not decreased.
So if you are making less money, it is in direct correlation with the efforts you’re putting into your business.
It’s not a normal reality that everybody’s experiencing.
It’s your reality.
And it’s a reality for a lot of people in our industry, because this has been an industry of struggle for so, so long.
And I think that the conversations and the habits are kind of shifting backwards into like, it’s hard out there.
It’s only hard for those who are not running their business in a smart way, kind of like this client poacher.
So looking at this situation objectively, let’s zoom out for a second.
There’s three sides to this scenario.
Your client, the competitor, and your livelihood.
So when I say that, I would love for you to rank those three things in order of importance.
So your clients and how they feel, your livelihood, meaning how you provide for yourself, how you provide for your family, how you put a roof over your head, your financial stability and security, your retirement one day, your sanity, your ability to sleep at night, right?
And then the competitor.
Candidly, if we were to rank those things in order, number three is the competitor.
They really do matter the least.
Number two is actually your clients.
And number one is your livelihood.
And the reason I rank it that way is, I really do believe that there are an abundance of clients for all of us.
It’s a matter of how we want to position our business to capture them.
If a client decides they’re no longer for you, that’s totally okay.
We wish them well and want them to find somebody else that they can work with and be better served in whatever way that means for them.
Your livelihood, your sanity, your peace of mind, your confidence, your ability to put food on your family’s table has to come first.
Because when that doesn’t come first, and situations like this come up, we start to panic.
And we do things like offering discounts and bending over backwards and feeling insecure and acting out emotionally.
And when we do that, all three of these pillars fail.
Your livelihood fails.
Your clientele cannot possibly be served at your highest because your livelihood components are starting to fall apart and you’re scrambling and now your profit margin is getting narrow and you’re making panicked emotional decisions.
That can’t be good.
And now your competitor is winning.
So it goes, livelihood, your clientele and that competitor way at the bottom.
So let’s talk about the competitor for a minute and where they’re at.
There is a stylist I coach to who’s going to know exactly.
I’m talking about her as soon as I say this.
Who is being attempted to be slandered by a competitor on social media.
There is another local salon in her area who is attempting to bring her down.
And it’s hard and it’s emotional and it’s all the things I can only imagine.
The thing that I think about whenever it comes to any competitor trying to tear anybody else down or trying to make social media posts to make another business look bad, haters and trolls don’t win.
Like I don’t have an example of anybody who has acted that way and had some huge financial success or then hired a super successful team or had this onslaught of new clients.
By openly bashing another person or another business, I cannot think of a single example where any business owner has gone on social media, done a series of posts talking badly about another business, and then they’ve had a come up off it.
I truly don’t know of any.
I know of people who have done that and people love to pop their popcorn and watch that.
Like, oh, I will watch this go down.
And I guess if that’s what you want to be, go for it.
Like if the troll life is for you, then troll it up, babe.
Like, I get it.
But it’s not going to help you.
It’s not going to help your business.
And it’s not going to tear the other business down.
I just don’t have examples of that actually working.
And for me, what I always say is, if you have a competitor who is out to get you losing sleep, you are living rent free in their mind, let them go for it.
Like they’re wasting so much time with you as their obsession.
Meanwhile, you’re over here, like counting that cash and like making your next hiring decision and working on your marketing.
Like that’s fine.
Like let them be so distracted trying to tear you down.
It is to your advantage, right?
So to me, whenever a competitor is like trying to steal business from you, let them go for it.
It’s not going to actually do anything to physically harm you.
So long as you are building a smart, reliable business, you’re pretty impenetrable at that point.
I also want you to think about how desperate somebody would have to be to try to poach somebody else’s clients instead of strategically trying to grow their own.
Like that person would have to be so sad and so lost and so desperate.
I always deploy empathy in these situations because to the person who is acting in desperation in any capacity or having these emotional outbursts, I always think to myself that they would put half of that effort into just building a smart business for themselves instead of trying to steal from you.
They would make significantly more money.
You are not the reason their business is not growing.
Somebody else cannot hold you back.
Your business in its success or failure is fully based on your own decisions and your own viewpoint and the way you move and the way you serve.
Nobody else can mess that up for you.
They really can’t.
So when we think of it this way, like who’s wealthier, petty thieves or people who work real jobs, people who work the jobs, who’s more financially stable?
Somebody who has a job or a business is going to be more financially stable than a thief, right?
Who has a better quality of life?
Person with the job, the person who’s the business owner, the purpose who has their nose down and is doing the work.
So don’t worry about the person who’s trying to come up off you.
It’s not going to shake out.
The best offense is a good defense, and a good defense is having a really well-built business.
That’s impenetrable, and that should be the goal.
One of the things I’ve talked about, I know I brought this up on this podcast episode before.
I could not find the reference, but I know I’ve talked about it because I love this book.
There’s a book called Play Bigger, and it’s by Kevin Manny, and he talks about how trying to be better than other people is a waste of time.
Like playing the bigger and better game is a waste because it’s subjective.
Like you’ll never win it, it doesn’t work like that.
And instead, what you want to be is called the category king.
And most competitors fail because instead of trying to be a king of their own category, they’re playing the bigger and better game against the king.
I like to call her the category queen.
But trying to go against the king or the queen when they already are sitting in a bigger kingdom, have established more territory, why wouldn’t you just build your own kingdom?
It logically doesn’t make sense.
If you look back historically, it’s not been successful.
And so when competitors play the bigger, better try and tear you down game, it’s to their own demise.
They’re wasting time, they’re wasting energy, they’re wasting efforts.
So the category king or queen is the business that’s constantly innovating forward, knows their market super well, knows their problems, knows how to solve their problems, is the best marketer, spends the majority of their time on the business positioning and guest experience.
And knowing that if all of that is right, the result and the retention will be strong as a by-product.
When you’re the category king or queen, you don’t have competitors.
All you have is wannabes.
So this stylist who is being poached against has a wannabe.
I don’t even want you to call this person a competitor anymore.
A true competitor would not be trying to steal your clients.
They’d be managing a similar clientele of their own and trying to become their own category king or queen.
Like that is a true competitor.
Like somebody you’d go head to head with is somebody who has their own kingdom, right?
So knowing that the best offense is a good defense, I would do something brave.
And I will tell you that this is the era of life that I’m in.
If you listen to my most recent Woo Woo episode, this will make sense.
Let me actually give you an episode number on that too.
Oh, I’ve done a lot of Woo Woo recently.
OK, it’s 371.
It’s called How I Got Realigned.
Listen to that episode if you haven’t already done so.
So I’m in this era of my life where I am so not afraid of having real, direct, honest conversations.
And I’ve yet to have a real, direct conversation that I regretted having.
I’m just very confident in being honest and talking things through.
And it’s not about being aggressive or being mean.
It’s just less gossip, more conversation.
And it’s really, really serving me well.
And to this stylist, I think it would work well for you, too.
So I would lean in to what a lot of us find to be uncomfortable.
And I would reach out to this stylist and I might send a DM.
If they don’t respond to a DM, I’d write a letter.
Like, I would be pretty relentless in trying to connect.
She’s being relentless in reaching out to your clients.
I don’t think it’s tacky for you to be relentless in trying to have the conversation with her as an adult.
And I would say something like, Hey, it’s me, Britt.
I wanted to connect with you.
I hope all is well.
It really would come from a place of empathy.
I’m not even angry because I’m good.
I’m a category king or queen.
I’m good.
And I want this stylist to know I have that energy about me.
And I would say several of my clients let me know that you’re reaching out to them.
I see a pattern in the connections that you’re making.
I deeply admire your hustle.
I’m going to be totally honest.
When my clients are coming to you with the offer you’re creating, it’s almost coming across as a joke.
And I really do wish you well as you build in this market.
I don’t think this approach is going to work.
And I actually think you’re tarnishing your reputation instead of building it forward.
If you want any resources on how I did build the clientele, I’m so happy to help you.
Like, what is the whole thing about like, keep your friends close and your enemies closer?
I don’t even think this person is your enemy.
But I can tell you’re already in the headspace of, you kind of feel bad for them.
And if you have figured it out and they haven’t, give them a leg up and change their perception of you.
And I don’t know, if it were me and somebody approached me like that, I might be like, okay, well, damn, yes, I love the resources and I will totally back up off your clientele.
And if they won’t and if they say, well, too bad, I’m going to do what I want to do, say, totally.
I was like, you know, I respect your hustle.
This is what you want to do.
Great.
When this strategy falls apart, I do have some resources that can help you.
Just so you know, I am going to keep backing myself up to my clients.
There are negative conversations happening about you.
I’m going to let them know I tried to talk to you and give you a heads up and that you were not receptive.
I don’t think this is a smart move in our community, but you do you.
And all you can do is try and have the open conversation.
The other thing I would do is I might actually give your clients a heads up and be like, hey, I don’t know if you’ve been reached out to by SoCal Stylist.
I don’t know what this person’s handle is, right?
The poacher.
She’s been reaching out to several of my clients trying to steal my clientele.
If you do decide to work with her, you won’t hurt my feelings.
And please know my chair is still always open to you.
If you decide you want to give her a shot, I will completely understand.
And I think that by you reaching out to your clients and taking the bull by the horn, it really does show the confidence that you have and it allows your clients to not be made to feel uncomfortable.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been in this position before where like somebody in my personal life will send me kind of like a gossipy text or something about somebody who is a friend of mine.
And I always feel like I’m in an awkward position of like, why did you tell me this?
Because I’m friends with this person you’re not talking shit about.
And as a good friend, I would want someone to tell me this.
Like if somebody was running their mouth about me, I would definitely want to know.
But then at the same time, I’m friends with this other person who is trying to lean into me and ask for advice.
And now the person in the middle feels a little uncomfortable because they don’t know what’s appropriate.
Maybe some of your clients have been getting these DMs and are like, oh my gosh, should I tell Britt?
Is she going to feel weird?
It’s like this secret that lives between you.
I would just put it out there.
Again, best offense, good defense.
I would just have the conversation and most of all, be confident.
Category kings and queens, no one can tear you down.
There’s no competitors, just wannabes.
You got this.
So much love.
Happy business building.
I’ll see you on the next one.
