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 lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy.
When you’re ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for Hair Stylists, and this is The Thriving Stylist Podcast. What is up and welcome back to The Thriving Stylist Podcast.
I’m your host Britt Seva, and I’m really excited about today’s episode because it’s a little mix of personal, tactical, organization, business building, feel good strategy, a little bit of everything for stylists and salon owners, and it’s a real
treat when I get a chance to do episodes like this. So first things first, I started really talking openly last year, a little bit this year, and certainly a few years back that my life kind of got a little bit wild there for a few years, and it
certainly impacted my business. It mostly took place in my personal life. And it’s one of those things when you experience kind of like a season of, I don’t know if like a low is the right word or just a season of overwhelm.
It’s interesting because you honestly don’t realize what it was doing to you physically, mentally or emotionally until you’re out of it. And it’s interesting because you feel it when you’re in it. Like I remember so deeply.
So I was in like a pretty rough spot from end of 2020 until end of last year. So four years, which is wild to think about now. But I was not in a great place and I didn’t I knew I wasn’t feeling good.
I knew that I was having issues that I wasn’t having before in like my business and in my life and in everything and it just felt so much more chaotic. I felt like nothing was going right. But I blamed like external factors.
I was like, yeah, but the world is kind of crazy and there’s so much going on and so much has changed since the pandemic and maybe this is just how life feels.
And I’ve got, you know, one young kid and one kid graduating high school and I’ve got this business and we had a lot of personal stuff going on. I was like, you know, this is just how life feels.
Now at the place I’m at, I look back and I’m like, no, no, that’s actually not accurate. Yes, life runs in highs and lows, but when you’re feeling like very out of control or very chaotic, that’s not normal.
And I think that we’re living in a time where we have really like overhyped and kind of like zhuzhed up chaos and we’re like hustle culture and work harder and sleep less and do more and be everything. And I definitely felt that pressure.
I think especially as like a working mom to like provide for my family, be this like badass, I hate the word boss, babe, but just like that badass, like working woman, but also be there for my kid and do the yard duty shifts and show up as the craft
mom. And then I have this adult daughter who needs me too. And I’m a wife and I’m a friend and I’m all these people and trying to do and be all these things, I felt like I was failing at everything.
And I have been in therapy like my whole life off and on. I’ve done all different types and all different situations and whatever. Recently, like very recently, I started working with a new therapy group.
And when I tell you it’s changed my life, my outlook, my sleep, the way my body feels, my mental clarity, the way that I work, the way that I’m able to show up for people, it’s truly changed everything and made me see things from a very different
perspective of like the things that we have really normalized as a people is not normal. And so this episode is dedicated to the things that I’ve walked through in the last, probably almost a year, like nine months, but then especially in the last 60
days that have, I can’t, I can’t like emphasize this enough, like really changed my whole life. And I’ve done a couple of episodes where I keep saying like it changed my whole life. But like I’m on this journey to like, what if life was better?
What if it was easier? What if I didn’t have mom guilt? What if I didn’t have work guilt?
What if I was a better leader for my team? What if I was a better wife for my husband? What if I was a better mother to my kid, friend to my friends?
Like what if, what would that look like if it didn’t also include overwhelm? And I found it, like it’s really possible. And this episode is dedicated to the idea of the fact that you all are stylist and salon owners.
It’s really freaking hard to run the businesses that you’re running, build the clientele that you’re building, emotionally give to your clients all day long.
If you have a team, emotionally give to them, be there for everybody, do the guests, run the business, all the stuff. And there is a way to find balance in all of it. And this episode is dedicated to a 30 day challenge.
I’m gonna start for you. You can do this on your own. We actually do have a little PDF to make it easier for you.
So if you head to thrivingstylist.com/organized, what I have is a rundown of all of the exercises I’m gonna walk you through today. And there’s also a checklist.
So if you want to do this and have something to make notes on and check off your progress on and have just a rundown of everything I covered today, if you head to thrivingstylist.com/organized, it’s a totally free PDF.
You can download your copy and use it. You do not have to. You can also just listen to the podcast episode and do it your own way.
But this is a real strategic one and it’s a little bit different than like, make some posts on Instagram. This is really about finding peace and joy in your life.
I think for a lot of us, the reason why we got into the industry is we had this fantasy that we were going to be able to kind of like have everything, you know, be super present with our families, work a schedule that we wanted, still make great
money, love the work that we did, be super creative. And often we’re hitting like two out of those five and then the other three are super out of whack and we just have justified in our telling ourselves, well, it’s just how it is. It’s not.
It’s so not how it’s supposed to be and it doesn’t have to be that way.
So I wanted to give just some exercises and some ideas of how you could create just a little bit more relief for yourself, a little bit less chaos, a lot more organization and a feeling of productivity, a feeling of being and doing your best in a way
that makes you feel effective. So if that sounds like a fun idea for you over the next 30 days, I’m going to give you a handful of activities to get that started. So a few rules before we start.
One, this entire exercise activity, whatever you want to call it, is about making progress forward, not doing everything perfectly.
As a recovering perfectionist myself, that’s a hard one, but just know, you’re not supposed to do it exactly the way I say to do it. You’re supposed to allow these exercises to make you feel like you’re moving forward in a way that fulfills you.
Number two, this is a 30 day challenge, so hold yourself accountable. We’re not doing it together as a group. So whenever you start your 30 days, if you listen to this two years from now, whenever you start your 30 days, give yourself 30 days.
Not like, oh, these are cool ideas. I’ll definitely get to them when I get to them, but it’s the holidays now and summer’s crazy. Don’t make excuses.
If you’re going to do this, do it over 30 days. That’s one of the things I’ve learned too is sometimes efficiency does count twice, and holding ourselves accountable as adults is something that adults are really terrible at.
And when you’re choosing to get a hold of your life, holding yourself accountable to deadlines and due dates and doing what you say you’re going to do is a huge piece of that. Number three, there is no timeline on each challenge.
So some of these you might do in 30 minutes. Some might take a week and a half. That’s totally fine.
And rule number four, use a progress chart. So like I said, if you head to thrivingstylist.com/organized, we do have a chart that you can use. Use something.
If not our chart, use something else. There’s neuroscience studies that show when we use pretty office supplies, like there’s a reason why people love to go to Office Max and pick out new pens or go to Target and cruise the stationary aisles.
There’s neuroscience that shows doing things like that releases dopamine, and dopamine does make us feel good.
So when you like, oh, I’m one of those people who gets excited when they pull out the markers and get to like use them on a checklist, that’s normal. And so allow yourself to really enjoy this process. That’s a huge piece of it, too.
OK, ready? So some of this is very much salon stylist related. Some of it is not.
That’s by design. So challenge number one, which for some of you is going to be the hardest, clean out your car. Some of you are like, oh, my car is pristine all the time.
That’s great. Well, then this one will be easy for you. But I want you to like really go for it.
So often we do things like we justify like, well, I’ve definitely got some clothes in the trunk, but like sometimes I use those things.
If you think you’re going to need clothes, pull them out of your closet in the morning and put them in the car for the day. If you’re like, well, I don’t have time to do that. That’s something to really think about.
If you don’t have three minutes, if you need an additional outfit and you don’t have three minutes in the morning to pull something together, it’s a moment of pause to think about why. Because now you’re living a life where you’re a closet on wheels.
It’s creating chaos. And there’s part of you that knows like, oh my gosh, where is my jacket? Is it in my trunk?
Did I leave it somewhere? Is it in my? You’re creating chaos for yourself.
So clean out your car. That means the trunk. That means under the seats.
That means in all of the little cabinets and doodahs and the center console and the dashboard and all of that kind of stuff, everything. So if you want a little bonus dopamine kick, create a little goody bag for your center console.
I made one and it’s the envy of all my friends. So I just ordered like an $11 one on Amazon or something like that. So like a little clear packing cube and you can put inside it.
I have hair ties, pens, mints, gum, deodorant, Advil, flashlights, band-aids, all kinds of stuff in there. You don’t need a fancy organizer. You could very much use a ziplock bag.
But that alone gives me so much peace of mind of being like, if I run out of something, I’m fine chapstick, right? Just the little things you think that you might need or a friend might need and you’re the person who has it.
There’s just so many wins to getting organized and having something like that. So that’s exercise number one. Okay, once we’ve done that, number two, we clean our station.
But I mean to really clean it like the good client. So we’re going to take everything out of the drawers, take all the station products off the shelf, clean your brushes, sanitize things you haven’t sanitized in a while.
Wipe down the insides of the drawers, make sure there’s no hair in there, use your blow dryer, get stuff out if you need to. Deep clean your hot tools, like how much stuff you have caked on there that hasn’t been cleaned off in a while.
Throw away or consolidate your station products. The more tidy your station looks, the more professional a client will think that you are. If the top of your station looks like a mini retail display, we have a lot of work to do.
You probably only use three, four products regularly and then another dozen or so occasionally. The more organized you look, the more people are willing to pay, the more people trust you.
Take that step forward and really clean and optimize your station. Number three, we’re coming up on the end of the year as this podcast is being released, so it’s perfect timing.
I want you to go through and throw away any excess journals or class workbooks. So I know some of you and some of you have journals and class notebooks that take you back a decade. Like old stuff, really old stuff.
It’s time to let it go. So a couple of things you can do. This is something that’s been hard for me over the years is being like, but what if, like, what if I’m going to need that?
I might regret it. I may throw it away and then a month later I’m going to need it.
If you haven’t used it in a year or two years, probably that day is not coming, but if it makes you feel any better, what you can do, a couple of things, you can take the pages of any journal or any workbook and put them all into a master binder.
So you have one place where everything lives. If you used Wealthiest Year yet, you know that that’s what that tool is for. You can put everything into all one place.
If it makes you feel better, that’s totally fine. The other thing that you can do is take photos of your notes and save them in a photo folder on your phone of just class notes.
You might actually use it more if it’s digital and accessible and you can pull it up at any time. If I can be honest, I don’t think you will, but if some of us need that mental peace of mind of like, okay, but it’s there if I need it.
If that makes you feel better, do it.
But the other 600 pieces of paper that are just taking up room and are living like a subliminal to-do list of all the education that you took that you haven’t really taken a lot of action on yet, or stuff that you’ve taken classes on that you’ve
already mastered. Just it’s time. It’s time fresh start release. Challenge number four, organize all of the photos in your phone from the last year.
Most of us have, if you’re anything like me, hundreds or thousands of photos on your phone. Digital clutter is the same as physical clutter in today’s day and age. Delete photos you don’t need anymore.
That’s okay. If you have 600 photos of one client, maybe scale back to 200. You don’t need that many, organize them.
Again, photo folders on your phone. You can do personal photos as well. You’re going to find probably a lot of like screenshots and silly things that you’re not going to hold on to.
Just organize it. What I have found is when I’ve walked people through this exercise, this one is a little bit addicting and you’re going to be like, oh my gosh, I’m going to keep going. I’ve caught up on this year.
I’m going to go further. Just hold, just get yourself caught up to this point in the year. And then if down the line, after these first 30 days have passed, you want to go back and do more.
I love it. But just do the more current stuff first. What happens is it starts to get really heavy.
I have over 20,000 photos on my phone at this point. If I try to organize all of those, I would lose steam and now I’ve lost interest in the entire project. Just do it to one year and you’ll probably be in a good place.
Okay, challenge number five, refine your following on social media. I do this a couple times a year. It’s one of my favorite things to do.
I know it breaks some hearts, but it really does change the user experience.
If you don’t love your scroll on social, or even if you like it, but you feel like you don’t see some of your favorite accounts anymore, this is going to be transformational for you.
So go through on Instagram or TikTok basically anywhere you scroll and unfollow at least 10% of the accounts you currently follow. For some of you, that’s going to be like 300 people. For some of you, it’s going to be like 40 people.
That’s fine. For example, 10%, if you follow 800 accounts on Instagram, you want to unfollow at least 80. Do this over a few days.
Instagram doesn’t love it when you go in and unfollow a bunch of people all at once. But what you’re going to find is you’re following people who don’t post anymore.
You’re following people you don’t even remember you followed, and you’re messing with your own algorithm because Instagram looks at who you follow, also who you interact with, of course, but they look at your following and then they say, oh, okay, if
they follow so-and-so, they might like this. If you see random stuff and you’re like, why am I seeing this or why am I not seeing the stuff from people I follow?
Instagram is just following the signals you give it, and sometimes we need to clean up those signals. So go through and unfollow people that don’t fire you up. You can also silence people.
So if you’re like, well, I don’t really want to unfollow them, but their message doesn’t make me feel good or it doesn’t inspire me anymore. You can just quietly mute them. So you’re still following them if you’re worried about what they might think.
If you give them an unfollow, you can mute them and then they just won’t show up for you. That’s an option as well. Okay.
Challenge number six. This is a beefy one. Clean out your closet.
So for some of you, this is no problem. For some of you, this is horrifying and this is when you want to turn this podcast off and never listen again.
I encourage you to pull out the donation bags, trash bags if you need them too, and be prepared to get rid of at least 15 percent of what’s living in there. For some of you, it’s 15 percent of your clothes.
Some of you have all kinds of stuff in your closet. That is also mental clutter. A general rule, this is something that was advised to me and it’s changed my life.
One in, one out. So if I buy a piece of clothing, I’m obviously buying it because I’ve decided I need it. So it’s something I don’t have.
So if I have 20 jackets and I’m still buying a new one, I should probably let one of those jackets go. And so if you have 40 t-shirts and you’re buying a new one, I know they’re all very sentimental and very sweet and very magical and very amazing.
If you’re not wearing them or not enjoying them, you can even put them in a bin and transition them to the garage or the shed or somewhere else temporarily. If you still don’t need them and want them, it’s probably okay to let it go.
But create a little breathing room in that closet. That’s going to be huge for you. Challenge number seven, find a social media muse.
This is interesting. I ask this question a lot when I’m coaching people. I’ll say, who do you follow for inspiration on social media?
They’ll say a name and I’ll be like, oh my gosh, that’s so interesting. They have a business that’s nothing like yours. They’ll be like, oh, I know, but I love following them.
Great. I follow a lot of people that I like following because I think they’re funny or I learned from them, or I like the way they decorate their house or whatever.
That’s not the same as having a business muse or a true, not mentor, but a real figure that I can look to for tangible direction.
For example, if you’re a studio suite owner, do you have two or three badass studio suite owners that you follow and they’re like your go-tos?
Not like friends you’ve met along the way that you think are so great, but you see a studio suite owner and you’re like, that business, the one that they have is the one that I want. I like the way their suite is branded.
I like the clients they serve. I like the way they show up. I like what their website looks like.
If you don’t have that yet, that’s your mission. That’s challenge number seven. Same for my salon owners.
Some salon owners do this thing where they follow very aspirational salons. Maybe you have a salon with six chairs and you have a small but mighty team and you’re doing amazing. By the way, I love a six chair salon.
So don’t let me minimize you. I love a six chair salon. But let’s say you have this killer six chair salon and you’re like, well, my muse is this salon that’s on the other side of the country and they have 40 chairs.
That is such a huge leap from where you are now. And what happens is we look to that business and it makes us feel good and we love that. It’s good to have those big dreams and to watch that person.
You should still follow that person. But to go from six chairs to 40, I’m sure that’s not what they did. There were steps along the way.
I want you to find the salon that’s closer to where you are, like tangibly, not necessarily physically location wise, but maybe another six chair salon or five chair salon. That’s just doing things better than you or maybe it is a 12 chair salon.
I don’t know, but find a North Star business person that you can follow to be like, I want a piece of what they’re having. And that doesn’t mean copy them. And it doesn’t mean steal their ideas.
It means have somebody you can look to for inspiration, for hope to amp you up when you’re kind of feeling eaten alive by your business. It makes such a huge difference. Challenge number eight, make a website update checklist.
I do this a lot in coaching is people will say, can you go through my website? I’m always happy to do it. But generally speaking, I find things that like you could have very easily found yourself, but we don’t make the time to do it.
Broken Instagram links, man, probably for every three websites I look at, at least one of them has a broken social media link on it. Backdated bio pages, pricing that hasn’t been updated, former employees are still on there, whatever.
You don’t have to update the website at all. I’m not saying challenge number eight is update your website. It’s not.
Challenge number eight is to go through your website. It should take you maybe 30 minutes or less and just make a list of everything that you should update sometime in the next 90 days. So all you’re doing is making the to do list.
You don’t actually have to do the updates. And I’d actually rather you not. Some of you are going to go in and be like, Oh, I’m just going to update it right now.
It’s going to derail you. I’d rather you not. I’d rather you just make the update list and go back and do it later.
OK, challenge number nine, create three weekly wins. So these are three things you’ll do every week through the end of this year. That’ll make you feel like a winner.
I want you to make this a push goal. So don’t have it be things that you’re already doing. So for example, I have a fresh pressed juice every day.
I’m already doing that. So I’m not going to have that be one of my wins because I’m already doing it, right?
So for example, if you’re somebody who has found that social media has gotten hard, maybe you say, OK, through the end of this year, I’m going to post high quality, like really great social media post three times a week for the rest of the year.
Three times a week. I’m going to do it. Great.
That would be a weekly win to accomplish, right? Maybe it’s more personal. Like I want to pack my lunch every day for the rest of this year.
Take at least two walks every single week for the rest of the year. Listen to a podcast I love. Read a book.
Dress. Oh, this is a good one. Dress my best two days a week.
Like how many of you are kind of like in a slump? This is me. I got into the slump where I was like made no attempts to dress my best.
And now I’m like into it. Give yourself a challenge of something that you’ve maybe gotten out of the habit of that would bring you kind of back to back to feeling inspired again. And it can be simple things.
It can be complicated things, but things that make you feel like you’re progressing forward. Pick three and you’re going to do them every single week through the end of the year. OK, we’re getting close to the end, folks.
Challenge number nine, clean out your desks. So if you are a salon leader and you have a desk or you have a desk you work at from home, the drawers, the folders, the piles, everything, invest in new organizers if that makes you feel good and excited.
But clean out your desk is challenge nine. Challenge ten, review your handbook, training binder or operations manual if you are a salon leader. Again, you do not need to update it in real time.
But this is one of the big blind spots I find. So when I go to coach salons in person, we start flipping through their ops manual and they’re like, oh, my gosh, I was just about to update that. Or these things become dated super fast.
In Thrivers, we coach everything being digital, which helps. But it doesn’t mean that things don’t get backdated.
So go through if you’re a leader and you have a handbook or a training binder and ops manual, go through and make sure you have everything updated and make note of things that need to change. OK, challenge number 11, the break room 12, 12, 12.
So a 12, 12, 12 cleanse is not something I made up. It’s something that was taught to me. So a 12, 12, 12 goes like this.
You find 12 things to throw away, 12 items to put back where they belong and 12 items that don’t have a home or a system yet that you’ll build a home or a system for. So we’re going to do this for our back break room if you have one.
If you’re a studio suite owner, you’re going to do this for your entire suite. So and if you’re an employee, you can just kind of help declutter a little bit.
You might have to might not do this quite so formally, but I want to explain the concept to you. So break room 12, 12, 12 is going to be finding 12 things you should probably throw away, 12 items that are far away from home.
So maybe it’s what could it be? A pile of things that are sitting in a corner somewhere that you know you’re supposed to do and you haven’t done them yet. Right?
Color that you’re supposed to go through an inventory, those retail products that just won’t sell. Decide what you’re going to do with them and do it. Okay?
12 items to throw away, 12 items to put back where they belong, and find homes for 12 items that don’t yet have a home or a system yet. Okay? Then challenge number 12 is the dispensary deep clean.
Similar to all the other deep cleans you’re going to go through and deep clean your dispensary, you can 12, 12, 12 it if you want or do it like you did with your car or your station, just really clean everything out.
And then challenge number 13 is we’re going to do the exact same thing with our inventory. So with retail inventory, I actually coach to doing a full inventory on it every 90 days.
And if you get into that habit, there’s a huge tax benefit to doing it. Consistency is key. You can’t just do it whenever.
It does have to be done very systematically. We have a training for that in Thrivers if you’re ever interested. But do a retail inventory.
If you don’t know what a retail inventory is, you take a look, you count manually everything that’s on your shelves or everything that’s in your salon space, everything physically you have in the space, you compare it against your record keeping, and
then you make a note of what the differences are. There will be differences. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a retail system that’s like perfect.
So you make a note of what you think you have in the salon, what you actually have in the salon, and then you make a note of the difference between those two numbers.
What you’re also going to get a real good pulse on is how many hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of retail is sitting in your space. It’s going to be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s important information to have.
Knowledge is power and it’s going to help you to get organized. Well, that was a lot and I know it feels like a huge load.
If you can do this exercise and challenge over the next 30 days, you will feel so productive, so much more organized, you’ll feel like you’ve made major progress, and all you’ve really done is is cleaned up your life a little bit.
It’s not much more complicated than that, but you’ll be amazed how much lighter you feel, how much more energized you feel, how much more organized you feel, and how proud you feel yourself.
So if you haven’t already checked it out, you can head to thrivingstylist.com/organized to get your hand on a breakdown of all of these exercises and get our checklist so that you can keep track of everything.
If you do decide to complete this, you can always hit me up on Instagram, let me know how it went for you, I’m Britt Seva on Instagram.
If you have any requests for any future podcast episodes, you can leave them in the rating reviews here on iTunes, as I always like to say, so much love, happy business building and I’ll see you on the next one.
