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 Siva, social media and marketing strategist just for hairstylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Siva, and today we’re talking about something that’s very timely. So there is this failed payment trend, and I call it a trend because I’ve gotten three questions about it in the last 30 days. So I know it’s something that’s kind of like trending upward, we’re gonna see and hear more of it. There’s this failed payment trend where a client will get through their entire visit and then not be able to pay. Three times I’ve had people mention that to me in the last month. And so for the three people who mentioned it, there’s probably hundreds who I’ve never heard from, you know what I mean? This is an issue quite clearly. And when we have clients who sit through an entire service and then are unable to pay the final bill at the end, it is uncomfortable.
It’s a challenge. It can be awkward. There’s a million different reasons why it happens. And then there’s different scenarios around it too, right? Is this client somebody you’ve been doing your hair for seven years and, you know, oops, something happened? Is this a brand new guest you’ve never met before? There’s all these nuances to it. So the questions that keep coming up for me are, is there a systemized way to do it where nobody has to feel, you know, mortified and I can still make sure I get my money and I’m not chasing people down and all of these things. Now, I wanna get out ahead of this for just a second because I can only imagine that as I talk about this group of silos or salon owners who are having clients sit through an entire appointment and not be able to pay, there’s some people listening to this who already said, “Well, that’s why I require a credit card at time of booking.” Or, you know, “This is why we require deposit.” I hear you.
And when I was at the salon, we tried to do the holding a credit card thing for a while. Some of the things that backfired were if we didn’t charge a deposit at the first time they entered it in, people would just enter in fake credit card numbers. We ran into that a lot. So then the obvious way to counterbalance that is, okay, then there’s a deposit so that we know that the credit card is good. Deposits are failing as a marketing strategy at a rapid rate right now. And I understand that when you secure an appointment for your guest against a credit card or against a deposit, for you, that’s not a marketing strategy. You’re looking at that and you’re saying, “Well, that’s how I’m gonna guarantee my revenue. I need to make sure I’m gonna get paid and I don’t wanna get screwed and this is my boundary and this is my system and this is my structure.
And if somebody cancels, then they still have to pay.” And I’ve done plenty of episodes that talk about all of that, so you can go back and listen to those for sure if you wanna understand, like, why that’s 99% that I’m gonna be illegal in our industry anyway. Some of the legal and financial burdens that you can end up facing when you do things like that. But the other thing is, for the past 13 months now, I’ve coached thousands of stylists away from cancellation policies, deposits, credit cards on file, booking forms, all of these barriers to entry. And I’m gonna read to you several of the DMs and messages I’ve got just in the last two weeks. Okay? So these are all recent. So this first one came in two days ago. It says, “Girl, 21 new guest requests in the month of March. I still have seven days left this month.
This is a record. I usually have seven to 12 new guests a month, but this is an all time high.” This is a stylist who has almost tripled, certainly doubled, her new guest requests March of 2026. So I think that there’s this narrative around the industry that clients are flakier and it’s harder to, to get business. It’s not harder to get business if you have modern systems and strategies in place. If what you have in place is dated, yes, it is much harder to grow right now. Okay, here’s another one. So this is coming from Julie, and she posted this in our thriving stylist community. So if you’re a member, you’ll be able to see this just like I do. So Julie says, “In January, I had 13 new guest requests. In February, I had 22. We still have six days left in March and I’ve had 18 new guest requests so far this month.
Where do we go from here? How do I move the goalpost?” These are stylists who are growing incredibly quickly. Their demand is off the charts and they’ve removed all barriers to entry. There is no credit card required at time of booking. There is no deposit that’s required. There’s no form that’s required to be filled out. And then the question is always, “Yeah, but how do you know if they’re gonna show up?” Okay? I got another one for you. This is from Melissa, also a Thriver who says, “This is worth sharing. I decided to change my settings where I no longer require a card on file. In the last 24 hours, I’ve gotten five appointment requests just since making that change.” And that was impressive. I messaged her about four weeks later, and I said, “Hey, Melissa, you’ve been on my mind. I’m checking in to see how the credit card removal has played out in the long haul.
Did those five new guests who booked right away come into their appointments?” She said, “Hey, Britt, thanks for checking in. ” Yes, all five guests who booked right away did come in. I think I’ve had three more new guest requests since then, as well as two requests from guests I hadn’t seen for over a year. So what we’re finding trending, and not at a small scale, I’m telling you, thousands of stylists. When we remove things like credit card required at time of booking, deposit required, heavy cancellation policies, stylists are seeing an uptick in business. They’re not seeing an, an uptick in no-shows. They’re seeing an uptick in revenue. And what’s tricky is we put these policies into place thinking it protects us. It works against you for so many reasons. And I have other podcasts on that. I just want to share all of this for context.
For those of you who are like, “Oh, no, no, so much simpler solution. Don’t do what Brit’s about to say, just throw a credit card on there.” I promise you, I’ve seen it happen literally thousands of times. If you put a credit card on there, you’re going to limit your demand. You’ll get probably a third of the new guest requests that you would have if you didn’t have a strong cancellation policy, didn’t require a deposit, didn’t have that cancellation fee, didn’t take that credit card. The data doesn’t lie on that one. Now, the caveat would be like if somebody’s doing extensions, having them prepay for their hair, I totally get it. That’s a totally different game that we’re not talking about. But for standard services, we want to remove all of that and just get the client in the building. Like what worked several years back.
If they want to, they will. If somebody no-shows on their appointment with you, it’s because it wasn’t important enough to them. It’s not because the client sucks. It’s because they decided that there was a better place to go, a better place to be. They weren’t important. They were kind of on the fence. And there’s lots of things that we can do to overcome that. So what I want to talk about is the client who sits in your chair, finishes the service, goes to pay, maybe their credit card declines because it was stolen. Maybe their debit card declines because they’re overdrawn and they didn’t realize it. Maybe they never intended to pay. Like we, we don’t know what their intention was, right? There’s all of these different scenarios. I wanna read to you a few of the messages that I have gotten around this topic. So this thriver named Heather says, “The first time in all of my years, I had someone whose method of payment declined at the end of the visit.
She had no other way to pay. She said she’d pay the next day. I trust her. She’s been a loyal client for 10 years. This has never happened before.” So this is the, like, the best case scenario, right? This is Heather’s, like, longtime client. The client probably feels terrible. It’s a genuine mistake. Best case scenario. So then we had another thriver who posted, “I know Britt has some info for how to handle it if somebody’s check bounces or if their card declines payment.” I’m not finding it in here, what’s some good verbiage for that. Now, I don’t know that stylist specific scenario, so I don’t know exactly what happened there, but a specific scenario that I do know is the scenario that happened to my daughter. So you may or may not know this. My daughter, Emily, does hair. She graduated from cosmetology school over three years ago now, three and a half years ago or something like that.
She’s renting a booth. Her March of 2026 was off the charts, packed, busy. She was having to expand her schedule. She’s done really well for herself. And she had, in March 2026, the first client, new guest, she had never met this person before, went through the entire visit and was unable to pay. And Emily offered her lots of different methods. You know, there’s credit card, there was Zelle, there was Venmo, and for whatever reason, she couldn’t pay with anything. And so my daughter was on the spot and let her go and called me and was like, “What the heck should I have done?” And what she ended up doing, which ended up being a pretty significant fail. And, and she did it because she didn’t know what else to do and, and I don’t want anybody to be in the same position that she is in.
The client was like, “Hey, can I just go home? I’ll transfer some money. I’ll send you the payment. I’ll text you. ” My daughter was like, “I mean, yeah. What’s she gonna do? You know what I mean? She’s stuck here. This person saying they can’t pay. She felt like she had no choice.” So then the client leaves and she’s like, “Well, that sucks.That’s like $280 walking out the door. I hope it works out. ” So she called me and said, “What should I do? ” And I gave her advice for next time, which is what I’m gonna give you as well, but I wanna get to the punchline of what happened to her. So the client ended up texting her at like three in the morning and was like, “Oh, turns out I can’t get the money.” And my daughter chased her down for several days, finally got most of the payment.
I don’t think it was payment in full, but it was probably 80% of it in the form of multiple payments through multiple channels, which is hard for the client too, right? Like clearly the client was in a bind and my daughter was being empathetic of that and she was like, honestly, like, it’s enough. Like it, it starts to be a really long taxing process for everybody involved in your, the texting and the chasing and the logistics and did you get that payment? Did that come through? It says it came through on my end. I mean, she did the whole gamut. And so I wanna share what I would do in this scenario. And then I also wanna give you a Thriver strategy. One of our Thriver Society members shared something that she does, which is totally different than what I do, but I think it’s important to share a difference in perspectives.
My approach is more firm, without a doubt. Her approach I think is more of a compromise. I think her approach is a great fit for an existing client that you trust. I think my approach is the play. If this is a new guest or somebody you don’t have a trust or relationship or just your, like, spidey senses go up and you’re like, “This person’s gonna take advantage of me. ” So I wanna share both. I’m actually gonna share the strategy that I gave my daughter and the one that she’ll be using forward. I’ve shared this with tons of thrivers in the past and it works 100% of the time because to be candid, it’s a bit intimidating. It’s also the legal way to handle an issue like this. So I’m gonna give you the exact verbiage. Let me paint the picture. Clients walking out the door, hair looks great, just finished a service, happy as a clam, and for whatever reason they can’t pay.
And there’s the panic, and I don’t know what to do. What are my options? Can I pay you tomorrow? All that starts to come up. This is what you say. Listen, I totally understand. This kind of stuff happens. I have a process for this. It’s very important that you say that part. I have a process for this. It establishes confidence and it puts you in the power position, which is very important in a scenario like this. So then you go on to say, “What we do on our end from here is I’m gonna take a photo of your ID right now. As long as payment comes through within the next 48 hours, I delete the photo of your ID and we both move on. ” If payment does not come through within the next 48 hours, I do have to submit your ID and a record of the visit today to the name of the county sheriff.
So in my scenario, we would say the San Mateo County Sheriff, it would be whatever the county sheriff is in your area, you drop that name right in there so that it’s on file as a loss for my business. I’ve only ever had to do this twice. I’m sure you’ll get this taken care of in the next two days. So let’s just do the photo right now. We can keep in touch on that payment. I can do Venmo. We can do a bank transfer anytime before, you know, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and so at the date, we’re gonna be all good. Do you see how I mean business? But I was not mean. I was not nasty. I came from a place of total understanding, interest in partnership, but I’m very confident. And did you notice that I said, “I’ve only ever had to do all of that twice.” What that shows is I’m experienced and I mean business, I will take this all the way.
There is not, and none of us wanna have to get the county sheriff involved, you included. The great news is that part is like a little white lie because when you do a system like this, believe me, you will get that payment much faster than even 48 hours. I bet you’ll get it by the end of the day because to be candid, this is the legal process. It’s theft. If somebody comes in and gets a service with you and, and knowingly walks out the door without paying and there is not an agreement on that, that would be considered theft. So that is something that law enforcement can get involved with, but let’s say that that client booked using a false name and a fake phone number and you let them walk out the door, you text them, they don’t text you back, we look up the name, the name is fake, you have nothing.
You have absolutely nothing to go on. So the picture of the ID is like the OS moment because they can’t get out of that. Now, if somebody says, “I don’t have my ID with me, ” no worries, I’ll come outside and snap a photo of your license plate. There’s a lot of ways to verify somebody’s ID, but let me make it clear, if somebody was the person who was trying to take advantage of you, when you’re already having this crossroads where you’re having this conversation where you’re saying, “Listen, I have a system, this is how we do it. ” It’s never been a problem in the past. The couple of times I’ve had to file with the sheriff, we’ve gotten it taken care of really quickly, and you say it all with kindness. You don’t have to say it with anger or intimidation because it just gets the job done.
So you mean what you say, but at the end of the day, you’re probably not gonna have to take this anywhere 99% of the time because nobody wants it to have to go that far. Everybody wants to get it taken care of. Now, the question becomes, if you go down that path with a person, will they come back for another visit? More than likely, no. But more than likely, you now don’t trust this person anyway. And so the best thing we can do is get the money for the visit at hand. Now, if they do come back, now you have options. Now say, “Hey, listen, I know last time we had that kind of like payment snag for comfort of both of us. I know that your ticket today is gonna be 280. Let’s just take care of that now.” You can take care of the payment at front of visit at that point because now you’ve walked down this road, you both don’t wanna walk it again, very fair and reasonable request, but we wanna do this like with due diligence and in a process that’s logistical because if you come down heavy or your process isn’t good or you make a mess of it, you could face issues like refusal to pay, bad reviews, somebody who bashes you online.
Like there’s all these other things. If you handle it this way, believe me, nobody’s gonna say a peep because you, you clearly are somebody who’s confident and knows what they’re doing and that’s not a business that most people are interested in messing with. Now, if you do all of that and the client is literally refusing to give an idea or whatever, say, “You know what? Not a problem. I can just submit the report to the sheriff without your official ID. I have the after photos that we took today of your hair or before photo.” And this is just another good reason to be taking before photos, like innocuously, right? And listen, if you’re somebody who’s not even taking before photos for social media, you can just say, “Okay, and we always take a photo to attach to your profile with your record today.” You just wanna have systems and structure in your business to protect yourself in these moments, but if somebody refuses to share their ID, I’m in huge red flag, but then you say, “Not worries.
I’m, I’m actually able to send this to the sheriff without your ID as well, and I’ll just use the information that I have, and then they’ll take it from there.” It’s out of your hands, and, and if it does get out of control, then you take that next step. I’ve never seen it go that direction, but you made it very clear that you’re confident and you know what you’re doing. Now, if you do things like that, it usually goes smoothly. Now, I wanna give you this other Thriver suggestion, because it’s very different than mine, and I do think it’s more of a fit for somebody that you do trust. So this is from Nina Woodley, brilliant stylist. I absolutely love her brand. Look her up and follow her if you don’t already. She said, “When issues with payments happen, forgot their car, internet issues, et cetera, and that part’s interesting, like the internet issues.” I won’t say names, but I know that there’s some booking systems out there that have been having some service droppage lately, so this is even good to have in the pocket for that.
She says, “I create an invoice and I text it to the guests so that they can pay ASAP.” This does not happen often. I let them know it needs to be paid by the following morning at the latest. So she gives, call it, you know, 12 to 15 hours or something like that, and I let them know that they’re not allowed to book another appointment until the service is paid for. Fair. Things happen, and the guest always feels awful when payments fail. I totally agree with her. Like a good client is gonna feel bad enough as it is, or they’ve forgotten their card. It’s never happened to any client more than once. I don’t have a policy, just an honest conversation at the time it occurs. I think that’s such a great take. Like often we think like policies, rules, guidelines, sign a form. Most of us have learned the hard way.
You can have the most amazing policies in the world. It does not make you immune to challenges and when you handle these situations with confidence and verbiage and systems and structure and partnership, you almost always end up with a better result. Like if anybody has ever had a client who is unable to pay, the gratuity you get on the flip side of that is usually bigger. And I know none of us hope for like failed payment big gratuity out of guilt. Like nobody’s hoping for that, but imagine how it would be received for you to explain all of this to somebody and then follow up for payment versus being like, “Well, you, you know, you filled out this form, this is my contract.” As soon as you’re battling with somebody, you’ve already lost. Like it’s already going to be a mess on both sides. We want this to be as frictionless as possible for everybody involved, and I think we’ve laid out some great options here to make that possible.
We’d love to keep the conversation going. You can always leave me a rating or review on iTunes or keep the convo going in the thriving community as well. And as we always say, so much love. Happy business building and I’ll see you on the next one.
