Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? 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 hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt Seva: What is up and welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host, Britt Seva and this podcast episode may be a shorty, but a goodie. Is that a thing? It’s maybe a shorter episode, but it’s such a poignant topic that I thought it deserved a little love and attention. So we’re going to talk about how to fire a client or stop doing certain services in your business.
This week’s episode comes courtesy of Thriving Stylist Insider Emily. So she says, “Hello, I would love to have a podcast on how to fire a client or stop doing certain services. I’m a salon owner, and I’m trying to transition some of my staff to specialize in certain areas, but men’s cuts, kids’ cuts, blow dries, etc., keep pre-booking and we aren’t sure the best way to approach clients and let them know that their service private provider will no longer be offering certain services. I would love to hear what you think and how to let them know.”
This is actually two questions to me.
One, how do we phase certain services out of our business? And two, how do we fire guests who may not be a fit for our business? I’ve navigated both, both in the salon when I was in the salon and also as a business coach. I’ve helped stylists and salon owners to navigate these things for years.
I want to talk about both sides of this coin. Now we actually have to start with the legalities of this because we can’t just say, “Sorry, you don’t fit in my business. Get out.” That’s not going to work.
But on the flip side, as a business owner, you know the goal is always to build a dream business and to be working with guests who light you up not bring you down, and to be working within a skillset that really serves you and where you’re allowed to shine, right? So it’s a balance of those two things.
I want to start with the legalities of refusing service so we have a really strong foundation to build upon. First, we have to take a look at the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which states that no business serving the public, even if it’s privately owned, can discriminate because of a customer’s national origin, religion, color, or race. So if you are a business owner, you cannot say “So sorry, I’m unable to serve you because of national origin, religion, color, or race,” right? That’s not going to work.
And I want to remind you that if you are a commissioned stylist, a booth rental stylist, a salon owner, you work in a studio suite, you’re a business owner. Even if somebody else is cutting you a paycheck, that’s just your form of payment. But by the license you have in your pocket that was given to you by whatever state you live in, that certifies you as a cosmetologist, you are working within your own license. You might be working within a business that has its own business license, but you are a licensed professional of the state you work in and you need to be making sure you’re honoring this constitutional civil right to equal opportunity to services.
Just keep that in mind that always has to be something we have to keep first and forefront, right?
Then we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prevents a business’s right to refuse service based on a customer’s disability. So if a customer wants to come in and they’re in a wheelchair, even just temporarily, you can’t say, “Oh, so sorry, you can’t come in here. We have no room for your wheelchair.” That is not legal.
You need to offer accommodations, reasonable accommodations, to anybody and everybody who wants to be a patron of your business, right?
And so, because this varies, I can’t give you a blanket statement of what is or is not okay, but I want to remind you that it’s important to look up those legal guidelines to make sure that if you are choosing to release somebody from your business because they’re not a good fit that the reason they’re not a good fit is a legitimate reason.
We’re going to talk about some of those legitimate reasons right now, but I just want to remind you that I am not a lawyer. I can’t offer legal advice. I’m simply offering business advice and verbiage to help you navigate a challenging guest.
As a service provider and as a business owner, you do have the right to refuse service to rude customers. So if somebody is being angry or violent or makes you feel unsafe, you were always legally protected to invite them to leave your business and I’ll explain exactly how to do that.
Now as we go through all of these legalities, I want to give you a bit of a summary. So as a business owner, you do not have the legal right to refuse service based on religion, skin, color, sex, physical conditions not within the customer’s control, or their nationality. If you do so, you’re guilty of unlawful discrimination.
You can’t say, “I just don’t do men’s cuts,” because you’re discriminating based on gender. That is illegal. We can’t do this in many states.
It’s also illegal to have one price for women’s cuts and one price for men’s cuts, which is why when you’re in Thrivers Society, we don’t price like that. There’s no gender pricing. There’s also no kids’ cut price because that’s age discrimination. You have to be mindful of all of these things and all of the laws and technicalities do vary on things like that state to state.
Make sure that you’re really looking at all of the legalities and covering yourself. But when you coach with me, we don’t coach in that way. We don’t price in that way. It’s based on time and effort put into any given service that determines the price point.
Going back to Emily’s email though, because when she’s saying the business is transitioning and I want to have my stylists specialize in certain areas, so here’s the deal. These are the services that Emily identified as ones that are no longer a fit for her business: Men’s cuts, kids’ cuts and blow dries.
So I don’t believe Emily is saying men’s cuts don’t fit because we don’t want men in the salon. Kids’ cuts, don’t fit ‘cause we don’t want kids in the salon. I don’t believe that’s what she’s saying, but the way she looks at her business, the way the business has evolved—when you look at the fact that it takes the same amount of time to do a men’s cut or a kid’s cut but often the price is different for services like that, the value of the stylist’s time is diminished when those services are in the chair, and so it stops making sense.
The first thing I have to ask is do men and kids pay the same as women? Because if you coach with me, absolutely, they do. A haircut is a haircut is a haircut whether you’re doing it on a wooly mammoth or you’re doing it on a human being. A haircut is the same. The timing is the same. And if somebody needs to be in your chair longer, they pay more.
But why would it ever make sense for a men’s cut to be booked for 45 minutes, a women’s cut to be booked for 45 minutes, and the men’s cut is $20 cheaper? I know how we rationalize it. We say, “Well, the man might not get a blow dry.” Might he, though? What if the man has shoulder-length hair? If, since he’s a man, he leaves soaking wet, that sounds discriminatory. So that doesn’t make any sense.
And so what’s wrong is the pricing structure itself. If 45 minutes of your time is valued at $100, it doesn’t matter what the person is getting. If they’re getting a long cut, a short cut, just a blowout, if they’re getting a color service or whatever the value is, the value is the value, which is how I coach to pricing. That changes a lot of these technicalities because it’s not based on any sort of discriminatory value. It’s based on the service provider’s hourly rate, right?
But when she says, we’re looking to phase out men’s cuts, kids cuts, blow dries, the first thing I want you to really look at is pricing structure in your business structure to make sure that it’s not the structure that is failing you. It’s actually those services.
Now, going back to the fact, there is a chance that services like that just don’t fit your business anymore and I want to give you scenarios where they wouldn’t fit your business anymore.
Now you mentioned that you want some of your service providers to specialize in certain services. That is why some of the stylists in my salon also phased out some things like kids’ cuts, men’s cuts, blow dries, things like that.
So we had a stylist who was a certified color specialist who was certified by a nationally-recognized organization. Made sense. It was on her bio page, like “I am a certified color specialist,” very clearly documented in everything that she did because that was her specialty. She changed her business model so that you could not be on her books unless you were getting a color service. No color, no appointment. She was a color specialist. So that was her business model.
Maybe you’re an extension specialist. Unless somebody gets extensions with you, they’re not a fit for your clientele because your specialty is extensions. It is the business you run. It is what you do. It’s not discriminatory based on anything, just these are the services that I offer. I don’t do anything else and so this is what my business model looks like.
Can you see how that’s very different than just saying, “Oh, I don’t do men’s cuts.” Is the man getting a color service? If so, he might still be a fit for your business and it actually might take care of the objective of “Men’s cuts aren’t worth value on my schedule.”
Well, it sure would be if he’s a multi-service client, if you’re a color specialist, it might still be a wonderful fit to have him in your clientele. So really take a look at what the specializing does and that becomes the framework for who is still a good fit for our business and not.
If you’re an extension specialist and you say, “You know what? These cut-only clients really aren’t a fit for me.” It’s not that they’re not a fit for you because you don’t like kids’ cuts. It’s not a fit for you because you’re focused on building as an extension specialist and a seven-year-old isn’t getting extensions in the consultation. You wouldn’t deem that seven-year-old to be somebody who could maintain them, therefore not a fit for the service, therefore not a fit for your business, right? You also likely wouldn’t do a bleach and tone on a seven year old. So not a fit for the service, not a fit for your business.
You first define the specialty. You build a brand around the specialty, and if somebody doesn’t fit in with this specialty, then we need to start phasing them out of our business because they no longer fit the business model, right?
If I loved going to my local grilled cheese restaurant and suddenly I’m a vegan and they don’t offer vegan cheese, there’s just nothing for me there, right? That’s what would happen if you change to a specialist of a certain type that some people just don’t fit anymore. That’s how that goes.
Let’s say we’re doing the color specialist example, the verbiage to your clients who no longer fit within the specialty would be, “I’ve made a shift in my business and I am now focused on my specialty, which is color. All of my bookings now must be attached to a color service because of this specialty and because this is the best opportunity for me to grow my business and build my livelihood. Since you don’t currently get a color service or whatever, we have two options. We can do a consultation if you’re interested in seeing if I do have a color service that would be right for you, or I can refer you to another stylist who I know will take great care of you for your haircut only.”
That’s it. Now, what if you have decided that you are an extension specialist, the verbiage is the same. “Hey Sarah, I do have to let you know, I’ve made a shift to my business. I’m really excited to announce I’ve doubled down on my extension certifications and working into the year ahead. I am going to be working as an extension specialist. So because of this, my entire clientele does need to be receiving extensions to stay a part of my business. So what we can do is I would love to consult with you and see if there’s an extension package that might be a good fit for you. Not all extensions have to turn you into Rapunzel. Sometimes extensions are just great for density, or we can just do some in your crown to give you a little bit of a root lift. We can look at all of the options, but if you don’t feel like extensions are a great fit for you, I can certainly refer you to somebody else who just does cuts and color or whatever”, right?
The business model shifts come first and then you have to stick with it because if you pick and choose who can stay and who has to go, you’re being discriminatory. Just make sure that you truly make the business model shift and change. Widely broadcast it, learn the verbiage and then explain to your guests. That becomes really difficult to argue with.
“This is what my business looks like now. I would still love for you to be a part of it. Here’s what it looks like to still be a part of my business,” and then they can make a choice, right?
So now what if you need to fire a guest? Again, a few reasons why you should fire a guest. For me, if I know the word ‘firing’ always sounds so ragey like, it’s just driven with anger. It doesn’t have to be. I fired some guests where it’s like very mutual.
Sometimes you’ll do a consultation. So here’s one of my pet peeves is redos. Redos happen for everybody. If you’re a stylist, who’s never had a redo, you will. It’s coming. It’s just part of the business model. I always say that most redos, 99% of the time, are the fault of the stylist because either they failed in the consultation by not asking enough questions to really understand what the guests wanted or they failed in the consultation when they didn’t accurately and adequately describe what the final result would look like to the client.
Either they over promised and under delivered or they missed the mark or they just weren’t clear in their communication, right? It made sense in the stylist’s head, but it didn’t come out their mouth the right way. They didn’t show enough examples.
I have a podcast that talks about how to do effective consultation. I dive deep into it in Thrivers Society, but the consultation phase deal or the stylist didn’t filter out the red flags sometimes.
Have you ever had a consultation where you’re like, “Whoa, this lady, whoa.” And you’re like, “I’ll be lucky if she’s happy in the end,” then why are you doing her hair? If there’s red flags at the beginning when this person’s in your chair, that’s a hard pass. We’re not going to pass go. We’re not going to collect $200. It’s just not going to work out.
There were a couple of times, just a couple, where I would consult with somebody and we just were not vibing, like the connection wasn’t there. The consultation felt clunky. We couldn’t get on the same page and often tensions would rise. So it was fairly clear that I was getting uncomfortable and the guest was getting uncomfortable. Communication wasn’t smooth. It was just not working. I would talk it out for a while and then I would get to a point where I would say, okay, “I think I understand what you’re looking for. Also, I think this is unfortunate, but what you’re looking for is not within my skillset.”
I would just take the blame on myself. Like if we couldn’t get on the same page, it was truly my fault. I wouldn’t blame the guest or be like, “Well, she is nutty” or “She’s a terrible communicator.” It’s my fault because I’m the professional and I can’t get on his or her level. It’s just what it is. I’m the professional. I should be able to get there. I can’t for whatever reason. So I would always put the fault on myself. And I would say, I think I understand what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, it’s not within my skillset or unfortunately it’s not within my specialty. Or unfortunately I don’t believe I have the skills to take it there.
So it would be to me, and as soon as you say something like that, the client doesn’t actually want you touching their hair anymore. It’s a little scary because you’ve just said you are not adequately trained to do it and it’s the easiest way to get out of the situation. That’s the reality. You can’t understand what they’re looking for so there’s no way for you to, with full confidence, proceed with the service.
It’s not mean, it’s not saying I don’t want to work with you. It’s saying I can’t achieve the results you’re looking for so I can’t rightfully take your money, right. That just makes sense.
I would say, “You know, I wish I could take great care of you. I just can’t.” Sometimes they’d be like, “Well, what do you mean? Aren’t you a professional?” I would say, “Absolutely, I’m a professional, but I’m a professional in a really focused specialty, and I’m really good at that specialty. I can’t do all the things. There are some amazing stylists, most of us specialize. And I think that there’s somebody out there who would be able to take an incredible care of you. Unfortunately, it’s not me.”
And often I’d say, “And I don’t know that there’s anybody else in the salon who can achieve that look,” unless there really was somebody, the salon I felt like they’d really click with. I would just say, unfortunately, I just don’t know that we are able to meet your needs. I would only use that if I felt like the communication was no good, it was not for any other reason than our communication failed us.
So if I felt like they were arguing with me, or there was too much tension, or they wouldn’t let me finish speaking, or I’d bring out swatches and nothing was right, like if I couldn’t come to a consensus with the person, I was not going to touch their hair. It just wasn’t a fit.
That’s an example of when I would refuse service. Another example of when I would refuse services is if somebody came in and they made me or the staff feel uncomfortable. Only ever one time was I put in a position where an assistant was shampooing a client and the client made the assistant feel uncomfortable.
I told my assistants on probably day two of their training before they were anywhere in contact with a client, I said, if a guest ever makes you feel uncomfortable, you walk away from the client, whether their hair is soaking, wet, covered in color, whatever, you come find me and I’ll always stand up for you. And this was a situation where I had to put my money where my mouth was and the guests made the assistant feel uncomfortable and listened to their story in full. It was awkward as heck.
But I went up to the client and I said, “One of my team members doesn’t feel comfortable working with you. She’s made to feel very uncomfortable and the comment that you made”—and I repeated the comment back. I said, “That was very suggestive and because of that, I can no longer have you in our place of business.” If they had called the police, I’m sure the police would have sided with me and sent them on their way. The comment was disgusting.
In a situation like that, I was within my right to refuse service. It was a derogatory and horrible thing to say. That’s another situation where I had to fire the guests. I just said, “This is totally out of line with our company policy. It’s time to show you the door.”
In those situations, I would just with confidence say, “We are not the business to meet your needs,” and that’s the end of that.
What helps whenever you are phasing clients out of your business or firing clients for whatever reason is to have really strong policy in place, protocol in place, verbiage practiced so that you’re not making up verbiage on the fly when you get into a tense situation like this.
Then to be very clear in your marketing, who you serve and who you don’t serve so that everything is taken care of. When I say who you serve and who you don’t serve, if you’re a color specialist, in order to sit in your chair, the person has to get cut and color. Make that very clear.
If you’re a styling specialist and in order to sit in your chair, the person needs to have a 45 minute consultation at their first visit. Make that very clear, right? Because that’s not for everybody. I would love that. Not everybody would love that. Not everybody thinks it’s cool to spend 90 minutes at their first haircut appointment. They’re just not down for it.
Making it very clear from the start what your business model looks like so the client can adequately choose if you’re a really good service provider for them or not.
You guys, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
