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 I’m really excited to geek out with you guys over vision statements and mission statements today–which should tell you a lot about me, that this is how I get down.
I’m honored to have you here on the show with me. The reason I get so passionate about vision and mission statements is because of the tremendous impact they’ve had on my business, the culture of those who work for me, the direction of all the decisions we’ve made.
It’s incredible how, I think it’s a total of three sentences we have between the vision and the mission–it’s fascinating to see how those simple words change everything. They change who wants to work for me, they change who wants to learn from me, they change what I offer to you all. It changes everything. The power in them is massive.
Stepping out of 2020–it’s funny. I always think of business as this pre-2020 and post-2020 world, ‘cause it really is like that. 2020 changed our generation forever. So much massively changed after experiencing the pandemic. It changed the way we think about life. It changed the way we think about business. It changed the way we think about our time. It changed what we think about money. It changed the way we think about the relationships that we have and who we want to connect with and what’s important. Our values, everything.
Because we’re in this post 2020 world now, we have to be prioritizing things like vision and mission because our clients want it, and stylists or assistants who may work for you in the future want it. It’s important, and so I want to empower you with the tools that you need to either create or refine your vision or mission statement.
So I will say: I’ve had a few iterations of vision and mission statements. I do believe that when we were at the salon altogether–this was like 2012 or something–we made a vision statement and a mission statement and looking back, we did not do it this way. I would imagine it was very hollow and vapid. I don’t think anybody who worked there could repeat it back to you. It wasn’t something that anybody believed in… versus, now that I know how to do it correctly, if you work for me you know the vision and the mission. We talk about it in every meeting that we have. It’s a huge part of why we do, what we do, how we show up, everything.
I want to show you how to do this correctly, not just “get it done”, but make sure that it’s done properly. What I’m going to walk you through will be beneficial if you are a booth rental stylists, commission stylist, studio suite owner, salon owner, if you’re an educator, anything, this is going to be really beneficial to you.
Let’s first start talking about what each are, and how they’re different. You actually have to start with the vision statement. I was speaking to somebody recently and he was like, well, I’ve got the mission, but I need to work on the vision. I was like, oh, that’s great. But in my mind, I was like, no. Once you define your vision, you’ll likely have to go back and do the mission because of the relationship they have to each other.
A vision statement describes the desired future position of whatever it is you’re doing. Your desired future position as a stylist in your community, your desired future position as a salon owner, your desired future position as an educator, your desired future position as a parent… it could be anything.
The vision is kind of like the long-term goal, if you will. It’s much more in-depth than that, but think of it that way. That’s why you can’t create the mission without that. How could you create the steps to get there when you don’t know where you’re going?
That’s like saying I’d like to get in my car and drive 2000 miles. Then if I said, well, where are you going? I haven’t figured that part out yet, but I’m going to put 2K on this thing. Okay. You could put 2K on your car, sure. But if you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know that you’ll enjoy the destination. That’s why the vision has to happen first.
Then we have the mission statement and the mission defines the actions and approach to reach the vision. So you can see how they go hand in hand. The vision is where you’re going, and the mission is the steps and actions and objectives you’ll use to get there. So these two pieces go together.
Often when we create these two pieces, this is what can define things like our purpose, our values. I know culture is really trending right now. Really tricky to create any of those three things if you don’t have the vision and the mission. So we’re gonna work on that today and this week ahead, which will be really fun.
I thought right now I would stop and share my vision and mission statements for my business. You can see if they resonate with you. You can decide if you think studying from me and coaching with me are still in alignment with your values. The vision statement is that Flourish Salon Business Development, which is the full name of my company, exists to create 1 million six figure stylists and change the perception of the entire beauty industry through our trademarked methodologies and systems. I’m going to break that down for you later when we talk about this, but that is our vision statement.
I am so blessed that as of today, I have 19 phenomenal women who work for me, all full-time employees, and they all are fired up to work with me because of our vision. They are down for that too, and that’s why they choose me over anybody else.
Confession: I’m the only licensed beauty professional who works in my business and it doesn’t matter, because everybody who works for me is equally as fired up about this vision to change and impact an entire industry. We’re going to talk about that again in a second but I want to, for a minute here, get into mission.
Our mission statement is to instill confidence in stylists and salon owners through real, modern, proven, actionable resources so that they’re able to create the wealthy life they are dreaming is possible. So now you know our vision and our mission, and I’m going to show you how to create each, but I want to give you a little bonus perk for being tuned into the Thriving Stylist Podcast today.
One of the things that we decided in 2020 to take on as a group is an annual objective, because when you think about it, the vision is very long term. The mission is like the action steps to get there. We all love serving the vision and that’s great, but each year almost has its own flavor, its own spice. My team was like, we love the vision. We love the mission. Is there any way to do something like a theme for each year? I was like, oh, you guys are brilliant. Yes, of course we can do that. So we decided to create an annual objective.
Our 2020 objective was simplicity. That’s it, one word. Our 2021 objective was position to scale, three words. I think it’s important that the annual objective is short, sweet, and to the point. Because what happened is that was the crosscheck for every decision we’d make. We would think about adding something to Thrivers Society or adding something to the podcast or trying some new method of marketing, and last year we would say, is this in line with simplicity? Almost always it was no.
The reason we chose simplicity is because we had gotten–2020 was the year that we just did everything. It was the year we planned Thrivers Society live. I was still hosting retreats. We were launching new programs. We were doing so much group coaching. The world was our oyster in 2019. So in 2020, we were like, you know what? We have to focus on simplicity if we’re going to push forward, so that ended up being our word for 2020. It served us really well.
Then in 2021, it’s position to scale, which is almost like simplicity’s big brother or big sister because the two go hand in hand. We’re not able to position to scale unless we embrace simplicity. Scalability is something I coached to you seeking your business as well. So you’re seeking it, I’m seeking it. We’re all seeking it together. Those kind of become the cross checks for our year ahead and our actions for every given year.
I want to explain to you how we created our vision statements so that you can do the same. When you’re wondering where the heck did she get this from? I’ve picked it up from a few different places along the way.
I will say I’ve gotten a lot of inspiration on vision and mission from Donald Miller. He has a great book called StoryBrand. He also has another, I don’t know if it’s a book or just a digital program, called Business Made Simple. I’ve done both, and in doing those exercises, I learned a lot about vision and mission. However, I’ve also done so many in-person workshops where we’ve worked on it as well. So I’ve picked up little pieces along the way.
The way we created ours is kind of like a hybrid of all of it. I did it in a way that works for our business, but encompasses the definition of vision and mission. So I’ll share with you our process. If you’re like, I don’t get it. This doesn’t work for me. Please feel free to research your own. There are a half dozen ways to get similar results, so definitely explore your options.
Step one is to think into the future. I think a decade is a good amount of time to think. The trick to this is that so much can change in a decade. If I even look back three years and somebody told me my business and life would be where it is now, I wouldn’t have believed them, but that is the result of having a good vision. That’s the irony of it is I’ve cast this vision. I cast this vision years ago. If I keep working towards this vision, it’s phenomenal to see what comes together.
Now, if I were to cast a vision today, would it be the same one? I don’t know, because I’m walking into it with different life experience. However, this vision is still on my heart. It still feels like exactly what I should be doing. When you think 10 years into the future, don’t start saying wacky things like, what if I move? What if my family changes? What if I decide that I don’t like cutting hair anymore? Don’t get so wrapped up in that.
Think about where your life is now, and if you were to completely optimize everything you got going on, where do you want to be in 10 years? Here’s the clincher. Here’s the big question: if in 10 years, you were to win an award for what you’ve done professionally, what award would you be winning? Uh, I love that question!
My award would be the one million 6 figure stylists award. That is what is on my heart. There are 1 million working cosmetologists in the U.S. today. So for me, that’s the epitome of revolutionizing an industry. It fully encompasses what I’m on the mission to do, so that would be the award I’d win.
Now here’s the catch. Is this really something that you want or is this just something that would look great on an award that sits on your bookshelf somewhere? I’ve found myself getting a little caught up, not recently but in years past, where I was like, ooh, I want to be acknowledged for X, Y, or Z, or it would feel great to have a certain amount of Instagram followers. But then, what’s funny is you achieve those milestones and then you wake up the next day and you’re living in the same reality and nothing actually has changed.
So really think about this vision that I’m casting, does it matter to me? Does it give me purpose? Is it on my heart? Or is it just something I think is cool. ‘Cause I got to tell you, if it’s just something you think is cool, it’s going to be a really empty victory and it’s gonna be a super hard vision to serve. So really think about what you want your vision to be.
Now here’s another catch. I told you my vision. If you try and serve the same vision that I do, it likely won’t come together. You need to create your vision by looking internally. This has to be a process that you do for yourself. If you chase somebody else’s vision, what happens is you likely empower their dream and not your own. You don’t want to do that. You want to create your own vision and really say, what would make me feel like this was a life well lived for me? That’s one of the most important things as well.
Step number two, determine your purpose in the market. This is a real trick because a lot of people choose a really good number one, this is what I want to do. Then when you get to number two, where it’s determined your purpose in the market, it’s like, okay, well, does the market really want you to do that? Is it a good fit? That becomes a really good cross-check.
When we’re looking for the purpose in your market, there’s two questions we asked. The objective question, which is why does our organization exist? Meaning what does our salon exist? Why do I exist as a stylist? Things like that.
Two, your competitive advantage. How do you do things differently, better, or more efficiently? That second question shouldn’t surprise you. For how many years have I been telling you guys be special, have a specialty? What’s your X-Factor? What do you do that nobody else does.
I’ve been asking you that for years and I don’t do it to be difficult. I do it because it is crucial. It is one of the key factors of good business is–what do you do that nobody else does? Not what do you do, and you’re real good at it? What do you do that you are untouchable at? That’s where business succeeds.
I want you to ask, why does my salon exist? Why do I exist as a stylist? These are some deep questions, right? And then how do you show up differently, better or more efficiently than anybody else?
Question number three, determine your body or scope of work. This was the clincher for me. Way back in 2013, 2014, 2015 even, the reason my company is called Flourish Salon Business Development–and if you look at my original website, it was Flourish Salon Spa.com. I was coaching stylists and spa owners and salon owners and makeup artists and tanning professionals and everybody.
Listen, you might be listening to this and you’re like, oh my gosh, that’s me. I’m a lash artist, or I am a makeup artist, or I am a spa owner and shout out to you cause I’m honored to be here as a part of your journey. But I had to realize that was not my body or scope of work. Could I do it? Yes. Was it in line with my vision? No, it wasn’t.
So I had to take a step back, but I wouldn’t have known to do that had I not created the vision statement. When you’re defining your body or scope of work, the question becomes what should or shouldn’t we do to achieve our main objective.
Then number four, layer on a measurable goal. Super important. It’s easy to choose a goal that’s on your heart, but if it’s not measurable, there’s no way to know if you’ve attained it. It will also feel really empty chasing it because you need to be seeing that progress getting there, chipping away at it in order for you to feel like you’re actually serving the vision. So having something quantifiable is really important there.
Okay. What I want to do now is I want to break down my vision statement using this criteria so you can understand how to put yours together. When asked the question, think 10 years into the future, what award do I want to win? What is something that I actually want to do?
For me, changing the perception of the entire beauty industry or empowering a full industry as a whole to be six figure earners is what is on my heart. I am so sick of people looking at stylists and salon owners and going, oh my gosh, okay. That’s so good of you. That’s great. When in their mind they’re thinking, he or she is broke. They’re never actually gonna make it. I’m so sick and tired of that. It doesn’t make sense. We should be acknowledged in the way that other career professionals are. Over it. So for me, that’s, that’s, what’s on my heart and that’s going to be number one.
Number two, why does your organization exist and how do we do things differently, better, and more efficiently? So my organization exists to create 1 million six figure stylists and change the perception of the entire beauty industry. How do we do it differently? Through our trademarked methodologies and systems. I shared this before. I’ll share it a thousand times. I don’t just teach stuff.
Sometimes people will listen to me and they’re like, oh, you could talk about this cool Reels hack. I could, except I don’t talk about hacks. What I talk about is a trademark methodology and proven systems that would work no matter what the next social media app is, no matter what Instagram changes, no matter if the algorithm happens or doesn’t happen. I teach a trademark methodology and nobody else is doing that. What I do is something different and that’s how I work to serve this mission as I show up really differently within it.
Then number three, determine your body or scope of work. For me, that was when I decided I was empowering six figure stylists, not six figure beauty professionals, because I could have gone either way. But when I looked at the body and scope of my work, that’s where things shook out and then layering on the measurable goal. I knew I wanted to change the perception of the entire industry. When I did my research and saw that there were 1 million beauty professionals in the U.S., if I want to revolutionize an industry, 1 million becomes the measurable goal.
We’ve had, to date at the airing of this podcast, over 10,000 stylists graduated from Thrivers Society. It is still the largest and most in demand training community and methodology in the industry today. We’re chipping in a way at it. We have a long way to go and the vision stuff fires me up, so I know that I chose the right one.
Then let’s get into the mission statement and how we create that. Step one on that is, what do you do on a daily basis? This is the who, what, when, where, why type question. Step number one. What do you do on a daily basis? Step number two, how do you do it? Step number three, why do you do it?
I often lean into mission statement when I’m coaching salon owners or those who want to be educators. If you’re an educator and you’ve come to me for advice, you’ve likely heard me push you on mission and it will trip you up. A lot of people fail because they don’t get the mission right. The vision is so crucial and important. The mission is equally as important. If you don’t get one right, it’s not all going to come together.
I want to give you some quick tips and hacks. Step one, what do you do. “I help…” or “I serve…” are probably the statements you’re going to use. I help. I serve. I empower. So it’s an I, and then some kind of descriptive is going to be your next word. Then who are you serving? Your target market, Who are you looking to serve?
Step two, the ‘how you do it’, that’s always going to start with a ‘through’ or a ‘by’ statement. I help underprivileged children by offering services that… I help, blah, blah, blah, by dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, or I help blah, blah, blah, through dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. It’s that I help, I serve, I empower, I elevate, whatever is that first part. The second part is, through or by, and then the third part, step three is why do you do it? This is what always trips people up: ‘so that…’
If you’ve asked me to help you as an educator or a salon owner before, I’ll always say what’s your ‘so that’ statement? 9 times out of 10, what people say after I say ‘so that’, it’s soft. Creating that ‘so that’ is really hard because ‘so that’ provides the transformation. That’s actually the key piece that people will buy into, but if we get it wrong, it’s no good.
Okay. I’m going to read you my mission statement and I’m going to run it through the schematic so that you can see in real time how we use this. Step one, what you do on a daily basis? We instill confidence in stylists and salon owners. I wouldn’t have been able to say that had I not had the vision statement. What do we do? We instill confidence in stylists and salon owners.
How do you do it? Through–remember I said the second statement has to start with like, through, or by–through real, modern, proven, actionable resources. Then step three, why do you do it? So that–there’s that ‘so that’ statement–so that they are able to create the wealthy life they are dreaming is possible.
What do you do? I help, I instill, I empower, I inspire. Through or by is your next statement, and then, ‘so that’ is how it rounds out. Okay. So this is hard. This is going to take you some time. Can you see now, as I’ve explained it, holy moly, maybe we have some work to do? Go back and make sure that you have this done correctly.
The thing about vision and mission that I want to share is your vision or mission doesn’t have to be to change the entire world. Mine is pretty big, but had you asked me 10 years ago, that was not mine. I got here through other strategic visions and missions. I think we’re living in this time as stylists and salon owners, we feel like we need to be a stylist and salon owner and then also invent something or do something crazy.
When I think back to my stylists, the stylist that I saw 18, 19, 20 years ago, her name is Iris. We’re still in touch today. She’s the reason I’m here. Iris inspired me in such a big, huge, massive way. Had she said, being a stylist isn’t enough. I wouldn’t be here.
I think often we forget our impact as a stylist or a salon owner, as a beauty professional, serving a community. Do you realize that as somebody serving a community, that’s probably the deepest, most amazing impact you can make?
My cousin lives in the same small community that I do. Love her to pieces. Just got together with her recently. She has been the owner of a furniture shop here in our tiny community for 25 years, and she’s amazing. I can drop her name anywhere in our town, and people are like, you’re cousins with Rachel?
It’s like knowing a celebrity because of the impact she’s had on people’s lives. She just owns a furniture shop downtown, but the impact is massive. If you ask her, she has a vision and mission and it’s not to sell couches. It’s so much bigger than that, and she does it. Every single day, she shows up.
I think about my best friend, Caroline who recently passed away. I remember talking to her over and over and over, and she would say, I’m just a teacher, or I just make the teacher salary. She almost talked herself down. I’m just a teacher. Well, now Caroline’s passed, and I kid you not, thousands of people have reached out to me, her husband, her family, and are like, you don’t understand. She changed my life.
Often, we as community professionals talk ourselves down and convince ourselves that we’re small. You change people’s lives in a way that those who step on a stage or write a book don’t.
How many times have you read a book and you’re like, ooh, that book was good. Then you never think about that author again? Versus the stylist that you see every six weeks for the rest of your life. It’s a different level of commitment. Don’t get that twisted.
Your vision and mission to serve your community Is massive. That is a legacy decision and it earns the respect of a vision and mission statement, so do right by it and give it a good one. All right, you guys, so much love, happy business-building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
