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: Welcome back the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva, and I’m really excited to dive into a fresh topic, something I don’t think I’ve ever talked about on the podcast before.
This is something I’ve been getting a lot of questions about recently, especially as our workforce market changes pretty dramatically. I want to talk about consumer perception, visual perception of somebody that a consumer is choosing to invest time with, invest money with.
Do the clothes you wear matter? Does the way you show up behind your chair matter? How do employees being hired want to work? And are they interested in working for somebody who has a dress code? Let’s talk about all of that kind of stuff.
I want to take you on a bit of a trip through time, so I’m going to talk about what I experienced working in the salon. We’re going to talk a little bit about psychology and then we’re going to get into my recommendations. These are going to be my recommendations if you are an individual stylist, if you are a salon owner, all of it, we’re going to get into all of it.
So I want to first start by talking about what it was like when I was in the salon. I joined my salon team in 2008, which I fully understand is dinosaur times. It was like living in a different world. And when I joined my salon team, there were a couple of different ways that dress codes were going down. There were some salons, mostly booth rental, where there was no dress code at all. It was like, come as you are or whatever, and then a lot of team-based salons were doing like all black, or black and white, or black, white, and denim. That was like, “Whoa!” That was like radical. Like, oh my gosh, denim. That was like a whole thing.
My salon was neither of those. We were what I would call business semi cas. Like not casual, but definitely not like business formal either. So if you’re going to wear pants, they were going to be dress slacks. Everybody was wearing dress slacks if they were wearing pants. Skirts and dresses were allowed. If you were wearing a top, it couldn’t just be a t-shirt. It needed to be a colored shirt or a blouse or something a bit more structured and formal than that. Absolutely no denim. That was a big N O. No sneakers, so everything was a dress shoe. It was intimidating as a new employee to come into this.
Now I will say it did make this salon feel very sophisticated.
When I think to our brand at that time—first of all, when I first joined the salon, the brand was a little risky. Like I would go back and coach my own owners to change the branding a little bit. But based on what it was, it was definitely catering to an upscale clientele. So I believe that salon ownership thought, “Well, we want our clients to be upscale, so we have to dress up scale.” The challenge with that was that here I was, 22 years old making—I kid you not, $8 an hour, and you’re asking me to dress semi formal. Okay.
So I went to Ross Dress for Less, Marshall’s, Target wasn’t even really—so this makes me sound so ancient—Target wasn’t even really selling all the clothes at that time. They were selling sweats and athleisure. I was literally going to like discount clothing places and trying to put the best together I could. Meanwhile I’m trying to make rent, so trying to put together something that made me look this type of way the salon wanted me to look that in and of itself was a massive hardship. It was very challenging.
I think I looked a little scrapped together. Like a girl playing dress up is pretty much how I felt and probably how I looked if I had to guess, but we did it. Everybody did it. We did our absolute best. When I had been in the salon for about a year and a half, the staff as a whole was fighting for one thing and it was denim. Everybody wanted to wear jeans and ownership was finally like, “Fine. You want it so bad? You can have it.” They let us have jeans, but it still was with the levels of professionalism and no t-shirts and there were still these restrictions.
I can’t even tell you how good the feedback was from our clients. It was crazy. Crazy. It was like somebody had opened the floodgates, like the outpouring of, “Oh my gosh. I feel like I now see you as you are.”
Oh, I can still remember it. I could bottle up that feeling. It was magical because we all felt like we were playing characters in a play. We didn’t know our clients felt like that too, but they did. And what it did for the way we were able to connect and be more authentic and feel like we were actually making human connection with our clients versus being these like robotic characters was massive. It was really, really huge for us.
I can’t say enough good things about that shift. Now with that shift, we also had some struggles. As soon as you do something like you introduce denim, Well, what do I want to wear with denim? I want to wear my Converse because that’s what I like to wear. I don’t want to wear a heel. Every time I put on a pair of denim and I can wear a blouse and a pair of jeans with a pair of sneakers and look badass.
I knew that about myself, but that wasn’t the dress code because sneakers weren’t okay. So what would happen is, fast forward a little bit, and I took over salon leadership. I remember one of my favorite stylists, shout out to you if you’re listening, came in with a pair of lace-up Converse up to his knees. It killed me, but I had to send him home because he was out of dress code.
He listened when I had the conversation with him, where I was like, “You’re out of dress code. I can’t have this.” He was like, “I know, but don’t I look good?” And the honest answer was, yes, he looks great, but it was not the dress code.
That’s when my idea of dress code actually changed a little bit, but it’s not that I’m anti dress code. I want to talk about the psychology of why the way you show up to work matters and how we can have some middle ground between expecting people to wear a specific color business cas, denim’s okay, sneakers are not. How do we find the middle ground and all these things where it’s not a free-for-all, business is still thriving, and people are able to show up as they are? Which to me is like the sweet spot when we can get to that place, everybody’s winning.
Even if you’re a booth renter and you’re like, “Well, there’s no dress code,” listen up because the way you show up and what you wear matters. I found that so clearly firsthand when we introduce something like denim to our salon and the client’s response was overwhelming. I’ll also explain why I left one of the stylists I was seeing years ago, so let’s dive in and talk about why all this matters.
We have behavioral scientist and Woodrow Wilson school professor Eldar Shafir—I hope I’m saying that correctly—has studied the relationship between consumer spending and perception, which you know I’m big on perception versus reality.
This professor has actually studied this for quite some time and he ran an experiment where he was showing this test pool. I don’t know how many people, but he had a few different sets of photos. Some of the photos were just headshots of people and it was like they were bare from the chest up. You could just see shoulders, neck, and face, okay? You couldn’t see what they were wearing at all. He asked people to try and pass judgment on all of these people by just looking at their faces.
Whoa.
I mean, I didn’t see the data from that in this study, but I’m sure it’s fascinating. Like the way that we judge people based on everything, it’s just so, so terrifying when you really start getting into biases and things like that. That was the blind part of this study. That was not his purpose in the study. That was the double blind.
He had this test form assess their perception of all of these individuals, just seeing their faces, nothing else. Then he had another set of photos and it was same people, same faces. But this time the subjects were wearing different outfits. Sometimes this subject would be in a business suit. Sometimes they’d be in a wife beater. Sometimes they’d be in a flannel. Sometimes they’d have sunglasses on the top of their head. All these different things and then asked people to do the same exercise. What is your perception of all of these people?
He specifically said, “I don’t want you to judge them by the clothes.” So it’s not like the test was not let’s see if clothes changed the perception. He wasn’t saying, “Do you value this person more now that they’re in a business suit?” That was not the question. The assignment was actually look at these people in the way that they’re dressed and do not judge them by the clothes that they’re wearing.
He actually even incentivized. He said, “I’m going to tell you what, if you can assess these faces with the clothes in the same way that people assess the faces not showing the clothes, I will pay you money.”
He was bribing them to actually not assess based on the clothes and people couldn’t do it. They could not possibly do it. It was impossible. And if you’ve ever taken a sophisticated bias assessment—the Harvard School of business has a great one.
It’s one of those things where you can’t cheat it. You can’t be like, “Oh, I’m supposed to pick the business suits, I’m supposed pick the business suits.” It’s not like that. You can’t trick your own mind.
His test was set up that way. You couldn’t trick your own mind. It was truly what you thought. And people could not help but want to trust spending with people who were dressed a type of way.
That I think is important to note that despite the fact that we try not to judge a book by its cover. As far as what somebody is wearing, it does make a difference. As far as clothing is concerned, when we’re looking at consumer behavior and what the study found was that consumers were more comfortable spending money with somebody who was not in a wife beater with sunglasses on their head. They felt more comfortable with somebody who was just wearing a t-shirt even than somebody wearing something that felt a little bit more casual.
I’m not saying that I agree with that study. I’m saying that the study exists and that based on the consumer behavior, the clothes that people were wearing were the differentiator. I think it’s something to note.
Now, the converse of that is that there was another study done by psychologist Gauri Sarda-Joshi, and in her study, it found that people tend to be less open and find it more difficult to relax around people in formal clothes, which was fascinating.
I don’t have the data from the first study where it was like, “Oh, if you were wearing a business suit, people were more likely to spend money.” That’s not how the data was presented in the first study. The data presented in the first study was just to say the way that people dress did have an impact on consumer perception of if they trusted to invest with them.
Okay. That was the outcome of the first study. In this secondary, non-related study, what Gauri found is that the more formal a person is dressed, the less likely a consumer is to feel comfortable.
Now, in some situations we don’t necessarily need to feel comfortable. Like if I’m meeting with a lawyer, I don’t know if I need to feel comfortable. I need to trust that person. Like if they’re going to battle for me, my comfort is kind of not as important as my perception that they know what’s up and that they’re going to fight for me, right?
The trust is what it’s about versus in our industry, we are service providers, so the comfort has to be prioritized. And in Gauri’s test, she found that a more casual and relaxed dress code helped people to feel more friendly and creative naturally. And I’m going to guess that you want your clients coming in to feel friendly and creative when they’re sitting in your chair.
The question then becomes what do we do with all this data? Well, what we know to be sure is that, despite our best efforts, people do have bias and they make assessments based on what somebody is wearing when they’re choosing where to invest their time, energy, or effort. My advice as a whole is when you think about what you’re wearing as you step out the door to go to the salon every day, is, are you wearing something that would allow somebody to feel like they can both trust and emotionally connect with you? Do they see you as well the industry leader with what you’re wearing?
Let me give an example. I am a fan of a deconstructed jean. You can ask my team. There was somebody I was working with for a photo shoot a while back and they were like, “And tell Britt not to wear shredded jeans.” I was like, “Tell them, I don’t own any pairs that don’t have shreds. So that’s going to be challenging nor am I going to buy any today.”
For me, I can wear shredded jeans and look like a million bucks based on how I style it. I can also wear shredded jeans and look like I’m about to go do gardening for the day and look like $10. You can dress anything up or down.
That is my point and purpose in this. I think we need to think less about dress standards and more about professionalism standards.
Knowing that consumers are more likely to be retained, send you referrals, be more inclined to not argue with you about your price point, be more inclined to tip you more maybe even based on the way you present yourself. We know psychologists have proven the way that you show up does have an effect on how your value is perceived. It just does.
We know that if you take the time to style your hair for the day, put some thought into putting together a cohesive outfit versus rolling out the door seven minutes to spare before you need to be at the salon. If you’re not showing up as your best, how can you expect your clients to show up at their best? You can’t. We have to match their tone and tempo.
I can remember some stylists coming into the back break room and I would be like, “Did you brush your teeth today?” It was so terrifying to see how they would show up and then they’re essentially asking people to pay the money for their time.
We have to show up as 110% as we show up in our business as stylists if we expect clients to do the same.
My take on do salons need dress codes, I think we need to be more focused on our standards of professionalism and what it means to be a professional. If I could go back in time and if I own the salon that I was leading, which I didn’t, and that stylist came in wearing his lace-up Converse, I’d say, “You look badass today. Get out there and do some good hair.” ‘Cause he did, even though sneakers, weren’t a part of the dress code. His clients would have loved it. It would have been a conversation piece. He would have had a great day. He probably would have inspired other people to be more confident in the way that they dress and look and feel.
I think if the way that we show up in the way that we dress instills confidence, shows our self-confidence in who we are, and shows that we have love for ourselves. When people talk about things like personal hygiene—let’s just go there, let’s call it like it is. When I have jokingly said I wanted to ask one of my stylists one day, “Did you brush your teeth today?” I’m certain that they actually did brush their teeth, but they looked unhygienic. This is what I’m getting to.
There is a difference between coming as you are, embracing your personal style, and looking like you just rolled out of bed. I think the reason why a lot of salon owners feel or felt the need to have a dress code is because they haven’t instilled a good sense of professional value and standard.
I don’t have a dress code in my company. Nobody on my team is going to show up to a team meeting looking like they just rolled out of bed because we have a standard of professionalism where a dress code is not necessary. We have core values. We have a mission statement. We have a vision statement.
I show up a type of way, and because I show up a type of way and present myself a type of way, I’m setting the standard for the stage. If I half dabble, they’re going to half dabble. When you have a cultured salon and when you have a standard of professionalism, it all comes together.
If you were an individual stylist, you work in a studio suite, or you rent a booth, even if everybody else in your space looks like the stylist who just topknots it and hopes for the best, how much do you think you could leverage it?
If you were the stylist who went all out, who did beach waves on a random Wednesday even when they had to be at the salon at 7:00 AM, that’s pretty cutting edge. And what’s what’s subliminal message? What does that say to our clients? It says you were important enough for me to go all out and wake up and make myself presentable for you today.
I’ve talked about this recently on the podcast. We’re an industry that is fighting so desperately for professionalism and fighting for people not to devalue us and fighting for the jokes about being the broke hair stylist to end and fighting for the reality of being a broke hair stylist to end.
We got to show up that way and I don’t believe that we should expect people to dress in costume. I think I was essentially asked to do when I first joined the salon was to dress in a type of way that I couldn’t afford. That was an unrealistic ask and expectation if you ask me.
I don’t think that is the answer. I think the answer is teaching and training and empowering people to love themselves and have self-confidence and show up as the best possible version of themselves every single day behind the chair.
Because when that confidence radiates, and when you’re showing up for your clients looking like there’s nowhere else you’d rather be, my gosh, your business is going to explode.
So to round it all out, not a fan of dress codes. I am a fan of loving yourself enough to show up as the best possible version of yourself each and every day that you stand behind the chair.
I hope this has been helpful, especially to the salon leaders who are struggling to adapt to these new generations, these gen Z, these millennials who are pushing our boundaries a little bit. They’re helping us, they’re helping us. They’re not hurting us and we need to embrace their values and embrace their ways and realize that being the best version of ourselves is the best way that we can be.
You guys, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you the next one.
