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 today we’re talking about how to be an absentee salon owner in 20 minutes. So a lot, obviously this’ll be the cliff notes version of how to be an absentee owner, but it’ll at least give you a framework to get you started on the right track.
For those of you who don’t know, I worked for an absentee owner when I joined my salon team. The owner of my salon was full-time at a beauty school, had opened a large, massive beauty school in the San Francisco Bay Area, and that’s where he was. I was leading the team on his behalf while he was running a secondary business and he had done basically everything right to put himself into that position.
I talk about what you can do as an owner in detail, if that’s the position you want to be in, in my program, Thriving Leadership.
So let’s break down just some of the overarching principles of what you would need to do if being an absentee owner is on the horizon. Let’s start right up at the top and talk about what it means to be an absentee owner in case you’re not aware.
Being an absentee owner would mean that you are the owner of the salon. In my opinion, you are drawing a reasonable salary and profit from the business predictably every single month, yet you don’t have to be there full time.
Somebody left a comment on my ratings and reviews on iTunes recently and said, “Britt, how can you run a salon successfully without being there all the time?” And I thought, “My gosh, every salon owner should be able to do that.”
There’s a few key reasons why most are not in that position. Most feel like while the cat’s away, the mice will play and it doesn’t have to be that way.
First of all, in the business that I have now, I think most of you know, this, we all work remote, so it’s not just me who gets all this done. I have 19 employees. I’m never managing them on a day-to-day basis. They’re always self-managing themselves. I meet with some of my team members a few times a week, but there’s a quarterly I meet with all 19, but most people are working independently and they get everything done and they get it done on time and people get fired if they don’t and things run really smoothly.
And it’s because we have all of the things I’m about to list to you today. I’m essentially an absentee owner. It doesn’t mean that I don’t do work in this business, but I’m not overseeing all the mice on a day-to-day basis, right?
Now with you as an absentee owner, you’d actually get even more benefits because I still work in this business every single day. I’m just not overseeing people every single day. You could be at home or working on another extension of your business or another passion project, and still draw that predictable salary and profit.
That doesn’t make you greedy, and for any stylist listening to this who thinks it does, I hope that you never then aspire to be a salon owner. I would guess every business owner has the right to turn a profit. You as a stylist behind the chair are a business owner. You should turn profit. That’s the point of being a business and the profitable salon owners that I know today, they’re profitable because working for them is a dream come true. That’s how they’ve made the profit.
And if you work for a salon where the leader does the list of things that I’m about to ramble off, you would gladly work for them and be glad they took home a profit because they would have earned it.
Let’s talk about the things that need to be in place in case you want to be an owner who doesn’t have to be in the building, watching everybody, fixing all the problems full-time. The first thing you need are systems and processes.
I’ve been an employee. I did the employee thing for a long time. I also have employees that work for me and when something goes wrong in my business, I always know it’s my fault. When anybody in my business makes a mistake, it’s my fault. It’s either my fault because I didn’t give them a system or a process to set them up for success, or because I have the right person in the building, but they’re in the wrong seat (meaning the wrong position), or they shouldn’t be in my building at all.
But no matter what the reason, it’s my fault. I either need to give them a system and a process or find a better role for them that’s better suited to their skillset or release them from my company and let them find a better fit. Those are the three options, but it’s always my fault.
So going back to systems and processes, if you have not set up systems and processes for everything going on in your business, how can you be upset when something goes wrong? And when I say systems and processes, people will say like, “Well, what about Jeremiah? Well, he shows up late.”
Okay, what happens when Jeremiah is late?
“Well, I’ve told him lots of times.”
Okay, and then?
“He still does it.”
Okay, and then?
That’s the problem. There’s no system and process, which leads me into point number two, repercussions.
Systems and processes only work if there are repercussions for when they are not followed. Adults are like really large children, myself included. If you don’t give me any guidelines, I will do my own thing gladly and not worry too, too much about how it affects anybody else. That’s how all of us operate.
So my guess is that Jeremiah, when he shows up late to work, it’s not to make you mad. Jeremiah shows up late to work because he has a time management issue and he’s convinced himself it doesn’t make his clients that upset, his day still goes on pretty good, so why does he care?
Well, there needs to be systems and processes and Jeremiah has to understand, “Hey Jay, I know that you don’t mind being late, but when you’re a part of Britt Seva salon, part of what we do here is we show up on time. If that’s not important to you, man, I can understand that, but it is important to me. I’m the leader of this company. And if that’s not something you can do, we have to reevaluate your position here.”
Jeremiah might say, “Are you kidding me? Because I show up five minutes late you’re going to fire me?”
My response would be, “No, I don’t want that. I actually just want you to arrive on time,” and then it’s up to him. “I don’t want to fire you, but I do want you to follow the rules here.”
When you first started having those conversations, it can be very challenging. It starts to get easier when people realize you’re not messing around. They start to fall in line and or those who don’t want to be told what to do, exit out the left, and that’s okay too.
For some of you, you’re like, “I don’t care if stylists come late or whatever,” that’s fine, but you may struggle to be an absentee owner.
It’s very difficult to be an absentee owner if there’s not rules and policies. And here’s why: because if Jeremiah is allowed to be late, well, then Stephanie’s going to start showing up late. And Stephanie was your most trusted stylist and you allowed her to be the opener and you trusted her to be there and turn on the heater in the salon on a cold winter’s morning. But since Jeremiah’s late now, Stephanie decided to come late and it’s like a domino effect.
And so, because you can’t rely on Jeremiah and you can’t rely on Stephanie anymore. Well, now you have to be there. It’s your day off. Your daughter has ballet class, but you’re going to have to go in the morning, open up the salon, turn the heater on, make sure the coffee’s started, check the snack bar because you can’t rely on anybody else because nobody cares.
Nope. That’s actually not why. The reason why all that happened is because you don’t have systems and processes and or you have them, but there’s no repercussions when a person doesn’t follow them.
Then we start to say, “Well, if I over-systematize, no one will want to work for me.” I disagree. If I was to work at a salon, I’d only want to work at one where there were systems and processes. If you find the right people, that’s what they’re going to be looking for.
And when you talk to stylists who have left good places for great places, they’ll tell you it’s because of the stuff I just said. Because it felt like they were working in chaos, because it felt like the people to the left and the right didn’t care, because they felt like the leader didn’t care.
Human beings in general want predictability and structure, period, for our lives. When you create that, people are actually much more comfortable, much more likely to follow the rules, much more likely to find joy and stay long-term.
These systems and processes and repercussions will help you to attract the right people. And when I say systems and processes, I don’t mean a ton of crazy rules, but I mean the things that are going to keep the salon environment happy and then bringing in people who respect those rules, which leads us to point number three, having what I call a co-pilot.
If you’re going to become an absentee owner, there needs to be somebody on site who can make decisions on your behalf. If not you, then who? You need to start asking yourself that.
For some of you, it’s going to be a full-time salon manager. For some of you, it’s going to be a stylist that you’ve trusted, that works for you for a long time, who’s willing to take that on. But you need somebody else who’s able to make the day-to-day decisions and then you need to trust them to do so.
If Nicholas is my co-pilot, when he makes a day-to-day decision, I have to respect that. And here’s what that looks like. If Nicholas allowed Alyssa to take a half-day off on a whim, Alyssa asked, Nicholas called all her clients, pulled the trigger, and it made me mad. Let’s say, I’m the salon owner. And I’m like, Nick, why did you do that? I never let Alyssa know. It’s between me and Nicholas to work out. As far as the team knows, I respect Nicholas. They should respect him in the decisions that he makes. If he does something wrong, I don’t go around the salon and slander him. And I don’t say, “Well, I know he said that, but you know that guy…” That’s not leadership on any accord.
Whoever you put into place as your co-pilot, you trust them. And even when they mess up, you deal with the mess up in private. But the staff should see that person as your right hand, the decision-maker in your absence, and your most trusted business associate.
That person ideally is your person on the inside. Ideally, and this is hard for some leaders. Your co-pilot is more beloved than you are.
Here’s why: because if the co-pilot can become an ally to the salon team, it’s like you’ll have a person on the inside. I was the co-pilot for my absentee salon leader. My team will tell you, there was a running joke that Britt’s hair is full of secrets. I knew everything. I knew who was gossiping about all of the other stylists. I know who was getting ready to quit. I knew who was stealing from the salon. I knew everything. There were no secrets. It all got back around to me because the team trusted me and knew I wasn’t ever going to throw anybody under the bus and they also knew that I knew what were the things that I needed to run to the salon owner for and what were the things I could manage myself. Most of the things I could actually manage myself, which was why the salon owner loved having me as his leader, as he didn’t have to deal with the day-to-day nonsense. If someone was stealing, I would fire them, right?
I would take care of the problem, but the reason why the team trusted me and came to me and told me all the secrets is because they knew I was able to handle it gracefully. I didn’t have to go running to Dad every time something went wrong. People didn’t have to get in trouble for everything, but I was able to work it out in a partnership fashion, and it was very mutually beneficial for everybody.
It also gave the owner the freedom of not having to worry about the day-to-day nonsense of who’s mad at who, and who’s doing weird stuff, and who’s not pre-booking well, and all these kinds—he didn’t have to worry about that ‘cause I was the trusted co-pilot on the inside.
You want somebody to do that. That’s what’s going to give you the freedom, flexibility.
And if you have a good co-pilot, there’ll be smarter than you are. There’ll be more savvy, more sophisticated, they’ll be eager to do social media. They’ll be excited to do hiring and interviews. They’ll want to take over retail management. They’ll want to do all the things that you’re not wanting to do anymore.
So seek out that right person. They’re out there. Be open-minded and trust them to do it.
That’s the biggest thing. When you find a good co-pilot, let them steer the ship. Don’t say, “All right, I’ll let you steer every once in a while, but you better cross-check your coordinates with me before you do anything.” You’re going to burn a good co-pilot out and they’re going to leave and open a salon down the street and run circles around you.
You have to let your co-pilots steer the ship. If they’re in that position, train them, show them how you like to operate the ship, but then let them do it. It’s really important.
Okay, next we have respect. This has to go both ways. If you’re going to be an absentee owner, your team has to respect you. It’s critical, crucial, and important. If they don’t respect you, the systems and processes will fall flat. They laugh at you when you try to put repercussions in place, they will destroy your co-pilot before that person even has a chance.
For me, respect comes from listening, understanding, empathy, and partnership, and I think that is the way that our industry is going.
People want to complain right now about the up-and-coming generation. I am the parent of a 17-year-old—she’ll be 18 this year—and I see firsthand on a day-to-day basis how this new generation is going to be entering our workforce. It is radically different than the person that I was entering the workforce.
We can whine about it and we can complain about it and we can stomp our feet. It won’t change anything. The alternative then is to embrace it. And what we have to understand is that this new generation, and heck, even our generation like even me, we don’t want to work the way that people worked 20 years ago. We don’t want to just fall in line. So when I say things like systems and processes, that’s different than saying, “But if you’re going to work in my building, you work Tuesday through Saturday.” “But if you’re going to work in my building, you have to work nights and weekends.” “But if you’re going to…”
That’s very different. Now, maybe those are part of your systems and processes. Maybe that’s important to you. That’s cool. But the pool of people who wants to work like that is getting narrower and narrower all the time.
We are living in an era, particularly post-pandemic, where people want to live their wealthiest life, and when you coach with me, you know that I talk about wealth being much more than money. Money is just a piece of it. It’s time, love, health, and money.
Time wealth is so super sexy right now. Everybody wants as much time wealth as they can. Time to vacation, time to be with loved ones, free time, freedom of schedule, time to take a Pilates class on a Wednesday at noon if that’s what I want to do.
Like I can hear people clapping it up in their car even as I say this. That’s what people want right now. So when we look at prioritizing schedules and benefits and all of the things that stylists currently want, this is what we’re looking at. That’s what’s going to bring that respect is if a stylist can tell you, “Listen, Britt, I’m a mom and I want to homeschool now. I’m only available to be in the salon Tuesday through Friday nights from 5 pm to 9 pm.”
“Okay, let me see if I can make that work for you.” Maybe I can, maybe I can’t, but I have enough respect to try and make it work out.
Partnering with your team is so important. The “my way or the highway” stuff we left that way back like a decade ago. It just doesn’t work anymore. If you are able to build that respect with your team, they will respect you right back and that will allow you to be an absentee owner.
Why do owners struggle to be absentee? ‘Cause they’re worried about what’s going on in the salon when they’re not there, right? If I can’t see it, if I’m not watching, who knows what’s going to happen and then people are going to text me.
But if your team feels like you’ve partnered with them and their success, they’ll want to do the same, there’ll be like, “Man, Britt really took great care of me. I want to take care of her right back. Certainly, I can run to target and restock the granola bars. I’ll submit a receipt. I’m certain she’ll reimburse me.”
I’m telling you stuff like that will happen. My team has done stuff like that for me and I take care of them and then some out of appreciation, but they know that and it changes the dynamic of everything.
Earning that mutual respect and letting them know we’re in this together, whether you’re a booth rental salon team, a commission salon team, building that mutual respect and trust is critical and important.
And lastly, you have to choose to be a leader, not a manager and not a boss. And this is hard.
The reason I’m so passionate about the word leader is I think very few people are. I think I am working towards being a leader. I think it is very, very, very difficult, harder than most people realize.
When you think of the term leader, I want you to think of us all standing at the base of Mount Everest, wondering how we’re going to do that. We have no climbing gear, but we want to get up to the top. And at some point, somebody emerges and they say, “you know what? I know I can take us there. I’m going to help us gather all the supplies. I’m going to find a Sherpa to take us up, and if you’ll follow me and if you trust me, I promise, I’ll get you to the top of Everest.”
We look to our left and our right, and we look into the eyes of that person. We’re like, “You know what? I think she’s going to do it,” and we follow that person up Everest. That’s a leader.
A boss is somebody who stands at the bottom of Everest and says, “Listen, I’ve read a lot of books about this. I’ve done this all before. Here’s what we’re going to do. Sally, this is your job. Andrew, this is your job. Nate, this is your job.”
Nobody wants to follow that person. That’s why we call people bossy and it’s a negative term. Nobody wants to be spoken to that way.
Then we have managers. Your manager is your co-pilot. Your manager’s not a leader so don’t ask them to be one. The manager is not leading people up Everest. The manager is helping you to make sure that the Sherpa understands how many other hikers are on the journey. The manager is making sure that everybody has enough snacks in their backpack to make it through the day. You’re the one leading the journey. That manager is just managing the day-to-day efforts. Does that make sense?
We don’t need a boss. Bosses can step to the left, not interested. Your co-pilot is your manager. You’re the leader. You’re leading up to Everest.
Now here’s the thing. As soon as you stop telling your team about the journey to the top of the peak, they’re going to disband. Your team’s going to fall apart.
This is where a lot of absentee owners go wrong is they think absentee is, “I’ve got a manager in place. That’s cool.”
Nope. You’re still the aspirational, inspirational figure that keeps people in line with the business vision. I shared a podcast a few weeks back about business mission and vision statement. If you’re not talking about that all the time, you don’t have a business mission and vision. All you have is a good idea.
You need to be in the salon at minimum monthly, getting people fired up, pulling stylists outside to talk to them about what’s going on, making connections, throwing celebratory parties, bringing in a cake for your stylist who had her best date ever in the salon. Last week, she broke $1,500 in sales and you impromptu showed up to surprise everybody with a catered lunch.
That’s what a leader does. You’re their champion. You’re in their corner. You’re the one who helping them get through their days and celebrating all their victories.
That’s what it looks like to be a leader and that’s who you need to be.
And you’d be casting vision. You need to be educating yourself. You need to be bringing those trainings back to the salon. You need to be learning social media, showing your team how to show up.
You are the aspirational inspirational figure. Be that person. That’s how you can go absentee.
So this was a 20-minute stream of thought about what it takes to be absentee. So much more in detail in my Thriving Leadership program, and you can learn more at thrivingstylist.com.
But until then, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
