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, I want to tackle the question of, is it time for me to leave my salon?
Now I will say this is not the first time I’ve spoken to this issue, but it’s the first time I’ve spoken to it in a long time. If you go back to episode 68, like a way throwback, probably from 2019, I talk about how to lead the salon in the most successful way. In that episode, I do talk about some of the indicators of when it’s time to leave a salon, but I want to actually go a little bit deeper and I want to debunk some myths because as I was doing the research for this episode, I was like looking at what there’s. There’s some advice rumbling around out there about when it’s time to leave a salon and I was like, “I just think a lot of this advice is really terrible,” and so I want to debunk the advice where I’m like, “Oh my gosh, please don’t follow that.” And then I want to talk about some real strategic questions to ask yourself and to think about when you’re starting to wonder is it time to leave a salon?
You know the most obvious answer is as soon as you start asking, “Is it time to leave?,” it’s time to go. I think in the most simplistic form that could be true, but over the last few years I’ve watched a lot of people make really irrational business choices simply because they were bored or simply because they weren’t making the amount of money they wanted to, or they watched a friend of theirs go do something cool and the FOMO hit. So they pull a trigger on something that was really irrational and kind of reckless for their business.
I want to talk about how to do this strategically and how to be sure you’re doing things in the right way.
I want to give it up to Jilly, who left me a rating review on iTunes and asked a very poignant question and I want to read her question and then dive in. “Hi Britt, longtime listener, first time commenter,” which I love. So, so cute. “I really appreciate all the nuggets you have for us in every episode. Here’s my question: when do you know”—and it is capital KNOW—”when do you know it’s time to change salons? I’m a career change hairdresser, so I was a marketing professional for 12 years prior to becoming a stylist, and the salon I’m at now is the only place I’ve ever worked for several years. The people are great, we are all booth renters, but I feel like I don’t have a mentor here and the space is feeling run down. When is it time to move and what do you think is the best way to go about it?”
In Episode 68, I talk about the best way to go about it, but let’s actually start up at the top of is it really time to go?
Let’s start with the advice that I don’t believe anybody should listen to when considering leaving a salon, yet I know these are some of the key reasons why people do so. One of the things is “I’m not making the money I want to make, so I’m going to jump ship.” That is the quintessential “grass is greener on the other side” ideology. Just because you’re not making the money you want to at a specific salon, that is not always the salon’s fault. In fact, rarely is it.
Today’s best stylists could work at some of the worst salons and still do very, very well. Now, there are some things that work against you when you’re building a clientele. I’m not saying you could set up shop anywhere and you’d be fine, like the environment does count and it does matter and we’re going to get into that. But I think so often people are like—they get to this very effort place in their business where they’re like, “I’m not happy, I’m not making money. My salon owner’s holding my back, my salon space is holding me back.” Sometimes that’s true. I’m going to say that’s true about 30% of the time and 70% of the time the stylist, the service provider, is just not stepping up in their fullest. That’s the idea I want to go through and uncover today.
Number one, the reason why I don’t think you should jump ship is you’re not making the money you want to. That should never be the reason we do anything primarily.
Another thing that I saw, somebody else was sharing, like another business coach was saying, “You know, it’s really important that you’re at a salon that helps you grow.” I have very mixed feelings on that statement. I think that there was a time when that was very true, that stylists needed to be at salons that provided education, that funded educators coming in, that had these mentorship programs. I was raised in that generation of stylists. There’s no doubt. That was like the pre-internet dinosaur decade of the industry.
I think we’re living in a time where with education being at our fingertips, would it be wonderful if you were at a salon that really embraced education and provided incredible opportunities? Like heck, we had some amazing salon owners who treated several members of their team or their entire team to come to Thrivers Live last summer. We’re talking thousands of dollars in education investment and it was a huge bonding experience for those stylists, right? We see these salon leaders who go above and beyond to really take care of their team from an educational and a cultural standpoint. I think there’s something to be said for that.
But does that mean if you’re at a salon where there’s not that incredible education and there’s not that mentorship that you can’t grow? No, of course not.
While I think being at a salon that helps you grow is helpful and is important, especially if you are uneducated in the ways of business building when you first jump out into the industry. Yes, being in a salon place and space that’s going to mentor you is a huge benefit. Is it a deal breaker? No, because we’re living in an age where ignorance is a choice, and opportunity and education is at our fingertips. While I think working in the salon that helps you grow is nice, I think it’s nice, but not necessary if I’m being honest.
Number three, another reason why people think about leaving the salon is they can’t afford the rent. I know even as I say this, which leads into my second point, is the compensation fair?
Let’s talk about that from both standpoints. If you’re an employee, it’s “The compensation’s not fair here, so I’m going to leave.” Okay, let’s unpack that. Or if you’re a booth renter, “I’m here renting this place in space and I can’t afford it, so I’ve got to go.”
Here’s the thing about both compensation and rent. Let’s talk about rent first. If you can’t afford the rent, that is your fault. You are not generating enough business to cover the overhead. That is not the fault of the business owner. That’s not the fault of the salon owner.
There are some salon owners who are price gouging when it comes to rent, right? Their rent is not in alignment with the perceived value of the salon that you are working at. That is a problem and I totally understand.
It’s like if you were to rent a home or an apartment that’s being rented for a thousand dollars above and beyond what market value is, yeah, that’s not a great deal. However, when we look at salons and we say things like, “Well, the rent here is astronomical.” Is it astronomical though? Or have you just not built an adequate business to pay your rent? When people talk about, “Well, the compensation here isn’t fair.” Sometimes not, but it’s actually quite rare that I go into a salon and I’m looking at their compensation model and I’m like, “Wow, you’re ripping your stylists off.” That is—I honestly can’t think of one time that I’ve looked at the numbers and been like, “Oh my gosh, you’re robbing your stylists blind.” I don’t have a single example of that.
The reason I say it is because most salons and most salon owners are running on quite thin margins and what they are paying in compensation is truly the best they can do. I understand that some of you are like, I just think it’s weak that I’m making like 35 or 40% commission. The overhead on a booth rental salon or a studio suite or owning a salon is much higher than you can even imagine. And with cost of goods increasing, it’s only going up.
There are booth renters who are making amazing money. There are commission employees, there are hourly employees making amazing money. What I tend to find as I’m coaching stylists and salons is it is actually fairly rare that the environment holds a stylist back from building a booming business. Usually the stylist is in their own way. And when stylists complained about comp, like I can remember this in my own salon, having employees who were not yet making commission like they were stuck at hourly and hadn’t graduated beyond it, and they were like, “I’m just so sick of making $14 an hour,” and then I’d watch ’em take a three-hour lunch break where they would go shopping at Target and take these long, leisurely lunches, spend 20 bucks on lunch. It’s like, okay, I understand, I wouldn’t want to be making $14 an hour either. I remember being in your position, like I’ve literally stood in your shoes, but instead of taking a three-hour lunch, like I worked my ass off to build and market a clientele. I think that that naivety of especially stylists when they’re growing clientele of like, “This should be easier. Maybe if I was in a different salon space, it would happen faster. “ Very rarely that’s true.
I know some stylists who went into amazing dream salons and still couldn’t cut it. You all know those people where it’s like, wow, you were given an incredible opportunity in a great place and space. You had the odds stacked towards you and you still couldn’t do it. Is that really the fault of the salon? Or at what point do we take accountability like we talked about on the previous podcast episode, right?
I just want you to really ask yourself—we’re going to go through the reasons why you should leave a salon. We’re going to talk about that next, but are you just caught up in the idea that the grass might be greener on the other side and you’re tired and you’re burnt out and you’re lost and so you’re feeling like a change of venue is going to change your circumstances? Have that crosscheck with yourself because sometimes we do get in that funk where we’re like, “Oh, I just need change,” and you make a reckless decision that sometimes costs you clients, money, and time, and I don’t want you to do that. I would avoid making a big leap just because of those decisions.
I want to tackle a couple of the questions that Jilly asked and then we’ll get into when I think you should leave a salon. So one of the things that Jilly said was, “I don’t have a mentor here and the space is feeling run down.” Okay, these are two totally, we could say, “No, they’re not even equal,” but they’re just separate, separate but inequal reasons for considering a move, so you don’t have a mentor there.
Like I said at the top of this episode that for me, not so much an issue, if I can be honest. The way the industry is set up right now, I think that what mentorship looked like 10 years ago is not what it looks like today. I can remember the reason why I chose the salon I chose to go to was one of the owners described himself as a mentor and liked offering mentorship. A lot of the salon stylists were really brilliant and very well educated. Very few of them can actually, based on today’s standards, say they were a mentor.
Were they teaching? Yes. Were they giving back to us? Yes. Were they inspirational mentors? A couple of them, yes. Most of them I think were trying their best, but they weren’t really like those you should look up to when you’re building an aspirational career.
I think that as our industry pushes to make more money and be more professional, to be professional, you often have to pay for mentorship. You have to pay for education or you look at doing an unpaid internship, which is pretty much illegal in our industry. I’m trying to think if there’s any situation where that would happen. Not really.
You’re either paying to take a class or if you’re working for somebody, whether you’re an apprentice, like through your state program if your state has one, or you are working at a salon, you are being paid versus when you look at a lot of college students as they graduate college, which I have my thoughts and opinions on the college system. I’m not pro-college system at this moment, but I’m just saying there are these unpaid internships that you do in exchange for college credit. And in doing those internships, sometimes, not always, but sometimes you can get a really great mentor who actually pours into you.
In our industry to get a really great mentor, they’re few and far between. Often you have to pay for them. I invite you to think beyond the limitations of your community as you look for mentorship.
For me, if I was building a clientele today, I wouldn’t want to be mentored by the most successful salon in my city. I’d want to be mentored by a stylist who is 15% better than the best salon in my city. Because do I want to be forever in competition with currently where the bar is at in my city or state, or do I want to raise the bar to new heights? That’s the question you have to ask yourself.
But when somebody is looking for a mentor—you could talk to any business coach. This isn’t just a Britt Seva thing, but you don’t want a mentor who’s four steps ahead of you. You want a mentor who’s 40 steps ahead of you, who’s much more well educated, who has a variety of life experience they can bring to your mentorship.
So you not having a mentor in your salon, to me that’s like six or one half dozen of the other. I don’t think that’s a reason for leaving. However, when you say that you feel like the salon is—what’s the word you used?—”run down”, that to me is a problem.
Let’s get into the reasons why you should consider leaving. Two of the questions I want you to ask yourself, are you attracting your target market clientele?
In Thriving Stylist Method, one of the first things we uncover is truly who’s your target market clientele? I think a lot of people think that they know. And then when you do the actual work, you’re like, “Dang, there is a really deep level to this.” And once you really, really know—very rarely does somebody come into Thriving Stylist and not think, “Shoot, I need to let 30% of my clients go” because you feel realize very quickly that, generally speaking, the initial clientele that we build, very few of them are actually target market clients.
As you go through the exercise, you realize, “Wow, the key to unlocking my success is really refining who I’m attracting and who I’m serving.” Are you attracting your target market clientele in your existing salon space? If yes, then even if your salon is a little dated, it is possible to build a booming business there. It really is.
Ask yourself are you attracting your target market clients right now or are you struggling to attract them because this space is just so falling apart, because there’s a difference. I realize that I’ve not walked into your space. Is it unsanitary? Does it look cluttered? Is it not branded? Does it not feel like it lives up to the price point that you are currently commanding based on your demand? Not the price point you want to be charging. Let’s not future cast and get too far ahead of ourselves. Is it not in alignment with the rate you’re charging today? And then have you maxed out your clientele at the rate you’re charging today? And if not, how come again?
This is where we have to have that self-awareness, like is that the salon’s fault or is that your fault? Which we’re going to get into in a second.
Are you attracting your target market clients? And the second question I would ask legitimately is are your co-stylists professional? Not are they your mentors? Are they perfectly aligned with your target market? Are they exactly like you? Not those things, but are they professional or are they shouting profanities throughout the salon and it offends your clients? Or do they leave a mess everywhere and it’s an embarrassment because salon cleanliness takes a hit? Or are they completely disrespectful to everybody? Are your coworkers truly professional? Is the potential there to build in this space? You have to ask those questions.
Then we get into the good stuff. Who is your target market? Who is it that you’re trying to attract? If you are not 100% certain that you truly know your target market clientele, not like, “Oh well, I like to do this and I like to do that.” That’s not target market. I’m not talking about what do you like to do as far as hair services. I’m like, who truly, the psychographic factors, like who is your target market clientele? Who are they? Have you personally done everything to attract them? Have you exhausted all options to attract your perfect target market clientele to your existing salon location? If you can say, “Yes, Britt, I’ve honestly done everything in Thriving Stylist Method. I have done everything I’m supposed to do. I’ve left nothing on the table and my salon environment is holding me back.” Okay, then that’s fair. You’ve literally left it all on the field.
So have you done everything possible to attract that perfect target market clientele? Is your salon a space where potentially your target market would feel comfortable? Yes or no?
Is the salon operating legally? That for me is a really big one. I only coach to legal and above board. I’m not a lawyer, but to the best of my understanding, if you are being compensated illegally, if your salon is operating illegally, to me, it’s too risky. There are stylists who legit lose their licenses. There are salon owners who lose their licensure or pay hefty, hefty fines for operating illegally. That to me is too risky.
Is there another salon that you believe is a better fit? Again, going back to that “grass is greener on the other side” mentality. There’s a lot of people who are like, “I’m over it. I don’t want to work here anymore, but there’s nowhere else to go.” When you’re in that situation, you have to get in the driver’s seat and choose to make your future.
You have to ask yourself, “Okay, time out. If there is nowhere better to work on my radar, I need to make the most of what I have, whether it be temporarily or permanently.” If there is no other option, why are you even ruminating about, “Should I get out of here?” If there’s nowhere within a 30-mile radius for you to go, why are you even putting so much thought in? Your only option at that point is to open your own space, to truly create your own environment, which some of you would be ready for.
Jilly, I don’t know that that’s you, but are you really ready to take that on?
One of the most reckless things I think salon owners do is they get burnt out of their salon environment. Let’s say they’re a commission stylist or a renter and they’re like, “I’m over this place, I could do it better.” That is probably the worst possible reason to become a salon owner. Just because you think you can do it better, man, this industry will eat you alive because becoming a salon owner is exceptionally difficult. To be a great salon leader is not easy. It will burn you out. It will exhaust you if you are not going into it with the mindset of I want to be an industry leader and spending a hundred percent of your working hours on doing that. Not on taking your own clientele, not on servicing your guests, but in a prettier, happier space.
Truly, if you decide to open a salon, I hope that your intention is to become a premier leader of the industry because if not, salon ownership will chew you up and spit you out. It is exhausting if you don’t go into it with the purest of intentions.
And P.S., owning a profitable salon is harder than it’s been in a really long time because, like I’ve been saying, it’s a stylist’s market. You know how in real estate it’s either a buyer’s market or a seller’s market? Well, in our industry it’s either an owner’s market or a stylist’s market. It’s a stylist’s market right now. I don’t know how long it’s going to stay that way, but stylists are picky AF and they get to be.
Just being a key holder and decorating a salon as cute as possible is not going to work. You really have to choose to be a leader today to be a salon owner that is profitable, sustains a staff, like sustains their mental health. It’s challenging. Make sure that you’re really up for that. If you’re like, “I could do it and I could do it better,” okay, just know you’re not doing better hair in a prettier space. You’re truly choosing to be a leader if that’s what you choose.
And then final question: Have you truly outgrown this opportunity yet? Are you just bored? Have you had the conversation with your salon leader of, “Listen, I feel like the salon is a little dated. Do you have a plan for upgrades? Are you still passionate about this business?” Maybe you’ll have a conversation with your owner and they’ll be like, “Honestly, no, I’m burnt out of being a leader for all the reasons Britt has said.” Maybe you’ll have the opportunity to buy your salon and do with it what you want to if you’re ready to do that.
But I hope this has brought some clarity and put into some perspective of very rarely does a salon move not cost you money and clients. Sometimes it’s the best possible thing you could do. Sometimes there is a better opportunity. You’re playing too small, you’ve truly outgrown the space that you’re in. You’ve done everything possible. You’ve maxed out your space, you’ve maxed out your clientele, it’s time to level up. Sometimes that is the truth and congratulations if that’s you. Enjoy the ride because this industry has many levels and you are leveling up, my friend.
But if that’s not you and you’re just feeling bored and lost, focus on finding that mentor. Literally get back to inspiration. Go all in on building a beautiful, booming business and then you’ll have the confidence, the money, and the freedom to move forward to a beautiful next level.
Y’all so much love, happy business building. Jilly, thank you for this question and I’ll see you on the next one.
