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 you may or may not have noticed that we actually have not had a guest on the show for about two years now. Morgan DeBaun was our last guest, and it was honestly by your feedback that we decided to make this a solo-only show. We noticed that when we would do interviews or bring guests on, I mean almost 50% of listenership declined.
I was like, “You know what? People want the solo shows, give them what they want.” It’s always what made this show unique and so I’ve stuck with it for a couple years, but today I decided to make an exception.
Today sitting right next to me is kind of an unexpected guest for me. It’s my beautiful daughter, Emily McKayla. Emily, welcome to the show.
Emily Seva: Hi.
Britt: She might be a little bit nervous, so full disclosure, she had no idea that she was doing this today. We happened to be the same place at the same time, and I was like, “You know what I would love to do, I’d love to bring you on the podcast and talk a little bit about what your experience is like.”
Those of you who don’t know, Emily is in cosmetology school right now. At the time of this recording, she’s just over 800 hours. California state requirement is a thousand, so she’s really in the home stretch of her program. As I started sharing that my daughter was in school, people started reaching out to me, saying, “Oh my gosh. I’m dying to know how it is for her. What are her plans? How is she thinking?” I get DM’d every single week of people wanting to pick my brain about Emily’s experience and I get some of that. But I thought what if we brought her on here and I just asked some of the questions that y’all have been asking me and we can hear it straight from the source?
What I’ll say also is that Emily has not been prepped for this episode, so I didn’t tell her what to say, what not to say. You’re going to get her most authentic self.
Emily, I’m really excited to have you. What we’re going to do is I’m just going to ask you a series of questions and we’ll see where we land.
First of all, how old are you?
Emily: I’m 19.
Britt: And when did you graduate high school?
Emily: Last spring.
Britt: So you are, let’s see, nine months out from graduation, something like that.
Emily: Yeah.
Britt: When did you know you wanted to go to cosmetology school after high school?
Emily: The summer right before senior year we were talking on the beach about what I was going to do ’cause I was scared ’cause I had no idea what I wanted to do. In the next year, I couldn’t picture myself doing anything and that was scary. I knew I didn’t want to go to a four-year, so I was either going to go to two years and just do general ed or something else. I decided to go to cosmetology school ’cause, I don’t know, it was always interesting to me and I just wanted to see what it was all about.
Britt: How did you know that a four-year university was not for you?
Emily: I don’t if I would have wanted to be away from my family like that. Also, I could not have had roommates. I don’t like that at all. Also, I’m not that into school and I don’t want a business degree. I don’t like that kind of stuff. Just didn’t interest me to go.
Britt: Out of curiosity, was there a time—like I can picture as your mother a time way back when where I really thought you were going to go to school. Do you think watching the path that Dad and I took influenced that decision for you at all? Or do you think just it’s the way that you’re wired and this was a decision you made for yourself?
Emily: I mean neither of you guys went to four year’s, so I didn’t think it was necessary for me to go to one, so I wasn’t ever really—a lot of my friends since middle school, like they’ve been on this learning plan to go to a UC and be a 4.6 GPA-kid and I never did all of that ’cause I knew I didn’t want to do it.
Britt: Mm-hmm. I think that’s important to note and understand. I think a lot of people would assume, “Oh, Britt Seva’s daughter, of course she’s going to go into cosmetology school.” For me personally, I never saw it that way, but as I reflect back now, you’re exactly right.
My husband Chris and I were never the parents where we pushed her to be an overachiever and to volunteer for all of the opportunities and make sure you apply to 10 colleges. For us, that was never the pressure. Probably like Emily said, she said, “I didn’t want to leave my family.” We’re much more family oriented and when I talk about living a wealthy life and I talk about those principles in Thrivers, I talk about it ’cause I live it. And so I think that Emily is just somebody who’s been raised in that, if I had to make that assumption. It’s interesting to hear her say now that what you went through made you not feel that kind of pressure, like that was your specific path.
Emily: Mm-hmm.
Britt: My question for you is have any of your friends—because we’ve talked about this, the majority of your friends did go away to college.
Emily: Yeah.
Britt: Has anybody said anything about you choosing cosmetology instead?
Emily: A lot of people. They’re not jealous, but they’re just like, “Wow, you’re going to be 21 with a job.” By the time a lot my friends are 21, they’re going to be a junior in college, maybe being a barista. I will have a full job, I’ll be on my way and set to renting an apartment, buying a car, setting up to actually be in my working—not working era, but I’m going to be working actually a big girl job and so a lot of my friends aren’t. I think a lot of them are like, “Wow, I’m literally spending four years not getting anywhere.”
Britt: Mm-hmm. I think that’s really interesting and I think that’s very accurate and I think that is one of the shifts that’s different between your generation and mine.
I’m obviously 19 years older than Emily, and when I went to cosmetology school, nobody felt like that. Everyone was like, “Oh, poor you.” It was like I’m the dummy who couldn’t get her life together so she might as well go to school, so it’s interesting to hear that even your friends had that different perspective of, “Well dang, maybe that wasn’t such a bad choice.”
Emily: Yeah. I don’t think any of them are into cosmetology as much as I am, but they’re just not regretting it, but they’re like, “Wow, I could have gone into any other trade and I could have really been like on my way to doing something with my life,” like having a set plan or whatever.
Britt: Mm-hmm. Interesting. What did you think cosmetology school was going to be like when you enrolled?
Emily: I knew it was going to be hard just ‘cause of what you told me. I was going into it knowing that it’s not just playing with hair all day and doing my nails. I knew it was job training and you really put in what you get out of it. I knew that I had to work really hard and I feel like it shows, like some kids in my class, they’re not taking it as seriously and I take it really seriously and my closer friends do too.
I think it’s just all about knowing that you’re going into it and it’s a job. You’re going to come out and be a full-time worker. You just have to go in knowing that, I think.
Britt: What percentage of your class and the class below you and even the class that graduated before you, what percent do you think are the serious ones like you and your friends?
Emily: Maybe three to five per class.
Britt: Oof. So still a small handful.
Emily: Yeah. I know that they’re going to fight for and they’re going to work overtime, they’re going to work seven days a week. They’re going to really—ike they’re going to do contingent education. Some people are like, “Yeah, I’m going to do this and I’m going to go get my bachelor’s,” and it’s like, “Well, you still aren’t sure yet, but that’s fine.” But there’s only a couple people that are knowing right out of school, “I want to get in there, get my hands dirty, and do it.”
Britt: Yeah. I think that’s really interesting.
One of the things that Emily told me a few months back is—and first of all in this podcast, we don’t drop names so we won’t say your teacher’s names. We won’t say your friends’ names, but like she would say, “Oh, so-and-so’s decided that after cosmetology school she’s going to get a real estate license or will whatever.” I do think there’s still a huge part of cosmetology school that attracts those who are lost souls looking for what they want. But I want to dive into actually what you said where you said three to five in every class. For you, that’s about 10% of your class are really serious.
Can we talk about your generation for a minute? How do you think the world sees your generation? We call it Gen Z. I don’t know what you guys call it. Probably you call it young people and you think we’re all ancient, but what do you think the world sees your generation like?
Emily: Like what your generation thinks of us?
Britt: Yeah.
Emily: I think you guys think we’re lazy, we don’t want to work. Like we just want flexible schedules and we want to do whatever we want to do. I don’t know if that’s so much the case or if we don’t want to work from nine to five each day.
We want to be involved in our family. We want to on the weekend be doing what we want to do. We do want to work, we do, but also it’s like I’m not here in my life to work. I want to enjoy my life. It’s finding the balance of life and work, and I think they take it as we just don’t want to work. Like we just want to do nothing and get money and yeah.
Britt: I agree. I think that’s a huge misunderstanding. Emily is a very hard worker. Maybe you can describe to the people what it’s like being a part of the Seva family. Do you think it’s easy street? Do you think we’re overly hard? Do you think we’re normally hard? What do you think about your responsibilities versus your friends’?
Emily: I think my family, we’re competitive in all aspects, so if you’re not working hard and if you’re not trying to grow, you’re just going to be eaten alive and you’re going to be push, push, push, push, push down until you finally get up and do something. I think that’s how my family is and I think that’s how I am. Not everybody, like all my friends are like that, but I know I’m like that, I have a couple friends who are like that. So I think it’s just how you were raised honestly.
Britt: I think that’s really true and I think that we are a very competitive family, all four of us. I think that to what you were saying, we believe in the power of hard work and do I think that everybody was raised that way? Definitely not. There’s no doubt about it, but I think that your friend group, the people you hang out with are of that mindset.
I think that idea that Gen Z is simply lazy is not true. There were people when I graduated cosmetology school who were incredibly lazy and then went on to do nothing, so to think that it’s a generational gap, I don’t think so.
When you say that for you, you want to spend time with your family on the weekends and you definitely want to work and you’re willing to work hard, but there’s terms, what are those terms for you? What are your non-negotiables?
Emily: I mean I want to be able to take my kids to school, pick them up from school. Maybe not every day, but I don’t want them to have a nanny that raises them. I want to raise my own kids and I would like—I’ll work on the weekends, but I also want weekends. I want to watch my kids play sports. I want to be able to go for a three-day weekend to Tahoe. I want to be able to experience my kids and my family and if I want to go see my parents and stay at their house for the weekend, I want to be able to do that and not be tied down on this set schedule and then I’m never able to ever have any time off.
Britt: Right, and I think that what you just explained is completely the viewpoint of your generation is you just want that quality. So when—I’m curious about your perspective of your childhood now you’re an adult, so let’s eliminate the last five years. But your childhood, is that how you remember me?
Emily: What do you mean?
Britt: Being available on the weekends, dropping you off, picking you up, being accessible, spontaneous vacations?
Emily: No, no, that’s not what I remember. Not that you were like—you almost dropped me off I want to say every single day at school, but every afternoon my grandma picked me up and I would stay at her house until seven, maybe eight. And I would go home, we’d have dinner and then it happened again. Then every weekend, it wasn’t always she was free. One of my parents was free, but there wasn’t always one or the other. It would just depend.
Britt: That’s highly accurate. Yeah, and I wanted you to hear that from Emily’s perspective because I think it’s important to know each generation is impacted by the generation before.
My generation, I’m a millennial on the cusp, but I’m technically a millennial and we were the first generation where both parents worked. That was normalized during my childhood. There was a time where my mom was home, but primarily she was working, and so they call us latchkey kids ’cause we had to kind of raise ourselves.
With my daughter Emily’s generation, she watched both my husband and I work really hard and I think most kids in her generation watched that. When we say, “They just don’t want to work as hard as we do,” no, they don’t. They want to be present with their families.
You have to realize, we look at our parents with judgment, right? Can we all agree to that? We look up to our parents and there’s an era of judgment there of like, “Well, they should have done this, they should have done that. I hate it when they did this.” Emily and all her little friends do that too, and there’s certain things that we did or didn’t do in their childhoods that create resentment or feelings or they’ve just reflected and said, “That’s not for me.”
We can label these kids as lazy or full of themselves that they want to have flexibility or that they don’t realize what hard work looks like. No, they do. They understand what personal sacrifice looks like and they just want to live their life a little differently. We can hate that, it’s totally fine, but this is the vision that they walk through the world with, so it’s our choice to either adapt or be eaten alive by it.
But this is the viewpoint and I really appreciate you sharing that.
I want to go back for a second to cosmetology school for a minute. We understand what you thought it was going to be like. In what ways is it different than what you expected?
Emily: So no judgment?
Britt: No.
Emily: I thought I would learn a lot more about the practical aspect of hair. I know a lot about the theory of hair and the parts and all that stuff. But we don’t really get in depth of a lot of techniques or anything like that. I don’t know. I thought we were going to learn more technical things.
Britt: Right, like you told me recently that your books are about to be opened up for blonding services.
Emily: Yeah.
Britt: How many of y’all heads have you foiled so far?
Emily: A full head?
Britt: Yeah.
Emily: One.
Britt: Okay. One. So she’s foiled one with…
Emily: Shaving cream.
Britt: Perfect. One full head with shaving cream, not even with bleach, and now they’re approved to foil clients. I’m not going to be taking that seat, unfortunately. Love you, girl, but I’m not going to be there for that. It’s terrifying. But these are the things that cosmetology students didn’t see coming. And to be quite candid, I had more practice than that, than she did before I took clients for a blonding service. However, also in the state of California, she’s the very first class where they had 600 hours cut. It went from 1600 to a thousand, so these teachers are trying to adapt, so I come from an empathetic place on that. But the lack of technical skills is the pain point that you’re feeling.
So when you graduate school—I know the answer to this, but I’d love for you to share with the people—what is it that you’re craving more education on?
Emily: Personally I really want to know a lot more about hair techniques. Like I can cut hair? Sure. But it’s not like I—I know it but I don’t like—I can follow what she’s doing but I don’t know why I’m doing it. I get it but I don’t at the same time.
I also want to go a lot more in depth on hair color ’cause we don’t formulate ourselves at school. We don’t really get to learn that and I want to learn how to do that. And more applications. We only learn very, very—basically, we learn foiling like packet foiling and bead foiling. That’s the only two applications we learned and there’s so many more. I feel like I just want to learn more about that too.
Britt: So you’re aware of the gap, but you’re not being taught the skills to fill it, which I think is really interesting.
Emily: Yeah.
Britt: When you graduate from school, what are you thinking you might do career-wise? What do you think is going to be your first step?
Emily: Continued education.
Britt: Mmm, yeah. And in cutting and coloring?
Emily: Yeah, just until I know which way I’m leaning like currently, but I just want to be skilled in all of it and then make a decision of which way I want to sway towards, being more educated.
Britt: I have a question I don’t know the answer to. In school for you right now, how much are they talking about all hair types and textures? You have a very diverse teaching panel—I don’t know. You have half a dozen teachers is what it looks like to me and it is a really diverse group. Are they talking about different hair types, textures, anything like that?
Emily: Not at all. We have one doll that has really curly hair. We just learned how to blow dry it straight, but we haven’t learned how to cut them with curly hair or anything like that. But no, not really.
Britt: So note to the listeners, nothing has changed, no surprise there. Is that education you’ll be seeking outside of school?
Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Just because even if I don’t specialize in textured hair, if someone comes and sits in my chair and they have curly hair, I still want to be able to help them and do what I would normally do. Just adapt to whatever hair type they have.
Britt: I love that. So when you get into the salon, do you think you want to, like, okay, so you’ve done your education, you’ve passed your state board. Do you want to assist? Do you want to rent a booth? Do you think you’re going to go into a suite? Are you going to work commission? What are you looking for?
Emily: I’ll probably assist under someone in the beginning, but in the beginning after I finish assisting, I would probably just go to commission just ’cause I don’t have a very big clientele at all.
Britt: What are your thoughts on commission?
Emily: I think it’s good for school for coming out of school. You’re not paying for—I’m more focused on paying a house rent than a booth rent. Also I would have to be having my own clients and running my own book and I don’t have that kind of mass of people yet. I think commission is good though when you’re starting out.
Britt: Why do you say when you’re starting out?
Emily: I feel like when you’re renting you’re—not isolated but it’s more just yourself and commission, you really get to be with the whole atmosphere of the salon and see what others are doing and it’s just more involved with other people I feel like.
Britt: Hmm. I agree. Yeah, I agree. Do you feel like you’ll work commission forever and if so, why or why not?
Emily: I don’t know. Probably not, probably not. I’d probably switch over to renting. I don’t think I would ever do a suite, but I think I would move maybe to renting if I have the clientele for it just so I have more control of my books and everything like that once I have the clientele for it. But one of the reasons why I like the industry is I like the environment of the salon. A suite is what basically, that’s kind of not what I would like, being by myself. I like the whole atmosphere.
Britt: I really appreciate that because there’s—I truly didn’t prep Emily for this and we’re going to get into how much she knows about the industry in a second. But I think there’s this huge mindset in the industry that everybody wants to be a studio suite owner and it’s categorically false. Some people do want to and they should and it’s fine and it’s a great option for them, but the idea that everybody’s chasing a suite is not true.
I want to make sure you picked up on something that Emily said. I asked if she’d always work commission, if so, why or why not? Did y’all hear what her answer was? She said freedom and flexibility. She did not say the money and I think this is a real missed opportunity for a lot of salon leaders, like a misunderstanding and even for stylists where it’s like, “Oh, they all want to be independent to make more money.” No, from her mouth to your ears, she just said, “If I stay commission, I worried I won’t have flexibility and freedom.” That should be a huge light bulb moment for every employee-based salon owner. That’s what these people are seeking.
We think that they’re leaving ’cause they’re tempted by the money. Sometimes, but generally when people leave a job for the money is reason number five and she just shared that as well. I think that’s really important to pick up on.
I want to talk about something weird that’s going to make you a little bit uncomfortable but I think we should talk about it. Okay, so you’re in cosmetology school right now?
Emily: Yeah.
Britt: Your name is Emily Seva.
Emily: Yep.
Britt: When you started school, how many people were like, “Oh my gosh, is Britt Seva your mom?”
Emily: Zero.
Britt: Zero people.
Emily: None of them.
Britt: I think that’s really important for everybody to understand because I think there’s this idea that like Emily had this huge advantage or that everybody in school is seeking business knowledge or that cosmetology schools even know the business knowledge exists. You all, they don’t, and if you ever doubted it for a second, this is your proof. Emily goes to the school I went to, those people know who I am, and they still have no idea what I do.
I think it’s important to realize the industry at large is still completely in the dark when it comes to business-based education.
Let me ask you something else. How many people in your school are saying to you, “When I graduate I really need to prioritize business-based education?”
Emily: Two.
Britt: Two. Great. So what does that end up being? 4% of people are thinking about business education and that goes to the statistic I always share, like the elite 5% of the industry. Most new grads are going to be seeking that technical-based education. The cutting, the coloring. I totally and completely understand it. That’s important for you who are creating assistant programs to know. You can say, “…and we teach you the business side of things,” and I see that all over the place. You’re not speaking to the pain point that these kids have. They don’t even realize that’s a pain point, so you can push that all day long, they don’t even know.
Tell me, you explained it to me in the car the other day. If you were to do an assisting program, what would you be looking for?
Emily: I would want a lot of structure. We’ve had a couple of salons that have came in and one of them, they came in and they told us their whole education structure and they have one full day dedicated just to learn, like teaching their assistants. I think that’s really important to set aside the time because saying that you’re going to teach them at the end of the day, that’s never going to happen. Nobody wants to stay there until seven o’clock anyways. You’re not going to go out of your way to really do that. If you do, then you’re a nice person but most people aren’t going to do that. I think actually prioritizing them and actually wanting to teach ’em is important than just offering it just to get more stylists in your salon. I don’t know.
Britt: I agree and one of the things she said to me when we were talking before is she was like, “I want to know week one we’re doing haircuts. We do week two, we’re doing highlighting.” It’s not just in theory, we teach you stuff. The way she verbally explained it to me after watching this presentation from another salon team who came in to present at her school was, “…but I want to know how long it’s going to take? What does week five look like? Tell me when I’m going to be training.” It can’t just be catches catch can. You’re going to have a really hard time gaining people that way.
How long are you willing to be an assistant for?
Emily: Six months to a year.
Britt: Great. And at the end of that assisting program, what do you expect to be confident in?
Emily: I expect to be confident in everything that that salon offers, like whatever that salon specifically caters to. That’s what I expect. If I’m not great in chemical services but you don’t offer ’em, then that’s fine for me. I just want to be able to be set up to be successful in that salon that I chose to do the assisting program in.
Britt: That makes sense. If you went and picked an assisting program, they were like yep, we check all the boxes, six months to a year, yes, yes, yes, you have to work five days a week, sometimes six and time off requests remain very limited. Would you work there?
Emily: Yes.
Britt: Ah, interesting. How come?
Emily: I know for myself personally, I want to get all the hard work out and done out of the way while I’m young. Until I’m 25, 26, that’s when I want to be working the hardest ’cause I don’t want to be catching up when I’m 30 and I’m starting a family. I don’t want to be trying to work super hard when I could have done it when I was young and I had the time and I had no responsibilities. There’s nothing else I really have to worry about.
Britt: By when do you want to be making good money? Like by the time I’m X age.
Emily: 25.
Britt: 25 she wants to be making good money. Okay, so she’s giving herself—she’ll be 20 this year, so a five-year runway. I love that plan for you.
How much do you know about Thrivers Society?
Emily: I know some of it. I don’t, not all of it.
Britt: She’s embarrassed cause she’s like, “Am I giving the right answer?” That is the right answer ‘cause that’s the truth, so that was right. I think there could also be this idea and I, to be honest, there’s a lot of pressure on Emily because when my daughter goes to cosmetology school, I think there’s this idea like, “Oh whoa, and she’s been mentored by Britt for years. She’s going to be amazing.” No, nope. I’m just her mom and a cheerleader on the softball field and definitely I’m a resource for her and for her boyfriend when they ask me questions about things, but it’s not like this is what we talk about at the dinner table. We talk about normal family stuff, like normal people do.
Emily: Yeah, no, I feel like my family, we try to talk as little about work and stuff like that. We really just try and focus on good parts, I guess. Or silly stuff, not super serious important stuff, ‘cause that’s when I feel like it all gets tense and weird.
Britt: I agree, and so this is the proof. When I tell you all I live by all in or all out, this is the proof. When I’m at home, I’m all in on my family. I’m not like half plugged into something else. It’s not a major storyline for us, it’s just the thing that I do during the day. But when I come home I’m just mom or wife or friend or whatever. The tone really changes.
Now I gave you Thrivers Society what, last week?
Emily: Yeah.
Britt: So you’re in module two?
Emily: Yep.
Britt: Okay. How has it been on a scale of one to 10 ease, how has it been for you?
Emily: It’s been really easy. I’m a really visual learner, so I think the videos really helped me.
Britt: Good. Step by step, it helps. What are you working on right now?
Emily: Branding and launching my website.
Britt: So exciting. So noted Emily is 200 hours out of graduation and she’s at the point where she’s starting her website.
What are some of the things that we talked about doing next?
Emily: Starting my Instagram and then just more branding stuff, right?
Britt: Yep, exactly right. I think that’s probably her leg up. If she had an advantage, she simply started Thrivers early, but she literally—I sit her down at the computer, she has her own login portal. She goes through everything just as everybody else would. It’s going to be really fun to watch your journey over the next few years.
Thank you for being our very special guest today. We appreciate you.
Emily: Thanks. Thanks.
Britt: You’re fine. Good job, Emily. I think this may be the first of many interviews. If you have any more questions for Emily or would love to see her back or in any other capacity, you can leave us a rating or review on iTunes. I read every single one of them, and as you leave that rating or review, you can leave a question or comment in the notes and I will hit as many as I can.
As I always say, so much love, happy business building and I’ll see you on the next one.
