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 are talking about the fastest way to build a clientele.
This is a question I get a lot. “How do I build a clientele as quickly as possible?” Now, this is a little bit of a hot topic, and I’ll tell you exactly why. My perception is that longer-term stylists or stylists of a different generation—honestly, my generation and then generations before me, we were brought into the industry in a time where it did take time to build a clientele. That was not a lie, that was the truth. It was like, “Be patient. You’re not going to do this overnight. It takes time to network and takes time to build a base.”
That’s what gets touted a lot in beauty schools too. Why? Because most of the teachers in beauty school joined the industry like I did, 15 years ago or more, and we’re all a product of our upbringing, right? When you think about your values or your beliefs, many of them come from your childhood. Not all of them. As we grow up, some of us are like, “Heck no, I don’t believe anything my parents said.” But all of those things come from what? Experience. And if experience tells you, “Hi, it takes a long time to build a clientele,” that’s what you speak from, and I totally understand, but it’s also not the truth.
The tools that are available to build a clientele today didn’t exist even six years ago. We’re living in a very different time. When I hear veteran stylists or salon owners say, “This new generation’s entitled,” or “They think they can just snap their fingers and build a clientele,” I mean, some of that is true. The learning curve, the time they have to put in is a fraction of what it took us, and we can feel a type of way about that.
I know I certainly did. I look back at my first few years in the salon where I literally made $8 an hour trying to feed my toddler of a daughter, trying to put gas in my car, and it was horrible. I personally don’t wish that on anybody. I’m thankful that now you could build a full clientele in less than a year if you so choose to do so.
Now, there’s also the other side of things, which is what about the stylists who are not rookies, but maybe you’re moving to a new area, right, and you’re looking to rebuild there. Or you’ve taken a leave of absence and you’re coming back to the industry.
This episode is for anybody who’s looking to build clientele, whether you’re a senior, whether you’re new, whether you’re returning to the industry, you’re getting through a move, whatever this is for you. I do believe clientele can be built in a matter of 12 months. I think for some people, I’ve watched it happen in like eight months. For some people it takes 10 years.
Let’s go into what are the possible growth killers and then I’m going to get into the four levers you can pull to grow your clientele quickly.
To me, there’s a few growth killers that are obvious. If you’re overpriced, if you’re underpriced, if you’re in a bad location, if you’re in a salon with bad culture, if you’re in a salon with an uninspired leader, all of those things can most definitely hinder your growth. Not prevent it completely, but make things harder than it needs to be.
I’m not going to dig in deep into any of those things today, but I encourage you to really think to yourself, am I priced properly for my market? And P.S., don’t look at the other stylists and salons in your area when you’re asking that question. What they’re doing is irrelevant because you know what? They don’t know how they made up their prices either. Did they make ’em up? Are they actually making money at that price point? You don’t know. So we can’t look to our left and our right to price ourselves. We have to look at ourselves. Are you priced properly? Is your location conducive to the business you’re trying to build?
Now, there are some salons that are in less than desirable areas, locations that aren’t convenient, funky strip mall locations, and they make really good money. It’s not always the location that defines the success.
However, if you aren’t at a more challenging location, whether it’s like there’s no parking or the kind of clientele you’re trying to attract just doesn’t live in your general location, those things are of course going to hold you back, right?
I always talk about the fact that I live in a small town. I’m here in California and I’m in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is a huge market, but I live in a really teeny, tiny rural suburb of that market. In the community I live in, there’s about 7,000 people. There’s another probably six or 7,000 in the surrounding communities within a 15 mile radius. But we’re really, really small. If somebody were to open a salon or, or work as a stylist in our general area, and all they wanted to do is extensions, like that’s all they wanted to do, they’d be in a bind. If somebody wanted to be a vivid specialist, they’d be in trouble. There’s just not enough of a market where we are to make that work.
When I say location, that’s what I’m talking about.
Bad culture. It’s hard to attract style or clients if the leader’s not inspired, if the culture’s funky, if there’s drama in the space. What client wants to be there, right? Those are the obvious things.
Then there’s the less-obvious things that I think we need to note before we get into the growth killers. If you are not driven and motivated, you cannot build quickly. It’s impossible. The idea that you can kick back and clients are just going to flow to you, that is a lie. I think that a lot of times when there’s pushback from more experienced stylists and they say, “These young kids are entitled,” or people think that they can build clientele really fast today and it’s not true. I think that’s a major generalization.
Our industry has always had one of the highest churn rates of any trade, which is so unfortunate. I haven’t looked at the stat recently, but when I looked at the stat a few years back, it was less than 10% of those who get their cosmetology license are working within their license within five years.
When you think about the fact that in five years, 90% of those who went to get their license are no longer working in it, that’s not great. I tend to think that in the years to come, like between now and 2027, we’re going to see that decline rapidly because it is so much easier to build a clientele. It was so painfully difficult to build a clientele, and there were all these barriers to it that of course we’re going to churn super hard. There’s so much more opportunity now that more people can stay in.
One of the challenging points for me is when people say, “Oh, the industry right now is not patient enough to build clientele.” I don’t think that’s true. I think that drive, dedication, and motivation are always key factors.
When I joined the industry in 2007—I am one of two people who’s even in the industry at all anymore from my graduating class. That was 15 years ago. Two people. And guess what? Neither of us are behind the chair. Isn’t that ironic? When you think about it like that, it’s easy to say, “Oh, these new people just aren’t driven and motivated.” No, our industry has always been one where a lot of people get into it, don’t realize how hard it is and churn out. I don’t think that’s a new issue. What I want to make clear at the top of this episode is you can build a clientele as fast as you want. It doesn’t have to take years. It doesn’t have to take four years, five years. It doesn’t even have to take two years, but it is going to take drive and motivation. The more you put into this industry, the more you get out of it and the faster your results come.
A lot of people say, “What are the things I need to work on?” Well, what you need to work on is not the same thing as the person next to you needs to work on. There is a flow and a format I coach to. It’s the Hair Stylist Success Hourglass and it works every single time without fail. It’s flawless. It works 100% of the time if somebody chooses to go all in on it and not make excuses about it. It works every single time.
But I think this idea that if you blow up on Instagram, then you’ll be successful. If you have the world’s best referral program, then you’ll be successful. None of those things are true categorically.
It’s not about choosing the red pill or the blue pill. It’s about saying, “What are the things that my business needs?” and focusing on those things without excuses. That is the secret to success.
Secret’s out.
The way to become successful fast is to focus on the right things without excuses, period. It’s just not more complicated than that and so I want to help you to understand the things that you do need to be working on to find massive success in the industry and find it fast.
To me, there are four things that hold a stylist back from growing quickly. You ready for ’em? This is above and beyond the things that people think it is.
These are the four level levers we have to pull.
One, lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge will always hold you back. Number two, lack of awareness. We’re going to dig into that today. Number three, lack of market authority. Ooh, if that’s not burning some of you. And number four, the spiciest of all, no hook.
We’re going to talk about all four in just a second here, and I actually have another episode I’m going to tease you too if you want to dig a little bit deeper.
When we think about all of those things, the things that hold stylists back: lack of knowledge, lack of awareness, lack of market authority, and no hook. When I look at somebody who’s a new stylist, right? My daughter just graduated cosmetology school, all four are working against her. She doesn’t have any of those things. She’s lacking in knowledge, she’s lacking in awareness, she’s lacking in a hook, she’s lacking a marketing authority, so she’s four of four.
A stylist moving to a new area, guess what, my friend, you’re a three out of four. If you’re an established stylist or salon who’s growing slowly, you are still a three out of four. You might be lying to yourself and saying, “No, we do have the authority in our market.”
No, if you had the authority, you’d be growing faster. I know you think you have the authority. I know you think you have the branding, I know you think you have it dialed in, but I promise you right now, it’s a blind spot for you. Essentially, if you’re not growing your income and clientele fast enough, either four out of four or three out of four of these things are working against you.
I encourage anybody who’s listening who’s like, “I want to grow fast,” to choose to check your ego and instead choose drive, choose motivation, and choose focus without excuses. This is where you’ll find success.
Let’s talk about knowledge. I have some questions for you. Do you truly believe you’ve mastered the knowledge of whatever it is specialty you’re trying to facilitate? If you’re a cut and color specialist, are you really proficient at cutting hair? Are you incredibly proficient at formulation? How about foil placement? If you do foiling, right? If you do extensions, do you really know what you’re doing? Or did you do the certification and then just crossed your fingers and you’re learning as you go, right?
The less mastery you have in any specialty, the more it’s going to work against you. The longer you stay average or mediocre in your skillset, the more you’re going to ruin your own reputation. This is where I think a lot of people get it twisted is, and this is where “It just takes time,” starts to grind my gears and makes me red in the face because it allows stylists to think like, “Well, if you just keep working at it for years and years and years, eventually you’ll get it.”
Well, that’s how it worked in the 1700s when the cobbler was making shoes. Yeah, he just had to make a hundred pairs of bad shoes and eventually he got good at it. Well, it’s not the 1700s anymore and there is an abundance of education. There’s an abundance of resources. A lot of it’s free. It’s like what is your excuse for staying in mediocrity? That may be what’s keeping you back and keeping you small.
No client today wants to see a mediocre stylist who’s trying really hard and will get there in time. You know what I mean? They want to see somebody who knows what they’re doing. If you don’t yet know what you’re doing, here’s the invitation to educate yourself. Education is one of the most profitable investments you can make because confidence comes from education. Once you have the education, you become next to unstoppable. If there’s anything that you don’t yet understand skill-wise, marketing-wise, if you don’t know yet what it looks like to create an exceptional guest experience, I invite you to get curious because success lives right on the other side of education. And it’s one of the things that holds a lot of people back is they say, “Well, I know enough,” or “It’s good enough,” or “I would do that, but I can’t invest in it.” Okay? But then you’re going to grow slowly.
If you want to grow quickly, at some point you need to invest in yourself. If you listen to any of today’s motivational speakers, there’s probably what, 10 or 20 who are big kahunas in the marketplace right now. They will all say the best investment you can make is in yourself. Do it. Stop making excuses and choose. Tell yourself, okay, for one hour every single week, I’m going to choose education.
By choosing education, I don’t mean passively listening to a podcast. I don’t mean passively reading a business book. I mean saying to yourself, “Listen, the reality is I’m not so good at formulation. I need to invest in a class. I need to start studying somebody and choose to spend one hour a week mastering it.”
Now, if you want to make more money faster, if it were me, I’d spend 15 hours a week mastering it. personally. When I say drive, motivation, and focus, I’m not kidding. The less you pour into these four levers, the slower your growth will be, and that’s just the way it looks.
Ask yourself am I knowledgeable enough and what it is I’m trying to grow in? Then, number two, follow up, do you show off how knowledgeable you are regularly? Ooh, that’s the piece that gets most people. Maybe you are super smart, but your clients aren’t just going to telepathically know, “Ooh, I got to go in and see Britt. She’s very smart.” You have to be proving it.
You can’t just prove it once. You have to prove it over and over and over. That’s where things like social media, online reviews, your website, all of those things matter because clients today get to be picky AF.
We’re living in a client-driven market. It used to be that the salon owners got to be like, “Well, I’ve been doing hair for 20 years,” and the clients would be like, “20 years? I’m coming.” It doesn’t work like that anymore.
Now, the question is, “What have you done for me lately?” If you’re not proving that you’re educated and you’re sharp and you’re the best in your market of a specific skillset, you’re going to grow very, very slowly.
Leaning into education is lever number one when it comes to making more money.
Lever number two is awareness.
I talked about this as another issue that holds a lot of people back too. Like I said, one of the things I coach too is the Hair Stylist Success Hourglass. Living on the top of that is what I call the Marketing Funnel. On the very, very, very tip top of the Marketing Funnel is a level that I call Awareness. Awareness makes your world go round. Now here’s the rub is all the awareness in the world isn’t going to save you if you have no brand, if you have a really poor guest experience—and we’re going to get into guest experience a little tiny bit. It’s likely not what you think. The standard in guest experience has changed radically in the last two-and-a-half years. So a stellar guest experience.
Your social media level, which is what I call the Interest level, has to be on point. Spoiler alert, I actually don’t care if you use Instagram or not. There’s lots of other social media options, but you do have to have a strong representation on the Interest level.
Social media is not an option. It is a critical part of the Marketing Funnel. What is an option is the platforms you choose to use.
I talk about that in a lot of other podcast episodes, but having those things in place and having a badass website, all of those things are non-optional if you have those things in place.
Oh, and if you want to learn more about that, if you just Google Thriving Stylist Podcast Marketing Funnel, I have a ton of podcast episodes on all of those things, but Awareness is how people find out that you actually exist.
Now, generally speaking, in our industry, there’s two ways people find out a stylist or salon exists. One is word of mouth, and two is organic search, right?
Word of mouth would be like, “Somebody that I love working with is Kelly, you should go see Kelly. Kelly’s amazing.” That’s word of mouth, right? Referrals, something like that. Or somebody gives a shout out on social media. That could be word of mouth too.
Then we have organic search. Let’s say, I don’t want to ask a friend or family member who I should see for my hair services. I’m going to pull out my smartphone and I’m going to Google search “best stylist in San Mateo, California,” and the Internet’s going to tell me a story. You want that story about you to be phenomenal. That’s also called awareness.
If you don’t show up in Google search, if nobody’s talking about you. If you’re not forcing your own name out there, how do you expect anybody to find you?
One of the challenges I’ve come across is—I’m going to give you an extreme example. In-home salon owners or stylists, actually, ooh, I just got a ping, a universal ping. I’ll share you one success story and a very common non-success story.
Assuming that a stylist is working in their home legally—I only coach to legal and above board, so I have to give this disclaimer. But let’s say a stylist has created an in-home salon and they’re doing it totally legally, and they’re like, “…but I don’t want people to know my address. I don’t want to have a social media presence,” my question is always, “Okay, well, then what’s your plan? How’s anyone going to find out about you?”
“Word of mouth.”
“Okay, so what is the word of mouth marketing plan that you’re empowering your clients with?”
“Well, I’m giving them a good experience. I hand out business cards and I hope that they talk about me.”
That’s called hope-and-pray marketing. I don’t know of any successful business model that runs like that. I understand the intention, I understand the need for privacy, particularly when it’s your own home. But when people say, “How do I build like that?”, I shrug my shoulders and I’m like, “I don’t know.”
That’s not really a marketing plan. If people are not aware of you, it’s not going to work.
Now we’re going to get into the hook in a second. There’s a possibility that your hook could be so good that instead of needing online awareness, you could just have word of mouth. It is possible. It’s much more rare and your hook better make me want to do a backflip. It better be insane. Just having a beautiful space, exclusivity, privacy, great ambiance, good guest experience, that’s not hooky enough. If you don’t have an amazing hook, market authority awareness is going to be critical.
On the flip side of that, I know somebody closely and personally, somebody who’s a part of my personal life, who does hair out of their home, who is less than a year into the industry and is booked out so far that it like makes me emotional thinking about them because of how hard they’ve worked to build awareness of their brand.
As somebody who is lacking years of experience, doesn’t have a fancy model that they’re working on, but their knowledge is unbelievable and they’re showing off that they’re learning all the time. They’re creating awareness constantly. They have absolutely created market authority and they have a massive hook. They’ve done all these things. This is a really young person who is killing it. I look forward to sharing their story with you one day because it’s unreal what’s been built.
I think that just goes to show that if you’re willing to create awareness, no matter how many years you have or haven’t been in the industry, no matter how fancy or lack of fanciness your your space is, if you have what we’re going to get into, which is called marketing authority, you’re going to win.
Let’s talk about market authority. How are you showing that you are the best choice? Why would I choose you?
Market authority means market dominance in a lot of ways. You do have to have something that’s better than the other choices out there. It’s naive of any of us to think that a consumer is not comparing us to all the other options.
I have to be honest with myself. I’m not the only business coach in this industry. I have to assume everybody is considering me against anybody else. Pick one of the other 50 names out there. You should compare us all and choose the person who’s right for you.
Let me ask you this. You’re listening to this podcast. How many other business podcasts do you listen to? How many other business coaches do you follow on Instagram? I want you to assume that your clients are doing the same. Yes, your clients like you, they like coming in to see you for hair, but they’re also maybe following two or three other people just in case it doesn’t work out with you.
They are, and I know you’re saying to yourself, “No, no, no, my clients are super loyal.” No, I know they are, but they’re also not stupid.
As humans, we’re always saying, am I getting the best value? Am I getting the best experience? Am I seeing the best person in my marketplace? It is a question that comes up, right?
When you look at market authority, what sets you apart and how have you established your credibility?
One of the things I like to say is let’s give them something to talk about. If you want more referrals, if you want to be something where people say, “You’ve got to go see Kelly.” And if they say, “Tell me why,” the response can’t be, “Kelly does great hair.”
“Yeah, but I already have a stylist who does great hair. What else?”
“Kelly has great conversation.”
“Well, so does my stylist.”
“Yeah, yeah, but Kelly’s salon is so cute.”
“I know, so is mine. What else?”
“Well, Kelly gives neck and shoulder massages.”
It’s all of those things are so basic. What else you got? Right?
When we look at market authority, you have to make it the clear choice that you are the best of the best. We could do a whole podcast on market authority, but when you have market authority, that’s when you get to charge top dollar. You grow insanely fast because you become the hotspot, the place to be, and where everybody wants to be a part of the experience, right?
Then we have lack of hook.
Listen, there’s over a million cosmetologists doing hair right now. There’s lots more barbers, plenty of estheticians, makeup artists—sorry, A million is undershooting when I say in the industry. Cosmetologists. Our industry is set to be the fastest growing trade in the United States over the next eight years. You can look that up at the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics website.
We are growing fast. Competition’s getting stiff. How are you different? Doing good hair is not enough. What else you got? Figuring out your hook.
Some of the things I’m geeking out over right now are immersive salons, like immersive salon experiences, unique branding, unique methodologies, right? These are the things I’m coaching to in Thrivers quite a bit right now, because setting yourself apart is going to be the key.
We’re looking at doing really different and innovative things when it comes to creating a space that is unmatched when it comes to growing quickly, when it comes to growing, standing out in a crowded marketplace, this is what we need.
If I was to sum all of this up, I would say, if you want to grow fast, you need high perceived value. You’ve likely heard me say this before, my episode on perceived value dropped in 2019. This is something I’ve been talking about for quite a while. You can listen to the episode back, it’s episode 99. If you just Google search Thriving Stylist Podcast 99, it’ll come up. Or you could look for it wherever you listen to podcasts as well. But dig in there also.
Perception is the reality. I know you are this, that, or the other thing. Some of you think you’re phenomenal, some of you think you’re mediocre. Some of you think you don’t know what you’re doing. None of those things are true. What is true is the way that clients see you.
Clients’ perception of you will grow your business fast, slow, or not at all. It’s not about you. It’s not about what you want. It’s not about what you think. It’s not about, in a lot of ways, even your own self-worth. It’s about the worth that clients put on you. That determines how fast you’ll grow. If you want to increase that perception and grow faster, perceived value and unlocking all of these four levers is always going to be the way.
Y’all, this was a fun one. If you have any questions about any of these things, hit me up in the DMs.
As I always like to say, so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
