The Modern Hairstylist ™ Podcast

Hunter Donia
  • 4.9 (139)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Teaching you how to grow your beauty business as a hairstylist or salon owner without the overwhelm by implementing modern strategies so you can reclaim time, freedom and energy from working behind the chair.

  1. 1d ago

    Salon Owners: Stop Delaying Your Revenue Potential

    In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown tackle one of the most overlooked revenue leaks in salon ownership: keeping assistants in training mode for way too long. Hunter brings real examples from the salon owners he works with in Mastermind and makes a direct, no-fluff case for why shortening your assistant runway is one of the fastest ways to grow your income and your team at the same time. This episode is specifically for salon owners who are sitting on untapped revenue potential because they’re holding too tight to control over the training process. Hunter breaks down what’s actually costing you, what you can put in place to protect your brand while you loosen the grip, and why the lessons your new stylists need to learn are coming either way. Key Takeaways: 💸 The Long Runway Is A Revenue Problem, Not A Training Strategy: Every week an assistant stays off the floor is a week your salon is missing out on income. Hunter reframes the assistant program conversation entirely: this is not about what new stylists want, it is about how fast you can grow your business by getting them generating revenue sooner. 🎳 Build Bumpers, Not Barriers: Shortening the runway does not mean throwing people in with zero support. Hunter walks through the systems you can put in place, including pre-visit forms, post-style consultations, and empowering your team to handle unhappy clients, so your brand stays protected even when someone newer is behind the chair. 📉 Bad Reviews Are Not The End Of Your Business: One of the biggest fears holding salon owners back is reputation damage. Hunter addresses this head on: even the most successful, fastest-growing salon he works with gets difficult clients and negative reviews, and it is still thriving. The opportunity cost of playing it too safe is far more damaging than an occasional bad experience. 🎯 Specialization Makes Everything Easier: The salon Hunter references as proof of concept has a tight brand and a focused service menu. When your salon is niched down, training new stylists is faster, marketing is simpler, and getting someone client-ready happens sooner. Specialization is a compounding advantage. 📋 The Graduated Floor Model: Hunter shares a practical example of how salons can transition assistants onto the floor with a tiered pricing and utilization structure, giving newer stylists the real stakes they need to learn, while still being transparent with clients about experience level and rewarding them with a lower price point. Why You Should Listen: If you have been telling yourself that your assistants just are not ready yet, this episode will challenge you to look at what that decision is actually costing you. Hunter is not speaking theoretically here. He is working with salon owners in his Mastermind who have proven that getting new talent on the floor faster creates better stylists, happier teams, and significantly more revenue. The lessons are coming either way. The only question is how long you are willing to delay them. Let's connect on Instagram!

  2. Oct 19

    How To Passively Book High-Ticket Clients And Manage Your Calendar

    Connect with Brandy Chavez: https://www.instagram.com/brandythehairstylistConnect with Myriam Georges: https://www.instagram.com/meetmyriam/In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown are joined by two Mastermind members, Brandy Chavez and Myriam Georges, who share the specific AI systems they’ve built to take the most time-consuming tasks in their businesses completely off their plates. If you’ve ever wished there were two of you, this episode shows you the closest thing to it. Hunter, Brandy, and Myriam walk through two real-world use cases that go far beyond using AI as a simple chatbot. These are actual workflows that are actively running in their businesses right now, converting leads, managing calendars, and keeping client communication organized without requiring the stylist to be present for every step. Key Takeaways: 🤖 AI-Powered DM Sales That Convert Without You: Brandy built a repeatable DM conversion system by analyzing her most successful client conversations with AI. She then trained that system to run through a virtual assistant who doesn’t know hair at all, because the AI fills in every gap. Her assistant handles the back-and-forth while Brandy’s voice, methodology, and sales process stay fully intact. 📅 Managing Rescheduling Without the Chaos: Myriam shares how she connected Claude and Quo to reschedule an entire day of appointments in 15 minutes. The AI factored in appointment lengths, prioritized which clients to book first, drafted personalized messages, and even followed up to make sure no one slipped through the cracks. 💬 Outsourcing Sales Without Hiring a Sales Person: Sales has historically been nearly impossible to outsource, especially in a niche service business where so much education and personalization is required. Brandy’s system proves that when you train AI on your own process, you can hand off even the highest-leverage tasks without sacrificing quality or authenticity. 🔗 Using Integrable Tech to Unlock AI’s Full Potential: Hunter breaks down why the tools you choose matter. Softwares that can connect and communicate with AI are what actually allow it to act on your behalf, and this episode shows what that looks like in practice. 🧪 How to Trust the Process Before You Go All In: Both Brandy and Myriam share how they tested their systems before fully handing things off, from duplicating forms before editing to texting themselves first. Building a sandbox before going live is the move, and it’s what makes the difference between trusting your system and second-guessing it. Why You Should Listen: These are not theoretical AI tips. Brandy and Myriam are real stylists in Hunter’s Mastermind who built these systems themselves and are actively running them in their businesses today. If you’ve been using AI as a chat tool and nothing more, this episode is the shift in thinking you need to actually get your time back. Let's connect on Instagram!

  3. Oct 12

    Things That Change Once You Hit 6 Figures Behind The Chair

    In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown get into something Hunter has observed consistently across his own career and with every six figure stylist inside Mastermind: once you hit 100K behind the chair, the game changes completely. The strategies, the mindset, the client relationships, and the way you think about your time all need a significant overhaul, and if you do not make those shifts, you will not just plateau. You will start to go backwards. This episode is honest, a little uncomfortable in the best way, and exactly what six figure stylists need to hear. Key Takeaways: ⏰ Protect Your 20% Or Watch Your Business Regress: Hunter opens with the 80/20 rule applied specifically to hairstylists. Up until the 100K mark, you naturally had gaps in your schedule that gave you time to work on the business. Once you are fully booked, that time disappears and so does your ability to grow. Hunter is clear that clawing back that 20% is not optional. It is what stands between you and going backwards. 🧠 Discipline Looks Different When Nobody Is Holding You Accountable: Hunter and Jodie unpack why showing up to work on your business requires a completely different type of discipline than showing up behind the chair. There is no client in your chair, no immediate consequence if you do not do it, and that makes it feel optional in a way that client appointments never did. Hunter is blunt: it cannot feel optional anymore. 💇 The Clients Who Got You Here Are Not All Going With You: Hunter addresses one of the hardest truths at this level. Long term clients who have been with you since the beginning may not be able to afford your next price increase, and that is okay. You are not abandoning them. You are running a business. Hunter shares his own experience closing his salon suite and moving, and why the grief of losing some clients is a real and necessary part of the growth process. 🎯 Start Being Selective About Who Sits In Your Chair: Once you have real demand, every client in your chair has an opportunity cost. Hunter walks through why you need to shift from wanting every client to thinking about the ROI of each new client relationship: their likelihood of rebooking, their retail behavior, their referral potential, and whether they are worth the time it takes to bring them on. 📈 Optimize For Profit Per Hour, Not Just Total Revenue: Hunter makes the case for looking at your service menu differently once you are fully booked. If half your day is haircuts and half is color, and haircuts are more profitable per hour, you could make significantly more money without raising your prices just by shifting the mix. The numbers tell you what to do. You just have to know them. Why You Should Listen: If you are at or near six figures and feel like you are working harder than ever without much to show for it in terms of growth, this episode explains exactly why and what to change. Hunter gives you the honest, no-nonsense breakdown of the shifts that separate stylists who break through the six figure ceiling from the ones who get stuck behind it. Let's connect on Instagram!

  4. Oct 5

    The Things You Need To Stop Doing If You Want To Keep Growing

    In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown get into one of Hunter's most deeply held beliefs: your time is one of your most valuable business resources, and at a certain level of success, how you are spending it is either compounding your growth or quietly capping it. Hunter is direct that this episode is particularly relevant once you have hit the 75K to 100K mark in your business. Because at that point, the things that got you here, doing everything yourself, being hands on in every department, giving your personal touch to every single task, are the exact same things that are going to keep you stuck if you do not start letting them go. Key Takeaways: 🧠 Indecision Is One Of The Biggest Time Wasters In Your Business: Hunter opens with a real Mastermind example of a stylist who had been sitting on a booth rental decision for months without taking any action. His advice was to just post one Instagram story and see what the response looks like. Messy, imperfect action creates momentum and gives your brain actual data to work with. Sitting in perfectionism just burns time. 📊 If You Do Not Have A Bookkeeper, You Are Losing Time In More Ways Than One: Hunter makes the case that being four months behind on your books is not just an administrative problem. It is a decision-making problem. Without clean, accessible numbers, you cannot move fast, you cannot spot your leaks, and you cannot make smart growth decisions. Hiring a bookkeeper is not a luxury. At this level, it is a necessity. 📋 Admin Is The Most Delegatable Department In Your Business: Hunter walks through the business hierarchy from the bottom up: admin, client experience, marketing, and sales. Admin sits at the bottom because it is the most easily handed off to either a person or a system. And he is clear that doing your client communication manually in the name of personal touch is not actually giving your clients a better experience. In most cases, it is giving them a slower one. 🎨 The Extra Touch That Made You Successful Now Needs A System: Hunter shares the story of a Mastermind member who manually builds a Pinterest board for every new client, and how that kind of above and beyond behavior is exactly what creates loyal, high ticket clients. But it is also exactly the kind of task that needs to be systematized so it can keep happening without eating your time. 📣 Marketing Is The Most Freeing Thing To Delegate And The Hardest To Let Go Of: Hunter makes the case that getting support with your marketing is not about abandoning your voice or your brand. It is about compounding your power, reaching new channels, and creating the capacity to do more of what is actually working rather than just maintaining it. 💰 Sales Can Be Delegated Too, And The ROI Is Significant: Hunter uses Brandy Chavez as an example of a stylist who built a DM funnel that converts followers into booked clients, and who is now in the process of delegating that system to someone else entirely. Sales running without you is as close to printing money as it gets. Why You Should Listen: If you are making good money but feel like you have no time left to actually enjoy it or grow beyond where you are, this episode is the honest breakdown of what to look at first. Hunter gives you a clear framework for identifying the tasks that are costing you the most time, which ones to delegate first, and why getting your time back is not just good for your personal life. It is one of the most important business moves you can make. Let's connect on Instagram!

  5. Sep 28

    Automations That Can Create Your Best Client Experience

    In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown break down the client experience framework that Hunter has been building, refining, and implementing with his Mastermind and Modern Stylist Movement students for years, and what it looks like now that AI has taken it to a level that was not possible before. Hunter is clear from the jump: client experience is not just a nice to have. It is the foundation that everything else in your business is built on. Your marketing, your pricing, your retention, your referrals. All of it either works better or falls apart based on what your client actually experiences with you. This episode walks through every phase of that experience and exactly how to make each one exceptional without it requiring more of your time or mental bandwidth. Key Takeaways: ⚡ The First Response Wins The Client: Hunter shares the stat that the majority of consumers now expect a response within 15 minutes or less. If two stylists have similar work and pricing, the one who responds first gets the booking. Hunter walks through how an AI service recommender solves this completely, responding to new inquiries instantly, recommending the right service based on the client's own answers, upselling relevant add-ons, and getting them booked with zero manual effort from you. 🎙️ The In Chair Experience Is Where Relationship Is Built: Hunter introduces the AI consultation notetaker his students are actively using right now. It records and summarizes your consultation so you can be fully present with the client instead of trying to mentally file every detail while also doing math and managing expectations. The notes are there when they return. The personal details get brought up. The client feels remembered, and that feeling is what keeps them coming back. 🔁 Post Visit Is Where Most Stylists Go Silent And Lose The Retention Battle: Hunter is direct that the space between appointments is full of risk and opportunity, and most stylists leave it completely untouched. With AI, the post visit follow-up becomes personalized to what was actually discussed in the consultation, not a generic "time to book" text. It references the conversation, recommends the right next service, and gives the client a direct booking link for exactly that service. 🤝 Systematizing Relationship Building Is Not Inauthentic, It Is Responsible: Hunter draws the analogy of setting a phone reminder to check in with someone you care about. The fact that you needed the system does not make the gesture less real. It means you cared enough to make sure it happened. The same logic applies to client relationships, especially when you are running a full business and seeing high volume. Why You Should Listen: If your client experience is inconsistent, if your post visit follow-up is nonexistent, or if you are still responding to new client inquiries manually and losing people to whoever gets back first, this episode gives you the full picture of what a modern, AI-powered client experience actually looks like and why it is the highest leverage place you can put your energy right now. Let's connect on Instagram!

  6. Sep 21

    How To Personalize Your Automations

    In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown dig into a concept Hunter has been teaching since the very beginning of his career as an educator: how to use automation and technology not to replace the human touch in your business, but to amplify it. This episode sets the stage for a deeper dive into specific examples coming in the next episode, and it makes the case for why embracing AI is not a luxury for the modern stylist. It is a competitive necessity. Hunter gets candid about why the friction of doing things manually is not noble, it is just holding you back from serving your clients at the highest level possible. Whether you are neurodivergent, overwhelmed, or just stretched too thin as a business owner, this episode reframes what it actually means to go above and beyond for your clients in 2026. Key Takeaways: 🤖 AI Is Not Here To Replace You, It Is Here To Multiply You: Hunter opens by addressing the fear head on. The real opportunity with AI is not eliminating labor, it is removing the bottlenecks that prevent you from showing up consistently and at your best for every single client. Two things can be true at once: you can automate more and personalize more at the same time. 🧠 Removing Friction Is Not Laziness, It Is Strategy: Hunter pushes back on the idea that doing things manually makes you a better service provider. If removing friction through automation means your clients consistently receive a more thoughtful, personalized, and higher quality experience than they would get if you were doing it all by hand, then the automation is the more caring choice. 🎯 Personalization Used To Be The Bottleneck: Jodie names exactly what has changed. Before AI, personalization required you to manually input, remember, and execute every detail. Now AI handles the parts of that process that were draining your time and mental bandwidth, so the personalized experience actually gets delivered instead of falling through the cracks when life gets busy. 📋 In Chair, Pre Visit, And Post Visit All Get An Upgrade: Hunter makes clear this is not just about automated emails and booking confirmations. The AI consultation notetaker he references is a real tool his students are using right now to capture what was discussed, log personal details, and prep Hunter for the next appointment, so every client feels remembered, known, and taken care of. 🚀 The Stylists Implementing This Are Breaking Through: Hunter is direct that the stylists who are building above average businesses are the ones willing to get uncomfortable and embrace modern tools. The ones who resist are staying stuck at average. The gap between those two groups is widening. Why You Should Listen: If you have ever told yourself that doing things by hand means you care more about your clients, this episode will challenge that directly. Hunter makes a compelling and practical case for why the most personalized, high ticket client experiences being delivered right now are the ones powered by smart automation, and why getting on board is the move that sets you apart from every other stylist in your market. Let's connect on Instagram!

  7. Sep 14

    A Growth Path That Retains Team Members And Makes Money Faster

    In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown get into one of the most common and costly gaps Hunter is seeing with the salon owners he works with inside Mastermind: a lack of a clear, fair, and measurable growth path for the stylists on their team. Hunter pulls directly from real conversations he has been having with new Mastermind members to break down what a growth plan actually needs to look like, which KPIs actually matter, and why getting this right is one of the fastest ways to protect your revenue and retain your best people. This episode is for salon owners at every stage, whether you have one employee or ten, and it is equally relevant for stylists who have ever felt stuck, resentful, or like there was no future for them where they were working. Key Takeaways: 🗺️ A Growth Path Is A Non-Negotiable For Retaining Good Talent: Hunter is clear that in a generation where stylists are more aware of their options than ever, a vague or nonexistent growth plan is one of the fastest ways to lose your best people. Jodie shares from personal experience that she has left two salons specifically because of a lack of a growth path, and Hunter explains why clarity about what someone can expect is one of the most powerful retention tools you have. 📊 Commission Raises And Price Increases Should Be Measured Separately: One of Hunter's most practical takeaways is that these two things are often coupled together when they should not be. A price increase is earned through supply and demand, utilization, and retention. A commission raise is earned through things like retail performance and direct referrals that reflect a stylist's personal contribution to the profitability of the salon. Mixing them together creates confusion, resentment, and missed revenue opportunities for everyone. 🎯 The KPIs That Actually Matter: Hunter breaks down the metrics worth tracking: utilization rate, new client retention, direct referrals, average retail per client, and client satisfaction. He also gets specific about which ones are commonly used but actually irrelevant in certain situations, like pre-booking percentage for a curly specialist who is 100% booked with no need to pre-book. ⚠️ Never Hold Someone Accountable To A Metric They Cannot Control: Hunter shares a real example of a stylist being held back from a raise because her revenue KPI was not being hit, despite being 100% booked, simply because the salon had underpriced its men's cuts. If you set the prices and this person has no control over the number, holding them back for not hitting it is not fair and it will cost you that person eventually. 🛠️ Equip Your Team To Actually Hit The Marks You Set: Hunter closes with a story about a Mastermind member who is bringing him in to teach their team how to market themselves, because that is one of the KPIs the team will be held to for a commission raise. If you want your team to hit a standard, you are responsible for giving them the tools and coaching to actually get there. Why You Should Listen: If you have ever lost a great stylist you wanted to keep, or if you are a stylist who has ever felt like the goalpost kept moving with no real path forward, this episode gives you the honest and practical framework for what a growth plan should actually look like. Hunter makes the case that clarity is not just good leadership. It is a direct driver of retention, revenue, and the kind of salon culture where people actually want to stay and grow. Let's connect on Instagram!

  8. Sep 7

    The Strategy That Creates A Cult-Like Following

    In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown dig into a concept that one of Hunter's all-time favorite Mastermind students put into practice and completely ran with: creating a signature methodology. Using the real example of Brandy Chavez, an Arizona based stylist who built her entire brand around a hard water detox method she developed herself, Hunter and Jodie break down why this strategy is one of the most powerful things a niched down stylist can do to set themselves apart and build the kind of loyalty that markets itself. This is not a conversation about copying what someone else has done. It is about recognizing what you are already doing uniquely, documenting it, and turning it into something your clients can identify with, talk about, and come back for. Key Takeaways: 🧪 What A Signature Methodology Actually Is: Hunter uses Brandy's hard water method as the anchor example throughout the episode, walking through how she took a consistent client problem, developed her own systematic approach to solving it, and turned that into a framework that drives her consultations, her retail sales, and her word of mouth referrals all at once. 🧠 There Is Something Primal About A Proven System: Hunter gets into the psychology behind why methods work so well in business. From IBE to the Curly Girl Method to Aveda salons to Drybar, the pattern is the same. When people subscribe to a method, they are not just buying a service. They are adopting an identity, and that creates a level of loyalty that is very hard to compete with. 📣 A Method Makes Word Of Mouth More Powerful: Hunter points out that there is a big difference between a client saying "I love my stylist" and a client saying "I use the Brandy hard water method." The second one sounds official, proven, and trustworthy in a way that a generic referral simply does not, and that specificity makes the recommendation land harder. ⏳ This Is Not A Strategy For Everyone Right Now: Hunter and Jodie are honest that a signature methodology is not something to force at the start of a career. It tends to emerge naturally from lived experience, a clear niche, and a consistent pattern of solving a specific problem in a unique way. If you are early in building your clientele, focus on getting fully booked first. ✍️ If It Is Not Documented, It Is Not Real: Hunter closes with a practical challenge. If you are already doing something uniquely, write it down. Document the steps, identify the patterns, and start to actualize it as your own method. A page on your website or a framework you walk clients through in the consultation is enough to start making it feel official. Why You Should Listen: If you have ever wondered how certain stylists build the kind of following where clients are fiercely loyal, refer everyone they know, and would never dream of going somewhere else, this episode explains exactly how that happens. Hunter and Jodie give you a clear, honest look at the strategy behind it and how to know whether you are ready to make it work for your own business. Let's connect on Instagram!

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Teaching you how to grow your beauty business as a hairstylist or salon owner without the overwhelm by implementing modern strategies so you can reclaim time, freedom and energy from working behind the chair.

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