Thriving Stylist Podcast

Hi! I love your show i listen every week its my favorite way to start my week off. I have been in the industry since 2014, and just had a baby in march after taking time off and coming back im feeling slightly discouraged. I passed my clients off to my amazing coworkers who were willing to help but now i feel like my business i spent over 10 years at this salon building has holes because people are not being offered to come back to me. Trying to find a way to approach it professionally while not making my coworkers or the clients feel uncomfortable or get back in to trying to fill those gaps from scratch! Any advice you have on this would be incredible! Thank you!!

2x & 3x X Club member, Thriver and long time pod listener here. I have a newish salon (opened in 2024) with one w2 employee. In my state assistants can’t touch a client until they pass their boards which are only written now. There is no practical! She started as an assistant while in school and has been on the floor since April. We have quarterly one on one model coaching and I’m obviously in salon with her day to day to help with formulating etc. She’s a good apple and I really lucked out with my first employee. However, I’ve been through 2 others now that didn’t make it past 30 days (my call) because they were SO raw even 6 months out of school. Elementary basic skills were just not there. We tried 1:1 coaching, zero improvement. I actually called the State to double check the license wasn’t fake for one of them. I’ve decided on working interviews from now on but as soon as I added that to my hire page, I’ve gotten zero applicants. I’m willing to hire slow and fire fast but as the one managing and also bringing in 90% of the income now, I need to hire so I can spend more time training. What is your advice for someone carrying all the weight but there’s just not enough time?

I have been on my own booth renting since I’ve been out of school. I have built up a pretty good base clientele with still some gaps in my schedule and have a rough monthly demand of 7-10 new clients a month. I was just curious as to your perspective on how much location matters when opening a new salon? I have the opportunity in a couple of years to build and open a salon of my own and just want to know when I will know if I’m ready. In terms of location I am currently in a town of about 3,000 people and located right on Main Street. The new location that I have the opportunity at a salon of my own(which is my dream) is located about 5 minutes from my current spot, has about 1,000 people(doesn’t even have a gas station; but it closer to the closest city). Do you think social media and advertising is enough to thrive in that type of environment and still be a successful six figure hairstylist(hopefully one day is the goal), or should I explore the option of different areas with more traffic?

I just listened to the new changes on Google podcast. I have over 30 reviews and I never asked for any of them. Not one! They are all completely organic and unsolicited. And still, Google has filtered several out. There is no winning with technology. It feels like a game I’m not interested in playing.