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The Aspiring Stylist Podcast is where to begin, grow and aspire to become the best stylist you can be. Whether you’re thinking about becoming a stylist, opening a salon, or developing your skill as an experienced stylist, the next step of your beauty career starts here. Each week we’ll discuss strategic ways to design, plan and execute on becoming a stylist that excels behind the chair and above the bottom line.
Morgan Franklin: Welcome to the
Aspiring Stylists Podcast with
Tracey Franklin. Where to begin,
grow and aspire to become the
best stylist you can be. Whether
you're thinking about becoming a
stylist opening a salon, or
developing your skills as an
experienced stylist the next
step of your beauty career
starts here. Each week we'll
discuss strategic ways to
design, plan and execute on
becoming a stylist that excels
behind the chair and above the
bottom line. Here's your host,
Tracey Franklin.
Tracey Franklin: Before I became
a hairstylist, I can't remember
a time when I wasn't living
paycheck to paycheck. I worked
in early childhood development
so that I could be in the
facility where my children were.
And that was pretty much the
only benefit. The pay was
horrible and the stress levels
were so high. I knew I needed to
find another path. So as soon as
my kids were both in public
school, I enrolled in beauty
school. I knew all throughout
school that I was going to love
this industry and I landed my
dream job after graduation, and
I started building my clientele.
I really had no idea what a
solid clientele would look like.
But the guy I worked with had
back to back clients, so I at
least had a good example of what
it could look like. However,
after finishing my
apprenticeship program, I had my
first day behind the chair, and
my day didn't look anything like
that. I didn't have one client
on my first day behind the
chair. The next day, I had one
client, followed by another day
of no clients. By day three, I
came home crying, I just knew I
had made a huge mistake. But
when quitting is not an option
when you have two kids at home
and you realize this is the path
you've chosen, and not making it
work isn't a choice. The next
day I went to work and a local
radio station called the salon
and asked if anyone wanted to
donate haircuts to their working
women's Wednesday series. My
boss said I could do whatever I
wanted. So I gave away eight
haircuts. And would you believe
that one of those eight haircuts
is still my client today after
over 20 years, honey, those free
haircuts have paid off tenfold.
I also created the cringy used
flyers and had them out wherever
anyone would let me the Tech
campus outside of Kroger like
wherever I needed to. And I had
a fat stack of business cards on
me at any given time and had my
elevator speech on lock. And
after a few months, I was seeing
an average of two to three
clients per day. That's pretty
great. When you're coming up
from zero. I even started seeing
repeat clients come in to me
that felt like a huge win. I
still remember the moment I
realized that my paychecks would
never dip below $500. Again, I
had reached a level of
consistency in my income that I
could count on and it felt
amazing. A solid clientele is
going to look different to
everybody. I got to the point
where I was seeing between four
and eight clients a day
depending on how many colors I
had. And I was booked out a
couple months at a time. To me
that's when I felt built. But
for someone else their built
might look different. I will say
the industry standard for growth
is being booked 85% of your
scheduled time behind the chair.
So once you remove your lunch
breaks, and your doctor's
appointments and anything else
that wouldn't be available for
clients anyways, you're going to
take the hours that you were
booked and divide it by the
hours you had available. And
this is going to give you your
percentage. So how many clients
do you actually need? Well,
there isn't really one answer to
this question because it really
does depend on the services that
are booked and not the number of
people you serve. And here's an
example. If I'm doing haircuts
all day, I need like eight
clients. But if I've got a
client that's getting a base
color and a Bolyard and a full
set of hand tied extensions,
well I probably only need three
clients that day. This is why I
encourage stylists to look at
percentages instead of butts in
the seat. I always tell my
students no matter how many
clients you think you're going
to need when you leave school, I
promise you will need many, many
more. Again, this is all related
to what type of services that
you're offering. And I know not
everyone will agree with me on
this but I do not believe that a
stylish should go straight into
booth rent after graduation.
I've talked about the many
reasons on previous episodes,
but client recruitment is among
my top reason. If you're going
to work in a salon with a good
reputation and an effective
marketing strategy. You are
going to build your books so
much faster, you just will. The
amount of time that goes into
recruiting one client will
surprise you. So as a newbie in
the industry, you need some big
salon energy in order to start
strong. To be perfectly honest,
if you're not effective at
marketing yourself and you may
not do good ever In an
independent setting, once you
are a small business owner and
running your one chair, salon,
all the marketing, all the self
promotion is on you. So if
you're great at this, and you're
probably going to have a better
chance of maintaining your
business, and if you're not,
you're gonna have a hard time
replacing clients that fall off
your book, because trust me,
they're gonna fall off your
book. So how many clients will
you come out of school with on
average, um, very few, very few,
probably your friends and family
and a few clients here and
there. But most people going to
a school for their services are
going because of the
availability and the pricing.
And that's going to be hard for
you to match. And you will find
that most of the schools clients
stay with the school. This means
recruitment has to start before
you even graduate. Hopefully,
you have decided on a salon home
before you graduate so that you
can start telling people where
they can find you. If there's
any kind of lag time between
graduation and starting your
time behind the chair, then you
need to make sure that you keep
your social media audience
engaged and stay in touch with
clients that plan to follow you
out of sight out of mind. And
people will lose interest
quickly if we don't keep them
updated. Realistic goals are
important, or you're going to
constantly feel like you're
letting yourself down. So set
yourself a goal of having two
clients in your chair every day.
And then once you are
consistently hitting that goal,
it's time to level up. Keep
adding and reinventing your time
behind the chair until you find
what works best for you. And
what keeps you excited, not
exhausted. So you need to start
taking the steps as a new
stylist to attract your initial
clients. And the first step
starts in school. And that's
with creating your professional
Instagram page. If you think
your future or potential clients
aren't interested in your
education journey, I promise you
they are. First of all, people
are so nosy. And second, it's
really fun to go back and look
on your journey and see how much
you've grown while you're in
school, how much better you got
at things and how people have
supported you throughout your
entire journey. These people are
your tribe and you need to start
building that tribe first thing,
your challenges are going to
change as your career
progresses. At some point, your
availability or lack thereof is
going to cause someone to move
on. Or maybe you're experiencing
a ton of success and your prices
just keep increasing. Well good
for you, you're doing the thing.
But not everyone's gonna come
along for this more expensive,
less available version of you.
And that's okay too. But they
will need to be replaced. This
is why you need to always be
building. Some people want it
fast and cheap. And that's just
who they are. And the more
successful you become, the less
available you will be for this
particular type of client.
Looking back, I can identify a
time that significantly
accelerated my growth. And that
was when I started doing Bali
asure, I was the first artist in
my salon to offer this new way
of doing hair color. And people
were so intrigued and Facebook
had just started becoming wildly
popular, and my social media
journey got kicked into high
gear. Another one was hair
extensions. You guys hear me
talking about hair extensions
all the time, there were only a
few stylists in my area that
were offering them but they
didn't really promote
themselves. So when I did, I
became known as the go to
extension girl in my area. And
this increased my popularity and
my income immensely. Some
marketing strategies are more
effective than others at
attracting new clients. And I do
think that all marketing
strategies work. That's why it's
so important to have a few
different avenues. I've done
billboards, I've done bathroom
stall marketing, I even had a
full page ad in the Yellow Pages
a million years ago. And I'll
never forget how expensive that
was. All of these marketing
platforms are still available
and still effective. But I don't
believe anything is as effective
as showing up in person in your
community, and marketing
yourself on social media, there
just is no comparison. It's
easier than ever to share your
greatness with the world. I will
not accept any excuses when it
comes to my team being present
on social media, if they cannot
at least do that for themselves,
invest in their selves and in
their future success in this
way, then why would I want to
invest anything? When something
is this free and this effective?
I'm sorry, no excuses. I don't
think there's one particular
service or product that's really
the answer and helping you
attract a dedicated client base.
I think it's when you make a
decision on what type of stylist
you're going to be that you're
going to see this huge pivot.
When I decided I wanted to be a
luxury stylist I put myself
under an umbrella of
opportunity, meaning that as
long as I stayed educated and
good at what I did, I could
continue to do offer the best
luxury services out there to my
clients, I prove that I was
someone they could count on, I
was someone worth paying a
little more for I was someone
worth booking out an entire
year's worth of appointments
for, you can decide what your it
factor is. And as long as you
stay true to that, services will
come and go and your loyal
clients will remain. I found my
niche through the process of
elimination, the more successful
I became, the more I was able to
remove services from my menu
that no longer spark joy that no
longer felt rewarding, I was
able to hone in on the ones that
did and made them my niche. I
don't encourage stylists to find
their niche from the start. I
know that may sound a little
weird, but you got to get out
there and you got to experience
this industry. I always ask my
students on the first day of
school what they think they're
going to specialize in. And then
I asked him again, sometime in
the middle, and then again at
the end, it always changes it
has never stayed the same. When
I decided to stop taking haircut
only clients, I lost a huge
percentage of my clientele,
which was something I accepted,
and I made sure I was prepared
for it. I knew that in creating
holes in my schedule, I would
run the risk of decreasing my
income. That was a chance I was
willing to take. I was a well
known stylist in the luxury
salon community. And I knew that
as long as I did my part, I
would attract the right clients
to my chair. And I did but I
just don't think it's the right
move for a stylist in the
beginning. One thing we haven't
talked about yet is word of
mouth, I still find word of
mouth to be wildly effective and
amazing marketing tool. And you
know why? Because a happy client
is a really loud client. And an
unhappy client is also a really
loud client. So when we find a
client that just loves us and
loves everything we do, we need
to let them know how much we
appreciate them and use them in
our marketing strategy. Let them
know how valued they are and
that you're looking to add more
people just like them to your
book. Let them know about any
discounts that you offer when
they refer their friends and
family. Give them some referral
cards and ask for your help. Now
they have what they need and the
assignment is clear. Send your
friends honey, send your family,
I find that people are willing
to help in most situations, we
just have to be willing to ask,
Are you ever really done
building your clientele? Well,
the short answer is no. Unless
you are in transition to
retirement clients will continue
to fall off your book. And in
order to maintain your level of
income you will need to keep
building to replace them. The
long answer is sometimes, as
your career evolves and
progresses, you may find
yourself interested in other
aspects of the industry like
education or leadership. And a
situation like this, you may
find yourself with more clients
than you can handle if you're
trying to add something else. I
haven't been recruiting clients
in over two years now and
continue to place my clients
with other amazing stylist as I
transition away from the chair.
And sometimes you just decide to
slow down for some of us we
can't fathom that. But for
others, they get to a place
where they want to spend more
time with their family or
traveling or doing something
else that they've always wanted
to do. The best strategy for
long term client retention is
consistency. Again, be someone
that is dependable and great at
what they do. Not sometimes
every appointment every time,
people crave consistency and
their hair is no exception. Also
be someone they can trust. No
doubt if they're like most
clients, they go deep with you.
Make sure you're someone that
can bear their soul to and trust
you to keep their secrets. I
know this may sound like a no
brainer. But I've heard some
pretty private conversations
happen in a break room that
shouldn't have. And that trust
is also extended professionally
meaning that they can trust that
you will always bring the latest
and the greatest to the chair.
Trust is so important. For me
what's changed the most about my
recruitment strategy is the
sense of urgency. In the
beginning, you're working with
almost no clients. So everything
you do is about building and
attracting people to your chair.
And then it transitions into
something that requires
consistency, but it's not as
urgent because now you're able
to pay your bill. So instead of
trying to build an entire
clientele, you're just trying to
fill holes. So now you can be a
little bit more selective about
the clients you want to serve
and lean more into your niche.
Managing a schedule that
supports work life balance is
really not that hard when you
maintain healthy boundaries.
When you decide on a schedule
and you stick to it. There will
always be special circumstances
but the standard needs to be
Hey, this is my schedule. This
is when I'm available. I'm sorry
if that doesn't work. Are you
bending over backwards for
clients who continuously
reschedule or don't respect your
boundaries teaches them bad
booking habits from the
beginning. So you just need to
nip that in the bud. I can't say
this with any real certainty.
But after being in the industry
as long as I have and leading so
many professionals to success,
if I had to put a timeline on
building a sustainable
clientele, I would say you need
to give it two years. That
doesn't mean you're going to be
scraping by for two years. Okay?
That means it's going to take at
least this long to build a book
of clients that feels solid and
a book that you can actually
thrive in. So just know the
exception to this rule is crazy
amounts of effort. If you hit
the ground running, if you're
doing everything humanly
possible to build your
clientele, given it all you got
day and night, I mean, you're
obviously going to build faster
than someone that takes a part
time approach. So at the end of
the day, your success is up to
you in the beginning. And in the
end, the type of professional
that you are is truly up to you.
My last piece of advice is to
always act like Gone isn't gone
for good. I've had countless
clients leave and come back to
my chair. So when for whatever
reason you find one of your
clients in someone else's chair,
treat that situation with love
and respect, because you never
know when they're going to
realize what they had in you.
And come back.
Morgan Franklin: Thank you for
joining us on this episode of
anytime soon. The Aspiring
Stylist Podcast with Tracey
Franklin. If you enjoyed
listening and you want to hear
more, make sure you subscribe on
Apple Podcast, Spotify or
wherever you find your podcasts.
The Aspiring Stylist Podcast
with Tracey Franklin is a Morgan
Franklin Production. Today's
episode was written and produced
by Morgan Franklin editing and
post-production by Mike
Franklin. Want to find out more
about Tracey and the Aspiring
Barber and Beauty Academy go to
aspirebarberandbeauty.com