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It's no secret, I've been an independent stylist for more than half of my career. I've worked at both commission and booth rental salons. In the end, I really only ever felt like I fit in when I worked by myself or with an assistant in my Salon Suite.
You're tuned into Reviving the Stylist, a business podcast for hairstylists looking to build a dream career that creates financial freedom and flexibility. I'm your host, Kristen Lumiere and as a stylist I've had my share of successes. Building a successful six plus figure business working only three days a week while being able to prioritize my family, travel and buy my dream home. I know it doesn't sound easy, but if you put in the work, I guarantee you'll see results. No matter what your goals are. I'm super stoked that you're here so I can help you crush them. Let's start today's episode.
Kristen Lumiere 0:00
You're tuned into Reviving the Stylist, a business podcast for hair stylists looking to build a dream career that creates financial freedom and flexibility. I'm your host, Kristen lumir. And as a stylist, I've had my share of successes. Building a successful six plus figure business working only three days a week, while being able to prioritize my family, travel and buy my dream home. I know it doesn't sound easy, but if you put in the work, I guarantee you'll see results. No matter what your goals are. I'm super stoked that you're here so I can help you crush them. Let's start today's episode.
Well, hello, friend, and welcome back to another episode of Reviving the Stylist. I cannot wait to talk about kind of this new stuff that I've got going on, I always kind of start with a little bit about like what I'm currently doing right now. And it's still hot in Texas just a little by the way. And I don't really have like any crazy stories or anything that's like happening, that's insane, other than what I'm really going to be talking about right now on the podcast. So I don't know if you knew or if you follow me on Instagram. But I recently decided to turn my educational slash rental space lumir house into a booth rental salon. And I decided to do this because after about two years of not taking clients and only taking hair models, I've decided to kind of get back into taking clients again, mostly because I have had so many people ask and I miss that side of the business. And at the same time, I also do feel like it's really important to maintain a level of presence in the industry in order to really understand what other stylists are going through. And I can say that because I have actually taken courses and I've had mentors before that were hair stylists at one point, but were so far removed from the industry, their advice and their education started to not become relevant. And that's the last thing that I want. Because for me, it's really important that I am able to give you the best education I possibly can. And in order to do that, I have to be in your shoes. And that's just 100% The truth is if I am to remove from the industry, and I'm not in your shoes, then I'm not going to be able to give you advice that's going to help you be more successful in your career, both behind the chair and out of the chair out of behind the chair or away from behind the chair. So that's kind of one of the motivational pieces because I have to be able to understand how to handle hard situations, how to handle great situations, how to make things simpler in my business. And now I will say that I have definitely maintained a level of presence within the industry over the past two years, mostly the past few years, I've just focused on my education business. But again, I have like 11 plus years of experience behind the chair. So I'm able to take those scenarios which are extremely relevant and able to still help and educate other stylists. But now I'm like, Okay, I don't want to become like one of those people that is just too far removed, so I got to get back into it. So here I am. And now I want to talk a little bit about my other reasoning behind opening up a booth rental salon and also the steps that I'm currently taking because we are not open at this point yet. We're like right at the beginning stages just announced accepting applications in the next like week or two for possible booth rental stylists. That's kind of where I'm at right now. So I will definitely be doing a part two of this episode when I get a little further along. So that way you kind of know what I'm at and where I'm at. And I'm also going to kind of take you through my journey of like once I start to actually accept booth renters, how things are going what's working, what's not, I'm really going to share everything with you.
Let's talk about my reasoning for opening a booth rental salon versus a commission salon. And this is a really, really big one that I've heard from a lot of people people tell me or stylists, other stylists, other owners tell me to open a commission salon instead of a booth rental salon, because it makes more money. You can also like curate the experience you can require things from your employees and I don't know if you knew but as a booth rental stylist, your landlord because they are not the person who is in charge of you. They're just your landlord. They quite literally just make sure that you don't ruin your area. And they also accept your rent checks. That's the only thing that they are supposed to do. They can't require you to do anything.
Hang in there space because you lease from them. It's the same thing. Like, if you go and you rent like a commercial space from someone, you take up 100% of the space, and then that person comes in and tells you what color you have to paint the walls, how many employees, you're allowed to hire all those specific things, they can't legally do that. And if for some reason, a salon owner who is a booth rental salon owner, and you're a booth renter decides to tell you what you need to wear, what type of product you need to buy, you have to use their booking system, they will schedule your appointments for you all that kind of stuff. If they do that you're actually technically an employee, even though they have you as a 1099. And what can actually really screw them over is you can actually sue them and say, hey, they required me to do all of this stuff. So I am actually an employee, they need to pay the taxes that they're owed, that they're supposed to pay as me being an employee. And when it goes to court, the judge will look at it and say, yep, you require them to dress a certain way you require them to use your booking system, you require them to be in the salon certain days, or whatever it is, they are an employee. And at that time, you will then have to if you are the salon owner, you will then have to pay those back taxes, which is a nightmare. So if you are requiring things from your booth renter, then you need to definitely be really, really careful with that because there is a black and white, there's no gray area there. It's quite literally you provide the space, you provide whatever else you decide to do, like let's say back bar, or whatever it is you decide to provide those things. That's it, you can't require them to be anything other than you accepting their rent checks, and they get to do whatever the heck they want. Now, with that being in mind, I do want to curate the experience. And I'm going to be doing it in a certain way. Now basically, what I'm going to be doing is I'm going to have certain expectations that if they aren't met, then we just part ways, like it's not a requirement of you. But if you decide you don't want to be part of this whole visionary experience, you don't want to be part of this team type environment that's full of independent stylists, that's fine, we're just gonna go our separate ways. So that's how I'm going to be kind of wording it. And it's going to be of course, a little bit more like legal jargon with that, because I do want to curate the experience. And also make sure that the people who are there are visionaries, I want to build a team full of leaders, I want to build a team full of people who just are able to lean on each other and who are able to create a better vision and also want to better our industry. So if they're an educator, I think that's incredible. If they're not, and they just want to be a stylist behind the chair, but they are very ambitious, they want to be recognized, you know, in our industry, then that's great. I think that's incredible. And I also want to build a team of people that I can really kind of mentor in some capacity to be a better version of themselves, and also be able to stop worrying so much about like their work life balance, because we're going to figure out how to balance both. Now, even though I definitely want to have some type of possibility. As far as mentoring the stylists is really going to be a group that's going to create a mastermind. So for me, the vibe is so incredibly important. And in order for me to really make sure that I'm able to maintain a like, great vibe, I am going to be conducting a three part interview. So the first part, we're going to be having all of our booth rental possibilities, like all the styles who may want to be a booth renter in Lumia house, we're going to have them fill out a detailed application that's going to go over a whole bunch of stuff. And I actually will walk through each one of the questions because for me, personality is extremely, extremely important. And what I look for when someone fills out the application is I want to see what kind of personality they have. Are they the kind of person that just does one word answers? Or like half sentence answers? Or are they could the kind of person that actually like goes in and answers them like with a paragraph or like a couple of sentences? And do they show like their personality? Do they post like lol ELLs? Do they like skip periods sometimes or their run on sentences? Like, are they acting like themselves when they're filling this out? Or are they trying to put on like a persona? So for me, I really, really look for those specific things. So I'm going to go over the questions that I have in the booth rental application for lumir house. We have just a really generic
Start have like your first name, last name, license number, phone number, email address, start date of when you'd like to move in and then just upload your professional headshot. The first question is did you read about our core values at lumir house, and I'm going to kind of go over those core values because for me showing personality is really, really important. And I kind of showed the personality that I really want to attract into Lumiere house in these core values. So these are the core values at lumir house. And what we're looking for in the beautiful souls who take a space in the house and in our hearts, community weigh over competition, but the non toxic competitiveness is okay with us.
elevate their client experience being part of a team even though you're independent, higher education, because that's really important. Cleanliness, because we only want dirty situations in our books. And even then we call it spice, professionalism, but not too professional, because then we wouldn't be able to laugh out loud or start dancing when our songs comes on. Like, hey Siri, play Tell me when to go by e 40. And let's get hifi you know what I'm saying. And then the last one is super cute, but totally looks like yourself appearance. So those are the main core values at Lumira house. But we also find these things super important to like really, really important. knock knock jokes, and Chuck Norris facts like if you're not in bumping on the knock jokes, then you know, we may need to get you some knock knock jokes that you can start knocking back and forth. Pun intended. laughing so hard, you may snort once or twice, liking all the Gen Z song remakes. But still knowing that the originals are where it's at, like, tap in Bye, sweetie is good. But nothing can replace blow the whistle by too short Am I right? Like 100%, down to earth attitudes uplifting others over egos, building real relationships that sink past surface level and lasts a lifetime. So those are the core values that Lumia house and it took me about a day to write them. And it was just really important for me to make sure that these were in the website right before the application. So the rest of the application is, do you feel like your values also align with ours? What's your sign? Basically, we're about to test the first state waters. So let's go all in. And that's actually on the application. Have you ever taken an Enneagram personality tests? What were your results? If we asked your friends to tell us about you? What would they say top three favorite books of all time? Favorite series to binge watch? What do you specialize in behind the chair or love doing most? Tell us your career goals? Tell us your personal goals? Where do you see yourself in one to three years from now? What do you want? Why do you want to work at Lumiere house? Why should we consider your application above others. So when it came to just making sure that I put my personality in this actual application, I wanted to kind of break the ice a little bit and just be like, hey, like, I'm a person too. You're not going to be interviewed by someone who's like crazy, or someone who is going to be like mean, at any point in time. I'm like a really nice person. And I'm definitely one of those people who prefers being like a friend and an equal over like a boss or someone who's like, above someone else. I've just never been that person. I have maybe like, fired one person in my entire career. And it was horrible. I hate that so much. I like to be friends to people, and a mentor. And I like to help people get their creative juices flowing. I like to support people and uplift people. And for me being like the boss is not what I identify as at all. So I want to build a team full of people who are on an equal playing field. And it doesn't matter if they are just starting out in the industry and they've decided to run at Lumiere house, or they've been in the industry for like a decade or more and they are a well established educator, well established stylists, it doesn't matter for me, we're all on the same equal playing field. We're all incredible and can learn from each other. So after that process, which it's kind of sounds lengthy, but that's the first step in my three interview process is for them to fill out my application read through the core values once they filled it out and send it over. My director of operations. Kelsey is going to be setting up virtual interviews which she's basically just going to go in and talk with them about their goals and also see if they or personality kind of pulls over.
vert into their virtual interview. And if everything looks good with her, if she's like, Yeah, this person has like, is great. Then they get sent over to me. And in that I basically show them around gloomier house, talk with them a little bit more about just themselves and kind of get to know them. Because for me, we're going to be spending some time together, you're going to be in my space, I'm going to be in yours, I want to make sure that we're going to vibe and we're going to jive like it's really, really important to me. So in that part isn't going to be asking generic questions in an interview for me, it's just genuinely getting to know the person who's possibly going to be in my space, and make my space, their home base for their career and for their clients. So it's really just about creating that camaraderie and creating that trust with each other. And if everything goes good, then we're going to offer them the availability to come into Lumia house, and to be part of our team. So that's what the process looks like of actually hiring on booth renters and licensing out our space. So that way, they can come and have their own career and have their business within Lumiere house. And what I'm offering as a booth rental salon is going to be a bit different than the majority of what I've actually seen. So most booth rental salons from what I've seen, either have a retail line and require that the stylists sell their retail and not their own retail for me, I'm actually going to have all the stylists provide their own retail I was thinking about possibly providing back bar, but I don't think I'm going to and the only reason I say that is because I do think it's really important that the stylists actually use their own product that they sell. So it's going to be an income booster for them, they'll be able to have their own back bar, be able to have their own retail line sell their own retail line, they're not going to have to worry anything about selling a linear house retail line, I'm not going to do that I just don't want to have to track that. And I also think it's going to be better for the stylist to have that income. But I am going to provide a luxury t bar, which is going to have all different types of teas, we're going to have iced teas during the hot months, we're going to have hot tea during the cold months, and just really create a beautiful experience. We're also doing custom stations with these gorgeous anthropology mirrors, I can't wait until we order them and get them in, we're in the process of building out the budget for the revamps. So that's going to be something we're going to be doing. And once we get about five booth renters in, I'm going to hire an experienced manager. So this is going to be someone who's going to be making sure that the clients get their teas that they walk around making sure everyone has what they need. They're going to be making sure that there are no like dishes in the sinks that all the T bar stuff is cleaned up, they're also going to lock and unlock after all the stylists make sure that the system is bumping as far as the music goes, just make sure that the overall experience in Lumia house is great. So that's going to be someone that I'm also going to hire those are going to be kind of what we're going to offer right now at lumir house. And then because I receive so much product from other companies just because of how many followers I have on Instagram, I'm also going to have a cabinet that's kind of going to be like a use it if you need it cabinet that has foils and any kind of product that I'm basically sent and it's going to kind of be a free for all for all the sales, they can use whatever is in that cabinet, basically. So that is right now what I'm offering, and we're still kind of outlining it trying to figure out what are the best things to have and what I can do that is going to be different than other salons in other areas. And I think for me for Lumira house, just what I'm doing already is going to be different. We have a mission statement at Lumiere house. And it is to create a safe space for all people to lose and find themselves reconnect to their passion and build genuine relationships that lasts a lifetime. And I feel like as a booth rental salon and ones that I've worked at before, they didn't have anything like this as structured as I'm trying to structure it right now. So I feel like this structure is extremely extremely important when it comes to actually creating a booth rental salon. A lot of people think well I'm just going to build stations and in those stations I'm going to have you know a chair and a mirror that's really all that they need. We'll have some storage, nothing else is really that big of a deal. So we're just going to have that and we're gonna say you know rent is $200 A week or whatever it is, and the sales are going to take care of all their stuff well from
me when you curate the interview process, and you really decide instead of just hiring on whoever applies, and whoever's able to afford the rent, and now that's obviously a really important part. But if you are able to go in and actually have a structure behind it, you're going to have a much easier time with building out a team. So for me loom your house is a handcrafted space designed for career minded stylists, humble educators, and kind hearted clients. Those are the people that I want in my space. It's so so so important I have on the website, which actually, if you click the link in this episode for the lumir House website, you'll be able to go and see like, all of the copy that I have on the website, the pictures, what I'm basically doing to make lumir house look extremely attractive to possible clients, possible booth renters. And what I'm doing is I'm being like as transparent as possible in what my vision is, what my expectations are. And I'm wanting to attract those people in and my goal is I'm going to be able to by showcasing these specific things. Now I've know I've kind of talked your ear off about where I'm at right now with opening booth rental salon, and kind of doing that second open for lumir. House,
there's still so much that I have to do so much that is going to happen by the next part of this episode. So stay tuned on that. It's probably not going to be next week, maybe like a month from now I'll do an update as to where I'm at and a month from now. I'm hoping that maybe I have one or two renters in the space. So I'll go over everything that we decided. Like I said, a lot of this stuff is kind of up in the air. I'm still trying to just figure it out. And I hope that this episode kind of gives you a look into me not knowing everything and not having all the answers because some of these things that I have in here. By the next episode, I may be like, Nope, this didn't work. Nope, that didn't work. This is what we did instead. Or I may be like this worked incredibly well. And this is how you should structure your booth rental salon. So we'll see how that goes. Anyway, hope you have a beautiful day. I'm actually going to head into Lumiere house right now. I'm going to be working on a few free classes coming up and I will definitely share when I have those classes scheduled. There's going to be some pretty incredible ones. So I hope you have a beautiful day and I'll see you on the next one.
Thank you so much for joining me today on Reviving the Stylist. If something really resonated with you during this episode, take a screenshot share it's your Instagram story and let me know what you love most don't forget to also send it to a friend so that way they can reap the incredible things from this episode too and leave me a rating and review. I'd also absolutely just love to connect with you outside of the show too. So you can find me on Instagram at Kristen dot Lumiere that's L u m i e r e or my website, Kristen lumiere.com. And before I go, I just want to leave you with one reminder. It isn't about living to work. It's about working to live. And that is my goal for you friend, because you deserve it. I'll see you on the next one.