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What is really next after beauty school? It it an assisting program? Or is it something different?
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 0:03
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 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 0:41
If you're a cosmetology student, and you are looking for your next step after beauty school, my best recommendation is absolutely finding a mentor that is going to be able to help foster your growth. And the best place to start is with an Assisting Program. I am a firm believer in an incredible Assisting Program and how it can propel you through your career so much quicker than if you are doing it all on your own. And I wouldn't know because I did it all on my own. And I had years and years and years of struggle, where my best friend who did the Assisting Program found the mentor, she had so much less struggle than I did. And she became a much more well rounded stylist than I could ever be all on my own. So I am a firm, firm, firm believer in an incredible Assisting program. But I also know because I have seen it. And I have heard about it that there are programs out there that make students who are starting their career and graduating beauty school feel like they are the bottom of the bucket or the bottom of the barrel, that they are just there to sweep hair, and wash color bowls. And that is not right. I do not believe in assisting programs that only offer those types of things in their program. The way that I worked with my assistants is we had a two week period where we did all the rundown stuff, this is how I work. This is what my motions are when I go through all these things. And after that two week period, I would start them on. Okay, now it's your job to go do all the shampoos, I'm gonna have you do the toning, I'm gonna have you do all these things, we're going to talk about formulations, you're going to step right here on my mat, and you're going to see me apply. It was a working relationship between both of us. And I never viewed my assistants as the bottom of the barrel or a step below me, I view them more as my partner, they are there and they're helping me be able to complete this job, you are my equal. And I'm going to give you equal respect. So that has always been my method and my outlook on assistance. Now there are salons out there who have incredible assisting programs, they're hard and assisting program should be difficult or have some sort of level that you need to reach and push you outside of your comfort zone. But they should never be disrespectful, they should never make you feel less than and they should always be uplifting. And you should always have a mentor that comes along with it. So when searching for the right program, it is really important that when you go and when you look, you go and you look at multiple different places you apply to a lot of places. I remember I actually went and there was this hair salon where I used to live back in California that I just loved and was talked about so much by my beauty school and it was like the hair salon and it was a top 200 Salon in North America. So it was definitely like a really, really good hair salon. And I remember thinking to myself, Man, if I worked there, then I will have made it. And I went there and I interviewed and I even worked at a blow dry bar that they one of the owners actually owned to and it was separate from the salon. But I worked there and I love the environment. And I went and I interviewed at this place but I just didn't get like the right vibe from it. I felt strange being there, which is weird because I worked at this other blow dry bar that I love the vibe of and it was like my place like that's how I felt it was my place the first place I really felt like I belonged. And when I went to the salon and I felt that way I was like man, this just doesn't feel right. And I knew at that point that it wasn't the right choice for me. So I ended up not taking the position and instead what I did was I went independent because for me it was really difficult to find a place that felt like my salon home, I never had the opportunity or I never had that camaraderie and that feeling where you know, the stylists that worked there were like my other family because for me, when I put my all into a space, I need to make sure that whoever is there, they are giving off the type of energy I want to absorb. And if that type of energy is catty or negative, then my entire creative side is muted. And I just can't deal with that. So I bounced around to so many different places. Even when I was a booth renter, I went, and I worked at all of these different places and tried to find my place tried to find where I was going to fit in. And after going and probably working at five or six different places, all within a year, I finally figured out that the only way I was going to find a place that didn't meet my creativity felt like I had people around me that was a second family, I knew that I needed to create it. So at that time, I actually went and I rented a Salon Suite. And I had an assistant at that time who we actually joked back and forth. And we're still good friends to this day. But she was my salon wife, like we hung out way more than we did with our husbands. And it was just kind of a running joke for us. But at that moment, I just knew that what I wanted I had to create. And it came from a place of not having that mentor to help me not knowing what's really look for in an Assisting Program. And at the same time not being very patient either. Because I had a very specific standard. And if it was not met in a period of time, then I was out of there, I didn't have a problem like ditching a place. If I felt like my creativity was being muted, or I was around people who were more Catty, I just couldn't deal with environments like that. So I never had a problem leaving if I felt that type of vibe. And if you are that type of person, too, I totally get it because I know where you're coming from. I felt that. And I worked really, really well on my own. But I work even better with a team that I build myself. And maybe that is you. Maybe you are graduating cosmetology school and you're thinking yourself, I want to be a salon owner. And that is great. Like, that's incredible salon owners are the angels of our industry with of course the exception of a few who are not the angels and can be seen as the opposite. And I have met those ones too. But this is not a podcast where we talk horribly about salon owners and I will say salon owners, they have the most difficult job in our industry, it far surpasses what it is to be an independent stylist. And the only reason it does is because they have to manage multiple people underneath them. And instead of it just being about their well being it's about the other people that work for them, it's about their well being because the well being of those people, that is what dictates the well being of the salon, which is hard because you are dependent upon other people for your success. And then being successful means that you're successful. So that is really, really hard. And that's actually one of the reasons why I decided not to be a salon owner because I didn't want anyone else to determine my success I wanted it to be all about me of I guess you could say was selfish. But I do love salon owners and what they do for industry and how incredible that they are to, you know, put in that type of work. So props to you. If you are a salon owner, I'm super, super thankful for you and for fostering the growth of so many stylists out there. So let's walk back and talk about assisting programs. When you go into an Assisting program, you'll know a really great one, if you see that they are going to require that you put in a lot of training. So like I said before, my best friend, she had to go to weekly training sessions. And if she ever went to a class that was outside, which was mandatory, I think that she had to do like, I don't know, maybe three classes a year that were not within their salon. And when she went to those classes, she had to come back and actually teach the techniques to the entire salon. And that's what they did with all of these stylists which I thought was incredibly smart because why go and spend hundreds of dollars for all of your styles or maybe even 1000s of dollars for all of your stylists to go to a class when you can send one person and then they can come back and teach everything that they learned to the entire salon. Not only that But that puts a pressure on that person who's going to learn the entire technique and really focus on it. So that way, they can actually come back and teach to the salon. That's a pretty big pressure. But it's super smart when it comes to educating your staff. Because as a salon owner, you're not going to be able to afford to send all of your staff out to a class. And if you can, like, that's incredible. But why do it when you can send one person and then they can come back and teach and educate your entire staff, I just thought that was so incredibly smart. And definitely think that more salons need to do that. So assisting programs, they should absolutely outline all of the incredible education that you're going to learn over a period of time. I also believe too, that they should have some type of testing in there. So that way, you know, when you hit key milestones within your training in that program, and when you are maybe halfway or maybe when you are a little bit further through that program, there should be hands on days, where you actually go out, you're on what is considered the floor. I don't know if that's something that you talked about in beauty school, the floor being where you actually take clients, but you should be able to go out, and you should take your own clients for a specific period of time. And with my best friend, what she would do is she would have one day where they would do blow dries, and she would do like up dues, and just simple stuff like that. But the further that she went into her career, the more days that she had on the floor, the more technical services that she had coming into her chair until finally her graduation was really just taking that last day that she went into she did her Assisting Program and moved over into being a full time stylist on the floor. So that was an incredible program that she went through. And hindsight is always 2020. If I went through a program like that I would have been such an incredible stylist, way more well rounded than I was, I know when we were at kind of our five year point in our career, she was much better than I was and I was jealous of it. And if she listens to this episode, then I will like you know, never live it down. But hopefully she doesn't have that much time. And she doesn't. If she does high end, Denise,
Kristen Lumiere 12:23
I'm just talking about you. So that is definitely my best piece of advice when it comes to I guess pieces of advice, when it comes to being a starting stylist and going through the motions, finding the mentor doing the Assisting Program, all that incredible stuff. And if being an assistant isn't necessarily for you, that's totally fine, you can absolutely make it as a stylist starting from Beauty School, but it is going to be much more difficult. And there are going to be things that come up that you are going to need to have a mentor. And like I said in part one, I would absolutely love to be that mentor for you. And if you ever invested in one of my programs, I would be able to foster that growth for you and support you in so many ways. And I have two different programs. Currently, I also have a free inner circle community that you can actually join it's alumier Inner Circle, what I'm going to do is I'm going to link that inner circle to this episode, you can join there for free and you can get the support from me and get the support from all of the incredible students who I have had throughout the years. And it is a Facebook community. So you do have to have a Facebook page. But if you join that inner circle community, you can go you can ask for support from your peers, because if you don't have a mentor peer support is the next best thing. And I will say that the Lumiere inner circle community has the most incredible stylists there, we uplift each other, we support each other. And I know that there would be so so stoked to support you. So I will absolutely link that into the show notes. You'll be able to go there join the inner circle community, it's free, you don't have to worry about any type of investment. But if you ever wanted to invest into one of my courses, I have a business course called revive it's independent stylists business course if you are starting a business, and you want to learn how to do it from the ground up, so you can scale to being a six plus finger stylist and reach those goals that you've always wanted to revive is definitely for you. And then of course I have the Lumiere Lab, which is my technical course it has four technical classes that goes over Bali ash foilage color melting. We also go over low lighting, and all types of stuff. Plus I have a bonus class called Raising your value through photography, which we go over photography for the hair and all of these other things too. Where's workbooks there's all types of stuff in both programs. So if you Ever wanted to join any one of those programs? The waitlist are definitely open at this time. So you can go to Kristen Lumiere comm forward slash programs, and you can see everything that I have to offer as far as online goes there. Well, that is it for today's episode. Thank you so much for joining me. I'll see you again next Tuesday. I hope you have a beautiful day. Yeah, that's it for me. I'm going to go ride some horses and enjoy some life of my own. So I'll see you next time. 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 to 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 Lumiere that's L u m ay er E or my website, Kristen Lumiere calm. 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.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai