I have been writing about a lot of things from the past, so I thought that I would bring you up to date at the current location. One of our designers is retiring. There are several reasons why including her arthiritis in her hands, her husband has wanted her to retire for four years, she is tired, etc. We will miss her a lot.
There are a few problems because of this.
Number one is that there is no one to do her customers. One of our designers is an instructor at a beauty school and only works nights, another is going for her instructor’s license, and so, only works at night. The owner is doing all of the clients that she wants now, but has volunteered to do a few. I only work 3 days a week and am usually booked pretty solid.
This brings us to number 2. Her clients would rather not pay my prices, and apparently, some of them have gone into sticker shock when asking prices at other salons. We have tried to locate hairstylists for them without many results.
The reason for this is number 3. It seems that there are very few hairstylists who know how to tease hair properly, or who want to do little ladies that need hairstyles that will last all week because they cannot hold up their arms for long enough to do it themselves. Why is this?
All of you stylist out there! Expand your horizons! If you have been reading my blog for long, you know that I specialize in African-American hair. Yes, I also do White, Hispanic, and any other hair that wants to sit in my chair, and I can tease with the best of them. (I can, but I do not, however, like doing men’s clipper cuts.) My point is this. Challenge yourself. Learn something new, even if it is an old technique, as long as it is new to you. Pick up your teasing combs and practice! Lift those clients up out of the chair, and buy some hairspray that will withstand a windstorm! You are missing out on a lot of clientele and a lot of interesting people with life stories to tell. For some of them, the salon is their social life. Regular clients are your bread and butter, and who makes better regular clients than your weekly shampoo and set crowd. Most clients that blow dry their hair will only be in the salon every five or six weeks for a cut or possibly a color or hilite. A weekly shampoo and set customer will be in every week and will also need perms and color. These are clients with whom you build relationships. In this profession, you really have to love what you do, and you have to love people. It doesn’t really matter whose name is on your paycheck, ultimately, your clients write it. Expand your avenues of revenue by expanding your talents.
