All About Client Shaming

Hey, friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist podcast. So today, we're gonna be talking about a topic that really fires me up, um, that I can get a little heated speaking about, so I apologize in advance. I hope that you can come into this episode with a little bit of an open mind.

I hope that you're able to give yourself grace if you feel as if I'm talking about something that you've possibly done before. Um, I hope that we can learn, grow, and, um, change this industry and take it on with intention, with how we're showing up in these modern platforms; in our social media, on our Facebook, in our emails. In all of these public internet digital platforms that us as hairstylists are now showing up in, I hope that we can step into them with a little bit more intention walking into the future, all right? Because there is some not very cute behavior going on from, uh, from all of us collectively that we need to address and we need to take care of as a collective.

And so I'm gonna be talking to you today all about shaming your clients. Lemme guess. You are a hustling, bustling hairstylist behind the chair, working so hard to build a beautiful career for yourself, one that gives you time, freedom, and energy to spend with yourself, your family, and your friends. But you feel like you're always working in your business even when you're not behind the chair.

My name's Hunter Donia, and I help you automate your systems and implement really beautiful strategies so you can grow your business without the overwhelm. And this is the Modern Hairstylist podcast. Now, before I get into this gig, I wanna give you a disclaimer that I want to make it clear that I believe you should 100% have boundaries in your business, that you should educate your clients in a specific way, um, and that it's important to do those things, for sure. But there is a better way to do it.

There's an efficient way to do it and a way that won't cause you more harm than good in the end, and I'm gonna be talking about, um, all of that throughout this entire episode. Okay, so as we've moved into a more digital era of being a service provider, right, of marketing our businesses, of showing up on Instagram and trying to have our ideal clients and get likes, get shares, get views, all of the things, I think that we have to have really clear intention. And what I want you to really understand and think about and make a mission for yourself moving forward, friend, is thinking about your intentions. It is the number one thing I see us as an industry, and s- just service providers and businesses in general, lack, is intention.

We need to be very realistic about where our content is going and who is seeing it and what thoughts we're provoking, what feelings we're bringing out of people by the things that we are putting out there, right? So what I want you to consider is you have this Instagram or Facebook page. You have all of these people who follow it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh, guess that you have sprinkled in there hairstylists, family and friends, and then clients.

Okay? Now, if we're using our Instagrams and our Facebooks intentionally, it should be full mostly of clients. However, we know that a lot of the times, we end up getting hairstylist followers, and we all follow each other because we like to connect with each other. W- that's our, that's our zone.

That's our... We like to see, uh, other people who are speaking the same language as us. We like to get inspiration, et cetera, et cetera. I would argue that that's not really a great thing, that it's actually not that fantastic that you are, you have a bunch of hairstylist followers, because the hairstylist followers, unless you're an educator, they ain't giving you no money, girlfriends.

They ain't paying your bills. Clients are paying your bills, right? Clients are the ones that we want to be on Instagram for, the ones that we want to be posting for. It is about you having a marketing system, a way of you generating new leads and making people want to book in your chair in your local regional area.

That is what we should be using social media for. So let me break down a little bit more specific examples and talk to you about shaming clients and wrapping it all together. Let's go. So, if you...

Let's say, um... When I'm recording this, we just wrapped up the holidays basically, so, so you know, every single December, there are a bunch of reels and, and TikToks that go around, um, f- uh, from hairstylists, uh, posting about being a hairstylist, and it's all about like, "OMG, by the end of the holidays, this is like a h- this is what a hairdresser does and is." And it's like the hairdresser, like, on the ground, drinking wine, completely exhausted and dying, and we all, like, laugh and kiki about it, and we all think it's, like, so funny and cute and relatable, which it is, right? That's the life.

That's like us being hairstylists, and I mean, quite honestly, I think they should just set strong boundaries around the holidays, and you shouldn't work yourself into, into the ground like that, but that's another episode.So we, we, we see these reels, we see these TikToks, and they blow up because hairstylists are liking the shit out of it because it's so relatable and it's so funny, and then they repost it. And then we repost it as hairstylists onto our hair Instagrams, and then our clients see it. Our clients see everything that we post, right?

Every single one of your followers is subject to possibly seeing what you're posting on your stories, on your feed, everything, right? We're putting it out there. So therefore, we need to remember that we can pull feelings out of them, and they are going to see that content and immediately try and find out how they are relevant to what they're seeing. That's what we as human beings do.

We try to make, uh, sense of what we're seeing and, and make sure that we're running it by our own brains and filtering out what's relevant to us and what's not. And when we see that, when, when us as human beings see any piece of content coming out of a human being, we are thinking, oh my gosh, does this have to do with me? So let's take that hairstylist holiday meme, for example, right? What your client may think is, "Oh my gosh.

W- I, like talked so much, I talked my client, my hairstylist's ear off this past week when I saw them on the week of Christmas. I feel so bad now. I was probably so annoying." Now, I know you don't want your client to feel like that.

I know that you did not post that at all with intention of calling out your client, or it wasn't even about that client in the first place or anything like that, but that's what our clients think. That is how we work as human beings. We jump to the weirdest, craziest conclusions about ourselves and we get uncomfortable and we lose trust, right? We lose trust and we, we don't want to be a burden on other people, and, uh, uh, we'll take it personally, okay?

I remember one time we switched to a new color line when I was back in my commission salon, and I have this, like amazing client, one of my all-time favorite freaking clients who I do a root touch-up on, and, um, we switched to this new color line in which it didn't have as strong as chemicals because it's a little bit more, like sensitive and better and less harsh ingredients, whatever, and it can't chew through natural sebum and oils at the scalp as much as a harsher chemical classic color line could. So therefore, um, that, that woman came in and I did her root retouch with this new color, and yes, I probably could have formulated differently, um, but also she came in with, like a week-old, you know, unwashed hair. And so I let her know, "Hey, just to make sure that our, our results are as optimal as possible for the next time you come in, um, I'm gonna reformulate what we did to make sure that we get extra great coverage, and I want you to just make sure that you show up with freshly washed, clean, dry hair." And the next thing you knew, she came in the next time and she was offended that I said that.

She thought that I was, like making this assumption or accusation that she didn't wash her hair or that she was, like dirty or something like that, and she was upset with me. And I was like, "No, I tell this to everybody," right? So it's really, really, really important as businesses, as human beings who communicate with other human beings that we are very, um, intentional and very thoughtful and taking consideration what we're doing and what we're showing people and, and thinking about the feelings that we may bring up in another human being when we are saying these things. Another great example is posting your salon policies on your social media, which I high-key do not coach to.

I don't coach to posting your price increases. Anything that is, like operational in your business, do not post them on your social media. Your social media fo- your public social media, that is a marketing tool. It is not operational.

Your emails, your client-only portal, your client-only Facebook group, your app, whatever it may be inside your salon, those are where you roll out operational things. Not on your social media because all of these people who aren't your clients, they, you don't need to bog them down with all of this other shit, right? When you, when your main focus and goal is to nurture them enough to go and click the book button, and then you put them through the ringer of, here are my policies, this is how you respect me, this is what the tea is, okay Anyways, I'm sorry, I just went on a side rant. Let me go back to this.

This is an example. Posting your salon policies on your Instagram. Let's say you go on this rant about, "When I'm not working I lose money. Um, uh, so don't cancel on me in 24 hours.

I'd appreciate it. This is gonna be my salon policy for now on." It's like yada ya ya ya ya ya. I am so down for you to roll out some boundaries, friend.

I support you. I want you to make your boundaries clear, but there are way more effective, less harmful ways for you to do it, because you're gonna post this, right? And Sally, whose mom went to the hospital two weeks ago and had to cancel on you last minute, guess what Sally's gonna think? Sally's gonna be like, "Oh, wow.

My hairstylist was pissed at me even in this emergency that I had, this life or death emerg- emergency that I had, and they're mad at me and crucifying me for it publicly on social media," and they're gonna think it's about her, your clientAnd that's not cute. That is not gonna be cute. What kinda review are you gonna get, friend, when you see that? That client is never gonna come back to you, ever.

I promise you. I've seen it happen in many cases. So, I beg of you, friend, that we start to be very intentional about using our social media platforms and our digital platforms, where we're gaining more clients, as marketing spaces versus operational spaces. And when we're showing up in either of those spaces, we need to be intentional and we need to be effective in our communication and we need to have emotional intelligence.

We need to... Instead of saying what we want to feel, instead of going straight to our gut reaction, we need to think about, "How can I show up and really intentionally, with the most probable success, change what's happening?" Or create more awareness with what's happening, right? Or what I want to change or what I want to happen or the message I'm trying to get across.

So, a couple ways that you can do that is just with great, beautiful positivity, taking everybody's experience into consideration. Really remembering, if I wanna... If I think something is funny on my Instagram, and li- i- th- if... And I th- like, feel like I wanna repost it just 'cause it's that good, who is seeing it?

Is it going to help me move the bi- the needle in my business forward? Or could it potentially cause harm with my clients and my business and the perception that people have of moi? Right? So, I hope that you're kind of picking up what I'm putting down here, right?

That we have to be super self-aware when we are putting ourselves out there, posting things on our social media, on these digital platforms, because there are real human beings behind the screen who are your customers, who are seeing it, and who have feelings about them and, uh, could potentially be negative ones, right? And you could potentially cause, uh, a negative situation or a negative reaction that falls badly back on you. Okay? So, a good rule of thumb for you is to think about, "Okay, would I say what I'm sharing to a client?"

Like, "Would I say this to a client? Will a client understand this concept? And even if it's, like, not a funny meme or something shaming clients, anything, will my client understand this concept? Can somebody who's not a hairstylist understand the concept that I'm talking about?

How is this relevant to them as a non-hair stylist, as a potential client," right? "And how would I speak about this to them in person so that way they could understand and they aren't, uh, uh... They don't get the wrong perception or perspective about, uh, what we're talking about here?" Or they feel like, you know, you're somebody who they have to understand all of the lingo and all of the things to come see, so therefore they're too intimidated to come and walk into your building, into your chair, because they need somebody who's gonna talk- talk to them in- in non-hairdresser language.

'Cause that's 99% of your clients, friend. They don't understand what a level five is. Some clients don't even know what the word brunette is. Dead ass dead ass.

So, you need to make sure that you're taking your clients' experiences, um, into consideration. That they're... You need to, uh, very much keep in mind, because I have to keep this in mind all the time, there's another human being behind the screen looking at your stuff. And they read it, they see it.

Your existing clients see it, your potential new clients see it, your family and friends see. Everybody sees it. Your local area sees it, your local small businesses see what you are putting out there. So, make the most out of those opportunities.

Don't waste any space. Don't waste any space, time, or energy on anything on those digital platforms that's not going to move you closer to your goals of making more money, having more time, having more energy, having more freedom. Because that is what social media has allowed us, as service providers, to do nowadays. But we need to be intentional about what we're doing, okay?

Now, if you are listening to this and you are like, "Oh my gosh, I posted that one meme once," or, "Oh my gosh, I posted this or shared that and maybe it didn't go down as well as I thought it had," um, don't worry, friend. It's okay. We're here now, and you did it and you can't take it back. And so, therefore, I want you to give yourself some grace.

Every single business owner, uh, has to fail and has to learn from their mistakes, and fail forward, right? Um, it's absolutely essential for you to fail to actually achieve your goals. And so, I just want you to, from now on, make a commitment to yourself that in your marketing, in your digital spaces, where you are sharing content and where there is a public perception of you as a business owner and your business in general, and as a human being, public figure, personal brand, all the things, that you are showing up more intentionally in the way that is gonna make your business and yourself grow as fast as possible, as efficiently as- as possible, and make a true impact in other people's lives. So, if you enjoyed this episode, I would absolutely love and appreciate if you left a testimonial wherever you're listening to this podcast.

And if you want, you can always follow me on the Instagram @hairbyhunty. Hit me up, let's connect. I would love to chat more with you about this topic, and I hope that you have a blessed rest of your day. So much love, peace out, girl scout.

Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2022 Hunter Donia LLC.