Dos And Don'ts This Holiday Season

My unpopular opinion is that gifts to give to your clients during the holiday season is overkill. Ooh. What are your thoughts about that, Jodi? I- I'm curious to actually hear your input.

Uh, here's my tea. I just feel like ... And by the way, I've done gifts. I've done hella gifts for my clients, okay?

Like I've very much done this. I've written cards, did all the things, right? I just feel like it set this precedent that I had to now do it every year, and I remember like one of the years I had done it, like the past two years, and I was like, "I really don't fucking feel like doing this." And I also didn't feel like p- uh, uh, punching into my profit margin either, you know?

And so, I just think that we should be doing things all year round in much more sustainable ways that support our clients and make them feel special so that we don't feel like we have to go so extra hard in the busiest season of our lives, right? So, I don't know, Jodi. What are your thoughts? And you can please disagree with me.

Like I wanna hear what you have to say. So I actually never did client gifts behind the chair. Period. Um, I would always get lots of gifts, and that was fun.

And how nice was that? Like how nice was it that you didn't have to fucking worry about how much money you're gonna spend on this stuff, what you're gonna get them, which clients are gonna get them, which ones aren't gonna get them, what ... And if this client knows this client and that client didn't get a gift and this client got a gift, then are you gonna talk ... It's like too much.

Yeah, I feel like the atmosphere in the salon, it's like, you know, we'd have like extra, like little goodies and stuff like that, but yeah, in terms of gifts, like I remember getting a lot of gifts, which was great. Period. But yeah, I- I would kind of agree that I don't think it's like necessary. Like is this the expectation now in the industry?

Like I don't know. I don't know that I buy into it as much. I just think for the people who are out there who want to show appreciation, but then also really care about their retention and client experience, like you may want to do this, right? I'm just saying keep in mind you may set the precedent, even if it's just for yourself, that you may have to do this every single year now, right?

Um, I felt guilty because that year I was like, "You know what? I'm not fucking doing it." I definitely felt guilty that I didn't have anything for my client that year and then sh- they were bringing me cl- uh, gifts, you know? Yes.

Yes. So, especially, you know, like you said, like they bring you gifts now, right? And so like, be, like was there, was there an exchange? Are they gonna change the how big or the type of gift they give you the next year because you gave them a gift this ...

Like it's just like, it's too much. It's too much for me to deal with. So here's the tea. In lieu of giving gifts, there are so many different ways that we can take advantage of the holiday season.

I'm gonna be talking a little bit more about my philosophies here about the holiday season and what we can do a little bit, but if you want to get like maximum understanding of how we can make our clients feel special and make a fuck ton of money without overworking, then I'm going to be sharing a crazy Black Friday deal with y'all where we're gonna bundle my masterclass Chief Marketing Hair Stylists and our entire hair stylists template vault with all of our holiday templates and a masterclass all about the holiday season that goes into much more detail than we're doing today on the podcast. So, that's my tea with gifts, is I just think it's too much and there's so many different ways that we can go about making our clients feel special that we do all year round, but also e- sp- uh, particularly also specially for the holiday season that are much more sustainable and scalable, okay? So, that's my tea with gifts. But otherwise, a big topic that we normally have to grapple with when it comes to the holiday season is should we work more?

Because maybe we have this inflated demand because of the time of the year, and it's really difficult to not have FOMO about the money that you could make if you worked more. And I don't have like a really strict philosophy about this. I'm not like, oh my god, absolutely you should not. Absolutely you should yes, but I kind of tend to lean towards, because of my own personal experience, I tend to lean towards the no, it's never worth it, because you, it's already the busiest time of your life, and it's meant normally, and you know, shout out to the people out there who don't have traditional families and the holidays are tough to you.

So much love to you. But traditionally, holidays are where you spend time with your loved ones and you are supposed to give them energy. You're going to family functions that you already don't want to go to maybe even on the opposite end, right? And you don't have any energy left to give, and I just think that whenever I worked my ass off to take advantage of this demand or because I felt the pressure of the demand, I always regretted it.

It was never worth the money for me, and this is a season in which people are going to be much more likely to want to spend more money with you. So not only are you gonna have more people who want to work with you, but you're gonna have those people who want to spend more money with you. So what I would rather you do is I'd rather you work the same amount of hours possibly, but then maximize the potential that you have from increasing your average ticket to then make more money without overworking. And I'm gonna even go as far as to say I think, you know, what we should all be shooting for as hair stylists is creating a business in which you can work less than a traditional five days a week or work lesser hours, because maybe in these circumstances in which we do have inflated demand, then it's not so terrible to our energy when we add a day onto our already three or four day work week, right?

But when we're already working five days a week full-time, adding another day is just, you know, on average, very much exhausting and energy draining Yeah. and not sustainable at the end of the day. So, that's my overall theory, and you get to do with that what you will. Like if you want to take advantage of this time and it's absolutely worth it for you to bust your ass and make that extra money, pop off sister queen.

I am not discouraging you from doing that, but I would invite you to-Remember that life is short and that we're all just floating on this big rock in the sky, in the universe. And, like, at the end of the day, like, what really matters, right? And, like, what are you... Like, when you look back, are you gonna be really happy that you worked that extra, that cou- e- ex- extra couple hours or days and you made that extra little bit of money?

Or, are you gonna look back and you're gonna be happy that you spent time with your family and your friends and you had the energy to do so? I don't fucking know. Maybe I am biased, maybe I do have a more strong perspective about this. I don't know.

You just... You do, you do you, boo. I feel strongly about this too, so I agree with you. I, from personal experience, I definitely think it's a big- It's a personal experience thing for me.

Yeah. It's, like, a lesson learned situation for me. Very much so. For sure.

But like I said, raising your average ticket is a really powerful thing for you to do in order for you to make more money, right? And I'm gonna be going over a lot of this in our holiday class. There's a lot of different things that you can do to, like, just naturally, without even, like, the selling side of things, but just naturally and psychologically push this person into an even more willing-to-buy state, right? But just generally, all year round, you should be focusing on your retail and add-ons, right?

And I would even go as far as to say a lot of our independent stylists listening to this have really low retail volume, and I would recommend that you... Or, or as far as physical products on the shelf goes, I'd recommend, at least for the holiday season, start fucking stocking those shelves, bitch. Because people will want to leave with a physical product, and you will, you will absolutely benefit from having that there. I get it, I'm all about the affiliate links, don't get it twisted, and I don't want you to be overrun with stock, but, like, maybe your most popular products or your most giftable products.

And of course, there's always your distributors trying to sell you the holiday sets. You get to decide whether you do that or not. Or, maybe you even make your own that make more sense to you or more profitable. Whatever the fuck you wanna fucking do.

I don't fucking care. Just take advantage of the fact that people are much more likely to spend money with you, and set up your environment to make it so you're even more so stretching that already existing willingness, and then do your damn part of taking care of your client and their family and their friends by selling them some shit, and then selling their friends some stuff by proxy, because you can sell it as gifts and stuff like that. 100%. Yeah, it's so true.

We're in a mode in the holiday season where we are constantly shopping. It is, like, the habit, right? So, I think having things that you can take advantage of that with is huge. So, you talked a little bit about how you should be doing this all year round.

Let's talk about the boom-bust cycle that sometimes can happen in that holiday period, where you're, like, overrun with clients. Maybe you do take on some extra hours, or you're just, like, busy in the holiday season. How do you set yourself up for that, like, beginning of the year not being so slow? Well, the tea is, is that what'll happen a lot of the time is, we will get so burnt out and busy, and whenever...

Here's the thing. When things are good, things feel good, and then we're like, "Okay, we can chill." And when things are good, that's when you want to take the most action. That's when you have momentum, that's when you have data, that's when things multiply and compound.

But if you allow any type of momentum to just speed right past you, and you're like, "Okay, everything's cool. Things are coming to me easy, so I can take it easy," you should probably doing, be doing the opposite. So for example, if you have, if you know the holidays are coming up and you're like, "Okay, cool. I'm gonna get new client requests.

It's gonna be fine, it's gonna be easy. Things are gonna fill up," and maybe you are in the holiday season, you're booked and busy, whatever it may be, so you're like, "Okay, I'm too busy. I'm tired. I'm not gonna post on social," you are shooting yourself in the foot, because we are not posting today for a client tomorrow.

We are posting today for a client three months from today, six months from today, a year from today. So, when you turn off that faucet, and when it's January and February, and you're like, "I don't have any clients. It's just the slow season," you're gonna really regret you, a couple months earlier, n- turning off that faucet and not setting yourself up for success for January and February. And so, I want you to start thinking now, first off, "How can I make sure that I am set to easily post and easily stay consistent with whatever my marketing efforts are right now, while I still have some free time and space before this, I get slammed," right?

And then furthermore, think about how you are gonna set yourself up for January and February. I think looking into certain specials and things like that are a very good idea, and I even go over a little bit of that in our masterclass for holiday prep. And this is an all-year-round philosophy. I mean, just don't turn off the faucet.

Like, keep it fucking running. Like, consistency is... I know it's so hard. I really do.

Let me take a moment to validate you. Consistency is so... You, you are only one person. This is a full-time job of just doing the hair, and then a full-time job of running the damn business and marketing yourself.

I understand. But the point of you doing all this work is so that one day you are only working two days a week making the same amount of money that you're making right now, and that's not ever gonna happen, and you're always going to be set back if you don't try your absolute best to stay consistent and keep the faucet running. So, I know that it's gonna be busy. I know that you're gonna be busy.

Fucking take action right now to set yourself up for success in the future. And a great way to make it super easy for you is checking out my templates, 'cause we have some badass templates for social media. And now with AI, you can take all these templates, you can run it through, make it your own, and boom. There you go.

You got a million posts. And we have particular holiday templates. We have, like, email newsletters, we have s- graphics, we have captions, of course. We have everything that you need to make the best out of your holiday season.

And everything in that holiday template pack is everything that you need to optimize this holiday season in the easiest, quickest way possible. So, we're having a huge Black Friday bundle sale on it, so go ahead. Check out hunterdonny.com/BF.

Hunterdonny.com/BF. Not your boyfriend. Black Friday, okay?

And you're gonna check out that bundle, you're gonna get the templates, and you're gonna get this shit all planned out and bash out ahead of time. Happy motherfucking holidays, no matter what you celebrate. I love you so much and I hope that you have a great time living your best life, and that you're not overworking, and that you're getting paid well, all the things. Peace out, Girl Scout.

Bye bye. Ha!

End of transcript. © 2025 Hunter Donia LLC.