So You're a Successful Stylist... Now What?

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hair Stylist podcast. So in the last episode, we had some of our mastermind students come onto the podcast and share their experience of hitting this beautiful level of success as independent business owners, and how they're taking the leverage that they've created for themselves and really maximizing it and bringing it to the next level, and seeking mentorship, community, and guidance for, uh, what it looks like to reach their next evolution. Because a lot of the time, and, you know, I found this recently because we just opened up the doors to Modern Hair Stylist Movement recently, they are closed as of the time of recording this.

However, we may reopen them sometime soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Nonetheless, whenever I open up the- the doors to a program, right, sometimes I'll have successful entrepreneurs who are just motivated, who don't necessarily maybe have a quote-unquote "problem," or maybe even have problems that they don't even see, who will be really impressed by what we have going on in our programs, or the things that I teach, or really like my teaching style, or even just love the vibe of our community. And they'll come to me and they'll be like, "I'm a little bit bored right now." Or they'll be like, "I'm already successful.

I have a really full book. I maybe even have this whole other business that is really great and doing well." And they'll literally ask me, "What can you do for me?" And I'm like, "Well..."

I'm like, "Well, I mean, it's really awesome that you're in this space where you have worked so hard and you've built so much potential for yourself, and you could just kind of coast a tiny bit or keep doing what you're doing the same and that you're doing it over and over and over again, and just sustain what you have, but you're still looking for ways that you can bring it to the next level." Like, that's the type of ambition that will make you a really extraordinary, successful entrepreneur in the long run, and that builds really deep sustainability too, because the deeper your success goes, the larger that it is, right? The longer it's going to be sustained without any risk, right? Or with a lot less risk, if that makes sense, and so I wanted to address this, that person today, you know?

And I also want to, for the people who are listening to this who may be not be in that space yet, I do want you to listen to this because I hope that it motivates you to recognize what's possible and to keep on going and keep pushing, so that way you know what happens when you get here, because what happens when you get here is you have the leverage to do really fricking cool shit. So I'm gonna be teach- talking to the person here today who has maybe hit this really, th- this, like, glass ceiling almost- Mm-hmm. and maybe you feel good about your business right now. Maybe there is partially a little bit of burnout and overwhelm because you have the success that causes those issues either way, to talk to you about how we can solve some of that, but also help you reach your next level, because it does take you looking at your business differently, showing up as a different person even in your business, like, evolving into your next level of who you are, and some more advanced strategies that not a lot of people talk about because it doesn't fit the majority of people, or stylists, or business owners out there.

So I am excited to talk to you about what that looks like today. I have Jodi Brown on the podcast, as per usual today. What's going on, Jodi Brown? Hi, Hunter.

I'm so excited to dive into this 'cause I remember us talking about, like, you were like, "Oh, when I was really successful, I really struggled to find help and next-level strategies," and so I can't wait to dive into this 'cause it's something I could talk about all day. Yeah, me too. I think that you and I both share the fact that we've go- we found some success in our careers, and that we, although we find the success, we're not the type of people who are just finding success to find it. We're finding success because we find so much joy in the challenge, and then the impact that we get to make while building that success too, and we wanna keep on making that happen, which I think is really cool.

And so I think that you're such a perfect person to be tuning into this conversation with today, so thank you so much for being here. Um, and I think whe- when it comes to, like, the, uh, my mastermind group, so l- for those of you who are unfamiliar, the mastermind group is specifically an application-only program that I started this year in which it's for these people who are at this level. It's for the people who are, have built this really awesome momentum and just don't really know what's next, or they know what's next, but it's gonna take a little bit of something new or more personalized for them to be able to actually reach it. And so then they get a lot of one-on-one time with me.

We come up with a personalized custom plan for them to get there, and they have a community of like-minded people who are no longer the people who are asking the one person for advice, but they're people who they actually can get advice from, right? 'Cause that's a lot of the times what will happen is you'll be in these communities that have helped you get to where you are, and then you'll be the one who is a little bit, uh, step ahead of everybody else, and you'll always be pouring into others, but now who's pouring into you, right? Totally. Yeah.

And so the mastermind has been really great for that, and it's been such a beautiful experience, and some of the people who have come in, they, they literally are like, "I just don't know what's next, but I'm motivated to make whatever happened next," you know? Right. Which I think is so fricking cool, and so, again, that's who I'm gonna be talking to, to today. So Jodi, where do you think we can start off with this conversation and spilling the tea to these ambitious badass entrepreneurs?

Oh, I'm so excited. Okay, the, the, where I think we should start is you mentioned a word in your intro, and that is leverage, and I think we should talk about what that means when, you know, you've kinda, you've laid the foundation here about how once you built that demand, and you are booked, and you have, you know, maybe even more clients than you can fit in, what does it mean to leverage that demand to take that business to the next level? Yeah, so for those of you who, like, just need a little bit of a deeper definition of leverage, like, it's potential. It's basically the potential that you have, right?

It's, it's tapping into what you have built, and then taking advantage of the fact that you ha- you have the opportunity to do something with a much lower level of risk. So for example, somebody who ha- who raises their prices 100%, right, the person who has really built up demand, has a lot of...... booked-out clients, gets a lot of new client requests. They have a lot more leverage to be able to raise their prices 100% with a lot less risk of putting themself in a poor situation.

Versus somebody who may not have that strong of a business as far as how booked-up they are, how many new client requests they're getting, they have a lot less leverage and opportunity because they are carrying more risk, right? And then furthermore, we talk- when we talk about leverage and building opportunity, okay, so now you have this large foundation of a lot of people, right, a lot of clients, a lot of people who will spend money with you. And so we can now figure out, we have all this loyal customer base who is continuing to come back to us to purchase our base services, but how can we now maximize the amount of dollars that we're getting from each individual person? And I think that's a really beautiful thing that we get to start to look at in a much more focused way that doesn't distract us from the main thing of just trying to get clients to pay for our services at all.

You know what I mean? But now we have this loyal customer base that we've built a lot of loyalty and they trust us, and now we can start to focus more on, "How can we raise our average ticket? How can we diversify our income streams in many different ways?" Where the person who hasn't really gotten to that level yet, they- i- i- it can be a- a little bit too distracting or premature to start focusing on those things, because we just need to focus on the basics of getting you there first, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Did I s- Did I explain that right? Yeah, absolutely. I think you're so right.

It's like there's build phase, and then there's, like, capitalize on what you've built phase, right? Exactly. And so I think you- you really beautifully kind of laid that out. So let's get into some specifics, then.

So what are some of the ways that we can, after, you know, we've gone through the f- build phase, we've got the beautiful clientele, we're, you know, successful, and now we want to do more? 'Cause I think that's something a lot of ambitious entrepreneurs can relate to, and something that can feel a little lonely sometimes, right? Because a lot of people will be like, "Well, look at- look at what you've done. Like, look at your business.

Why would you want more? This is amazing," right? So what are some of those ways that we can look to, like you said, increase that, like, lifetime customer value, diversify our revenue streams, and really play to our strengths once we have built that base? Yeah.

So I find that a lot of ambitious entrepreneurs who are maybe not at this level yet will, like, have all these really cool creative ideas. Yeah. So for example, they'll maybe try to, like, release an e-book online for, like, their- for clients, or they maybe want to start to sell retail online for maybe non-clients or their clients and, quote-unquote, make that, like, a passive s- thing for them, right? And in reality, every single time you are pushing for some sort of objective, you're taking away time, energy, effort, and focus from another objective.

And that is just- Mm-hmm. That just is what it is, right? Yeah. And so, if you are in a space in which you don't have the clients, right, and you really should just be focusing on building up the book, when you- we distract ourselves with those other little things, then it really gets in the way of us actually just building that strong foundation.

But let's say that you have this awesome clientele. Let's say that you're getting new client requests, and maybe it's a little bit on autopilot. Maybe you're running ads at this point. Maybe you have a social media manager th- that you've hired out who is taking care of a lot of that stuff for you.

Now you have cleared so much time and space to be able to take some time to focus on maybe selling retail online. I know a crazy thing that happened to me was, I had a- a client all the way in, like, California, okay? Other coast, all right? I'm in Philadelphia.

I had a client in California, not even a client, it was a person, it was a random person, reach out to me on- through DM, and say, "Hey, I just really like your work, and I really like how you educate people, and it looks like you could really help me. I just need recommendations on what I should be doing with my hair. I want a recommendation of who I should go to in my local area and how I should talk to them about it." And I charge this person $100 for, like, a 30-minute Zoom call.

Wow. Like, that- And that's 100% profit, right? Wow. For a really low amount of effort.

And so those are the types of things that you get to start focusing on maybe advertising when you already have this strong foundation, because when you start to advertise those things, you're not as reliant on that- s- that space of focus to help you with your foundation, and you can- you have- you have less risk in pulling away from that focus- Mm-hmm. and then focusing on these other things, right? You also have more experience, you have more social proof, because there's a lot more people who can vouch for you. You have more reviews, you have more pictures, you have more constant, uh, backup, I guess, from that foundation that you've built.

And so, uh, that's, like, that's one of the examples, is, like, trying to start to sell something else, you know? Mm-hmm. Or, um, even then some, in your salon, like I said earlier, focusing on, "How can we increase the average ticket of each of these individuals now?" So, like, sometimes people will want to add a bunch of different retail products, or add these extra add-on services, or maybe something that they're passionate about.

Like, I know a lot of people have been adding, like, energy healing and Reiki and all that shit to their- their chairs. Mm-hmm. Not to get down on y'all, I know a lot of y'all listen to this podcast, but a lot of the times, I feel like we end up approaching that a little prematurely. Like, I feel like we just- Mm-hmm.

For a lot of the people who are j- just trying to build, we need to approach building your business the fastest and smartest way possible by reaching for the lowest hanging fruit, and I promise you, that is not the lowest hanging fruit, right? But let's say that you built this really awesome, like, t- s- four-to-six-week clientele of root touch-ups who are always coming back to see you. And now you have the leverage to be able to add this new service and advertise it, give it the focused energy and time that it needs to grow without sacrificing building the foundational parts of it, right? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. That's really fucking cool, and that's exciting, and now you get to add this really cool, exciting, inspiring part of your- your hobbies, your business, what you're passionate about to your current business, and serve your current loyal clients even more, and make it so those people...... are spending even more with you every single time they come to see you. And that is really powerful.

And statistically, I don't have the statistic up in front of me or the surveys or the studies, but statistically, it's a lot easier to sell to an existing client than it is to a new client. And we don't take enough advantage of that, and you have 10 times more power to do so when you build a strong foundation of actual clients that you can sell to, because otherwise, you don't have anybody you can sell anything to in the first place. Am I making sense? Yes.

So true. I love all of that. So then let's think about ... 'Cause I know that there's always, you know, once we- You and I have talked about this.

Building, the building phase requires a lot of you, right? What about the stylist who has gotten to the- they've built this really successful business, but now they're kind of looking at, okay, how can I maybe work a little bit less or how can I maybe, you know, take a little bit of space so that I do have time to pursue one of these different avenues? Do you have any advice on that specifically? Yeah.

So there's a couple different ways that you can take back some of your time to be able to focus on the new avenues, and I hinted at some of them throughout this episode, but, like, one of them is just hiring, right? Like, the- I- I feel like, I personally feel like it's- I don't know why any stylist would not eventually consider hiring out some of their marketing. Like, I don't know why that is not a consideration for more people. I agree.

It's not even a consideration for a lot of my mastermind people, but I encourage it all the time, and I talk, and I'm like, "Hey, like, I'm gonna remind you of this possibility later." Right, right. Because it, by far, is the most time-consuming thing outside of the business. It's also the thing that the majority of people hate and, simultaneously, it is the- one of the most important things that you have to take care of, and consistently, because we know that the consistency part of it is really important.

So for me, I don't mind marketing. I'm really fucking good at it if I do it myself, but I know I'm not gonna be as consistent if I'm doing it myself, which is why- Right. I have the lovely Jodi to help me out, right? And so having that consistency and not having to worry about it, and also, you know, I know that the person that I hire knows my vibe, I- I have the systems, I have the repeatable, uh, things that have made me successful, I- I have a strong grip on my brand, and I'm able to communicate that to the person that I'm hiring so that I know that they do a good job.

And I don't even fucking look or care about what the person I'm hiring is posting because I trust them that much, but that doesn't come without you first building that yourself. But once you've built that yourself, get that shit off of your plate, dude. 100%. Like, get it off of your plate because then you can focus on the next thing.

For example, I have one of our mastermind students who is now focusing on creating, like, an e-book that she can have a lot of her ... She has, like, a huge wait list of clients all the time, right? So now, she has a solution to these clients who are on her wait list who may not get to see her for a long time, or I ha- or she has a large m- social media following from people who are all over the country who will never see her behind a chair. Now she has a way to leverage, wink wink, leverage that attention or that trust that she's built with an audience online outside of her local area.

And now she has the opportunity, the time, and the space to be able to market that without sacrificing the current business that she has now. And so that's what her and I are focusing on and working on together, and I just think that's really fucking cool, but it takes, like, hiring out or systematizing and delegating and automating as much as possible. So that also just looks like, and I- hopefully it's not too out- I mean, if you've been listening to me for a while, you know I've already fucking said this, but to those of you who need a reminder or who haven't heard before, also, okay, the very first thing we need to delegate is just your admin communication stupid shit. Like, we need to make sure that that stuff is systematized and automated as much as possible, and the beautiful thing is, is that you don't need to hire for it.

Right. You can set up technology to do all this shit for you, right, and the way that you run your business and your procedures. And again, when you have built up to this certain point, you now have leverage to be able to run your business and have different procedures and force your clients to go through those procedures to make it so you have more time and space, right? So it's hiring out some of your shit once you get to that point.

It's also automating and delegating the systems or procedures that you already have to do yourself as much as possible without having to hire out, because hiring out is expensive, and it also- you are- we are relying on a human being, which is much less reliable than technology and harder to train, harder to onboard, harder to trust. And then, also just taking off a freaking day. Like, taking off a day, taking off two days, changing your hours, because you have now earned with the leverage and the potential that you have created, the opportunities that you've created for yourself, you have now earned being able to take a day off, not work the evenings, not work the weekends, because you will have clients who will adjust to you, right? It's no longer you have to adjust to the clients.

It's now the clients have to adjust to you because your demand is that strong. Right. So now, you are literally gaining inarguable time back because you're taking a day off. You're, you're taking back those times and spaces that may feel better for you to want to work within.

And when you take that time back, you kind of have two options, or maybe three if you look at it a different way. You have the one option of taking that time back and then just taking it for yourself in your personal life, which is awesome, and then you also have the option of taking that time back and then, again, focusing on the new endeavor, focusing on the extra stuff, really going hard on the education that you're taking as well too.Right. Um, or you can do a mix of both, you know, 'cause you can, you have the option of doing that as well too.

So yeah. Love that. I have a follow-up question, which is something we haven't talked about. And that is when do you think ...

So we talked about dropping days, right? We talked about, um, potentially stopping working evenings. Do you think there's ever a situation where it's a no-brainer to bring on say a employee stylist or an assistant or something like that to help lessen that demand? Or do you feel like that's oftentimes not the right choice for a stylist?

Well, I think that this is the, the, one of the biggest reasons why I created Mastermind, and one of the biggest crea- r- reasons why I'm continuously more and more and more trying to create more personalized solutions. Like, for example, if you come into Modern Stylist Movement now, at the time of recording this, you get a personalized onboarding call with me, like, where I talk about what's in your business and what you want and how you want to build your business. Because that looks really different than every other person who is joining the program, who's trying to build their business as a hairstylist. Your specific case scenario, what's gonna work for your life and your, the way that you like to work and what you want for your life is so different.

And so there's no right or wrong here, right? It's, it's when you come into, when you come to this certain level, you get to decide what happens next. And if that looks like for you, you want to dedicate to building a team, you wanna open up a salon, and you want that to be the way that you scale next, fucking awesome and cool. Great.

There are absolutely gonna things, be things that we need to take into consideration to see if you actually really want to commit to this- Right. because there's a lot of fucking shit that you're signing up for. Mm-hmm. Right?

So there's pros and there's cons. Versus maybe it's just hiring one assistant to help you have more people in. And maybe you only just want one assistant for the rest of your life. Maybe this assistant isn't somebody that wants to be a stylist themselves one day.

Maybe this assistant isn't somebody that you plan on ever giving a chair within your space one day. Maybe this is just a person who helps you get these clien- more clients in and out in a day, therefore you can make more money, right? There's nothing wrong with that. And why is that not possible, right?

Yeah. Or it's just continuously raising your prices, changing your positioning to be more and more luxury, and to make it so you're even more in demand. And another thing that's really great at this level of your success is normally you have one or two marketing channels that are working well for you, that have worked well for you up until this point. Mm-hmm.

And it's proven, right? And so you can get a re- a request and you- uh, or you can get interest into your brand, and it's proven that people will go ahead and want to book with you, right? Right. So at this level, you could also continuously raise your prices more and more and more, and yes, your conversion is gonna go down because the price is a higher barrier.

Mm-hmm. But all you need is more people to actually be finding you and interested in your brand to increase the conversion to find those people who are willing to pay you at that higher price. So now let's say that you have found all of your clients through Instagram and word of mouth up until this point. It's worked really well for you.

You're already really highly priced in your area. And you're like, "I don't even know how I could go above this price without screwing myself over." Right. Raise your prices even a fair bit, and now you have time, space, and energy to hire out the Instagram and the word of mouth referral program, whatever it may be.

And now you can focus on building a new marketing channel, such as something crazy like Pinterest or Reddit or something like that, right? So that way you get even more people. You can run ads, right? There's so many other ways that you can get new clients to find you.

And therefore you have a larger volume of people finding you, and then you'll be able to manage having that higher price point because you have more people finding you, and they'll be likely to convert to be clients in your chair. But you don't have that time and space to have this new client acquisition marketing channel that you focus on- Right. unless you have something that has worked first and you've built the demand in the first place. Did I make sense?

100%. Absolutely. So- And I love how really the, the subtheme of this whole episode, which I think is so beautiful and really inspiring, whether you have gotten to that high level of success or whether you know you're on your way, is once you have built that solid foundation, you've got options. Yes.

You've got a lot of options, right? So the last thing let's talk, you've alluded to this a little bit, but when it comes to the tangibles of raising that average ticket or raising that lifetime customer value, are there any tidbits that you want to kind of give on that particular topic when it comes to a stylist that's already built a lot of success? Yeah, like, one of the things that our Mastermind student has done, uh, uh, recently, because they, this person particularly was very much like, "I've built this crazy business and I just, I know that there's something next. I just don't know what it is," right?

Right. This person had been thinking about possibly including more retail offerings in their salon, you know? Because she just was confident that she'd be able to sell more. But was it something that she could focus on or had the time to even think about in the meantime?

Not particularly at the beginning. But now, at this point, yeah. And so she has brought in a ton more retail offerings, and she's fucking killing it. And we're also talking about how can we position these retail offerings to make even more money, be even sexier, and build even more, uh, client loyalty and make a better, better impact in her client.

So she's, like, bringing on n- new retail offerings, right, and also positioning them in new and creative ways, which is really cool. Um, another thing is just being really intentional and systematized with how you're actually advertising the retail, because every time you advertise retail or every time you advertise this other thing besides the main thing, which is just, like, getting the hair done, again, you're taking away attention and focus from the other objective, right? Mm-hmm.So now you have, you know that people are gonna come in to get their hair done.

Like, it's just kind of, like, a no-brainer. It's easy for you to make that happen. You know that you can get a client tomorrow, and they're gonna be very likely to come back no matter what. So now you can take up more of that space, time, and energy not focusing on that and focusing on the retail situation.

So that could look like, how are we doing this in our newsletters? How are we doing this in the in-the-chair experience in more advanced ways? How are we setting up automation that might be a little bit more even expensive or extensive, but is going to be much more effective in getting you more retail sales in between the appointments, and even in the chair as well too? So it's just more advanced stuff that, a lot of the times, I would just look at as a distraction to the- Mm-hmm.

person who isn't at that level yet, you know? Right. I would just be like, "This is..." Like, w- this is great.

It's awesome. I'm all about everybody raising their average ticket. And there should be some sort of base-level focus to that, of course, always, to selling retail, because it does help you with your retention. It does help you bui- build the business.

It helps you make an impact. But at that level, where we're making it, like, a, we're setting high goals for retail sales, like, h- like, w- above-average retail sale goals, right, that are accounting for a large portion of our overall revenue- Right. versus our service revenue, right? That kind of stuff, it takes you having time, space, energy, and leverage to make that happen, to make it possible.

So did I give some good tangibles? Absolutely, yeah. And I think it's, a- again, you've just done a really great job of outlining when to focus on what and really what's possible. So if there's one thing that you want the successful already but, like, what-do-I-do-next stylists to take away from this episode, what would that be?

I think one of the biggest reasons I created Mastermind was because I saw so many successful stylists who had so much potential that they didn't see. Right. And I think that you will really find that to be true, and you'll see what I'm talking about. If you've listened to my past episode where I had the Mastermind students come on, they were like, "I didn't even realize this was possible.

I didn't believe in myself that this was possible." I saw so much untapped potential, so many missed opportunities with what they've already built, the type of business that they have, the type of specialties that they have. And there probably is this hidden little part of your business that ha- that has not been poured into, that has not had the chance to bloom for you yet. And I believe that talking to somebody like me to help you, like, look and see all the things and to show you where the potential is, I think, is really fucking powerful, not to be biased.

But I really love getting to do this. I'm a nerd about it, because when I sit down and I sit... I, like, literally, like, when these people come into our program, like, I sit down with them for two hours, and we map out everything together. I, we go deep into all the numbers.

We go deep into every single part, and then we see where the potential is and also the things that are maybe sneakily hiding underneath that are actually posing a threat maybe now or later, or that are slowly sucking away at the energy and the time that this person has that we can clear the way for to be able to get to the next level more efficiently. And so there are probably hidden potential points, I guess you could say, and also hidden little stupid stuff that adds up that you don't even see that we can streamline even more, and it doesn't have to stop here. You can break through that glass ceiling. And your potential as a hairstylist, as much as society wants to make you believe, is not unlimited.

It absolutely is fucking unlimited. Like, you can reach- Totally. whatever level that you fucking want to. No matter what society believes, no matter what your partner believes, no matter what your family believes, no matter what you motherfucking believe, there is always a next level.

So go- Yeah. fucking chase it, because it's really cool that you have the opportunity, the privilege to be in this industry, to have built yourself up to this point where you can hit that next level. So go fucking chase it. Ugh.

I love that. Couldn't agree more. That was incredible. Period.

Thank you so much, Jodi. I appreciate you. Thank you, my friend, for tuning in to the Modern Hairstylist podcast. If you have any questions about anything I shared today, go ahead and hit me up in the DMs @hairbyhunty, and I'd love to talk about what the hidden potential is that you have or what your next steps and ne- next level is.

So much love to you. Peace out, girl scout. Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2025 Hunter Donia LLC.