The 4 Phases To Work A Day Less And Make The Same

The world in which you are making this much money, or a lot more, working less, and I feel like that is obviously the dream for anybody. And it's really crazy how, like, I mean, I know that when I was full-time behind the chair, that was, like, my main gig, I remember my friends being like, "Holy shit, like, I would never be able to attain this." Like, the traditional route of society and education and careers in, at least America, but the majority of the world, is like, you are working a nine-to-five for the majority of your life, and you're making not as much money as you probably should be doing it. And it's so interesting how, like, our industry can defy that odd.

Like, how fucking cool is that? I think it's so, so underrated that, like, trades, especially when you are the business owner, like, you can work less than the average person and make way more than the average person who is college-educated, who is doing the job that your parents probably wanted you to do instead, you know? And I have real-life examples of people who have started working with me who have grown their clientele to a point in which they were booked and busy and they made a steady amount of income, but they felt a little bit like they were overworking, and they wanted to tap into the potential that they've actually created for themselves, right? And so, it becomes not a problem of, "How do I grow the clientele?"

but now, it's, "How do I scale the, the, the leverage and the, the business that I have now?" And so, what we're gonna be talking about today is the real way to actually work less and make the same or more with this unique opportunity that we have as hairstylists once you actually reach the level of making, let's say, 100K or more, or having a very nice booked and busy clientele. I have two examples of this actually working and happening, um, that I'm bringing to you today. I have many, many more examples beyond these two amazing and very capable and beautiful people.

Um, but I have Steph and Alyssa just to share with you, because I want you guys to hear it not just from me, but from real people, that this is possible for you. So, I'll go ahead and let you listen to what they have to say. Hi, I'm Steph, and I'm in Hunter's Mastermind Group, and in 2025, I grew my revenue over 55% from the previous year, and I'm on pace to double that in 2026, all while actually taking lunch breaks now, which is great, and not seeing clients past 5:00 PM. Hey, I'm Alyssa.

I'm in Hunter's Mastermind. In 2025, I took off 52 more days than the year before while keeping my income basically the same and raising my average ticket from $284 to $313 Okay, so now that you've heard from the source that this is absolutely possible for you, my friend, I want to share with you how these two amazing people actually got to where they were. As you heard, both Alyssa and Steph are a part of my Mastermind program. And our Mastermind program is specifically for hairstylists who have gotten to a, kind of, like, the next level of growth as a beauty professional, one where they feel like they're hitting a glass ceiling, where they have a really nice, steady clientele, maybe three to four weeks booked out at a time, minimum.

They're probably grossing 100K-plus, and they probably have a specialty or they're nicheed down in one way or another. And that very much fits the description of Steph and Alyssa and the majority of people who are in our Mastermind. And when you get to this point where you are ready for a program such as this, or when you're able to tap into the possibility of working less, making the same or more, there's just different ways that you actually make this happen that are not oftentimes illuminated to you, because the majority of the industry does not get to this level. This information and these decision-making steps are not common knowledge, and it's really rare, right?

And when I was in these same positions, where, like, I was, like, booked and busy out the wazoo, and I had built a really great, steady foundation for myself, I found myself in a place of, "Oh, my god. How do I actually make the most out of this?" Like, "I feel like I'm working so hard, and I feel like I could be doing more, but I'm not sure if I deserve that yet," or, "I'm scared to shake up the foundation that I've created," or, "I am not really sure how to do it in the best way possible," I guess you could say. And so, that's why I created Mastermind, so I could guide these people through tapping into this potential.

And so, we have a pretty standardized process. When you come into Mastermind, what we first do is we look at all of your numbers, like, the way, in a way in which you have probably have never done so before. Like, we do a very deep dive. And I know, for me, like, whenever I would lean into education or anything like that, right, like, I'm always sitting there, and I'm thinking, "Well, this sounds cool, but what about me," right?

Like, "What about me? What about my specific circumstance?" And I wish that I could just have somebody look at all of my numbers and fully understand every single moving part of the business and my life, so that way, they actually get the full picture. Because only giving somebody half of the picture and them actually giving you helpful advice is not really confident advice, I would say, or, like, ones ...

Advice that I would be confident in, right? Like, I want somebody to understand everything, and I am really big on understanding everything about the people that I'm working with one-on-one, because I really give a shit that deeply, and the smallest detail makes the biggest difference. And so, we dive into every single nook and cranny and corner and pull out numbers that you didn't even know exist and that you've never seen before that tell you a much broader and illuminating story that you've never been able to see before. And so, we start there, and that helps us with the decisions that we make next.

And I think not only do a lot of us not know where to look for those numbers, but, like, f- even finding it is one thing. Actually interpreting and making changes to your business based on that, like, like you said, there's not a lot of education on this stuff because so much of the focus is just, like, getting to that point of being booked and busy. So, I think there's that piece as well. Like, even if you're looking at these numbers, understanding them and then using that to make changes is, is a massive thing that a lot of us just do not have that capability to do alone.

Yeah, dude. It's so true. And like, it's interesting because even the people at this level, maybe they have done a little bit of work and maybe they do like to see the numbers. Yeah.

But they still don't know how to interpret them to actually make any decisions or being able to diagnose missed opportunities or where they may be missing out, or gaps that they have that they're not aware of, or opportunities that are there that they should be tapping into. I love that you brought that up and it's so, so, so true. I see it with stylists all the time. Like, it's great that you have the numbers, but then what do we actually do with the numbers?

And that's what brings us to this next step. So like, when I'm onboarding the mastermind clients, we pull out all this data and then we interpret it together. I share with them what I'm seeing and what it means, and then we kind of get to dis- get to figure out what is the potential for us to work less, make the same, or more. And there's kind of two different spaces in which we can make that happen.

The first one comes down to your current services and your pricing of those services, seeing where you may be underpriced for as much as you could be priced. Like, there is absolutely the majority of the time you just aren't charging enough for what you are doing day in, day out. I mean, if you're listening to this and you're pretty booked up and busy, it's, and you're probably tired, exhausted, burnt out, or you're hitting this glass ceiling, it's very often that you probably feel like you're putting in so much effort and labor and you are not getting paid enough for it. And the majority of the time, this data actually shows us that you could be charging more for and making money that you would actually be proud of in exchange for all of this hard work that you're putting in.

But it takes an expert like me to show that to you and to also give you the courage and the confidence to follow through with it, right? I think that's a big, big factor here, especially working with somebody one-on-one, is just the accountability of moving through the fear because again, this is uncharted territory. You don't hear about people doing this stuff. You hear about the people who are doing $5 to $10 price increases a year, that's like, pretty standard.

You don't hear oftentimes about the people who raise their prices $35, $40, $70 in one instance and were okay or not okay in the, in the long run. And I've been able to see that in a lot of stylist businesses in today's day and age. And so I have the experience, I have the knowledge, and I'm here to actually guide you through it and let you know that you will be okay. I will say...

Oh. There are absolutely moments and circumstances in which you could be irresponsible and you may F up the business by doing a certain price increase. But if, but there are also, on the flip side, normally y- you are most likely undercharging in specific places. And so when we have this data, I'm able to kind of show you what is possible and how much more you could be charging without destabilizing the business.

Yeah, and I, yes. I think that's, like, such a good point too because there is, there are ways to kind of almost go about this in a way that can end up sabotaging. And I think there is a little bit of a, i- it's a vulnerable process a lot of the time, raising your prices, especially by a substantial amount. And there's a lot of, I wanna use the word safety, like there's a lot of, um, security in having someone who can analyze these numbers for you and actually recommend l- responsible ways to implement this, right?

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Yeah, absolutely. And like, not only could it be a fear of, like, destabilizing the business, but also the emotional aspect of like, "I love these clients and I know if I raise these prices, I'm gonna lose these clients." Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And you've created... Normally when you are at this level, normally you've done a really great job of creating a great relationship with your clients. And so that makes making these changes or decisions a lot harder, and that is a, it is a-... death trap for people who are at this level- Yeah.

is being so emotionally tied to your business and emotionally tied to your clients. And I- w- a lot of my job is just helping somebody see the bigger picture and the outer s- outer perspective, you know? Right. I mean, at the end of the day, this is your business, and what it's here for is to feed your wealth, your family, and you, right?

Like, to- to- a- a- and you should be using your business as a tool and the money that it makes you to be able to find fulfillment and relationships that matter that aren't transactional outside of the business. And when we get to sit down and go through all these numbers together, talk about the possibilities for these price increases, I'm there to remind you of that. I'm there to pull you out of all of that, and I'm he- I'm here to help you make smart decisions for the business because your job as a CEO is to protect the longevity of the business and increase the tapping into of the potential that it is there to offer you after all the hard work that you've put in thus far. And that's really hard when you're doing it alone.

So, we have the price. We figure out, what is your price increase potential? I promise the majority of you guys are probably not charging the amount that you could be if you have the metrics there. And then, we also look and see what services are you maybe doing a lot of where you're actually losing money in exchange for your time versus the services that if you did more of, you'd probably make a lot more money with the amount of time that you have.

So, a lot of the times people in this circumstance feel like they have such a small amount of time. Like, and that's exactly why we probably want to work less, so that way we can either work more on other things that actually grow the business or just be able to take a vacation and not have to worry about it as much, or just be able to take a full day off. Again, that's beautiful potential that we have. And so, we feel like we have such a lack of time, and so therefore, we need to make sure that we're making the most out of it, whether that be the actual time that you're spending behind the chair and with the s- the services that you're doing, or when you're outside of doing the actual labor and you're doing the work of, uh, growing the business, right?

And so, there are certain services, my friend, in- that you are doing right now that are very low leverage services, that are not as profitable in exchange for the amount of time that you're putting in. So for example, let's say that you're booked with service A, and you're very oftentimes booked with service A. If you were booked with service B instead, you might be able to double your revenue, and I've literally seen these numbers before, like where it's like, "Dude, if you just did more of service B and you stopped doing so much of service A, your inc- your income potential becomes so much bigger." But a lot of the times people don't have the data or the knowledge to be able to actually see that, and they feel like they're hitting this glass ceiling and they're like, "I don't know why I'm not growing more," and I'm s- it's because you're capped at your time in how much you can actually serve.

Like, it goes back to the supply and the demand. There's only so much supply that you have. So whenever you are supplying, we need to make sure that the sup- the supply is an efficient and profitable, as much as we possibly can, use of your time. And just so y'all know, this is, like, how, like, Fortune 500 companies operate.

Like, when a business is sold to an investor, this is how an investor would start to analyze your business and start to look at the business and how they would make decisions moving forward, is, "How can we make things more profitable? You already have something good. How can we make it really, really great?" Right.

I think that's a huge piece of it. Okay, so we really... So phase one is analyzing all of the numbers, making sure you are as profitable as possible, making sure that your time is being used in the most beneficial way for your overall revenue and your overall profit potential. And then, what is that next step that you go into?

So, all of that stuff is going to now lead us to a place in which maybe, yeah, you can start taking a day- a full day off and make the same or more. Yes. Or you can start to not take as many clients in a day and make the same or more. And so you get this time back into your life and to your business as a manager, as an owner, as- as- as- as...

Again, you have two full-time jobs as a hairstylist and a business owner. It's being the actual hairstylist, doing the hair, doing the labor, working with clients, but then the other full-time job is actually growing and maintaining the business. And so that time that we now- we- that we now get back, we get to focus on the things that actually grow the business, which is all exciting and great and dandy, and that's how you keep going. That's how you break through the glass ceiling.

That's how you don't just stop there. Like, you will take this da- this full day off, make the same amount of money, but guess what? There's still more potential, and I think that there is nothing wrong with you tapping into it more and more and more, 'cause why the fuck not? Right?

Like, why the hell not? Like, you are granted and privileged enough with all of your hard work to be able to tap into this. This is, like, the dream, right? And so, why not do more, right?

And so, in order to keep on- to- to break through that glass ceiling, in order to continuously grow, we have to kind of be responsible with the time that we get back, and we have to make sure that we're getting back as much of it as possible. And so a lot of the daily maintenance work that maybe has gotten you to where you are today needs to start to be more systematized, streamlined, and automated so that you can...Work on the highest leverage tasks in your business that actually grow it versus just maintain it. And even the things that grow the business, we can start to automate and systematize, so that way we can do even more of it in a better way as well.

So then I'll start auditing kind of like, what is it that has gotten you here today? Because in this circumstance, like, you have done a lot of amazing work, right, that has gotten you to where th- to this place, where you've earned this potential. And so, that probably means that you're doing a lot of extra work. And so we kind of figure out, like, how, uh, w- how are you spending a lot of your time?

How are you delivering this next level client experience that has gotten you to where you are today? And because I am a systems and automation nerd, and because you're working with me on a more one-to-one basis, I'm able to actually tell you what's possible of if this can be more automated, or if we can do this in a more efficient way. And so, we audit all of those things, and I help you set up the systems. And for a lot of these guys, I, like, create the systems for them.

I, like, go into their tech and I, like, actually automate and set up everything with them in a way that feels good, still works, still delivers, but then gives this person a lot of time back in their life and their business. So that way, they can either enjoy their time off for real, for real, not feel so burnt out, but then also when they do work on the business, they actually have more time to focus on the bigger things and they do it even better. I love that. So essentially, what you're talking about is taking yourself out of, as much as possible, using that technology and using that- those available tools, so that you're able to increase that time even more.

Which I think brings us to, you know, when we talk about growing, when we talk about breaking through the gra- glass ceiling, one of those things is consistent marketing. Yeah. Absolutely. Again, it's like, that's what's gotten you to where you are here today.

And what happens is, when we raise our prices, we oftentimes will lower demand a little bit. I mean, I will tell you guys though, I mean, when you're at this level, normally those large price increases, honestly, you guys will not really experience as much fallout as you think you are going to. However, we always have natural churn, right? We always will have naturally people getting laid off, moving away, whatever it may be.

And so, it's so important that we continuously keep the flow of new client requests coming in. And I don't care how overbooked and busy you are. This is so important for your potential for growing in the future, because as soon as you neglect that faucet of new customers coming in, that is when you're gonna screw your future self over, when now you actually need those clients to maintain a higher level of income. And so, your marketing is probably already working for you in one way or another.

That's what's gotten you here today. So then, we kind of look and see your entire marketing system. What is working for you? What's not?

First off, let's stop focusing so much on the shit that is not working for you, because a lot of the times people are posting a shit ton on social media and it's not getting them any results. And I'm like, you shouldn't even be over here. There's other uses of your time that could be so much more worth it for you to be spending that time in. And then, the stuff that is working, or the other untapped places that we're not already focusing on, we figure out how can we go hard on those things now that we have a little bit of time back, right?

How can we go hard on even more small things that you may have not even thought about or you didn't have time for before? This looks like advanced SEO. This looks like the little weird backend files in the code of your website. This looks like the specific keywords and optimization on your Google My Business.

This looks like auto-posting a blog on your website. This looks like a l- like using a completely non-traditional path of marketing, like Reddit or whatever it may be. And that stuff, normally nobody has time for, but once we get to a point where we're able to get some of this time back, right? Then we're able to focus on those things and that gets you even more new client requests, which then allows you to maintain these higher prices if you have them, because now you have more volume to convert those people into a higher price.

You have more people who are likely to pay a higher price, right? And so, that's how we keep this going, that's how we continuously grow, is by making sure that your marketing as s- is as sophisticated as possible, making sure that you have the time to actually do it. And then otherwise, you get to decide how much more do you want to reinvest this time into the business, or how much do you wanna invest this time into just enjoying your life? And you get to decide which one is which and what season you're in, right?

And where you want to go with that. And we do some soul-searching and we, we set goals, overall goals in Mastermind. Like, we do everything very intentionally and it's such a privilege to be able to facilitate that space for somebody to think about and document and commit to these things and, like, help them and, and hold them accountable through the follow-through, you know? Because I know that's what I needed and what really helped me when I was in this position, where there was not a lot of people talking about it.

And so, I had to go outside of the industry to people who didn't fully understand the, the nuances of my business. And so now, I love delivering a service where I understand the nuance of your business. I've been there, I've done that, and I've been able to see what's working right now and helping this unique type of person, you may be listening to this, break through this glass ceiling that there's not a lot of information out there to help you do. Right.

A hundred percent. Yeah, I think that's the thing, right? Is it's once you get to this level, there's so much, because it's such a smaller group, there's so many fewer resources that specifically understand your situation. And so, it's really cool to, that you've created this space for the stylists at that level.

I agree. And the great thing is, is that again, like, these are such unique experiences that you get to go through them with this other smaller community. So, it's not just working with me, it's also working with people who have either had to go through these weird transitionary phases, but then also these people who are doing these unique next level things that you just don't hear about and you get- don't get taught about, because they are so unique to this group. And so then, you all inspire each other, right?

And you all support each other and hold each other accountable with, like, a tight-knit community, where you're a part of it, you're contributing to it, but you absolutely get to gain back from it as well too. So, I'm just really proud of our Mastermind and I'm really proud of the people who have gone through it, because genuinely, like, the big swings that you have to make to be able to grow past this point, it is scary and it does require a little bit of upfront work, but they've committed to it. And what got you here is not gonna get you there, and they've all understood that, and they have taken the risks and they've invested and they've done great work within our program, and it's just a privilege for me to work with them. So, super grateful to all of you guys who are in Mastermind and who are listening to this.

And if you believe that you are a good fit for Mastermind, I would love if you just hit me up in the DMs. I would love to talk about if you are the right fit. You know, no judgment whatsoever. If I don't believe that you're the right fit, I'm gonna tell you exactly why, and I'll tell you what you need to do to actually get there.

And otherwise, you most likely can go to hunterdonia.com/mastermind and you'll be able to learn a lot more about the program there. But thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Modern Hairstylist podcast. Take advantage of the opportunity that this industry has for you, that a lot of other people traditionally don't have the opportunities in their lives to do, or to take advantage of.

And peace out, girl scout. Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2026 Hunter Donia LLC.