The Underrated Passive Income Stream Most Hairstylists Are Sleeping On

What is up, my friend? Welcome back to the Modern Hair Stylist podcast. As you know, if you've been listening to the past two episodes before this one is coming out, we are diving into each of the departments of your business and talking about why they're really important or what's going on specifically in today's day and age with these departments and why it's important to focus on them right now, revisit them if you've already kind of set them up before, um, and then modernize them to what's going on in 2025. But today we're gonna be talking about something that is, I feel like, a tale as old as time, which is all about, honestly, retail sales and add-ons.

And here's the thing. Normally, you'll get this spiel from brands, right? You'll get this spiel if you go to a brand class, right, because they benefit from telling you to sell more retail sales and add-ons. Here's the beautiful thing with me today, my friend, is that you're gonna get a completely unbiased view because I have no brand to sell.

I am currently not associated with any brand. No brands pay me to tell you to sell more retail. But as a business consultant who has seen the big difference that this makes in a hairstylist's income, and even their work-life balance and freedom, I am a firm believer that this is a massive part and important part of your business that you should be focusing on. And it's not only for you to make more money.

It's for you to actually have a sustainable business that stands the test of time. So this is not an option for you, in my opinion. This is not an extra nice-to-have add-on. This is actually something that will allow your business to continuously be successful and create more stability for you wi- in the future.

And it has nothing to do with the amount of revenue that you're making but the client experience that you are creating. And as we know, client experience is directly tied to your retention, whether a client is willing to come back to see you for the- for the second, third, or millionth time, right? It has to do with your client deciding whether or not your price is worth them paying, and I will share with you in today's episode why retail is attached to that, and then also why retail is a no-brainer for you to make, quote-unquote, "passive income" as well too. But today we have Jodi Brown.

What's going on, Jodi? How are you today? Hey, Hunter. I'm good.

I'm so excited to dive into this topic. I'm excited to dive into it with you. Jodi, would you mind sharing with the people who you are and why you're here for me? Absolutely.

My name is Jodi Brown. I am a former hairstylist, daughter of a salon owner, so I've been in this industry my whole life. Um, and now I work in marketing for other beauty professionals and educators, and I help Hunter with his social, with all the marketing, and so I really have a good bird's eye view on the conversations that are happening. And so I'm here to help ask the questions that you, the stylist, have for Hunter.

Hell yeah, and she does a great job of it. So thank you so much, Jodi, for being here. We so appreciate you, and I'm sure that you as the listener will appreciate Jodi asking the questions that you have on your mind as we go through today's episode. So, Jodi, where do you believe we should take off with this episode and this conversation?

'Cause I could rant all fucking day about this stuff. Okay, so let's start by talking about the client experience and sales department. What are some of the health indicators that we would say to show that we're doing a good job in this department? Gotcha.

So when I am working with my students, uh, there are a couple different numbers that we track overall to make sure that the performance of the business is in alignment with your- their goals, but then also just the long-term stability and health of their business. Um, two of them are going to be, as I kind of mentioned and alluded to at the beginning of this episode, uh, uh, uh, one of them is- is- is retention, particularly new client retention but also existing client retention as well. Normally, we will just focus on tracking new client retention rate because existing client retention rate has too much nuance to where it's almost impossible to accurately calculate, but we can assume that if we calculate your new client retention, and if it's in a good place, and new clients are statistically much harder to retain, if your new client retention rate looks good, then we can assume that your existing client rate- uh, uh, retention rate is good as well. So we normally track the new client retention rate, and it is something that is so massively important, very undercalculated, and not talked about enough, and it's in direct correlation to your client experience.

And the reason why your new client retention is so important is because if you don't have clients consistently filling up your books over time, right, then you are going to be consistently on a hamster wheel of filling up your books with new clients, always chasing them down, always trying to fill in those gaps, versus creating some consistency and stability for you as a business. Um, furthermore, your- all of your efforts into your marketing and getting a new client into your chair completely go to waste if you don't have new client retention, if you can't make it so a new client is going to be likely to return to you. Mm-hmm. And let me just give a even clearer, uh, uh, definition of new client retention for maybe anybody who's not following.

The definition of new client retention is if a client comes to see you for the first time, how likely are they to return to you, let's say, three or more times? Normally, three times a client comes to see you, uh, or more, I would consider that person retained. Um, and so if you put in all of this effort into getting a new client into your chair, right, which we all fucking hate. I mean, as you know, Jodi, as somebody who's taught marketing to hairstylists, right, like we all despise, uh, marketing as- as even- Oh, yeah.

just business owners in general. Like, who absolutely really loves marketing? Yes, some of us enjoy it, but is it something that we would want to have to do on a consistent basis? The majority of us would say no, right?

That's right. And so if you're s- suffering through and being strategic with and putting hard work into getting new clients into your chair, it's really a shame if they don't stick around, right? So your- all of your time...... that is going into your marketing, goes to waste if your new client retention rate is not healthy and good.

Um, and then furthermore, uh, you are not creating any long-term stability for your business, and you're going to be putting yourself into a riskier, uh, uh, space, and your business is not gonna be able to withstand a lot of volatile changes within the economy and in consumer behavior. So, all of this stuff is directly correlated to your client experience. Um, and I guess maybe we can talk about that first, as far as, like, client experience goes and how that ties into the retail conversation. Um, uh, and, and I think that it's a really underrated part of the client experience conversation.

We are going to dive so deep into client experience. We already kind of are, even in all the departments of the business, with this pod- little podcast series that we have, but also with the, uh, the event that we have coming up on May 4th through the 6th. We're gonna be talking about all things client experience. We're gonna be talking about the amenities in the chair, the pre-visit, the post-visit, how to blow somebody away and create a client experience that nobody else has in your area, right?

But this part of the conversation, the retail sales and add-ons, is not something that we normally think about as a client experience conversation. But I'm a firm believer that your job, inherently, like your job description, includes giving these clients these recommendations, right? Because if the client only feels great when they leave your chair, and they don't know how to replicate these things at home, you are missing out on a lot of different things. Number one, first and foremost, is the impact that you're trying to create as a hairstylist.

We absolutely love what we do every single day. We have a strong why for what we do every single day, because we make a big impact in people's lives. Like, we are changing somebody's bodily autonomy in one way or another. We are changing somebody's perspective of themselves.

What somebody walks around with on their head changes their life experience... Mm-hmm. as a whole. That is fucking crazy.

Like, somebody may have found the love of their lives because their hair looked really fucking good that day, and you had something to do with that. That is insane, right? But maybe that client wouldn't have met the love of their lives that day if they did not have the proper products at home to be able to create that hairstyle, or whatever it may be, right? And your responsibility is not just to make that person feel good, look good, how they want to look good, in your chair that day, but also every single day before they come back.

Because that is why we are in this business in the first place. So you're missing out on a large amount of impact, just morally, ethically, in a fulfillment perspective, um, if you're not consistently offering retail sale, uh, o- offering retail recommendations and even add-ons as well. Furthermore, you're not making the client feel like they are being taken care of. You're making somebody feel like they're just a number.

It's like a hair factory. You're not sitting down and really taking time, every single client, every single time, I don't care if they've seen you 100 times or not, to check in, see if anything's changed, offer new, exciting things. We talked about, in the last episode, about how making your client experience something that is something to look forward to versus just a chore is how you can set yourself apart in today's day and age. Reduce last-minute cancellations and no-shows, and make somebody find your appointment or your services and the price of that to be worth it, right?

And you consistently offering new solutions, solving more problems, or giving somebody something new, fresh, and exciting, is the dopamine release that you can create- Mm-hmm. the chemical release that- chemical release in your client's brain that you can create, that makes somebody addicted, almost, to coming to see you. Really looking forward to coming back to see you, right? And so if you're not consistently offering these things, then you're not gonna be offering that type of experience.

The last thing I'm gonna say is that it's so powerful to increase your retention, to have physical manifestations and reminders of your business, yourself, and your services in this person's life, right? So we're in a day and age in which marketing is everywhere. We are getting marketing thrown down our throats every second of our freaking day. You drive on the highway, anywhere you're going, billboards, businesses all over the freaking place.

You turn on the TV, there's gonna be ads. You scroll on your, your social media, you scroll any freaking app on your phone, you go into your email, you are getting marketed to everywhere. Mm-hmm. And what smart companies in today's day and age are recognizing is that there are people, clients out there, your clients sitting in your chair, who are not getting their needs met, right?

So they're gonna take advantage of the fact that they are not getting their needs met, or that these clients are looking for more cost-effective solutions. So for example, we have box color companies, or we have Madeleine Reed literally using the messaging, "Salon-quality hair color at home," right? With a licensed cosmetologist getting on a Zoom call with that- with your client, showing them exactly how to do this at home, right? With a custom-formulated formula just for them to do at home.

Much cheaper, same salon quality, all the things, right? And Madeleine Reed, YouTube influencers who financially benefit from giving your clients the solution, they are in your clients' ears and faces. They are omnipresent, every single hour, second, day between when your client leaves and when they come back to see you. You only have a couple hours, right?

Mm-hmm. If you're not showing up in the pre-visit and post-visit experience to remind this person that you are the expert, right? So, a massive way to...... create the experience beyond the chair, is sending this person home with a physical manifestation of you, which is the retail.

Every single time they go into your sh- into their shower, they see the shampoo and conditioner that you sold them, that they maybe invested a little bit of money into, they're going to feel like they have a luxury experience at home. They're going to be reminded that you shared with them how to use that shampoo and conditioner. You changed their life when you told them that they should actually, you know, scrub their scalp instead of just putting the, the, the shampoo on their ends, right? How many times have you heard...

I know that I've heard this a lot as a hairstylist, and Jodi, you tell me if you've heard this from your clients before, but my clients will come back to see me and they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, I was in the shower and I had your voice in my head telling me this, that, and the third." Have you ever had a client tell you that? Yes. And especially about, like, curling.

I've literally had- Yes. people say, like, "I was doing my hair and I was hearing you say, like, alternate this way and only use six sections," and like, yes, 100%. Dude, yeah. So it's like, sending this person home with this retail, with the instructions that go alongside those things, your voice is in their fucking head.

That is crazy. That is nuts. Like, you're... From a business perspective, do you understand how powerful that is and how other industries and other businesses outside of ours would kill to have that same opportunity to be in- And how much money they would have to spend- Yes.

to get it too. O- o- 100%. How much money and effort they would need to put in for they, them to be in their customers' heads the same way that we can be, right? Mm-hmm.

So that's why this is so effing powerful, and why I'm saying it's such an underrated part of the conversation, and why it's directly tied to your retention as a hairstylist, particularly in today's day and age where clients are more discerning, more than ever. I think you've illustrated two things really powerfully here. Like, the, there was probably 15 mic drop moments in that whole. But I love how, you know, when we talk about all of these companies that are coming to fill the gap, what that really is indicative of is the amount of market space available there.

There are people who are making six and multi-six figures on Instagram and TikTok literally just recommending products, right? Right. And that means that people are looking for that. Like, your clients are looking for those recommendations and that experience.

And the other thing that I think you illustrated so beautifully is, a lot of, a lot of stylists think that if they are selling retail to a client in their chair, they are being quote-unquote salesy and they don't want to feel salesy. Right. But what you've illustrated is that by, by allowing that to get in your head and by essentially refusing to, to sell to your clients and talk about retail, you're really only doing half of your job. Exactly.

You're doing a disservice to this person. That's truly what it is. Ugh. Because like you said, it's proven, because these companies and these influencers are making money.

So, like, there's no doubt about it that your clients are looking for solutions, right? And you assuming that they don't want the solution or you not understanding sales strategy enough to be able to get somebody to see the value in spending a little bit more money on how much they invest into this stuff, right? Because you need to be sold into something in order for you to take advantage of it and in order for it to possibly change your fricking life, right? Like, that's the thing with sales, and that's, you know, I, I know this is the unpopular opinion, and I want you, my friend, whatever feels better to you, whatever's gonna s- get you to start selling retail, follow that sentiment, all right?

The normal sentiment that we, that, uh, it goes out from brand educators and, and bu- business educators is, you're just educating the client about the product. You're not selling anything. I detest that personally. Like, I do not like that.

I think that what that does is it stigmatizes selling even more. That's not healthy for you. Mm-hmm. As a business owner, you need to be comfortable with the fact that you're selling something or else it's always gonna be an uphill battle for you, right?

And so what I say is, how about we look at selling as something that's not a bad thing and it's only allowing you to serve this person better? So, you convincing somebody of the value of this product that is double, triple the price of what they can get at the grocery store is absolutely worth it, and it's a part of your job, and you're doing a disservice to this person if you aren't leaning into that. So, let's get fucking comfortable with the fact that you are selling something, and that is actually a very good thing, both for you and the client at the end of the day. Well, and I think that's such a strong point, because they're not getting the result of using it from learning about it.

They're getting the result of using it from taking it home and actually having that product to be able to use in their routine. 100%. And I'll always hear this in this conversation, right? They'll ask, they'll ask, "Okay, well, this person can get this product so much cheaper elsewhere," or they'll just order it on Amazon or wherever it may be.

If you have a systematized, documented client experience that you're following that has these sales tactics implemented and embed- embedded into it, right? Then it's really easy for your client to just buy it from you and bring it home without you having to say, "Support a small business," or educating them that, "You're making the money on this instead of giving it to a big company." It's like your client does not give a shit. They just want to buy the product in the cheapest way possible the m- majority of the time.

However, if you walk them through the experience, if you take full control of that experience from the beginning to the end of the appointment, and you are putting real sales strategy into place to actually sell that product, then I guarantee you they'll want to take it home from you instead of getting it anywhere else.I love this. So do you advocate, Hunter, for stocking retail or using affiliate links or both? Um, I think both.

I don't think there's anything wrong, and I don't think there's a r- there, there's not a right or wrong answer here. However, I do believe that it's very powerful for you to have a mix of both in your salon. Do I think that you should be absolutely overstocked and you should have every single product on your shelf? No.

I think that you should have your bestsellers and maybe a little bit of extra ones that you know are gonna be handy to be able to sell right then and there. You being able to give that person instant gratification is very powerful and yours- and, and directly correlated to your success with your retail sales. Um, uh, and then furthermore, you having affiliate links or so you having an online situation in one way or another is absolutely so powerful because you're able to offer the rest of your retail line, um, uh, to, for somebody to be able to take advantage of and you get some sort of credit for it. I do not believe that you should, and this will bring us g- th- this will be good for our next conversation, this will bring us into our next conversation very well, I don't believe that you should spend a lot of effort or time setting up your own online store if there's a lot of manual shit that you have to do with it.

So if you have to take in retail orders and you have to package it, ship it, set up pickup times for it, I don't believe that that becomes worth it for you. But if you have an affiliate link, if your distributor has a store that they set up for you where they handle everything for you, and even though you get a little bit less commission on it, they are taking care of all the other things, then I think that that's absolutely worth having and you absolutely should have in place. And the reason I say that you setting up your own online store and you manually taking care of everything isn't worth it is because, and hence the title of this podcast episode, um, is because retail can become such a passive form of income for you. It's an additional revenue stream that doesn't require a lot of your time in order for you to make money.

And so when we say passive, right? Passive is a very overblown, overused term. Not even gonna lie to you, my friend. It's a little bit clickbait-y, which is why we're using it today, but there is some sort of truth to it, right?

The definition of passive income, the whole point of it is that you do not have to exchange any of your time to get money, right? So what we do as service providers is we are providing services that are 30 minutes, hours, uh, one hour, three hours, five hours in exchange for money, right? So we're putting in a lot of time, a lot of labor, a lot of effort in order to get money. And that is something that is not bad at all.

And there's ways to make it scalable and create a lot of great success doing it, right? However, it's, would be really awesome if we could not have to physically use our bodies, spend a lot of time in order to get paid, right? And so with retail, you put in such a small amount of time and effort just speaking, setting things up the right way, adding a little bit more time into what you're saying and t- and, and doing in your experience, and you profit a lot off of that, right? And the amount of profit that you're making in exchange for the time that you're putting in is so worth you taking advantage of And that's where I, that's why I say you setting up your own online store and you having to spend a shit ton of time to take this pickup, set up this pickup time with your client, text them back and forth and package it up in a, uh, whatever, all that stuff, that's why I say it's not worth it because you could be making a lot more money doing it in the chair right then and there.

And if you have an affiliate link situation taking it over for you, then there is literally barely any time taken to get a even smaller commission percentage. And I believe that that is absolutely still worth it for you. Quick little hack and tip, my friend. I know that sometimes maybe we'll give people the affiliate link or the online store link and we're nervous that they're gonna leave and then not take advantage of it, right?

Um, uh, or maybe you've just had that experience before. Have them fucking check out in the chair with you online. Like literally be like, "I'm gonna pull up the store with you and I'm gonna make sure that the right products are added to your cart right here on this iPad. And I'm just gonna hand the iPad over to you.

You put in your shipping information and your card, and then I'll get it checked out for you." Or you could even ask them to give you your card and then you'll say, "This will come to you in one to three days," right? So have them check out, have them buy the shit before they leave the door. That's my general sentiment to all of this is do it while you're, while you're physically present with them I love that.

And then when they're getting that shipment, they are getting excited all over again about the service and the experience that they just had. 100%. I feel like we'd be remiss in this conversation if we didn't talk a little bit about add-ons. Now this is not entirely passive, but it is a really great way, and I know you talk about this a lot as a way to raise that ticket price for, for your clients.

So let's discuss how, how we can leverage that a little bit. Yeah, I love this question. Um, thank you for bringing it up. I, I do, I do oftentimes unfortunately forget about the add-ons 'cause I feel like I need to convince people so much more about the retail.

So I like rant about the retail. Um, but the add-ons is, is, is so powerful. So I, I, you guys know that I am a big fan of all-inclusive pricing, right? All-inclusive package session pricing, right?

Where like basically everything's included into this one price and you don't have to worry about selling somebody into something else and the client doesn't have to worry about what their budget is and it just is what it is, right? That does not mean that I am not a huge advocate for still building on that ticket where you have the opportunity to, and furthermore, going back to solving this person's problems, right? A lot of the add-ons that you may have in place in your salon will allow you to, again, fully take care of the client instead of just doing the basic shit that makes this appointment a chore or just a routine or whatever it may be.So for example, if you have like a damage cure situation, conditioning treatment, and somebody has effed up hair, you should be offering this add-on as a option, right?

It's a, it's a clear solution to make it so their maybe color, their, the feeling of their hair that they're looking for, and the repair of their hair actually lasts longer, or the integrity of their hair is, is better. Um, uh, another thing I'll say with this too, like when it comes to like repair and stuff like that, like I'll straight up tell my clients, like, "I don't feel comfortable performing this service unless we do this treatment today. Unless you take home this product." Like, "I don't feel comfortable making you fucking platinum blonde unless you are actually doing these things, because then I'm gonna be confident that we can do this without greatly jeopardizing the integrity of your hair," right?

Um, furthermore, you know, let's say you have like a scalp scrub add-on or whatever it may be, let's e- th- obviously that is solving a problem, right? Um, and then it a- also sets you up really well for even retail sales as well too, right? Because if they experience it in the salon, they really like it, you could say, "Okay, we just did a professional salon treatment, and that's gonna work really well and set you up with a great foundation. But in order for you to maintain this at home, the success of this treatment at home, it's, it would be good if you tried, if you tried your best to do this maybe once a week.

And so you can actually take this product home and then keep it consistent," right? So, uh, another thing, even solving a problem with an extra-long scalp massage. Again, this goes back to the impact that you're making in people's lives. Like, people come to you for, for reprieve a lot of the time, especially if you're creating an experience that's next level that's not just a chore.

People are coming to you to experience taking care of themselves. I have a client, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna just call her Suzy 'cause that's always my fucking- ... Suzy's a- it's always Suzy. Poor Suzy.

Um, uh, I, uh, I have a client, Suzy, who, who genuinely does not have a great income, you know, a, in, in her own definition, right? Like, she talks to me about how she feels about her income, what she can afford, what she can't afford. Coming to me is the one thing she splurges. And like, I'm not convenient to come to.

Mm-hmm. I am not. I work one day a week. This person drives an hour into the city, goes through traffic, and my prices are fucking high, right?

So this person, who doesn't have a big budget, right? This is the one thing that she does to take care of herself, right? It, it, and that's how she justifies it, uh, uh, well, too. She always opts into an extra-long scalp massage.

She buys the expensive products that I recommend to her. Because I know, even though I could sit there and hear about how she doesn't have a lot of money to spend, and that could discourage me from trying to sell her on these things, right? That could make me feel like, oh, I don't wanna be, sell her or push her into anything because she doesn't have much money to spend in the first place, yada yada. That could very easily discourage me from doing those things, right?

I know that this is what she is doing, the one thing in her life to take, to take care of herself and feel good about herself. So who the fuck am I to determine what she's going to say yes or no to? It's my job to stay out of her wallet and not think whether she's going to want to spend money on this or want to spend money on that and just give the fucking recommendation because it's a solution that will make her feel better about herself or help her enjoy her experience even more. It's fucking powerful and it's fucking important.

We have to think of it as an essential part of our jobs. That is so huge, and I can think back to several times where I learned this lesson in my, I started working behind the chair at 17. By the time I was 22, I'd learned this lesson like four or five times- Yeah. where it's just, we have to stop assuming.

And so I feel like if you don't believe in the power of retail after this episode, like - I'm out, girl. we got nothing for ya. Then I'm not your person, honey. I, you're, you're our last hope.

I don't know. I think it's so important too that you've really tied in the, the benefit when it comes to client experience and when it comes to retention. And next week, we're gonna dive into the marketing department. So we're gonna talk about the ways that we can actually attract people, and I feel like this is such an important piece before we dive into that.

So... Yes, and we didn't even get into the fact that if your client's walking around with the hair that you gave them and it actually looks good because you taught them how to make it look good and they have the products that are going to allow it to look good, right? Then you're going to get more natural, organic referrals. Mm-hmm.

Not to mention, people talk to their friends about the hair products that they use at home all the fucking time. And if the person's hair looks good, the people are gonna ask them what products they use, what shampoo they u- And then that leads back to you, right? It's like, it's a no fucking brainer. So if you're sick of having to post on social media to get new clients into your chair, if you're sick of the hamster wheel to, of, of marketing to get new clients into your chair, sell retail and kill it with your client experience.

And we're gonna be talking about all of that stuff throughout the next couple days, weeks. Also, in the event that we have going on May 4th through the 6th, block out your calendars, check out my social media, check my, your emails if you're on my email list to see what we have going on, uh, because we're gonna be talking about how to create that amazing client experience, and retail is a big part of that. So thank you so much for tuning in today, my friend. Excited for next week where we'll dive deep into marketing.

So much love.

End of transcript. © 2025 Hunter Donia LLC.