Top 5 Business Lessons From 2023

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast. I'm recording this towards the end of 2023. And as we approach the end of this year, I think it's really powerful for us to reflect on what happened the past year and the lessons that we can take from all of our experiences, whether they be really great experiences, or not so great experiences, or just neutral experiences in general.

You know, I was just on a podcast interview and the person asked me, like, "Who is your biggest mentor?" Or, "Where do you learn all the things that you learn? Like, what books do you read?" Et cetera, et cetera."

And of course, I have mentors, I have peers that I network and collaborate with and learn from, and I read books too. But my answer was that truly at the end of the day, I am my biggest teacher because my life, right? And so does yours and everybody else's, provides me so many beautiful lessons. And I think that when we're in the day-to-day and we experience the emotions of going through those experiences, we forget to take a step back or we don't seize the opportunity to really fully dissect what we can learn from whatever that experience was.

And so in this episode today, I'm gonna be sharing with you my top five biggest lessons or takeaways that I got from 2023 specific to business, right? Because I've also had some personal lessons that, uh, I had to be taught in a hard way over the past year. Um, but we're gonna be keeping this to business today. And what I'm gonna encourage you to do is, is go through this episode, listen to it all the way through, um, hear out my lessons and see if they resonate with you or see if you can learn anything from them.

I hope that you do. And then at the end of this episode, once you're done listening, I encourage you to take a step back, get quiet, get, like, like, comfy with, like, a journal or a digital notepad of some sort, and do this exercise for yourself. Write out some of the biggest lessons that you can learn from 2023 and take into 2024 with you. Dissect what happened, what you can take away from it, what went well, what didn't go well, and then you'll be able to really take advantage of this beautiful life that we get to live.

And whether it be in an up or a down that you're learning something, no lesson is a bad one. So make sure to take some time to dissect those for yourself. If you're down to get into my five biggest lessons I learned about business in 2023, then let's get into it. Let's go.

What's the tea, friend? My name's Hunter Donia, industry business educator for hairstylists, but my friends just call me Hunty. Whether it be growing your clientele, making more money, or automating and streamlining your systems, in the next 20 minutes or so, you'll be hearing realistic, actionable strategies to create a beautiful career for yourself behind the chair. So if you're ready to get into it, welcome to the Modern Hairstylist Podcast.

Okay, starting off with my number one business lesson that I learned through my experience, this actually kind of bleeds from last year into this year, but the thing is, is, like, it's so interesting how the results of the actions that you take, they won't show up until later, right? So I learned this lesson this year because of the actions I took last year, right? Um, and that's why I preach all the time about not expecting all of your actions to get you instant results, or not being able to see the results instantly. Um, I think that's super important to take in consideration, that every single action that you take right now doesn't just affect you or is not supposed to always just affect you in the short term.

It's supposed to be affecting you in the long term, whether that be in a positive way or not. So this, this is the thing. Last year at the... Towards the end of last year, there were things going on in my business in which we weren't getting the results that I had planned to get, or the goal...

Or not hitting the goals that I wanted to hit. And that was based upon, you know, the trajectory of how the business was doing be- prior to that, and just all of the hard work that we put in. Like, we had put in so much hard work to hit a goal at the end of last year, and the results that we got short term, we could... I- I was just like, "Oh my God.

Like, we got the same results as we always do with working twice as hard." And it really freaked me out. Like, it really sent me into a spiral. I was like, "Holy shit.

Things are changing. The things that we're doing, um, that we've been doing all along, like, they need to change. I need to add things. I need to just completely revamp everything."

And what ended up happening was, I got really distracted from my main mission, from, like, the main core thing that I have in my business that generates the most revenue, that makes the biggest impact, and that is proven to be super successful on a consistent basis. So I added in all of these other things. I added in, like, other products and other lessons, and I started saying yes to a lot of other opportunities, right? And what ended up happening was, is, yes, like, those other things that I added were kind of successful in their own right, but my main thing that generated the most revenue, the main thing that, that was the core foundation of my entire business, it took a toll.

It took a heavy toll at the beginning of this year because of my panic and my spiral and me getting distracted and doing all of this other shit.So, what I learned from this experiences was when fear comes up for me, or when, when I'm looking at a hill that's, like, looks really uncomfortable to climb, it's really easy for us to get, to want to turn away from it, to look away from it, and go and chase some shiny other object. This could look like... And this is what I see in, like, hairstylist businesses a lot of the time, is like, we...

Like, our main thing that we are really good at that we wanna focus on, that has brought us the most success in the past, we get bored of it, um, scaling it to the next level seems like really hard and uncomfortable. Um, or we are, we've tried and tried and tried and things are not working, and we get really discouraged by those results. And when that happens, we then go and look at whatever shiny object that is around that we think is going to save us or that we think is going to distract us in the moment so we don't have to face what's right in front of us. Right?

And, my friend, I think we all... This shows up for all of us in one way or another, and what ends up happening is the foundational, very simple thing that you are the best at, that has pro- that has worked in the past, or the thing that you are trying to make work that may, you may just have to continue trying and testing and failing at in order for you to eventually get to a place where it does succeed, we get distracted from that mission. And when in reality, that mission is the foundation that you need to actually get you to your highest level of success. Repeating that over and over and over and testing it and, and, um, seeing if it fails, seeing if it succeeds, seeing what works, what doesn't.

And going all in on that one thing is so much more powerful because you're not spreading your focus too thin. Whatever we put our 100% into is what's gonna grow, and when we add in, let's say other services, right? So like let's say we're like, oh, okay, we want to do this scalp spa situation because that's been like a huge, like a head spa thing, 'cause that's been like a huge trend right now, or like holistic healing services behind the chair, or like extensions, like I see a lot of people, like, get distracted from like their main niche and main mission, and look at these other things that, yeah, you may be really passionate about, and yeah, would maybe work out really well for you, but they go ahead and maybe go in, dive deep into adding that into their business. It distracts them from the main mission, and then it hurts the business overall in the long run because that main thing that was your main foundation and your money generator suffered because you didn't focus on it.

So that's what ended up happening to us. And I really regretted allowing my fear or avoidance, right? Uh, allowing my fear around this main thing not working the way that I wanted it to, or the avoidance of the uncomfortability that I would have to go through to make it grow, I let that steer me in the wrong direction. And because of that, I put the business in a shitty place.

And I, I highly encourage you, my friend, to try your best to stay focused on the one thing, the one tried and true classic, maybe boring thing If you are bored, then there's a lot of different reasons why you could be bored, but if you're bored because you're repeating something over and over and over and over and over, then you are probably doing the right thing. The majority of entrepreneurs within their niches are just repeating the same shit over and over and over again in different ways, and trying and testing and optimizing and building off of that one thing. And that is what has created so much success for so many people. And one day, when you have taken that one thing and you have created a massive, scalable model with that one thing, that's when we can focus on looking at other avenues and the other options to add on top of that to experiment with.

But I highly recommend that that one thing is first s- as scaled as possible so you can then focus your effort and energy on new endeavors first. I learned this lesson the hard way. I definitely had to do a lot of rebuilding because of this. I got really distracted and burnt out because of this, because I was juggling so many different things.

And, you know, the crazy part about it all was my gut was telling me not to do this. My gut was telling me not to add in all these other things and get distracted, but my fear and my even, kind of, logic at the end of the day was getting in the way of m- me listening to my gut. And my gut the entire time was telling me, "This is not where you should be. This is not what you should be doing."

But my fear, my avoidance, my distraction was leading me in the wrong direction, and I listened to my fear instead of listening to my gut, and those are very two separate things, right So I, I'm going to encourage you to listen to your gut and try your best to stay focused even when it seems hard or boring. My second-biggest business lesson that I learned from 2023 was assumptions and theories don't tell the real story and can distract us from the real issues or efforts needed to be made. So, when things are changing in your business, or when things aren't going... Or when one thing isn't going in the w- in the direction that you want it to go into, or when you're like, "I'm not getting results from anything that I'm doing, I think it's this," right?

What we'll end up doing is we'll hypothesize over, you know, we have this part of our business that, that we have, or we do business in this way, or we are marketing in this specific way, and I think that's why that people are, you know, not requesting me to do their hair, or that's why people aren't willing to pay my prices, or that's why I'm not getting whateverAnd the tea is hypothesizing is good. Like, it's important for you as a CEO to hypothesize. But I think what we end up doing is, is we'll take, like, what one person says, right? We'll take one client's opinion about something, and we will then all the sudden blow that into massive proportion, and we won't take in consideration the 99% other of- other people in your chair who actually have the opposite opinion.

So for example, you may have a client sitting in your chair who says to you, "Oh my God, I hate booking online." And because it's this negative context and because it's challenging the way that you do business, you're gonna take that, and you're going to spiral with it, and you're gonna blow it out of proportion, and it's going to overtake all of the positive feedback that you get from doing that. Not only the positive feedback, but also the reason why you have that in place in the first place, right? And then we just assume, oh my God, online booking is ruining my business, right?

And then we panic, and we, like, take- turn it off, and then what ends up happening is nothing changes and all of your clients who loved it are now upset, right? Or the boundaries and the systematization, the organization that you put in place is now gone, right? And now you're back in the same place that you were before you put that in there and nothing changed, right? Seen a lot of people hypothesize over, like, okay, this part of my business is broken because of this, because e- because people just don't wanna do it, and then sh- make a change with it, um, th- in the way that they think is going to help, when in actuality, it doesn't make any difference or it actually has negative impacts on the business.

So what I like to do is try my best to gather as much real data and feedback as possible, um, whether that be from general consumer behavior or from my own customers, right? And the way that we set up things in pre-visit pathway, the way that we set up things in my program is we have systems in which you're able to track and see what the blind spots are, where are people falling off, and you're able to gather a bunch of really helpful insightful data from your clients that will push you in the right direction, that will give you actual good majoritive feedback, not just one person telling you one thing or one mentor or coach hypothesizing one thing out of nothing and then you taking it super seriously and thinking that you have to make a huge change. When in reality, sometimes, sometimes, I love... I- I saw this re-shared onto an Instagram story the other day by Roxie Bunce, who I freaking love, okay?

She's a hair stylist and she's a booth rental salon owner, and she's amazing. She posted it to her story, and she said, "Sometimes you can do all of the things, sometimes you can just work as hard as you can freaking work, and sometimes you're... the universe is not meant to deliver you those results yet. You are not ready to receive the- the achievement or the results on the backend of all that hard work yet, and sometimes you can do everything right, but things are just not going to work out the way that you want them to."

And that is normal and okay, but that does not mean that you should stop those efforts. That does not mean that you should tear down everything that you've worked so hard to build that you know in your heart is the right thing to do, right? And sometimes you just have to keep going. On the flip side of that, I also talk about trying and testing and failing and learning and optimizing and moving forward, and that's actually another lesson.

That's my next lesson from 2023, is not being afraid to, of course, test and fail and try and optimize. However, the way... Whatever we test, whatever we go ahead and try to put in place, I think that it should be done from a very strategic angle and should be backed and supported by real data and real feedback, majoritive feedback, not just what one person says or your sister or your family member or your husband or whatever may- maybe says, but the people who actually matter. So that's my tea on that.

A big place where I found this to be interesting, this concept, was when I conducted my survey to women who get their hair done in a salon across the United States. I conducted a survey over 500 women this past year, and I asked them about different client experience facets and what their preferences were, and I asked them a lot of questions about, you know, like, more forward-thinking, innovative, alternative ways that we do business, such as our pricing model or digital forms or online booking, et cetera, et cetera. And the results were, like, so mind-blowingly crazy, because we assume one thing, but then we actually ask the people or we test it out, and we see that the majority of people actually are totally cool with this, and in actuality, there's something else that you may need to focus on, or you're doing everything right, you just gotta keep on going. You just gotta keep doing it over and over and over until it finally works for you.

Like I said, the next lesson is you're gonna have to test it and see what happens. So I have to implement... Me and my team, we have to implement a lot of different strategies into the business. Like, we are...

we are doing a lot of different initiatives a lot of the time. We are taking what we have and optimizing it and coming from different angles. And especially with marketing, this very much becomes true, is you don't know what's gonna happen until you test it, like truly. Like, if- if you are trying a- a new initiative, right?

If you're trying, like, a new way of getting clients into your chair or something like that, you are truly not going to be able to predict what is actually gonna happen until you just go ahead and do it. What I have noticed about myself, especially, you know, not this past year because I've learned this a little bit better and I've gotten better, but the year before that, was I was so scared, I was so nervous of doing something in a different way...Because I was like, what if this is the only chance to get this right and what if this one thing that I change ruins everything? Like, what if, uh, this is the one thing that completely tears everything down?

And what if this makes this completely not work, right? And what I believe ends up happening when we are n- n- too nervous to at least try something, right, I think what ends up happening is we hold ourselves back from discovering the possibility or the opportunity that may be there for us on the backend. I think that we need to be willing to sacrifice and risk some things to be able to see what is possible. When I first started my salon suite business and when I first started my education business, it was so interesting being in a space where I had nothing to lose because I was completely starting from scratch.

Like, when I moved into my suite, I barely had any clientele 'cause I was in a brand new area. And I just took a huge, massive, scary leap into being in the suite. And because I had nothing to lose, right, I was just trying all the things to make this happen. Surrounded, going back to lesson number one, surrounded by one niche, surrounded by one focus.

I was trying a lot of different ways to make that one thing work, right, to make that one thing work. But I wasn't afraid that if I did my business in an alternative way, like, or if I, um, marketed in this type of way, that if I failed doing it, I wasn't afraid because I had nothing to lose. And I think what ends up happening is is when we gain some momentum in our business and when the stakes become a little bit higher, because as you make more money or as you see more success, the stakes go up in so many different ways. Whether that be you financially invested in some things that you wanna be able to continue to afford or your ego is really nervous about losing some sort, sort of title or some sort of feeling of success, right?

And so that terrifies us into not taking risks anymore. And again, that holds us back from opening ourselves to possible opportunities that could be the thing that brings us to the next level. So sometimes you can't be 100% sure about what you're about to do. Sometimes you can't be like, absolutely, I, I know that this strategy's gonna work and there's nothing that, and there's nothing I can lose, for you to be able to make something successful and for you to truly see the possibilities for you and to see if it actually gonna work.

Sometimes you just have to freaking do it and see it and come at it from the most strategic, most data-driven place possible, yes, but also be willing to risk it and do it anyway. Now, in my business, I think one of the biggest things that holds me back from doing this also is the time that it takes, 'cause I'm so protective of my time, and I, I recommend that you're protective of your time as well 'cause it's your biggest resource, it's your biggest asset. I get really nervous that the time that it takes to do alternative things or new initiatives or try things in different ways, the time that it takes and, and wasted, that really terrifies me the most. But I just have to be willing to take on that risk sometimes.

And in 2023, I took a couple different risks, um, things that I was very nervous about and I had no idea that, how they were gonna go 'cause I'd never done them before, and they absolutely paid off. And even the ones that didn't paid off, I at least learned a lesson from, and that means that there's no such thing as failure if you can learn from it. My next business lesson was I noticed this past year how guilty and anxious I felt when I wasn't working or when I would take a break. It's so fascinating how I felt...

I feel like I've, I've created really strong boundaries in my business, like in my Behind The Chair business, of course. I teach that and I walk that talk. And even in my education business now, I've built a lot of boundaries around my business. I don't work past five.

I don't work on the weekends. However, it's so interesting how even with all of those boundaries in place, there will be times where I'm like, oh, well, I really just like wanna take a walk right now. Or I really like should be, quote unquote, should be working on this, but I feel like I should be working on this other thing because it'd be more, it would be better for my mental health. Or it would be, uh, something that I actually have the capacity for, right?

I would literally be like so down on myself if I stopped working or if I didn't start working at certain times of the day and I would feel like I wasn't worthy or deserving of it just because other people don't have the same privilege. And I think that privilege, of course, is something that is a whole other conversation and it's something that you definitely wanna take in consideration, but what I also realize is is that it's so important for you to be able to show up in your business 100%. It's so important that you take care of yourself the best way that you possibly can to be able to give your business 100%, right? It's the classic like we think if we work harder, then we're gonna get bigger and better results.

When in reality if we are showing up and we are working our asses off in a way in which we aren't operating at our 100% capacity, then we're not gonna be able to make any progress. All of that hard work is going to be for nothing, right? Because it's not going to be... It's gonna be half-ass work.

And I also think, too, that because of the circumstances that society places upon us, that the economy and our systems and structure of our government place upon us, I think that th- we are trained to feel guilty about not working. We are absolutely programmed to be down on ourselves and feel like we're failures if we don't feel like doing something or if we understand and prioritize our self-care first. And this is not to say that hard work isn't important. It absolutely is.

But I also think that it's important to understand how taking care of yourself is also hard work. And that hard work of taking care of yourself and fighting through the guilt, you'll have a big return of investment on it in your personal life and your business. And at the end of the day, you have one short life that is given to you. It's the only one that you get to live and you might as well use it wisely, and you don't wanna be in, in 50 years from today, 30 years from today, whatever it may be, looking back and regretting how you spent your time because you worked yourself into the ground endlessly because you were guilty or anxious about it.

I've learned that I show up in a much poorer way when I don't take breaks and when I don't take care of myself. I end up being in complete burnout. And I think that I'm able to work hard and able to put in the work because I prioritize my mental health and give myself what I need to be successful. But that takes discipline and it takes working through a lot of the guilt and the anxiety and shame that comes with it as well.

My last biggest business lesson from 2023, and I recommend that if you didn't listen to it yet, you listen to it. It's called Redefining Your Definition of Success. Um, it's a podcast episode that we released not too long ago before this one. That's the lesson.

It's, it's redefining your definition of success. It's really easy for us in today's day and age with social media to look at all these other people and see what they're doing and then immediately compare yourself to them. Or it's easy for you to listen to somebody else's benchmark or goal and believe that that's the same goal that is going to be true for you and your business and your life. And that is absolutely just so backwards.

Here's the thing. So I've had real- I've had a lot of success in my business. Like, it's actually quite insane and I'm so grateful and privileged to be where I am. Um, it's, it's clearly crazy how, how much impact we've been able to make with my business in such a short amount of time.

And I absolutely love the game of business. Like, that's why I have this podcast, that's why I do what I do, and I, and I love the thought and the feeling of growing and hitting goals and, and putting in all the effort and, and that we need to make that happen, you know? And achieving that success is so cool and seeing a- a- and pushing yourself to new levels that you didn't think were possible. Like, it is so awesome and it's so gratifying, right?

And there's so much beauty that comes behind that. Not to mention hard work, blood, sweat and tears. However, I think what I've learned was I'm shooting for the stars here. Like, my why, like my ten year vision is so...

It's so inconceivable to me and other people because it seems so impossible. And so for that, I feel like I always should be growing. I always should be hitting these massive milestones. Like, things should be so accelerated all the freaking time.

And with that, that m- would mean a whole lot of sacrifice of my personal life. It would mean that I would have to, you know, take huge, massive swings and it would mean that I'm putting my worth and a lot of the definition of my success around something that seems really massive and unattainable, and setting myself up for disappointment, truly And what I thought would happen this past year, as far as my growth goes, didn't happen in spite of all of my hard work. But the beauty is, is that I was able to still grow the business, yet I am so happy. Like, I'm so much happier and I'm granted and taken advantage of the opportunities that my business has been able to offer me this past year.

So in spite of maybe my numbers not have been hitting what I wish they would have hit, what I wanted t- them to hit, some certain aspects of the business not necessarily growing, but other aspects of the business, yes, very much growing and being in an amazing space. I'm totally okay with that. And why wouldn't I be? Just because somebody else is doing better or bigger than that, just some- because somebody else who has been here be- before me says, "Oh, when I was in that place, I was doing this.

So that's where you should be," or me making up a story in my head that that's where I should be just because that other person had that experience. I think that's such bullshit because guess what? I'm fucking happy, dude. And when you're happy and when you have something that is putting dinner on the table and that is offering you the opportunity to just, like, live your life in a sustainable way, then that's all you can ask for.

Another definition of success is maybe you're not even in a space where the business is offering you necessarily happiness, but maybe it's offering you the journey and the lessons that you need to learn to get to a place where, where that happens. And I believe that we should be just as grateful for that as we should be for when we hit our goals or whatever it may be. I think that we all hold ourselves to a really insanely highly s- high standard. We expect things to come to us so quickly and so fast, and we have so much shame and embarrassment around when things don't work out the way that they, that we want them to, or when they don't work out in the, the general way that society would, you know, expect them toAnd in reality, at the end of the day, if you're proud of all the hard work that you put in and if you're happy, or if at least you have fought your ass off and you're still surviving, you're continuing to move forward and push forward, you should be damn proud of yourself.

And you should feel successful. Because as long as you're doing your best, that's all that matters at the end of the day. So I want you to redefine your definition of success. I don't want it to always be around metrics and hitting these high benchmarks, or hitting these industry averages.

I want them to be around what makes you happy, what makes you feel fulfilled. And it should be more, more than just tangibles, it should also be feelings as well. It should also be experiences as well, right? Were you able to finish a workday and you loved all the clients that you did and you, and all of the color and the work that you did was absolutely excellent?

Although that's not measurable, well, it could be argued that that could be measurable. Although it's not tangible, and although that may not translate into the money, it still matters because again, we have a short life to live, we're only gifted th- and granted this one life to live, and those things are the things that make it magical, that make this wor- this life worth living at the end of the day. So don't let them pass you by and don't let your quote-unquote failures or your shortcomings distract you from the beauty of those experiences. My friend, I know this was a little bit of a longer episode, I hope that you didn't mind.

Um, I hope that you took away something from this. And I highly encourage you to look at your own experience over this past year and see what lessons that you can take away from it and what gratitude you can find in the ways you showed up, and take that and move it forward into this next year or this next era of your life and go make some beautiful things happen. So much love to you. Thank you for tuning into the Modern Hairstylist Podcast.

Peace out, girl scout. Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2023 Hunter Donia LLC.