What Scaling Looks Like For Solo Hairstylists

Whenever a startup company starts, it always starts with, like, an idea or somebody has a passion for something and they get into it. We either with themselves or maybe with a partner or whatever it may be. For the majority of us in the industry, it's normally with just ourselves, right? We go off on our own, whether that be booth renting or opening up our own suite or opening up our own salon, whatever it may be, and we work our asses off to hit the ground running and to get the traction that we need to create a successful business, right?

We do everything possible to get those new clients in. We do everything possible to make as much money. We do as much possible to create an excellent customer experience. And also we do as much as possible just to maintain all the operations of our business, which there's a lot of operations.

Whether this be scheduling, um, cleaning, inventory, the maintenance of it all. And what ends up happening is you get some traction. After working your ass off and after working tirelessly, you get some traction and your business is doing well. But you are spending all of your time, all of your time, working so hard to continue with the growth and to continue maintaining just the daily operations of your business.

Because you can't run a business unless you're actually delivering on your product, right? Once they get traction, once they've seen some su-success in their business after working tirelessly and after delegating all their time to this project, to this startup business, right, they normally hire an employee. That's, like, what any other startup business would do, right? Like, you start to hire employee and then you grow from there.

With us, a lot of the times as independent stylists, we're not hiring an employee, right? Um, unless you wanna hire a personal assistant or a virtual assistant, and we can talk about that a little bit later. But normally we don't wanna hire employee, and hiring employee is expensive. That's what allows us to scale though, is by delegating and having labor and having people who are going to be taking those tasks off your plate and allowing your company to make more money and to grow with you.

So, how do we as independent stylists create scalability in our business with the specific model that we have? If we don't want to open up our own multi-chair salon, right? If we don't want to have a personal assistant, how do we create more scalability, and how do we make it so you can achieve whatever you want to achieve in this business and whatever you sought out to achieve when you created this business? What is the goals that you should be reaching towards and what's the endgame here, right?

That is what you're doing when you're creating scalability in your business. And so we're gonna be talking about exactly how to do that for yourself today. So, if you're ready to 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. And I'm Caitlin, the CMO for Team Hunty, here to offer additional perspectives and kick-ass marketing advice. 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.

Hey, Caitlin. Hey, Hunty. How's it going? Caitlin, when, when I say the word scalability, what does that mean to you?

It could mean a lot of different things. Um, for me, my immediate reaction is, like, what I thought of when I was working behind the chair. So, like, I want to make the same amount of money but work less. Right.

Like, that's my immediate thought. Right, right, right, right, right, ri-ri-ri-right. Or make more money and work less, but yeah. Right.

So there is, like, an original definition of scale, of scaling in a business, and what that is is making more money without adding more effort, without adding more investment. So statistics show that over 3.8 million new business applications were filed in the first three quarters of 2022. And that's not even including 2021 and 2020, right?

Like, we are in this era where, like, there are a... Everybody is considering their time and how they're using their time and, like, what they wanna really create for themselves in their lives, and they are getting into this entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial journey which has called for more business education and more public knowledge and accessibility to business education, right? Which then now has kind of muddied up the definition of scalability, and here's my definition of scalability. It is reducing your labor.

It's reducing your labor as the owner to either make more money or make more time. Like, that's what it is. Or, or, or, or implementing systems and processes that allow you to get, do whatever you are doing in a more efficient and streamlined way to then still make the same amount of money but then not have to do as much labor, right? So it's removing labor.

Like, that's what it really is at the end of the day. It's removing labor and taking it off of you but still growing the company at the same time, right? And I think that there's a lot of different ways that you as the independent stylist can go about this, and it's just gonna depend on what makes the most sense for you and your business and your goals and your life. So, the key is instead of hiring an employee, especially as an independent stylist, what we should be doing is, is leaning into modern-day technology.

In the last episode, I talked all about the five-plus tech tools that I love that help you streamline and automate your beauty business, and that's exactly what I'm referring to here, is you want to figure out what technology or what tools, even, like even in-person tools, not even just technology but just, like, real-life tools, that can actually help you get things done faster or without you having to be there, or-... Help you do things in a more efficient way, right? That is what you should be focusing on before just saying, like, "Okay, I'm at this point. I'm so tired.

I ne- I'm making good money, but I'm working my ass off. Let me hire somebody." Instead of shelling out all that money and having to work on hiring a person, which, by the way, we're gonna be talking about hiring in a moment, right? Before we even focus on hiring that person, we need to make it so we have already explored every single option and avenue to make what we're already doing right now by ourselves as sustainable, automated, and off of your hands as possible.

That is the smart way to go about it, because it is a lot cheaper, right? And we're talking about scalability, investing little resources to make it so that way you grow when you take that labor off of your plate, right? It's a lot less expensive and y- it's a lot more customizable and a lot more trustworthy because you are gonna have to trust a whole new person that you're training from the ground up to take these things from you and to do them for you, right? And there's so much more margin of error in that than giving it to something, a system, that you set up under your own terms to take care of those things for you.

So it makes way more sense for you to start out with looking, okay, what are the processes that I have in my business right now? And I a- and I have people do this exercise every now and then. Literally list out every single thing that you do to maintain the growth of your business and to fulfill your service, right? So in the chair, right?

List out all the things that you're doing in the chair, um, that you have to do to give your clients an excellent service, right? And then in your pre-visit experience, post-visit experience, in your administrative time, rescheduling, answering client questions, right? All of that. Sending confirmation texts and emails.

All that stuff. Everything that you do, write them all out and figure out what are the things that I can streamline and automate and delegate without having to hire somebody else? And the majority of the time, those things should always be, especially if you're gonna be setting up your, your company for sale- scalability. Those things should always be the things that aren't making you money or helping you focus as a CEO on making more money, right?

You wanna be focusing on the tasks, the tasks that move the needle forward the most, and we've talked about this in prior episodes. But you wanna be focusing on the tasks that you, as the visionary of your company, can only be the one doing and you are the one who is moving the needle forward in those spaces. So the majority of the time, the administrative processes, right? The scheduling, the rescheduling, the client communication, the inventory, the maintenance of it all, right?

All of that, all the operations are normally what you're gonna want to take off of your plate first, and that's why I teach pre-visit pathway, because it really is, like, the next step. Once you have gotten into a space where, like, you've gotten the l- a- a little bit of traction and you understand h- like, how to get people into your business, now you're at a point where it's like, okay, what's next to make it so I can make this a business that isn't killing me, right? Like, I was in a space where I was working so hard to get traction in my suite and I blew it up because I was working so hard, but I got it to a certain point where I was like, how is this possibly gonna be sustainable for me? I just genuinely didn't understand it.

Like, I was going to burn out if I kept going the same route that I was going and I had to do exactly what I'm telling you to do right now. Look at all of the things that I'm spending my time doing. What are the most important tasks that I need to be focusing on? And then what are the tasks that aren't important that I can delegate to something else?

Put it on technology. Let technology do it for you. And I know it's scary. I know it's hard to let go of control.

You're gonna have to let go of control in one way or another and the way that I see it, the way that the world is moving, the, the standard that we have, we've been set to, the hamster wheel that we're on now to create sustainable businesses, you're not even gonna have a business in a couple years if you don't get comfortable with letting go of control and learning these new things. Like, it's just not gonna happen. The world is moving too fast. Okay.

The next step after you have used technology, leaned into automation, and s- and streamlined all of your operations as much as possible, is now you want to document all of your processes. Now you want to document all of the s- moving parts and the systems in your business with standard operating procedures. If you wanna look into what standard operating procedures are, I highly recommend that you Google it, but my definition is you have a documented way of doing a certain, a certain procedure in your business. So how do I book a client, right?

How... Or how do I book a new client? Number one, they do this. Number two, they do this.

Number three, I do this. Number four, you do this, right? And then you list it out on some sort of Google Doc. Google Docs is a great place for, uh, storing some SOPs and documents and processes.

You could even document, uh, your foundations of your system. So, such as, like, your marketing system, right? What we teach in Chief Marketing Hairstylist Workshop is you have this documented, like, system, this foundation of, of the entire mission of what our marketing is in your specific business. So, like, it includes the foundation of your ideal client profile, what their pain points are, wh- what channels you're showing up in to get those leads to actually be interested in you, right?

And then the consistent processes that you do within your marketing to continuously get those leads in and you have specific structures of how you want content to be put out there, right? So you have, like, an example of, like, what an Instagram caption looks like or what an email would look like fr- in your own brand voice and that's an entire documentation situation. You can make it in Miro, you can make it in Canva whiteboards, you can put it in a doc, whatever you want to, but here's why you want to document your processes.Because it creates insane scalability.

Because at this point, you are ready to hire somebody. If you have already gotten all the things off of your plate with technology as much as you possibly can, streamlined your own processes as much as you possibly can, created SOPs for yourself to stay organized and to be able to follow something very easily and stay consistent on it, and you're making the good money, right? That's the other thing. You're making money.

Like, at this point, you are making the coins because you are consistent, you are systematized, and you have a little bit of time freedom now. Now you're at a point where you can either decide to put your, put your arms, your arms and your feet up, right? And just, like, relax and chill and be happy with all of the work and the money that you're making right now, and of course have to adapt and update and change things every now and then. Or you can hire somebody to then take some of those already existing processes off your plate to then expand the efforts that you already are doing.

So for example, let's say I have a documented process for how I show up consistently in my social media. This is a documented process that I have been following that is working really well for me. It's already a well-oiled machine. Once I have already made that a well-oiled machine, I've already mastered it, I know it's working for me, it's completely documented, every single step, every single thing that I prefer to make it my brand voice and to make it work for me, now you can then focus on a new platform, right?

A new channel of marketing possibly. Maybe Facebook Ads, maybe a LinkedIn, maybe Google My Business, maybe Facebook Groups, right? Things like that. But you're only one person, so hiring a virtual assistant or somebody, an employee of some sort, to then take over the tasks that you have already mastered, right?

So that way you, as the visionary, can focus your efforts on learning something new and then mastering that next thing that allows you to then expand your efforts and allows you to continuously increase your lead generation, increase profitability, et cetera, et cetera. That's how you break this glass ceiling, right? Like, b- like, I think, like, a, a common question is like, "Okay, so I get high demand. I raise my prices, lose my demand, regain the demand, raise my prices.

Where's the cap?" Right? Like how high can you actually raise your prices, right? It's truly unlimited if you have enough bandwidth in your efforts in your lead generation.

So let's say that you've gotten all your clients through Instagram thus far and you've had to raise your prices to, like, something crazy, right? Like you were the h- you were a high-ticket stylist. Now in order to convert more new clients and to bust into your chair, you're going to need to have more leads that are coming in. You're gonna have to be more omnipresent in multiple spaces so that way you have enough demand still on your time proportionally to the prices that you're charging.

Am I making sense, Kaylin? Yeah, I totally thought that that was, like, a mic drop moment. I enjoyed that a lot. Because stylists do get to that point.

I v- I hear it all the time. It's like, "I can only raise my prices so high before I hit that, like, cap." Right. And like, it- it- it's approaching that specific topic in a way that I don't think a lot of stylists ha- have heard it before, so I enjoyed that.

Right. Well, and it's like, it's like, okay, I'm at this point. My prices are really high. Maybe I should open a salon.

Maybe I should hire somebody. And it's like, if you don't wanna j- I know I did not wanna fucking do that. Like, I did not want to do that. I didn't wanna manage a team.

I didn't- I truly did not wanna do that. I did not want to host or facilitate a stylist. I did not. I truly didn't.

It wasn't a part of my journey. So if I was, if I was doing this sweet situation right now and that was my main focus in my business, then this is exactly what I'd be doing. I'd be hiring a virtual assistant to take over my Instagram because it's already a proven process that is already working for me, that I can confidently delegate to somebody else. What we oftentimes do is we delegate to somebody else, and I'm not mad about this per se.

Like, don't get it twisted. It's okay if you do this, right? Because sometimes it's actually necessary, and I know that right now I'm doing it in my own business a lot, right? Is I will delegate things that I don't know and that I haven't mastered to somebody who is the master in that thing.

But I think it's ex- extremely powerful when you're delegating something that you have already mastered because you are able to delegate it so much more confidently and, and you are already in control of those efforts and you've already documented exactly how you want it to be done. The person that you hire, it's going to be so easy for you to be confident in knowing exactly what you should expect from that person. Because let's say you hire a bookkeeper or an accountant, right? I don't know.

I have no gauge. I have literally no gauge on if they're doing a good job or not because I have no fucking idea about taxes and accounting. Like I just don't, you know what I mean? But I do know about social media marketing, I do know how to great, uh, create clientele and lead generation, right?

And giving that to somebody else to then do for you, from that vantage point, is so powerful. And that's why it's so important that you document these processes as you move along and that will create the scalability for you as somebody who wants to stay independent, as somebody who doesn't want to start a new venture. Because that is another option, right? So it's option number one is chill out, keep doing what you're doing, stay at the price range that you're at, right?

And just kind- kind of keep moving, keep, like, going forward. Number two, hire somebody. Have them help you expand your bandwidth so that way you can do whatever the next thing is that you need to do and learn to then be more omnipresent in more spaces and to expand your efforts. Or number three, use this free time that you have, whether that be after you hire the employee or before, eith- either way, use this free time that you have to then start your new venture if that is something that you would like to do.

So for me, I was at this point where I had a social media manager who I, I already knew how my Instagram worked, so I gave my Instagram to her, and I like, was like, "This is what I prefer. This is what I like," right? And she managed my social media for me. I had automated and streamlined my booking systems.

I did everything. I did all, everything that I just talked about. I did not document my processes. That's my biggest regret.

I wish I documented my processes a little bit more. I was able to give that to her, she took it over for me, and then I was able to create this education business, right? And I was able to really lean into this because I had the time, freedom, and space to do so. So you have options in the way that you want to scale and move, right?

You totally do, but these foundations of creating scalability in your business is the absolute most important part of it. You can't skip these parts, and they're the boring parts. Scaling is not fun. That's the, that is the thing about scaling.

I very much discovered through going through this twice, right, wi- in, in both of my businesses. The growth and, like, the figuring out the marketing, figuring out how to, like, gain traction and, and just make money and get customers through the door, that stuff is fun. It's sexy. It's like...

and it's challenging. Like, it, it, it really, like, challenges you. And once you figure it out, your next steps are really boring, shitty ones, all operational ones. Uh, it's, it's, it's managing your processes.

It's making these documentations. And it's not fun, but it is what is going to feed your lifestyle and allow you to achieve your goals. So make sure that you are, number one, once you get, once you've gotten traction, right? Once you've gotten traction in getting customers through the door and making money, figure out every single thing that you can get off of your plate and how you can delegate it onto technology and streamline those things so that way you have more time and space to show up in the spaces that you need to to continuously grow the business, such as your marketing, right?

And then document every process that you make. Document how you want things to go, how you prefer your business to be run, why it's run that way, so that then you can hire somebody and you have all of that documentation ready to go to give to somebody, to hire somebody extremely easily and then decide, what do I wanna do next? Do I just want to let this person give me my time freedom and maybe I just make the same amount of money and it's cool and we're good and I'll, and I'll make a decision or change when I s- I feel like I need to? Or is it going to be, okay, now that I've hired this person and they've taken this off my plate, am I going to now expand my efforts now that I want to make even more money on top of this cap that I've created?

Or are you gonna take the time and space and then go into a new, a completely new venture and start something from scratch? Those are your options, and that's creating scalability, and that's how an independent stylist can start with scalability in their business. What are your thoughts, Caitlin? I don't think I can really add a whole lot to that.

Like, I feel like you really, like, just brought the house down with all of this knowledge, so... perfect. I like bringing the house down. You know how it is.

If you, my friend, like it when we bring the house down, I like you listening, so thank you so much for tuning in. And if you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoy me bringing the house down, then please go ahead and leave a five-star testimonial wherever you're listening to this. It'll help us revolutionize the industry and support us and get us to that next level that we deserve by reaching more stylists just like you. And we look forward to seeing you in the next episode of the Modern Hairstylist podcast.

Peace out, girl scout. Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2023 Hunter Donia LLC.