Why You NEED To Drop A Day Behind The Chair

The amount of times that I've had a class and people are like, "Oh," like, "I'm working that day. I can't make it," girl, pisses me off, okay? Especially if it's on a Monday. I think I, like, made a post a couple, like, months ago, or, like, a story, and I was like, "Mondays should be a day off."

Like, Mondays are the standard education day. Y- we all know this. Okay? This is when the majority of education is gonna be out there and available to you.

It is when, i- i- i- it is the day that hairstylists, businessowners should be taking a step back and focusing on working on the business instead of in the business. Okay? And a big reason why is not just for Mondays. That's my general, my general personal belief.

But also, just in general, we just should have at least one day off behind the chair to be able to actually work on the business. Because the more that you are working in the business, the less the business is actually getting anything done, the less energy that you have, and the more that you're gonna say, "Oh, I meant to do that," or, "It'd be really nice if I did that, but y- I never have the time or I never have the energy." You are working two full-time jobs. One is actually doing the hair.

The other is actually owning the business. Who the fuck has time for two full-time jobs? Nobody. Right?

So, we need to at least give you one day a week to be able to do the one of them, right? Because otherwise, you're just gonna be burnt out. You're not gonna get the things done that you wanna get done. You'll never have the time and space to be able to work on things.

It's like the 80/20 Rule, right? Like, 20% of your efforts create 80% of your results. And so, 20, if that means five days a week, 20% of that is just one day. The way you do in that one day will make all the difference for how much actual money you make in the long run.

So, you'll maybe be like, "Oh, shit. If I take off a day I'm not gonna make any money 'cause I'm not gonna be doing clients." Maybe so. But we'll talk about the way that we can make sure that that does not happen in this episode.

What's up, Jodi Brown? How are you? I am so good. I'm really excited for this topic because I think, like, the number one thing that we always hear when, you know, you have...

Like, you teach a lot on how to optimize your business, how to do all these things, optimize retention, all of that. And I think always, like, when I was working with hairstylists, the number one thing was always time, and we can't expect ourselves to do these things after getting home from a full day at the salon. Like, if that's the time that you're putting in, it's not gonna happen. So, I'm really fired up for this one.

I think it's super important. Yeah, dude. In my, like, some of my ADHD episodes in, on the podcast, you guys ha- may ha- heard of me talk about how, like, I'm very realistic with my expectations of myself. And I, like, I really encourage you guys to do the same thing, like, and start to, like, recognize, like, what your patterns are with, like, when you feel energized, when you have the time and space to do things.

And like, also, you know, if you can't find any of that, if you're never finding time for that, then maybe it's a sign that you need to work a little bit less actually laboring and more on actually working on the business. And it's gonna be impossible for you to ever grow it unless you have the time to, to be able to do it, you know? I mean, I, the amount of times that you guys probably have taken education and never implemented anything from it, or, um, again, plenty of things that you would like to do but don't have the time, energy or space to do, like, it's like, this is what's missing. And here's the thing.

Like, there's kind of two different types of: people where this approach needs to be spoken about differently, okay? So, there's the person where it's like, if you are not booked and busy, right? Like, if there are gaps in your schedule, then guess what? You actually don't need a day off.

Okay? Like, you stay exactly where you are because you have time, okay? You have time, and any of those gaps that you have, it should be done working on the business. Any nine-to-five, like any company w- would be expecting of the employee to be working in one way or another.

And you need to start... I think we all need to start and prioritize. Start prioritizing the work that you're doing on the business as much as the work that you're doing in the business. And I think that that's wh- honestly, like, one of the biggest disconnects.

Because if you actually, actually valued that time just as much, you would make it work. Even if you didn't have a lot of time, like even if you were working five days a week, nine-to-five or whatever your hairdresser hours are, you... If you understood how important this work wa- was, you would make the time, and I'm a firm believer in that. And now, a word from our sponsors.

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But again, if you're at that space where you work, where you're booked and busy from nine-to-five, five days a week, and you are... not actually nine-to-five, whatever that translates to, you know, whatever the full time is to you guys listening to this. For me, I'm in my nine-to-five schedule, so in my brain. Um, uh, if you're in that space where you are constantly booked and busy with every single client, every single hour is filled up with, with clients full time, then you have built the leverage to be able to actually take off that full day.

And you deserve to not have to sacrifice to be able to find that time early and late nights because you've built that success for yourself, and the way that you've built it, hopefully, was using your time wisely when you had the time because you weren't booked and busy. So anybody here who you don't have fucking clients booked in that fucking time, I do not wanna hear that you don't have time to fucking... to work, right? You get to work on the business, like genuinely.

Now, of course, nuances considered, shit going on, real-life situations, but again, it's like, every bitch has to work in this lifetime, okay? We all gotta do some fucking work. It is what it is. And so, if you are scheduled and available to take clients and you have a fucking gap, you better be using that gap to work on the business, or else I don't wanna hear that you don't have the time.

Now, that's to those of y'all who have the time. You have no excuse. Don't take a day off yet. For those of you who are in a space in which you are solidly booked, no gaps, great.

Guess what, my friend? You have created the leverage to be able to take a day off. Now, we're not gonna fully take this day off just to take the day off and be able to live your life. Sure, you can if you want to, but I think it's much more powerful to be able to actually use that time that you get back to be able to work on the business even more, so that way, you can actually just work three days a week eventually and actually take one of those days just back into your life.

But that's not gonna be possible for you yet unless you actually have time to work on the business. So great news to you, if you're solidly booked five days a week and you're getting new client requests on a consistent basis, you most likely can reduce your supply by one day, increase your prices, do the math of what the average ticket has to increase by to figure out what the price increase is gonna be, and then you should be able to make the same amount of money working four days a week, and then make even more money eventually because you have time to actually work on the business. So that's my tea. What else do we have to talk about?

I mean, I don't know. Well, I think what it comes back to is something you talk about all the time, and that's that you have two resources in your business, which is your time and your money, right? And so once you get to that point where you're fully booked, the only way to grow is to get that time back, right? So that you're able to continue to increase that, that bottom line that you're bringing in.

Yeah. The, your, your time as a resource needs to be looked at as, as, as, uh, again, it needs to be equally as prioritized as the money, and I think that we, oftentimes as entrepreneurs, we, we, we have... Especially, again, as you transition into starting to act, like, and get comfortable with your high performer status, like, once you've gotten to a point where you are fully booked where you're making a fair bit of money, what's gotten you here is, like, a lot of scarcity and short-term thinking when it comes to your money. And so it's like, it's like trying to...

Like, conceptualizing taking a whole day off is really difficult for us to actually be okay with and be... and trust in because what's gotten us here is a whole lot of scarcity and wanting to be able to book those spots, right? And so now the transition of, actually you shouldn't take every single new client that you get, you shouldn't be trying to squeeze a client in anymore, now it's your time becomes so much more valuable and important and we now need to leverage that and protect it at all means possible, it's a little bit of a weird, uncomfortable transition. But again, you have the leverage to be able to make that happen in a safe way, but it just takes understanding your numbers, what's actually possible for you and making sure that you're doing the increase and the rolling back and the scaling back of working behind the chair, uh, safely, um, and effectively to actually make it happen without it rattling things up.

And again, really making sure that you're clear about what are you gonna be doing with that time that you get back, 'cause it's really tempting for you to use that time doing whatever the fuck else you wanna do. Biggest fucking piece of advice to you, my friend. Again, you need to treat that time just as if you had a client in your chair. When you have a client in your chair, you have no choice but to work, right?

Right. I've always said that as an ADHD person, being a hairdresser was the best job ever because it's so accountable, it's so hands-on, it's so, like, you have no choice. Like, you can't procrastinate. You have to deliver, like, and it's very good for people who have ADHD because normally when we're left to our own devices and there's not another human being involved, it's very difficult to actually follow through sometimes because we get distracted.

We're in our own brain. We're doing... When we have all those struggles, right? But when there's somebody in front of us, it's like there's no choice.

You just have to do it. It is what it is. But now when we are talking about being a responsible entrepreneur, getting that time back, you now have to treat that and figure out how to adjust to your own brain and your own routine, how to make it so you prioritize that time and you take it just as seriously, and maybe you're systematized to make it so you know that you can show up, uh, and actually stay on focus and stay on task consistently. We need to treat that time just as importantly, I guess, is what I'm trying to illustrate.

Yeah. Yeah. It needs to be that, like, pre-scheduled, respected time, like you said, as if you were with a client. So let me ask you, Hunter, what is your...

If someone's listening and they're, like, fully booked, they're on board with this conceptually, but they're like, "Okay, but how do I actually create the space? 'Cause right now I am working those five days a week, right? I am fully booked. I do have all these things."

What do you think is that first step or that tangible thing that someone can take away from this episode and apply to start moving towards having that additional day off? You need to have a good understanding of your numbers, and you need to know, like, okay, so if I wanna take a day off but I wanna w- make the same amount of money, then how much does my increase need to be in order to make up for that? So how many clients are you taking on average per day? What's your average ticket?

How much more would your average ticket have to be per client each day in order for you to make the same amount of money each week or each month? And then you increase proportionally, you reduce your supply if we can do that safely, and if you have new client requests to replace anybody if you have fallout. So it's just the numbers really. I mean, it, it really comes down to knowing the numbers and understanding, like, theory when it comes to what a price increase could look like, how to do it safely.

So I'm sorry, there's no, like, hack or cheat code, friend. Especially, you know, if you're at, in this space, like, be- be- becoming more aware of your numbers, tracking them consistently, and being able to interpret them, it becomes tha- that much more important, because if you ever wanna grow beyond where you're growing, it, it, really everything comes back to the numbers at this point, because we start to have to make data-driven decisions, um, uh, to actually know what the next step is or what the next opportunity is or what the next gap is. And that's why with our mastermind students who are at that high level space where they're making the six figures, where they're fully booked, that's why we are tracking it, their numbers so diligently, and that's why we have such productive conversations and we make smart decisions, is because we have the numbers always available to us. We know how to interpret them and we, we know are we ready for a price increase or not?

What does that price increase look like? And if we want to take a day off, what does our price increase have to look like to make that happen so we still are making the same amount of money or even more? What, where do we need to build to to feel comfortable and confident in doing that? And it's 100% possible.

It's just the, the knowledge of all of that destroys the fear and also, a- and it also, again, h- having me holding them accountable through the change and also g- like, handing them out a platter exactly what they need to do I think is really supportive for them as well, too. Yeah. A hundred percent. I love that.

So where can they go to find out if that's a good fit? You can go to hunterdonahue.com and click around there. Right now it's mastermind at the time of recording this.

I don't fucking know. Shit changes all the time. Go to hunterdonahue.com and check out how you can work with me, my friend.

I'll help you interpret your numbers. I'll help you look at your business a- as it is right now, and if you truly don't have time to be able to be the entrepreneur, you will never be able to grow beyond where you're at right now. It just is what it is. So you either have to sacrifice, you have to get up early, stay up late, or whatever it may be, or we can leverage the amount of time that you have now...

I'm sorry, we can leverage the power that you have now, and the possibility that you have now to actually take a day off and reinvest that time back into making money instead of just doing it the same old way that you've been doing it thus far. And I'd love to support you in that. So thank you for tuning in to Modern Hairstyles podcast. Take a day off.

If you, uh, aren't in this space and if you're not fully booked, I don't wanna fucking hear that you don't have the time if you have guests, my friend. The reason anybody got to fully booked is because they used that time and they have time. Right? So get to a place where you don't have the time, and then we can get the time back.

It's always like a, you get the time back, you build and build and build until you don't have the time, then you get the time back again. Then it's just a big cycle moving forward. So, so much love to you. Hopefully this is helpful.

Peace out, girl scout. Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2026 Hunter Donia LLC.