Why Your Loyal Clientele Might Be Your Biggest Obstacle

Recently, I had a big slew of calls with a bunch of really impressive, amazing stylists who have built great businesses for themselves. They are consistently booked and busy. They're maybe booked, like, three to four weeks plus. They are making six figures or more, and they have built a really beautiful, stable business for themselves.

But they feel capped in their growth. They feel like they don't know how to break through this glass ceiling that they're at. They've taken a lot of education throughout the years. They've maybe been doing hair, most of them, for, like, a decade.

But, they aren't getting new client requests. And that, my friend, is the glass ceiling. Like, we need to break through that if you ever want to go above and beyond that space. So, like, if you're checking all those boxes that I just shared, but you're not getting new client requests, it's gonna be really, really, really hard for you to safely actually make a leap in your income or ever work less and make more, because that is the foundational pillar that makes the, those shifts or that type of growth actually possible.

And so I wanna talk a little bit more about this concept today, why it's true, and what I found when I was talking to some of these amazing stylists, and what I diagnosed and what I, my suggestions were for them moving forward. So, a lot of these people, like I said, were doing hair for a while, maybe, let's say, a decade or more, and they built a very loyal clientele over those years, and maybe now that they, now they have this really beautiful, stable foundation. And the problem is, is that when, especially 10 years ago, prior to all this business education and a little bit of a revolution in the, uh, industry of more, um, self-determination, more boundaries as a business owner, the whole work smarter, not, uh, not harder concepts, like, like, 10 years ago, that stuff wasn't as, like, prevalent or that messaging wasn't as prevalent, or not a lot of people knew what was possible. And this is a clientele that, especially if they've been with you for a long time, you have built a really deep relationship with these people.

And relationship, as we've seen in most of our consumer studies for clients, relationship is the number one thing, above all, a great client experience, great service results, price. Relationship is the number one thing that will make somebody stick with you and be willing to pay higher prices, et cetera, et cetera. Okay? And so, therefore, you've built this great relationship with people.

That's why they've stuck with you for this long. But at the same time, as we know, when you have a deep relationship with people, it's very hard for you emotionally, and even from a business perspective, to make changes in your business, because you're nervous about rattling things in your business, because you feel like Jodi, your client that you've been seeing for 10 years, is your friend. You know their personal circumstance, and it doesn't feel very natural or even ethical for you to charge Jodie more, because she's been so loyal to you and because she feels like somebody who you're close with, et cetera, et cetera. Right?

And also, we're nervous about inconveniencing people a lot of the time. So, let's say that you want to start digitizing your business a little bit more. You wanna start rolling out online booking. You have all these people who you've built this relationship with.

They're quote/unquote "used to a certain thing with you" or a certain way they, they interact with you, so it holds you back from making any changes that could actually better you and your business as a business owner, and that holds you back from a lot of growth. And if you're only relying on the current clientele that you've had and you've built for a very long time and you're not getting new client requests in, oftentimes, this can really, really hold you back from an emotional perspective, first off and foremost, from doing the things that are essential for actually moving the needle forward. Furthermore, your existing clients are always gonna naturally churn. People's budgets change.

Husbands and their own selves get laid off, uh, uh, uh, and that changes the way that people need to budget for the family. Um, people move. So, you also are going to always inevitably have natural churn that happens, and so if you're not getting any new client requests to replace those people that naturally churn away, then you're not gonna be able to replace them when they inevitably leave you. Now, again, this goes back to as well, not just the natural churn, where, like, this is just you didn't change anything but people just left because of their own inevitable circumstances, right?

If you actually make a change that triggers your clients to leave, such as a price increase, which is the main, number one way for you to make more money, is price increase. Like, that is what it is. If you wanna make a significant amount more money, not talking $5 to $10. I'm talking about, like, $15, $20, $25 pri- And now a word from our sponsors.

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And so, if you actually want to in- go above and beyond your glass ceiling or break through it that you're at right now, you're gonna probably have to charge more. And although the indicators of you being solidly booked, three to four plus weeks, of you having great retention, of you giving a great client experience, all that stuff, right? Making the money that you're making, all that stuff is great, but we can't actually significantly do an increase that actually makes a difference in your life and actually makes it so you can work less eventually if you don't have new people to replace the people that you're, uh, that you're, uh, uh, gonna lose through those changes. And furthermore, I think that the only caveat to this is if you genuinely decide to maybe like work a day less, like if you decide to maybe take a day away, right?

Then we're working from the concept of supply and demand. So for anybody who needs a review, right? Supply and demand is when COVID happened and the toilet paper fro- flew off the shelf. And so then therefore, for toilet paper went from $10 to $20 very quickly or whatever it may be, right?

Toilet paper became very expensive because there was a lower supply, there was very high demand. And so then companies decided to raise the price because they could afford to. They also have to be able to control the, the amount of supply and demand that they have and how much they're able to actually, uh, satiate the demand for these products with the price. So if you decide that you want to take away a day, okay?

And then raise your prices with that, you low key can maybe possibly afford to do that without new clients because your supply is now going down. Okay? So when you only have so much supply, which is so many hours or availability of your time, right? And the demand, the amount of people that need to get in with you or want to get in with you exceeds that or is even to that, then that's when we need to maybe look at our prices, we can start to afford a price increase.

But since you are lowering the supply and the demand isn't necessarily changing, or if you increase enough to where maybe the demand only equally lowers with the supply, you are still fully booked and busy because you don't have as many slots open and maybe you charge more enough to justify working one day less and still making the same amount of money, then that is my caveat, okay? Even then some, you still have to deal with the inevitable churn that you're gonna organically have from your, your clients just having a different change in their circumstances. Again, moving away, budgets change, layoffs, whatever it may be. I feel like you're on fire here and you are absolutely nailing it.

And I think the one thing that we haven't really touched on is the emotional, you know, pull behind, like, you know, yes, there is the piece of like the price increases and the relationships, but also that feeling of like maybe wanting to do something different or bringing a new service and almost feeling held hostage by that clientele. Yeah. 100%. And so it's like you may be in a space in which like maybe like the only referrals that you are getting are from like word of mouth, right?

But maybe all those word of mouth referrals are not necessarily ideal quality leads. Yeah. Like maybe there are people who don't want the services that are most profitable for you. Maybe you know if you were doing more of X service, you'd make more money in a day, but you only have the clientele that you have.

And the thing is, is that this clientele that got you here is not going to get you there. These clients came through whatever random method that they came through. And when you are on, when you, when you have, when you have new client requests from a space in which you don't have any levers to pull, where it's kind of uncontrollable, such as word of mouth, like word of mouth is uncontrollable unless there is a system in place that is actually driving more word of mouth referrals. Right.

Right? W- then you literally do not have control of your, of your business and your growth. Right. So it's like if you don't have your own marketing funnel where your own efforts are getting you those referrals and those new client requests coming in- Yeah.

then you don't have any control of what that influx looks like. And you also don't have any control of the type of person and the type of services that you are going to be attracting and those people are gonna be wanting. Because this is just anybody. This is just Sally's cousin or sister or brother or son who all have different needs, wants, budgets and, uh, different services that they'll, they'll be requesting.

And so that's another thing too, is, is like if you want to have more services that you love, services that are more profitable, you need to have some sort of funnel that's set up that actually you are in control of and that you can adjust accordingly. And that was a really, really, really, really, really big pattern between all these people that I talked to, is that they just don't have any marketing set up at all and it's just been word of mouth referrals up until this point. And great, you're getting word of mouth referrals, it's a lot for that to naturally happen. It's a strong thing, but unfortunately it's also a little bit risky or there's not eno- a lot of leverage that you can build with it because you can never tweak things to make things the way that you want them to be.

You can never pivot in, like let's say that tomorrow you lose 50% of your clientele or let's say you have the price increase, right? You now are not, you don't have any control over the method of how you're gonna get new clients. You're only relying on this unpredictable thing. And so it's a little bit of a risky model to be on, on.

And, and so if again, first and foremost, the one pattern I saw was like, we just don't have any marketing in place at all. We're just rel- relying on word of mouth. So we don't have a website, we don't have a Google My Business profile, we're not doing what we need to do to actually get those new leads in. Right.

I also saw people who actually did have those things in place, but they weren't getting them any results. Like I saw somebody who had a very impressive business, was making like one, $150,000 a year at Salon Suite, maybe working five days a week. and love their clients and, uh, you know, honestly, I'll even go as far as to say pretty impressive brand. I would even go as far as to say, like, a little bit of a specialty here and there.

Like, had some, like, strong marketing fundamentals, but it just wasn't fully executed. Like, it wasn't, like, it wasn't taken all the way there. It wasn't market-research backed, and we were showing up in different platforms and spaces that that ideal client is not likely to show up in, and the messaging wasn't aligned with that person, right? So, like, even if you are posting on social media, even if you are, ha- you, you have the website, you're getting Google My Business reviews, that all doesn't matter if your marketing fundamentals aren't strong and proven and data-backed, which is what we teach people in Modern Stylist Movement how to do and set up from the very beginning.

And so it's like either you don't have any efforts in place right now, obviously gotta get those methods in place so you have a funnel that you're in control of, and/or we have to do some work with the funnel that you've set up and figure out why it's not working, and it's normally just an alignment with your messaging, your positioning with the client that you're trying to get into your chair, to actually get them to wanna converge. Um, again, this guy, I think in my last episode that I just recorded, I, I was like, "Yeah, I'm gonna post on social media every single day," when I moved to a rural place in Pennsylvania, that I was building a clientele from scratch. I was like, "Yeah, I'm, I know how to post on social media. I'm already doing this consistently.

I'll be just fine." Moved out there, was posting my ass off, was handing out my cards at the mall, was de- was delivering a great experience, asking my clients for a referral. None of it worked, and the reason why was because my brand, where I was working, how I was marketing was not all in alignment and working together, and not data-backed and researched. Right.

And so, again, you can be g- as consistent as you wanna be, but if it's doing it the wrong way, quote unquote, then it's not gonna get you any results. Yeah. 100%. And I think it's, it's very much like a risky situation to build a really solid business, and then 10 years go by and you're essentially starting from scratch without any knowledge of the market.

And so having that fundamental system set up so that, like you said earlier, you can tweak it and just make changes, versus starting all over again, is absolutely essential, like, regardless of how much success you've achieved in your business. 100%. And, you know, I'll even go as far as to say, like, it really sucked when I was on these calls and I was like, "You may not be ready for Mastermind." 'Cause that's what these calls were.

It was kind of like people who are inter- like, a lot of people who are interested in Mastermind, and I was, like, saying, like, "You're, like, y- you can only get on this call if you, or you're a good fit if you are fully booked, if you are making X to six figures or above," et cetera, et cetera. And I would, it'd be kind of like a little bit of an ego hit. You know? It's an ego hit when it's like you've done the unthinkable already.

Like, you've already, like, at, you've, you've, you've outpaced the standard of the industry. You've outpaced the usual, which is, like, people can never, uh, y- can only dream of hitting six figures in this career a lot of the places in the, in the country, you know? And it- but it's a- it's not about just having that stable foundation, which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with riding out that stable foundation. I mean, like, it's okay.

Like, as, if you are, if you are safely and successfully living on, like, the clients you have now, if you're not looking for massive growth, if you're not looking to break the glass ceiling, fantastic. But if you want more for yourself, if you're not done, then this is just what's required. It just is what it is. And that's what I'm trying to illustrate here, right?

Right. Um, so it's just a different new challenge for you, and, my friend, if you've gotten to where you are here today, I know that you've had to go through challenge I before. I know that you are absolutely capable of making it happen. It's just gonna require you learning something new, doing actions you've never done before, and doing modern things in today's day and age that weren't really accessible or available to you in the past.

And what, that's exactly what I'm bringing to you with my education. And hopefully- Yeah. you're enjoying that and you take me up on it. Now, I really w- want to just lastly, like, give a little bit of a, uh, a sigh of relief to you guys that are listening to this and being like, "I don't wanna post on social media every day," 'cause that's definitely not what it's all about, as I've illustrated already.

Like, you can post on social media all you want. I've seen people post their ass off, post really great content even, from, like, a content objective perspective, I guess you could say, and not get any business from it. And that's because that's not the game that we are actually playing here. We're, we're, we're, we're, we're marketing to make money.

We're not marketing to get engagement on social media, and those are two different games. And, again, understanding the ideal client, understanding the messaging that's gonna resonate with them, building value in your service and trust, that's what actually makes you money, that's what makes people wanna work with you. And it doesn't all have to be social media driven. I mean, you could post two times a month on social just to maintain shit, okay?

And have really strong SEO with a website in Google My Business, post on GMB once a week, and you're good to go. Like, I mean, I have, I have, I have people in Mastermind who I'm like, "Marketing is not your priority right now." Like, people are always like, "Oh, I should be posting on social media more," when we're looking at their results and where their, where all the new client requests are coming from, and I'm like, "This is not a thing that we, we have to ramp up, 'cause it's not even the main source of your people," you know? And so it's really just about setting up those set it and forget it foundations and very light main- maintenance for a lot of people, especially s- the, the, the general people who are in this circumstance e- especially.

A lot of you guys listening to this who resonate with what I'm talking about, like, the posting on social media is not gonna be the main thing that's gonna get you clients. It's gonna be Google My Business and really making sure that it's SEO optimized, and then a really strong website with great messaging, great positioning that is also SEO optimized. That is what's going to actually make the difference for you, but you have to set it up right and correctly the first time, or at least iterate it moving forward as the market changes, and then that is what will actually set you over the foundation to get new client requests. It's a funnel that you're in control of, so a little bit more predictable.

You can actually change if need be. And then that, those new client requests, are going to allow you to actually increase your prices safely, so that way you can actually move the needle, actually break through the glass ceiling that you're hitting right now. Yeah. So essentially that's, like, the health indicator that makes all of these other levers possible.

Period. So hopefully this was helpful for you today, my friend. I mentioned Modern Stylist Movement at the time of recording this. That is where you can get these foundations set up.

If you set up those foundations, be- growing beyond your glass ceiling becomes a lot easier, like, a whole lot easier. Like, if you have new client requests coming in on a consistent basis and it's coming from your own, your own funnel, your own efforts, right, uh, some sort of system, then you created an insane amount of leverage in your business. And, like, the, the possibilities are infinite, you know? You just kinda have to get there, and it just takes you putting in the work that you've never done before, or the work that you've maybe started but gave up on, or the work that you've done and did not work for you, and being willing to s- take a step back, re-evaluate the possibilities, the opportunities, work with an expert like me to figure out why it didn't work and what we can be doing differently.

Yep. That's what it takes to actually make it happen for yourself. And so I hope that you'll take me up on it. But thank you so much for tuning in to the Modern-Haired Stylist podcast.

I hope that this was helpful for you, my friend. Congratulations on building such a succe- successful business thus far. This does not have to be the end, and I hope that this made you realize that. Peace out, girl scout.

Bye bye.

End of transcript. © 2026 Hunter Donia LLC.