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The Messy Hairstylist
Whether you are a mess literally OR figuratively we are here to help you take imperfect action to find your success as a hairstylist. Each week we deep dive in to tough topics to address the struggles we face in our industry. We push the boundaries, break the stereotypes and go hard against the "norms" that make us feel inferior.
The Messy Hairstylist
Building Trust with Your Clients with Hunter Donia
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How does a seemingly small $5 price increase have the power to impact client relationships in today's hairstyling industry? Join us as Hunter returns to share insights on navigating the challenges of price transparency amidst economic uncertainty, offering a vital perspective on maintaining trust with clients. Discover how effective communication can turn a potential setback into an opportunity to strengthen personal connections and loyalty within this unique and closely-knit industry.
Our conversation takes a broader look at the hairstylist landscape, with Hunter shedding light on the contrasting experiences stylists face. From those who see a surge in business to those hesitant about raising prices, we explore the underlying factors influencing these outcomes. Location, previous business efforts, and more play a role in this mixed bag of success and struggles. By understanding these dynamics, we can grasp the nuances of sustaining a hairstyling business in unpredictable times.
As we wrap up, the focus shifts to nurturing client relationships and ensuring long-term success. We emphasize returning to the basics, prioritizing client experience and interaction while strategically addressing gaps in business. Whether you're a seasoned stylist or new to the field, Hunter’s insights provide encouragement to embrace consistency and patience for future growth. Our lively conversation ends on a positive note, filled with enthusiasm and a shared sense of accomplishment, leaving listeners ready to face the industry's challenges with confidence.
Follow Abby on Instagram and TikTok at @theabbywarther
Follow Kelsey on Instagram at @kelseymorrishair
Communicating even a small price increase, like even the $5, is absolutely so important, particularly in times in which people are much more scarce, much more fearful around their money and how they're spending it and what the future looks like for them in the world and the economy. That $5, it's not about the $5. It's about whether you communicated it to that person and that person feels like you respected them and they don't feel like you are just trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Messy Hairstylist Podcast. I'm Kelsey Morris.
Speaker 3:And I'm Abby Warther. Whether you are a mess, literally or figuratively, we are here to help you take imperfect action to find your success as a hairstylist.
Speaker 2:Part two. We promised it. We're delivering part two with Hunter. I am so pumped to talk about this topic and we were going to put it all into one episode, but it just felt like two was appropriate, because the first one was so good that the second one is going to be just as good, if not better. I can't wait to talk about it. So welcome back, Hunter. Oh hey, hi.
Speaker 1:Part two let's get it popping, ladies, let's go.
Speaker 3:Yes, double the fun. I love it we're doubling down today.
Speaker 2:Okay, abby, I want you to introduce the topic, because you were the one who brought this to me and I was like, oh my gosh, that's so good, so introduce it. Tell us what we're talking about.
Speaker 3:Okay. So this is something that's been on my mind a lot. I know stylists that I work with in my programs and I thought who better to ask this to who works with so many hairstylists? And I believe Hunter just has a really great pulse in the industry and I also, like Hunter, your perspective on the industry. So the topic that I wanted to bring to all of us today is where is the industry at today? Because what I've been hearing from a lot of stylists is that they're dead, they're slow, they're struggling, they're scared, they don't want to raise prices, they need to make more money their prices. So, like there's a lot in this topic, but I just wanted to bring it to Hunter and be like what are you hearing, what are you experiencing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what? It's interesting because I feel like I'm hearing such different things across the board. So I have some students who are in my atmosphere, who are experiencing what you just shared, in which they have been really booked and busy for so long and for the very first time in a long time they are not experiencing that same amount of influx. They're getting a lot more last minute cancellations, a lot of people stretching out appointments. But then, on the flip side, I have students who have been working their ass off for the past like couple years like trying to get clients and they have had no traction whatsoever who are all of a sudden like blowing up their businesses and like are doing really, really, really well, which has been really fascinating to watch. And I am not sure necessarily if every single person is having like the same experience across the board. I genuinely think it is so individual, depending on the location you're in, the type of work that you've done thus far up until this point in the past couple of years and a lot of different factors.
Speaker 1:But I think that a couple of different things that are affecting consumer behavior and the way that people are trusting hairstylists.
Speaker 1:I think number one is price transparency, I think is really huge right now.
Speaker 1:I think that a lot of people are becoming very distrusting of hairstylist pricing because over the past couple of years you've seen TikToks and Instagram reels of like saying like I charged this client $2,000 and here's why.
Speaker 1:And then all of these people in the comments will like these clients will just freak out and just be like what the hell is this?
Speaker 1:Or you'll have a lot of people who are going to hairstylists and hairstylists just are not communicating these expectations up front, but they're being told to charge their worth nonstop and then they go ahead and they charge it without the clear communication up front and it ends up being so much more than what this client may have signed up for, what their expectations were. And I think that also, with inflation being so increased and so intense over the past couple years, with our cost of goods and our cost of doing business just absolutely skyrocketing that's what I just hear from hairstylists across the board nonstop that is our biggest concern and biggest constraint right now. I think that we have done significant price increases over the past couple of years and I think that generally, the general consumer has seen that and recognize that and it's making them even less trusting of our industry and seeking at-home solutions or more affordable solutions as well, and I think that's a big, big factor in any sort of change or hairstylist being slower right now.
Speaker 2:So what would? Yeah, I love that, but we've talked about don't be afraid to raise your prices. We've talked about like the this this kind of stuff is important. We've talked about the cost of goods being more expensive and how we're paying more. What would be your advice to someone who's listening to a stylist, who's listening how to make your clients more trusting, cause I love that. You said that this comes down to a trust issue for our clients, and so what would be your advice to make your clients more trusting of your pricing and your skills?
Speaker 1:Well, I absolutely have advice for that. I do want to know, Abby, did you have something to share? Just in case it adds more context to what I would share.
Speaker 3:Yes, I do Do it, yes. So okay, you said this is making us less trusting and I a thousand percent agree with that, because I also try to keep a really good pulse on the industry, and a great way to keep pulse in the industry is get on TikTok, because that's-.
Speaker 1:Literally yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just scroll TikTok and so that's what we're seeing is this price transparency, and so you're saying that stylists have given more of a price transparency, some online saying the big high tickets, and then we get the consumers coming to the comments and saying this is ridiculous, who do they think they are, and all those things, and so it creates all of this stress in our industry coming from clients and from stylists, and what this comes down to is a communication problem, and I also believe this. It comes down to a couple different things of a communication problem and a knee-jerk reaction from hairstylists.
Speaker 3:That's why our prices have gone up so much since 2020, because it's a knee-jerk reaction to us not running our businesses well, yep, before 2020. And it's also, then, based out of fear. We talked about fear in the last episode together, and so there's this to me. I just see the whole problem is coming down to fear of hairstylists. We didn't run our business as well. We saw 2020 happen and now all these prices coming up, so we have this knee-jerk reaction of like well, now I have to raise my prices because they never would have just themselves in the past, based off of their experience and their business themselves, they're doing it only based off of economy and then, because there's still fear there, they don't communicate it properly. Yes, Right.
Speaker 3:Right and then that's why clients don't trust us, literally, yes, yes, okay.
Speaker 1:There is a sentiment that drives me up a wall. Okay, it drives me up a wall when I see this in, like the free Facebook groups. It's like hairdressers help hairdressers or whatever, maybe. Like where there's like 100,000 hairdressers from all over the place and they're all like commenting and posting and everything like that I see all the time. Well, grocery stores don't tell us when we raise. Tell us when they raise prices. So like, why should we?
Speaker 1:And I'm like girl, because it's a dollar, because number one the grocery store is an essential thing for a human being to be frequenting like you can't just you can't choose to not go and get groceries a lot of the time right. The other thing is, too, is that you know we work in such a you're a personal brand, whether you are a salon or not. I mean you don't have a face of a grocery store that is representing the entire grocery store that the customer has a relationship with or has built trust with per se right, and so that creates such a unique dynamic. That's why our industry is unique and so much more sensitive in these types of things and these topics is because there is a face to the name and to the person that you're doing business with and therefore there is this sense of trust and this importance around trust and communicating. Even a small price increase, like even the $5, is absolutely so important, particularly in times in which people are much more scarce, much more fearful around their money and how they're spending it and what the future looks like for them in the world and the economy. That $5, it's not about the $5. It's about whether you communicated it to that person and that person feels like you respected them and they don't feel like you are just trying to pull the wool over their eyes or something like that. So we absolutely have to be communicating our increases and should have been up until this point if we have not been.
Speaker 1:And then, furthermore, what we also need to make sure that we're doing is, prior to enacting upon the service, we need to make sure that the client understands what they're getting themselves into and, honestly, this goes back to part one.
Speaker 1:So like if you have been, if you're listening to this, my friend right now and you haven't listened to part one, go back and listen to it. It goes back to also like online booking can be really helpful because your client can see what price they're signing up for upfront. It goes back to making sure that your service descriptions and the names of your services make sense so that way, when a new potential client goes onto your website, looks at your service menu, they can self-identify more accurately with the service that they would need for what they're trying to get done, so they can budget properly upfront, without a lot of consultation with the stylist or without having that in-person situation and of course, that's never going to be perfect, but we can do our due diligence of trying to make it. So this stuff all makes more sense to our clients with just simple, great communication skills and and getting ourselves out of our hairdresser brain and putting ourselves into the shoes of our consumers and our clients.
Speaker 3:Yes, I love that Everything.
Speaker 2:I love the snap after.
Speaker 1:like love that I love that If I could drop my mic. I could, but it's on an arm.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so you're really bringing it to like have it's hard to say, use a word, but like, almost like an empathetic stance for our clients. I love that you brought up like the TikTok thing and it's like I charge 2000 for this and this is why I'm worth it, and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that's great and I do believe we are worth it and I do believe that we should be valued. But you also are making us understand that we have to approach our clients with empathy and their situation too, and transparency is all part of that. Just being transparent about the services we offer, the price they're gonna pay I don't know how many times I've seen people stylists check out their client and they've added on X, y and Z and now their price is 150 or 200 more than they were expecting. But not everybody just has that. Not everybody just has that. So, like you said, it's for them to trust us more. It's being transparent with the service they're getting and what the cost is going to be.
Speaker 3:But even if somebody does have that money, so like if somebody does that to me and I have that money, I'm just pissed because I'm just like well, hold up, I'm no idiot, just talk to me, give me the options, don't just throw it on there and run away. I've had someone do that to me with other services not hair stuff and it left a really bad taste in my mouth and I didn't go back to them because I'm just like what are you doing and what?
Speaker 2:are you going to charge?
Speaker 1:me, I want to be able to plan as well, and we have to respect people and do that 100% and you know, I think, like I think, what I a lot of, what I teach is very much like these forward thinking concepts and I have taught to like raise your freaking prices like a significant amount if on paper you can sustainably handle that Like, if that is what is needed and necessary.
Speaker 3:If your business is showing that.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and I also teach to like having some pretty intense boundaries in your business, like online booking only.
Speaker 1:Like I teach to these pretty like intense methods of like taking power back into your business and into like how you want to run your business in a sustainable way.
Speaker 1:Like I teach these things, the nuance and something that flows throughout every single thing that I teach is taking into consideration the real perspective of the experience that you are creating with your clients, and oftentimes I will hear, like even from my students, like I love that you still stand up for the client, I love that you give your client like the client, like you humanize them and you make and you, because you are working with human beings with real circumstances and like real life spheres and issues and and different ways that they spend money, and there's just no way around that.
Speaker 1:And I think that there is a world in which and I teach it to my students, I see it in the way that they run their businesses, if they take my advice Like there's a world in which we can have great businesses for ourselves that grant us work-life balance without jeopardizing the experience that we're giving the clients and our reputation as an industry and locally for that individual as well too. But I think it's just making sure that you understand, like what that balance looks like taking consideration of the client always and then also making sure that your business is actually in a stable space in order to make any changes or increases or whatever it may be, in which you can handle any fallout that you may get from that, and making sure that you do it in a responsible way.
Speaker 3:Okay, so here's my question now. So, given the state where the industry is right now and and, and clients as a whole are not trusting hairstyles as much, and pricing, and there's, there's not that transparency isn't there, but stylists are struggling.
Speaker 3:And I know not as a whole and I agree with you it's not as a whole, but it is a big narrative right now there's a lot of hairstyles stepping forward and saying and when I see groups and just a general consensus of it's not busy right now and I'm struggling, they're scared. And this is hairstyles asking for help. So this is where we're at Clients aren't trusting. It's hard to raise prices right now unless your business is booming and the people that are concerned their business isn't booming. So now, what now? What now? What do we do? What?
Speaker 1:do hairstylists?
Speaker 3:do in this boat.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of hairstylists who may be in this boat right now, possibly if like for and again it's so, it's so individual based, but like for, the hairstylists who who were completely booked and busy and like are are experiencing maybe this amount of slowness that they've never experienced before.
Speaker 1:I feel like a lot of the times what happens is we've maybe taken a step back because we were so overwhelmed and we, we got really comfortable with the success that we created for ourselves and, um, and it actually went into the opposite way, you know, and we went the opposite way a little bit too far preemptively, and now we're seeing the effects of like taking a step back and getting overwhelmed and getting a little bit too comfortable, you know, I think another thing is to I think a lot of people knew what they should have been doing all along, but they just weren't showing up and doing it for themselves when it comes to their consistency in marketing and their consistency in offering a great client experience.
Speaker 1:And so now that there's urgency to do it that's when they're going to, you know have to show up and try to make up for all the lost time that they could have been taking advantage of opportunities or should have been showing up for themselves in the meantime, consistently, I think. A lot of the times people know what they need to do, just as I spoke in the last episode. A lot of the time people know what they need to do, but they will make up every single excuse they possibly can to not do it.
Speaker 2:Well, I love that you said so. When we started this, I was staring at you because Abby and I just had a conversation this morning about the pulse of the industry and we're like we have gaps in our schedule right now that we have not normally had, and so when she asked you that question, I wanted to hear the answer because I wanted to see how it pertained to me and my schedule. And what you said that really resonated with me was we're overwhelmed, and that is part of it. So let's look at my situation right now. I just moved into a new space. Like I've had a lot going on. I've had personal issues, this and that that is affecting my clients, and I might not have recognized that and realized that, but it is, and so it's.
Speaker 2:It's amazing when you say some like simple things like that that we might not even realize, like you got to do some deep soul searching to understand what's actually happening. So I guarantee that's exactly what's happening in my situation right now, and so it's. How can I shift? How can I adjust that? How can I get back to basics, Go back to what I do best, focus on the client experience, client interaction and the transparency with them. So, like that was just like such a great moment. So if you're listening and you're wondering, I love that you forced me to like look inward, look inward and start to like really think, like, what are the factors? What has changed?
Speaker 3:What are the factors? I'm glad that you leaned into that, kelsey, because one of the things that I've, you know, I mean for years now, it's just been growth and do and build and all these things with my education business, with my salon, with my team, with my own business at the chair, and something that we're going to be talking about in some episodes down the line here, kelsey now is like the what's next?
Speaker 2:right.
Speaker 3:What's next once you do have the success that you always dreamed of. But that brings to this point of what I have been focusing on for the last just couple months and I know it's going to be my word of the year for 2025, is nurture, and I think that that's what Hunter's saying. It's like if you're a stylist who has had some success and you're starting to see it shrink a bit because maybe we got a little too comfortable, we need to go back to nurturing the business that we've grown and get back to exactly everything you just said, Kelsey. What did I let slide? What can I get back to and start working on? And let's nurture what we already have instead of trying to scramble and fill in gaps that we have right now. That really it's because we missed that mark months ago, a year ago.
Speaker 2:I love that and we want to blame so much of it on prices and what's going on at the economy and this, this and this, but love that. This is such an eye-opening experience. Let's take care of the people that we have. Let's nurture those relationships. Those clients Love that. Yes.
Speaker 1:And also, too, I think what's going to be very important as well to understand is that when you are in a space of fear and scramble and urgency, you will just do things out of urgency and oftentimes they're done half-assed, without strategy, without full thought. Highly recommend is, in this space, approach things as strategically as possible and stick to the plan and also do not expect instant gratification from it, because the actions that you put in right now are not just to get you immediate results. They also affect the results that you get way down the line. So just remember, like the results that you're putting in right now, if you're not seeing great traction from them immediately, just know that they're not going to waste and the lack of dopamine and reward that you're going to get in your brain from not getting that instant gratification. Do not let that stop you or discourage you from continuously showing up, because you will thank yourself way later down the line when you didn't give up Even when shit was hard.
Speaker 3:I can't like okay done.
Speaker 2:All right, I know, I was like. I was like cut it, we should cut it. That was the end. Honestly, I think that's how we end on it. That was so good, you guys, I love it. I was like okay, so, abby, you can leave me and Hunter are going to talk. Okay, I'm just kidding Everybody. Everybody, do a peace sign or something so we can get us out.
