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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
Weathering Financial Storms: Creative Solutions for Stylists During the Holidays
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How can hairstylists maintain financial stability during the hectic holiday season or unexpected challenges? This episode of The Messy Hairstylist Podcast dives into personal stories of navigating illness, financial stress, and client demands while offering practical tips for resilience. Discover strategies like passive income, gift card sales, holiday raffles, and collaborations to boost cash flow. Learn how to adapt pricing during slower periods and build a financial safety net to stay prepared for the unpredictable. Tune in for creative solutions and inspiration to keep your business thriving!
Follow Abby on Instagram and TikTok at @theabbywarther
Follow Kelsey on Instagram at @kelseymorrishair
I have to figure out now how I can pay bills, pay rent, keep my family afloat and it's so stressful and I'm still trying to work through that as I'm coming back to work. But I came up with a few ideas on quick ways that I could make some passive income. Welcome to the Messy Hairstylist Podcast. I'm Kelsey Morris and I'm Abbey.
Speaker 2: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 1:Well, we are in the midst of the holiday hustle and we all know, as stylists, what that's like. It's a little bit chaotic in the salon right now. Is your salon chaotic, abby?
Speaker 2:Yes, my salon is chaotic, but I like it that way for the holidays, because if it wasn't, then you'd be freaking out. That'd be a different kind of chaotic scary.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, ours is too, and it's actually I love it. So in the new salon, we have like a bunch of new stylists and it just starting to feel like an actual salon now because there's tons of people in there and it's been great. Love that, yeah. So I do also love the holiday chaos. I actually love the week after Christmas, too, where there's no chaos, but you know, the buildup is fun as well. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:It's the journey. It's all about the journey which leads me to today's topic. So you and I have both experienced in the last month or so some sickness going through our families. So today I want to talk a little bit about the pressure we have on us as a hairdresser to make. Obviously, if we're not working, we're not making any money. What happens in those moments when you're completely down and out, you can't work for a couple of weeks? How do we survive and what that looks like, not only from a mental standpoint, but from a monetary standpoint?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's so real. I had that happen to me, I think back in September. I got really sick and I mean, you know, I tracked my numbers and that month was like so low in revenue coming in and it's like I looked back at it. Because I was looking back at it and I was like what that is so low, that's not. And then I looked at my actual schedule, seeing almost more than a week blocked off, and I was like, oh okay, there you go.
Speaker 1:Now I understand. Yeah, it's presented a whole bunch of new challenges for me this year. So I'm a single parent, so trying to run my household with just one income is stressful on its own. But two weeks ago my daughter ended up in the hospital and was admitted for several days, which then required me to take off work. And then, after she got out, I got sick, and then the baby got sick and it has been a nightmare.
Speaker 1:So for two weeks I was basically treading water with clients. I would work when I could, but there wasn't a lot of time to work, and then, obviously, when I was sick, I can't go into work, and so then it became okay. Well, not only is it the holiday season and everybody wants their hair done, but I'm trying to move them, find appointments for them, but also I'm losing money in the process and I have to figure out now how I can pay bills, pay rent, keep my family afloat, and it's so stressful and I'm still trying to work through that as I'm coming back to work. But I came up with a few ideas on quick ways that I could make some passive income.
Speaker 1:Oh good I love that, love this, love this for me.
Speaker 2:Okay, because everything you just said it's like I know everyone that's listening. They feel it so hard because every single one of us has experienced it in some capacity, because every single one of us has experienced it in some capacity, and it's scary. And then it's also like you're in this place, like you were in this place when you were in the thick of that of I need to generate some income, but you also weren't 100% either. It's so hard.
Speaker 2:It's so hard, you throw your emotions and that kind of stress into it and it's just I don't know. As a hairstylist, I always feel like I throw my hands up, I don't know what to do, so I just push through and try to work if I can Right. That's the like to me. It's awful. I hate that.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited to hear of your other ways to generate income and I'm curious is this an aftermath thing that you do? Is this something that you do throughout the year, so that when these moments do pop up, you've got a little nest egg? I'm interested to hear.
Speaker 1:Well, it's funny that you brought up the word nest egg because, as I was saying this, I'm thinking well, Abby, if this were Abby, Abby would be like well, we should have prepared for this, we should have had that nest egg. Okay, and and I'm not saying I don't have a nest egg, but here's the thing. You don't want to touch your nest egg Well it's not even that, but you have to think about so.
Speaker 1:I know a lot of people are listening to this and we've. We preach nest egg, plan for the worst, put money aside for these types of things. There are times when you can't plan for the worst. There are times when the worst is so many worse things that there's no longer a.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. You're like I didn't anticipate a hospital bill for four nights in a in a hospital. I didn't anticipate that. I couldn't have planned for that. I couldn't have planned for at the same exact time Um, my tire my complete rent rim needed bent was bent so I needed to get a new tire. I couldn't have planned for that. I couldn't have also planned for being out of work for two weeks.
Speaker 1:So it's like there's certain things where it's like okay, so now my nest egg has completely dwindled down and you're really feeling defeated so we can sit here and preach all day long like try to plan for the worst. But there are people in certain situations that maybe can't right now especially think about newer stylists. I try to picture myself as a 22-year-old. I had a baby and I was a newer stylist and I was trying to build my business.
Speaker 1:And if someone would have been like, well, you should be putting money away for your nest egg, I'd be like there's no possible way that I can't, because that money is going towards diapers right now. That money is going to try to, like you know, put food on the table. There's no possible way. So this can relate to not only people who've been in the business, who are taking a ton of hard hits at once, but also to the newer stylists or to the struggling mom. And I just hits at once, but also to the newer stylists or to the struggling mom, and I just feel so deeply for those people, for anyone in this situation right now.
Speaker 1:So I'm hoping that what I'm saying can help a little bit.
Speaker 2:And it's like because it's like even like us who have healthy schedules, when those things happen, just even opening up your books and working more, like you don't just pull more clients out of thin air because it's also timing, like yeah, I've got a bunch of clients but this just happened and then I had to cancel on a bunch of them and then now to fill up my books and like make that money back. It doesn't work like that because that's not the schedule everyone's on. So you can't just pluck clients out of thin air when you need them on your books.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad you said that I want to address this. My, it's so. It's so frustrating to me, um, and because, even so, I was able to shift some people around and get people in and but some of my clients who needed in immediately, I had to shift them off to my coworkers Exactly. So you have to think immediately, I mean, I probably lost 15, 20 clients right there shifting them off. So then I come back to work and people are like well, just like work an extra day.
Speaker 1:Ok, I can work an extra day all day long, but, like you said, you can't find, you can't pluck clients out of thin air. So if your clients are on a schedule and they're used to getting in or they're doing you know what I mean Like, where are these extra clients coming from? Yeah, I can send an email out and be like I have an opening and they're like well, I just got my hair done, or you know, like it doesn't work like that. And I think that's one thing that does frustrate me and people who aren't in our industry, on the outside, who are like trying to help you out. They're like just work an extra day. Yeah, let me just work an extra day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not in the two main boats of people who are salary-based employees who make their paycheck you know they get so many sick days but they still make their money or hourly-based employees who can pick up an extra shift at their job and make it like, if you're a waitress or a shift-type job, I'm going to pick up some extra shifts and make some extra money to make up.
Speaker 1:We don't have the luxury of either no, and it's not that easy. So, where you can open up an extra day, send out an email, maybe post on Instagram so you can get people. It's not going to be your same full day that you would have, so you know I You're lucky to make an extra maybe $200, $300 in that day Cool.
Speaker 1:So I think that is also something that needs to be addressed, because you know people, I just love it from the outside. Like just work an extra day, like oh, you don't think I thought of that, I tried that. That's not working, okay. So the first thing that I did so I remember sitting with my daughter in the hospital and feeling absolutely just like what am I supposed to do? Like I missed a day of work, what can I do right here from this hospital and figure out to generate some money? So the first thing I did was I ran a gift card sale. I don't love to sell gift cards all the time. It's not my favorite thing to do, it's not something that I advertise all the time, because that's just my personal preference.
Speaker 1:I could go into that all day long, but that's not for today's conversation. But in this exact moment I needed to generate revenue immediately. So what I did was I sent out an email and I put it on social media that for a limited time I was running a gift card sale. So for every $100 they purchased, they got a $10 bonus, and so their $100 turned into $110. And then with that I also gave away a free deep conditioner with every gift card purchase. So immediately I sent that out to my clients, I made $1,000 in gift card sales. Love it. Okay, cool, was able to pay my car payment that day.
Speaker 2:Not really. That's not really what it went towards.
Speaker 1:No, I know, but for someone, right, okay, yeah, and so that was helpful immediately and that was something that I could do while sitting in a hospital room. That didn't require much effort on my end. So that's a very easy one, and if you use like Gloss Genius like I use Gloss Genius it tracks it for you so you know exactly which client bought the gift card. And then I just added in there the notes to the client profile. Susan has extra $20 bonus bucks and I just treat that as cash when I am servicing my client.
Speaker 2:Nice and Vegaro does that as well. So if anybody uses Vegaro, you can sell through Vegaro. It tracks. You can check them out with their gift card. Yes, I do want to have a little caveat to the gift cards and I think we should do an episode on gift cards. So do, I Okay so okay, then I'll save my caveat for the next episode.
Speaker 1:No, give us a little caveat, because I want to know where we're leading to.
Speaker 2:Well, it's just, I am the same. I won't go into all this yet, but gift card sales are cash flow and they're also considered a liability in accounting. So just be careful, because then when people go to redeem the gift cards and if you've already spent the money now in the future you don't have that cash flow yes so just be careful.
Speaker 2:But when you are in places like that, yeah, sometimes we need cash flow, yes, be careful. But when you are in in places like that, yeah, sometimes we need cash flow and then yeah, immediately.
Speaker 1:I think that's such a good point and that's why I feel the same way I do about gift cards. So many people are like so all about like gift cards, selling gift cards. I'm like, yeah, but I have a whole thing I'm actually.
Speaker 2:I don't sell gift cards every holiday season. This holiday season I am, and let's make that our next episode. I'm going to talk about why I am. It's very strategic. So let's do that, because this year I'm doing it and I would love to share.
Speaker 1:I can't wait. That's going to be a great episode. Yeah, okay, okay. So the second thing I did for to get creative, these are in steps too. This was like the step one was the easiest one. The second one is I did a put together a large basket, a product basket, and it was a lot of things that I just had right. So, like I was sent some freebies, like I had gotten one of those you know, those blow dry brushes that are wet to whatever Never opened it, it was just sitting there. A curling iron, some products that I have not tried. I put in a ton of stuff in this basket.
Speaker 2:It's gigantic, so you didn't have to pay for, didn't have to pay for I already had it.
Speaker 1:I went to the salon store and I got a bunch of samples. I mean I like maxed this basket out. If it was probably all in retail, it's probably got over $500 worth of stuff in it, and I also added some stuff from our boutique in there too. And then I have it sitting out near my station and I'm doing a raffle so for my clients, for just an extra holiday fun. And they're like get excited about it. They see all the stuff in it. They can buy one ticket for $6, two for $10. And I mean you'd be surprised.
Speaker 1:People love a fun raffle. They're just like all about that and it didn't cost me anything. So, love a fun raffle. They're just like all about that and it didn't cost me anything. So it's like whatever. I mean, is it a massive turn? No, it's not making me a ton of money, but it is also something that's just a little extra. And I also kind of found it fun for my clients because they're like, oh, this is so cool, we want to get in on it. So you could absolutely do something like that and if you wanted to maximize on that because there was other ways that I was thinking of maximizing on it. You could get some local people involved. So one of what I'm looking for. Like the coffee store next door, I was going to ask hey, do you guys want to do a gift card? They would put a gift card in the stand which shop down the street. Everybody wants to advertise their business.
Speaker 1:Love that, so you know you can put a bunch of different Collaborating Collab and then put it all in that gift basket as well.
Speaker 2:I love that. Another thing you can do. I don't know why I forgot about this. I did this last holiday season. I wanted to. I invested last holiday season into a lot of the holiday gift sets like from our product line and I wanted to make sure we moved those because I hate when they're still there after the holidays and so for everyone that purchased a gift box, a gift set, got them a entry into ours. So I was incentiv selling certain things in my salon that I really wanted to move through through that. So that's such a good idea.
Speaker 1:That's a really good idea.
Speaker 2:I forgot to do that this year, so next year we do so many things and we forget. So that's why I love this topic that you're bringing to us today, because there are ways that we can generate income creatively, yeah, and so what else we got here?
Speaker 1:Okay. So the third and final one. This requires time, but I think it's actually really smart and I'm like, wow, man, maybe I should. You're so smart, gosh. You know when you? You got to get what's the word you always talk about me and get gritty. What do you call me Scrappy? You got to get what's the word. You always talk about me and get gritty. What do you call me Scrappy Grappy? You got to get scrappy.
Speaker 1:So I came up with this idea. It was actually kind of like a two-part idea, because I we had talked about how I threw that mother-daughter event in my salon. It was a big scale and it generated a ton of revenue for the salon. It was awesome. It went really great. It was huge, though, and then my friend, my co-stylist, was like hey, do you care if I throw my daughter's birthday party in here? I was like no, that's a great idea, and so this kind of came as a two-fold idea. So I started to reach out to my clients. I sent just like an email out to them and was like now hosting birthday parties.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, you have the perfect space for that.
Speaker 1:Right, so think about this. So I've booked two birthday parties, okay, yes.
Speaker 2:I love you. Oh my God, you just get down to it. This is amazing. Okay, tell me about it. I had to do it.
Speaker 1:You know, we got to make things happen. So, right, okay. So I came up with a whole scheme. I thought okay, realistically, how many people can I handle? How many if I have myself and one other girl there? One person's going to do nails, I'm going to do hair, what can we handle? So we capped it at um. We did an eight kid minimum, 10 person maximum. Um, we drafted out the whole day, made a really cute flyer, um, and then they pay for it in advance and everything else was super easy for me. So we're offering. What they do when they come in is they'll get their hair, the girls will get their hair curled, they'll get their nails done, they get to make a sugar scrub, a perfume and get hair tinsel oh my gosh all in for my cost, all in for this, like with all the supplies and everything is probably less than I'd say less than $75 all in, and the girls, I mean.
Speaker 1:And these these things are expensive, so rough numbers?
Speaker 2:How much are you charging? We have to get. Come on, I know. No, I'm down, I'm down, I'm down.
Speaker 1:So it's a two hour birthday party for $750. And if they go, every other extra child that they add on is $60 extra. So they $8, eight kids for $750. And then, if they want to do, up to 10.
Speaker 2:And you've already had two people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I booked two parties oh look at the balloons.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, yeah, wow, I was thinking 300.
Speaker 1:So I, it has to be, and it's not even that Like I. I was thinking less right. And then I started to research around us. Okay, birthday parties, and there are salons that do this, but they're the bigger, grander salons, that the, you know, the corporate ones, okay, and but they all they do is like the hair and the nails and they were charging over $800. And I was like what if I add on more to this and I make it even more exciting for a little bit less? So I just kind of went off market research and I was like just threw it out there to see how it would go and boom done.
Speaker 2:That is amazing. I'm so impressed. Thank you. Insane Like that can be an easy ongoing thing, like always.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's two hours of my time and I'm not like. I'm like if you want to bring a birthday cake, totally fine. If you don't, don't like, it is what it is. It's on a Sunday, the salon is not open. And even if the salon was open, I have the upstairs space which I could use.
Speaker 2:But you think about it so someone can do this in their salon. They don't have to have an extra space like you do, exactly Just in your regular salon space.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and you could even do back to back, so that day you could do a birthday in the morning and a birthday in the evening. You're already there, done.
Speaker 2:And moms would love this Because if you think about planning a party for your kid with all their friends, just like, oh my gosh, so much I love a time limit on a kid's birthday party. I love all the activities. We come in, we do the things, we leave. You don't have to get things ready at your house. That's why people go and do all the big, like you know, trampoline parks and all that kind of stuff, because it's just party to go right there.
Speaker 1:Right, right, I mean, and if you think about it, think about if you were a mom and you were taking eight girls to go get their nails done, yeah, your bill would be almost that in itself just to get their nails done. I mean, you can't get your nails done for less than I mean with the, what the kids want these days. So it's like, yeah, I mean, and again, this is, this is totally adjustable. Like you, you have to look at what's around you, what you you could charge, what works for your area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you have a competitive aspect to yours because the other big salons and you're in the greater Columbus area are doing that. So for me I don't think there's salons around me that do it, but it doesn't mean I can't do it, and maybe my price point's not $750. Maybe mine is like $400 to $500. And then I just have to watch my cost and time into it. Right, yeah, it's so doable. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, you know again, this is. This is a situation where we will tell you all day long try to prepare for the worst, try to set money. We've had episodes where we've said, like what if you have slower times? And we're like, well, you got to set money aside for the slower times, be prepared for those. This isn't supposed to be a slower time for us, and so it's hard to prepare for something that you're like, oh, shoot what you know, like maybe I'd miss a day of work, but two, almost two weeks, that's a lot around the holidays. So sometimes it requires thinking outside of the box and not getting completely defeated. I am one of those people where, if I start to get so defeated, I become paralyzed in my defeat. It gets me.
Speaker 1:And then I do nothing. I sit there with my computer on my lap and watch Netflix and I'm like what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 2:Disassociate Totally. I think that's very relatable. We've all been there, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's like it's just too much, and so it took me a minute to rework my brain. Listen, you don't get to do this, you don't get to do this. You need to figure it out, and there's always a way to figure it out. And whether that means that you have to get scrappy and come up with some creative ways to generate revenue or you go back to basics, either way, there's always a way to figure it out. So don't let yourself get defeated, don't let yourself get paralyzed, and just really work through some options to give yourself a chance in those times when you're feeling completely defeated.
