139: Success Has a Journey

Have you ever scrolled through social media and start comparing yourself to others? Of course you have...we all have, and it's a terrible, soul-crushing thing to do to yourself. You see, most people only give you a snapshot of their lives - and it usually looks highly successful. Then it makes us feel like we are doing enough. Don't fall into that trap!
Today's episode is about thinking about the journey to success...I share a bit of my story, so maybe you can relate. 
Success is really about showing up consistently, doing the things that most people don't want to do...

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Transcript

1:32

Well, hey there. This is Danise. And this is the Salon Ownership Made Easy podcast for salon owners who are searching for simple solutions to their everyday challenges. I've owned several six and seven figure award winning salons in my 30 year career. With so many changes happening in our industry these days, it seems like salon owners need a shoulder a hug and a big dose of reality. Think about it. We didn't learn how to be successful salon owners in beauty school. So why don't you let me share what has worked and what hasn't worked for me over the years, you do have what it takes to be amazingly successful. So let's do this. I'm excited you're here. today's podcast is going to talk about comparing ourselves to others. And their success. Sometimes I feel like we look at other people, especially on social media. And we look at their success, because that's the snapshot that they want us to see. Right, it's the best version of themselves, or of their businesses, we fail to see the whole journey that has got them there. Most people don't display all the hardships. And trust me, as an entrepreneur, as a salon owner, as even a stylist, there's a lot of hardships. There's a lot of many, many, many days, you show up, you have to force a smile on and just do it anyway. Right? You understand what I'm saying? I want to share my experience with you about this, because it really got me thinking. Because a lot of people, you know, they asked me, how did you achieve what you did? And sometimes I dismissed that. And I think, What do you mean, I just I just showed up consistent hard work every single day. But that's kind of wrong, too, because we dismissed the journey that got us to that point. So let me just back up. If you don't know me, and if you don't know my history, I have been in the beauty industry for 30 years now. I've had four salons, everything from three chairs to eight chairs to 12 chairs. My last one was two locations with 20 Chair capacity. And it was all done on commission commission salons. So team members. And at one point, right before COVID We were the number one retailer for the brand that we carried. That's pretty amazing. And we were also before COVID at $2 million in revenue salon. That's pretty amazing too, because I could remember when I first started that my goal, my first goal really was to have a successful salon to have a place to build up other stylists and give a career path of course yes. But my personal goal was to be a salon today top 200 salon. I didn't even know what it took to do that until I met another salon owner who who told me what to do. And that it was actually a doable thing. So for four years in a row. We were on that list of salon today top 200 salons. I was so proud. My stylists, my team didn't even know what that meant. They didn't know what that meant to me personally. Another goal I had was to be a million dollar salon. I don't know why. I just got that number in my mind. And that's what I wanted to do because we all needed to have goals to reach for in mind was was that? Well, lo and behold, before I even knew it, we were a$2 million, so on. But it wasn't easy. It definitely wasn't easy. You know, it came with a lot of pain. It came with a lot of hard work. It came with a lot of showing up when you didn't want to heck I remember my amazing husband reminds me of this every once in a while. There are many holidays, because he had time off and the salon was closed that we spent in the salon. I don't know redoing the ceilings, or the plumbing or putting in new mirrors or painting or whatever it took. When New Year's Eve we were there. We celebrated New Year's Eve overnight in the salon because we were putting up new walls to build a facial room. I know you just do what it takes. But that's what I'm saying is that people look at your success. And they don't even think about the journey that that it took to get there. Even me I forget about the journey that God is to that point. And you know a lot of sleepless nights of payroll, how am I gonna meet pay enroll, there were there was a time, there was a time that I had to work behind the chair myself just to provide a paycheck to the employees that I employed. That meant that I wasn't bringing home a paycheck, I would not recommend that. Please have a business plan. You are paying yourself something I went four years, four years without a paycheck. Most people don't know that they don't. They don't see that. They only see oh, she's this owner of this successful salon, she must be bringing in the cash. No, no, most salon owners aren't bringing in the cash. In fact, if you're working for a very successful salon, and your salon owner is showing up for you every single day, there were many times that were there were stylists in the salon. Many times many years, they were bringing home more money than I was bringing home. And I was the salon owner with everything on my shoulders, doing all the crap work behind the scenes. And I do mean crap work. Sometimes, you know, you're dealing with the plumbing, and the frickin washer and dryer that keeps breaking. And the stupid mop sink in the break room that gets overflowed, or you name it. That's what you do. You change light bulbs, you paint, you fix things that need fixed. But you do it when nobody's there, and nobody can see that part. And what about all the early early mornings of getting up going over goals? You know, doing the paperwork, doing your reviews, doing setting up education, figuring out how am I going to afford the education that my my stylists need so desperately? And that's what they want to grow their career? How am I going to afford that? How am I going to work that out with my vendors to get that into my salon. Just Just things, lots of sleepless nights, a lots of figuring things out lots of actually education for myself to become a better leader. And that was out of pocket. And that was travel. And that wasn't like luxury vacations that was sitting in a classroom, eight hours a day, for three or four days, learning what it really takes to be a leader and learning how to actually run a successful salon. Because a long time I just kind of did on a prayer. Luckily, it worked. But I wouldn't look good. And I wouldn't recommend that. I would recommend getting yourself behind some kind of education, a coach, somebody who's been there before, who's been through the trenches, who can help you say, Hey, you're going to be okay. On the other side of this, it's going to be okay. Somebody who's been there before, somebody who has, who can lift you up and say, I've done that. This is probably what's going to happen. Let me help you, let me guide you, let me show you. So you don't have to make all the mistakes that I made. Really, that's what we all need to do. We all need to uplift each other. And we all have to remember that we are people first. And what you see on the outside isn't necessarily what's really going on underneath the surface. People just really want to show you what they want to show you. They want to show you the good. Of course, nobody wants to see all the crap you're going through. You know, that's not very entertaining. So we show up on social media as the best version of ourselves. But when you see that when you see that salon owner or that salon coach or that stylists that you really want to be think about their journey to get there. It did not happen overnight. And it did not happen by accident. It happened by taking every single day, getting up earlier, consistently showing up having a plan of action. And following through. Really, I think though the most important thing is showing up consistently. Don't be so hard on yourself, if you fail one day, the next day is a new day. I'm sharing this because I listened to a podcast the other day that kind of talked about this that we don't see, you know, we look at like Elon Musk or Amazon or, you know, Apple and we don't we don't we see them as this huge successful company. Right? Hugely successful these and we forget that. Hey, it started in the garage. It started really small. It started with eating ramen noodles. It started with having nothing and just having that hope, that dream that maybe it'll be something and as a salon owner, sometimes that's all you have You just have to keep going. And maybe one day, it's going to be what you thought it was. Or guess what, maybe one day you'll wake up, and all of a sudden you'll look around and it is what you dreamed it was going to be. That's what happened to me. All of a sudden, I looked around I said, Holy crap. I've always wanted this. And I was so deep in it that I forgot that that's what I wanted. How crazy is that? We forget to to celebrate the success as it happens. We are always looking for the next thing. The next thing the next thing. Oh, one more salon. One more this one more that. Celebrate what you have, celebrate the small steps because after a while those small steps add up and all of a sudden you are exactly where you want to be. But ask for help. show up consistently, every single day. The only person you have to be better than is yourself. Remember that. Don't compare yourself to anybody's best days. You can't do that to yourself. I hope this has helped. Maybe it's just your daily reminder that you are meant to be successful. If you need help you reach out to me you reach out to a salon coach that's out there. There's so many out there that want to help you and want to help our beauty industry become better. Until next time, stay awesome. Hey there thanks so much for listening to the salon ownership Made Easy podcast today. Would you do us a favor? If you got value out of this week's episode? Will you share it with your friends? And while you're at it, go ahead and leave us a review. That way more business owners like yourself will find us and we can help them with the challenges they may be facing too. Thanks again. And we'll see you next week. Take care