Maximizing Time Wealth As A Stylist

Ever wondered how to achieve the balance between time freedom, financial success, and personal well-being as a hairstylist? Join me, Emily Carden, on this episode of the Smart, Wealthy Stylist Podcast, where I promise to reveal the secrets to crafting your dream schedule, setting the right prices, and protecting your personal time. Listen to my personal journey of transforming my business by evaluating how long each service takes and calculating the cost of running my business per hour. Discover how I adjusted my prices, reduced my client load, and established a schedule that truly works for me, all while prioritizing self-care with an early morning routine inspired by "The Miracle Morning" by Hal Elrod.

In this episode, you’ll also learn how to set firm boundaries that protect your well-being and relationships, especially if you struggle with people-pleasing tendencies. Hear about my strategy of taking eight weeks off a year and the necessity of scheduling sufficient time for each service to avoid double booking. We’ll talk about maintaining a "miracle margin" that enhances client satisfaction and the significance of "fill up your cup time" for personal growth. I’ll share how to work smarter, not harder, ensuring you make more while working less. Tune in to discover how you can balance work and personal life, achieve your goals, and become a six-figure stylist while working from a home salon studio. Don't forget to leave your questions in the reviews for future discussions!

Chapters

• 0:02 Mastering Time, Finance, and Boundaries
• 7:56 Setting Boundaries for Self-Care
• 13:38 Prioritizing Time Freedom and Success

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Smart, Wealthy Stylist Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Carden, Over here. We're dedicated to helping hairstylists manage their finances, stay organized, healthy and manage their time and mental well-being. We focus on staying healthy in all areas of life and maximizing productivity. If you're a hairstylist looking for these things, then this is the podcast for you. If you're a hairstylist looking for these things, then this is the podcast for you. Together, we'll avoid burnout and step into being the smartest, wealthiest stylists that we can be.

Speaker 2: 0:32

Welcome back. I'm Emily Carden, your host of Smart, wealthy Stylist Podcast. Today we are going over time freedom. What is time freedom? How do I make more time? How do I set pricing so that I can have my dream schedule? How do I protect my personal time? How can I make sure I have enough time behind the chair to pour into myself and how can I stick with these boundaries surrounding time? So that's what this whole episode is going to be about, and as hairstylists, I feel like so many of us work late nights, weekends, we miss ball games.

Speaker 2: 1:18

We do all these things for these people who, yes, they're paying the bills, but essentially they're not there for you. They're not your child, they're not your spouse, they're not your best friend. We sacrifice all this time with the people that we love most for people who wouldn't do the same for us. I know we're close with our clients and I know that they become friends. Some of my really great friends that I hang out with all the time now are hairstylists or clients of mine. You know I'm their hairstylist, so I get that Like some relationships do turn into more than just a client, but still, at the end of the day, like if they care about you as a person. They're going to understand the boundaries that you have in place around your time and around your schedule and around your boundaries. They will understand and they're not going to get mad at you for that.

Speaker 2: 2:11

So the very first one how do I make more time? Well, what I ended up doing was deciding how much time I wanted. What would my, my dream schedule be Like? Just going okay, you know, my dream schedule will be working Tuesday through Friday, like 10 to four. That way I could, you know, sleep in or get a workout in the morning. I could, um, have plenty of time to go get my kids picked up, like this would be perfect. So what I did is I figured out how much time it took to do each service that I do. I do package-based pricing, so it's very easy for me to figure out how long my services take. My route. Type ships and trim are usually like an hour and a half. So I figure all that out. Then I figured out how much it cost me to run my business per hour.

Speaker 2: 3:00

As soon as I found out what it cost me to run my business per hour, I was able to say, okay, this is what I need to make a profit. Well, I knew as soon as I raised my prices that I would lose quite a few people. I hadn't raised my prices in like 10 years, so I knew that if I did that it would really free up my schedule and then I could prioritize where I wanted to put people. So first I set my prices, I raised them. I did lose about 50 clients, but that was okay because I was way overbooked anyway, and then I was able to kind of move things around how I wanted them to be. I stopped working Mondays, I just started working Tuesday through Friday. I told everybody I was no longer doing late nights and I wasn't doing weekends and they were like yeah, no problem, I'll take a half day, I'll come in any other day. The people who, you know, understood my price increase still wanted to stay with me and they, um, totally understood. They were willing to work me into their budget and the time frames that they set for themselves.

Speaker 2: 4:01

So how to make more time? Uh, another thing would to be, like in my personal life, you know, making more time behind the chair. That's how I did. That was, um, you know, canceling, like getting rid of a lot of clientele that weren't my target market, people who didn't appreciate me. That really gave me a lot more time behind the chair. Knowing how long it takes me to do my services, um helped tremendously. Um, and then just making sure I set those parameters that gave me the time that I needed behind the chair. It cut out all the nonsense. It gave me more time in my personal life, um, and that was amazing. So, but making more time in my personal life. I'm a full-time mom. I work full-time, I do sourdough on the side, flowers like vegetable garden. I just have a lot of things going on.

Speaker 2: 4:49

So, um, I decided to start getting up early. I read the book the miracle morning by Hal Elrod and that book literally changed my life. Um, first I just started getting up like 30 minutes before the alarm, so typically my alarm set for like 630. So then I started getting up at six and then I started getting up at five, 30 and then five, and then four, 30 and then four, and for probably six months straight I got up at four o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 2: 5:20

I was able to prioritize prioritize my Bible study, my um, alone time with God, my social media stuff, my workouts were done. I did everything I needed to do for the day before my day even started, and that opened up a whole new world for me. It gave me a whole different timeframe of creativity and alone time and just like having that connection with God and then that connection to be able to devote whatever I was doing at that time. I had all this focused energy to devote to that, because my kids weren't up needing me, my husband didn't need my attention. You know I wasn't having to cook dinner or looking at the dirty house or like any of that stuff. All I was focused on was the morning at hand the minute at hand and what my goal was for that morning. And you know we're always needing more time. We don't have time, we don't have time. Well, one of the best things to do is to get up early, and I know it's really hard to do that. It's not fun at first, but then I just would wake up and I was excited to start my day because I was like yes, it's time to get up, time to get around, let's get going. This is when you know things start happening for me, and things were changing so quickly and I was just doing a lot of really cool things in the morning, so it was amazing, like having that time all to myself, um.

Speaker 2: 6:46

So, moving on to the next thing how to set up your pricing, to set up yourself for your dream schedule. I kind of touched on that earlier, but basically just making sure you know how much your cost is per hour, what you want to live like, like, what profit margins do you want to have, how much money do you want to take home? Um, and then figuring that out and then going okay, so this is how much money I'm needing to make. This is how many hours a week I'm willing to work. So that's X amount of hours a week. And then figuring, you divide that by what you're wanting to take home and you can kind of figure out like, okay, this is what I want to take home a week. So then you know how to set your pricing, which, um will be amazing because then your clients that come in, um, they're typically your target market, they're okay with paying a higher price, like you're speaking, you know, all your social media is speaking into those people. So it's just really cool whenever you get that all settled in, because your dream people show up, you cut back your hours, they have no problem taking time off work to come in to see you and you're making more than you ever made. So it's absolutely possible.

Speaker 2: 7:56

This is my third year being a six figure stylist and, um, I'm in a solo salon suite in my house. We turn our garage into an at-home salon studio and it's the best thing that I ever did for myself, and the fact that I'm all by myself and I'm still making six figures is pretty awesome. So the next one is how to protect your personal time. So you know this kind of goes in with that people pleasing thing. I know I talk a lot about that, because that's something I really struggled with and I finally overcame it and I felt really good about that.

Speaker 2: 8:33

So, just um, understanding that if you are a people pleaser like me, you have to set hard boundaries around your time and I actually take eight weeks off a year and, um, I just have to make sure that I clearly communicate to my clients this is my time off. If my kids are out of school, I'm out of school. I want to make sure that I spend as much time with them as I possibly can. That's very, very important to me. Um, so, you know, just setting those boundaries and like figuring out how to not be a people person or even if you're still a people person, you don't have to sacrifice who you are, but you absolutely have to make sure that you stick with your boundaries. So, just setting those boundaries and just putting it on your book and like something that helps me when I actually block it out on my salon schedule and like put it on each day and block it totally out so no one can do online booking. Um, I can't book anything, and you know, I just know that that time is protected. Time I'm checked out, I'm off work, I have to protect it at all costs. And then how do you know how to have enough time behind the chair? So I touched on that a little bit earlier as well.

Speaker 2: 9:46

So making sure that you know how long it takes you to do each service. So whatever service that you're booking, you need to make sure that you know exactly how many minutes that it takes you. And actually on my services, so when I do my root retouch, shampoo style cut, it's $120. And so I like to make sure that I have an hour and a half booked out plus an extra 15 minutes just to have that time in between clients to pick up my stuff etc. You know, get everything put away, get the new stuff out for the next client, clean up in between, and just I call that that miracle margin. You know, just making sure that you have enough miracle margin time in there and like, if it's my client's birthday or whatever, you know, a quick little minute to write um a little birthday card for them or whatever, get them a little cupcake on the counter for when they come in. You know, just making sure you have enough time behind the chair also helps keep your clients happier, because I tried to stop double booking. I do still double book some clients just because it's it's that full right now. Um, I try not to do that. I love sitting and visiting with my clients in between and then having time in between my clients to clean up is also very helpful, and I've gotten really great positive feedback from my clients saying how much they really appreciate that and they really really like that they have that time to sit with me and visit and they really like that they're not double booked with people. So I think a lot of people don't speak up about that, but they really do want it. Um, let's see what the next one is. Oh yeah, fill up your cup time.

Speaker 2: 11:30

So having time to pour into yourself allows you to pour out to others. So making sure that you're educating yourself. Are you reading books that fill you up? Are you hanging out with people who make you feel inspired? Are you watching videos that you know really make you feel excited to move forward in your business, or even just make you laugh, even if it's not about growing, but it's a positive impact regardless? Are you doing that? Are you surrounding yourself with those people? Are you making time for those things? Are you making time in the morning to have your alone time. If that's what you crave, are you making sure you're making time to go get your workout? And if you really want to do that, go do it.

Speaker 2: 12:13

Um, when you fill up your cup and it's full and running over, it spills out onto other people, so that's really um, exciting. Whenever you think like I don't even have enough time for myself, there's no way I can help these other people or there's no way I can just pour out to these clients, you know, all this positive energy or whatever, all you need is a little you time. You need to get some. Fill up your cup time, uh, alone time, whatever it is, it makes you feel better. Do that and, you know, come back inspired or come back rested or just come back lighthearted. Um.

Speaker 2: 12:50

And the last one is sticking with your boundaries. You know, um, if you're a people pleaser, like I was, uh, sticking to your boundaries can be very difficult. But, um, you just have to decide for yourself that, no matter what, you must protect yourself and your time and the people that you love at all costs. And if someone gets their feelings hurt because you share something that you know might've upset them, but it's important to you and it's important that you stick to your boundaries important that you stick to your boundaries. It's okay because you need to stick to your boundaries. You need to make sure that you're doing what you need to do to protect yourself and protect your time, protect your loved ones, whatever it is. It's super important to protect that.

Speaker 2: 13:38

So I hope that this was helpful for you today and I hope it kind of inspires you to take a step in prioritizing your time freedom. I hope that you get your fill your up time and I hope that you have time in between clients to take a little rest or to sit and visit with your clients. Um, I hope that you make more and work less and I hope that you get to take off all the time that you want Um. Anyway, I hope that you guys have a great day and I will, that you get to take off all the time that you want. Um, anyway, I hope that you guys have a great day and I will talk to you soon.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Thank you for listening in today. If you have a burning question or a topic you want me to cover, leave a review and ask the question in the review. This is the best way to get your questions answered. Just remember you are a smart, wealthy stylist and you are capable of anything. You set your questions answered. Just remember you are a smart, wealthy stylist and you are capable of anything you set your mind to. I'll catch you later. Don't be a stranger.