This episode is for the salon owner who’s looking for inspiration and clarity when it comes to taking your hair salon to the next level.
Hello, I am Brett Fellows. And thank you for joining me in the first ever episode, episode number one of the Unchained From the Chair Podcast. And I am really excited to get this podcast and educational series for hair salon owners kicked off today. We have some great content planned, a series of interviews with successful hair salon owners, and just a lot of resources that I think will really do some good things and give you a framework for making good financial decisions.
Let me start by introducing myself. I am a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Certified Exit Planner and founder of Oak Capital Advisors, which is a fee-only financial planning firm based in Charleston, South Carolina. And over the last 15 years, I’ve been helping entrepreneurs grow their wealth and then successfully exit their businesses so they could retire on their own terms.
My goal with this podcast is to really do the same thing for you with each episode, by providing a new insight or action item that gets you closer to financial freedom—but more importantly give you action items that you can take away and apply immediately to your salon or your personal finances.
We’re going to go behind the scenes to hear stories of how leading hair salon owners navigated the inevitable challenges that arise on the path to success. And I also want to introduce to you insight from leading industry consultants about how to break through to the next level in your hair salon business.
Okay, so who is this podcast really for?
This podcast is for the hair salon owner who’s seeking more balance, perspective, or clarity when it comes to planning for your financial future.
You’ve worked hard and had success as a salon owner. And now you’re interested in taking your hair salon to the next level and someday selling your salon so you can retire comfortably and on your own timeline. So, you’re looking to tap into smart financial decision-making strategies that benefit not only your salon, but your lifestyle, and ultimately your family’s future.
First, I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why a podcast just for hair salon owners?” And that would be a great question. It’s really pretty simple. In 2019, I began working on my practice with a new business coach. And one of the first things she had me do was to literally write out all the specifics of what my ideal client would look like. I knew it had to be a business owner. So I defined what my ideal client’s revenue was, the number of their employees and age of their business. What their problem was, and what solution I had, what were their goals and hopes, worries and fears. What were they aware of wanting versus what I knew they actually needed?
And the outcome of this exercise was I had to find, almost to a tee, one of my favorite existing clients, the successful hair salon owner. And at the time, other than my client and her salon business, I knew nothing about the hair salon industry. So I started to do some research.
In this $40 billion hair salon industry, you all have very few resources for financial help.
What I also found in talking with many hair salon owners was an overarching theme. And let me know if any of this sounds like you.
Number one, they were flying the plane with no idea of their destination. If a salon owner has no idea what the end game is for them and their salon, they will never make life-changing money. They end up working forever relying on their salon’s profit for income and put themselves at massive risk of being impacted by the external market and changes in the economy. Even global pandemics.
Number two, they were trying to grow their salon one customer at a time. One of the biggest reasons why salon owners have failed building the business they dreamed of was because they relied on hustle on going after each and every customer.
Hustle is not a growth strategy.
It’s dependent on energy, willpower, or luck. And all of these run out at some point.
Many hair salon owners are not running a predictable machine that brings in a consistent flow of their ideal clients. So, you have no way of scaling and taking your hair salon to the next level. Customers and cash flow are your lifeblood. They are effectively like oxygen. Because without them, your salon will die. So then, why would you only rely on hustle to secure them?
Number three, they thought the way to make serious money was by running their own salon. The truth is, the more they worked in their salon versus on their salon, the less money they made and the less freedom of time they had. In fact, they became the bottleneck, and they significantly slowed down the salon’s growth.
It makes sense when you start out to be at the center of everything. And this is mainly because you don’t have the cash flow or the resources to outsource activities or build a team.
What works when you begin your salon is the exact opposite of what works to scale and eventually sell your salon.
Your ability to step away from the day to day, unchain yourself from the chair to focus on the bigger strategy, is your passport to wealth creation.
Number four, they didn’t know how to leverage other people’s money to drive growth. I found in my research that the salons with average to less-than-average revenue were the ones that thought small. They didn’t step outside the box or understand the power of leverage. Because of this, they never truly grew their salon, leaving the salon owner stressed and burnt out and overwhelmed and wondering if they would ever get their salon to the next level.
The unfortunate answer is they didn’t. And let me jump back to that word I just mentioned: leverage. This word is absolute power. And the quicker you can get your head around what leverage means and how to apply it, the quicker you will be on a path to a high-value hair salon.
Leverage is simply maximizing your resources to their fullest extent.
It’s also about going beyond the resources you currently have and being resourceful in yourself to find new opportunities. And these opportunities can be in the form of partnerships, joint ventures, sourcing investment capital, finding good profitable salons to buy, so you can scale your salon more rapidly. Bigger-picture thinking versus the granular stuff that will only deliver small incremental gains, if any at all.
Number five, their beliefs, their environment, the people they surrounded themselves with, were holding them back.
What has held you back until now are the beliefs around your ability to make things happen.
And the crazy thing is these aren’t even your beliefs. You have borrowed them from someone else. So the question is, are you ready to let go of them now and take your salon and your life to a completely different level?
Because no amount of information will ever allow you to see what is possible for you unless your belief system supports it fully. You do not get what you want, you get what you believe. You believe what is true because of who you spend time with and the education and experiences that you have. The more time you spend with people that have the results you want, the more you will believe it is possible for you, too.
Okay, so I’m sure by this point, I’ve either bored or frustrated you to death with my research findings. So, why did I start this podcast for hair salon owners?
Taking Your Hair Salon to the Next Level
One of my first mentors, a fantastic guy named Dan Sullivan, was the first person I ever paid coaching for. And at that stage in my journey, I had very little money from having grown up in an environment of poor decisions around money and wealth creation.
I knew I needed to change things, though., and I made a commitment to do whatever it would take. I even took money out of my own retirement account to pay for his services. The truth is I was desperate to change my trajectory.
Sometimes when you’re in that place of pain, it’s the greatest gift. Because you can finally say enough is enough, and you can take action.
And it worked. Dan showed me exactly how he had built wealth and freedom for himself. He showed me the exact process he had used to grow his business, to make large amounts of money, and to scale his level of impact. And I thought, what if I could have that same impact on my ideal client, the hair salon owner I mentioned earlier? What if I could flood other hair salon owners with education, possibility, and inspiration through this podcast?
I couldn’t find anyone else doing it. And the truth is, if you want to scale to a high seven-figure salon, then you need to hang out with people or get a person in your life who has achieved exactly what you want. And spend as much time with them as possible to adopt their thinking patterns.
If you lack in personal belief, then you must borrow someone else’s until you start seeing the possibilities.
So to make your life easier, I have created this podcast for you, and you are now stuck with me. I leaned into mindset and personal growth, and everything did change. I intentionally changed my environment, my network, my belief system, and things took off. And I can say with absolute certainty, if you embrace this without skepticism, be open-minded, I believe the same will happen for you. So that’s where my passion comes from, and why I started this podcast.
With that, I’ll leave you with two final thoughts. First, your business and money can be selfish. If you don’t control your relationship with both, they will control you.
And second, success looks different for everyone. Ask yourself, what is it that I would love to do if I didn’t have the money? What is it I would do if I did have the money?
So, thank you again for turning into the very first episode of the Unchained From the Chair Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss out. If you’re interested in learning more, you can visit my website, brettkfellows.com where you can schedule a call with me at your convenience. I’d love to hear from you and find out about your journey as a hair salon owner. Have a great day.
