Reason 1: Because you’re losing. Whether it’s money, overall life satisfaction, or self-respect you are losing something by not prioritizing your goals. You’re missing opportunities–opportunities to learn, to succeed, to progress, to make new friends, and to fail and learn and fail better. Every day you spend doing something that doesn’t fulfill you is a waste, and you deserve better.

Reason 2: Because you’re running out of time. It might not feel like it, since every day you work in a job you hate makes the days feel as if they’re everlasting, but every second the clock ticks forward towards your final moment.

Facts are facts—you are going to die.

Do you feel that existential dread? If not, you should.

You probably won’t die today or tomorrow, but maybe you will. You can’t rely on tomorrow because tomorrow isn’t guaranteed to any of us, not even you. Time is a finite resource, and you’re meandering through each day as if you’re immune to accidents, disease, and all the other random, tragic things that suddenly and permanently end the lives of the humans around you every single day. You can be taken just as easily. What the hell are you waiting for?

Reason 3: Because you can. You want to move into your own suite? You want to open your own salon? You want to expand into another location and/or hire more employees? You want to launch that YouTube channel and become an educator or influencer?

Do it, because you can.

You are capable. While success can’t be guaranteed, you can make failure a lot less likely if you start preparing now. Things are not just going to just happen for you, so stop waiting for the planets to align on your behalf. Establish reasonable deadlines and set a plan into motion. Break your big goals into small ones and get to work.

New Years’ Resolutions are for suckers. Quit making empty promises to yourself and start executing.

Are you done making empty promises to yourself? What are you going to do to make your dreams happen—starting today? What reasons excuses are you setting fire to right now? Let us know in the comments!

Current and aspiring salon owners, are you ready for some hurt feelings?

Nobody cares about your journey. Don’t let motivational memes fool you into believing that people want to see you succeed. A good deal of them do not. Many are indifferent and a few others would love to see you fail. Some of those who want to see you go down in flames will be people you like and people you trust. The feeling of betrayal you experience when you make that realization can be crushing. Those disappointments have sent professionals and salon owners running from the industry.

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Season 2 [2018]

[2.6] Understanding Competition

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Females—pay attention. Over the last five years or so, “entrepreneurs” and their glassy-eyed worshippers on social media have promoted this #girlboss #empowerment guilt trip—perpetuating the message that we should all be holding hands and “elevating” each other, as if we’re obligated to on account of our shared gender, and while that’s admirable, we need to remember that we’re running businesses.

It isn’t your responsibility to enable anyone else’s success and you shouldn’t expect anyone else to ensure yours.

Female entrepreneurship groups often pressure us—female business owners—to network and share advice, to mentor and give other women opportunities. They’re all about “uplifting” and “empowering” others. If you feel compelled to mentor someone, you should, just understand that it comes with inherent, unavoidable risks and very little potential reward (especially if they’re local).

While I can’t tell the future, I can promise you that someone will betray you, sabotage you, and/or take advantage of you at some point in your career as a salon owner. It will likely happen more than once and it will hurt every time—but it will hurt a lot more if you don’t hold your cards close and keep your expectations in check. Stay sharp.

I object to the notion that anyone should expect others to care about their success—that isn’t what this or any industry is about. For many people, the beauty industry very much is all about the money, and that’s a completely valid position to have.

Ambition and competitiveness aren’t inherently evil qualities.

We’re allowed to be motivated by money, achievement, and winning. But we also need to accept that for there to be winners there must also be losers, and we must be aware of the fact that some people play dirty.

We aren’t “sisters.” We are business owners. If you expect others to genuinely care about your success, you’ll be giving people the power to make you feel badly when they don’t behave the way you expect them to. You’ll also be letting your guard down, which never ends well—especially if the person you’re letting your guard down for happens to be the “super nice” competing salon owner from the place across the street or the competing microsalon owner from the suite down the hall.

Don’t make it easy for people to take advantage of you, and don’t ever feel sorry about refusing to “elevate” someone else.

By accepting that a.) most people don’t care about your salon’s welfare whatsoever, and b.) a good deal of people put their interests first and foremost with complete disregard for the feelings or welfare of others, we can stop being negatively affected by their behaviors. People typically can only hurt you and your business if you let them.

Stay alert, be a little paranoid, but keep things in perspective. Your competitors aren’t your BFFs, but they’re also not your archenemies or bitter rivals. You are not in business to “vanquish” them and if you truly believe that you are, adjust your attitude and your expectations immediately—you will never eliminate all of your competitors, you overly optimistic egomaniac, so get over yourself.

Your job is not to damage a competitor’s company but to build your own. You are in business to profit and grow but understand that a competitor’s gains are not your losses—in fact, their gains can be your gains too. For instance, when one full-service salon’s small nail department has booked to capacity with standing customers, they may refer their nail clients to your nail salon. That referral relationship will never exist if you’re an immature jerk who treats business like a deathmatch.

You can and should have a cordial relationship with the other salon owners in your local area. You shouldn’t share your secrets with them but you also do not have to act like teenagers from rival cliques. More than anything I would like to see professionals and salon owners in this business behave like adults. It is completely inappropriate to treat another adult with the contempt and hostility that many people in this industry inflict upon one another.

You will very likely be making phone calls to your competitors throughout the year whenever you need to check an applicant’s references. Wouldn’t it be nice if those calls could be friendly? When a client passes a bad check for several hundreds of dollars’ worth of services at another salon, wouldn’t you appreciate a phone call from that owner warning you that there’s a scam artist in town? How about when the state board or the city building commissioner attempt to pass new codes or regulations that could potentially impact you and the way you do business? What about when business trends begin to shift, and both of your salons now have to pivot in order to survive? Don’t you think it would be strategically advantageous to brainstorm solutions to major mutual problems together? This might rock your perception of reality, but it actually isn’t abnormal for competing businesses to cooperate at times.

Worthy competitors will force you to work harder (which ultimately is for your benefit), so don’t be petty. Try to establish cordial professional relationships with the other salon owners in your area. Invite them to tour your facility. Show them and their businesses respect. Never communicate negative opinions about them personally, speak negatively of their salons, or denigrate the quality of their work. You don’t want them doing the same to you, and you never know when you might need each other.

However, in your interactions with other salon owners (and even with employees who may become competitors), be cautious.

Keep the worst-case scenario at the forefront of your mind. Suspect that they may have ulterior motives and be protective of your secrets. Don’t allow yourself to feel obligated to “elevate” anyone who stands to benefit from your downfall.

Not every competing salon owner will be mature enough to handle a cordial relationship with you. Consider it their loss. Don’t let their behavior influence yours. Continue to maintain high standards and respect their business, even if they don’t respect yours. At the same time, remember that you are responsible for your own success. Be nice; never naïve.

This article is a short excerpt of Salon Ownership and Management: The Definitive Guide to the Professional Beauty Business.

Have you ever been burned by a professional you considered a friend or another industry colleague who took advantage of your assistance, or have your mentorship efforts paid off in fulfilling ways? Have you ever mentored (or been mentored) by someone? How did it go? Tell us in the comments!

“Clients have asked when I’m going to open my own salon. They’re always surprised and disappointed when I tell them it will never happen. I’m ambitious, but those ambitions don’t include stepping out from behind my chair.”

Most people in our industry chose beauty professions–not business professions. Passion for the art of beauty and the nature of the job itself doesn’t often translate to passion for salon management, which requires an entirely different set of skills. Failure to understand that love of the job isn’t the same as love for the business itself is what causes so many enthusiastic salon professionals to become miserable salon owners.

Unless they hire a manager to run their operations, the workday of a salon owner looks nothing like that of a salon professional–a fact too many owners learn after they’ve committed to a venture.

“Business ownership is a big responsibility that most of my previous employers definitely weren’t prepared for.”

A lack of business acumen and managerial skill leads to highly oversaturated markets, “race to the bottom” price wars, and general instability that contributes to the industry’s abysmal attrition and salon failure rates. Very few professionals-turned-owners have any idea how to run a business. This wouldn’t be a problem if these same professionals-turned-owners curbed their impulses for a few years while they obtained the skills and education required, but very few do.

“The trial and error culture that surrounds salon ownership now is making it the unprofessional mess it is in many instances.”
-Ashley Gregory, The Nailscape

Glorifying salon ownership as an ideal career all should aspire to is as ridiculous as promoting the lie that every professional would make a successful salon owner. Only ten percent of people possess the talent to manage. That means for every ten professionals we push this damaging narrative on, only one of them naturally possesses the discipline, motivation, assertiveness, accountability, and decision-making skills required to do the job well. Individuals who lack those talents are far less likely to be successful managers, regardless of the support they receive.

Salon ownership isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay.

A person’s lack of managerial skill has no bearing on their overall success in the beauty industry because our assessments of success are measured objectively. Simply put: success means different things to different people. I don’t know when so many people (both professionals and clients alike) adapted this arbitrary milestone as the primary indicator of career mastery, but it’s absurd, meaningless, and frankly, unrealistic and illogical as anything I’ve ever heard.

The purpose of this article isn’t to discourage all professionals from aspiring to salon ownership in the future–just those who don’t understand what they’re getting into or why they’re pursuing it. If you aren’t willing to do the work and make the sacrifices necessary to run a legal and ethical workplace, don’t. If you can’t be bothered to acquire the necessary education, spend time building a solid plan, or spend money to ensure legal compliance, do yourself a favor find a less stressful, more satisfying way to bankrupt yourself. (Max out some credit cards or something–at least then you’ll end up with a lot of cool stuff when you hit bottom.)

If we’re making salon ownership synonymous with career success, what does that make the estimated 90% of salon and microsalon owners whose businesses fail within the first two years? Failures? How about the professionals who ascend to notorious positions in the industry as platform artists or educators? Are they failures too? I disagree with that. By no means are those non-salon owner professionals “failures,” and while many salons do fail due to the owner’s lack of preparedness or inability to manage, but sometimes it’s nobody’s fault. (The best laid plans of mice and men, right?)

If you dream of becoming a salon owner one day and are committed to doing it well, then work towards it. Do your research, take classes, and gain managerial experience.

If you don’t dream of salon ownership, don’t feel pressured to become something you don’t want to be. Keep doing what you love–and don’t let others define success for you.

Do you know what your rights are as a beauty professional? The terminology can be confusing. Are you classified as an employee or are you considered self-employed, and what’s the difference between them? Where do booth renters fit into all this?

This article defines the common roles and classifications found in the beauty industry and outlines common abuses all professionals need to be aware of. Know what your rights are in your workplace.

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Want to listen to this article instead of reading it? No problem.

In a salon, you are either self-employed or an employee. You can not be “half” anything.

Employees are on the salon’s payroll and are usually paid hourly, commission, or some combination of both.

Employees

Employees come in two varieties: exempt and non-exempt. 

Unless they’re salaried in compliance with the FLSA (or state/city legislation), employees are considered non-exempt, which means they’re entitled to the prevailing minimum wage and overtime wages.

Salaried workers are considered exempt from the prevailing minimum wage laws and overtime laws, but they’re still typically protected by the other provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Are salon employees required to be paid minimum wage and overtime?

Regardless of the compensation method (commission or hourly), employers must generally ensure to pay their non-exempt (non-salaried) employees at least the prevailing minimum wage, whether the employee is working on a client or not.

Who pays the taxes? What tax form does a salon employee receive?

Each paycheck, employers are required to withhold the employee’s half of their employment taxes. The employer matches the employee’s contribution by remitting the other half. That equal tax contribution is the price employers pay for full control over the employee.

Employees receive a W-2 at the end of the tax year.

What benefits do salon employees receive?

Employees are generally covered by worker’s compensation, unemployment insurance, and the salon’s professional liability insurance policy. They are also entitled to numerous protections offered by state and federal agencies like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Internal Revenue Service, and Department of Labor. Salon owners are not obligated to provide any benefits beyond those mandated by law.

Do salon owners need to track employee hours?

Yes. Time tracking is a mandatory federal requirement, so salon employees need to be clocking-in and clocking-out daily.

Is a salon professional an at-will employee?

All U.S. states consider employment at-will, which means employees can quit at any time. They can also be fired at any time for virtually any reason, so long as it the termination isn’t discriminatory or retaliatory.

What is an employee’s role?

Employees are required to follow their employer’s directives. This means employees must:

• work the employer’s schedule,
• adhere to salon policies and dress codes,
• use whatever products the salon requires them to use and perform services in accordance with the salon’s protocols.

Employees are also required to participate in promotional events (discounts, coupons, etc.), continuing education, and mandatory meetings.

Does the salon owner have to pay salon employees for mandatory meetings, training, and promotional events?

Yes. Any time the employer requires an employee to be present, that time is compensable and the employee must be paid.

Do salon professionals compensated by commission have to do work they’re not getting paid to do, like cleaning, answering phones, and doing laundry?

If you are being paid commission versus or commission plus hourly, your employer is FLSA-compliant. You are being legally and properly compensated for your time spent performing chores and other duties, since your employer is ensuring your wages meet or exceed the prevailing minimum wage.

If you are working for a salon owner who is not FLSA-compliant, then you have no obligation to obey the so-called employer, since you are not being legally compensated.

Can the salon owner require employees to stay in the salon when they have no clients booked?

If you’re a W-2 employee and the salon owner is FLSA-compliant, you are obligated to obey your employer or forfeit your position.

If you are not a properly classified employee and the salon owner is not FLSA-compliant, you have no obligation to obey.

Does the salon owner have to provide supplies and products to their employees? Is it legal for the salon owner to deduct fees from my paycheck?

The employer provides all supplies and products. Employers, in most states, are not permitted to arbitrarily deduct money from the employee’s wages to cover cost of doing business expenses, like product.

Who collects the money?

An employee’s clients pay at a centralized location, usually at a reception desk. Aside from tips, employees are never paid directly by customers.

Who controls the client contact information and the appointment book?

The employer is legally entitled to control and retain the salon’s client contact data and may prohibit employees from taking that data or using it to harm the business.

Self-Employed Professionals

What does it mean to be “self-employed” in the beauty industry?

If you are self-employed, you are a business owner.

Self-employed professionals run their own businesses and are completely independent from the rest of the facility in which they work. Booth, suite, and studio renters are commercial tenants who lease space. Freelancers often perform session work or special events for a wide variety of companies. Many professionals who freelance are also renters or salon owners.

Self-employed professionals are entirely responsible for acquiring new customers, providing their own supplies, managing their clients, securing their own benefits, and paying their own taxes.

What is the role of a self-employed beauty professional?

Self-employed professionals keep 100% of their revenue, pay for their own product and supplies, set their own prices, and work on their own schedule at their own convenience. They answer to nobody. To clarify, this means that self-employed professionals:

• choose which products they are going to use and sell
• perform their services however they please, and
• have their own salon management software.

Who collects the money?

Clients pay renters (and most other self-employed professionals) directly.

Under no circumstance should a client of a self-employed beauty professional be paying a salon landlord, nor should the self-employed professional be receiving a paycheck from their landlord.

Who controls the client data?

Self-employed professionals are solely responsible for booking their own customers and maintaining their client data. Nobody else is entitled to that information, nor can anyone require them to turn that data over (for instance, as a condition of their rental agreement).

Can a renter or self-employed professional be fired?

Renters cannot be fired. They must be properly evicted in accordance with the lease agreement or the state’s commercial landlord/tenant laws.

To a renter, a salon owner is nothing more than a landlord.

It’s important for salon landlords to understand that they cannot:

• dictate a booth renter’s schedule,
• force the booth renter to have their clients pay for their services at a centralized location (like a reception desk),
• tell a booth renter what products to use, how to perform a service, or what to charge for their services,
• force a booth renter to participate in a promotion or coupon unless agreed upon in writing.
• “fire” a booth renter,
• force a booth renter to adhere to a dress code or other salon guidelines or rules, or
• require the booth renter to use the salon’s branding or promote the salon’s name in any of their marketing materials.

Do freelancers and renters get benefits?

Self-employed professionals must secure their own benefits. In addition to being ineligible for benefits, self-employed professionals are also not provided any state or federal protections from agencies like the Department of Labor or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

What are renters entitled to?

Renters are only entitled to whatever their written lease agreement guarantees them. Renters are not entitled to free rent for vacation time, free backbar, or anything other than the space they’re paying for. Additionally, salon landlords are not required to provide renters with a clientele.

Are booth, suite, and studio renters required to have a key to the building?

The IRS no longer makes key-holding mandatory. As long as the renters have access to the building during the operating hours stated in their lease, they are not required to have keys. (And yes, renters and salon landlords, both of you need written leases.)

Who pays the taxes?

Self-employed professionals, in exchange for the freedom to operate their businesses without interference or control, pay the entirety of their self-employment tax.

Can a salon landlord prohibit a renter from selling retail?

If the landlord has a retail store in the salon, they can put a clause in their leases preventing tenants from competing with the retail store. Salon landlords cannot require tenants to retail their products, however. For a lot of landlords, retail boutiques help keep the business profitable (and keep tenant rent competitive).

Independent Contractors

Independent contractors are not employees. They are self-employed, just like renters and freelancers. Most independent contractors are illegally misclassified in this business.

Independent contractors almost never belong in the salon.

Independent contractors do not go to work every day, all day long, at the request of the salon owner. Much like a renter, independent contractors operate independently, free of control from the business owner. The salon is typically not their only place of employment, they are not leasing space, and they are not on the payroll.

Independent contractors are contracted, responsible for all of their own taxes, and do not answer to a salon owner except to ensure the contract terms have been fulfilled.

Independent contractors must be provided with a 1099 form at the end of the year by any person who has contracted them and paid them more than $600 in that year. That person may be the owner of another business (for instance, a corporate office that contracts a massage therapist to perform chair massages for special occasions or a photographer who routinely contracts an MUA for shoots) or a private customer.

Can an independent contractor (freelancer) be fired?

Independent contractors are not employees and therefore cannot be fired or controlled through the threat of dismissal, but they can be dismissed from a job site if they break the terms of their work agreement.

Freelancers sign work agreements, agreeing to perform a one-time job.

In our industry, freelancers are exclusively found on-set (fashion shows, photo shoots, film projects) or at special events (corporate parties, bridal showers, etc.).

I have written about this topic to death. If you remain subscribed to this blog, you’re going to be so informed about the abuse of the independent contractor status that tax attorneys will be awed by your knowledge, so for now, I’m going to tell you the four most important things you need to know:

1. Salon owners often use the independent contractor classification to evade employment taxes.

When exploitative owners classify professionals as independent contractors, they’re shoving the entire employment tax burden onto the professional, who will end up paying at least 15.3% of their income to the IRS at the end of the year. A good deal of these salon owners aren’t aware that this practice is illegal, but the IRS and DOL don’t care. Business owners are expected to do their own homework and make informed business management decisions.

As a worker,  you are not expected to suffer for anyone’s failure or inability to perform their own due diligence.   

2. Salon owners utilize the independent contractor classification to avoid wage and labor compliance.

When a person is self-employed, they’re generally not eligible for worker’s compensation, unemployment, the required minimum wage, overtime wages, federal protections against workplace discrimination and retaliation, or any of the other benefits they would be entitled to if they were employees.

3. Never let a salon owner tell you this classification is “better for you because you won’t have to pay taxes.”

Trust me, you will have to report your income and pay your taxes. In reality, this situation only benefits the salon owner, because they get to control you like an employee and skip out on worker’s compensation insurance, employment tax, wage obligations, and the other responsibilities and liabilities that come in exchange for that degree of control.

4. Misclassification of employees as independent contractors is a crime.

State and federal governments take tax evasion, wage theft, and labor abuses pretty damn seriously. They take them so seriously they team up and perform joint investigations. Whichever agency is initially alerted (whether it’s the IRS, the DOL, or your state labor board) will alert the two others. They will join forces in what’s called a “three pronged investigation.” (I call it the Hell Trifecta.)

Unless you are truly a freelance professional, following the money wherever it may be and setting your own terms working under your own brand, you are likely not an independent contractor, and no salon owner will be able to twist the truth enough to justify tax evasion and labor abuse with the IRS.

The only way this pervasive abuse stops is if we stop allowing it to happen in the first place.

If your employer has been misclassifying you, read this post to learn how to approach them respectfully about correcting their practices before it’s too late.

Take the Courses

I’m introducing a full online course! Part 1: Foundations, covers employment law (worker classification, common exploitation tactics, and everything your school didn’t teach you about working in the beauty industry). In Part 2: Contracts, you’ll learn all about employment contracts and lease agreements, including how to identify illegal and abusive terms, negotiate, and heed serious red flags. Bundle both classes together and save!

Recommended Reading

Recommended Tools

The Salon Employee Suitcase. The Salon Employee Suitcase contains
everything you need to get acquainted with your rights as an employee and protect your wages, so check it out.

The Microsalon Owner’s Complete Business Toolkit is our biggest, baddest download to date, containing an absurd amount of information and a valuable pricing spreadsheet for self-employed salon professionals.

A quick message to the rabid keyboard warrior salon owners: before commenting here (or anywhere on this site), do yourself the tremendous favor of researching me and what I write before you decide to make a fool of yourself. I’ve written over 300 articles, many in defense of salon owners. I don’t play favorites here. I call bullshit like I see it.

If you don’t like the laws, take it up with your congressman. I didn’t write them, but I expect you to obey them like every other business owner in the country.

FAQ for Salon & Spa Owners

“I’m a salon owner and a booth renter is causing serious problems in the salon. Can I terminate her contract before the renewal term?”

If there is a clause in the rental agreement that states that the owner can terminate the contract at any time, yes you likely can. If not, you must abide by your state’s commercial landlord/tenant laws, if any exist. To save yourself the aggravation in the future, consider having your attorney write termination provisions into your future rental contracts.

“My employee brought her clients, can she take them with her?”

It depends on whether or not the employee signed a valid non-solicitation agreement (not to be confused with a non-compete agreement).

You don’t want employees coming into your business and taking clients from you. Treat your professionals as you expect to be treated and do not take from them what isn’t yours to take.

“Help! My employees are copying my client’s contact information for their own records! What can I do?!”

If you had them sign non-solicitation agreements, you can likely cease the activity immediately and threaten termination and/or legal action. If you didn’t have them sign anything, there’s likely not much you can do about it, but you should damn well try.

“I run a booth rental salon, do I need to provide keys and security codes to each renter?”

The IRS no longer makes keyholding a requirement. Whether or not you are legally required to do so depends on your state’s commercial landlord/tenant laws. Consider electronic deadbolts. Give your renters passkeys for 24/7 business access. Charge extra for it.

“What is the best employment and compensation arrangement?”

Here is an article I wrote regarding compensation methods and which I believe is the best.

FAQ for Booth Renters

“Can the salon owner fire me?”

You’re not an employee, so no. A landlord can never really “fire” you. (That’s the wrong word.) They can, however, terminate your lease. Read your contract carefully to find out if there are any clauses that allow them to terminate without notice and check your state’s commercial landlord/tenant laws.

“The salon owner sold the business and the new owner is trying to raise my rent. Can they do that?”

Probably not. Generally, they have to abide by the original lease agreement or renegotiate it with you.

“Can the salon owner tell me what products to use or force me to go through their training program?”

No. You are your own business owner. You choose the products, you choose the services, you set the prices. You are not required to go through any training or adhere to any rules the owner sets forth.

“Can the salon own force me to participate in promotional events or take coupons?”

No. You can participate if you want to, but requiring you to would likely constitute an inappropriate degree of control.

“Do I have to put the salon name on my business cards?”

No, and you shouldn’t. Keep your business separate from the establishment you’re leasing from. You are your own business.

DO NOT ADVERTISE A BUSINESS THAT DOESN’T BELONG TO YOU.

You can say you’re “located inside of [insert salon name here]” if you’d like, but don’t use their logo.

“My boss has me pay a percentage of my daily service sales as rent. If I make under a certain amount, my contract says I have to pay a set amount. Is that legal or fair?”

That depends. As of the updating of this article (December 6th, 2022), I cannot find any laws to dictate otherwise.

As a rule, your rent should not be variable since the value of the space doesn’t change from week to week. I will say this though: if you’re new talent just out of school or you’re getting back in the game after a long time out, it may be beneficial for you to start out on profit-share in lieu of fixed rent during the time you’re building.

Keep in mind that you are still required to provide your own products, manage your own books, and promote yourself, so your rent should reflect that (you should be paying out 15-20%).

A lot of owners won’t offer this opportunity to stylists because it is hard to track and puts them at a financial disadvantage, but some kindhearted, generous owners do offer it. If you’re an established pro and the owner wants 40 or 50% of your commission as booth rental–no. Get out of there.

Owners, in five out of six IRS revenue rulings, salon landlords who took a percentage of gross sales in lieu of rent were determined to be employers; not landlords. If you don’t want to find yourself in a position where you have to pay back wages, back taxes, and penalties, avoid the practice and take a flat rental amount.

“Can I claim my booth rental as a business expense on my taxes?”

Yes. It is a business expense.

“Do I have to carry my own salon insurance?”

Technically, yes. Salons usually provide general liability and property insurance while the booth renter is asked to provide their own professional liability. Many salon owners will provide professional liability insurance as a courtesy, however. Check with your salon owner to make sure that you are covered. If not, shop around for a plan. Quickly.

“The owner wants me to use her receptionist and have my clients pay at the front desk. She is then going to write me a check for the full amount. Is this legal?”

DO NOT. This puts the salon landlord in an extremely legally perilous position. Your clients pay you. They book appointments with you. Do not hand your money over to anyone else for any reason. You are a self-employed business owner. Keep your business separate from the salon owner’s.

FAQ for Employees

“Can I notify my clients that I’m moving to a new salon?”

That depends on several factors. Are the clients yours? Were there any stipulations in your employment contract that say you can’t market to the clients?

In order for a client to be “yours” you have to have brought them with you to the establishment from your school or prior place of employment. Clients you gain through referrals from these clients fall into this category as well. These are clients you obtained through your own networking and advertising, so they belong to you and you should have their information kept in a safe place at home. Those clients who are loyal to you are going to want to know where you’ve gone.

I’ve seen it happen a thousand times when a stylist leaves and doesn’t notify their clients. You know who else doesn’t notify their clients? The owner. Generally, your appointments will get shifted to whoever is available and the client will only discover that you’re gone when they show up for their appointment. In almost all cases, the owner will not divulge any information on where you’ve relocated to in an effort to retain those clients (definitely a bad move on their part because the clients do not appreciate it). Your clients are your paycheck. You work hard to build that book so keep it together and protect it.

Now, if the clients are people that you’ve gained at the salon, there is a whole different set of rules. Say the client walks in off the street or calls because she saw an ad in the paper. This client was obtained through the owner’s networking and advertising tactics and this client does not belong to you.

It doesn’t matter if the client has been seeing you for five months or fifteen years. If they initially came to the salon because of the owner’s marketing, their contact information belong to the business–not you. It is unlawful and incredibly unethical to try and lure these clients away from the salon and yes, your ex-employer can take legal action against you for it (as they should).

“I was fired from a commission salon. Can I get unemployment?”

Whether or not you’re eligible is debatable and situation-specific. Whatever you do, do not ask me about it. Ever.

“Can my boss require me to provide my own product?”

As an employee, providing product is their responsibility. If there are products you prefer to use, you will have to get permission from your boss and pay for it out of your own pocket. (A lot of owners will accommodate you however, if you have a preferred product that you absolutely can’t work without. Many of them understand. All of us have a few of our favorites.) Most states have laws in place to protect employees from unlawful paycheck deductions, like head fees, service charges, or product fees.

FAQ for Independent Contractors

“Can the owner make me stay if I have no clients?”

No. You are an independent contractor. You are not required to do anything other than the services you’ve been contracted to perform.

“Can the salon owner make me sign a non-compete agreement, making me exclusive to that establishment?”

As an independent contractor, you can work at every salon and spa in town if you want and freelance on the side. You are not obligated to any of them.

“Am I required to perform work I’m not getting paid for? (Like answering phones, cleaning, and folding towels?”

Independent contractors perform services. That is it. It is courteous to pick up after yourself and leave the treatment area in the same condition you found it, but outside of that, those jobs are the responsibility of the business owner.

“Am I required to supply my own product and equipment?”

If you prefer to supply your own product and equipment, you can, but it will be at your own expense. A business owner is not required to cater to your preferences. However, you can (and should) charge them for the product expenses.

“The owner handed me her contract. I’ve read it and I absolutely can’t work under her terms. Can I back out without a penalty?”

Yes, as long as you haven’t signed the agreement.

General FAQ

“The owner wants me to sign a non-compete contract. The contract states that I will not work at any other spa while working at her business. The contract also says that I can not work in the same town or market to the spa’s clients. It also says that any clients I bring to the spa become the property of the spa and that I can’t take them with me if I choose to move on. Can they really enforce this?”

Generally they can’t because most states consider non-competes that restrict employees from working in the same town to be unconstitutional, but in no case should you ever sign a contract like that. Ever. Never sign anything that could impair your ability to work. Here’s an article on non-compete agreements.

“My boss doesn’t do payroll. They pay cash out at the end of every day or week. Is that legal?”

It’s shady. If they’re not doing payroll and they’re paying you cash, they’re not claiming you as an employee. Your taxes aren’t getting paid and they’re putting you in a bad situation. In addition, many states have laws regarding how payroll is handled and reported to the employees of a particular establishment.

Let’s talk!

If you have a question that isn’t answered here, or a unique situation that you’d like to discuss, email me to make a consulting appointment!

I’m about to offend some coaches.

In my experience, coaches are worthless. The ones I’ve met in my travels collect money and tell their clients what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear. Many of them lack experience, which isn’t surprising since there’s no education or licensing requirement to become a “coach.” Additionally, coaches can’t be held liable for the bad advice they give you. I’ve seen salon owners get absolutely taken by coaches so I’m completely against them. Instead, I recommend finding an appropriate mentor.

Every professional needs a mentor, especially salon owners. Mentors also don’t require certification or education and can’t be held liable for any bad advice they give you, but at least you won’t be bankrupted by them. The best mentors are those who have walked in your shoes and have taken the path to success. They’ve beaten that trail so they’re in a better position to help you find your way. At the very least, they’ve likely experienced the same troubles you have and can relate to you on a level generic “coaches” can’t. (Never underestimate the strength and value of a sympathetic shoulder to commiserate with.)

Mentors can act as cheerleaders also but the best ones are those who won’t put up with your excuses and those who are willing to lend a helping hand when you need it. I’ve mentored many new salon professionals and it’s not all hugs and high fives. Good mentors assign tasks and due dates. If a mentee slacks, they’re called out for it. If a mentee isn’t capable of performing a certain task (for example, writing a resume), a good mentor will walk them through it so they can learn how.

If accountability is the problem, serious thinking is the solution.

You are accountable to someone, in all instances.

That person could be you, it could be your employees, it could be your clients, or your business itself. Someone or something will always suffer for your failure to complete important duties. That damage might not be visible upon cursory inspection, you can always find it if you look deeper. For some tasks, the damage is nothing more than a lack of benefit or missed opportunity. (For example, failing to run a timely promotion or participate in a networking event may not necessarily hurt your business in an immediately obvious way, but the lost opportunities come with hidden consequences.)

Getting motivated to consistently execute can be difficult, but these motivation issues generally stem from one or more of the following factors:

1. Self-doubt (“I’m a failure.” “I can’t.” “I’m not smart enough.”): Those negative inner voices can kill your motivation faster than anything, turning your focus to how inadequate you are instead of turning it to solving the problems at hand.
2. Confusion (“I seriously have no idea how to do this.”): When you have no idea how to proceed, or do know how to proceed but don’t know how to get from Point A to Point B, the end result can be a road block.
3. Upset Equilibrium (“I’m overwhelmed.”): I’m not talking about vertigo or any of that “discombobulated Chakra” stuff. Upset equilibrium is that feeling of being torn into ten different directions at once. It’s that feeling you get when you’re overwhelmed, and usually it’s caused by both personal and professional discord. When your “To Do” list has fifty things on it, each comes with one or more issues preventing or complicating your ability to complete them, and you have no idea how to prioritize each task, you’ll begin hearing that static in your brain and feeling that tightness in your chest. That’s how you know your equilibrium is all out of whack. You’re reaching but can’t grasp anything.
4. System Breakdown (“Nothing is getting done.” “Everything is going wrong.”): When you lack systems or your systems aren’t designed properly, finishing anything becomes impossible. By far, this is the biggest issue salon owners deal with. When there’s no schedule, tasks are forgotten. When there’s no protocol, operations fall apart.

So how do you deal with those productivity killers?

Suppress those inner voices telling you that you’re “not,” or that you “can’t.” Those voices aren’t productive, useful, or worthy of your time. They’re doing nothing for you, so silence them. If you feel yourself being pulled into a pity party, take a few minutes to recognize your achievements and shift your focus to your tasks.

Make a list. Put all your problems down on paper in a list format. Prioritize those that are time-sensitive, followed by those which are quick and easy to accomplish. All the others go at the bottom, ranked by how damaging the consequences are should they not be completed. Put these problems into perspective. Is redesigning your business cards really that pressing of an issue? Unless you’ve recently changed your number, address, or website URL, the answer is a big “nope.” Stop losing sleep over stupid shit and focus on what matters.

Strategize.  Come up with as many ways to complete the tasks as possible. Choose the methods that make the most sense and require the least effort.

Delegate. Compare outsourcing costs and benefits. For example, if redesigning your marketing materials would take you a considerable amount of time, would it not be better to outsource that task to a graphic designer and focus on the tasks that really require your direct involvement (like training a new hire)? Assess the time investment on each task and determine whether or not the job is simple enough to assign to someone else, especially if that “someone else” is more qualified to do the job than you are.

Design systems and schedules, and stick to them. The easiest way to keep from getting overwhelmed is to have efficient processes, especially for recurring tasks like inventory tracking and replenishment. Schedules and processes will keep you focused and keep you grounded. When your personal management systems are functioning well, you’ll never feel overwhelmed or lost again. Salon owners in particular should have systems in place for hiring, training, performance assessment, routine quality assurance, continuing education, inventory management, social media management, progressive discipline, and all other operational tasks.

Ask for help. If you’ve hit a wall, seek assistance. Networking groups are great for this. Get an outside perspective, take a class, search the internet, consult with a mentor, or read a book on the topic. Don’t plow through a problem from a position of limited knowledge or you may end up creating more problems for yourself.

Execute. When you review your list of tasks, set reasonable due dates for them. If it helps, break the task into smaller tasks. Give 100% to the tasks on the list, in order. Don’t spread your effort between them or allow yourself to become distracted by new problems that aren’t immediately pressing. (Leaking ceilings and plumbing are immediate issues; making time for a meeting with an annoyingly aggressive new product vendor isn’t.)

Self-congratulate. Too few people do this well, or at all–myself included. When you’ve accomplished something, take a few minutes to feel good about it. It’s done! You did a thing! Awesome! Gold star! Now, go do another thing, you productive maniac!

What about you? What techniques have you used to pull yourself out of your professional ruts? Let us know in the comments!

Hobart’s article focuses on the growth (and the subsequent acquisition of) salon-exclusive brands by major corporate giants, and how those acquisitions and the popularity of the booth rental model contributed to the death of the beauty industry, but the blame for that decline can be shared with industry professionals, and the problems both groups caused have far more impact than the loss of “professional-only” products.

• Beauty professionals’ wages are abysmal.
• The large chunk of professionals (33% of hairdressers, 41% of barbers*, and a whopping 70% of nail techs) are classified as “independent contractors,” but are highly unlikely to actually be operating as legitimately self-employed (more than 80% of the time, the DOL finds they’re inappropriately classified and must work to recover lost wages).
• Many salon owners choose not to act as leaders (non-employer-based salons are up 75%*), instead abdicating their obligations as employers and managers, creating a “survival of the fittest” environment.
• Intentional exploitation of beauty workers is rampant, with salon owners committing wage theft, failing to meet prevailing wage or overtime obligations, and imposing unreasonable, overly-restrictive (and sometimes illegal) contracts on their staff.
• “Professional-only” products have become a thing of the past, as most “professional” brands can be found lining the shelves of every major consumer retail outlet.
• Discount salons and budget franchises specializing in cheap, fast services continue to dominate the market even as we begin to pull through the Recession, further contributing to the devaluation of beauty professionals and the services they offer.
• The rise of the “Do-It-Yourself” Youtube generation has equated to significant losses, particularly in the professional nail care and skin care side of the industry.
• Politicians and fringe groups continue to attempt to deregulate our industry, a move that would remove regulatory oversight and educational/training requirements, putting schools across the country out of business and countless consumers at significant risk. (I don’t even want to think about how fast a flood of unqualified professionals in the market would drop our service prices.)

…I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Jaime and I have written about these issues from our perspective in the nail industry, but in this article I want to share the various ways salon owners and professionals themselves contributed to this decline, clarify the lessons we should learn from these issues, and propose ways to revitalize our industry.

1. Independence isn’t working for any of us.

The exodus of the salon-exclusive manufacturers can be traced along the same line as the decline of employer-based salon businesses. When professionals and salon owners made distribution difficult, manufacturers found faster routes to deliver product. They lost incentive to be salon exclusive, because salons lost the ability to move product fast enough to justify exclusivity. Sure, some of these manufacturers made the move to consumer outlets strategically, selling out to cash-in and capitalize on the reputation for quality that the salons helped establish, but if it were easier and more profitable to move these lines through salons exclusively and maintain brand integrity, perhaps they wouldn’t have.

The increasing popularity of non-employer-based salons has hurt us in more ways than one. Professionalism overall suffers when industry workers lack strong management and oversight. Salon owners can’t require renters or “contractors” to participate in mandatory training or to adhere to quality standards. They can’t control conduct, dress code, or dictate technique.

When salon owners abdicate this control over their employees, they lose control over the business overall and the result is an inappropriately casual work environment with multiple professionals working in direct competition under the same roof.

We can and should do better than that. I’ve written time and time and time again about changing our management practices and our compensation structures to work for us instead of against us. How bad do things have to get before people start listening?

2. Salon owners need to embrace their positions as employers and leaders.

Hobart’s article makes this point overwhelmingly clear. Those of us who have spent any portion of our careers in branded businesses directed by competent managers can attest to this fact: salons thrive under unity. When we all work towards a common goal with a common philosophy, we all do better. Our businesses excel, employee overturn is minimal, retail sales soar, and client retention ceases to be a concern.

When considering a career in this industry, we see tons of ridiculous statistics: “earning potential,” “median salary,” “projected growth rate,” and countless others designed to lure students into the career.

You know what statistics these same sites don’t brag about? Average career length.

You know what they don’t take time to explain? What “potential” means, or how it’s often falsified or calculated based on made-up figures that aren’t actually representative of the industry, or what the word “median” actually means.

Currently, 80-90% of all new licensees will leave the profession entirely before their first license renewal, or shortly after it**. (How much of that much-touted “projected growth rate” accounts for the exodus of fed-up professionals? Most of it.)

Certainly, some of those who leave are simply retiring, often due to common injuries sustained on the job (chronic hip/back/joint issues, etc.),  but the new licensees who drop out before the ink has dried on their license aren’t among them. Sure, it’s very possible that a good deal of these new graduates entered into the industry with false expectations (for that, we can thank the school recruiters for failing to effectively communicate the nature of the business and reality shows for delivering a false impression of the industry), but the top complaint I hear from licensees exiting the field is, “I can’t find a good salon to work at. All of them are booth rental or ‘independent contractor’ based. I’m not guaranteed a wage. The owner expects me to bring their business a clientele. They expect me to pay for product and pay my own taxes but follow their rules and work their schedule. They want me to sign an insane contract, prohibiting me from working within a 50 mile radius for 20 years…”

With an overwhelming majority of salons non-employer-based and/or utilizing circumstantially legal “commission-only” compensation structures, this industry just isn’t very employee-friendly, and that needs to change.

3. We need to stop flooding our local markets to the point of oversaturation.

I’m often asked, “Why didn’t you open a salon sooner in your career? Why did you prefer to manage?”

I didn’t open a salon until it became clear my market needed one, because I understand what market saturation looks like and how additional identical businesses in an oversaturated market dilute that market, making survival harder for everyone within it.

A smart business person evaluates a potential market and asks themselves, “Is there a need for my business here?”

When an area has fifteen salons in a two-mile radius, that area does not have a need of another damn salon.

This is why I’ve worked to establish and encourage friendships between local salon owners. It’s why I encourage potential salon owners to consider pursuing a management position at an existing salon instead. It’s why I have repeatedly chosen to act as a positive force within existing businesses helping to grow them, rather than to compete against them and fifty others in the same town. It’s why I continue to discourage salon owners from the rental model and loudly advocate for employer-based salons with focused management.

Bloomberg estimates that 80% of small businesses fail within the first 18 months.

Among all businesses, traditional beauty salons have the second highest failure rate.

With so many of these salons being placed in saturated markets, most of them non-employer-based, and with a good deal of even employer-based salons lacking management entirely, this should come as no surprise–and as a HUGE wakeup call for both existing and potential salon owners.

4. Salon owners and professionals must find better ways to compete and maintain relevance to combat DIY.

It’s time to start getting creative. We have to find ways to innovate in order to maintain (and hopefully gain) relevance.

When we look to the past, we see that a shift was made from serving the same clients on a weekly basis to serving a higher volume of clients on a less-frequent basis. This shift certainly hasn’t hurt us, but with the DIY crowd becoming their own beauty professionals in an effort to save money, we have to start finding ways to position ourselves as necessary. To accomplish this, our work must be truly irreplicable by amateurs. This means advanced education in marketable cutting-edge techniques, with mindfulness of our current economic climate and local economies.

Simply put: there must be a need for that service, it should be near impossible to replicate at home, and the cost to the consumer must be justifiable.

While no beauty service can be truly “necessary,” manufacturers have never had a problem creating products and services designed to be delivered by professionals. Recently, however, we’re seeing more and more of these products and services designed to go straight to the consumer market (clip-in hair extensions, DIY gel polish kits, at-home microderm kits). These manufacturers are finding ways to make us irrelevant.

It’s up to us to find ways to counter consumer brands and prove to consumers that we’re worth their money.

5. Professionals and salon owners alike need to involve themselves in the industry beyond the borders of their workplace.

This is our industry–everyone should be playing a role in its overall management. That means involvement in your state board, keeping informed on proposed legislative changes, forming connections with other professionals and salon owners, and speaking up when necessary.

What opportunities does this decline present?
How can we use these lessons to move forward and grow in a positive way?

In the nail industry in particular (and at this point, likely in the hair sector too), plenty of demand exists for a truly salon-exclusive professional brand, one entirely committed to supporting the professional community by tightly controlling distribution. A quality brand with a dedicated network of educator-distributors and a strong mission could absolutely dominate in a salon-exclusive market that currently lacks a trustworthy, pro-only line.

Salon professionals are desperately seeking positions in employee-based salons that guarantee compliance with prevailing wage laws and offer modest commission bonuses based on performance. These salons are also far more likely to attract and retain quality employees and maintain stability past the “failure threshold” of 18 months.

Independent educators and innovative professionals have immense opportunity to develop and share new techniques to an industry that is STARVING for education without a sales agenda. Artists and trendsetters, the time to shine is now more than ever. Mobilize. Get out there, inspire others, and get paid.

Salon owners can resume their positions as leaders and role models, building their business under a shared mission/philosophy and using their influence to uplift their teams, creating desirable, profitable, ethical workplaces that thrive, where employees have access to benefits and continuing education, and aren’t expected to assume any portion of the salon owner’s responsibilities.

We don’t need major companies to direct our industry. We can and should be developing innovative services and products ourselves. With the rise of crowdfunding and powerful social media platforms (combined with an increasingly tight-knit international professional community), we have incredible opportunities to gain funding and support for our ideas, to form connections with people in positions to help us facilitate their creation, and to establish distribution for them ourselves.

NOTHING is too difficult or complicated to do if you’re motivated to get it done.

Overall, we need to understand that returning to our Golden Age is relatively simple.

“I come from an era in this business where professionalism was everything and was exhibited by all players with a stake in the game.”
-JAMES HOBART

As an industry, we need to band together and work as a unified team with a common mission. It’s time to bring professionalism back. It’s time to vote with our dollars and only support brands that support us. The only way we’ll move forward is if we stop moving against each other. Let’s create long-term, successful businesses instead of solitary, short-term competitive cash grabs.

If you don’t have a stake in the game, quit playing.

*From the PBA’s Economic Snapshot of the Beauty Industry, 2015
**I’ll link to that study as soon as I find it again. Obviously, negative statistics like this are buried in search results that utilize the same keywords to spin the issue positively. (For example, Google “average career length cosmetology.”) If you have the study, please send it to me. I grow weary of slogging through page after page of school marketing bullshit.

Many so-called “consultants” have a tendency to deliver more bullshit than results. The buzzwords and made-up language are intentionally crafted to inflate their abilities while simultaneously obscuring the exact results they’re capable of delivering. I’m not talking about “big words,” here. I use big words. That’s just how I speak.

Don’t confuse a broad vocabulary with contrived idiocy.

I’m talking about ridiculous terminology that sparkles like glittering diamonds to a salon owner–“super-charge,” “productivize!,” “synergy!,” and my personal most-hated term, “tribe.” I seriously hate that word with every fiber of my being. Coming in at a close second would be any nonsensical (and yet somehow still obnoxiously motivational) saying, for example: “Let’s step forward together and challenge the future!” Third most hated? Meaningless analogies, for example: “To be successful, we need to eat our own dog food before we have our pudding.” …ugh. Nauseating on several levels.

These consultants aren’t consultants, they’re bullshit artists. I can play along too. “The competition may be fierce, but the potential profit pools are substantial! If our tribe can synthesize and streamline our internal processes and protocols, we can establish a harmonized landscape and slice that elephant into small pieces…now pay my $15,000, non-refundable retainer so we can build your Jenga tower with multiple core efficiencies.“

These cretins are so embarrassing, I actually hate telling people what I do for a living.

In my capacity as a consultant, I act as a partner, educator, and helper. I’m an extra brain, basically, and an extra set of eyes, ears, and hands. I see myself as more of a time-saver for salon owners than anything, because if they were to commit the time and effort into educating themselves daily on business, law, marketing, or management practices, they would be just as capable as I am at performing their duties. In the real world, most salon owners don’t have time to devote hours of every day to learning these topics and keeping informed about the shifting landscape of the tectonic business–yeah, I can’t even continue joking about it, it’s legitimately pissing me off.

Many salon owners have only worked behind the chair, so they don’t have the depth of experience a career salon manager has. For those owners, it’s easier to hire someone to guide them. I learned a lot of lessons by observing the mistakes of other salon owners (and making several of my own). Owners who hire a consultant gain the wisdom of that experience without the blood, sweat, and tears. A true consultant is a priceless business asset, but it’s hard to determine if they’re legitimate or not. I know a lot of “consultants” who truly act more as coaches–and coaches are not consultants.

A consultant consults. We advise, assist, and educate. We analyze, troubleshoot, provide solutions, and help lead you through the process of implementing those solutions.

A coach acts as a cheerleader. They encourage. They motivate. They help you solve your own problems–they do not solve them for you. People who benefit from coaches are those who need help developing their own critical thinking skills. They need someone to ask them pointed questions and guide them to their own solutions. They may also require a “taskmaster”–someone to hold them accountable to themselves.

The funniest part about these coaches masquerading about as consultants is that they have no clue what their role is. The first question you need to ask a potential consultant after, “Tell me about your experience,” is, “What exactly can you do for me and for my salon?” If you receive any wobbly, evasive, complicated, or BS answers designed to confuse you, flatter you, or paint the consultant as some golden god of business mastery–you’ve got a bullshit artist in your office.

A good consultant is not a bullshit artist. They don’t spout buzzwords to confuse you. They are direct about the kind of results you can expect from them. They’re neutral about your business and they meet you on equal-ground.

We will not worship the ground you walk on and tell you what a special flower you are.

We will not endorse your piss-poor decisions.

We will not enable your laziness.

We’re retained to help you succeed, not stroke your fragile ego. This means getting the hell to work and getting things done.

I’m an extremely ethical person and I hate that I’m associated with a profession that’s widely considered to be unethical.

I recently fixed the “work” of one of these fake “consultants.” I’ve watched them drive salons off cliffs. When someone entrusts you with something as sacred to them as their business, you have a moral obligation to perform well. You’re the lifesaver they grasp onto. For many of my clients, I’m their only hope (sometimes I like to wear a robe and pretend I’m Obi-Wan). To abuse the trust of a desperate person for the purposes of lining your own pockets is so deplorable it makes me nauseous.

So here’s my advice to you: start reading. Read books, read blogs, watch video lectures online. LEARN. If you can’t find a competent, trustworthy consultant, commit yourself to getting thoroughly educated.

Now let’s come up with a better word than “consultant.” It leaves a yucky taste in my mouth.

Having trouble finding (or keeping) a mentor? Chances are pretty good that you’re making one of these five mistakes.

1.) You don’t know where to start. Where do you find mentors? How do you approach a mentor? What can you expect from a mentoring relationship? What will you be required to do? Who you gonna call?

Luckily, this post answers those questions for you. You can cross this excuse off your list.

2.) You’re arrogant/insecure/afraid to ask for guidance. If you stubbornly insist that you don’t need professional guidance, you’re unlikely to benefit from a mentor’s assistance. If you allow your pride, fear, or shame to keep you from contacting someone for guidance, you’re only hurting yourself. Remember, everyone can benefit from a mentor. Everyone. This includes you, smartypants.

3.) You have a bad attitude.

Here’s a list of people mentors don’t want to deal with:

• liars
• whiners
• assholes
• ungrateful swine
• posers
• children
• flakes
• maniacs

If you’re projecting any of these qualities, any mentor worth the title won’t touch you with a twenty foot pole. Be positive, proactive, considerate, appreciative, and truthful. Keep your emotions and impulses in check.

4.) You’re lazy/clueless/an obvious waste of time.

“Hi! I just found your website and decided I want to own a salon! I need to know everything there is to know about salons and how to own one. Email me back with the information! Thanks!”

“I read one paragraph of one of your posts and I think I might be misclassified. I don’t have enough time to do my own research, but I somehow have time to compose a 20 page email detailing my life story and every minute detail of my situation, down to the color of shoes I was wearing when I discovered your website. Am I misclassified? Can you teach me how to keep from making this mistake in the future? I really need career help!”

You know what ain’t nobody got time for? ANY OF THAT.

When you approach a mentor for assistance, do your research. Show that you’re serious and worth their time. If you’re unwilling to commit yourself to your own improvement, why should a mentor? Mentors want mentees who clearly recognize their skill and knowledge deficits and can set their goals effectively. Mentors want mentees who have demonstrated a degree of competence and a willingness to do the work necessary to help themselves.

5.) You just aren’t ready for the mentor you’re pursuing. 

This ties in with #4 a bit, but the difference here is that no amount of research will correct this problem.

Mentors offer a hand up; they don’t often sculpt perfection from scratch.

Seek mentors that will suit the stage of your career that will most benefit from their guidance. If you’re just starting school, you’re better off seeking out a senior student at that school or an instructor to help guide you through that period. You’re not ready to seek out a thirty-year veteran who runs a chain of highly successful day spas. You just aren’t there yet, so don’t try to jump the gap or get ahead of your needs.

If you are a… Then your ideal mentor is a…
New Student > Senior Student/Instructor
Senior Student > Salon Professional (3+ years experience)
Salon Professional > Salon Owner (5+ years experience) or Veteran Salon Professional (10+ years experience)
Salon Owner > Established Salon Owner (15+ years experience, 10+ as an owner)

Some established mentors do take on “the little people.” I’m one of them. As a matter of fact, I only take on students or professionals who are new to the industry—salon owners and experienced professionals have to pay for my time and advice.

Don’t be afraid to ask someone to mentor you even if their experience level doesn’t seem relevant to your own at the time, but keep your expectations reasonable.

I’m a rare exception to this rule. Most experienced mentors won’t take on mentees that have to be educated from the foundation up because they’re just too much work and they haven’t put in the time to demonstrate that they’re committed to the industry. Understandably, those mentors prefer to take on mentees that are on the appropriate level since they require a smaller time investment and have at least obtained the applicable licenses and training.

If you’ve identified the issue that pertains to your situation, take the necessary steps to correct it. 

There is nothing more rewarding than a supportive, successful mentor/mentee relationship. Mentors enjoy helping professionals succeed and mentees reap numerous professional benefits. Seek mentorship early and continue to seek mentors throughout your career as you advance.

So, you’ve found a mentor…what now? The tips below will tell you how you can get the maximum benefit from this new relationship.

Be honest. Communicate your shortcomings clearly. If you didn’t need a mentor, you wouldn’t be seeking one, so don’t hide your imperfections or gloss over them. Clarify your needs and skill gaps. Provide your mentor with insight on how you learn best and whether you require structured guidance or gentle supervision.

Manage up. Take responsibility for the relationship between you and your mentor. You’re the one that needs to set goals, clarify your strengths and weaknesses, track your progress, schedule meetings, and set agendas. Ask questions to gain insight, verify or clarify, and show interest.

Your mentor is there to guide you, but you need to be managing the relationship to make their job easier.

Be consistent. Set a regular meeting schedule and stick to it. Setting a schedule will help you stay on track. Your mentor will also be better able to guide you and keep on top of your progress. You can meet for coffee or have a phone conference once a week, but regular interaction is very important if you want to get the most out of your mentor.

Create agendas for meetings. To make your meetings more productive, create an agenda in advance. You don’t have to stick to the agenda, but it’s a good idea to use it as a rough guideline. During meetings, don’t let the conversation wander to topics that aren’t relevant. Keep the small talk to a minimum and focus on the reason you’re both there.

Set goals. The key here is to aim for the moon, but keep your goals achievable. Instead of setting a lofty, difficult goal, set smaller, more realistic goals. This will help keep you from becoming discouraged and will make achieving your bigger goals (that trip to the moon, for instance) more manageable. Create specific, written goals with hard deadlines.

If you don’t know where you want to be within six months or one year, your mentor won’t know how to guide you best.

Ask. Ask. Ask. Your mentor is there to guide you, but you need to help them know where you need guidance. Ask tons of questions, even if you think you may already know the answers to them. Your mentor may (and often will) surprise you with a perspective you never considered.

Accept feedback gracefully. Nobody enjoys being criticized, even when the mentor communicates that criticism tactfully and positively. Mentors understand that some of their feedback may bruise your ego. There’s a right and wrong way to accept that feedback. The right way is to accept it, thank the mentor, and ask them how to correct that problem as you move forward. The wrong way is to throw a tantrum, curse out your mentor, or get combative.

To get the most from your mentor, encourage feedback and embrace it.

Ask for reasoning. Your mentor should always have a solid reason to justify the advice they give you. Ask them for it. Never be scared to ask, “Why?” Open the door for discussion. It’s not enough to be given the advice, you have to understand the lesson behind it, so have your mentor share their experience with you.

Apply the lessons you’ve learned. What’s the point of asking for advice if you aren’t going to take it? You certainly don’t have to apply every piece of advice you receive, but the purpose of having a mentor is to obtain guidance from someone more experienced and successful. If you’re going to ask for advice and not utilize it, you’re better off not wasting the mentor’s time. Following through on your assigned tasks will demonstrate to your mentor that you’re committed and willing to take the steps necessary to better yourself.

Notate your experiences so you can discuss them with your mentor. When you begin implementing the solutions your mentor offers, document it. Show the mentor the changes you’re making and how they’re affecting you professionally and your business. For many mentors, this is our payment. It makes us feel good to see that our advice is contributing to your success. Additionally, this might also help your mentor fine-tune their strategy to suit you better.

Follow your mentor. Read your mentor’s published articles, attend their lectures, or shadow them in their salon. Receiving advice is great, but nothing is as effective as spending a day with them and watching them work.

If you liked this article, check out The Store, where you can find tons of educational resources and tools to help advance your career! Consider becoming a VIP and taking advantage of our member resources, including access to our exclusive VIP library and VIP community. If you have any questions, email me at letstalk@thisuglybeautybusiness.com.

What are you looking for in a mentor? Do you need a mentor that’s accessible? Would you benefit from a mentor that provides specific opportunities? Is your ideal mentor wise and patient like Yoda from Star Wars or cynical and brutal like Tina Alberino Dr. Cox from Scrubs? Maybe you’d prefer a mentor that is more of a watcher who only provides guidance when necessary, like Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

You know how you learn best and what type of direction you’ll respond best to.

What do you need? What are your professional goals and expectations? What do you need help with, specifically? Identify your values, work style, and skill gaps.

Who do you admire and does that person suit your current career stage? You’re more likely to get a positive response from someone you know as opposed to a stranger, so start your search there. Friends, family, colleagues, and your beauty school instructors are great potential resources, but don’t limit yourself to the beauty industry. (You can benefit greatly from mentors in any business. Their unique perspectives may give you broader insight that you can apply to your own career.)

Mentoring relationships that evolve naturally when based on previously established admiration and trust are more likely to continue positively for the long-term. That being said, don’t exclude people you don’t personally know from your list of potential mentors–just don’t expect miracles. It’s important to find mentors that are relevant to your current career stage. (If you’re a new student, a relevant mentor would be a senior student or instructor–not a 30-year veteran salon owner with a beauty empire.)

Once you’ve done the necessary research and assessed your needs, you can move forward with finding a mentor. As you do so, keep these tips in mind:

Get out and network. What if you can’t think of anyone that you know personally who would serve as a suitable mentor?

Meet people.

Join professional networking groups, take classes, attend industry conferences, and start interacting. Cast a wider net.

Don’t be an asshole. Nobody wants to mentor a jerk. If you’re rude, combative, or condescending, nobody is going to make time for you. Remember, mentors donate their time. They’re doing you a massive favor. Show appreciation.

Know how to approach. The best way to secure a mentor is to approach them properly. The fastest way to lose a potential mentor is to show that you haven’t done your research or to treat them like they have to “earn” you as a mentee. (For example: “I’m looking for a mentor. What are your qualifications?”) You have to prove your worthiness to the mentor, not the other way around.

Research your potential mentor in advance. When you contact a potential mentor, tell them how they’ve already helped you and why you admire them.

Ask. Some sources recommend against formally asking for a mentoring relationship, but they’re wrong. You absolutely DO have to clarify the relationship from the start. First, you have to let the mentor know that you’re seeking a mentor so they know how to direct you. Otherwise, you run the risk of just being a really needy person who only initiates contact when they require assistance. This will irritate mentors who don’t understand that you’re not simply trying to be their friend–you’re seeking their guidance. Second, your unlikely to get the most value from your mentor if you’re not clearly articulating your needs, setting goals, or tracking your progress. Your mentor won’t be holding you accountable either, which will hurt your performance. Your mentor is also unlikely to be getting anything from the experience if you’re not sharing your successes, so at some point, they may grow bored/irritated with you and drop you. A successful mentor/mentee relationship requires “managing up,” a process we’ll discuss in more detail in the upcoming post “How To Get The Most Out of Your Mentor.” “Managing up” means that the mentee takes ownership of the relationship. They communicate their needs, set goals, and organizes the information the mentor requires to direct them effectively and efficiently.

So yes. You need to ask, but, “Will you be my mentor?” just won’t cut it. A great way to propose a mentoring relationship is as follows.

“I have attended your classes and always look forward to your email newsletters. The information you’ve shared has helped me immensely and I consider you a role model. I admire your approach to X. I think we share very similar professional values and I’d love it if you’d consider mentoring me a bit. My background is X. My immediate goal is X and my long-term goal is X. There are several areas I’ve identified that require improvement, but my efforts haven’t yielded tangible or favorable results. I’m certain I would greatly benefit from your knowledge, if you’d be willing to share it.”

Have realistic expectations. People are busy. Don’t be upset if a potential mentor tells you that they just don’t have the time to take on a mentee. Mentors should be available to answer questions and provide guidance. Not all of them will have that time to donate. If you are turned down, thank the mentor and ask them if they have any recommendations.

Don’t force it. Don’t stalk potential mentors or try to force a mentoring relationship. The person is willing or they aren’t.

The relationship either works or it doesn’t.

Show that you’re worth their time–and won’t waste it. Do as much of your own research prior to asking questions. Show that you take your career and this industry seriously. Keep your communications short and to the point. Stay on-topic and keep your questions relevant to the mentor’s experience. In this industry, mentors aren’t mental health professionals. We’re not qualified to give you advice about your messy custody battle or your abandonment issues.

Having a mentor is about building your confidence, improving your career, and increasing your odds of success in the industry. It’s about making connections and building relationships with people who have influence and wisdom. Open your mind, be humble, and never be afraid to ask. You have nothing to lose.