6 BUSINESS & SOCIAL MEDIA TRUTHS EVERY HAIRDRESSER NEEDS TO HEAR

6 Things Every Salon Professional Needs To Hear

BTC wrapped up our national tour with a final stop in LA on November 6: The Orpheum Theatre hosted 1,500 hairdressers for a full day of hair color, cutting, barbering, styling, social media, AI and business education from your favorite hair influencers and salon professionals. Keep reading for six of our favorite business takeaways: Learn why salon owners should fire fast and hire slow, the real role of managers and three IG tips to catapult your social media success.

Missed us in LA? Get the FULL day of education and rewatch the show here!

1. Hire Slow, Fire Fast & Promote Faster

Salon owners, this one’s for you: Straight from the woman who founded and built BTC into the monolith it is today, BTC’s Founder and Creative Director Mary Rector (@marybehindthechair) says it best. “When you let someone in your salon take advantage of you and not follow the standards or the rules, every other person in the salon will lose respect for you. Never sacrifice the entire team for the sake of one person,” she told our LA audience.

That’s why hiring slow, firing fast and promoting even faster is so important. “When you read all these books from the top CEOs, every single one of them said the No.1 mistake they made: They didn’t fire fast enough. Some people are gone, they just haven’t left yet,” Mary says. “The day that you let that person go and kick them out the door, is the day you will regain respect from the team and you will see productivity go up so much.” 

Want to hear Mary’s lessons from 23 years in business? Watch the show here!

2. Nobody Rises To Low Expectations

This next “Mary moment” is a must-read for managers: “A great leader is a great servant,” Mary says. “Our job is not to motivate. It’s to inspire you that you’re working at a place that helps people. We inspire each other to greatness all the time. I’m going to try to push you past your comfort zone till you realize that you’re able to do things you didn’t even think were possible to yourself.”

Imagine what happens when you spend all of your time encouraging your great team members with a spark in them, instead of focusing on the troublemakers?

Photo Credit: Peter Wintersteller

Need more Mary motivation? It’s time to give it your all: Listen to her speech HERE!

3. Why You Should Consider Specialty Services…

In a down economy, it’s important to take steps to increase profit. One way Mary suggests doing that is to narrow down your clientele to perform only the services that make you the most money. “If extensions took six hours but you made $200 an hour, would you cut out all your male clients?” Mary asked our LA audience. Check out her hourly breakdown by service type below to see which services you may want to think about specializing in:

Consider This: If your books are closed, maybe it’s time to raise your prices. “Open your books back up, you need more clients. If your books are closed, it means you’re not charging enough money,” Mary explains.

4. How To Attract Your Dream Clientele With IG

BTC’s Vice President of Strategy and Founder of The BTC Team, Haley Gable (@haleygable) says to start here to attract your dream clientele: Ask yourself what your goals are and figure out what type of client you want to attract. If you want to make more money by taking on more extension clients, the majority of your posts should be extensions.

Haley’s advice? Post the work you want to attract. “Go back through your profile and archive anything that might not fit that. If I’m a new client on your page, if I see all blonding and I’m looking for that service, I know that you specialize in it and will feel more comfortable booking,” she explains.

UP NEXT: Instagram 101—Get Haley’s tips in her 7-part IG crash course HERE!

5. Don’t Be Afraid To Show MORE Than Hair On Social!

Quin Gable (@quingable)—aka BTC’s former Director of Marketing and Events—has seen incredible growth on social media, going from 0 to 2.5 MM followers in just two and a half years. She contributes a lot of that growth in her ability to not only show off beautiful, scenic locations and offer helpful vanlife and cat advice, but also to show off her personality. 

Quin performed a case study where she tested three different content types to see which one gained her the most followers. One reel was a “pretty” video, then a video that was a part of a series and after that, she posted a storytelling video. She found she gained the most follows (18,858 from ONE video!) from her storytelling video: She showed her personality, added humor and was authentic with her audience. See the full analytic breakdown below:

Even as a hairstylist, your personality matters and can be a HUGE tool to help you grow on social media. One hair industry example Quin presents is Lexi Rainbolt, known as @hairbylexie on TikTok. She’s a Florida-based hair influencer that grew to 678k by showing off her vibrant and original personality. Check out her page to get some authentic inspo!

Get ALL of Quin’s tips for going viral on social—watch the show here!

6. How To Deliver Info To Potential & Current Clients

If you’re a salon or a stylist looking to present info to your clients in a concise, clear way, you must be using Instagram highlights. To learn step-by-step how to set them up, click here to watch Haley’s entire presentation. If you need some inspiration, save these highlight examples for individual stylists and salons:

Pro Tip: If you’re already using IG highlights, you need this pro tip! Let’s say you added a one-slide highlight that you label “Hours.” Then, a years and a half passes without your hours changing, so the highlight now says that it was posted 72 weeks ago. Haley poses the question: “If I’m a new client, and I click on that, and it says [72] weeks ago—do I think that’s updated? No.” That’s why it’s important to update your highlights even if the information hasn’t changed.

Here’s the fix: “Once your highlights are set, make sure you set an alarm for you or your salon manager to post the exact same thing every six months to ensure clients know they are receiving the most updated information.” 

ICYMI: Click HERE to see 150+ LA show pics to relive the day!