The Aspiring Stylist with Tracey Franklin

Morgan Franklin: Welcome to the
Aspiring Stylists Podcast with

Tracey Franklin. Where to begin,
grow and aspire to become the

best stylist you can be. Whether
you're thinking about becoming a

stylist opening a salon, or
developing your skills as an

experienced stylist the next
step of your beauty career

starts here. Each week we'll
discuss strategic ways to

design, plan and execute on
becoming a stylist that excels

behind the chair and above the
bottom line. Here's your host,

Tracey Franklin.

Tracey Franklin: Before I became
a hairstylist, I can't remember

a time when I wasn't living
paycheck to paycheck. I worked

in early childhood development
so that I could be in the

facility where my children were.

And that was pretty much the
only benefit. The pay was

horrible and the stress levels
were so high. I knew I needed to

find another path. So as soon as
my kids were both in public

school, I enrolled in beauty
school. I knew all throughout

school that I was going to love
this industry and I landed my

dream job after graduation, and
I started building my clientele.

I really had no idea what a
solid clientele would look like.

But the guy I worked with had
back to back clients, so I at

least had a good example of what
it could look like. However,

after finishing my
apprenticeship program, I had my

first day behind the chair, and
my day didn't look anything like

that. I didn't have one client
on my first day behind the

chair. The next day, I had one
client, followed by another day

of no clients. By day three, I
came home crying, I just knew I

had made a huge mistake. But
when quitting is not an option

when you have two kids at home
and you realize this is the path

you've chosen, and not making it
work isn't a choice. The next

day I went to work and a local
radio station called the salon

and asked if anyone wanted to
donate haircuts to their working

women's Wednesday series. My
boss said I could do whatever I

wanted. So I gave away eight
haircuts. And would you believe

that one of those eight haircuts
is still my client today after

over 20 years, honey, those free
haircuts have paid off tenfold.

I also created the cringy used
flyers and had them out wherever

anyone would let me the Tech
campus outside of Kroger like

wherever I needed to. And I had
a fat stack of business cards on

me at any given time and had my
elevator speech on lock. And

after a few months, I was seeing
an average of two to three

clients per day. That's pretty
great. When you're coming up

from zero. I even started seeing
repeat clients come in to me

that felt like a huge win. I
still remember the moment I

realized that my paychecks would
never dip below $500. Again, I

had reached a level of
consistency in my income that I

could count on and it felt
amazing. A solid clientele is

going to look different to
everybody. I got to the point

where I was seeing between four
and eight clients a day

depending on how many colors I
had. And I was booked out a

couple months at a time. To me
that's when I felt built. But

for someone else their built
might look different. I will say

the industry standard for growth
is being booked 85% of your

scheduled time behind the chair.

So once you remove your lunch
breaks, and your doctor's

appointments and anything else
that wouldn't be available for

clients anyways, you're going to
take the hours that you were

booked and divide it by the
hours you had available. And

this is going to give you your
percentage. So how many clients

do you actually need? Well,
there isn't really one answer to

this question because it really
does depend on the services that

are booked and not the number of
people you serve. And here's an

example. If I'm doing haircuts
all day, I need like eight

clients. But if I've got a
client that's getting a base

color and a Bolyard and a full
set of hand tied extensions,

well I probably only need three
clients that day. This is why I

encourage stylists to look at
percentages instead of butts in

the seat. I always tell my
students no matter how many

clients you think you're going
to need when you leave school, I

promise you will need many, many
more. Again, this is all related

to what type of services that
you're offering. And I know not

everyone will agree with me on
this but I do not believe that a

stylish should go straight into
booth rent after graduation.

I've talked about the many
reasons on previous episodes,

but client recruitment is among
my top reason. If you're going

to work in a salon with a good
reputation and an effective

marketing strategy. You are
going to build your books so

much faster, you just will. The
amount of time that goes into

recruiting one client will
surprise you. So as a newbie in

the industry, you need some big
salon energy in order to start

strong. To be perfectly honest,
if you're not effective at

marketing yourself and you may
not do good ever In an

independent setting, once you
are a small business owner and

running your one chair, salon,
all the marketing, all the self

promotion is on you. So if
you're great at this, and you're

probably going to have a better
chance of maintaining your

business, and if you're not,
you're gonna have a hard time

replacing clients that fall off
your book, because trust me,

they're gonna fall off your
book. So how many clients will

you come out of school with on
average, um, very few, very few,

probably your friends and family
and a few clients here and

there. But most people going to
a school for their services are

going because of the
availability and the pricing.

And that's going to be hard for
you to match. And you will find

that most of the schools clients
stay with the school. This means

recruitment has to start before
you even graduate. Hopefully,

you have decided on a salon home
before you graduate so that you

can start telling people where
they can find you. If there's

any kind of lag time between
graduation and starting your

time behind the chair, then you
need to make sure that you keep

your social media audience
engaged and stay in touch with

clients that plan to follow you
out of sight out of mind. And

people will lose interest
quickly if we don't keep them

updated. Realistic goals are
important, or you're going to

constantly feel like you're
letting yourself down. So set

yourself a goal of having two
clients in your chair every day.

And then once you are
consistently hitting that goal,

it's time to level up. Keep
adding and reinventing your time

behind the chair until you find
what works best for you. And

what keeps you excited, not
exhausted. So you need to start

taking the steps as a new
stylist to attract your initial

clients. And the first step
starts in school. And that's

with creating your professional
Instagram page. If you think

your future or potential clients
aren't interested in your

education journey, I promise you
they are. First of all, people

are so nosy. And second, it's
really fun to go back and look

on your journey and see how much
you've grown while you're in

school, how much better you got
at things and how people have

supported you throughout your
entire journey. These people are

your tribe and you need to start
building that tribe first thing,

your challenges are going to
change as your career

progresses. At some point, your
availability or lack thereof is

going to cause someone to move
on. Or maybe you're experiencing

a ton of success and your prices
just keep increasing. Well good

for you, you're doing the thing.

But not everyone's gonna come
along for this more expensive,

less available version of you.

And that's okay too. But they
will need to be replaced. This

is why you need to always be
building. Some people want it

fast and cheap. And that's just
who they are. And the more

successful you become, the less
available you will be for this

particular type of client.

Looking back, I can identify a
time that significantly

accelerated my growth. And that
was when I started doing Bali

asure, I was the first artist in
my salon to offer this new way

of doing hair color. And people
were so intrigued and Facebook

had just started becoming wildly
popular, and my social media

journey got kicked into high
gear. Another one was hair

extensions. You guys hear me
talking about hair extensions

all the time, there were only a
few stylists in my area that

were offering them but they
didn't really promote

themselves. So when I did, I
became known as the go to

extension girl in my area. And
this increased my popularity and

my income immensely. Some
marketing strategies are more

effective than others at
attracting new clients. And I do

think that all marketing
strategies work. That's why it's

so important to have a few
different avenues. I've done

billboards, I've done bathroom
stall marketing, I even had a

full page ad in the Yellow Pages
a million years ago. And I'll

never forget how expensive that
was. All of these marketing

platforms are still available
and still effective. But I don't

believe anything is as effective
as showing up in person in your

community, and marketing
yourself on social media, there

just is no comparison. It's
easier than ever to share your

greatness with the world. I will
not accept any excuses when it

comes to my team being present
on social media, if they cannot

at least do that for themselves,
invest in their selves and in

their future success in this
way, then why would I want to

invest anything? When something
is this free and this effective?

I'm sorry, no excuses. I don't
think there's one particular

service or product that's really
the answer and helping you

attract a dedicated client base.

I think it's when you make a
decision on what type of stylist

you're going to be that you're
going to see this huge pivot.

When I decided I wanted to be a
luxury stylist I put myself

under an umbrella of
opportunity, meaning that as

long as I stayed educated and
good at what I did, I could

continue to do offer the best
luxury services out there to my

clients, I prove that I was
someone they could count on, I

was someone worth paying a
little more for I was someone

worth booking out an entire
year's worth of appointments

for, you can decide what your it
factor is. And as long as you

stay true to that, services will
come and go and your loyal

clients will remain. I found my
niche through the process of

elimination, the more successful
I became, the more I was able to

remove services from my menu
that no longer spark joy that no

longer felt rewarding, I was
able to hone in on the ones that

did and made them my niche. I
don't encourage stylists to find

their niche from the start. I
know that may sound a little

weird, but you got to get out
there and you got to experience

this industry. I always ask my
students on the first day of

school what they think they're
going to specialize in. And then

I asked him again, sometime in
the middle, and then again at

the end, it always changes it
has never stayed the same. When

I decided to stop taking haircut
only clients, I lost a huge

percentage of my clientele,
which was something I accepted,

and I made sure I was prepared
for it. I knew that in creating

holes in my schedule, I would
run the risk of decreasing my

income. That was a chance I was
willing to take. I was a well

known stylist in the luxury
salon community. And I knew that

as long as I did my part, I
would attract the right clients

to my chair. And I did but I
just don't think it's the right

move for a stylist in the
beginning. One thing we haven't

talked about yet is word of
mouth, I still find word of

mouth to be wildly effective and
amazing marketing tool. And you

know why? Because a happy client
is a really loud client. And an

unhappy client is also a really
loud client. So when we find a

client that just loves us and
loves everything we do, we need

to let them know how much we
appreciate them and use them in

our marketing strategy. Let them
know how valued they are and

that you're looking to add more
people just like them to your

book. Let them know about any
discounts that you offer when

they refer their friends and
family. Give them some referral

cards and ask for your help. Now
they have what they need and the

assignment is clear. Send your
friends honey, send your family,

I find that people are willing
to help in most situations, we

just have to be willing to ask,
Are you ever really done

building your clientele? Well,
the short answer is no. Unless

you are in transition to
retirement clients will continue

to fall off your book. And in
order to maintain your level of

income you will need to keep
building to replace them. The

long answer is sometimes, as
your career evolves and

progresses, you may find
yourself interested in other

aspects of the industry like
education or leadership. And a

situation like this, you may
find yourself with more clients

than you can handle if you're
trying to add something else. I

haven't been recruiting clients
in over two years now and

continue to place my clients
with other amazing stylist as I

transition away from the chair.

And sometimes you just decide to
slow down for some of us we

can't fathom that. But for
others, they get to a place

where they want to spend more
time with their family or

traveling or doing something
else that they've always wanted

to do. The best strategy for
long term client retention is

consistency. Again, be someone
that is dependable and great at

what they do. Not sometimes
every appointment every time,

people crave consistency and
their hair is no exception. Also

be someone they can trust. No
doubt if they're like most

clients, they go deep with you.

Make sure you're someone that
can bear their soul to and trust

you to keep their secrets. I
know this may sound like a no

brainer. But I've heard some
pretty private conversations

happen in a break room that
shouldn't have. And that trust

is also extended professionally
meaning that they can trust that

you will always bring the latest
and the greatest to the chair.

Trust is so important. For me
what's changed the most about my

recruitment strategy is the
sense of urgency. In the

beginning, you're working with
almost no clients. So everything

you do is about building and
attracting people to your chair.

And then it transitions into
something that requires

consistency, but it's not as
urgent because now you're able

to pay your bill. So instead of
trying to build an entire

clientele, you're just trying to
fill holes. So now you can be a

little bit more selective about
the clients you want to serve

and lean more into your niche.

Managing a schedule that
supports work life balance is

really not that hard when you
maintain healthy boundaries.

When you decide on a schedule
and you stick to it. There will

always be special circumstances
but the standard needs to be

Hey, this is my schedule. This
is when I'm available. I'm sorry

if that doesn't work. Are you
bending over backwards for

clients who continuously
reschedule or don't respect your

boundaries teaches them bad
booking habits from the

beginning. So you just need to
nip that in the bud. I can't say

this with any real certainty.

But after being in the industry
as long as I have and leading so

many professionals to success,
if I had to put a timeline on

building a sustainable
clientele, I would say you need

to give it two years. That
doesn't mean you're going to be

scraping by for two years. Okay?

That means it's going to take at
least this long to build a book

of clients that feels solid and
a book that you can actually

thrive in. So just know the
exception to this rule is crazy

amounts of effort. If you hit
the ground running, if you're

doing everything humanly
possible to build your

clientele, given it all you got
day and night, I mean, you're

obviously going to build faster
than someone that takes a part

time approach. So at the end of
the day, your success is up to

you in the beginning. And in the
end, the type of professional

that you are is truly up to you.

My last piece of advice is to
always act like Gone isn't gone

for good. I've had countless
clients leave and come back to

my chair. So when for whatever
reason you find one of your

clients in someone else's chair,
treat that situation with love

and respect, because you never
know when they're going to

realize what they had in you.

And come back.

Morgan Franklin: Thank you for
joining us on this episode of

anytime soon. The Aspiring
Stylist Podcast with Tracey

Franklin. If you enjoyed
listening and you want to hear

more, make sure you subscribe on
Apple Podcast, Spotify or

wherever you find your podcasts.

The Aspiring Stylist Podcast
with Tracey Franklin is a Morgan

Franklin Production. Today's
episode was written and produced

by Morgan Franklin editing and
post-production by Mike

Franklin. Want to find out more
about Tracey and the Aspiring

Barber and Beauty Academy go to
aspirebarberandbeauty.com