Brit Seva (0:02)

Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick ass career as a hairstylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen? Maybe you're struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe, you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren't seeing any results. Maybe you've already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you're ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer. Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you're ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists. I'm Brit Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for Hairstylists and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast. What is up? And welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I'm your host, Britceva and I thought this week we would talk about how to achieve more without working more. We are still, let's see, I guess we're just starting Q4 of 2024 and I've never been able to say this before, but in my business we are actually going to significantly surpass our annual revenue and profit goal for the first time ever. So I'm very fortunate. We have been very strategic in the way that we've run this coaching business for we'll be celebrating 10 years January 2025 and we've always achieved well, but this is the first year where we'll actually achieve our goals at the start of Q4 versus at the end. So we're surpassing even what we projected to do. And as I reflect on the year and I think about how we made this possible, I walked into this year knowing it was going to be very different. And we as an organization really battled through 2023 and we did quite a bit of battling in 2024 as well. And man, if it wasn't all worth it because we did do things differently and I did shake things up, turns out the result is fantastic. And the team, truly through blood, sweat and tears, now that we're all on the flip side, we're like, whoa, was that all worth it? And what we're finding now is we're achieving a lot more without working more. And that's, I think, the goal for all of us. When we talk about true scalability. It's how do we grow our businesses without Having to break our backs in the process. And it doesn't mean we get to become lazy, but it means, like, can we grow this business without having to work 80 hours hours a week? Like, can we still just work as hard as we've been working, but do things smarter? And for the first time ever, I get to say we did. And I want to share with you. I wrote down nine strategies that I think were really beneficial to us, and I'm hoping that they can be beneficial to you as well. So first, let's start at the top. My big promise with this episode was how to achieve more without working more. So let me tell you a few of the things that will not get you there. Double booking. Double booking, when I first joined the industry was proposed to me as working smarter, not harder. I mean, double booking, colon working smarter, not harder. It's like it was a tagline. And even at the time, the naive me who didn't know a lot was like, how is taking twice as many people not working harder? And I understand you can. I'm doing air quotes like, maximize production of your time because you're serving twice as many guests. I get it. I totally understand. My issue with it is it is working more. And even if you hire assistants to help you. Okay, well, now you're training assistants, and some people like all that. I'm not saying it's bad. I was an assistant. I'm super grateful for the opportunity. What I'm saying is running a double column is working more. And I'm talking about the things that don't include doing that specifically in this episode. Working less days, but longer hours. When people are like, I'm so smart now I'm going to work four tens instead of five eights, or I'm going to work three twelves and be full time. That is our bodies, especially in a physical position like, like ours, are not meant to work that hard. We are in a very labor intensive industry. And if you've not yet met a stylist with carpal tunnel, you've not yet met a stylist who's developed a color allergy. You've not yet met a stylist who had a neck surgery or a shoulder surgery or a spinal surgery, you will, because this is a very physically demanding career. And when we don't take care of our bodies, they will break down. So working less days but longer hours is not achieving more without working more. That's not it either. Passive income. I'm a big fan of passive income. I think it's deeply Misunderstood. I think a lot of people try to start side hustles to create passive income. I have a digital education business. There is not a single aspect of my business that is passive income. It is all incredibly active income. I have an extremely large team and a seven figure payroll to pull it off. So the idea that a lot of the things that people are doing as side hustles that they're thinking are passive income simply aren't. So when you look at true passive income, it would be like investments. Like if you invest in the stock market or mutual funds or you have an investment property. Even investment property isn't really passive because usually there's maintenance to be done with it. So when you literally can just set it and forget it with your money, that's true passive income. Having a side business is having a side business. I saw actually a really great visual from this other educator, and he was holding this cup full of marbles. And the cup full of marbles was all the way full. And then he had seven other empty plastic cups on a table. And he was like, a lot of people are seeking passive income as a way to make more without working more. And he's like. And when you talk to like, really, really rich people, like, you know, older rich dudes who have been, you know, wealthy for decades, they talk about multiple streams of income, which is why it got really trendy over the last few years to get there. But what this educator was saying is the piece that people don't understand is that most of these people who now have multiple streams of income had a single stream of income for like 50 years. And they maximize that single stream to a place where they could invest in multiple streams. And so what he did is he takes this cup full of marbles and he says, but what the young naive entrepreneur does is tries to create multiple streams of income too fast. And he starts pouring the marbles into the cups on the table. And he says, and what happens is you end up with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 cups that are not nearly full, and you've got seven half finished projects, none of which are producing an abundance. And that is a huge problem with the entrepreneurial market today. Whether you're a stylist, a salon owner, you're a digital educator, whatever, is that you're spreading yourself so thinner, thinking that the more things I'm involved in, the more money I'll make. No, the more burnt out you'll be. But generally speaking, the grass will be greener where you water it. And if you go all in on One thing like literally burn the ships and just say this is the one thing I'm going to do, I'm going to go all in on it. I'm going to see all the opportunities here. That's where you'll find massive success. So we're not going to talk about passive income, we're not going to talk about double booking and we're not going to talk about working less days, but longer hours. So step number one, get clear on what it is you're trying to achieve. So often if you've ever like reached out to me for coaching in the DMs or in thrivers office hours or anywhere else, often when you ask me a question and it can be a long, long, long question with all these details, often my response is one sentence response and it's usually like six to ten words, it's super short. And I'll be like, okay, so to sum it up, what is it you're looking for? And people really struggle to answer that question and they'll say things like, I want to grow. That is so vague. What are you talking about? You want to grow? What does that mean? You want to be more educated, you want to have more money, you want to have more clients. Okay. And then people say, well I want all of those things. Okay, why? Why do you want more clients? You want to work more hours? Well no, I don't want to work more hours. Okay, so then maybe we don't want more clients. Maybe you just want more money. Yeah, I definitely need more money. Why? What will the money do for you? It will allow me to be able to buy a house. Perfect. So what you don't want is to grow. What you don't want is more money. What you don't want is more clients. You want to be a homeowner. Oh, this is the way my wealthiest year yet system is designed. If we can center your aspirations and your focus around the why, the tangible result, I can coach you to get good results. Most people, most entrepreneurs, most stylists, most salon owners, focus on the money, focus on the clients, focus on the metrics. I had somebody messaged me in the DMs just this week and she was like, what retail to sales percentage should I be coaching to? And I was like, forget the retail to sales percentage, like literally throw it in the trash can. That doesn't matter. We hyper focus on these metrics that don't actually get us to where we want to be. So focus on what truly you're trying to achieve and allow that to Be what I call the North Star number two, identify the key priorities. So we want to focus on the tasks that contribute to the most revenue growth, most customer acquisition. So one of the things that's really helpful to me, I love this exercise is to do. Have you heard the Importance and Urgency grid? Have you heard of that before? This is not something I made up. I don't know who did, but I've used it for years. You take a sheet of paper and you divide it into four. So you do one line top to bottom and one line left to right. And you mark the top of each box and one of the boxes is going to be marked high importance, low urgency. And in that box you'll list all of the things that really have to happen but don't have to happen right now. Like maybe I would list like Q1 tax prep. Okay, that definitely has to happen. It's super important, but it's not urgent right this second. I'm still at the top of Q4, so I have time. It has to happen. Doesn't have to happen right now. Okay. Prepping for my end of quarter quarterly conversations with my team has to happen. Doesn't have to happen right now. So that might go in that box. Then you have low importance, high urgency. So stuff that absolutely has to happen but is not that important. So maybe it's. Get back to the emails that were sent to me today. How many of you are hyper focused on like checking your inbox or logging into Instagram to check your DMs, right? Low importance, but highly urgent. Those things are just screaming at you. You need to make note of those things. Those are actually also things that we're going to table because they're low importance, even though to us they feel highly urgent. Okay, then the next box is going to be low importance, low urgency. So it's not really that important and it's not really that urgent. That's the stuff we're probably not even going to think about right now because it doesn't matter that much. And then the fourth box is going to be high importance, high urgency. Okay? That's the stuff you probably need to get done in the next seven days, or depending what the project is, the next 30 days. But whatever goes in that final box, high importance, high urgency should take 80% of your focus. The other 20% of your focus can go more to like low importance, high urgency or high importance, low urgency. But that low, low, that double low should get none of your time. And what you'll find is often the things that go into high importance, high urgency is the shit you don't really want to do. It's like the work. You're like, oh, but that's the hard stuff. I know. But often the best results live on the other side of the hard stuff. And we as a business have found if we. It's called eating the frog. If you eat the frog and do the hard stuff, that is not as fun, not as sexy, not as exciting. The payoff and reward is really huge. And we'll get to more of that in just a moment. Number three, use structure whenever possible in your business. So for stylist, specifically standardized pricing. For those of you who still have one price point for new clients, another price point for these other clients, the price changes based on the ounces of color that I use, the price changes depending on the situation of the the more complicated it gets, the more overwhelmed you're going to be, the harder it's going to be to achieve, the harder it's going to be to have predictable revenue every single month. Online booking it still bewilders me why people are fighting online booking. I see a lot of people who are shifting away from online booking in the name of having more control over their business. If you have a very high demand, high luxury business where you don't really need new clients, fine, no worries. If you have a business that is already making more money than you even dreamed possible, you're already working your schedule and you want to screen every guest that wants to come into your chair, by all means you do it. If that is not your reality, why you're making it so hard to sit in your chair as a stylist, I will never understand. I don't think that is the season of consumer behavior we are in right now. And I think that it's causing you more work and is holding you back from achieving maximum income. Looking at guest experience systems, if your guest experience isn't standardized, and by standardized I mean pre visit, during visit, and post visit, we are missing out. So more systems, more structure. Number four, admit when you need help. This was a big one for us as an organization for sure. So what I have found is DIY is cheap but slow. I am the queen of do it yourself. I don't need help. I don't need anyone. I can figure it all out. YouTube University and I started this business on that and I did okay with it for a while, but what I found was there's a real glass ceiling and we were having some issues within our business where I was like, I Feel like we're hitting a wall. Something's not right. We brought in an external Advisor, and within 90 days, everything had completely turned around. And what we had to do was realize we were good to get ourselves to a certain point. And then we needed to bring in somebody who was smarter, wiser, more experienced to take us to the next level. DIY is cool, but it is cheap and it is slow. And to go back to this number four point of admitting when you need help, when you're trying to achieve more, especially without working more, or especially if you're trying to achieve more faster, Investing in education, buying templates, bringing in a coach is always going to save you time and save your sanity. Number five, be adaptable. Consumer behavior is changing extremely fast right now. Staying stuck and frustrated will not work. So how many of you have hit roadblocks in your business where you've had to take a break because you're like, I just don't even know what I'm doing anymore. What used to work isn't working anymore. And then what happens is we end up getting bitter and resentful and we're like, I'm so frustrated with my clients. I'm so frustrated with my network. I'm so frustrated with the cost of goods. We blame all of these external factors. One of the things I'm seeing is one of the biggest Achilles heels for stylists and salon owners right now is their lack of ability to be adaptable. And I think it's because we are, as an industry, very tired. We've been running on a hamster wheel for a really long time thinking that relief was coming. And unfortunately, we're heading into another season of grind because consumer behavior is very much changing in real time right now. I'm having to adapt to it as well. So I get it. If you choose not to be adaptable, this industry will eat you alive in the next three years. So it's critical to stay inspired, stay networked, to try things and fail. And I want you to look for patterns in the data. So shake things up with the way you ask for online reviews. Shake things up with the way you post on social media. Shake things up with the way you foil your clients. Shake things up with the way you do blow dries. Like literally shake things up and pay attention to what gets you a good result, what gets you good feedback. Staying stuck and stagnant. I am telling you what is not going to get you there. And we do have to eat a little bit of humble pie as we do this. But it's going to be critical. The other thing is to pivot is needed. If you do something and it's not working, rather than continuing to be stubborn and say it's always worked before, this is how I want to do it. This is the kind of work I want to do. These are the kind of clients I want to serve. When it is not working, don't be afraid to just try something else. Worst thing that can happen is you try something else, it fails and you can go back to the thing that was working. Mediocre. It's okay. I've rebranded this business of mine like seven times. I've shifted target market more than once. And we still live to tell the tale. So it's okay if things need to shift and change in your business. And being adaptable is going to be one of the cornerstones of growing faster without working more. Number six, network and collaborate. So if you are not well, networked with others who are trying to achieve what you're trying to achieve, this will be hard. So one of the things that I was very specific about doing this year is networking with a totally new network. So I have had my same, like, ride or die business friends for the last nine years. I love them dearly. They've become like a part of my world. And I'm super grateful. But what I realized is I was only seeing this, this very specific, very narrow point of view. And this year I decided to hire different mentors. I took, I think, nine different courses and just educate myself very differently. I am now exposed to a whole new network, a whole new world that I didn't even know existed. And my mind is blown at the way that other people are doing things very innovatively that I had not been exposed to before. If you are not surrounding yourself with other high achievers who are doing big things, you are playing small. You're missing out. You want to be a part of not just groups of other stylists, groups of other owners, groups of other stylist owners who are doing bigger and better things than you are. It's absolutely critical. And even if you're like, I've got my people, just know there's a whole other group of people who are shaking it up in a way that you are missing out on. And I'm an introvert. It's really scary for me to put myself out into new groups. I am so glad I did because my mind has been massively expanded. Number I think we're on number seven. When you hit a roadblock, challenge yourself to power through Instead of taking a break, never, ever, ever take a break. That's one of the things I really learned this year, because a break is like doomsday. It's like a momentum killer. One of the things I used to be really big on before I became pregnant with my sons, we're talking about years ago. I had a high risk pregnancy with him, so I had to stop. But I was a really avid runner. And one of the things I learned is that as I was training for any kind of run, if I got to like a soreness at like a mile four, let's say I started feeling achy, but I was trying to do a six mile run that day, I would push through it for eight minutes. That was my mental mark. I don't know that there's any science to that eight minutes. And if after eight minutes I was still uncomfortable, I would like call it and be like, okay, this is not for me. I can't do it. I got to go back. Like, something's wrong. I think I can remember one for sure. Maybe two times I actually had to stop. But when I pushed through and just like hydrated myself and got my mind right, the pain would go away because I wasn't actually injured and I knew that I wasn't working through an injury. It was a minor, temporary discomfort. And had I let that temporary pain stop me, I wouldn't have gotten to mile six and I wouldn't have trained to be a runner who could do 12 miles at a sprint. Right so. Or not a sprint in a, in a shot like, Right so. So what I want you to do is to. When you feel aches and pains in your business, when you are working on your website and you just can't figure it out, when your social media is not working anymore, rather than throwing your hands up and saying, eff it, reach out and get help. That goes to my point of admit when you don't know how to do something, admit when you're beyond your set of knowledge and ask for help. The other thing that's really helpful is to set a timeline with benchmark goals. So I've shared this tip before, but if I'm working on something, especially something hard, my team is good about this too. They know when I procrastinate, they're like, you're a. Your hard deadline is next Friday and you have to do it no matter how painful it is, and I will get it done. And sometimes you have to set yourself hard, painful goals and not allow yourself to take those breaks. Because the most success Lives on the other side of the hardest things you'll do in your business. Number eight, I want to remind you of the enterprise commitment. This is something I've talked about before. And the enterprise commitment is something I learned from somebody I consider to be a mentor of mine. His name is Les McKeon. He is the author of a book called Do Scale and Do Lead. They're both incredible reads. I highly recommend both of them. And one of the things he talks about is the enterprise commitment. And to sum it up, it means you put the success of the business above all else. That is something that most of us struggle to do, whether you have a team or don't have a team. Often we say, I would do the guest follow up stuff, but I don't have time for that. That's not putting the business first. I know that my payroll is too high, but I don't want to let any of these team members go. That's not putting the business first. And what's hard about the enterprise commitment is it does cause you to be head centered instead of heart centered. It causes you to sometimes have hard conversations with your family, hard conversations with your friends, hard conversations with yourself. But what lives on the other side of the enterprise commitment is achieving more without working more. And I found that out in a really huge way this year. And it was not easy. But being on the other side of it, I can confidently say everybody came out a winner. And so really thinking about what decisions need to be made to make sure that this business is as successful as it can be. No matter what, Knowing that the business is how you feed your family is really, really critical. And last but not least, really love what you're working on. So finding a way to fall back in love with your business again. What I've found is there's a lot of people in this industry who are kind of like bored with the work that you're doing. One of the things I want you to remember is for your clients, you are a huge part of their ecosystem. I've shared this before and I'll share it again. The funeral of the stylist I saw from my late high school years into my early 20s is still the largest funeral I've ever attended. And I've attended some big, powerful funerals. And this woman spanned generations of touching people's lives and in the community in such a huge way. And I think as stylists, we sometimes underestimate the impact that we have on our clients and our communities, on our families. Clients open up to you in A way that they don't feel they can open up to anybody else. You change their lives, you make them feel more confident, they trust you. And often we minimize what we're doing. If you're falling out of love with your industry, I encourage you to wonder, why. Is it the clients you're working on? Is it the services that you're doing? Is the money you're making not feeling worth it? It's usually one of those things. Oh. Or are you not surrounded by a team that makes you happy and brings you joy? Are you being weighed down by responsibilities you don't like, anymore things to think about? But one of the things I encourage you to ask yourself is when's the last time you were so excited about something you weren't even able to sleep? Remember being a kid on Christmas Eve? Or if you don't celebrate Christmas, like, maybe for you it was New Year's Eve, or maybe the night before your birthday and you would lay in bed and you would try so hard to fall asleep, but you were so excited to wake up at what was waiting just beyond, you know, the night's rest you had to have. For some of you, you are hooked on going to the gym. You absolutely love it. And it doesn't mean that it's not hard. It's super hard. And you have sore muscles and you sweat and you have to count macros and all these different things, but you love the results. And so you do it. It's a part of your routine. It's a part of your habits. It's your lifestyle, right? Some of you love cooking or you love baking, or you love volunteering with your kids, classrooms or whatever it is for yourself. Oh, my goodness. Somebody that I know listens to this podcast, loves to paint. It's like their outlet and they can talk about their painting and their inspiration for days. You have to have that kind of love for your business. And for some people, I think what happens is they get stuck in a rut and they don't. They don't continue to sustain the passion or fill their passion tank to continue to love it. I have been coaching for, let's see, almost 12 years now. I've been hosting thriving stylists for 10. I love this business more than I did 12 years ago. I wake up every Sunday, every Monday morning, excited to start the week again. I love every single thing I get to do in this business. Some days are hard. I don't always love the little projects and meetings and nuances, but every single aspect of this business and the people I get to serve, I'm obsessed with. I'm obsessed with my team. I am obsessed with the work I get to do. You need to love your business that much as well. If you don't right now, I want you to ask yourself, why is it that you're not achieving enough? Do you not like who you're surrounded with and what are the things we can do to change it? So if you want to achieve more without working more, I hope these nine tips help you along your way. And as I always like to say, so much love happy business building and I'll see you on the next one.