Hairdresser / Stylist
She was fascinated by the hairdressing process as a child. Eventually she followed her passion with constant desire to learn and get better. Then she took a risk to start her own business.
FAMILY BACKGROUND AND CAREER INFLUENCE
CV’s father was a meat butcher. Her mother worked in a factory, making airplane parts but was personally afraid of flying – for herself and anyone in her family.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER
Looking back from an adult perspective, CV recalls possibly pursuing one of several different career paths (alphabetically, not in any order of preference):
Airline stewardess (now known as a gender neutral Flight Attendant – This would involve many adventures while visiting new places all across the country and the world! Or…
Fashion Model – While in high school, CV had a part-time, after-school job in a store which sold clothing manufactured by the same company which operated a small, retail store. CV’s job was to keep the merchandise organized after shoppers had held up an item and then decided not to purchase it, leaving the clothing somewhat disorganized. One day while straightening sweaters, the store manager asked if she would be interested in modeling some of the clothes. She agreed and was soon having clothes literally pinned to her so she could model the outfits while slowly walking among the afternoon diners within the company’s restaurant.
Hairdresser – CV enjoyed accompanying her mother to a local hairdresser’s “salon” which was just a room within the hairdresser’s home. She observed the hairdresser’s techniques and thought she would like to do that for a living. The experienced hairdresser advised CV: “To take this up as a career, you really have to like it because standing on your feet all day and sometimes having to deal with customers who can never be pleased, is not an easy job.”
HIGH SCHOOL THOUGHTS OF A FUTURE CAREER
After many days of walking among diners to model clothes, CV became bored with that routine and narrowed her career choices to airline stewardess or hairdresser. Her mother’s anxiety about flying led to this advice from CV’s mother: “You could someday be an airline stewardess but for your mother’s sake, please first try being a hairdresser.”
LEARNING BEYOND HIGH SCHOOL
CV enrolled in and graduated from a local beauty school, where she learned the basic techniques of hair cutting and styling. Eventually she took enough courses to qualify as a hairdressing teacher.
CV has always sought to improve her knowledge as a professional hairdresser, attending many classes despite no such licensing requirement. Even during some personal vacations with her husband, CV would often spend an afternoon to attend a class in that geographic area, hoping to learn a new technique. While residing in Virginia with her husband whose work had moved him there, CV attended local hairdresser classes and spent many long hours observing how to literally puff up hair pursuant to local customers’ preferred styles at the time, which seemed to be a Southern tradition. One operator was known as “The Queen of Tease” for her ability to puff-up hair to heights never seen or requested within CV’s northern states’ experience.
Hairdressing competitions were another opportunity for CV to learn and improve her techniques.
In addition to attending formal hairdressing classes, CV believes she has learned an equal amount of her professional skills by observing other professionals in action.
TAKING A REASONABLE RISK TO OPEN A NEW BUSINESS
Looking back over several decades as an employee of different salons, CV credits each owner and her multiple co-workers with always being supportive and willing to teach her their respective hairdressing techniques. But at the same time, she dreamed of one day owning her own business. Without a future business plan, CV asked a local (Philadelphia suburb) salon owner if she could buy his business whenever he was ready to sell. The clientele – many were older but not exclusively, since this was a small college town with a mix of ages, all needing hair care. At the time, that salon owner was not ready to sell.
Meanwhile, a customer suggested that CV could own her business and without any prompting or advance knowledge, the customer had asked several local salon owners if they would be willing to sell their business to CV!
Eventually, the salon owner who CV had asked several years earlier about selling his business, called CV to tell her that he was ready to retire and would like to discuss how she could purchase his business, which consisted of a customer list, a several year lease (highly likely to be renewed) for downtown, ground floor space to accommodate at least 4 “operator” stations and all the necessary equipment, including furnishings: a reception desk and several waiting room chairs for customers and private bathroom facilities for staff. The price and financing terms were agreed upon, so the sale was completed. The former owner and CV jointly announced the new ownership to the existing customers. (CV was prohibited from directly soliciting customers from her former employments but in a small town, news of CV’s new business location quickly spread among her many satisfied, long-time clients.
Success for a new business can never be guaranteed. Why was starting this new business a reasonable risk? In this situation, it was a reasonable risk for the following reasons:
1. CV had well learned her trade, with many years of practical experience in both the professional techniques and the business side: understanding income and expense issues, including overhead of employee wages, equipment purchases and maintenance, utilities, insurance, and advertising.
2. Based on income and expense projections, the business purchase price – and its terms of payment – seemed reasonably possible to produce profit from the outset with profit increasing once the sale price was fully paid.
3. CV’s well-established reputation with local customers plus the likelihood that the sole business’ customers would remain loyal to her, was a likely positive.
4. CV’s personality as a hard worker with continuing drive to learn, would serve her well through potential business ups and downs.
5. She continued to enjoy her daily work activities.
CAREER CHALLENGES
Two frequent challenges are problems which all hairdressers have to cope with:
A. Customers who can never be satisfied; and
B. Customers who don’t know what they want . Most middle-aged and elderly customers know what they want but in a college town, some students have not given much thought to how their home area haircutter / stylist had achieved whatever “look” they wanted and so didn’t know how to make suggestions to hairdressers away from the students’ home base, such as CV and her assistants.
For both types of customer challenges, CV follows the same protocol: extreme and prolonged patience, followed occasionally by CV’s polite recommendation that the customer might be happier seeking hairdressing solutions within a different salon.
A daily challenge is to maintain the physical stamina and flexibility to stand on your feet all day, sometimes in awkward positions, bending over to rinse or cut hair.
As a small business owner whose customers depend on her personal attention to their constantly growing hair, CV is reluctant to take too many days off for vacation or just local down-time but she knows she will have to eventually slow down her steady working pace.
CAREER SATISFACTION
CV enjoys talking to her customers, most of whom are “long term satisfied” because she and her professional staff are able to consistently meet their customers’ expectations. She especially enjoys owning her own business, which sometimes takes on an almost human quality as she may, after cleaning up and about to head home after locking the door, looking around in appreciation for what her skills and hard work have led to saying quietly to her salon: “Take care and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
