How These Hairstylists Are Ensuring Success During The Pandemic

While the beauty industry has overall held strong during this pandemic, 2020 has been a crapshoot for most service-based businesses. As direct-to-consumer brands flourish, even reporting record-breaking sales, hairstylists and salons across the country have been devastated by forced closures and social distancing regulations. And, with COVID-19 infection rates continue to rise at alarming rates in the U.S., not all customers are rushing back as salons reopen.

[SEE ALSO: Celeb Hairstylist Nafisah Carter Launches New Salon In North Carolina]

However, many hairstylists have found ways to not just survive, but thrive during this crazy time. And they all attribute their successes to their ability to pivot and adapt to changing consumer needs. Some have traded in their multi-station salon for private suites, while others have tapped into retail, consulting, and completely new ventures.

Hairstylist and North Carolina-based salon owner Tim Johnson joined the wave of brands capitalizing on consumers who skyrocketed e-commerce sales after his salon first shut down in March. 

He relaunched his namesake haircare brand, Tim Johnson Systems, with an eight-step Hair Relief system to answer his client’s hairstyling demands. “I created my hair products in a package form to be able to get to women while they in their cave of concern with their beauty — and offering them a soothing solution instead of just letting themselves go,” says Johnson. “It’s what I do in the salon, minus the style.”

He is also using his personal healthy journey (he lost a whopping 60 pounds in 60 days over the summer) to inspire and teach clients how to reach both their healthy hair and general health goals.

Carol Thomas, a Brooklyn-based hairstylist and salon owner, also used the pandemic as motivation to kickstart her haircare brand. When she first launched her St. Charles haircare brand five years ago, it was just an in-salon offering. But, the shutdowns forced her to “figure it out,” she says. “I wasn’t qualified for any of those PPE grants.” 

So, when she got her stimulus check, Thomas used the funds to redesign her packaging and her website and ramp up her marketing efforts. Now, she is shipping her products all over the country.

NYC-based celebrity hairstylist Monaè Everett also went from booked and busy and jet setting across the globe for clients to watching the entertainment industry completely shut down. Bookings, she said, were on pause for half the year. So, she tapped into her marketing and educational experience to connect with her social media followers.

“When the calls stopped coming in for work, I decided to leverage my experience in the industry by answering questions from aspiring celebrity hairstylists who often inquire how to break into the industry,” says Everett. “I had time to write a book, repackage my hairstyling courses, and create new ones.”

Her book, Get Out Of Your Own Way: 25 Insider Tips For Booking Celebrity Hairstyling Clients, is a collection of stories, lessons, and resources to help prepare hairstylists for high-end work that extends beyond being in a salon.

“I have also explored brand consulting and partnership to ensure companies are meeting the needs of their diverse clients–especially and curly hair textures–and the beauty professionals who serve them.” 

Now that bookings are trickling back in, she is able to generate passive income from her digital sales.

Tips For Success

As hairstylists and other service-based industries continue to seek new ways to keep coins flowing as salons reopen (and shut back down), Everett’s primary advice is to become more comfortable with digital products and tools. “Think about what you can package to meet your customers’ needs outside of doing manual labor,” she says. “Include as many virtual meetings and consultations as possible. Look at clients as a funnel, think subscription-based services and higher-end clients with higher price points and services.” 

Thomas adds that now is as good a time as any to take a leap of faith on your next big idea. “Make sure that it manifests and you are actually seeing it in action. Don’t just let it be an idea.”

Johnson advises entrepreneurs to not become a victim when facing challenges. “When you think like a victim, you’re thinking from a scarcity standpoint. And, when you think from a scarcity standpoint, we operate in desperation. When we operate in desperation, we take crumbs,” says Johnson.

Even as salons reopen, he adds, everything has changed. “You aren’t going to have the same [client] numbers. Think outside-of-the-box in regards to retail. You are going to be the product store now. This is the time to come up with videos, tools,” says Johnson. “Tap into your supernatural creative abilities. Tap into God.”