I have been watching the conversation — the $1,000 sew-in, corporate versus independent — and I have been quiet, because I do not speak in absolutes and I do not speak out of emotion. But I have walked this profession long enough that quiet started to feel like withholding. So here is where I stand.
I am not a fan, nor a fad, nor am I a has-been. I am a tried and proven salon owner of 24 years. I have seen it all, and I have walked all the models: low booth rent. No booth rent. Low commission. Free commission. Stolen commission. Corporate mindset. Self-employed mindset. The hustle game. You name it — I have stood in it, and I have learned what each one costs and what each one pays.
What I have come to understand is this: there is no blueprint. There are your guiding values, and a model that fits those values. You either have the right system or you don't.
Let me tell you what I think this conversation is actually about, because I don't believe it's about $1,000. A client agreed to a price. What she did not agree to was being surprised in the chair — an added fee she learned about mid-service, with the balance expected before the work was done. A price is a value; a surprise is a system failure. Any stylist has the right to set her price, and any client has the right to decide before she sits down — with the whole number in front of her. That's not luxury and it's not discount. That's expectation, managed honestly.
And managing expectations is the hardest part of this job. From clients, and from stylists. I have spent 24 years supporting the voice of the stylist and educating the customer at the same time, because both deserve it. There are nuances in this profession that can't be understood until you walk in it, and the respect for it has always been low — lower still for Black stylists. That is exactly why the systems matter. Systems are how respect gets built into the work instead of begged for after it.
At HD, we work as an equal lateral triangle: the client, the stylist, and the house, held in equal respect. No price gouging. And no free labor. When one side of the triangle gets sacrificed — when the client is surprised, or the stylist is underpaid, or the house can't sustain itself — the whole thing tips, and everybody in the chair and behind it feels it.
And we cover the client side of that triangle with grace, too. We don't charge deposits. We don't charge late fees. We don't charge for a no-call, no-show. When a client doesn't come, we assume life gave her something more important than that appointment — even though a stylist came to work and waited. What we do instead is communicate, before she ever walks through the door, how important our stylist is to us. I understand where the strict policies in this industry came from — clients have abused stylists for years, and I have watched it happen. Policies are born from pain on both sides. In this house, we hold each other accountable — all three sides, all the time.
I don't have time to make content. I make stylists. We have been doing this work since before the internet was a thing, and somewhere along the way content became the leading thing that decides whether or not you trust us. We've been here. We've been in the trenches — the client who hasn't combed her hair out in four months, and we get all of that dirt out, all the things life has done to her hair. You ain't leaving the way you came in. That's the work. It was here before the feed, and it will be here after it.
I don't stand in the corporate lane, and I don't stand in the solo lane. I stand in between — an independent salon owner who has carried stylists at every level of this journey, and clients through every season of theirs. The in-between is not a compromise. It is a position, built on values, tested for 24 years.
So charge what your system supports. Say the whole price before the service begins. Build something that respects all three sides of the triangle. There is no blueprint — but there is a right way to stand in your work.
— Leandra M. Roche, HD Hair Designers
Comments
Post a Comment