The Hairdresser's Guide to Success

By Jon Gonzales

Personal, professional, Financial. Jon offers a comprehensive guide to building a successful career. Jon helps you to create value in your skills and in yourself to gain that all important competitive edge .Hundreds of top salons are using this informative book as their training manual in helping their staff reach higher levels of excellence."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483504988

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

   Is Hairdressing a Good Profession to Enter?

I’ve often been asked: Is hairdressing a good profession to enter? My answer is: "Potentially, it’s a wonderful profession for those with patience, commitment, a quest for learning, hard work, and initiative. It’s a profession that really offers unlimited opportunities for those who truly want to succeed."

There really is no limit on how high you can climb the ladder of success—once you develop your skills, gain valuable experience, and learn how to create a demand for your services. It’s one of the few professions I know of where you can literally get all the overtime you want, once you build an enthusiastic clientele. With proper training, experience, and continuing education, you can establish a solid learning foundation on which to build an exciting, challenging, fulfilling, and financially rewarding career. The sky’s the limit!

Unlike other professions that require four to six years of college and a heavy investment of money and personal sacrifice, the beauty profession does not require as large an investment of time or money. There are no stringent and competitive entrance requirements, nor is there a great deal of personal sacrifice required, compared to other professions. In my opinion, we’ve made it too easy. We must raise our standards.

The beauty profession offers many diverse opportunities for hairdressers, haircutters, managers, salon owners, platform artists, salespeople, nail technicians, image consultants, estheticians, educators, and industry consultants. Because the beauty industry is so diverse, you can never stop learning and growing.

Yes, a hairdressing career offers unlimited opportunities for those who truly want to succeed. But it will take time, patience, perseverance, a positive attitude, continuing education, experience, some personal sacrifice, and a lot of hard work to be a winner in this profession.

Advantages of a Hairdressing Career

1.   No discrimination in regard to earning potential and personal growth. There is no glass ceiling in the beauty profession.

2.   Flexible working hours, once you create a demand for your services, helping to combine family and career.

3.   No heavy investment of time, money, or personal sacrifice, compared to other professions or college.

4.   A potential shortcut to financial security for those with initiative and a strong work ethic.

5.   Career challenge—you can never learn enough.

6.   Management opportunities—can eventually lead to salon ownership.

7.   Excitement and travel—trade shows throughout the world.

8.   A pathway to other careers—image consultant, sales representative, educator, etc.

9.   Work opportunities close to home.

10.   Recession-proof job security, once you create a demand for your services.

11.   Greater personal fulfillment and the ability to enrich other people’s lives.

12.   Control of your own destiny. You can get all the overtime you want. The sky’s the limit!

Will There Be a Demand for Hairdressers in the Future?

The demand for hairdressers and image consultants will continue to grow, for these reasons:

•   In today’s changing world, women are going back to work in record numbers.

•   The business world is dependent on image.

•   Our country has an obsession with youthful appearance, fitness, and health.

•   We have the ability to service both men and women with one license.

•   There is a growing labor shortage because of the high dropout rate of hairdressers who are simply not prepared to meet rising job-market and consumer demands.

•   Due to a rising labor shortage, outstanding hairdressers will be in demand.

All these reasons make the outlook for our profession outstanding indeed. Visiting a hair salon is no longer considered a luxury; it is a necessity. The consumers’ search for top professional hairdressers will create a growing demand. The question is, Are you prepared and willing to take advantage of this opportunity?

Tomorrow’s hairdressers will have to know more than how to cut and style hair if they want to succeed in the beauty profession. Clients are expecting more from their hairdressers and salons. Today’s consumers are more demanding; they have wider price ranges and greater choices on how and where they’ll spend their hard-earned money.

Competition will be fierce as we enter the 21st century. You will have to be a fierce competitor. Good is not enough anymore. Despite these challenging trends, I truly believe that a hairdressing career will be one of the finest and most rewarding careers to enter for those who really want to succeed.

Where the Hairdressing Profession Needs Improvement

The hairdressing profession offers unlimited opportunities for those who truly want to maximize their full learning and earning potential. Unfortunately, because our profession has not adequately adapted to change, very few hairdressers have achieved their full learning and earning potential and reached the top of the success ladder. But this need not happen to you. The HAIRDRESSER CAREER DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM (HCDS) can help you succeed.

Business Mistakes of the Past

The beauty profession is currently experiencing a shakeout period, because the industry has not adapted to change. The educational system that may have been effective in the past is now becoming obsolete, and is just not meeting job-market and consumer demands. Far too many hairdressers are leaving the profession because of their unrealistic learning and earning expectations, poor education, and a lack of career guidance information. Sadly, far too many salons are going out of business.

Although the beauty industry is currently going through a shake-out period due to mistakes of the past, if you persevere with the knowledge the HCDS provides, you will gain that competitive edge and succeed. Tough times always separate winners from losers, but tough times also present opportunities for those with initiative and direction.

Education

Sadly, statistics show that less than 5 % of all hairdressers ever reach the top of their profession, simply because far too many young starters fail to establish a solid learning foundation at the beginning of their development. Far too many have attempted to build a meaningful hairdressing career with no goals or plan of action. Even worse, many have failed because of a lack of quality education, information, and initiative. Instead, they tried to build a hairdressing career by trial and error; along the way, they developed negative attitudes, poor work habits, burnout, etc.

In my opinion, our present educational system is outdated and obsolete; it is not meeting the educational needs of our hairdressers and employers. The lack of an effective apprenticeship or internship program also contributes to the many problems now occurring in the beauty profession. Nine months of beauty school do not adequately prepare hairdressers to meet job-market and consumer demands. An apprenticeship on-the-job training program would help solve this problem. Developing skills and experience on a trial-and-error basis, on a demanding consumer, is just unacceptable in today’s competitive job market. It’s just too