Super Hairo with Nikki Cestaro: The Dark Side of Owning a Salon

[00:00:00] Hey Jason, are you coming to work today? What's today? What? It's Saturday. What time is it? 9am. Do I have clients or something? Like why? Is there a client there? Yes. Waiting. Why don't you call me ahead of time and tell me that I had to be at work today? What do you want me to do? Come to your house, grab you by the hand, drag you to work and then change your diaper later? The fuck? Real hairdressers telling real stories about their experiences from behind the salon chair. And we're now with the

[00:00:40] announcing the quiet parts out loud. This is Sh!t I told my Hairdresser.

[00:01:19] Give us a follow and you guys have been doing a great job telling all your friends. We really appreciate it and this is how it really helps us grow. So make sure you tell 10 of your friends about the show and 20 people that you hate so again we can hurt their poor little ears. Anyhow, we do have Nikki with us as Paula Dahlberg just mentioned. And what we've been doing is kind of going through and talking about the hairdresser's perspective. I want to kind of go through and kind of turn the tables here because Paula Dahlberg you're a salon owner.

[00:01:43] Yes. I have been a salon owner. I know what it's like to be on that side and I'm also enjoying being on the other side where it's just renting a chair and just going home at the end of the day which is really nice. So that's something you don't get to do. And also our next guest does not get to do. Nikki, how are you doing? I'm great. How are you? I'm very jealous of you getting home, going home and doing nothing because being a salon owner is not what people think it is.

[00:02:10] It's really so I can have days where it's a little bit slow and I just kind of mark out and not even think twice about it and say goodbye and walk out the door. I love it. It's like my one dream. No more 15 hour days. No more looking at the schedule, see what's going on, who's pissed off at who, who is like, you know. But that's one of the things that we wanted to talk about on this is the responsibility and the risk it takes to be a salon owner.

[00:02:35] People think that and a lot of hairdressers think that it's just us going through and taking the money home. And we get all this. Of course they do. And we're rich and we have, you know, and we're basically not paying them much and we're stealing from them. But what's what's the risk of owning a salon and what's your responsibility? To me personally, the risk I opened my salon because I was very unhappy where I was. So I was willing to take any risk to be able to run it where the way I saw fit.

[00:03:05] But there's tremendous risk. I mean, I personally mortgaged my house, you know, to the eyeballs to be able to have the money to do this. I think it was probably the I think I finally took a paycheck or four or five months in. It was just, you know, getting it done. And then as soon as we opened because we were we were doing all of this and we finally opened, then you got to work out the kinks.

[00:03:31] So there's all the the fuse blue and this isn't long enough and this chair isn't pumping up the way it is. So everybody turns to look to me. So the biggest risk is that, oh, my God, we're out of toilet paper. They look to me. Oh, my God, that client's not happy with her color. The client's the one calling me. Everything comes on to the salon owner from the from the financial perspective. It's a tremendous risk. We go home with far less than anybody thinks that we do take in. We're working as hard as we always did.

[00:04:00] I'm an operating owner. So I'm still active behind the chair. Paul, are you an active behind the chair owner? Yes. Yeah. You're wearing two different hats at all times. Janitor. I'm a plumber. I'm an electrician. Gotcha. Yes. And if the cleaners don't show up on the weekend, I'm the one on my day off to clean. So. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, but I can plunge a toilet like nobody else. Well, I can snake a toilet like you cannot pull. Oh. See, I mean, no, man, I can snake a toilet. I'm trying to do that, but you're right. You're right.

[00:04:28] But it's wearing so many different hats where I always say if you can stick the broom up my ass, I could sweep at the same time. So I've got like, and don't think I haven't tried. If I could, I would. But I do that. And my head is on a swivel constantly. I will have two clients going on, but my eyes are on that client in the other girl's chair. My eyes are on the desk manager. If she's on the phone and somebody walks in, I'm looking at the person who's looking at the retail.

[00:04:55] I'm knowing that we're out of garbage bags and, you know, we don't know what to do with the rest of the garbage. You know, the sink is backed up. All of this piles on. All while you're behind the chair acting like nothing's wrong at all. Yeah. How short would you like your bangs? That's fine. Oh, you want a money piece? That's not big enough. I'll throw more foils in. Not a problem. Let me get you a lovely camera. And you go in that back room. Thank God for that back room. And yeah, it's definitely fine. Absolutely. So it is a lot.

[00:05:22] And because we are, I'm the mother of the group. I am the captain of the ship. Yeah. So risk is, you know, it's everything and nothing I thought it would be. I love being a salon owner, but I would find a genie in a bottle and find somebody and wish for somebody to come and buy the business. And I would be you, Jason. I would just want to work and do my thing and then leave at the end of the night. It's, it's grueling. It's, it's. Love it. It is. You rub it in. I know. I know.

[00:05:52] I do. Because I've been on the other side and I know what it's like. I know what it's like not, you know, being able to pay yourself or not as much or, you know, making sure that the person is telling you that they were sick or really are sick and it's not just the Heineken flu again. You know? So. Yeah. You know, I'm looking at the one. Did you ever position yourself? Do you position yourself outside a salon where you can see everything all at once? Because I always chose the station where I could either use the mirrors or I could see

[00:06:21] the entire salon from where I sat at. Luckily for me, the salon is small. So I can see everything. So wherever you are, but I have the ability. I see angles and mirrors. I hear things. I have eyes behind my head. So I do. I, my eyes are on, that's the most exhausting part is that constantly feeling like I have to like radar. I'm constantly like tracking everything that's going on and I have to hear everything because I know in a moment's notice, I'm going to be pulled there.

[00:06:51] I'm going to have to oversee that. And the person in the chair. Yeah. So I, my, my station is in the front. So I'm between the desk and the rest of the stations. But for the most part, I'm, I am everywhere. Right. Everywhere. Exactly. Like mother's intuition. You always know what's going on. A salon owner's intuition. You know, you know, I know it's going on. When they find out that, you know, and they're just so confused about how'd she know? Well, you know, it's a skillset. They've been accused of having recording devices.

[00:07:20] They're like, does she, does she record in the back room? You know, you know what's going to happen. I can tell from, what are we, as hairdressers, we read body language. Yes. Yep. Or you hear one part of a conversation and you know the rest of it and you know what's going to happen. And the hairdressers think that they're the first person that's ever happened to. Right. And you know what's going to, so you go through and nip it in the body immediately before it explodes into something else. And they're like, how did she know? You're like, dude, 30 years in. I can tell from the eyes.

[00:07:50] Yes. The eyes. Yeah. The this, the that, the mm-hmm. And then how you walk in the back room and all of a sudden everything gets quiet. You know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I know. No one talks around me anymore. Mm. And you're not even the owner. No. Well, I've been around enough. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. A lot of times I just kind of shut things down or I ignore it. And the best thing to do, guys, do not hang out in the unemployment room and talk shit. That I call the break room, the unemployment room.

[00:08:20] You know what I mean? Because that's exactly what you're doing to yourself. You're creating yourself. I just wouldn't be aware of you going with that. You're one step away from the unemployment line. Yeah. You really are. You know what I mean? Or you're, because of that negativity and that energy, I mean, you get, you pass it on to your clients. Your clients feel it. They don't want to come back to you. It's like you're in this like dungeon, like this, this shitty little negative dungeon. And I used to tell, I had hairdressers that were in the beginning of parts of their career and they were trying to build and they'd hang out in that back room.

[00:08:48] And I'd say, you're not going to build in the back room. Nope. If you want to build, get, get out there, go help somebody, go sweep the floor, show them you're busy. I think as I grew from like that, that very hard stage of being an assistant wanting and becoming a hairdresser, that little bridge of time that you're like kind of the assistant and the junior stylist. And then you're trying to build yourself. Get out there, go help. I would sweep, I would clean the mirrors and people would say, wow, that's really nice

[00:09:16] that she's just like, she really stays on top of things. You know what? I'm going to get my hair done by her over the weekend. Just show you're busy. Nobody even knows you exist when you're in that negative dungeon back there. No, they don't. Well, it's showing that you care. You care about your environment. You care about your salon. You care about your, your coworkers, your environment. And that, I think that is still rare again with a lot of hairdressers. But not only that though, what's going to end up happening is that if I see you putting

[00:09:42] the extra effort in and I'm busy and then my client's like, hey, I need to get in. And I'm like, hey, you want to go see this person because I know she's really nice. I know she'll take care of you. Even if it's just for a blow dry, because a blow dry will turn into a haircut one of these days. And the next thing you know, that person can be sitting in their chair, you know, just be that person. You know what I mean? And a lot of people don't want to do that. They just want to go through and be in the back room and just hang out. So these days more than ever, and that's the thing as a salon owner, that's so frustrating is that I knew what it was like.

[00:10:12] And it was demeaning to go in and see you had one person and you were going to be there for 10 hours. What the hell am I going to do for 10 hours? Well, guess what? The salon, maybe you want to reorganize the shelves. Maybe you want to clean your drawer out. Maybe you want to help somebody else that's busy or shampoo. Listen, if you just stay busy, you'll always, if you're busy, then you'll always stay busy. If you're sitting in the bathroom bitching and moaning about how unfair it is that you

[00:10:41] only have two people today, well, then you only have yourself to blame. But these days, they just don't want to put the extra effort. And I don't want to lump everybody because I do have my younger generation that really are go-getters. I just hired a young little assistant and she comes up to me every five minutes. Okay, what else can I clean? Okay, what else could I do? I cut foils. What else could I do? Like she's really wants it. And then you get the other ones that I've had that are just, you know, sitting in the bathroom

[00:11:08] on their phone and hiding because I can't open the bathroom door and get them out of there. So it's, they don't want the initiative to try to make the shop look better, to look like a team player. It's this lack of team player that I think that we're suffering from. And that makes it very hard in the salon environment. Being the owner, we all have to pitch in. We're only as good as the people around us. And it starts at the bottom. I'm up at the top, but I'm still on the floor cleaning up color with them.

[00:11:36] But yet they think then that's part of my job description. So the lines get blurred very easily. Very easily. That's a good point. Yeah. Really very easily. It's a lot of the entitlement that kind of comes along with those little two. You know what I mean? So that's where you have to be like really careful. I had a girl one time who was like, I don't do bathrooms. And I'm like, you know what? I've been doing hair for 30 years. And if I walked into that bathroom and my client's going to walk in there after me, it better be clean. I'll wipe stuff up. I'll wipe up water. Without a doubt. All these are stocked up.

[00:12:04] I'm like, I looked at her and I go, I've been doing hair for 30 years. I still do bathrooms. But you're not expecting it to put the yellow gloves on and scrub it. You're talking like the counter is wet. The garbage pail is, yeah, it's like nonsense. It's nonsense. Well, that's bullshit. So, yeah. But that's like, well, the question is like, what's the biggest difference you see in the industry today? Is it hiring now? Is the hiring process like probably one of the toughest parts? Because, oh, wow.

[00:12:34] It's terrible. It's terrible. It's like I talk about it, you know, it's like finding a good help is like finding somebody like somebody on Tinder. Like you think like you swipe left and you, you know, it's going to happen. Like you don't even know. It's like you think you're maybe going to get a booty call. Like it's going to work out. It doesn't work out. I find that I put ads on Indeed. I've done Facebook Marketplace, you know, word of mouth. I was, we were always word of mouth.

[00:13:00] I really stopped hiring from high schools because the BOCES programs do offer the cosmetology. I mean, I was 15 when I started. I don't know. You guys are young. So if you've been in it as long as I have, you probably were that age too. Yeah. It's almost a risk to even hire that because you're dealing with their parents. Oh. Oh. Yes. Oh, well, I know you work till 730, but we'd like to have dinner as a family. Can I come pick her up at 630?

[00:13:30] Yeah. You know, I'm like, no, you're going to leave her a plate on the stove like my mother did. Yeah. You can pick her up. You can pick her up, but she won't have a job when she gets back. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I tell the kid, I tell anybody that I hire, like I just hired the 17 year old kid. Very cute. And I even said so much to her mom. When I'm hiring, it doesn't matter that she's 17 or if she was 35. I'm hiring an adult to do the job. I'm not going to have compensation because your daughter is young.

[00:13:57] If you don't think that she should take a job like this, because it's going to be all day Saturday, it might be late nights, it's going to be after school, then tell me now. Because I can't deal with, well, I want her to relax. She's going to have her whole life to work. Yeah. Well, how about it starts now? That's how ours did. You want to be in this industry, you have to be part of it. We're only as good as the people around us.

[00:14:21] So one mom actually said to me, you know, if she has to work for you on Thursday, could she not work Friday? I want her to have time to come home and do her schoolwork. She does need to have a life. And does she have to work every Saturday? And I said, I don't think your daughter is really cut out for it. Yeah. I just, that's not what I'm looking for. You put her on the parent payroll, not on my payroll. I'm not going to give you money. You'd be on the parent payroll. Mm-hmm.

[00:14:50] Because I've actually had that. I had a guy who, I hired this girl and I met her dad and he was this really cool guy. And I was like, he was the producer for the Smiths. So for me, I was like, oh my God, you were gone. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, wow. And he knew that I loved that. And he wanted to take his daughter away for the weekend to New York. And I told her no. So he thought he'd come in and talk to me about it because I was like, well, Jason thinks I'm like this cool dude. Yeah.

[00:15:18] I worked with Morrissey and the Smiths and whatnot. And so he'll say yes to me. And I did. He came in, he asked me, I said, yeah, she can definitely go to New York with you. But when she gets back, she won't have a job because you're taking her away on the business days. I'm like, and I can't do that. And he was like, do you see where I'm coming from, man? He's like, oh, but it's me. And I go, it doesn't matter who it is. You know, I'm still running the business. Because that's only the gateway. Yeah. He's going to ask you then. He's going to ask you again. And then it looks bad to everybody else in the salon. Yeah.

[00:15:48] You got to be fair. What you do to one, you do for the other. And you have to stick to your guns. I'm proud of you that you did. But I guess he's not your favorite band anymore, huh? Well, you know, well, producer. You know what I mean? But still. Yeah. It didn't last long after that, though. You know what I mean? I turned into the bad guy. Or was the villain. Yeah. But we fired her for stealing afterwards. So that's a whole different story. Oh, OK. That's a good reason.

[00:16:14] Well, I think hiring has probably got to be like, you know, like, what do you run into? Like, what situations do you run into now with, like, the newer generation that you've hired? Sorry, new guys. We're going to go through and throw you under the bus for a little bit. Sorry, Gen Z. But you're going to have to eat this. Yeah. I will say this. I mean, I am a small salon. I have five hair stations. We have a color table. We are very busy. It's me and two other hairdressers. But I have room. So I've been, I'm not a poacher.

[00:16:42] I am not going to start slipping into people's DMs and like, hey, leave your place. But I have put it out there. Zero. Zero. Nobody wants, nobody's happy, but nobody wants to leave. So trying to find somebody, you know, putting ads in Indeed, it either works or it doesn't. I either get people that are qualified, that really maybe just, it was just luck of the draw. The stars aligned. They saw my ad. They were leaving a place. They're not happy. They're going to come.

[00:17:09] When it comes to most of the time, they live 40 miles away. They have no salon experience. And they've worked in Burger King or Walmart and have zero hair beauty industry experience. But they want to work for me. How are you? So it's like they answer the ad. Yeah. But they're not qualified. So to me, the hiring process is just horrible. I don't know where they're hiring. I want to know what Rocket is.

[00:17:36] What's it like when you do hire, like say like a new assistant who is a hairdresser? And what's the work ethic like now? It's definitely, I mean, Paul, I'm sure that you agree too. It's not the same as it was when we were younger. There was a lot more expected of us. I have mostly hiring because like I said, I haven't been able to find any other hairdressers when I talk about assistants. They have experience.

[00:18:05] I kind of find it's hard sometimes to retrain them because I want to train them to how we do things. They do things their way. I do things my way. And we're just trying to show them that this is what our clients are expecting. It's hard to get them to show up on time. It's hard to show, to get them to kind of work their way into how we do things and the protocols that we have. They feel. They can't show up. What do you mean they can't? Like, do they know that they actually worked that day or like what?

[00:18:34] Like, like, is it, do I go, my client's at 10. So should I show up at like 10, 15 or? Yeah. Well, when I, we start at 10. So when I say we, you know, be in at 945, that means 15 minutes before the first appointment. Exactly. Yep. To be fair, I was always 930 to 945. I don't like that stressed feeling of starting the day. And even if I was an assistant, you know, hurry up and get everything ready, get the coffee ready, get the sinks running, get this done. I don't like that. I think that if I start my day like that, it ruins it for the rest of the day. Yeah, totally.

[00:19:04] But I can't ask them to do that. So if I say 945 and now it's like 952, they're still not here. And then they come running in. Now I live the furthest distance from the salon. And they come walking in at like 10.03. And I'm like, I don't want to yell at them in front of the clients, but I'm like, it's so stressful. And they're like, I hit traffic. Oh, the roads were so bad. I live 40 minutes away and I'm still here.

[00:19:33] So you're not going to run. You're not going to win. You're not going to win that conversation. Well, I'm here. I'm here. I'm here 15 minutes early every day to get the salon ready for you. Half an hour to 15 minutes early to get it ready for you. I'm here. So why can't you be? Yeah. And to me, that's being on time. If the first appointment is, let's say 11 o'clock, coming in at 10.30 is really what you should just emotionally know is what you need to do. And I think that that work, that's part of it where they're just like, they're running

[00:20:06] And you know, you can never judge. You can have your last appointment going to be six o'clock. You ain't leaving until 8.15. So you can never, you don't know how the day is going to run. You don't know what that client's going to need. But that's the first thing they ask. Wow. What time are we getting out? Yeah. I always tell my wife, I'm like seven ish ish is what time I'll be home. Yeah. She'll have to go home. I'm like, uh, uh, I'll add an ish to that ish because it's never that time. Never. Ever, ever. I had a day last week. I was supposed to be out at 6.30.

[00:20:36] I was out at nine. That happened to be on Saturday. I was supposed to be done on like four. I don't think I got out of here until 6.50. Yeah. That's what happens. But they don't want that. They want to go through and like, I need to be out of here by this time. If something goes wrong, because I actually had a girl do that one time. She was like, well, the color is not going right. And I have a date. So I need to leave. So I'm going to pass the client over to the other colorist. I go through and finish it. I went, no.

[00:21:05] No, you're not. No, you're not. This is your client. No, you're not buying it that day. You started the process. Exactly. You didn't finish the process. And she's like, no, I'm leaving. And left the client in the chair, walked out, and for us to finish the client. That is so unprofessional. She's out at six, and we're there till like 10 o'clock at night trying to fix her mistake. We had a situation one time in the salon, one of my hairdressers. The woman was her last customer of the day, was getting color and a blowout. Just a rude touch up. Had a lot of gray hair.

[00:21:34] I don't know what. You know, there's never a reason why the roots didn't take. They were way too light. So, tell me, talk. I look just because the light's above your head. Well, the woman's looking, looking. I'm three chairs down. Again, head on a swivel, not even paying attention. I'm paying attention and not paying attention. I'm paying attention to that. And I hear the hairdresser say to her, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:22:04] It's just because the light's over it. When you get home and you're, the woman's now looking in other mirrors, and she's leaning forward. The blowout's done. And she's going, I take the hairdresser in the back. And I said to her, you have to recolor her roots. She goes, I have to be somewhere in 15 minutes. I said to her, you're going to recolor her roots, or I'm going to recolor her roots. And you're going to lose that client. I'm not letting her leave. And she looked at me, and she was like, okay. I clearly wasn't happy, but at the end, she knew I was right.

[00:22:33] She took a pocketbook off her arm. The woman was up, and she was giving her the whole spiel. You know, call me by the weekend. If it's still too light, come in, and I'll put a little color on it. You're never going to see that woman ever again. No. So she walked over. She did the right thing. She took her back. She says, listen, I don't want you to leave unhappy. I said, she put the, she did the retouch all over. Let her sit for about 20 minutes. She text her friends, start without me. The woman to this day, every time she sees me,

[00:23:03] you knew you are a good business owner. You were not going to let me leave. I really was. Nikki, I was never coming back. I was going to go home, get a box of, you know, Garnet Fructis or God knows whatever box. And I was going to do this myself because I couldn't believe she was going to let me leave with these roots so light. But, and that's where I feel, if you got to stay till 10 o'clock, then you're going to stay until 10 o'clock. The clients are paying us for a service. They're choosing us.

[00:23:33] They can choose a hundred different salons from their door to ours. That's the thing that I've always valued. And I do feel that some of those clients, some of the hairdressers of today, the younger ones that if that client complained, she'd say, you know what? Forget it. She's, she was a pain in the ass anyway. You don't own the right to, to follow. You do what's right. They're choosing you. You got to follow through. And if that means till 10 PM, so be it. Right. I mean, there's people that we do need to go through and fire because they are a shitty client, you mean,

[00:24:02] but when you're the one doing the work and it's not right, you stay until it's right. You know, that's the thing. Right. With some of these people, man, some of them, I don't even know if they even know even to show up that day. You know what I mean? It's like, you know, with some of the assistants that we have sometimes I'm like, are they, are they coming in? Well, I had somebody just recently that she, listen, she's a lovely girl. She works for me, but she forgot what day it was. So we called her. We said, where are you? What? And she says, I didn't, Oh, what is today? We said Friday. And she said,

[00:24:32] Oh, do you still need me? We said, yeah. She said, well, what, when should I come in? I, so my manager said an hour ago. Yeah. What do you, she didn't know what day it was. She says, well, nobody texts me and reminded me. Would you like a wake up call too? How about I go into the house and pick you up? And bring you to work. Good morning, sunshine. Let me have you have coffee. I'll play the violin while you're waking up. Like, are you out of your mind? Get to work. What's wrong with you? Yeah. She didn't show up.

[00:25:01] She wound up coming in. And all she kept harping on was, well, nobody texted me to tell me what time I was starting. I said, honey, you have a, you have that smartphone has a little, little alarm clock in there. You can put it in your little calendar. It'll beep, beep, beep. She didn't know what day it was. I have time blindness. I have no idea what time. And I get it. There are certain people that do have the time blindness, but we have wristwatches now. We have like iPhones. You have, I mean, it just set yourself an alarm. You know, what's up. My wife has that. She doesn't know.

[00:25:30] She's like really bad with her timing, but then I got her the watch. She has the phone. She has reminders. And it's like, we're, we're there. She wakes up. Alexa can tell you what time you could tell Alexa, tell me when it's 7am. I mean, you have no, there's no excuses. And wait, if you, if you look at your phone, does it not say the day of the week? I'm just saying. It says that on my watch. As soon as I go. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Yeah. Good. So I'm not crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. That I know.

[00:25:59] It's like some of the new ones I'm like, and then I, I didn't expect this when I, you know, I'm like, I have a hair salon. And I'm like, we know you worked, you went to beauty school. I, this is real life, you know? But this also fits the whole bill of like, like everybody's like, Oh, she's a dumb hairdresser. Like she doesn't even know what day it is. Like, like that's, it's almost like it's, it's hurtful that it's, it's allowing people that perpetuates this mantra of like what hairdressers really are. Well, you want to, I've had,

[00:26:27] I've had clients that with, they're actually way worse, you know? So it's not, it's not like a, it's not a hairdresser thing. It's not like a nurse thing or a, you know what I mean? It's like, it's doctors that I've had in my chair where I'm like, dude, are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. I mean, even Paul, we were talking about that one woman who didn't know what C level was, you know, she thought it was a letter C and this woman had like multiple degrees, you know what I mean? Yeah. She had no idea. So it's not, it's not, it's not a hairdresser thing,

[00:26:57] but I know a lot of people think like, Oh, I, I like, you like playing with hair. Don't you? Like, well, it's a great little hobby. I'm like, my hobby is bought four houses. Exactly. Yeah. It has always been, I mean, what, what year did you start working, Paula? Oh, um, let's see. I started nail school two weeks after I was 20 and then started in the salon just two months after that. That was 1992. 92. And I was, uh, this September,

[00:27:27] I will be in the industry for 34 years, but I, I grew up. And Jason, you, you as well too. Yeah. Yeah. I was about like 90, Ooh, three 94. Like running through that. I was like 19 when I, when I started doing hair. So we've been, we're all about that, you know, Gen X, you know, hairdressers. We were like, we're saying all the quiet shit out loud right now, you know? And we still had a life. That's what it was. You worked hard. You still showed up on time. Cause you knew you, cause there were consequences.

[00:27:56] You'll work till the end of the day. You went to the club. Yeah. You, you got your hand stamped at four in the morning. You were in the diner. You got two hours of sleep. You got a bacon, egg and cheese and a big coffee, this big. And you got to work again. And now it's like, Oh, I went out. I can't, I'm going to have four days off. I have my period. I, I can't work today. You know, like it's, this is, I guess you got to build up a callus. Like the work ethic is just different. It's very different. It is very,

[00:28:25] but then it kind of leads into when, when you're, we, it is different. We have a lot of really, really good hairdressers out there as well. The two that don't, that believe in, and have a strong work ethic and are doing a really good job and making some great fucking money. But then the ones that don't are the ones that turn into those toxic people. You know what I mean? And I mean, that's like one of the things that I know that we wanted to talk about was like having some of those toxic people around you, you know,

[00:28:52] let me get, but let me get, let me pull it out of the, let me pull it out of a bag. It's, it's hard. You know, there's a lot of, personalities in a salon. Yes. So when you're working in close quarters, you know, lots of hours, things happen. I've, you know, started my career and it was not easy. I mean, there's certain individuals that just, they thrive on making you feel inferior and keeping you down.

[00:29:20] And then when it came to a point for me personally, when I started to grow, when I was, you know, got my license and I, you know, my, my boss would put me behind the chair, you know, there was always shit talk about me behind my back about like, why is she doing that person? That should have come to me. You know what? There's certain negative people that will constantly look on everybody else's plate. And you know what? You're busy. You've got your own thing going on. Stop worrying about it. Give everybody else a chance. There's always enough to go around and give everybody else a chance.

[00:29:50] And I dealt with some, I really dealt with some tough times. And you know what? I learned that my salon chair was this, this invisible circle around it, that I focused on the person in my chair and I shut all that noise out. That's how I dealt with toxicity as a, as a, from worker to worker. It's, it's the thing that's helped me, but unfortunately it's things that I've like packaged away and I never really paid attention to. And I, I recently wrote a book and I had to add some of this into it.

[00:30:20] And I had to dig back into that drawer and, and go back through it. And I was so like a shame. I was proud of myself that I got through it, but I was ashamed that I let it happen because I just turned that deaf ear. And it was, it was not, it was how I coped and how I got through it. I didn't fight back. I just, I felt that success would be with the best revenge. But when you realize what you had to go through every day, I'm, I'm proud that I could get through that. I don't know how I did.

[00:30:50] I focused on the person in the chair and I just focused on the end goal. Um, and I, maybe it made me stronger. So maybe thank you for being such a bitch and trying to make my life so, you know, horrible in the beginning. It made me a strong, it made me a better stylist, maybe a better team player. You know, I also worked for a person prior to opening my, yeah. What were their tactics that were so, um, so toxic? I mean,

[00:31:19] what were their tactics? A lot of mean girl, like mean girl play, like, um, like ganging up and like, yeah, like Girl Scout troop leader, like, like, oh, look at this. Like, like bitching about things like what I wore, um, you know, sabotaging, um, certain color formulas. One girl, my client was sitting in my chair and loved this color that another stylist had done. So she says, I like that color. Could we do that? So I asked the stylist,

[00:31:49] what's that formula? Like, tell me what you did on so-and-so. The hair was pretty similar. She wouldn't show me the card. And she told me what she used. And I even questioned it because it was like a strawberry blonde. And I said, that's kind of vibrant. That's like a real fashion red. Like she goes, oh no, no, no, no. It's just that little bit. Well, the color was like Ronald McDonald. Oh. And the client was absolutely not happy about this. And she's sitting in my chair and she's like, I, Nikki, I can't, I can't,

[00:32:18] I have a wedding this weekend. Like this can't be. And I said, she was having a manicure afterwards in my salon, in the salon I was working in. So I said, go get your nails done. Just go get them done. I'm going to move some stuff. Come back to me as soon as you're done. So she goes, get some nails done. I'm freaking out. I'm trying to figure out and strategize. Like I, I knew in that moment that the woman totally sabotaged the formula and I couldn't go after her, but I was like, I have to fix this. That girl walked up to the client while she was getting her nails done. And she said, Nikki's new at this.

[00:32:47] And she's doesn't really know what she's doing, but she's off tomorrow. So if you want to come back tomorrow morning, I'll come in at 9am for you and I'll fix it. Unbeknownst to me, because the nail technician is my friend. She argued with her and said, that's not right. Why would you say that? The woman did come to me and said, you know what? I can't stay. I have to pick up my daughter. I'll call you. Well, how did I, I didn't know this. She came back in the morning. So this girl, this was some of the tactics.

[00:33:17] I'm going to steal away. I'm going to let you ruin them. And then I'm going to fix them. And that's what some of the stuff that I had to deal with. And I had to just chalk it up to my own fault that I should have used my own education and my own, my own sense to do something. I asked the wrong person and she Marie Baroned me. She gave me the wrong recipe and I did it because that's what she said she did. And I followed it when I should have went with my gut.

[00:33:44] And you don't feel like you can have teammates that you can trust. In a salon, you want teams. You're all in it together. And so that just, and that that's, I mean, you talk about having eyes in the back of your head and watching everything all the time. Now you're dealing with manipulative tactics with people that you're supposed to be friends with and trust. And that's, that's a hard part in this industry as well. Without a doubt. And it felt like I felt alone. And that's why I said, like, I made this bubble. I relied on myself. I will do it myself.

[00:34:14] I'll take it. I don't need your help with color. I will book myself. And truly now up to date, I did succeed and I am where I am. And she's still where she is. She's never left. Oh, see, exactly. So that goes to show you. Yeah, that really goes to show you, you know, but like, so now that you're a salon owner and if you have someone like that, that is part of your team, even though your team is small now, what, how would you deal with that cancer? Yeah. Cut it out. Okay.

[00:34:43] Cut it out. I won't tolerate it. I, I think all of the experiences is that I've had all these years, worker or owner. I, if it made me sick, I can't have it under my roof. I can't have somebody stealing because things were stolen from me. I cannot have my, my assistants treated in a way that they're on the bottom of the totem pole. I've got, I've gotten accused more times from my peers, my hairdressing peers. Like you,

[00:35:13] you know, you, you give them a lot more authority that, you know, they feel like their balls get big because like you give them so much, you pump them up because I know what it's like to be an assistant. And I know what it's like to be treated like shit. So I don't ever want them to feel inferior because it is the hardest job in the salon. You're doing everything. I also know that when you're growing and branching, I'm not going to tolerate a hairdresser stealing clients or making you feel like you're not good or, or telling clients, don't go to her. She's really not good at that.

[00:35:43] That's not your place to say. I'm very protective of everybody. And I just feel like if it's feels like cancer, then get the surgeon and cut it out because I don't want it in here. And that's my salon's name is karma. How would you go about that? If you have that little cancer in your salon, do you have a talk with them, see if their behavior changes or do you just say this is done? I will probably, if it's really bad, it's done. But a lot of times I've,

[00:36:11] I've done the conferences and I will call them out on it. I had a, a nail technician who was always treating the assistants terribly, like pick this up, drop a file, pick that up. And I sat her down and I said, listen to me very carefully. She is an employee just as you are an employee. And I don't like how you speak to her. She is working hard. And I listed, I actually gave her in an email a list of everything that that girl does. I said,

[00:36:36] if you are relying on her to pick up your file off the floor and you leave your station a mess and expect her to clean it, then you can find somewhere else to work. And it really did fix the problem because I called her out on it. She, she argued me that she wasn't that bad and I wouldn't hear it, but then she did get better. So I think sometimes the talk is good, but you can't tippy toe. You can't go, well, I know maybe you had a bad day. No, you didn't have a bad day. You're being a bitch.

[00:37:05] Stopping mean to your coworkers. Yep. I don't walk on eggshells. I'm not, that's not me. If you're putting eggshells down, I'm going to kick them out of the way and we're going to have a talk. You know what I mean? That's for sure. We're in, we're in the salon so many hours. Like we can't have that. It's just, it's not, it's not safe. No. So what would you say that out of your career now of 30 years plus, what has stunned you the most, whether that be with a stylist or a client? You know what I mean?

[00:37:34] Cause we got some great fucking stories. You know what I mean? Like we've like, we've seen some shit. Yeah. And what would you say? Like, you know, from on the salon. What has stunned, what has stunned me? What the fuck? Yeah. I think I'm so immune to all the bullshit I've seen. I don't even think you can stun me. I don't think you can. I really don't. Right. Oh, oh God. Oh, I have so many stories. I have one story about, it's not even a story. I lived it.

[00:38:02] This woman came to me, new client. And from the 10 minutes into the appointment, I knew I was dead. She told me all about the bad reviews that she wrote, you know, for restaurants and nobody. She said the thing that all hairdressers cringe. Nobody gets my hair right. Oh, the S. Yeah. You're done. Yeah. Those four words are like my kryptonite. I know. And, and you know what? I have a good track record. I have got a lot of,

[00:38:31] and if any of them are listening, I love yous all, but I have a lot of crazy clients. I do. I handle the crazy really well. Exactly. And I know how to diffuse it. This woman though, I, I take them on like project and she left happy. She wanted a lot of highlights. I felt her hair was really in poor condition. I said, how about this? I gave you what I felt you could handle. Let's get you on a regimen. How about in two weeks time? If you feel you still want more, I have no problem. I left her with that. She even,

[00:39:00] she made a forwarding appointment. She tipped me. And if I ever feel a client is unhappy and they're leaving, or they're just like, they're going to be a problem. I'm not going to accept a tip because you're not going to own me because you tipped me. Exactly. She gave me a, you know, like you give me a tip. It's like, I tipped her too. You know what? She gave me a tip. I accepted it because I knew she was leaving happy. Well, let's follow through the next morning. It's nine 45 in the morning. I'm opening up the door. The phone is ringing. Oh, I see it on the caller ID. I'm like,

[00:39:30] I didn't even turn the lights on. I'm not answering this phone. I look, she left three voicemails and called the salon seven times. She wasn't happy. Wow. Light enough. I'm coming back in. She harassed my desk. I got her on the phone. She screamed. I said to her, listen, I did what I felt was best for you. The integrity of your hair. She screamed at me that they even heard it through the cordless phone. I know what's the best, the best interest of my hair. I'm not happy.

[00:39:59] And I can't leave the house. I'm coming in. And I said, if you're going to make me do this, I'm doing this under duress. I'm going to make you sign a contract because I'm not comfortable doing this. She says, I'll sign anything you want. I want my hair lighter. I said, okay. I drew up a contract. Every little bitch and moan I knew she would have from that point on, her hair is definitely going to feel dry. It's going to break. It's going to, it's going to, you know, have no, no shine, no nothing. The color is going to be, three weeks from now,

[00:40:30] it's going to all lighten up. Like I told her now it's going to be too light. I, every point she walked in, I handed her the contract. She bitched and moaned about this and that and said, I'll sign it. But I don't agree with any of this. And I said, I'm not feeling good about this. I honestly, I got to be honest with you. I'm just feel that we're not a good fit for each other. I gave you what I told you. I covered my bases. I'm going to refuse to do your hair from this point on.

[00:40:59] And I'm not digging myself deeper with you. This woman refused to leave my couch and told me that if I didn't do her hair, I said to her, I'm not going to, I don't think so. She says, I'm not leaving until you do my hair. And I said, lady, that's not going to happen. And she said, well, I'm going to sit here in your salon, my year salon until you do. And I said, go ahead. I'm not digging myself any deeper. After an hour. And now I started my next client. She realized she wasn't getting her way.

[00:41:27] She called the police and she had the cops come. And she called the cops come walking in. The clients are like, why are the cops here? Who died? Who had a heart attack? They're like, this lady called the cops on Nikki. I could care less. I have no, she's got no leg to stand on. I showed the cops the contract and he looked at it and he's like, lady, this is why you called us. I'm sorry. You didn't like how your hair came out. You can't, what do you, what do you want me to do? She's not going to give you your money back.

[00:41:57] She tried to accommodate you. If you don't, it says clearly, if you don't sign, she has the right to refuse your service. She called the cops. It was even better. They had to escort her out. And he said, I want to see what car you have. Because if I come circling around and I see this car in the parking lot, I'm going to, I'm going to have to bring you in. Yeah. For trespass. Because she's harassing me on my property. Yeah. So you can't make this shit up. Seriously. Yeah. You want to get a sandwich board and go stand with it out front. Then you can't on the sidewalk. That's public property.

[00:42:27] Go do that. You can do that all day long. When people write those reviews, you don't see a bad review about like a restaurant or a store. Yeah. I look for them. I look for them. And I go back into that person's profile. They write bad reviews for everybody. Everybody. So if they go around and say, don't go to Nikki at Karma Beauty Studio. Guess what? Anybody that knows them knows that they're fat shit crazy and that they probably will come to me because if I kicked her out, then I'm okay. Exactly.

[00:42:57] You want to, that is one of the things that I do as well too. When I see a review on somebody and I read it and I can tell that that person's absolutely insane. I'm like, okay, you want to what? Then there's, there's no validity to that, to that review or to that person. You know what I mean? I'm like, anything that you say is just bullshit. I can just tell. So I'm going to just kind of scratch that one off, but. Oh, yeah. That's okay. People, you never call me reverse you. Yeah. I mean,

[00:43:23] I'm going to call the cops if you won't leave or you're not paying or you're ripping me off, but I have a service. The cops should, they should have sent her a bill for showing up. Our tax dollars are paying for them to show up. That's what he said. He said, lady, the world we're living in, this is why you didn't, you can't just call the cops for something like this. Take it a small claims court. So then, then the cop actually came back in and said to me, I don't trust this woman. So I am going to circle around, watch your reviews. He said, I want to let you know,

[00:43:52] if you're the one being sued, you choose where you want to go. You should take her to judge Judy. You should have judge Judy go after her. Because he said that me being the person that would be being sued, it's up to me that if I decided I wanted to go on TV with this, I have the right to do that. So he said, if she brings you to court, you go on judge Judy, let judge Judy get her. So I mean, they would take shit like that. That's for sure. They totally would. And you know,

[00:44:22] strangely enough, she never disputed the credit card. She never wrote a bad review. And I never heard from her again. It's going to ask her, ask you if she rescheduled. Yeah. Not with me. Not with me, not with me. I love seeing her. Yeah. Well, we did actually have one client that we had to tell, you know, she missed a lot of appointments. She bitched. Every time she got a haircut, we would say, what's the under over that she's coming back again? So whether it was a color or cut, she always came.

[00:44:50] So we gently told her that it was time. Maybe she find another salon. She came back in. She tried to get an appointment under a different name. Yep. I've had that. That's happened to you, Jason. Yeah. I had a client four times. Under a different name. Like when she was going to come back in, I was going to forget? Yep. Oh yeah. What did you? Yeah. Yeah. Four times. She came with her daughter and her daughter's name that she booked on her with her husband's credit card when it came into her husband's name. I mean, we're like, what the,

[00:45:16] what is it going to take to let you know you're not welcome here? Get the fuck out. But they don't get it. Some people just, they can't quit us. Just can't quit you. I can't quit you. I can't quit you. I can't quit you. What is the one thing that you would say that out of all these years of owning a salon, being a hairdresser, what made you, what's that one thing that made you survive this industry that you've been in for doing? Alcohol. You're going to be one of the five alcohol. We were going to talk about that one of our,

[00:45:46] one of our episodes. Yeah. One of the things that, you know what I mean? That kind of like, why are you going to be one of the five percenters? You know what I mean? Because it's like only 5% of people retire from this industry, which is a very low number. Or, you know, so as, as tired as I am and as stressful as it is, it's the clients. I, I love knowing that we are their people. Um, I see how happy they walk in unhappy. I always say this, um,

[00:46:15] clients walk in our door. They making the choice to come to us. So we should be grateful, but they come in, in there, they're hungry. They sat in traffic. Their kids are driving them crazy. They hate their husband or their wife. Or, you know, uh, or, you know, they came from a job. They can't stand. And they come to us and you see it all melt when they're in our chair, in my chair. There's just this joy. And there's many times that I have wanted to padlock that door. And then as we're having a real busy day,

[00:46:45] real hectic, I do, as I'm working, I look around and I observe this, like, this kumbaya, this coffee clutch, this breakfast club of happiness. And we are part, we do, we do that. That's what keeps me going. I feel like it's, it is, it's, it's physically demanding. It's emotionally demanding. We take it home with us. But when you, you know that you've turned somebody's day around, there's no better feeling than that. And that's even,

[00:47:15] I think you agree with me. It's, it's, that's what's going to keep me going. I mean, we're always, and also that everything's changing. You know, when I started in 1989 at 15 years old, there was like lacquer and some blow, you know, roller sets and perms and stuff. And look at where we've come. We've come so far. So I keep feeling like this evolution of all the things that we're, have to offer. I'm not getting stale. I could keep learning new things and like pivot.

[00:47:44] Will I own a salon all these years? I mean, I, oh God, I can't say for sure. I can say that I'm going to try my best. Join my side. I've tried my best, but I, I will always be in this field. I, I'm just so inspired by it. Yeah. That that's, that's what fuels me. Sounds, it sounds bland, but it's true. It's not bland. You wrote a book. It's called Superhero. That's that right? Yes. Yes. Right here. I read it. I, oh my God, I laughed my ass off.

[00:48:14] It's got a lot of really good information that's inside of this book. And just the things, the trials and tribulations that you've dealt with. If you're a hairdresser, I definitely recommend picking this one up. You find Amazon. I'm going to go through and put it in the show notes, but I mean, just, there's a lot of things that we didn't even cover in this podcast or in this book, like the salon manager that you had, that you had a fire and just like, just things like that, where it's like, it was funny. I was thinking when we were talking, I was thinking about her. Cause that was really, that was toxic. And,

[00:48:44] but you know what? That's another day. That's another story. I mean, you guys, you got to hear these stories because if anything, learn from the mistakes, look, learn from life experiences from people like Nikki, because I think it's really, really important that we do, you know, and I'm learning from it because even to this day, I'm constantly learning. Oh, Nikki, thank you so much for being on the show. We really appreciate you. Thank you so much. It was so much fun. I can talk about this shit all day long. Oh, I'll probably have you back on again.

[00:49:13] So don't worry. All right. Not a problem. I'd be happy to do it. All right. It's time for some shitology. Hey Paula, I'm looking for a job. What kind of education do you offer inside your salon? Well, for the first 500 days, we go over theory, we go over practical. And then we go over terminology and how things are done in power. I love this. I love,

[00:49:43] I hate you right now. Hating you. And with that, stay shitty. And see you next time. Hey, listener persons. If you're enjoying this podcast, please give us a rating on Apple podcasts, Spotify, I heart radio, or Amazon prime podcast, or wherever you get your favorite shit. It definitely helps out our algorithm. Also check out our shitty posts on Instagram at shit. I told my hairdresser.

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