Big Bold Changes from a Small Town Stylist
“not just a small-town stylist”
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I’ve got a special guest for you today, Casey Taylor, she’s an RYB alumni who joined right in the midst of a pandemic. You are not gonna wanna miss this episode ‘cause Casey has done some pretty amazing things this year, despite the pandemic.
I know you’re going to learn so much from Casey, so let’s get right to it!
Never Say Never
Casey’s been in the industry for 6 years now and she’s been a salon owner for 2 and a half of those. Although she initially told herself she never wanted to be a salon owner (keep reading for the full story).
Casey was born and raised in a small town in east Texas, population 6,000. When she got into the industry she wanted to be a commission stylist since there aren’t any commission-based salons in her small towns. Everyone jumps into booth renting and she saw a lot of stylists halting their growth.
She knew that she wanted to do more than just the perms, roller sets and Kelly Clarkson stripes.
After moving to a second commission-based salon, she was able to grow her technique and her business but it was still located over 30 minutes away and she really felt that she wanted to be in her hometown.
Being an independent person, she wanted to do her own thing and a beautiful opportunity came about to work with another stylist in her hometown. They were the owner of a lovely two-chair salon and Casey began working there.
In a strange twist of events, as Casey puts it, they were in the process of moving to a new location when her friend, the owner of the salon, ended up going on bed rest during her pregnancy.
It was a tricky situation, either Casey took over the salon, or she wouldn’t have anywhere to work.
Although saying for years that she never wanted to be a salon owner, when the position to be a salon owner was handed to her, she dived right in. Her husband was ready to support her fully and she now owns her own salon after a crazy, but definitely worthwhile journey.
Rockin’ Her Biz
Before Casey joined Rock Your Business in summer of 2020 (in the middle of a pandemic), she’d had her fair share of small price increases. After an educator told her that a 15% price increase is a “pretty big increase” and the “standard”, Casey continued to do small 15% increases in her business.
It wasn’t enough. She kept staying way too overbooked, too busy and totally exhausted. She was even starting to notice that her marriage was suffering as she wasn’t able to dedicate time and energy to her family and friends.
Once she decided to join Rock Your Business, another decision was made that she was tired of working 60 hours a week and fed up with the little price increases. So she decided to go for it.
Covid-19 actually helped her with the requirement to stop double booking, she had to let go of her assistant who she had before quarantine and she did a huge price increase.
Casey says that before the price increase she was charging a pretty standard rate of about $45-48/hour (she admits that it was probably closer to $40/hour as she had a tendency to emotionally discount her services). After her price increase, she charges closer to $70/hour.
Using the formula inside of the Rock Your Business program, she was able to determine an hourly rate that was representative of her value and worth.
Casey wanted success in her own version.
Everyone would tell her that it was a blessing that she was so busy, when in reality, being busy is not a blessing, particularly when it’s taking away from yourself (and you’re working 14-hour days).
Casey admits that it was scary to increase her prices. She felt like she had a book full of dream clients and she wasn’t struggling to get her ideal client into her chair.
One of her limiting beliefs was that “this would be so much easier if I didn’t have dream clients. If I had clients I didn’t like.” Casey knows this isn’t true and says it would’ve been hard either way.
Rock Your Business taught her to educate and communicate with her clients. She says that communicating to them effectively about her price increase softened the blow.
Although she still had one client who said “ouch” 10 times (if you’re wondering, they’re still her client), most of her clients were super gracious and supportive. The anxiety of raising her prices was more so in her mind than in reality.
Casey’s had a few clients trail off, but despite her 75% price increase she’s lost maybe 10 clients. She definitely thought she would lose way more!
Casey says that by communicating it effectively, openly and honestly her clients were able to see that she was coming to them vulnerably.
Raise your hand if raising your prices by 75% in the middle of a pandemic would make you need to take a nervous poo? (Yeah… me too!) And let’s be honest, I’m sure a lot of us could make up an excuse on why we shouldn’t raise our prices during a pandemic.
But Casey knew that she was made for more and she wasn’t making any excuses. She calculated that she was losing somewhere between $25-30k each year (that’s a whole other income!).
I’m all about being scared and doing it anyway, Casey’s living proof of that.
Finding Community
For Casey, mental health is super important. She says it best “mental health is business health”. She doesn’t think she could’ve made the huge changes that she made without the right mindset.
I’m such a big advocate of journaling every day and Casey is too! Every day she writes down her affirmations, her 3 big goals, her daily goals and her self care for the day. Because she knows how important it all is and if she doesn’t write them down she finds that she’s much more likely to forget about it throughout the day.
You can only get so far in your business if you’re struggling internally.
One of the biggest motivators for Casey has been the Rock Your Business Private Facebook Community. She says that she’s never felt more safe, secure and at home with a community of people. (I can definitely tell you these people are some of the BEST people ever).
The Facebook community helped lift her up out of some really low lows. As she puts it: through the process of growth there’s highs and lows. And the higher the highs, the lower the lows.
She states that she couldn’t imagine going through the program without the community.
“It’s so inspiring to see what others are doing. Even though people are all on different parts of their journey, they’re all achieving different things and it’s so inspiring to see other people growing who can also help you through your growth.”
It was actually Lauren Barton’s story that really inspired Casey and I love that they actually have a lot of similarities in their stories. It’s so great to see what they’ve both achieved.
Breaking Stereotypes
Casey’s next big goal is to really deep dive into education for small-town stylists. She’s super passionate about breaking the stereotypes that can feel very limiting. You know the “you’re just a hairstylist” mentality that we’re talking about. It can make you feel discouraged, particularly in a small town.
Casey wants to inspire others to grow their business and achieve their dreams with their business, regardless of their zip code and their population.
She knows the frustration that comes with seeing all the “tips and tricks” for hairstylists that aren’t always applicable or transferable to stylists in smaller towns. She knows that her clients aren’t using Instagram, so if she’s only looking for clients through social media, she’s not going to find them.
I’m also passionate about this and that’s why the things I teach inside of my programs are usable on and off social media.
Casey’s ready to crush stereotypes and help small town stylists achieve big dreams.
I can’t wait to see what she does next.
Casey seriously inspires me so much. I’ve been waiting for the day for her to come and share her story. It’s been incredible to watch her grow and to be a part of her journey.
She is definitely making enormous waves in this industry, doing things differently and knowing her worth and value. I sure wish I could go back and do things the way she’s doing them!
If Casey has inspired you, or if you’re a small town stylist who wants a super amazing new best friend, go send her a DM over on Instagram and check out her website.
If you’re wanting to be a part of the amazing community Casey talked about, get on the waitlist for Rock Your Business, enrolment opens January 2021!
Go on, binge the latest posts (you know you wanna)…
