Client A
A multimillion-dollar beauty business owner aims to inspire professionals to be savvy business leaders.
This book was written for a well-renowned business owner in the beauty industry. This author initially came from finance and had a successful accounting career. In 2005, she decided she wanted to do something different with her life, and took the bold leap to start something of her own for herself. Shortly after, she hit making six figures out of her house only by working two and half days a week. Today she runs multiple salons, purchased an entire building for her beauty business, and has turned her focus on becoming a consultant for salons and spas around the United States. This book aims to inspire business owners to become leaders in their industry.
CHAPTER 1: SKILLS TO PAY THE BILLS
I’m broke. It’s pretty bad.
We’ve all been there. And no, I’m not talking about “can’t buy a pair of Louboutin heels for my birthday” broke, or even “won’t be able to squeeze in a second cup of Starbucks this evening” broke. I’m talking about the type of broke that gives you a belly-pit anxiety twist when you think about how you’re gonna manage to balance paying your rent next month and saving up to buy a new pair of sneakers for the gym. The problem isn’t that we aren’t willing to flaunt our squats at the neighborhood fitness center in a pair of worn-out Nikes and pull out a stringy earphone set while getting side-eye glances from the girl with the Airpods. No. The issue is that we do not have enough people focusing on the fact that money can be made by virtually any skill — if you know how to strategize it.
Think about the type of TikTok videos with clumsy choreography strung together by teenagers on a lazy afternoon than go viral, mostly because of the catchy tunes and high levels of engagement in the comments. It’s bizarre that users with a certain amount of followers get paid just for their popularity on social media platforms, often more than those who spend a couple of expensive years in college trying to master a skill in a certain field of study. Now, we aren’t comparing skills. Quite the contrary. Any skill can be leveraged to generate an income, but it will always be how you go about marketing yourself that will make or break your bank account!
CHAPTER 6: THE TEAM CREATES THE DREAM
“Hold on. I have a really good joke. How many hairdressers does it take to teach someone how to do a haircut?” Winn quizzed me with a twinkle in his eye.
“Uh, how many?”
“One hundred. One to do the actual cut, and ninety-nine to stand there and say, ‘Oh, I could do THAT.’”
There is just this attitude that you just come against with professionals. Students are hungry. There is a culture for learning that just draws the experts in to want to lend a helping hand. The beautiful thing about beginners, maybe such as yourself, is that you don’t know what doesn’t work. So you want to try anything and everything to learn and grow and master your art. A sad but real issue that many recent graduates from cosmetology school face are spending thousands of dollars on their education only to fall short of the necessary skills found through hands-on experience. Winn Claybaugh took notice of this growing number of passionate students throwing themselves into entry-level positions in the industry but getting burnt out shortly after, mainly because they didn’t have the right guidance and mentorship. A recurring theme in this book is emphasizing that we don’t know what we don’t know, so having the right mentor along the way is a sure solution to this problem. Winn knew that to make a real change and break the cycle, he had to commit to helping young beauty enthusiasts, so that was the moment he decided: you know what? I’m going to open my beauty school. Many beauty schools claim to have a cutting-edge approach to teaching, only to be extremely overpriced and essentially just reinventing the wheel. Winn chose a different approach.
CHAPTER 7: REVERSE PLANNING – DESTINY IS CALLING
“If your son decides to get into cutting hair and all that stuff, just make sure that he gets into education. That’s where all the money is.”
Crazy as it might sound, these words were spoken by a beauty equipment supplier to Mathew Collins’ father way back when he was a kid. His dad had gone to get him a set of clippers because Mathew had been begging him to take him to get his hair cut every week. Little did this random guy know that Mathew would one day be the Global Styling Ambassador for Dyson and an International Artist with L’Oréal. Mathew’s work, advice, and tips have been featured in many online and print publications such as Vogue, GQ, People, Elle Canada, Elle Serbia, FASHION, Flare, The Kit, The Globe and Mail, InStyle, Ion, and Salon magazines. Mathew’s celebrity clients have included Gigi Hadid, Paris Jackson, Kristen Stewart, Dua Lipa, Hailey Baldwin, Priyanka Chopra, Bryce Dallas Howard, Charlotte Tilbury, Kristen Bell, Madison Beer, Hunter Schafer, Mandy Moore, Cynthia Nixon, Julia Fox, Emma Chamberlain, Lili Reinhart, Joe Keery, and Elizabeth Chambers. Matthew has also been the official Hair Expert on The Social, E! Network’s Celebrity Style Story, and ETalk Canada. Today, Mathew is the co-founder of The Good Ones- an advanced training academy for artists in the beauty and fashion industry.
Mathew didn’t even know that this random beauty supplier had unknowingly predicted his future until much later when his dad shared the story with him. Between the age of 12 and 17, Mathew was so engrossed in the idea of cutting hair that he would cut his hair every three days. At this time, he had realized that all his friends were getting terrible haircuts. That’s when he decided to offer to help them with their haircuts. With confidence in his talent, he promised them a $50 guarantee if he messed their hair up. Of course, Mathew never ended up having to pay anyone $50.
