To me, the hardest part of accomplishing anything is, quite honestly, getting started. I found this applied to opening the salon, doing the work it would take to create this new website, even figuring out a way to write this blog. Most times, all it takes is that first push off the starting block. So let me give you a little bit of background about my “getting started” here in my very first blog.
I thought it was important that I post this picture here. It was taken five and a half years ago by my parents the first weekend after I opened the salon. I remember, quite vividly, calling them up after that first week and saying, “Ok, so I have a drawer full of cash and credit card receipts from a weeks worth of business (booked solid!) and I have no idea what to do with any of it.” My parents came up to the salon that weekend to see the evidence of the week in person and help me sort things out. They insisted on snapping this photo. To this day, it has a prominent place in their home. To them and also to me, it proved that once you “got started” on something you believed in, things would get accomplished and success would eventually follow. Most people might find it crazy, opening a small business, knowing little if anything about how to actually run the business. Crazy or not, I did it with the love and support of my family and somehow along the way, am figuring it out. I just “started” and the rest is history now.
The year I opened the salon I didn’t have a budget set aside for marketing, advertising, an awning, even the simplest of websites. It’s a good thing I didn’t need it back then. Men weren’t really using the web yet to find a place to get their haircut plus, I had a loyal clientele to start and my schedule was filled to capacity. But when it came time to add a second stylist, the online world had evolved and a website was an important way to let the world know about the salon and bring additional business in the door. That original Flash website has led years later, to launching this new website, giving me this opportunity to start blogging about my experiences and my world.
I’m not sure what the future holds for this little blog of mine as I can’t commit just yet to what content will be here when you come back each time to read it but I will promise you that I am going to do it, several times a week, because I always finish what I start. What I can tell you is that there will be a mix of personal and professional anecdotes, hair styling tips and advice, secrets, photos of good and bad hair, before and afters (of course, names and faces will kept anonymous to protect those involved :), and then all kinds of fun stuff I come across in between. They’ll be stories of behind the chair and behind the scenes at the salon. I know I’ll get inspired by my staff and my clients to write and post things that I think you’ll find interesting, educational and funny (because if we can’t laugh after all, what fun would this be?!?)
So, this is me, just getting started here…stay tuned and come along for the ride.