This blog really isn't directly about hair but I bet that I can segue in to it.
So, I opened Colour:fix two years ago as of today.
While these 2 years have been great, I can't help but feel there should be more. The last few months I have been trying to figure out what is missing (besides the obvious, the two other colorists that were in the original plan for the salon). I have been talking to clients about it, talking to my wife and been doing a whole hell of a lot of soul searching.
• Yeah, the decor could be more interesting,
I have never really been one with a flair for that. And does that really matter?
• Yeah, the lighting needs to be better,
I agree, and I'm working on that
Then one day, out of the blue, a client that I see about every 6 months for the last 4 years says something.
"You've mellowed"
She said more than that, but that is the gist of it and what hit home. That simple statement was almost exactly what I had been thinking. I had mellowed. I lost my edge, I softened my approach. Basically, I stopped being myself.
Without going in to great detail, the last 5 years before Colour:fix, I focused on trying to fix other peoples' businesses while letting my own slip. Since then, I have been trying to figure out what to change to get my business rolling again. Well I finally figured it out. I don't need to change anything EXCEPT to stop NOT being myself.
I was well known, infamous even you might say , for being blunt and brutally honest. Clients warned their friends that I would be absolutely direct about what they should do. New clients trusted me right away because I said what needed to be said. I know my field better than most and had no problem saying so.
I got soft. I stopped inserting my professional opinion. I stopped doing my best work.
For example: the other day I had a client in my chair. She always says that she wants something edgy but then we would just add a little touch of blue or something similar. No pre-lightening so the blue wasn't really bright and never lasts long. I always knew it was more or less a waste of time and the results were no where near as good as I know they can be.
Well, as she sat in my chair, I decided to do what I thought best. She sat in the chair squirming and nervous the whole processing time.
"That's an awful lot of foils".
"Permanent color? Why permanent?"
......and such the whole time. I was confident, I KNEW it was going to be great. So I wash out the color, blow dry her her. She says
"Well, I'm trying really hard to not like it but I love it".
Later she texts me
"OK. This is how you get people hooked. It's like tattoos. I now have a little bit in there, but I want MORE. When I get my next haircut I would like bigger chunks of color."
What can I say? When I came up with the name Colour:fix it had two meanings.
First was fix as in fixing color because I'm really good at corrective coloring.
Second was as in I'll get you addicted to color and my work will be your fix.
