One of the best coolest things about being in the salon industry is the people we get to meet. Whether that is behind the chair, at the salon, or other hairdressers. We have this common bond but come from so many different backgrounds!
And, Jamie Wiley, #hairboss, is one of those people who leave an impression from the first time you meet her. Coming to us with such an amazing story of focus, growth, and success, Jaime shares some of her trade secrets on clientele development, mastering braiding and social media strategies.
This conversation takes some fun twists and turns that you’re sure to enjoy and learn from until the very end!
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We have an extraordinary guest. We actually just had the opportunity to watch and take education from. That was really amazing. I just have to say the way you work the crowd, before I even let the audience know who we’re talking to.
Was it presidential?
Depends which president. Good job there. The way you worked the crowd and really the way you checked in with the group made sure they had the learnings and brought them back in, it was just fantastic to watch because we see a lot of education nowadays and we’re huge fans of education. It’s one thing to know how to know how to do something, and then it’s a totally another thing to know how to deliver it. That was really great to watch, and you’re obviously a master of your craft. We’re here with Jamie Wiley. You’re an Artistic Director with Pureology.
I am and thank you for that introduction.
Yeah, you’re welcome. Thank you for being here and sitting with us.
I’m honored. Thank you for having me.
This is going to be fun. It’s going to be hot. We’ve got some other Pureology team members sitting in the background. Would you like to let us know who else is with us?
I have an incredible team here with me that assisted me. I have Katie from Minnesota, but she moved out to New York, and I have Shelby Hogan here. She’s also from New York. I have Savannah, who is from Ohio.
Never forget about Ohio.
They’re an incredible team. They’re a part of our artistic network.
First of all, for our readers, they know we have an array of different types of people on. It wasn’t super long ago when I first heard your name and Instagram is the way we find out everything, what people are all about. Immediately we were like, “We want to bring this person in to you,” and you go to their page. I just have to say, I was immediately impressed by it. We’re just so excited and delighted to spend a little time with you. We typically like to start at a certain place. John is going to take us out because there’s so many ways we can go with this conversation.
I always like to know how people got into the industry because I always think that’s a great story. Why hairdressing? Why this industry? How did this happen to you? Give us the story how did this happen? We talked earlier and I got a little bit of your history.
I became a hairdresser because of the passion. Actually, before I became a hairdresser, I was in the Army. I left high school and joined the Army. It goes back to when I was in kindergarten, and there was a soldier that came to our school from Desert Storm. I was instantly like, “Look at that guy. That’s what I want to do.” I told my mom and my family, I’m like, “I’m going to be a soldier one day.” They didn’t believe me, and I did. 9/11 happened, and then I was like, “I’m going to serve my country,” and so I did. I left high school, joined the service and it was incredible. I did six years, they paid for school, and I got to travel.
I met really incredible people. I learned all about myself, core values, what it means, integrity, leadership, all of the things. I loved my job. I grew up. I did a lot of soul searching, travel, and all of the things, but I wasn’t passionate. I knew eventually I was going to go to hair school. My mom was a hairdresser. I grew up in a family of hairdressing. I grew up around hairdressing, grew up in the salon. I knew eventually I was going to go to hair school. Even in high school, I did my own hair for prom. I did all my friends’ hair for prom. I was always surrounded with hair. Other people were very surprised when I joined the military. They’re like, “I can’t believe Jamie Lewis is going to the military. It should be her brother because he was a bad boy.” He needed to go. I was the good girl. “She should go to hair school.” I went to the Army and it was great.
A death of a loved one will make you realize that life is really fragile. Do not waste any more of your time.
I met my husband. I got married when I just turned nineteen. I have three beautiful children. After just over five years in the military, my mom suddenly passed away. Really suddenly. As a young adult, you don’t expect that. When you have somebody who is super close to you and you have never had any deaths in the family ever, it’s really shocking. It just slaps you, like, “This life is really fragile. It’s going to end. We can’t waste any time.”
That was a really big turning point in my life. I love what I do in the Army, but is this a career for me? At the time, my husband was deploying and I was like, “I need to make a decision here. Am I going to stay in and either both of us are going to deploy and my son is going to be without a parent right now, my mom just passed away, or am I going to get out of the military and be there for my son and follow my dream of becoming a hairdresser?” That’s what I did.
I got out and I became a hairdresser, and I actually went to the same hairdressing school as my mom. How I knew I was following what I should be doing was on the first day of cosmetology school, when the teacher asked the room, “Why are you here?” Everyone else was younger. 18, 19-year-olds. They’re all writing down whatever they’re writing down. I wrote down the truth. “I’m here from out of the military. I have a son, my husband’s now deploying. My mom just died and my mom went to school here in 1979.” The teacher then came up to me and was like, “Who’s your mom?” I told her, and she goes, “She was in my graduating class. I know your mom.” It was like goosebumps. “I’m here. This is where I’m supposed to be.”
It’s really interesting. Something you just said, I think, is fascinating around the fact that there’s different stages of your life and different levels of truth that you get to. As a drunk eighteen-year-old kid who sat in hair school, just waiting to get out at the end of the night to go party, if you when you went through those activities and exercises and they ask questions like that. Not that you don’t try, you have those, I think you said canned answers.
I did that in the Army. Those are the times because I’m like, “I want to serve my country. I’m just figuring it out. I’m figuring my stuff out right now.”
The other thing that’s really wild is we’re at an anniversary because as we sit and have this conversation, I don’t know when this will release, but it’s September the 9th. This was right around your pivotal moment when you were starting to have you were just about to have that breakthrough. Interesting stuff.
I’m thinking about your story and about how your mom gave you that push when she had passed. It made you think, “Life’s short. I need to pick a direction and hairdressing is going to be it.” Talk a little bit more about that. The reason I’m asking is because I think for some people, I think it was Nikki who we did an episode earlier, who said the day came when she put both feet in. She had one foot out of the industry, one foot in, and she was dabbling, but she wasn’t committed to it. It seems like you got committed just before you went into school. Talk about putting both feet in and why that was really important.
To be honest, I also wanted to be a writer. I was enrolled in cosmetology school. Also, journalism.
Your son was how old, would you say?
He was not even one.
Your husband was off someplace?
In Afghanistan.
You’re not an overachiever a little bit?
Not at all. I was like, “Do I want to continue with school?” At that time, I had a two-year degree in writing. I was like, “Do I want a four-year degree or do I want to become a hairdresser? What is it?” That first day of hairdressing school was really like, “I’m deciding here.” Meeting that teacher was, “Am I in it or am I not in it?” That was truly like a pivotal moment for me. For me, it really comes down to passion. It’s either you have passion or you don’t because at the end of the day, if you’re not in love with what you do, then why are we doing this? What’s the point?
You go to hair school, you do all that. That’s been a minute now. September 11th and if you’re above a certain age, that’s a huge imprint. A lot of people coming into the industry right now, they don’t they weren’t even born yet. You go into school and then what happens from there?
I went to school. Actually, I got a two-year degree in the Science of Cosmetology. It’s not just a regular cosmetology school. After that, my husband comes home, my family then moves to Minneapolis. I work up there. I work at a flagship salon in the Mall of America. I build my clientele really quickly because there’s traffic. It’s a busy mall, but also the locals go there. It’s not only touristy but that’s where the locals go.
It’s cold in the winter.
It’s cold there, but I built my clientele quickly and that’s what I wanted. I wanted high traffic and I wanted to build quickly because at this point, I am 25. I’m also pregnant with my second child. I’m just highly motivated. I want my own clientele. After that, within six months, I am a level three within that brand. After that, I think by year two, I was at the top of the scale. I was ready to move to my own space. After that, I moved to my own space. I was working the hours that I wanted to work. I was making the money that I wanted to. I was financially free. I was spending the time that I wanted to spend with my family. It was really good. Of course, the Army called. They knocked on the door and said, “Sergeant Wiley, it’s time for you to move.” We moved from Minnesota to Massachusetts.
Worcestershire, Massachusetts?
I moved to Bridgewater after that. About year three into my hairdressing career, I knew I was going to become an educator. I’m like, “I’m not. I can’t be behind the chair. My husband’s in the Army. I need to also have some flexibility and have a solid income. Education was where it was going to be at for me. I chose Pureology because of the integrity.
How long ago have you been with Pureology?
I’m met year nine with Pureology.
When you said your maiden name, I felt like it rang a bell for a second. One of the things that we love to do on the show is teach. We love to cover stories, but we also want to know what the message is and what are some key learnings. Through those, I feel like 25 is prime, ripe and ready to grow a clientele. Give me somebody who’s 25 and motivated and it’s like, “You, out of the way. Get out of the way.” I love that. For somebody who might be on the front end of that ride who hasn’t done that yet, what were some things you learned? It’s one thing to get fed a lot of people, it’s another thing to keep them. What were some things that you learned along the way that might be helpful or that really stand out?
To keep a clientele?
Just In general.
Let’s do that because I think that a struggle that many people have is they find themselves in high traffic areas. There’s lots of people coming in the door. Yet for some reason, they never build beyond the traffic because they can’t retain the customer. I forgot who we talked to who said that treating every customer like their most important customer in the building is the secret to five-star success. Give us some more tangibles. What were the things that really worked for you that kept them?
When a client is sitting in a salon chair, you have to wow them during the consultation.
Of course. Some of the really biggest things that I learned along the way were, like you said, the tangible things that like talk about the next time. When they’re sitting in your chair, you have to wow them in the consultation. “What are we doing today?” You have to build trust. If they’re like, “I want a change,” I wouldn’t do the change because most people, you have to build the trust.
First timer sits down, they go, “I want to cut it all off,” you’re like, “Don’t cut it off.”
Don’t do it because most people are like, “That person cut it all off and I don’t like it.” They’ll not come back to you. You have to build the trust. The moment they trust you, you have them. Building trust, then you talk about next time. “Next time, let’s do face framing or let’s add in some baby lights or balayage.” Also, every time in my salon, first time guests, we’ll get a clear bag with coupons and samples. They get it at the beginning, not the end.
Every time a new guest is in the salon, the entire team knows that’s new guest because they got the bag. Everybody knows that that person’s a new guest. Everybody will stop and say, “Hi, how are you? What can I get you? What do you need?” It’s an experience and that person is blown away, not only from their service provider, but from the entire team. Does that make sense?
Yeah, because everybody knows everybody’s going to make it take a second to make an acknowledgement. Make them feel welcome and special.
I always find it powerful that we talk about making that guest have a really great experience. As a service provider, of course we’re thinking, “As long as they do a good job, I build that trust and I give them something to look forward to. Isn’t that enough?” The unfortunate part is no because before they saw you and after they saw you, they saw the rest of your team. They can make or break a really good experience.
There’s many things. The third thing is the shampoo experience. I have an assistant. I don’t let them shampoo my new client in the first three visits because 7 out 10 people who do the shampoo will not come back because of that experience. That experience is so crucial. What do they say about the shampoo experience? “This is the best part. This is my favorite part. I can’t wait for the shampoo.”
It’s the customer’s favorite part and the hairdresser’s least favorite.
On the first three times they come to me, and I will keep track in the books, that’s my job. Super crucial.
Just for fun facts, they also say that the fourth visit is the one where they’re not loyal. First three visits, you’re building that trust, building that rapport. If you get them to come back for fourth, then, in theory, you got them, which follows suit with your first three visits.
Those are really key learnings for somebody new growing. Even somebody, whether you’re a somebody who’s seasoned and have moved, or like a lot of people, somebody who’s been doing hair for a long time. You find yourself in a place where you’ve leveled off. Maybe you’ve even plateaued and taken a few steps back. Now it’s time for you to regrow a little bit. It can be a humbling place to be for a lot of people. They don’t realize it’s those little things that they’ve taken for granted over time like a shampoo that can make a new guest just pop and just really want to come back.
As an experienced hairdresser, we can get somebody in and out of the sink in about 45 seconds.
With little suds in their ear as a gift for later, like a Cheeto in my mustache.
I just want to add one more thing. The pre-book. That’s where it will make or break. If you can pre-book them while they’re processing, that’s where 100% is where you can get them.
I love that we’re having this conversation right now because we just covered some similar material in a couple of conversations that we’ve had. It’s always great to realize that this is going on everywhere. That these foundational things that veterans could get sick of are the very thing you need to focus on in turn.
Let me ask you a really silly question, but I think it feeds into what we’re talking about here. As Chris pointed out, we’ve talked about this in the last few episodes that we did. This is been a reoccurring subject. More to the point is just that it’s a reoccurring subject. Meaning we talk about things like rebooking. We talk about things like a really great shampoo. We talk about things like giving the client something to look forward to next time they’re here and we repeat ourselves. We say these things. I know it. You know it. Everybody in this room knows it. Why do we keep repeating it? I’m asking why do we keep repeating it? You have the distinctive advantage of traveling around the country, going to salons, so you get a lot more exposure to lots of salons more than we do. Why do we keep repeating it?
What happens in salons when you’re doing 6, 8, however many guests a day. Day in, day out and the monotony of it, I’m going to be honest, we get lazy and you just get tired. You’re like, “I’m just not going to do it.”
Nothing you could say to me to make me do it.
I’m just not going to do it. I’m going to go home and I’m going to watch TV.
I want to talk about social media and of the service stuff. We’ve serviced them, we’re taking care of them. If you guys aren’t servicing your guests, come on, have a clue.
By the way, really nice Instagram page.
Thank you. I appreciate it. I spend a lot of time on it.
You spend a lot of time on it. One thing I know about any type of social media, just based on the girls that we work with, to get even medium good, you have to spend a shit ton of time on it.
Do you want me to tell you how much time I spend on it in a day?
I might, but I’m not there yet. What I want to know is, because you are younger than me, obviously, but you’re more than a grandma Millennial. You’re not 21. You’re probably a Gen X-er.
I’m a grandma Millennial.
Looking at your page, there’s a lot of people doing a lot of different things. A lot of people reposting the same stuff all the time. It’s like everybody’s page looks alike. You’re obviously an educator because you are teaching from your page. You said it earlier. You seem to have some obsessions around braiding.
I’m watching her obsessively braid on her Instagram page right now.
I guess I do want to know, when did you decide that that was going to be a thing for you? Were you or you on it from the start? For somebody who might still be interested in growing, you don’t have to have 300,000, 400,000, 1 million, but grow an audience.
Here’s the thing with social.
You just put the number four up, by the way. You’re going to give us four points.
You want to either educate, inspire, inform, entertain. I’m an entertainer, basically. Education and entertain or inspire.
What was your end goal when you started, though? Those points weren’t around, I’m guessing, when you started to evolve. What was your inspiration behind it?
They are. I’m an educator but I knew that I wanted to grow, so I got a social media coach. I was like, “I need help.” I was like, “I’ve got a coach.” I got a coach that coach big brands. I used them for two years.
Who was it?
Don. I used Don for two years and he was great. He literally told me what to do and I did it. That’s it.
Now tell us what the it is because there’s a lot goes that goes on.
If you want to grow your online page and its following, the fastest way to do it is with videos. If you want to gain engagement, you need to produce photos.
There’s a lot. Alright. Either you want to educate, inform, or inspire. By doing that, if you want to grow your page and grow your following, you’re going to do it with videos. Hands down, the fastest way to do that is with videos. If you want to have engagement, you’re going to do it with photos. You want to engage with your people and get more people behind your chair. You’re going to do it with photos. That’s the difference.
Videos engage more or grow more. Why do they grow more? I’m just curious.
People want to learn. You’re watching my video right now. You’re learning. The elastic trick is on my page. People are like, “I’m learning something from her. I’m going to follow her. She has more stuff. I’m learning. Cool. I’m learning from her.”
I’m never going to be that good. That’s what I’m saying.
A lot of people will follow me because they’re learning about Pureology, about braiding and about hair hacks types of stuff. I get a lot of those types of people.
What about client-wise?
Client-wise, I don’t get a lot of those because that’s not who I’m after. I’m after hairdressers and hair salons. I’m going after those kinds of people to find me.
If you’re reading and you tuned out, because you’re like, “She’s an educator, I’m going for clients, don’t do that to yourself because the point is you’re focused. You’re gearing your content towards your audience. That’s what you have to do.
Are you ready for if you want clients behind the chair? Clients behind the chair, this is how you find them. What you’re going to do is you’re going to go on Instagram. First and foremost, you need to have your bio. This is your business card. This is your modern-day business card. You have to have your location number one. Huge. If you don’t have your location, nobody is going to be able to find you. Location is huge. Also, it’s your certifications and what you specialize in, whatever it is. Where you work at and your call to action. Book here, click here. DM me. Also, this is how you find clients. I’m an Army wife. It takes me about 3 to 4 months to get a full clientele.
I’ve got to tell you something. As soon as you said you were in the Army, I was like, “Totally makes sense.” You look like an Army girl to me. Just the way you carry yourself with the discipline. Fun, but disciplined at the same time. Totally.
Now you’re on Instagram, you hit the search button. You go to the search. You can literally go to your local area and you can be localized or centralized into your local area. Now, here’s the deal. You have to be very specific about who your clients are. You have to know who you want to have. My clientele is a mom who has a lot of money who doesn’t work because I need her to come in during the day. Okay, cool.
I’m going to search for her at, we’re going to say the parks or Starbucks or Target or the country clubs. Now I’m going to go in the search box and I’m going to say, “The Starbucks at my local shopping center.” I’m literally going to type in that location. It will pop up. I’m going to scroll through the feed and all of those people will pop up. Those are my potential clients. I will engage on their feed. I’m Hair Boss. I am going to DM them. Are you guys ready? I’m going to give you the little thing that I say when I DM them. I say, “Hi, my name is Jamie Wiley. I work at,” the salon that I work at. “I’m a hairdresser. I would love to have you in my chair. I offer 20%,” whatever I offer. I’m not shy.
You’re the only other person I ever met that does this.
Chris does it at 2:00 in the morning.
I’ve never heard another person say this.
They wake up and what they do is they look at your page and they go, “They are super talented. I would love to come and see you.” In three months, you will have an entire book full of ideal clients that will pay your prices that you want.
I’m going to slide a hot tip in here just because you just brought this up, which I was never expecting this conversation to come up. One of the things that we’ve been doing at the salon is using influencer marketing. We haven’t built the machine as big as we want to yet but we started by having influencer days.
I love that, influencer days.
Here’s exactly what we do. We reach out in that exact way. At the time I would say, “I’m Chris from Salon 124 group. We have six salons, we’re in the greater Atlanta area. We’re hosting an influencer day. We’re looking for. If you’re interested, hit me back,” and then I’ve got a packaged response that comes back if they want more info. “If you want four more info, these are the dates and this is what we’ll do. You’d have to post and add a story.” Once I started doing that, I realized you can just direct message people and get them as clients. It’s so easy, it’s ridiculous, if you have nice work on your page, but you have to be willing to do the work.
For those folks who hear you, but say, “I can’t do that. They’re going to think I’m crazy,” how do you get over that fear?
You have to do it.
I teach a social media class and when I teach it, you should see the looks on their face in the class. You have to just put on your big girl pants and you have to jump in. If you can’t, then you’re going to be in the back room with no clients. It’s either you want to make the money or you don’t.
If you can move from one town to another and build a full clientele 3 to 4 months. Obviously you’re talented, but they don’t know that when you’re moving into town. They have no clue.
They’ve got to find you somehow. That’s awesome. I feel like we could cover this topic for a long time. I want to add one more topic before we flip because I want to talk about hair because you’re passionate about hair. I get your circumstance and that’s a cool place to be. You’re obviously passionate about hair. You’re dealing with groups all the time now. You came in, the girls did a beautiful job helping set up. It was an awesome delivery. I love how relevant your messaging was.
You only know a joke to add here because you know the situation and they get it. A joke’s not funny if nobody understands what you’re saying. You know all the little hot points. Here’s how the client comes in and you do the disheveled thing, but they get it because that’s their people. What are some of the most common hair questions you are getting and enjoying answering right now? What are you seeing as a big deal right now?
Hair questions like in the field?
What are some of the hot topics right now? What are things you’re helping people with?
The most hair questions we get in the field and the girls can attest to this is what are the trends. Would you guys agree? What are the trends and how do we tell them what the trends are? What’s crazy is it all depends on where you are on the country, whether you’re on the East Coast and the West Coast, the Midwest. How do we tell them? Do we make it up? What do we say?
I’m surprised by your answer. This is the reason why I’m surprised. I would think people would just look at Instagram.
It feels so obvious, but the verbiage.
They don’t know what to say to their clients.
What are the trends?
When they’re asking what the trends are, are they less asking what the trend is and more asking, “How do I do it for my customer?”
They’re asking both. Here’s the deal. They know what the trends are but they’re scared of it. Guess what? The trend is the shag and you got to give them the shag.
I’m all about the shag right now, too.
They’re asking for it, but they’re scared of it. They’re like, “We don’t want to cut the shag. You got to learn it because they’re asking for It. Get over yourself.
Chris did run on the mannequin a little while back and I was like, “Shag.”
Did you guys see Charlize Theron cut a bowl cut?
I have not seen her.
She just did it. She just cut a bowl cut and people are freaking out and it looks so good.
I saw Entertainment Tonight just before Bachelor Paradise came on.
Did you see it? It’s so good. She actually rocks it. People are freaking out. These are the kinds of questions we get. It’s almost like they’re scared. They don’t want to be honest. Anyways, now we talk about the trends like two years coming, two years in.
Give us your soundbite.
With trends, back in the day, it was a celebrity.
The whole thing was Jennifer Anderson gets a haircut and for the next ten years, you do that haircut.
Hairdressers are creating trends, which is awesome and inspiring. But sometimes, it just moves so fast that it may be hard to keep up a little bit.
Now, it’s Instagram and Pinterest. Hairdressers are creating trends, which is freaking awesome and inspiring. It’s just moving so much faster. It’s hard to keep up a little bit.
It is and it’s not because I thought by now, braiding would be out. Back when I was a kid, if you did a braid on a bride, she’d punch you dead in the mouth because she’d be like, “All you did was a braid.”
Only in Philadelphia.
Tampa.
They’d punch you in the mouth there, too?
Yeah. Those little Cuban ladies, they’d punch you right in the mouth because they wanted something more than a braid. When it came back around, I was like, “I wonder how long this is going to last.” It turned from what I thought was going to be a fad to a full-on global trend. I’m surprised.
That’s why I couldn’t braid a few years ago. I could only three strand braid. I was like, “I better get on board or. I’m going to be out of the job.” Same. It’s moving quickly.
It still takes the population a long time to catch up.
I find it interesting that once again you said that they want to know what the trends are and they actually know what they are, right?
They do know.
They’re looking for confirmation from you. They’re looking for verbiage from you on how to deliver that. Yet, at the same time, going back to what you said previously about getting bored, we’re doing the same thing. You got 8 or 10 clients a day, and it’s like, “Here comes Andrea. I’m going to do the same thing I do to her.” Talk a little bit about that. You’re bored. You’re doing the same thing over and over again. You see this new trend. Shags are in. I can think of three people right now in my head walking around this building who I think will look great in a shag. Why do we get stuck do you think?
We get stuck because it’s monotony. With the trends, I just want to go back to that. With the clients, the number one reason, or one of the top reasons why they leave is because they’re bored. You have offered them nothing because you’re like, “Alright, Cindy, I’m going to mix up your 5N. Have a seat.”
“Same thing as last time, just a trim?” They then meet this woman on Instagram who DM-ed them at 2:00 in the morning who sent them this wonderful picture of so something amazing.
You know how many people like it in my chair that’re like, “I’m nervous but I’m really excited. I’m just trying something different.”
At the risk of being a little mean, for most of us, we’re boring the tears out of our customers. Totally.
Even if you’re just like a curtain bang, don’t cut the shag then, but just offer.
“Jamie, I know her. That’s what she wants. She wants the same thing.”
“I know her.”
“We’ve been like this for years.”
“I know her. She doesn’t have the money.”
“Our kids go to school together.”
“She doesn’t have the money, so I’m not going to offer her this product.”
The next time somebody does that, I’m going to say, “Give me your Instagram. I’m going to DM her and steal her from you at 2:00 in the morning.”
I give them the verbiage of just offer them something different. Even if it’s like, “How about we do three foils in the front and see what they say?” It happens a lot in the Midwest. Bless their hearts. Minnesota. Michigan, and I’m from there. I love them. I go home and I’m like, “These are my people. I love you.” I go there a lot. This is literally what I say and they do get inspired and they’re changing it. It’s great. It’s just changing just a few things. Just talking about different things, though. It doesn’t have to be huge.
You almost take them from a level 5 brunette to a level 9 platinum blonde.
As a professional, all you’ve got to do is make a recommendation.
I’m going to dig a little bit deeper into the braid thing for just a half a minute because I’m all thumbs. I couldn’t do a braid if my life depended on it. In fact, if I had to tie a rope in a braid to keep myself on falling off a clip, I would die. I just watched your Instagram as we were sitting here and I was watching the videos. They’re amazing. You said years ago, you couldn’t. Is it just practice?
It’s repetition.
I want to grab a mannequin head now and just play a little bit because you inspire me just from that video.
I appreciate it. It’s just repetition.
Obviously, a commitment to say, “I’m going to practice.”
I did a lot of research. And I do want to add one thing. In doing a lot of research, I ended up writing a book called Hair Boss.
Where can we find it?
On Amazon. I did a lot of research because I also couldn’t get it. I was like, “Why can’t I get it? I don’t understand.” It’s because your fingers and your brain have to repeat the motion at least eighteen times before it becomes habitual in my hands. Most people will give up.
I learned something cool today.
Most people are like, “No, I can’t get it. I can’t braid. I did it five times. No. I’m not a braider.”
You’re like, “You still got thirteen more to go.”
You say eighteen times. Do you mean do eighteen braids all the way down?
Yeah, all the way down to finish. Take it out. Do it again. Your hands will hurt. That’s part of the deal.
I’m psyched. I’m going to go grab a mannequin head and practice a couple of braids. I really enjoyed this conversation. I love the part talking about we got to stop boring our clients. We’re just going to stop. I think that it’s inspiring to know that someone obviously talented, but if you can move from one part of the country to another more than once, rebuild a clientele in 3 to 4 months and one that’s sustained you and your family, we can all do it. As you said, you’ve got to put on your big girl pants. Just get it done. I love that. Thank you.
Knowing we’ve got an audience full of salon owners, hairdressers, both new and seasoned, what were some words that you feel like maybe we’ve left on the table or just some words of inspo you want to leave us with?
The most creative hours in the day are from 5:00 to 6:00 PM until you go to bed. Make the most of those creative hours.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s just all that you make of it. Just everybody has the same 24 hours in the day. Most people work eight hours and then you come home, you eat supper. You watch TV, but you actually have like 5 or 6 more hours at the end of the day. The most creative hours in the day are from 5:00 to 6:00 PM until you go to bed. Use the most creative hours.
Is that because everybody’s drinking wine, then?
It’s probably that, but no. Actually, I don’t know what it is, but the most creative hours in your brain are from 5:00 to 6:00 PM until you go to sleep.
I’m going to pull a question out real quick that we ask sometimes. The reason I’m hesitating is because at eighteen years old, you already had a lot going on, but I’m going to ask you anyway. What would you tell your eighteen-year-old self right now?
I would tell myself to trust the process. Enjoy the ride.
First of all, thank you so much, Jamie. This was an awesome conversation. For those of you reading, thank you so much for hanging in with us. We know you took a lot away from this episode. If you did and you’re loving it and we see that many of you are sharing the show, so thank you so much. Our audience is just growing exponentially now, so we really appreciate it. If you did enjoy this episode, please take a screenshot of it and share it on your Instagram and tag us in it @124.Go. We’ll do the same. John, I know there’s something we want to ask them.
I want to let people know how they can reach Jamie first. You’ve got Hairboss.co. You’ve got yourself on the Insta with @jamiewileyhair. You’re the Artistic Director for Pureology.
Buy her book because it’s wicked cool. I’m going to buy it as soon as we’re done so I can practice eighteen times.
All of these tips and tricks that we talked about are in the book.
I’m going to practice braids eighteen times. Go home and braid wife’s hair.
She’s going to love it.
For the rest of you, we need a five-star review.
Pick up the phone and give us a review.
For those of you who’ve done it already, thank you so much. You’ve been amazing and we really appreciate it.
Until next time, we will see you or talk to you on the next episode.
Jamie Wiley is an acclaimed industry stylist, educator, and internationally published author of HAIR BOSS: A Hairstylists’ Guide to Owning Their Career.
With over a decade of experience in session styling, editorial styling, platform artistry, and behind-the-chair experience, Jamie is nationally recognized as the “Next Generation Top Influencer” by American Salon Magazine, a two times NAHA Finalist, and is currently representing the #1 Color Care Brand in North America, Pureology, as Global Artistic Director.
