Hairstylist; How I reached 100k Subscribers, how I build clientele, plus more!

This video is going to be of me doing my makeup and sharing some tips that you all have asked me throughout the years of me being on YouTube about building clientele, about how did I start, quitting your job. Um, stay tuned, thumbs up this video if you like what you're seeing or hearing, and make sure you drop a comment and let me know what you all think of my look. Do you like it? It's a lazy face, so you don't have to like it. It's okay, I didn't put all my mighty force into it. Hey everyone, it's your girl TT Does It All, and I'm going to just do my makeup and talk to you guys a little bit about things that, um, like questions I get all the time. So the first question that I get a lot is, how do you build your clientele in a new location, or How do you get clients so quick in a new city or, you know, starting off doing hair? So I'm going to give you a little bit of my advice, which may not work for everybody. It may work for some of you, but I'll just give you a few of the tactics that worked for me. I, I actually I reach out to people who are popular in the area. So me, I am not just starting out working in a new location. I'm in a new location working, but I'm not new to doing hair. So it comes a little bit easier for me when I know that my installs are are good, and I know that all it takes is for the right people to see it and people to know that I'm here and I'm available. So, um, the first thing that I usually do, the most important thing before you even reach out to people, is you want your, um, booking to be ready and available, and you also want to add a special to your website. And I have went over the websites that I prefer to use and comparing them to other sites and just information about booking or scheduling sites. So, so you want to make sure that your website has your appointments available and also that you have specials because specials are what's going to draw people in. The prices I would charge in my hometown where people know my work is not the price that I would start at in a new location, because people probably aren't going to want to pay it because they don't know if your work is worth it. Once you build up a reputation for doing awesome work and quality installs, and once you build a reputation for having quality hair, that's when people will be more amp to pay a normal price, um, or a regular— or full price, I should say. So you basically just want to start out with a special. Um, don't take away your full prices from your website because there are some people who could care less about a special and they're going to see your work in a new location and they're going to book you for your full price. So don't remove those from your site, but you want to start out with specials for people who don't know the quality of your work. Number 2, you want to reach out to popular faces in the new location. So if you know that there's models in your area or there's somebody who's very well known for their hair or their hair is always different, it's always nice, you want to reach out to those people and you want to, um, basically, um, sell yourself to that person. So, uh, for instance, there's a young lady in St. Louis where I moved, and she models, um, and she works at, um, a hookah lounge, um, locally. But she's just really known for being pretty, um, and modeling. That's her reputation. So, um, she is mixed. Um, I don't know her ethnicity, but she's not just straight African-American. But, um, I reached out to her. Oh, another thing I did, I reached out to local makeup artists because they will give you who their popular customers are or who is always making sure that their makeup is fresh or whatever. So I reached out to the, the local makeup artist just to ask, you know, who's most popular here, who's somebody who, you know, always keeps their hair up to par, and who they recommend. Just kind of fill them out, look at their profile, see if they're already attached to someone, because a lot of people nowadays are already linked to some, some hair company. So you don't want to step on any toes, but if you don't see that they're already with someone, you definitely want to reach out to them. And it's up to you what you do. For me, since I have an extension line and I have, um, and I do hair, I am able to offer the customer, um, free hair and install. All I need is their feedback, and I know that my hair is good, so I know the feedback will be positive. But, um, it's always good for them, you know, to give their input because the people in your new location know them. They don't know you. They trust them and their word. They don't trust you. So, um, it's always good to have someone that is well known in the area support you. Now, these tactics are not for everyone. Let me throw out that disclaimer. If you are the person who wants to just build and do word of mouth and that's it, then that's up to you. But for me, I want something faster. I'm used to a certain income at home when I was— before I moved here. So I would prefer to expedite my, um, my clientele. Like, I don't want to sit around for a couple years waiting for it to grow. So, um, Yeah, those are a couple of the ways I built up my clientele in St. Louis. I reached out to popular faces in the area and reached out to popular, like, makeup artists and got some recommendations. Sometimes you will have to do your service for free or at a super discounted rate just to get your name out there. It's more important the exposure is way more important than the money from that one client. So if that one client you charged $50 for a sew-in and she brought you 6 other clients, you're getting your worth times 10. You know, like, you're, you're getting what you need and you're also getting exposure and you're getting new clientele. So never be afraid to give discounts um, to grow your business in a new location. Um, what's another thing? What else do people ask me a lot? I get a lot of questions about cosmetology school, and I've made a huge, huge rant on Snapchat about how to choose a cosmetology school and how I chose my cosmetology school. Because, FYI, I went to Mitsu Saito Hair Academy, and I particularly learned a lot. I already did hair before I went to cosmetology school, um, but it definitely added to what I already offered my clients. So I will definitely say that it was worth it. Um, whoops, I just— I let a lot of naysayers get in my ear. Um, he said, she said, you know, oh, you shouldn't go to her because she doesn't have a license. I let that kind of get to my head., as to going to hair school. So I would definitely not let that impact your reason for going to school because people are going to talk regardless. I mean, I have had the, oh, she does hair at home. So it's like, I don't like working in the shop. I like working from home. I like my setup at home. So people are always going to have something to say. You cannot please everybody. At all. So if you're going to cosmetology school to get people off your back, that's not a good reason for me. For those, for those of you who don't know, I do live in St. Louis, Missouri. I am from Kansas City, Missouri. And, um, yeah, I moved a little over a year ago, and at first it was rough because I didn't have my clientele built. But now that I do, it's a lot better for me. I'm a lot happier. Um, so yeah, I'm cool now that I built my clientele up. I'm cool. So, um, what else would people ask me? Oh, everyone asked me, how long have you been doing hair? I have been doing hair forever. I started out in, um, my sister and my mom's hair, and I was probably 12 or 13, um, younger probably. And, um, they just wanted me to do their hair, and I would just practice braids and just little French braids and stuff. And then I expanded out to like church members who would see my sister and my mom's hair and want me to do— and want me to do theirs. So after I expanded to like church people, um, after like high school and stuff, I did a couple people in high school, not too many, because one of my friends, she was really good in braids and she just had the school on lock. So I basically went to college, and then that is where I would say I got a lot of my exposure from. My first video I recorded for, um, for YouTube, it was on my roommate's computer in college, and it was, it was titled, um, I Can Braid My Ass Off, and it was Oh, so my first video was recorded. Um, I could braid my ass off, and it was on my roommate's laptop. And, um, I actually, um, started getting a lot of hits off of that. And, um, I was starting to get really into YouTube as far as just taking serious, the videos that people were putting up and wanting to learn more. Um, people were just like really sharing their techniques on YouTube, and it was a lot of people doing their own hair. But then I had like one of my sorority sisters, she showed me a video of an invisible part, and she's like, I want this, you could do this. So I'm like, okay. So I tried it and I posted it and it was good. Then I, um, just started getting a lot of people off of YouTube that wanted me to do their hair. Um, and I was 18 at the time, but I mean, I would just do hair out of my college dorm, um, and I would get paid off of it. Then I moved on to, um, doing like everybody at school's hair. All of my family, like my friends. It just, just took off. I don't know where it took off. I don't know how. It just did. Um, that was probably around 2007, 2008. I did hair a lot. Then I started, um, what did I do? Oh, I, I was working full-time. Um, I was in school full-time and I was doing a lot of online stuff when I could. Um, once I graduated from college, I was still working a full-time job, and eventually it came, um, to where a lot of people would come to my job to pick up hair. Um, a lot of people would come to my school to pick up hair. In between classes. So that leads me to a good point. Um, I, I— when do you know to quit your job? When do you know, like, okay, my clientele is building and it is okay now to quit my job? For me personally, when I knew was when, um, Sorry, I'm so serious. I knew it was time to quit my job because I was turning away a lot of money to go to work. Um, so if you think about it, I was working 8 hours a day, full-time job, 5 days a week, and one Saturday of every month I would have to work overtime. So in that Saturday that they're paying me however much an hour, I could have made 3 times that by doing this client's hair that I had to turn away because I was working a full-time job. So once it gets to a point where you're turning away more hair than you can take and your job is not paying you as much as your clients will, that's when you know that it's time to It's time to become your own boss. Um, I made— I would have made— well, I did make— I do make way more money than I would working a 9-to-5 job. Um, it's just obvious that being your own boss, um, setting your own price, you're going to make more money than you would sitting making money for somebody else, um, at a job. So I chose to quit my job. I literally decided one day that I was going to quit and work from home as a hairstylist. Um, so that is exactly what I did. I started working from home. It's different for a lot of people. Um, I was very active in promoting myself, and this is when you— not YouTube— when, um, well, YouTube was just starting. I think YouTube may have started in like '04. So if you imagine, if I put my first video up in '06 I pretty much started out with YouTube, so my videos and my subscribers go back to over 10 years ago. So, um, that is one difference that, you know, a lot of people will try to give you advice on things that happen for them. And I can't tell you to go to MySpace if I got discovered on MySpace, and, you know, like, it's not gonna work for you because MySpace isn't around anymore. But YouTube, there's so many people that are doing hair, and there's so many people that are doing makeup, or there's so many people that share the information that, that I used to share, um, that it's hard for you to stand out now. You really have to be sharing something that no one else is sharing. For me, because I learned a lot on YouTube. That's why I share a lot. And, um, I realized that YouTube is really finicky. Like, you have to know exactly what to type in in order to find what you're wanting. So for me, if I typed in lace frontal, um, how to do a lace frontal sew-in they're gonna say you braid it straight to the back and you put the front and you use a net and blah blah blah. Like, it's not gonna tell you, oh, you don't— you need to fold over here, or you're gonna have to cut the track here, or you're gonna— you might run into this problem. So those were things that I was coming across when I was looking for YouTube videos to better my craft. So when I realized that they're— they weren't sharing it That's what I had to share. Um, I had to share, oh my God, I searched for this video and no one talks about this. So when I post my video, I'm definitely going to talk about it because I, I looked for it and I couldn't find it. So at this point, I want to be to you what I didn't receive. Um, I don't want to have to read or, uh, watch the entire video just to realize You really didn't show how to do a lace frontal. You just did it. You didn't tell me what to do. You didn't go over the specifics. So that's the type of person that I am when I make my YouTube videos. I want to share the things that I wasn't able to learn in one video. I want to share the things that I had to search through multiple videos to find. Oh, that's ugly. So So in turn, that's what I did. Um, I began sharing things that no one else would share in one video, or either they would title their video that they're gonna show it and they really wouldn't. So in my video, I wanted people to know when they're looking at a sew-in for thin hair and how to sew it in, I'm not saying, hey, my customer in this video, she has thick hair. But I'm just explaining to you that you could do the same method for thin hair. No, I'm going to show someone with thin hair with slightly less edges than an average person. You know, I'm going to show exactly what I'm saying that I'm going to show you. So, um, I just don't think enough people were doing that on YouTube, and that was my goal. And that's why I feel like I got so many subscribers, because I share the things that a lot of people would not share. Or would say they were sharing and they really weren't. And I get a lot of people saying the game is to be sold, not told, blah blah blah. And for me personally, that's fine and dandy, but you're gonna learn it one way or another. Who's— first of all, these frontal classes that people pay for to go to, they don't teach you everything that they say they're gonna need. It's just like YouTube. I pay $500 to go to this frontal class and you teach me, or you actually show me how to do it, I don't know how to do it still. So for me, with my classes, I teach every single thing. I teach whatever you ask me. There is no hands-off. There is no limit. So whatever you want to learn in the time period we have, I teach it. Just like my YouTube video, if my title says that this is what it is, then this is exactly what my video will be. So, um, My makeup is whatever for now because I am just trying to do something just to be— just to get out the house. I'm not, I'm not, uh, becoming glamorous. I'm not really going anywhere. I'm just running some errands and I felt like doing my makeup and I was like, hey, why not record a YouTube video while doing it? But, um, I get a lot of questions from you all. I don't know if— I hope this video is helpful and I hope it answers some questions for a lot of you all because, because that is my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is to provide what you all— YouTube provided for me. And honestly, YouTube taught me a lot. Um, you know, in cosmetology school they don't really teach hair extensions. They don't really know how to braid half the time. So how do I learn how to do sew-ins if cosmetology school won't teach me? Either I pay one of these hairstylists that's going to charge me an arm and a leg and really not teach me what I asked to learn, or I can search and search and search and search and search on YouTube and find exactly how to do it, how it came out, and a hairstylist that's just doing the same thing as me. So that's what I provide for my subscribers. I provide something that you can't get in hair school, you can't sometimes get when you pay for a frontal class, um, or a sew-in class. So yeah, that is what I provide. That's what I provide for my subscribers. Subscribe. Is it okay? Okay. So the girl who did my hair, she's in St. Louis, and she's pretty good. It's the only part I don't like, but for the most part, my sewing is good. So I could do a little straightening over here, but I probably won't because I'm just ready to get out of here. Um, so yeah, I don't know. Hopefully this video looks great. I don't really know what it's going to look like, but if y'all have questions, you can drop them in the description below, and I definitely read the comments. Um, this wing looks crazy to me, but, um, it's like it's too short or something. I don't know, I don't know. Did that even do anything? I don't know. I'm sure you guys will tell me in the comments that I look a hot mess or it looks fine. So hair is as good as it's going to get for now. And, uh, yeah, I'm putting on my Stone lipstick. And I actually like Explicit. It's a little gloss that goes over it. Again, does not match at all, but I just did something just to do my makeup and record a YouTube video with information that you all have been asking me about. So if I have not said something that you want to know, please feel free and drop a comment below. Let me know if this video was informative to you because that is the entire purpose. And yeah. I don't know what else to say. Did you like what you saw? Thumbs up this video. My hair is all over the place. Oh, by the way, this is my Brazilian deep wave, and I have not styled it in a while. I just pretty much shampooed my leave-out and blended that back in, but that is about it. My hair is a hot mess, honey. But yeah, I have a 16, 18, 20-inch in right now. So hopefully you all like the video, thumbs up the video, and make sure you drop a comment below and let me know if this information was helpful to you. Last thing, how do you all like the camera? I'm actually using my iPhone to record this video, and you all know I usually use a 70, um, a 70D by Canon. So I'm trying something new. Of course, I have my ring light, which is like illuminating. But let me know if you all like the lighting of this video, if you all like the background with my little corner setup in my hair room, and let me know if you all like this look. You still here? All right, well, let me know what y'all thought about this lighting and my new little background. I don't know if y'all can see, I got my little Keurig set up. Oh my God, I forgot to say something! I received my plaque from YouTube. Yes, I'm so excited about it. But this is like my little hair setup for my clients, you know, got the little mini fridge. But yeah, let me know what you all thought about this video. Let me know if you like the lighting, and, um, make sure you thumbs up, comment. I can't believe y'all still here, y'all still waiting. I don't have nothing else to say, y'all, for real. Okay, bye, I'm out, for real, I'm out.