LaToya Kelly went to college before becoming a hairstylist, which taught her business and networking skills she credits with her success. She worked six years while building a client base before going full-time, and now delegates her own hair to a braider named Damo and stylist. She recommends StyleSeed for stylists building their brand.
Chapters
One tip that I did get from my hairstylist growing up— hey, Francis— was to go to college first. And to me, college helped me diversify myself. It gave me a little bit more professionalism between that and a job that I worked at for 6 years. I think that it was very beneficial, and even the networking and the exposure that I got through college, um, even technology, um, business things. There's just so many things I got out of college that— there's a lot of hairstylists that go to college while they're doing hair, um, they go to night classes or weekend classes or something like that, whereas she was just basically telling me, go to school first. So I went to school, and I honestly didn't think that I was going to be a full-time hairstylist. I never ever thought that this would be what I do every day. Um, it just— I just realized that with the money I made after work and on the weekends, if I could say yes to half the people I was turning away because I was going to work, I could make way more than I worked at a job. So I stepped out on faith, and it worked out for me. So I didn't just quit my job and say, you know what, I'm going to hair school. That's not what happened. I had already had the clientele to support me if I did not go to work the next day. If I didn't go to work the next day, I had clients that were like, hey, if you have any openings tomorrow, let me know. So I knew that I was okay, even though it was still scary. An earthquake could happen,, you know, like so many things could happen to where one day maybe I lost my home or whatever. Like everything can be taken away from me at the drop of a dime. So it's kind of scary to do something like that, but I did it and everything really worked out. So, um, I had a very high instinct that I was going to be successful with leaving my job and it just so happened that worked out for me. So about my hair, um, I have a braider and I actually have my braider do my sew-ins. And, um, she knows how to do hair, but as far as sew-ins, I'm very tedious and technical and specific about the way I like my client's hair and my hair in the sew-in period. So I tend to let her do it. She's my braider, so she knows exactly how I want to braid it., and then as far as sewing, I can kind of direct her where to kind of stop or where to fold over or when to double the tracks or how much she has left or, you know, so I let my braider do my sew-ins. I just let a stylist, Damo, do my hair and that was a couple months ago, but usually I do have my braider do my hair if our schedules can meet up. So yeah, my older videos I did a lot of my own hair, but now I really don't have the time or the patience to do my own. Between traveling and working, it's just when I have free time I'm either editing a video or I am trying to hang out with friends. So yeah, I don't usually do my own sew-in. So a lot of you are asking for videos of me doing my own hair, and I don't do my own hair. So yeah, my contact lens is really bothering me, and I want to take it out, but then I won't be able to see far away. And I'm looking out the window, it's so beautiful. Like, I should show you, huh? All right, so let's see. You can see what I see now. So this is the view that I'm looking at. I'm doing this video with just natural lighting with my digital camera, and I'll show you all a video, a picture of my digital camera that I use. But look at it, it's just so pretty. I'm in Reno, Nevada, um, for Miss and Mrs. USA Universal Pageant, so I am actually up here while they're doing technical rehearsals. So yeah, I just want to show you all what I've been sitting here looking at all this time. You're probably like, what does she keep looking at? I keep just looking at the street and just the mountains. And yeah, we don't have this in, in Missouri or Kansas too much out of our window, so it's just a pretty sight. But anywho, someone asked me about like StyleSeed and all of those websites. I do recommend StyleSeed for stylists who are trying to build their brand.
