jspamps
New Member
Newbie here!
I came here in search of some advice from other stylists on a real troubling issue for me.
As a licensed stylist for 5 years now, I'm still having a difficult time with friends and family alike always skipping out on their bill with me
When I first was in cosmetology, I was happy to give friends and family heavily discounted services while I was learning - I felt guilty charging them a full price for something I was still learning to do. However, even after I graduated... they continued to expect this discount. I have worked at 2 professional salons since graduation and friends/family still did not visit them for services because they knew they would have to pay.
However, after 3 years in professional salons I went on maternity leave and decided that I would then be doing hair out of my home. As if it wasn't bad enough before, now friends and family just expect completely free haircuts/colors/highlights. I am still taking continuing education, I am still furthering my education constantly and believe me... I am not getting rusty at all. I feel very taken advantage of and I'm not exactly sure how to handle this anymore. I'm at the point where I have had to basically tell everyone that I'm no longer doing hair -- because I simply can not AFFORD to do their hair!
It's still my job, they're getting an amazing service from me and they walk out absolutely loving it... but they don't understand that they need to pay me for it. I don't have a problem giving a discount, but when someone offers me $10 for a full color/cut/highlight/blowdry/updo... I feel like it's a total slap in the face. In the next breath they will talk about going to a salon in town and spending $150 on their hair if I can't fit them in, yet they won't pay me even half of that.
I'm also currently working on getting together an official "home salon menu" of prices and I was looking for some input from other stylists on what would be a fair price - for both clients and for me? I'm going to be trying to enforce this heavily and I still want to have attractive pricing but I can't go broke while doing it :/
Thank you in advance for your input,
A Frustrated Stylist
I came here in search of some advice from other stylists on a real troubling issue for me.
As a licensed stylist for 5 years now, I'm still having a difficult time with friends and family alike always skipping out on their bill with me
When I first was in cosmetology, I was happy to give friends and family heavily discounted services while I was learning - I felt guilty charging them a full price for something I was still learning to do. However, even after I graduated... they continued to expect this discount. I have worked at 2 professional salons since graduation and friends/family still did not visit them for services because they knew they would have to pay.
However, after 3 years in professional salons I went on maternity leave and decided that I would then be doing hair out of my home. As if it wasn't bad enough before, now friends and family just expect completely free haircuts/colors/highlights. I am still taking continuing education, I am still furthering my education constantly and believe me... I am not getting rusty at all. I feel very taken advantage of and I'm not exactly sure how to handle this anymore. I'm at the point where I have had to basically tell everyone that I'm no longer doing hair -- because I simply can not AFFORD to do their hair!
It's still my job, they're getting an amazing service from me and they walk out absolutely loving it... but they don't understand that they need to pay me for it. I don't have a problem giving a discount, but when someone offers me $10 for a full color/cut/highlight/blowdry/updo... I feel like it's a total slap in the face. In the next breath they will talk about going to a salon in town and spending $150 on their hair if I can't fit them in, yet they won't pay me even half of that.
I'm also currently working on getting together an official "home salon menu" of prices and I was looking for some input from other stylists on what would be a fair price - for both clients and for me? I'm going to be trying to enforce this heavily and I still want to have attractive pricing but I can't go broke while doing it :/
Thank you in advance for your input,
A Frustrated Stylist