Tough Love by Jon Gonzales

 

As many of you are aware, the beauty profession has changed dramatically. Finding answers to the many challenges of salon ownership is getting tougher in a changing job market.

Most owners are working long hours behind the chair leaving very little time to becoming astute business men and women and promote their business. Finding time to address your challenges is a challenge in itself.

Beyond the Glitter and Hype of the Beauty Profession.

We as professionals have no voice or time in combating  the challenges of salon ownership. Unlike the product companies who have time, money, and resources (94 million dollars in profits last year), most salon owners have no voice or medium to voice their concerns, or voice their business needs at their state legislature.  Many are just too busy trying to survive.

In my opinion, many of our beauty schools are obsolete, school curriculum is outdated not preparing students how to prepare for a very competitive job market in meeting consumer demands.

Today’s hairdressers need to know a whole lot more than just developing their artistic skills.

I formed Hairdresser career Development Systems to help fill this educational void.

Earnings of hairdressers and beauty professionals are at poverty levels, the high dropout rate of young talent is ridiculous, salons are failing at an alarming rate, many of our beauty schools are being closed by the government, our hair shows are becoming more like flea markets.

Beyond the Glitter and Hype

I can tell you what you want to hear and  make you feel good, and get you motivated, unfortunately this will only last 2 or 3 weeks, or I can tell you what you need to hear and give you my tough love opinions, and yes I will probably step on some toes , even my own. Building a business and career is a life long journey.

I know positive minded professionals want to hear the truth both good and bad about our profession. My intent on writing this blog post is to help my colleagues reach higher levels of excellence personally, professionally, and financially, they are all related.

If we are to achieve these goals we must have the courage to view the dark side and challenges we all face, before we can find solutions to the many obstacles many of our colleagues are experiencing trying to build a business and a career.

 

After 46 years in the beauty industry as a working hairdresser/salon owner, I feel I have earned the right to express my opinions about our profession. I want to repeat, these are my opinions. In spite of my or other peoples opinions the bottom line, do what you feel is right for you.

I do not expect everyone to agree with my opinions; many of my opinions will be controversial. We can agree to disagree.

But I do know that many of my colleagues also share some of these views.

Who is Jon Gonzales?

Many of you are probably wondering why I am telling you my story; it is because I want you to learn from my failures and successes. I want to share my journey with all my colleagues who are working and struggling to earn a very good living as well as helping our new generation of newcomers reach higher levels of excellence in the beauty profession. I want to share my 43 years of hard won experiences so I can your make their journey easier than mine.

My Story

I was just a  salon owner/hairdresser who wanted a better life for myself and my family. Now as a business consultant and president of Hairdresser Career Development Systems and founder of my University of Educational Excellence for Beauty Professionals who survived 43 years in the trenches, defying all odds. (statistics show only 5%  salons make it past 7 years) I want to share my story in the hopes that I can help you succeed.

I started at my mother’s small salon. I only intended to earn part time money as insurance in case I lost my job in construction.

The first couple of years were difficult, I  wanted to quit many times, but with 6 children I needed to have a plan in place if my construction job failed.

It was sink or swim.

I finally realized that beauty school did not provide me with other skills I needed to develop that would allow me to be successful in the beauty profession. To be fair, lack of initiative on my part also contributed to my struggles.

I finally realized I was following the crowd looking for excuses to fail.  This could not continue, so I went on a rampage towards learning and self-improvement. As I learned more, I earned more. I learned to love my profession.

Pretty soon I became more passionate about education and the profession I chose as a career. Along the way, I also saw many flaws in education.

I developed my artistic skills by taking many advanced haircutting classes as well as private haircutting and barbering classes here in the United States and in Europe. In Europe I also took classes at the Jingles school of cutting in London, Luis Longueras in Spain, Vidal Sassoon, as well as attending the world cup in Holland, France, England, and Spain. I realized that if I wanted to stand above the crowd and gain a competitive edge with my competitors and grow my business I would have to develop other important skills such as client retention, develop self-motivation guidelines, business management, self management, excelling at customer service, self-promotion salesmanship, develop my people and communication skills, think more like a business man and much more.

I have been an education junkie ever since.

As I developed my skills, I decided to start my own salon; unfortunately I had no money, so I did my research and wrote my business plan and received a direct loan from the Small Business Administration.

With a lot of hard work and personal sacrifices, I was able to establish and succeed as a salon owner.

 

I opened two other successful salons as well.

During this time I kept a journal of all the challenges as well as finding solutions to these challenges, eventually writing my first book A Hairdresser’s Guide to Excellence as well as putting together other resources for hairdressers and salon owners.

As a salon owner, I worked hard at developing my leadership and  business management skills. I also took notes and finally wrote 3 books onBusiness Management for salon owners, as well as personal development programs for hairdressers.

I hope my small story will help you succeed personally, professionally, and financially.

I know many of you are struggling to make a good living and run a successful business.Don’t give up, if I can make it, so can you. I formed HCDS to help you on your journey.

2019 will be a challenging year,but sometimes adversity presents many opportunities.