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Chatting with Kirstin Lebrun, a Successful Salon Owner in Victoria
58 Plays9 months ago
Welcome to "The Business of Style"! Today, we're excited to share our conversation with Kirstin LeBrun, owner of Kharma Salons in Victoria, BC. Kirstin's story is packed with inspiration and practical tips for anyone looking to make it in the beauty industry.
Starting Small, Dreaming Big
Kirstin started her beauty journey 10 years ago. Now, she owns almost four locations in Greater Victoria and manages a team of nearly 50 staff members. What’s more impressive? She’s still a full-time service provider, staying hands-on with her clients while running the show behind the scenes.
Balancing Acts: Behind the Chair and the Desk
Being both a stylist and a business owner, Kirstin knows the ins and outs of the beauty world. Her husband plays a key role too, handling crucial tasks like payroll. This teamwork lets Kirstin focus on both the client experience and business growth.
Always Learning and Growing
Kirstin is all about continuous learning. She offers a variety of services, including permanent makeup, waxing, and laser treatments. This keeps her business fresh and appealing to a wide range of clients.
Giving Back and Helping Others
One of Kirstin's passions is sharing her knowledge with others. She posted on Instagram to help those thinking about starting or expanding their salons. She felt alone when she started and wants to make sure others have the support she lacked. Transparency about the true costs of running a salon is key for her.
Facing Financial Realities
Running a salon isn't cheap. Kirstin talks about the importance of understanding costs like rent, products, and unexpected expenses like staff premiums. She believes in adjusting prices regularly to keep the business sustainable, even if it feels uncomfortable.
Building Community and Being Honest
Kirstin values honesty with both her staff and clients. By educating her team about the financial side of things, she creates a supportive work environment. She encourages salon owners to communicate openly with clients about price increases and to offer different service levels to suit various budgets.
Advice for New Salon Owners
If you’re thinking about opening a salon, Kirstin suggests finding a mentor. Learning from someone who's been there can help you avoid common mistakes. Building a network and continually seeking knowledge are crucial steps to success.
Reflecting on the Journey
When asked what advice she would give her younger self, Kirstin talks about the importance of passion and resilience. The journey has its ups and downs, but the rewards of building a successful business and watching others grow make it all worth it.
Final Thoughts
Kirstin's final advice is about self-motivation and community support. Surround yourself with like-minded people and never stop learning. To keep up with Kirstin’s journey and get more tips, check out her Instagram. Her openness and dedication to sharing knowledge make her a fantastic resource for anyone in the beauty industry.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Business of Style podcast brought to you by the Beauty Council. My name's Greg Robbins and I'm here to do a bit of a recap of an interview we did a little while back with Kirsten Le Brun from Karma Salons in Victoria, British Columbia. Kirsten's a successful salon owner, hair artist, brow and waxing specialist and she is going to reveal some of her best business secrets and techniques right here in our program. Let's get on with the show.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hi, Kirsten. It's really great to have you here with with us today. Thanks very much for having me. It's nice to see all of you. So I'm just going to do a quick little intro about who you are, but of course you can certainly make corrections or fill in some of the blanks. So you started 10 years ago. You now own three locations in Victoria, soon to be four, I understand. You've got a team of 50 and you're in Victoria over on the island. But maybe paint a picture for us of your current operations and and and tell us how it looks. um Well, currently we do have almost four locations in Greater Victoria. I have a lot of support staff helping me and yes, close to 50 staff as well. um My husband helps with all of the background things, payroll, et cetera, left his career 15 years to sort of support my dream. um I'm also a full-time service provider as well. So um I really understand the ins and outs of actually providing services on clients and I'm very passionate about the industry as well.
00:01:37
Speaker
Wow, that's
Realities of Running a Business
00:01:38
Speaker
fascinating. So not only are you behind the chair, but you're also behind the scenes as well too. That's quite the accomplishment. Absolutely. And I also find that there's a need to continue growing in the industry and learning new services that are up and coming. So I also provide things like permanent makeup, waxing, I've become a laser tag. It's just nice to have a bit of diversity in your day. Yeah, you've got quite a nice little bio on your Instagram just telling us sort of where you started from and and the education you went through. So I'm sure people can check that out and and learn more about you. um and So really, you I came across an Instagram post that you wrote and that's sort of what connected us in the first place. And in that post, you kind of put it out there to say to people,
00:02:17
Speaker
If you are considering, you know, opening your own business or wondering about what happens in a business and you listed many, many points, tell us more about that post. What is it that that sort of drove you to road it and what was the motivation behind it? Well, I think, um you know, when I was starting out, I never really had anybody to um pick their brain and sort of figure out what does this entail? And to be honest, when I started out, I really didn't anticipate having this many people um under my wing and having this many locations, it's just sort of continued to grow, which is fabulous. And I'm really happy about where we are, but I feel like some of the trials and tribulations and challenges that I've come across um with the growing pains, I've never really had anybody to um ask questions, ah pick their brain about some of the things that they learned along the way. And I do know a decent amount of salon owners locally, and some of which I went to hair school with, and I've always been more than happy to answer any questions for them and maybe help them to avoid some of the mistakes that I've made over the years. And, you know, you learn every day and with business ownership and things are ever changing. So I think that post was primarily to help other salon owners that maybe are currently running salons but are also
00:03:33
Speaker
um potentially interested in opening up up a salon. And also I think it's important to be transparent with staff. I feel like there's a real misconception and misunderstanding as far as how much it actually costs to run a business. And I think a lot of people look at the numbers and say, okay, well, if I'm say getting on an average of a 50-50 split with my employer, they're getting 50% of the money when in all actuality, the um all of the operating costs of the business make that profit margin so much smaller than most people know.
Business Education in the Industry
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, you're at you know such great points. Absolutely. There's sort of the perception that people have, but also just the nitty gritty of running the business. And and let's be real, ah people in this industry typically go to learn a craft or a trade, but there are very little business pieces that they get trained on. I mean, unless you take a separate supplementary course. So we're sort of thrown into this world of running a business without having perhaps the the knowledge of of what that entails.
00:04:28
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah so out of that post maybe you could just pick out like three big pieces or big chunks that people should take a look at or think about as they consider whether like you say to open or to expand or to break it on their own. What are maybe some of the three points out of that post that you would like to maybe riff on a little bit? Well, that's a really challenging question because I feel like so much of everything that I listed and I really broke it down was actually um very important. um I would say obviously your rent and your triple net and your triple net is always changing because, you know, when people complain about their property taxes going up.
00:05:05
Speaker
Well, of course, commercial buildings are also going up as well. And what that ends up looking like is your yearly costs go up. And then that's reflective of what you're paying that's in addition to your rent. So there's always that.
Financial Challenges and Transparency
00:05:18
Speaker
And that's the main thing most everybody thinks of because they're looking at, okay, this is my lease payment. um Some of the things that kind of continuously change are things that maybe you didn't think about when you were signing that lease at the beginning. And for us, um we've incurred things like um staff's MSP premiums. And so, you know, that can end up being tens of thousands of dollars a year that maybe wasn't something that was implemented a couple of years ago. And it's not something that you can turn around and say, well, I'm sorry to my staff, but you're no longer going to get your commission percentage because my costs are going up. but You know, these are all things that you end up sort of absorbing and trying to navigate as you continue to be open. um I would say product costs continue to go up. um And it's really hard to
00:06:04
Speaker
um manage a bit of product waste. We're green circle salons. um So we weigh everything and we have a pretty good understanding of it. But all of these things really, really affect your bottom line. And I would say, um just navigating a lot of the changes with inflation in general, just with the world right now, it's incredible how much everything's going up. So even though you made a comment saying, maybe people would be going out on their own, I've heard from quite a few people saying it's actually really nice being under someone else's roof and you taking on all of the responsibility and risk involved with what's going on in the world right now. So yeah.
00:06:40
Speaker
I love how you say that because it's true. it's There's sometimes there's a real appreciation for having that comfort of just going to work, doing your thing and going home and not worrying about all the other the other parts of it. So it's great to hear that that is out there. um you did I did hear a lot of of sort of talk about inflation um just in some of the The concerns that you had been, you know, raising and the obviously property taxes going up with the cost of real estate going up. So it seems to me that we could be looking at sort of just an ongoing increase in expenses. So when we've got that fixed commission that we're paying for status or those other fixed costs that we can't really do much about.
00:07:18
Speaker
What do we have to do as you know somebody who is looking at opening a business or perhaps is even operating a business? How can they accommodate for those increases? Are we looking at service price increases or are we looking at cost savings or both? Where would you put the this flashlight? I think it's definitely important to um raise your prices. um I know it's a very uncomfortable thing for many people to implement However, it is really important to make sure that you're operating a company that allows you to have um a bit of a buffer to make sure that you're keeping those that are depending on you safe under your roof. And that comes in the form definitely of of looking at everything and deciding whether or not you're going to raise prices annually. um And of course, there's always gonna be a little bit of challenges um with that. Some people aren't gonna necessarily want to
00:08:11
Speaker
pay some of the prices that you have at your shop and so it's nice to have some different service levels within your locations that way you um if somebody doesn't want to pay say a master pricing when our prices get raised and you have a lot of consistency with your staff and mentorship. you have the ability to move some of those clients to service providers that don't charge quite as much, but keep them under your roof. So I think it's just really good to be savvy and have a bit of a plan before you start executing and making decisions. um And I think it's tough, like you can't really necessarily um control things like how high hydro gets, um what water becomes as an expense, which you use a lot of in salons and definitely things like foils,
00:08:54
Speaker
and whatnot go up even some of our eco fees and can you continue to increase. So I think it's just really important to be as transparent as possible with people because I feel like you'd be surprised at how supportive they are of your process if you actually are just like quite straight up about all of it with them.
Communication and Education
00:09:11
Speaker
Well, that's so true. And we are we are seeing a new generation of ah people who are very, you know, um they love the whole idea around transparency, where transparency is really important to them. So would you encourage salon owners to be transparent to reveal that
00:09:27
Speaker
hey look we do have to look at cost increases we are probably going to see um um a cost increase in our triple net or our lease so we have to think about these pricing increases now and for those clients who maybe can't afford those then how can we accommodate them? um Yeah I think it's really important to educate people because I feel like knowledge is key and I feel like you may untap a um ah different level of understanding and support from your employees or your I call them my co-workers because I feel like we're all just navigating and and working on it together and because I learn every day with them and sometimes they come to me with questions and I don't have the answers to them um because you know I'm human and um it's an ever-changing situation so I think it's important to educate people, be transparent,
00:10:12
Speaker
They will have a different level of understanding about what you're going through and um you're working with them in your team. And so everybody's got to be on the same page for the whole entire picture to work. Well, and that goes right back to your Instagram post, which was very transparent. You listed all those things out and you left no stone unturned. I thought, I mean, you were including little details like laundry, which is a cost no matter how you look at it. Right. So um well it's it's just laying it all out there. So with that in mind, maybe where do people then turn who are running a business who have to think about, you know, what are these factors that I need to know about? What would you say people need to look at as a resource so that they can learn more and and become better informed as opposed to kind of groping around in the dark? Honestly, I feel like my post was to try to help other people
00:11:07
Speaker
thinks of some of these things prior to pulling the the trigger on actually opening up your own shop. So I put this post out so that I could be helpful to others. And I think that would have been really fantastic for me to have been able to have read and gone through prior to opening my commercial spaces. I think actually picking the brain of someone that you can rely on and trust that might have gone through the process prior to you is really important. Not everybody is incredibly team oriented and will share all of their secrets with others. I'd like to think that um you know most would um and want to see others succeed. I think it's really important.
00:11:47
Speaker
But I think at the end of the day, no one is actually going to have a better understanding of this process and all of the costs associated with it than someone who's actually physically doing it themselves. the Yeah, that's a really good point. And, you know, to seek out those individuals around you and buy them lunch, I suppose, or or um whatever it takes to sort of, you know, build that trust between the two of you so that you can share that. So just in closing, if you were to write a letter to your younger self 10 years ago, when you were just starting out, what would you write in that letter?
Reflecting on the Journey
00:12:19
Speaker
Well, that's a bit of a tough question. I think um I would just allow myself um some
00:12:28
Speaker
forgiveness and um okay that's a tough question I knew I would struggle with this one um I think if I was to write a letter to myself I would tell myself to hold on that you're going for a little bit of a ride and that it's a really exciting journey with lots of ups and downs and um that if you're passionate and really love the industry and love to build others others up and watch them grow, that it's going to be um the best choice for your career and your life journey for sure. That's wonderful. There's a great leadership message in that. And that is, that is a ah nice, refreshing statement. So yeah, never know. Maybe you will write that letter to your younger self one day. And if you ever do, um maybe we could share it. Yeah, absolutely. I seem to be on a little bit of a kick lately where I'm wanting to put a lot of information out there and
00:13:22
Speaker
I think um' it's it's nice and refreshing when I read others do it, so I'd like to continue doing that. Well, we'll certainly point to list or point a link over to your Instagram and and people can follow you. um Any closing words that you'd like to offer just before we sign off? I think a really important thing to keep in mind in our industry is that nobody can want your success more than you want it for yourself. um It's important to go after what you want. um It's important to ah surround yourself with like-minded people that are going in the same direction and to um reach out to others and ask for help when needed and um try to get as much support from your community as possible and just never stop learning. Wow, thoses that's a great send-off. Thank you so much for everything. I really appreciate you sharing all of your wisdom. Thank you very much for having me.