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Hello Everyone and Happy (almost) fall, y'all!
I hope you're as excited as I am about the change in seasons and sweater weather. Next week at LCS, we’re kicking things off with a special Fall Edition of Healthy Fitness Lifestyle Day, where we’ll craft, decorate the salon, and start preparing the space for the Community Mixer on October 19th. Yay!
I don’t do scary movies much—living my life, often beyond human scale, is terrifying enough. But I love the changing leaves, the sound of football in the cool air, and baked goods with Washington apples!
We Won't Be Opening a Hair Design School Any Longer
Now, the main reason I’m writing: I’ve changed my mind about opening a cosmetology or hair design school, at least in the traditional sense where students pay tuition. After thinking it over, I realized that charging even a nominal fee for entry-level, high-quality education in the local trades is a broken capitalist practice that harms both the quality and positioning of future professionals. It creates entitlement. Interesting, right?
As business owners, we have a responsibility to provide what our communities need while building legacies and creating greater access to generational wealth through employee stock ownership programs.
Then I remembered apprenticeships. They can be costly and time-consuming since learners need one-on-one oversight, and someone on staff needs an instructor’s license. Fortunately, Casey and I both have one. Apprentices earn the minimum prevailing wage with an escalation clause, which makes sense. There are also fees involved with running the program and staying compliant with state regulations.
I believe Washington offers a tax credit for these programs, but I need to dig into that. If you know anything helpful, please let me know! Before I reached this point, I was still operating under the belief that a boutique, niche education program for those who could pay was a good idea. Even with great financial terms, it didn’t feel right.
Let’s consider the learner. What kind of demographic can pay for that experience? And who’s really working for whom now? Not in my salon. We run the show, accountable to a higher purpose than any licensing process. We’re growing a diverse team and a business with multiple income streams, all built to serve the community.
Long story short, I know someone who understands the bureaucratic side of trade apprenticeships in cosmetology and hair. His Atarashi Apprenticeship Program, combined with my Contextual Salon Education curriculum, creates the perfect inclusive and equitable community-based business solution. Together, we can generate generational wealth, build a legacy enterprise, and create a self-sustaining social ecosystem.
The New Space
As for the space next door, we’ll still be taking it on next month (as the contract I just signed says). I’m not sure about knocking down the wall—maybe we’ll just put in a large door. But the space was a dance fitness studio, and if you know anything about me, you’ll understand how much it means to have the keys to my own dance studio! I’m reluctant to transform it into a traditional salon space just yet and will likely keep it open for our Semi-Annual Community Mixers and other fun events like Commit Dance Fitness Fundraisers. How fun! By the way, did you get your tickets for October 19th? It’s a costume party!
At Left Coast Salon, my team and I are piloting program after program, getting closer every day to the one that will light up this industry and separate the purpose-driven from the profit-driven. We will show people how to cut hair again and bring back the community salon experience—for all.
I’m so proud of the team at Left Coast Salon. Every day, we choose to serve our community through the hard personal work of becoming wholehearted hairdressers, relentlessly pursuing technical, personal, and professional excellence. With our new CSE curriculum, we can now measure the data and decide what the new Metrics that Matter are—first for the community, then for the worker, and finally for the owner.
Now that we have our heads on straight, the path forward is much clearer. It turns out we’re getting pretty good at teaching the metrics that matter, running the systems, and helping our people find their greater purpose. We support them as they live wholehearted lives while providing equitable, inclusive services to their local communities.
All that means I’m marked "safe" from my technical retirement, as this boss lady gig has me all kinds of wrapped up in this incredible vision I finally get to see come to fruition.
If you’ve made it this far, I applaud your commitment to understanding how a small business like mine might be able to make a really big difference. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
Thank you again for all your encouragement, support, and patronage over the years. This one's for you.
Till next time,
Kristina
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