We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Codie Henry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Codie below.

Codie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

In the world of beauty, the educational system is subpar at best. With licensure the end all be all of education curriculum, it begins to look more like a roadblock than an opportunity.

The business of beauty is complex. Schools should divert resources to teaching the next generation the basics of business and labor laws.

Codie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Codie Henry, I am the new owner of B4 Beauty, formerly The Sovereign Stylist.

The beauty industry was a stepping stone for me. I grew up surrounded by hair stylists and in a salon. It was comfortable. However, it wasn’t my goal in life. I wanted to go to college and start a different career from my family. Hair allows me the chance to do that.

I started college at 24, changing my major a few times but settling on communication, specifically public relations. After my undergrad, I decided to go set my sights on law school to be an attorney. I went through all of the college, made it to law school, and hated it. I withdrew after my first year. While I no longer wanted to be an attorney, the idea of disputes and law interested me. So I got a masters at Pepperdine Law in Dispute Resolution focusing on employment issues.

I graduated from undergrad at the start of COVID 2020. Because I was studying to take my LSAT and apply for law school, I was t searching for a job. However, I wanted to help. After searching around, I found The Sovereign Stylist, which was a simple 5k hair group on Facebook. I became the communications director of it and in 5 years, I grew membership to 41k; established a crisis communication plan and executed it numerous times; wrote speech; launched partnerships for income; wrote and copy edited blogs, and gave general legal education on misclassification, cancellation fees, and copyright.

The original founder of Sovereign Stylist left unexpectedly. I knew we had to keep going so I took over and rebranded everything to B4 Beauty. Because our goal is to set beauty professionals up for success, business wise, before they start touching clients, literally before the beauty.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

As stated before, I focused on becoming a lawyer throughout my formal education. When I got to my 1L year, hating it was unexpected. Maybe I chose the wrong school or something but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. The law was a scapegoat to an end goal, it was morphed and used for selfish reasons and there wasn’t a straight answer in sight for anything.

That’s not what o signed up for. However, it is what I pursued religiously for 5 years. So pivoting to something else was difficult. However, I fell back on my public relations undergrad and my experience building Sovereign Stylist. I quickly found several jobs and joined one – after a one year stent at a corporate salon, where I quickly became the salon manager in less than a year.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Going from 5k to 41k in 5 years took some getting used to to. My communication plan and the founders dream was to be a beacon of education for beauty professionals. So, the goal was simple, answer questions no many how many times they repeat. Establish partnerships with other groups to cross promote. I’d say 15k was the sweet spot to where it hit a self sustaining point. By 15k people started inviting their friends and mentioning us in other groups. It grew quickly.

My biggest advice to find a way to be different. I targeted the stereotypical hair stylist for my social media strategy. The rebel, free spirited person and it worked beautifully. It drove how we talked and wrote our content.

Demographics are where the power is. When you understand what makes a demographic tick, jump on it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://B4beauty.org
• Instagram: @B4beautyorg
• Linkedin: B4 Beauty