We were lucky to catch up with Semajae Brown recently and have shared our conversation below.

Semajae, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge to profitability as a traveling hairstylist is competition. There are so many amazing hairstylist in my industry and some who I can humbly say are experts in all of the new trends.
Not keeping up with the trends can be a costly decision. Especially, as black hairstylist who services mainly natural hair and locs, there are so many new trends to keep up with. Quite honestly, I don’t always feel as confident to attempt the new styles.

My time is already booked with so many other styles. People continually book me for the same styles I’m already known for, That are less trendy and more suitable to the minimalist or naturally styled client. With my years of expertise, and traveling fees sometimes people see my pricing and they will turn me away to find cheaper.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Semajae Brown, I’m 25 years old, born in Inglewood, California, Raised in WATTS.
My introduction to this industry was my fascination for braiding and watching my mom braid. I eventually learned how to style on my own hair and that eventually translated into friends, family, co workers, and people I met riding the trains and buses.
My dad always told me growing up that God had a calling on my life to either be a hair stylist or a lawyer. I chose a route that would indefinitely allow me to give back and serve people, in a way that I felt no other profession would offer to me.

I eventually went on to study business in college but ultimately changed my major to cosmetology and graduated with my license in Cosmetology. I am currently one class away from receiving my Associates Degree in science as an extension of my cosmetology licensing college career.

It’s been 11 years now as a stylist and I’m so happy to have been in this field for so long.
It provides me with so many social opportunities and freedoms that I have not quite seen reflected anywhere else, in any field, or job.

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

I was able to build my presence on social media starting about 11 years ago. My niece, Jmya Johnson actually created my Instagram page for me and it started as a way to express my spiritual identity and spread certain truths that I felt the community needed to think on or be aware of.
Eventually, I became more interested in sharing my hair artistry online, to build my reputation, and as a way to build an online presence portfolio, especially since in my case, I would ultimately be working as a traveling hairstylist. I felt that having a digital presence would be more beneficial to me in the long run rather than, having a physical portfolio.

As a result, I started to dive more into online marketing webinars, and have my mom drive me to seminars when I was between the ages of 16 and 19. To learn more about social networking, social media, and other social platforms to discover the true purposes and benefits of each one.

What I discovered was that, the original purposes for social media, (formally known as social networking) was created to keep people connected, share business ideas, create opportunities, and as stated before create online portfolios.

One thing that I learned about Instagram in particular was that you can create hashtags, use hashtags or make a hashtag, specifically identifiable to your niche.
When I learned more about what it meant to have a niche, I learned that I could choose to braid specifically and chose my target market based on demographics.
On my journey of just choosing braiding at that time, I chose the hashtag #Hairbysemajae .
I now have over 1,300 post under that hashtag and I also use other hashtags like #LosAngeles, #hairstylist, or #Loctitian or #curlygirls, #nails, or other natural hair topics like that that would ultimately funnel people to my business from my target market.
I serviced over 200 people from all over the world just based on those hashtags alone.
But my social media presence grew, not only because I’m a local hairstylist but because I am a community organizer. I’ve also been into modeling, painting, tattooing, event planning, community service initiatives, volunteering, poetry mics and many other different types things I’ve participated in outside of just hair.

I’ve maintained my social media presence just by being who I am, making myself and my values, my art and my character apart of the brand.

My advice to anyone trying to build their social media presence is to just do your research. Look at some of the popular content creators or artists online, to just be yourself, and be authentic. People, love authenticity, and they love to see something that goes opposite or goes against the grain of what is trendy. That, ultimately is what helped me to become who I am today.
I am not social media famous, I am not a super well-known digital creator, but what I am known for is my presence in the community, and I am established outside of social media alone. So, that’s something I’m really grateful for and something that I feel is very unique about me. As social media develops and changes now, A lot of my clientele comes from referrals or an app that I use called StyleSeat, I look forward to the many changes and growth that I’ll experience as a hairstylist and I will never give up.
It has been such a wonderful journey and I’m not stopping here..

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A Lesson I had to unlearn, was trying to do everything by my own strength, not saying no, when I needed to say no and trying to take everything on at once .
After about 5 to 10 years of self discovery, I ultimately found that God is my ultimate strength, and source and that all of the finance coaches, all of the books I could read, all of the videos I watch online, would never give me the strength or the fruits to continue to grow as a stylist in the ways I needed to. A little after I got baptized, roughly around November 2021, remember vividly telling God “You can have it all at this point I surrender all of my finances to you, all of my clientele, my will to you, all of the business from here on to you, I am no longer doing things by my own strength” and I kid you not that next week was the first week I ever made $2000 in a week. I haven’t had a week like that in such a long time, but God showed me that as long as I trust in him to do what needs to be done and to align organize my life by his standards and timing, that I could just depend on him. He showed me just how much he could truly do if I put my world in his hands. And so I did, and will continue to for the rest of my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: Semajae.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/hairbysemajae
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/semajae-brown-41478853
• Twitter: Twitter.com/hairbysemajae
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@semajaebrown12
• Yelp: https://m.yelp.com/biz/hair-by-semajae-los-angeles
• Other: https://youtube.com/@semajaebrown12

Image Credits
Dillon Imagery