Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alison Wojahn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alison, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?
Their are a lot of times I often wish I had a “regular job”. To be able to wake up, Monday-Friday 9-5. Clock in clock out. Once I clock out its my time, my families time. If only being a business owner was that simple. I don’t get to “clock out”. My phone is constantly getting text messages, calls, instagram notifications 24/7! I have to prepare each week, making sure i have the proper color for my up coming clients. Making sure my retail shelves are stocked. And now we just hired an employee, so we need to gave those colors and products stocked for her as well! At the end 0f the day, i would not change it for the world. I get to create my own schedule, choose the services i offer, I don’t have to wear any certain uniform i can wear whatever i want!
Alison, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My husband and I worked for a commission salon previous to meeting.. Since we started dating we always talked about our dream of opening a salon together! We have been together for almost 5 years, and we just got married in May of 2022 and we thought what was next? So we decided to move to our own suite rental shortly after and start to Brand our salon! As we are currently in the works of expanding, we thought for us to start our journey we could later grow! We want to be set apart from other salons. Since i have been doing hair i have gotten to know and work for some amazing mentors. They are a huge reason i am doing this. We want to create a safe space for all hairstylists and clients to feel safe and welcomed. We want to stay on top of trends and have everyone leaving inspired. We will be creating a hybrid of chair rental and commission stylists which will give stylists the opportunity to be their own bosses, and create their maximum potential. By also creating a salon family. We want everyone to be able to express themselves through their clothes, and through their own brands. Stylists will be able to create their own schedules. We also hope to utilize everyone’s passion and skills to share their knowledge with other local stylists. We specialize in transformations from haircuts, colors or extensions!
We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.
So i had first seen my husband when i was in beauty school. I was entering a nation wide hair competition and he was working for the owner of the beauty schools salon, so he and some other of his employees were helping all the students with our models. A few months later i had actually graduated school, and started working at the same salon Chris did. Now he actually started training me, and we became really good friends. Then another few months later, we ended up both coming clean and sharing how we felt about each other and here’s we are now.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
So for us, we have found that really reaching out in the community really helps word get out about our business and our brand and people just want to help! So we have been gifting complimentary services to some local business that offer them to their clients, and you may say well how do you make money from just giving away free haircuts. It’s our personality and our expert advice to our clients that makes us stand out to other salons/stylists and you end up turning that free haircut, into a life long 4week client, or into a 6 week color client. So its really awesome to support other businesses with referrals!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Raw_Studio_appleton
- Facebook: Raw Studio