We recently connected with Amy Lane and have shared our conversation below.
Amy, appreciate you joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
Yes, I’m infinitely happier as a business owner. The only time I’ve ever wondered about a “regular job” was March 2020, right when Covid hit.
I was alone in the shop when the Arkansas Department of Health dropped the order: shut down in 48 hours, length unknown. The air already felt heavy; clients that week had been scared for their parents, their nurse wives, themselves. Now the rug was gone.
For one afternoon I let the thought creep in: “What if I just worked for someone else and this wasn’t my problem?” A steady paycheck, no-matter-what paycheck sounded… peaceful.
Then I started texting every client on my books, posting updates, pivoting to product sales and virtual consults. By the time I locked the door that night I already felt the shift: when you own it, crisis isn’t something that happens to you; it’s something you get to solve for the people who trust you.
That day reminded me why I’ll never trade this: owning my chair means the ways I can help people; mental health, transformations, teaching other barbers, writing books; are literally unlimited. A regular job has a ceiling. My calling doesn’t.
Amy, 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?
I like to introduce myself by saying: my name is Amy Lane, and I own Grayscale Barbershop. It is a private, one-chair studio in Farmington, Arkansas.
I didn’t find this craft until I was 30. I walked away from a corporate warranty-manager job at a trucking company, got my cosmetology license, trained under an old-school barber, and started building the kind of space I wished existed.
Early on I realized some people can’t handle the chaos of a busy shop, so since 2018 I’ve specialized in clients with special needs – autism, sensory issues, Down syndrome, wheelchair users, severe anxiety. I’ll dim the lights, ditch the clippers for silent shears, let Mom or Dad stay the whole time, or do the entire appointment without a single word. Families now drive hours because their child finally gets a haircut without tears. That work is holy to me.
For years men also kept asking me the same painful question: “Is there anything that actually fixes hair loss?” Not having an answer gnawed at me until one of my favorite clients showed me his non-surgical hair system six years ago. Light-bulb moment. Six weeks ago I finished my official certification and now offer undetectable hair replacement in complete privacy, plus the HSA/FSA packet I created so thousands more can actually afford it.
But the heart of everything is the name: Grayscale.
I chose it because life isn’t black-and-white, and neither is my chair. Young or old, neurotypical or neurodiverse, thinning hair or full head, first haircut ever or 500th, every shade of human belongs here. There’s no “other” – only us. Grayscale is the whole spectrum from light to dark, and that spectrum is always welcome.
I run it solo so I can stay fully present for my college-age kids and still say yes whenever someone – any age, any need – needs to be seen.
One client at a time. Zero judgment. Total transformation.
That’s Grayscale. Come exactly as you are; you’ll leave feeling like the best version of you.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
What built my reputation? Two things, really: unbreakable consistency and word-of-mouth.
I don’t run ads, I don’t do Groupon, I don’t chase trends on TikTok. Instead, I made a promise to myself the day I opened: every single person who sits in my chair gets my absolute best. No matter if it’s a $40 fade or a $1,000 hair system install. Same energy, same precision, same deep listening. I show up early, I answer texts at night, I move appointments around when a dad tells me his autistic son is having a rough week. I just… don’t miss.
When you do that long enough, people stop treating you like ‘a barber’ and start treating you like the person who changed something for them. A special-needs mom drives three hours both ways because her son finally smiles in the mirror. A guy takes his hat off in public for the first time in ten years. Those stories travel faster than any Facebook boost ever could.
One client tells his brother, who tells his coworker, who tells his best friend going through chemo… and suddenly my books are full for eight months with people who already trust me before they ever meet me.
So reputation? It’s not marketing. It’s just refusing to give anyone a reason to tell a different story about you.
Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?
I actually never needed outside funding, and that still feels like a little gift from the universe.
While I was renting a chair at another salon, I was paying $600 a month in booth rent, so when a sweet 300-square-foot space popped up for only $375, I thought, ‘Okay, I can do this.’
Everything else came together in the most tender, small-town way:
My neighbor down the road (a carpenter) built my beautiful cedar stations in exchange for a few haircuts.
I found my barber chair on Marketplace, clippers on Amazon, and little treasures at yard sales.
The rest was just love and elbow grease.
I think the total was under $2,000, paid for with tips I’d tucked away.
Was I nervous? A little, maybe… but mostly I just felt overwhelmed with gratitude every time the door opened and a new client walked in (almost always sent by someone who already trusted me). Each one felt like a hug from life saying, ‘You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.’
I never thought of it as ‘refusing to fail.’
I just thought of it as falling in love—one haircut, one story, one thank-you at a time.
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Image Credits
Jared Taylor
April Park