Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Brianne Blazosky. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Brianne, appreciate you joining us today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

My father was a VP for a major Pittsburgh company for most of my life. He worked 12 hour days, 7 days a week.

My mother was devoted to every job she ever had, including being a stay-at-home mom for the first 10 years of my life. When she went back to work she quickly rose in the ranks, received many accolades, and ultimately ran a small company for years.

They both modeled an extremely strong work ethic for me. They worked so hard, always went the extra mile, took on the lion’s share of responsibility, were never lazy, and worked through any and all ailments or difficulties. My father suffered from a severe case of Crohn’s Disease for 30 years and never missed a day of work until he had to have emergency surgery. My mother was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and worked through chemo until she was hospitalized.

While this level of commitment was commendable and showed me the importance of hard work, their way of thinking was that of a past generation. They embodied the concept of being a “company man” and prioritizing work as an employee above all else.

For years I followed in their footsteps believing it was the only way. I put my job before my family and friends, worked 365 days a year without question, and took on more and more to prove what a stellar employee I was. For so long it didn’t occur to me that I can have a strong work ethic AND have a work/life balance, that boundaries aren’t bad things to have, and that the word ‘no’ won’t ruin me.

My parents always wanted to retire to the Southwest, but when my mother got sick my father retired early to take care of her, and then she died. They never got to enjoy retirement where they worked so hard their whole lives to hopefully end up.

I saw myself heading down the same road where I was putting off enjoying my life until my working years were done, and I did not want to miss out on the enjoyment part like they did. My journey to becoming an entrepreneur took the valuable things my parents taught me and modeled for me and brought them into today’s way of approaching the workplace.

Luckily, along with those valuable lessons they also gave me nothing but support, fostering a belief in myself that I could do anything I chose to take on. So once I realized that there was another way to do things, I believed I could make huge changes, take big swings, become an entrepreneur, and make my own way because of the self-confidence they instilled in me my whole life.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

They always say the key to being a successful entrepreneur is to find a need and offer a product or service to fill that need. Once I decided to stop being someone else’s employee and start my own business I was lucky to have a need just present itself.

After managing salons for 20 years, shear sharpening was a trade I was very familiar with. A man would go from salon to salon and ask if anyone needed their shears sharpened. This was a perfectly normal thing and hair stylists relied on him popping in from time to time to take care of their tools. In Pittsburgh, there was one man who sharpened for almost every salon in the tri-state area. Sadly, he passed away and left a great need in our market. I decided that my boyfriend should get training to sharpen shears and we should start a company.

We made a plan, did research on where to find the best training, saved our money, worked on our credit scores, and were eventually able to schedule the training. From there I set up the business and Running With Scissors was created. We started by picking a new area of town every day and I went into every single salon there, introduced myself and the business, and just asked if anyone needed their shears sharpened.

We have a killer business card with a laser cut out of a pair of shears, plus I have a look that stands out – so people remembered me and we started to establish ourselves in the industry. There are a few others who had the same idea I did when the need opened in our market, but I am the only woman in the game. That stands out and since a majority of stylists are women, they want to support another woman-owned business. Making me the point of contact who talks to all of the stylists really gives us an advantage.

I think our success has been the perfect combination of taking our time in the beginning and planning, getting the best training available, and a strong focus on our presentation and marketing.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Running With Scissors is extremely active on social media. It is important to me to post content that is more interesting than pictures of shears over and over. I want content that people want to share, so I make a reel for every salon we sharpen for. I film the salon interior and all the cute details that make it special and cut those clips with clips of the sharpening process. These reels become little mini commercials for the salons and they love them! They want to share them and that only helps us. When new clients reach out they specifically ask if they can be featured on our socials. We also leave every stylist with a Running With Scissors sticker and a Band-Aid. They love to take pictures of that and post it to their stories which is just more free advertising for us.

We probably get about 40% of our new clients from Instagram. It’s definitely the strongest tool we use. We make sure to spend time every day engaging with everyone we follow. It’s important to get our name in front of potential clients as much as possible, but to also show them that we are supporting their efforts. One client started using us because the guy who had been sharpening for him never showed him support on Instagram and we liked every post. He recognized our hustle and passion to be the same as his and that meant something to him.

As Running With Scissors continues to grow, Instagram will not be something we let fall by the wayside, it will be the cornerstone of our marketing strategy for years to come.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Deciding to become an entrepreneur was the biggest pivot moment of my life, hands down! I was 7 years in at a start-up with only a two-person team. My friend started a company and hired me as the only employee. We took her company from Pittsburgh to a national and then an international presence. Following in my parent’s footsteps I was beyond devoted, never taking a day off, prioritized her company above everything else in my life, took on more and more responsibilities, and made myself available 24/7; all to show what an incredible employee/friend/asset I was. I kept grinding at the expense of my personal life waiting for some sort of pay off for all of the hard work.

However, the reality was that I received zero respect, was mistreated, had incredibly unrealistic expectations put on me, and I finally realized this pay-off I was waiting for would never come. I had to do SOMETHING.

It was as I was agonizing about how to disentangle myself from that identity and that life when I heard that the premier shear sharpener in Pittsburgh passed away and a new path became clear. It was TERRIFYING to walk away from everything I knew and the security I had built to start something on my own that had no solid evidence that it would work. I had to be real though – the way I was working and living was not at all sustainable. My relationships, mental health, and physical health all depended on me walking away. I started seeing a therapist to help walk me through the steps of leaving my old life and stepping into my new one and it was incredibly helpful during that transition.

Now that I see how much healthier I am working for myself and grinding only to build my own dreams and not someone else’s I can’t imagine ever going back to work for someone else. Proving to myself that I can work hard, grow my business, and find success while maintaining a healthy work/life balance has been a game changer. It was scary to pivot so hard, but I’m so grateful that I just took the leap of faith and did it!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://RunningWithScissorsPgh.com
• Instagram: @RunningWithScissorsPgh
• Facebook: @RunningWithScissorsPgh
• Other: TikTok: @RunningWithScissorsPgh