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

Hi Brooklyn, thanks for joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

The biggest risk I’ve ever taken was investing in myself and beginning my salon suite business. I have been behind the chair since 2014 and I had always worked under another stylist. This is fairly typical in the industry and at that time, stylists, were at the mercy of their salon owners. What schedule you worked, how much you made, the types of appointments you preformed, how long it took you to perform the, the clients you serviced, ect. was all pre determined. I’m not saying that is bad in any way for someone who needs leadership and growth, but I was at a point where my life had different needs. I’m the breadwinner of my family, I was a new mom, and I had just gone over my monthly finances and came to the realization that I was going to be significantly short on my rent and there seemed to be nothing I could do about it. That was the moment I knew I had to take control. I only had about 30 days to prepare mentally and financially to open a successful business, leave the salon I was currently working at, and continue to provide for my family. I would be lying if I didn’t say my main motivation was purely fear, but I also knew I was already drowning so I might as well be drowning in an ocean I can control. I stepped into the roll as business owner without knowing much except that failure wasn’t an option. Once I had taken the leap, there was no looking back. It was the mix of feelings between “what have you done, you idiot” and “why didn’t you do this sooner.” It took me a solid year to get my footing in the business ownership world, hiring a payroll company, a CPA, an accountant, and a business coach. The second year was just me fixing all of the mistakes I made the first time around and growing my one man band to invincible success through branding and reputation, and now in my third year I have focused on showing my clients the absolute love I have for them, thanking them, and making them feel cared for to organically grow my loyalty. As I begin my fourth year in business I am purely focused on the experience I provide my clients, making sure it’s the best, and maintaining what I’ve built. I didn’t take this risk to become rich beyond my years, I did this to become wealthy with time for my family, I wanted to be able to pay my bills like any other middle class family but to have the flexibility to spend any quality time with my family that I wanted. I feel like I have finally achieved that. In the end the risk was worth it, but it was definitely the biggest risk I have ever taken in my entire life.

Brooklyn, 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 name is Brooklyn, I’m a hairstylist specializing in curly hair located in Portland Maine. I started behind the chair in 2014 at your basic run of the mill salon taking everyone and anyone. I myself have curly hair and one night I was making myself and my boyfriend (now husband) very late for an event because I was straightening my hair. Frying my poor curls away, the clock was ticking and my boyfriends patience wore thin. He told me that there must be another way and I need to find it because this was becoming and inconvenience to our life. I sobbed telling him that there was nothing out there for me, all I learned in beauty school was to straighten my curls. The solutions didn’t exist in my beauty school text book. He told me I had to look harder. So with both of us fet up with my fried hair, we went to our event, 45min late, and all I could think about was how could I tackle my curls when I had never seen anything that worked. The next day I went to the beauty supply store and begged the workers to tell me what people do, the mentioned one product that they said was new to the store and curly girls seemed to like. It was the OG Deva curl super cream and styling gel. I went home and immediately tried it, to my surprise, it was the best my curls had looked in my entire life. I jumped on my computer and started reading all I could about the brand and I was shocked to see that they had classes for hairstylist for free on youtube, I basically got my Youtube University degree in curly hair, sucked up all the information I could and tried to bring it to the salon I as currently working at. They were not enthused. But, I couldn’t shut up about it. I told every single curly person I could find that there was a solution and was it was. after about a year of spreading the curly word in this salon, being written up a handful of times for doing it, and knowing I couldn’t shut up about it, I decided to leave and begin working under another stylist who shared the same love for curls as I did. I took every class I could, learned how to care for every single type of curl, and I still can’t shut up about it. After seven years of only working with curly hair, I have found my niche within that niche. I love teaching the lazy curly person. Everyone I see now are people who want to have their cake and eat it too. Have the best curls with the least amount of effort. People after my own heart.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My resilience is based off of my entire life of just needing to survive. I don’t have people in my life who will drop everything to help me, or will bail me out of a bad situation. It’s just me. It always has been. My resilience is purely a survival technique, it’s not like I ever had a choice. When I was young I saw some pretty tough things, my mother was in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic boyfriend, she was addicted to heroine and she died of an overdose in 2008. In order to get out from the disfunction I was left in after that, I graduated highschool a year early, immediately entered beauty school, and lived in my car. I can remember paying for a can of baked beans using coins that had falling under the vending machine at my beauty school so I could eat. Collecting bottles at other kids parties so I could scrape together enough money for gas. Working every second I wasn’t in school so I could afford my tracphone minutes and pay for my car insurance. All of the hardships I’ve faced through all of that has made me really strong but not necessarily because I wanted to be strong. I’m still really grateful for all of those hardships because at this point there isn’t a situation I could be in where I wouldn’t know how rise and thrive.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I have a fairly generous following on social media, as of right now it’s at 11.6k. My growth came from posting funny hairstylist content and curly hair humor. I think the best advice I can give it to be really authentic on social media because it’s really obvious to users when you’re not. People want to follow people they can relate to who seem within the same level as they are. If you portray someone who feels out of touch or out of reach for your target market, you’re going to miss them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://brooklynscurlsuite.com
• Instagram: @brooklynscurlsuite

Image Credits

all photo’s taken by @leah_lens (IG)