We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Atkins a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. Do you manage your own social media?
Currently I manage the social media for my salon. I’ve been managing my social media since the MySpace days. At 44 years old I’m very aware that I must have a social media presence in order for my salon business to succeed.
I’ve always managed my social media because I had the help of my daughters while they were in highschool. Now that they are grown and living their lives it’s all on me.
I will say that I probably need to hire someone to manage it for me because it can be very overwhelming. It’s almost like having a 2 nd job.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Jennifer Atkins and I’m the owner as well as a cosmetologist at Cuties’ House of Beauty LLC. I’m also a wife and mother of 3 daughters and 1 son.
My salon has been open since 2016. I currently have another cosmetologist/full body waxer, 2 natural stylists, a nail technician, and a lash technician/full body sculpting specialist. We pride ourselves on being the only multi-cultural salon in the city of Franklin, Ky. We participate in a ton of community events but our biggest give back is a scholarship to a local high school student to attend cosmetology school, barbering school, lash classes, etc. This will be our 5th year giving that scholarship.
I’ve been blessed to be recognized as women of the year by the local BPW (business professional women’s) group in Franklin. Just recently my salon was awarded the Business Promoting Women award for supporting female entrepreneurs and pouring into the community.
The Franklin-Simpson human rights commission just honored me for Women’s History month.
God has been good to me over the years and I’m glad I’m able to pour back into my community.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
As a little girl I always knew I would do something in the beauty industry…it was just in me.
I had my first daughter at 17 and back then being a hairstylists wasn’t looked at as a promising career. I ended up finishing highschool career and then getting my associates degree in business management from Western Kentucky University. I went to work in corporate America and absolutely hated it.
I always kept a hair based clientele that i serviced on wk nights and wkends because I knew one day I’d have the opportunity to follow my dream of owning a salon.
After working and not getting anywhere in corporate America I saw a way out! Cut backs at my corporate job allowed me to be able to take a package deal and take a voluntary lay off. I was off for 3 months and then enrolled in cosmetology school.
I finished cosmetology school, worked under a stylist for a year, and then opened Cuties’ House of Beauty LLC. We have been thriving since 2016.
Any advice for managing a team?
I try my best to keep my team members informed on all things beauty in our area. It can be challenging when you first start out trying to build a client base. I try my best to share my team members work on social media as well as talk them up to my clients being serviced in my chair.
We have quarterly team meetings to make sure we are all on the same page and that also gives them a chance to voice their concerns and give suggestions on how to make things better in the salon.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Cutieshouseofbeautysalon.com
- Instagram: @cuties_house_of_beauty_ky
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1XCdyP8ycg/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Image Credits
Xposed Media