We were lucky to catch up with Jerry Seetao recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jerry, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)?

I am very grateful for my apprenticeship experience and feel like it shaped me into the stylist I am today so I always enjoy retelling stories from that time. There isn’t one story that could fully illustrate my year of being an apprentice but there were a lot of great lessons that I learned. I feel like the most important trait gained out of an apprenticeship is developing thick skin and handling a lot of pressure coming at you at the same time. As an apprentice at Toni&Guy, we had weekly model nights where we bring in a model to do a haircut on and we work with an educator step by step. My main educator was known to be very strict and was not shy about pointing out any mistakes. Since I was the only one in the cutting program at the time there was a lot of pressure to do well every class because eyes were just on me whether it was about body positioning, ergonomics, why I was doing what, etc etc. Over time I felt like my confidence grew week after week because I was learning so much from someone so experienced and educated in the craft, it was a priceless experience.

My most memorable moment was in one of my first classes I was hyper-focused on a section of a haircut and thought it was perfect. My educator Lindsay walks over and messes with it a bit and looks at me with a disgusted look on her face and says “well do you think that looks good?” I was so embarrassed I couldn’t really answer her haha but it made me realize sometimes I need to step back and look at the whole picture through the mirror. I got so focused on that one part of the head I didn’t take a step back to see the head as a whole. It always makes me laugh thinking back to that moment and to this day I always look at things from a distance to make sure I see it as a whole.

Jerry, 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 got into the hairdressing industry very randomly not knowing if I would like it, I was never an artsy kind of person growing up but I knew I needed something drastically different from working behind a desk and computer. My barber suggested joining the hair industry when I would tell her about how much I did not like my job at the time and I did not seriously consider it at first but the more I thought about it the less crazy it seemed.

I specialize in haircutting and love everything about it from short pixie shapes to men’s fades to the classic face framing and long layers. I believe what separates me apart from others is my consultation and making clear how we want the finished product to look. Even though a lot of clients bring in pictures which is great I still break down the picture with them so it is a collaborated version of that inspiration on them, not a copy and paste procedure because no two people are the same.

Something I realized after years in the industry is that clients are sometimes too shy to voice how they are feeling about their hair because they do not want to offend the stylist and would rather end up leaving disappointed. Even though I have an initial consultation with my clients I ask questions throughout the service to make sure everything is looking as desired, my goal is to have the people sitting in my chair to have feelings of excitement rather than anxiety.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think the saying “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life” holds true in my journey as a creative. Obsession is the most accurate word to describe my journey and I don’t think many people would have that same passion for their 9-5 job voluntarily. When I was attending the hairdressing academy my days looked like this: in school from 8:30 AM – 7 PM, eat some food when I get home and watch haircutting videos on YouTube until bedtime then I would wake up and repeat. On my off days I would be cutting mannequin heads and watching more haircutting videos. That feeling of fulfillment and wanting to learn more is something that I never felt when I was working a desk job. The first few years were rocky, working as an apprentice there was not a lot of money to be made and I was not taking clients yet so it forced me to get creative. I was cutting hair in my kitchen on an office chair, cutting hair in my bathroom, cutting hair at my client’s house, basically anywhere and anytime I could get my hands in hair I would. The beauty of it is that I loved every second of it, the good, the bad and, the ugly.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Word of mouth and referrals from existing clients. I believe word of mouth will always be the best strategy for hairdressers because our work is a walking, breathing advertisement out into the world. To me the biggest compliment isn’t when my clients tell me they love their hair when they leave, but when they text me a few days to weeks later and tell me that strangers will stop them to tell them they love their haircut.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: _jerryseetao