We were lucky to catch up with Jordan Kellerman recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jordan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?
The first question I asked myself before I started this journey was “what does success mean to me?” I think asking myself that kept my vision clear. To me, considering myself successful has been a process and a journey and my definitions of success change consistently as I grow and change in my life. When I first opened the salon, seeing my books full and bringing in a profit made me feel successful. Making it to two years and then three and now I’m on my fourth year, being able to stay open and pivot through challenges makes me feel successful. I have hired people out of school and trained them into skilled, hard working stylists who now have taken on a majority of my clientele, walking into the salon and seeing one of my long time clients in the chair of someone I have trained makes me feel successful.
What I think it really takes is to be all in, take risks, and trust yourself above all. Be compassionate, be innovative and always find a way to make things work, even when your back is against the wall. You have to be willing and ready to make sacrifices. Business is a process and things are ever changing, once you understand this I think it’s a lot easier to change your ways of thinking and figure out the best way to push forward. Expect there to be times of uncertainty and allow those times to teach you lessons. It takes resilience and it takes balancing providing a good product. service or customer experience along with nurturing a team and being open to feedback.
When my first renter quit, I took it so personally and wondered what I was doing wrong, what was I doing that made someone want to leave? My goal was to create the best work environment, why would someone leave? The fact is, I was missing things, I was focused on the client experience which I thought was the right thing to do, but I was missing what my team needed. I realized it’s going to take a lot more than working behind the chair 6 days a week to keep me afloat, I had to invest in the people working with me and learn what they needed to feel the salon culture was positive, this took me a long time, and I’m still learning.
Success takes having hard conversations face to face. I remember the first time I decided I needed to let someone go, it broke my heart and I felt so so bad that I did it over text message, so embarrassing and not cool. I look back at that and cringe. Thankfully therapy has helped me realize that being a leader and being a people pleaser do not mix, so I had to strip myself of all of my learned people pleasing patterns before I could learn how to properly let someone go, that doesn’t mean I’m now mean and don’t care, I just have boundaries around my business now and I make decisions that serve my bigger picture rather than saving me from feeling bad. To be successful you need to have boundaries and a clear set of values that you and your business follow.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I have loved all things beauty related since I was little, truly little, like 5 years old. I loved going to the salon with my mom, I loved getting ready scenes in movies, doing my little sisters makeup, watching my aunts do their hair and makeup before going out and always asking if they could do mine too, I just had a natural love for it all. I don’t know if I subconsciously loved the process, or if I loved the confidence I was seeing once everyone was all done up, but this is how it started. I remember being around 8 years old sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table drawing what I wanted my salon to look like. When I was in highschool we were offered the boces program and my junior and senior year I took on cosmetology. My parents made sure that if I was going to pursue this, I’d have to find myself a job in the industry. My mom took me to several salons all over Williamsville and I landed a job as an assistant at Studio M from 16-19. I decided I wanted to go to a bigger salon and learn more, so I applied at Chez Ann Salon and worked there until I was 25. I have learned so much working for these two salons and they really shaped the stylist I am today, working for other people and having stability made me forget about my dreams of owning my own place a little bit, it was still in there but wasn’t as much of a thought at 23/24. Then the pandemic happened. I had all the time in the world to sit back, start my pinterest board, and get to planning. I knew this was my opportunity. I spent that time learning, saving and planning, and once the world opened back up I started looking at storefronts, and landed in the perfect small and cozy space I’m still in now. I started slow, didn’t raise any money other than what I saved during the pandemic, and got to work September 1st 2020. I remember every week I would buy something for the salon, first it was my sinks, then my chairs, then my mirrors, etc. I started with 3 chairs and hired my sister to help me. I then hired my first renter, then another two, then another, then another, and we quickly needed a bigger boat. I got so lucky that the space behind me became available for me to expand into, and we did just that, all within a year and a half of being open.
When coming up with the brand and what I wanted people to feel, I kept coming back to “warm” and “summer”. My dad is a photographer so the term “golden hour” was something I’ve heard my entire life. I have memories of going on family drives for my dad to get the perfect golden hour shot, and those memories reminded me of summertime, being warm, seeing beautiful colors and just an all around happy feeling, so this had to be the name.
Things have changed a lot in the almost 4 years I’ve been open, renters have moved onto their own spaces or they’ve had big life events that have caused them to take a step back from behind the chair, and while those times have made me question what I’m doing wrong, I’ve made the choice to look at it from a different perspective and figure out what I can do to continue to keep the business growing, even with our losses of renters we have still seen growth, which is why I strongly encourage any business owner to be able to pivot when things go south, because they just do sometimes. I have learned you can’t make everyone happy, and not everyone will see your big picture vision, but trusting yourself through the process it is to own a business is the key. I have adopted a hybrid approach to the salon now, employing both commission stylists and renters, so there is something for everyone. At the moment I have 3 renters, 3 commission stylists and one emerging stylist on her way to working behind the chair.
I have decided to hire girls out of school and train them with all that I’ve learned over the last 12 years. We take classes together, they watch me daily, we practice together, and I learn each individual learning style to ensure their success, that to me has been the most rewarding so far. It also offers clients who don’t want to necessarily spend upwards of $300 to get their hair done with me a chance to get in with people I have trained that they can trust. I offer a tiered pricing structure based on the level of work my employees are capable of with the time they’ve been there, so no matter what your needs are, there is a stylist for you at Golden Hour. I think that sets us apart, a lot of salons have one set price for things, which limits clientele and I think limits the stylists from growing. I like to give my employees something to work towards. We consistently meet and talk about goals and growth, we value finding ways to improve ourselves and the client experience.
We are very focused on modern coloring techniques at Golden Hour. We love timeless, head turning hair, we love to give people that blonde hair that they haven’t been able to get before, and just generally elevating what suits our clients lifestyle and look. We have someone who specializes in everything, dimension, blonding, cutting and fantasy colors, We want to always be inclusive, safe, warm and welcoming to anyone who wants to come in and see what we’re about.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
This has actually been challenging for me, so I want to touch on this, I have learned that you need to understand why people are the way they are before you can make any sort of assumptions as to why they make certain decisions or why they might be underperforming. You have to trust your gut on this, because some people are just not a good fit for your business, but when you see potential and you know they care but just can’t get out of their own way, that’s when you invest learning more about them and figuring out a way to make it work. If I got fired every time I messed up, was having a bad day and underperforming or brought my personal life into work, I would’ve worked at way more than 2 salons.
So what I do for keeping morale high is having laid back team meetings that allow for open communication and sharing ideas. If someone who works with me has an idea they really want to try, we try it. I love the collaborative process and getting everyone involved in how we can add value to the salon, each other and the client experience. I want everyone who works with me to feel like they have a say, they have a voice and they have opinions that deserve to be heard. I am always asking for feedback, it helps me see my business through a different lens and keeps us from being stagnant.
I check in with my team individually on a monthly basis. We go over reports together, celebrate the wins and figure out a way to keep growing. If we see there’s an area for improvement, we work on that together. I open them to give me any feedback on how I can be a better leader to them during this time as well, anything I can offer support in or classes they want to take, this is my time to check in. As a leader, make sure you’re following through on these things.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
YES. I have learned so much from books and podcasts when it comes to business and leadership. All business owners should subscribe to Masterclass. My favorite books are
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Mastery by Robert Greene
Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab
My favorite podcasters are
Jay Shetty
Ed Mylett
The Millionaire Hairstylist
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.goldenhourbuffalo.com/
- Instagram: @goldenhourbuffalo
- Facebook: Golden Hour Buffalo