We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karlie Lacoste. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karlie below.
Karlie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
Oh man, I love this question. There are so many layers to this and the thought crosses my mind on a regular basis.
I have been a stylist in the beauty industry for 15 years. Upon graduating high school in 2009 I enrolled at the Aveda Institute knowing that this job would afford me the time to explore myself and what I wanted to do with this one, precious life.
In 2011 I began my study of Energy Work when I was introduced to a Reiki practitioner. Since then I have studied many healing modalities (reiki, yoga, tarot, astrology) and began teaching virtually during the 2020 lockdown while the salons were all closed. This experience allowed me to see a life outside of the salon, although I love the salon I always knew it would be a means to an end and the timing of the pandemic was divine for me.
When the world opened back up I cut back on my salon hours and began experimenting with ways to make money in the healing world. I have loved every second of this exploration, but cutting back on my hours, losing clientele, downsizing my salon space, and jumping head first into a new endeavor has been incredibly challenging. The self doubt, the anxiety, the tough conversations, and the choices that I would rather someone else make for me, made it so easy to fantasize about a 9-5 job with benefits, PTO, and a boss that could shoulder the things I would rather not.
When I get so incredibly overwhelmed, I take inventory. I ask myself what it means to me to be successful and what do I value most? For me, time is everything. I come from a HUGE family that live within an hour of me, and my partner and I love to travel with friends and visit his parents who live out of state. It is important for me to be available for my family, to spend time with my grandparents, to help my siblings with my nieces and nephew, and to be flexible enough to be there for anyone in need. A 9-5 does not allow the same level of flexibility and I enjoy not having to request time off.
I also have complete creative freedom. With slower salon hours I spend time studying and experimenting with creative projects. I read tarot online, I teach energy healing and yoga in the community, and I recently started a podcast to share the mindful wisdom nuggets that have changed my life. Again, working a 9-5 would make this incredibly difficult for me.
There’s also a part of me that feels trapped sometimes because I did not take the traditional college route. I’ll ask myself how life would have been different and would I have had more opportunity? The truth is that when everyone else was in college I was learning how to operate as a small business owner. I was living a very adult life making both great decisions and very poor decisions, I was learning invaluable lessons about how this world works. I was learning how to be in relationship both professionally and personally, and I quickly understood that the consequences as a result the choices we make are very real.
I think we are always right on time and exactly where we need to be. A gratitude practice grounds me when I become overwhelmed.
I’m grateful for my life. I’m grateful for the responsibility, and I’m grateful for the freedom.
Perspective is everything.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have been practicing as a licensed Cosmetologist for the last 15 years. I have worked for myself as a solo-preneur for the last 9 years. In my free time I have been studying Reiki, Energy Healing, Tarot, Mediumship, and Astrology (we can call these esoteric studies) since 2011.
I am very passionate about community. It’s important in my work for people to feel as if they are loved and have a safe space to express themselves, the truth about how they are doing, and what it is they need without judgement.
My salon environment is very intimate, it is just me and my clients. I like it this way because there is room for people to just be. With no one else around we honor the moments they need quiet, when they need to vent, cry, laugh, or just exist. It’s very cool!
In my esoteric practices I have a community that meets monthly for yoga together, we call this meetup Sunday Service. Sunday Service is a space for people to come together and honor the Divine within each of us regardless our religious background or preferences. We practice yoga for an hour together and then either have a guest teacher introduce us to new concepts for the final hour, or we socialize and share how we are each doing in life during the present season. In between services, we keep in touch via a Facebook group, the podcast that I host, or the Patreon page where I read tarot or teach energy healing for the community on a weekly basis.
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
Email Email Email and Word of Mouth!
My time as a stylist has taught me so much about branding, about loyalty, and marketing myself. All of this information easily translates into information that I can use to grow my healing business as well.
I have ALWAYS kept an email list going. Whether it is a new salon client, or a new yoga student I have them fill out an intake form with at least their name and email address. Once a week I add new emails to my list and I send out a weekly salon update and a weekly healing update. Of all the platforms, email has been the most successful for me.
Contact information is invaluable. Someone may not think of me for months, even YEARS. Suddenly they are in need of a new look or a new life and they become aware that I am in their inbox weekly.
It also helps when it comes to community as well. I know a lot of people who have lots of tools and services to offer. I can connect you with whatever or whoever you need. The contact list keeps the entire community growing!
And word of mouth. When I started in the salon social media wasn’t a big deal. Hardly anyone was posting about hair. We had to go door to door to hand out business cards when we weren’t busy. I honestly did not find this helpful at all, seriously. Word of mouth may be a slow grow, but nothing compares. Those clients have been my most loyal. I see the same happening in my newest healing endeavors.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
When my salon business was THRIVING, I was working 4-6 days a week and managing my books myself. I set aside 30% of my income every week for taxes and savings for my business. After a while it felt like a lot to keep up with so my CPA recommended that I hire a payroll company to help. It was a great idea! I become my only employee, I no longer had to stress about quarterly payments, and I had enough money rolling in to hardly notice the fees that came with this service.
Fast forward a couple of years, I decide to cut back to one or two days a week in the salon and get a part time job working in an apothecary to focus on the healing modalities that I am so passionate about. The pay cut was palpable, about 70% of my clients left (which I knew would happen), and I took a two week trip with my boyfriend and some friends to Asia within this time period as well. Needless to say, the payroll service suddenly became expensive, as did EVERYTHING else I required to run my business. I wasn’t prepared for how much preparation I had needed in order to cut back on my “bread and butter” job. I wasn’t prepared for how quickly I would run through my savings. I wasn’t aware of how much a payroll service was actually costing me each month.
When I tell you I was pinching pennies to makes ends meet for months. I was very emotional, I was questioning myself, I was holding my breathe praying things would work. And they did. It was a huge learning curve, but I communicated openly with all parties involved, I asked the right people the right questions, I got my priorities straight, and I worked it out. As stressful as that year was, I’m proud of the choices that I made and I learned a lot. I also know that when things get tough, I can count on myself to make things right, regardless of whether or not I would make the same choices again.
((The trip, the job change, the new salon schedule… all worth it!))
It also helps to look back on when I first started in the beauty industry. Building a clientele/community is not easy. It took years of hard work, of dedication, of saying yes when I wanted to say no, learning to allocate money to the right places, i mean it’s a lot! When I feel the very slow grow of my newest endeavors I remind myself of the time it took to thrive as a stylist. The dynamic can shift and change overnight. So I just keep moving!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/klacoste
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zen.ishhhh?igsh=ODA2YmU2MGN3cThl&utm_source=qr
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@klacoste?si=8EOpcnsQ0Mx8eglH
- Other: Spotify Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/5jbjOhxtQ6r0PCgmbKxXAK?si=-8gDc7sAR32SVe0NKSC2Ww
Image Credits
Gabrielle Hail