We recently connected with Kelly Lunney and have shared our conversation below.
Kelly, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?
One thing that corporate salons and barbershops do in my industry is that they overwork and underpay their barbers and stylists. They expect and push them into selling products and reach “ideal” sales for either commission based pay that is low balled or “incentives” that are minimal. The benefits that beauty industries receive are also cheap and full time workers are pushed to sacrifice quality for quantity.
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?
I am 35 years old and got into the beauty industry about 12 years ago. I graduated from cosmetology school in 2012 and have been doing hair ever since. About 7 years ago I went back and got my barber license. I started working at JC Penny’s salon for about a year but hardly had any clientele so then I started working at Cost Cutters. I was there for a year and a half then moved into my first barber shop and worked in a couple other barber shops until after Covid when I went out on my own and started booth renting in 2021. I got into hair and makeup first when I went on a trip to Disneyland and had my face painted by a cosmetologist and decided to check out my local beauty academy. While I was in school I was the only student that wouldn’t run away from men’s cuts, so I started to have a knack for them and after I went to Cost Cutters I continued to do primarily guy cuts and that is when I decided to get into barbering. I love looking at things in detail and working with my hands and that led me to get my shears sharpening certification this year.
I am always looking forward with new training and styles. I give my clients precise cuts that are customized to fit their lifestyle and I am down to earth and enjoy being with my clients. I think the thing that sets me apart is I’m not afraid of challenges and growing, I connect with my clients not just on a barber to client relationship but also as a person to person.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson that we were ya get when I was first starting off in the work environment was that the customer was always right. So for years of working in a restaurant and been run around by customers and bending over backwards for tips, I had it imbedded in me to always do what the customer asked. Once I started in the beauty industry I continued that work ethic. I let customers ask more of me than I was wanting to give and eventually I had to stand up for myself. There was a client that would spend 2.5 hours with me getting a cut and color done about twice a year. I dreaded having her come in because she would bring in her 2 young children and I would spend the time while she was processing, essentially babysitting her kids and making sure they stayed off other people’s stations. We had a 20 minute late policy, if you were 20 minutes late you lost your appointment slot and would have to reschedule. So the woman was over 20 minutes late to her appointment and didn’t call to let us know so I told me manager to make her reschedule and went to lunch. She proceeded to text me saying she was going to not get her hair cut to make up for the time that she was late and how she couldn’t believe I would be late inconsiderate and this was a lot of money to spend. Moral of the story was that she didn’t respect my time so I stood my ground and didn’t do her hair. We have this weird thing that people think they can treat people in the service industry horrible to get what they want and we as service professionals need to have boundaries and it is a hard line to draw but you can’t give at all or they walk all over you.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I was in beauty school I got diagnosed with a condition that made me sick often after eating and made me loose weight. I was weak and had very low energy for 3 years and during this time I finished beauty school, got married, started my career in hair and did some modeling. I never gave up even when there were days it was hard to get out of bed, I never allowed my condition to stop me from pushing forward. Sure there were some days were I couldn’t do much but I also allowed myself grace and never gave up and eventually found a way to balance my health and work and personal life.
Contact Info:
- Website: Lilrainbowbarber.com
- Instagram: Lilrainbowbarber
- Facebook: Lilrainbowbarber