Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mari Sade. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mari, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

In 2021 I lived in downtown Columbia. This was my first time out of the house living on my own! I was working a full-time job downtown as a captioning assistant at the communication services for the deaf. at this time I would take clients around my work schedule however eventually as my passion grew and so did my clientele. I had to make the decision whether or not to keep my full-time Job that paid really well, came with a steady check, and benefits or to transition into a full-time stylist. Although everyone around me kept saying go for it you have nothing to worry about ultimately I was nervous about one financial security, if I had enough clientele to sustain my living, and overall I was nervous about taking my business to the next level. So I contemplated and contemplated until eventually the summer of 2021 I made the transition I started doing here full-time at home. It was scary and like I anticipated things started out slow. As I became better with content creation and my social media presence clientele started rolling in ! The vision turned out amazing. I am now located in a shop still doing here full-time! Sometimes when you’re on edge about taking certain risks, you can’t consider the cons really. (Of course use better judgment on what cons might hinder or restrict the vision in any kind of way, then find a solution.make your way around the detour and get back on track) you have to focus on making your pros list longer and step out on faith.

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?

OK so for those who don’t know already I am a 21 year old hairstylist in Columbia South Carolina. I started doing hair in 2017, however I started taking my hair business serious in 2019. Also, I am a Leo, so that pretty much says it all. I’m kidding (lol)- what I mean is I would say that I’m a natural born leader, I’m headstrong, optimistic, and perseverance is my last name. Starting out I never payed attention to attention really it was all about building the right foundation for me, and really figuring out what I wanted to do. Im still figuring out what I would like to do, like what I’ll really specialize in. Right now I pretty much to a little of everything!

My mom was a master hair care stylist and for as long as I can remember I was always with her at the shop, the hair store, clients’ houses, or even at home in the bathroom when she was doing her own hair or my sisters. Hair styling is this something I’ve always been exposed to since I was little. Growing up all the women in my family always kept up with their hair, their face, they attire. Overall ,beauty and appearance is something I’ve always been fascinated with. So to make a career out of pouring into my clients confidence, it’s really utopia for me. To see the seeds I sow start to sprout the second a client looks into the mirror is LOVE.

What my clients love most? I would say anytime I free style especially with braids. When my clients come to me and say “Mari, you can do whatever“ it’s going to be a great day ! Those are my favorite type of appointments. When people genuinely look forward to seeing wherever my creativity takes us; or sometimes I have people direct messaged me saying ”I seen this style and I had to have you do it because I know you’re going to kill it”- it fuels me really. It gives me more faith, more motivation to do my best and exceed their expectations! I feel as though my clients love me because no matter their hair type, I can always bring the vision to life and that’s what sets me apart from other stylists. Short hair, long hair, straight hair, to coily hair if it can be done I will achieve it every time .

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A major lesson I had to unlearn is trying to please and accommodate my business for everyone. I would learned the hard way that being a people pleaser only brings you down in the end. Whether that maybe in the form of stress, financial losses, bringing on the the wrong clientele, missing opportunities etc. I came to find out that I was always running into many mini seasons where I would be extremely overwhelmed, stressed out, overworked and fatigued trying to please other people. What I had to teach myself was for one, to create and set policies, rules, and regulations- not just make them but abide by them. Do you have to show people that you are serious about your business, that way you attract clients that are serious about your business as well.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

My best advice for building social media presence is first- you have lose the idea that the most important achievement is becoming famous or “noticed”. I ran across an influencer named Gary Vee, and in one of his videos he explained that the likes or the followers is not what’s most important. You have to do it for YOU, and that’s some thing that has stuck with me from the beginning and it’ll go to the grave with me. Your main focus should be consistency. You want to start by figuring out what kind of aesthetic you want for your page, what you want your content to look like, who’s your target audience etc. or you can figure it out as you go. The key is to just post. Give your followers something to interact with, whether you have 2 followers or 2 million. If your only goal is to get a lot of likes or get a lot of followers when that doesn’t happen in whatever timeframe you set for yourself subconsciously you’re going to think you’re craft or what you’re doing is not good enough, that’s why the main goal starting out and throughout the process is to do what you do for you and your supporters that you do have !

Meaning be consistent with your content to keep your page relevant and give your supporters more to support! , not for your content to “blow up”, be consistent with posting so that you get more clientele in not to gain followers, be consistent with creating content so that you have something to look at to see and what you can improve on or sometimes you may just want to track your progress!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mari-sade-the-artist.square.site/?fbclid=PAAaZytMiQd5mxbiWSwjgouJrQNNH5HLYvBXq4_EdVYfHcKmSMOG9WagOzKgI
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/imari.hairme?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Other: TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@imari.hairme?_t=8ZKUN6iKKeE&_r=1

Image Credits
Aaron Smalls Djimon Smith Justin Phil