We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ne’Yanna Williamson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Ne’Yanna, appreciate you joining us today. Covid has brought about so many changes – has your business model changed?

Covid 19 has changed the way we all do business in the beauty industry. Being faced with uncertainty, as well as being deemed non-essential amongst the working class, all played parts in how we changed our business model. Being a services based business for starters, we changed the flow of our schedule. only allowing ourself to book at 50% and staggering the times stylists were allowed to work to cut down on traffic within the salon. Although this allowed us to service our client base, we seen a tremendous decrease in revenue. Brainstorming on new covid effective income sources, we decided to create a home care product bundles to sale to clients who weren’t able to come into the salon; we also chose to keep educating through virtual platforms and selling digital prerecorded skill videos to help boost passive income.

Ne’Yanna, 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?

Knottyheadz salon and spa sparked from a childhood passion for beauty. As a child I experimented with my own hair, soon after it branched off to friends and family who began to support me as a young entrepreneur. From the beginning my service list catered to all types and textures of hair, but as I grew in the industry and became more versed with the ends and outs, I found my niche and narrowed it down to specialize in locs and natural hair. That was the best decision I’ve ever made! During the founding of Knottyheadz, locs were held as a high stigmatism in the corporate world. That’s why we pride ourselves on creating neat, clean, and professional hairstyles; we’d like to think we contributed to helping African American natural hair be acceptable. My service list now consists of starter locs , loc repairs , loc extensions and wicks, we also provide products such as locing gel , moisturizing oils and other natural hair products for stylists alike and clients. Knottyheadz Salon and Spa is a spiritual healing salon. Our clients are able to come in as they are, leave their outside worries at the door and receive services that is not only appealing in the physical but healing for their spirit. We send our clients back into the world ready to conquer whatever comes their way We also branched out with our sister company, The LocMasters Academy, where we guide and mold aspiring entrepreneurs into the beauty industry equipped with tools and the mindset to break generational curses in their families as well as obtaining financial freedom through learning the skills to maintain natural and loc’d hair and being a business owner.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I would say setting clear boundaries and expectations for your employees and not straying from it, being consistent and communicable with them, praises when needed, and team building to keep the morals high when faced with fluctuations as the head of the company. Remember your decisions are what’s best for the business, remove your personal emotions from your decision making processes.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

My first successful marketing venture is called Walk in Wednesday. In 2019, I transitioned from working under someone to having a business partner and our own salon. A few months in, the partnership didn’t pan out and I was left with continuing on alone. I was utterly afraid for being responsible for the entire business by myself. I was a few months post of being licensed and I wasn’t confident in my capabilities of staying booked. Every week my Wednesday would be completely empty, nobody! So I had a flyer made to advertise my Walk in Wednesday with a special discounted price for having to wait. It started slowly with me only having two clients, which I celebrated because I was grateful for them. I stayed consistent with the walk-ins and before I knew it, I would arrive at 830 to open and 9 people would be waiting in line! I gained new clients and expanded my knowledge. Those new clients I met every Wednesday at a discounted price became regulars; thereafter my schedule would be booked months in advance

Contact Info:

• Website: Knottyheadzsalonandspa.com
• Instagram: Official_knottyheadz_salon
• Facebook: KnottyHeadz Salon and Spa
• Other: TikTok: @knottyheadzsalon

Image Credits
Antoine lever photography