We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paty Crabtree a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Paty, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

I had just moved to Kansas City from NE after being a stylist for a decade and it was January 2020. I had my sights on a salon that was full of plants and bright color, with grafitti on the wall and in the heart of the city. I was excited to grow and learn from the owner who I had met through a color class the previous year. Everything about the salon was meant for content and to be inclusive to everyone coming in and to really just be a super fun experience. Once Covid hit only 3 months into my settling in there, I was faced with the really hard decision of continuing my career or not.
After 3 months of some really hard thinking, I realized what an opportunity I had to change it up. I had been grinding for 10 years and after switching salons and states plus this lockdown…..I realized I wanted my experiences to be different. Once we were allowed to continue services, every person that sat in my chair was new to me. I realized that both of us had missed the human connection almost more than the haircut! After getting such a huge perspective change, it really was awesome to enjoy connecting with others from such a state of zero. I wasn’t focused on the money aspect of it, as much as the ability to really make someone else feel seen in a world covered in masks. Even this long after everything has normalized again. Remembering when we all just wanted to be near ANYONE, and how vulnerable it made us all.
Making everyone feel beautiful on the inside AND the outside has always been my mission, and 2020 just reinforced it in a major way.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I was homeschooled in NE until I was 16 years old, when I then started at the community college near our home, I graduated by 19 with a graphic design degree, but didn’t actually want to sit in from of a screen all day creating. I started at the hairschool in Omaha the next year after my mother convinced me to take a tour. I wasn’t a super girly girl, and honestly had never held a curling iron in my life, but the girl with the blue mohawk that gave us a tour seemed so genuine and fun, I thought maybe I’d found MY PEOPLE. Hitting the town as a stylist not even 21 yet in aI new big town, free from family, was allot. Stylist are FUN and know fun people. I was always getting invited places and to concerts and experiencing a ton of new things I never had before coming from a small town. After working in a high volume salon in the mall to get my confidence up about haircuts, I started at a larger chain salon in the midtown area. After messing around for 2 years there, I had a very serious talk with the owner about WHERE I WAS GOING. I honestly wasn’t sure at that time, just enjoying life really. But she really ignited the fire inside of myself to WANT more. So I started writing my goals and dreams, what I enjoyed doing behind the chair and where I wanted to go. 7 years later when I finally left that salon to start my own suite, I was one of the top level stylists out of her 100 in 3 locations. I had gone to NYC and worked backstage doing fashion week TWICE. I had competed in and led teams for Omaha Fashion Week for 4 years. In town I was known as “the unicorn girl” from all the vivid colors and undercut designs I did. After being in a suite for 2 years with my closest stylist friends, and opportunity to move to KC presented itself, and I decided after 10 years, it was time to move on. I started at a salon in the crossroads that was all rainbows and plants and continued to market myself as a VIVID SPECIALIST. After moving and completly starting over, I got to pick and choose exactly who sat in my chair. So you better beleive that EVERYTHING I DO is fun! What I realized back in NE though, was that almost everyone that got vivid hair, was pretty unique and we always got along great. So after moving, not only was I honing in on what I liked TO DO, I was pinpointing the type of people I enjoyed to create with.
Moving to a bigger city, I also started having more of a clientel to add in my final creative skill that I’d been practicing on mostly friends up until now, braiding. In the bigger city, I had a ton of guests getting a large undercut design and braids every 2 weeks. I also had the audience and the demand for festival braids arise, and I dived in. Since day 1 in hairschool, right up with learning rainbow colors, I wanted to learn cool braids! So finally 15 years later, I am traveling with a group of stylist to festivals across the US and creating fun styles in an environment full of MY PEOPLE on the weekends, Creating super fun vibrant creations in the salon on the weekdays. Who knows were I’ll be with this career in another 5 years, thats why I love this industry so much, theres always something new to learn.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I started by just posting what I did in a day behind the chair. ALL OF IT. Because how are you going to know if you’re growing unless you’re comparing to yourself? Once I felt like I didn’t have to post it ALL, I started posting what I wanted. This is all prior to Instagram mind you, so pictures on facebook are doing OK, but not bringing in tons of business. What really got me off the ground back in the day, was facebook LIVE. In a smaller town, being a vivid specialist was definetly different, and EVERYBODY was curious. So I started UNVEILING my full day color projects for everyone to watch. It was really popping off, and I started getting quite a few views and inquiries about services started rolling in. Once I moved to KC, we had moved on to Instagram, and it was back to pictures. But this time it was more like a continuous portfolio, I started really perfecting my angles and content I was putting out looked super clean! Then the age of Reels and tiktok hit….So I started leaning into videography a bit more and my guests loved it. I’ve loved learning more about cameras and directing a bit for this new chapter. BUT. What I’ve learned through ALL these changes and new platforms etc, is that people love AUTHENTICITY. I did exciting cool looking stuff, but it was the pure joy that I was having giving these moments and capturing them on camera that really started building my social media. People can allot about you online, so make sure you’re portraying what you want to be known for.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth 100%. It doesn’t matter how many likes or views you get on a platform. If a girl loves her hair and tells her best friends a RAVE review about you and then SHOWS them her amazing hair…They’re more likely to come in from that personal review than just by seeing something online. They also come prepared usually after getting all the details from their friend, so very seldomly am I surprised by something unexpected, AND if I vibed with their friend, Its 9/10 likely that I’ll vibe with them!
Everybody wins!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: purplepaty
• Facebook: perfectlypaty
• Other: tiktok-purplepaty

Image Credits
Maggie Gulling Alexandria Herrick Mike Michian Meagan Kabel