We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Piper “Posh” Barley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Piper “Posh”, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

Being apart of a heavily saturated industry it can be hard to stand out. I always try to maintain a level of professionalism that can be respected and appreciated. I work hard to stay educated and aware of the new products and trends that are valuable addition to my business.

Piper “Posh”, 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?

I’m Posh, owner of Posh hair district a full service salon in the Atlanta area. I offer a wide range of hair care services anywhere from extensions to color. As a master stylist I do it all. PHD has satin pillowcases, hair skin & nail vitamins, as well as virgin Indian hair. I have worked with a chemist to create a vegan hair care product line useful for all hair types. I’m here to provide quality hair care services for the professional woman that cares about how she looks as well as healthy beautiful results. My impact is simply to show women how to have healthy hair. I want to break the myths that healthy hair is hard to achieve. I also wish to educate women on products that are healthy to use on the hair to maintain healthy hair. I am proud of the growth in my business to date. I started out small building my clientele one day at a time. It was tough at times but to see what it has turned into is beyond exciting. My biggest accomplishment is developing a vegan product line that is ready to launch. With the right connections I will be ready for product retail placement in no time! My salon provides a safe space for clients to relax and unwind, and with the treatments we provide, it is an outlet to escape the stresses of daily life. In an industry that caters to making people look and feel good, I’m always considering what PHD can be doing to integrate more within the community. Whether it’s sponsoring events, giving discounts to people in the service industry, or working more closely with a charity to offer something to give back to the community is a great way to fulfill a need. Although many salons tend to specialize in either silk press or cutting for example, the PHD experience is set apart from industry standard by specializing in healthy hair services that include textured extensions and color. Surprisingly, it is very hard to find a hairstylist dedicated to healthy natural hair care with extensions.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Being consist has been the most effective. I’ve always pride myself in being professional and consistent. People respect what they can expect. Meaning if someone knows if they book with me I’m going to do my best to get them in and out in a respectable time. I don’t disrespect peoples time. I wasn’t always like that and I didn’t have any consistency with my clients. When I started being aware of my time on each person the quality of my clients changed as well as the consistency with my client retention. I got to a point that I wanted a certain type of client, the professional women with things to do. I can’t play with her time she has a strict schedule that she maintains and her time is valuable. This practice has made my work more enjoyable and my space light.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Growing up a teenager in the nineties a salon trip was your entire day. Hair stylist would book three to four people at the same time slot which of course caused these pile ups that took up your whole day. I started assisting in high school and this alone deterred me from wanting to get into the industry that I adored. It took me a long while to understand that I completely controlled that narrative. When I first got into the industry full time I was working at a salon that took on that very same practice of piling on clients at the same time. The owner told me most people don’t show up and if they all do that’s great more money. For me this was stressful and it never seemed as though my day was going to end. As soon as I got in control of my bookings I started to change the way I scheduled people. Instead of one on top of the other I started spacing my bookings out to about 80% complete with one before the next one came in. This was a slow steady process to work out and perfect not to mention I also had to get comfortable with speeding up my service time while maintaining the integrity of my work. My time as an assistant helped me quickly get a solid system in place and put the right amount of space between clients so that I could get them in and out in a comfortable time frame. Now clients praise that practice and it feels good to know I don’t have to be in the salon all day and night to run a successful salon business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.poshhairdistrict.com
• Instagram: @PoshHairDistrict
• Facebook: @PoshHairDistrict
• Linkedin: @PiperBarley
• Twitter: @PoshHairDistrict
• Youtube: Posh Hair District
• Yelp: Posh Hair District