We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Reagan Kaalekahi . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Reagan below.
Reagan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
I think success is a never ending journey of self growth and development. Everyone rates success differently, for some it’s money, some it’s the Accolades and for others it could be how many people their influencing while have a work life balance. The fact of the matter is, success boils down to just a few disciplines, too name a few, one of those is a having a clear vision of your mission. This one is number one for me and number two consistency. It doesn’t matter what it is find consistency.
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?
It was 2001 and my family had a white elephant Christmas party, with so many gifts to choose from I chose the most squared box in the bunch and it just so happened to be the beginning of me finding my own personal gift that I would share with the world. A pair of clippers. This led to a whole lot of cutting my own hair and messing it up time and time again. This eventually led to me going to beauty school and starting my career in the great industry.
The beauty industry is so expansive, there’s no cap on what you can or cant do, income or stardom. In this industry you create your world. Knowing that while building a cliente and culture around my business i was led to starting my brand and putting my personal touch on everything I do,
SwaggHouse my brand is a two fold story. It came about as I discussed future plans with an amazing friend and mentor of mine Sherri Belanger. We were vision casting our own dreams and visions while tieing in how we can support each other’s ideas. The second part of this brand is my culture and intention of my own personal vibration of how I operate. It’s the feeling behind what I do and the feeling I want for each person I come into contact with in and out of the salon.
What I believe sets us apart is integrity, hunger and work ethic to name a few There’s somethings we live by that are a non negotiable, everything we do is about quality first. The experience is what people talk about and then the result of follow through.
Through this whole journey I’m most proud of what I’ve built in such a short period of time, the relationships I’ve made and the impact of our culture. It’s just the beginning. I pinch myself daily I’m living what I was dreaming about 5-7 years ago, it’s now a reality and better than what it looked liked when I was manifesting it. Looking forward to the next few years.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
“You can’t win them all” seems to be the first things that comes to mind. Initially starting out you want everyone from every walk of life to love you and respect you, and the fact of the matter is not everyone will. We as hairstylists are natural people pleasers we strive to make everyone happy. This is a recipe for disaster, happiness is a personal choice. I do hair!
There was a moment where I came to realize that if someone doesn’t match your energy or try too, it probably won’t be a good fit and with my new found wisdom and self belief that’s something Im not willing to risk. I love what i do and I could be doing anything with my time, the last thing you’ll find me doing is wasting my time with someone that doesn’t deserve it. This mentality has taken precious time to cultivate and it comes with knowing how precious your life and time is.
The story goes as a client comes in for an appointment and decides to argue with me about the chemistry of color, telling me I’m stupid and I don’t know what I’m doing. Bare in mind we haven’t even mixed a bowl of color yet or put a cape on her. My knowledge didn’t move her opinion and at that point I decided to let her finish ranting and politely excused her from chair and I gratefully went for lunch. I’ll never forget how belittled I felt during that moment but soon to realize how empowered I felt seconds later. This client walked in with an intention and i learned how to turn that negative to a positive.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Word of mouth travels so fast. My reputation was built on personal connection with each person in my chair on top of that experience. How I listened and then did, was something that mattered so much to each individual. We want to jump the gun and get the appointment started without clear direction, I had to slow myself down and create an environment for my clients to talk without feeling rushed, this set me up for so much success in building my clientele and reputation.
Contact Info:
- Website: Longhairswagg.com
- Instagram: @longhairswagg
- Youtube: The Swagg family
Image Credits
Pics taken in @bellesireneSalon Photos taken by @johnwilliam_photo