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

Alright, Ryan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

When taking risks, you weigh the options. For myself, it was the option to stay in place or push the limits of what I thought capable of myself and risk everything for a dream. To open my business in the respected field of barbering was a huge risk. How would I make money to support myself? Where could I even afford to open a location? How much was the investment needed? How many people can I hire? How would I pay them? Can you change the dynamic of an industry? As everyone knows there is a hair salon or barbershop around every corner. A saturated market but there are more than enough people that need their hair done. If you can differentiate yourself from the pack the growth can be exponential.

Overall, I took a risk on all these questions and pushed in all my chips to the center of the table. Taking a risk is often seen as a gamble. But sometimes you can stack the deck in your favor with a little research. I decided to open Forefathers Grooming in 2017. Our location being strategically located in Sterling Heights and that helped us with being centrally available to potential clients in all directions. I decided to categorize my team as w-2 which is the correct legal category for someone in our field. High risk considering hardly any privately owned shops categorize their staff as employees rather than contractors. The overall goal was to create a place and environment that was welcoming to everyone. A warm relaxing experience from beginning to end. From the onset I focused on marketing and branding making our company look the part of a larger, more efficient, friendly local barbershop. We didn’t focus on narrowing down our niche right away. I wanted to gain knowledge on who our perfect client would be. From where we started until today, I was way off on our ideal clientele anyway. Which the team and I can joke about freely. Our market has identified us as a safe environment for all walks of life. We focus heavily on education, relationship building, and the customer service aspect of our industry. It has paid off in dividends but not without strife and uncertainty in our journey.

Road construction and no entrances. The pandemic and staffing shortages. An Appointment preferred business model, and potential staff not believing in the long-term vision have all affected our business in some way or another. Taking risks is hard. If you believe in the end goal, you must continue to push through. I am glad to say this risk paid off. We are steadily gaining more chips and winning pots with each risk we take on while growing. I still believe in our company, our visionary staff, and the market of loyal clientele that we have created long-lasting relationships with. Forefathers Grooming was a risk worth taking and in the long run I am thankful for the opportunity. It has taught me endless lessons and continues to help me grow as a leader every day.

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?

I was always someone who found joy in figuring out how things work. Fixing and building things became a passion early on. Figuring out why something failed became an interest as well as the psychology of people. I homed in on the relationship building by finding it easy to make friends and starting a conversation with anyone that would listen. Unfortunately, my teachers didn’t share the same enthusiasm about my gift of gab in school. In high school I met my wife. She had a plethora of family in the hair industry and she followed suit. She was and continues to be an amazing artist and educator in our field. Luckily, she rubbed off on me and I eventually found my place in the industry as well.

My background since I was 13 was in the service industry. I have had every role there is in a restaurant and bar. This was extremely fun and where I built most of my relationship building skills. In 2011 I graduated from Paul Mitchell The School Michigan and began my journey in hair. I went from a salon to working in the very school I received my education. I quickly became the front desk manager and sales manager for the school and reignited or solidified my passion for the business side of things. It sparked my idea to create a place welcoming and warm, with an old barbershop feel. But elevate it with outstanding customer service and a consistent stellar experience. I paired that with education for the clients on maintenance, product, and how to recreate the look at home. This was a home run. Our staff is extremely passionate and the role of Forefathers Grooming is to provide a long lasting career for hair artists with a foundation in detail, customer service, and knowledge of our craft. The more we share with our client the more they can feel confident in their look when they leave our facility.
What sets us apart is not that we have high standards for what we execute in hair. But, that we consistently do this for each of their clients every day. The team that work with us give their all to their clientele and it shows.

Forefathers Grooming has become a go-to place for business professionals, families, and every type of individual in between. They come through our doors with a smile and a story. We share like family and encourage interaction with everyone. Our business isn’t hair. It is relationships. For us the hair comes secondary but fortunately, our amazing artists push the boundaries of themselves and strive for greatness in anything they do. Our clients have been some of the most kind, generous, and altruistic people. I think that goes to show. If you have a serving heart and expect nothing but love, that is what you receive in return.

I am proud to be local, born and raised in Sterling Heights. I am so blessed to have opened a business here and our staff have signed on to the vision. They trust in me to lead, and I trust in them to be successful in providing quality over quantity.

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

Growing clientele is a task not meant for the weak hearted. It takes time, effort, and consistency. A strategy from the beginning was to appear polished. Even before we opened our doors, I wanted to create an image that we were larger than what we were. Not to deceive but to grow into what we saw ourselves as. The idea was to create a brand more than a company. To make ourselves be the go-to place for quality, consistency, and knowledge.

Systems serve so develop and invest in systems that encourage interaction with your company and building relationships. Automated customer emails and texts have done wonders for our business. These can be used for reviews and are worth the initial investment. I think most of the back-end work developing systems on everything you do in your business creates a failsafe. It is near immediate quality control It also makes customer interaction effortless. Utilizing search engine tools for brand awareness is also important. Make sure you show up on all search engines and invest in your SEO. All of these have helped us become a recognized go to establishment. In the 3 years of investing in technology to assist us in customer reach we consistently show up in the first page of google and have had a 500% increase of 5 Star reviews of our business.

The best advertisement for anyone has always been word of mouth. So, create systems where your staff create an experience and in turn your client will love to talk about you and share their experience. A wise man once told me “Be your clients dinner conversation.” This has stuck with me and served myself and my staff beyond measure.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Google and the investment in Search Engine Optimization have had a substantial impact on how our clients find us. We invest in tools that help us show up higher in searches compared to the competition. Most people use their phones so most of our marketing is developed and formatted to be responsive with mobile devices. Creating an ecosystem that everything is tied into helps us track analytics and focus our efforts. Social media, website and search engine cohesiveness is a major key in a market of saturation. It will help differentiate you from the others that don’t have brand focus and don’t wish to compete in the market.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.forefathersgrooming.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/forefathersgrooming
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/forefathersgrooming

Image Credits
All credits for photos go to The Forefathers Grooming Team and their photogenic clients; Ashley Fisher, Zachary Charleston, Kacie Conner, Paula Drylie, Olivia Roberts, Catilina Dubrul, Ev Thuerkorn, Kacey North, and Katie Hanselman.