We were lucky to catch up with Sarah Caicedo & Erica Quince recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sarah Caicedo & Erica Quince, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

In the begging it was just the two of us. Our idea was to create a team that would have talent, drive and ambition. Part of our business plan to facilitate education and inspiration. Part of our recruiting process requires list of credentials, experience and an interviewing process involves in a hands on test before hiring.

Once we had our core team we started hiring assistants that we saw potential and drive in them. After hired they start their learning process. We call it a “masters program” for colorists or stylists. Since we are departmentalized most of our assistants strive to graduate to a full time colorist or stylist.

Departmentalization is important to us because the quality of work each stylist or colorists produces is specialized and experts in their craft. Leading to the work we produce in our space we strive to be unparalleled.

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

We both got into the industry through different experiences and avenues which helps us solve many issues we that may arise in our business. We both have always taken our craft very seriously and sort out every service with extreme discipline, detail and passion. In turn this is what we teach to our already talented team members.

All of our products we sell are paraben free, cruelty free and sulfate free. All color safe and gentle on the hair and skin. The contrast of our brands we sell differ completely. Davines is a plant base hair line from Italy ingredients sourced and grown from the fields of Italy. Oribe is a high end luxury line designed to create softness and moisture to the hair. We carry the bond building products K18 & Oribe. Both serving different purposes. K18 bonding the hair from the inside of the hair strand and Olaplex bonding the outside.

The services we provide are strictly for hair services. Custom coloring services, men’s & women’s haircuts, styling, keratins, hair Botox and other treatments. We only offer services in which we will know we provide exceptional execution, we are masters in hair.

Problems that arise with clients we tend to solve with as extensive consultation if needed. The more communication before our services the better the outcome will be to achieve exactly what the client wants. Getting down to their level and understanding what each client wants specifically. We like to call it custom color / custom haircut since no head of hair is the same. We are looking for the most complementary color and cut for each guest. This all plays a huge roll in determining the best route to take while coloring, styling/ cutting. The colorists always work closely with each stylist help with the creative process and vision of each client if going through that transformation or new look.

We are most proud of our team and what they have done to build what House of Mane is today being such a young company. Our brand is only as good as our team. To see us grow in a rapid pase and to see everyone learn from one another, help and inspire each other is what we envisioned our brand becoming just a couple years ago.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Our strategy is producing quality work that shows on the streets. Our biggest advertisement is our clients. This is an old but tired and true process in our industry and it works. Social media definitely plays a huge roll in getting our brand and work for our followers and non followers to see but to have the experience and see the work on other people that’s when they ask, “where do you get your hair done it’s beautiful!” This opens up the conversation and creates business like wild fire.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

May people ask us this question and to be honest we are self-funded. Through a lot of hard of work, long and rigorous hours we simply worked hard and saved our capital to put aside for our dream business. We opened in the middle of covid and didn’t want to start in debt at such an uncertain time. This was a smart move and we felt that we were starting on a positive note and had the flexibility to hire the exact team we wanted.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.houseofmane.com
• Instagram: @houseofmaneco
• Other: TikTok: @houseofmaneco

Image Credits
Valeria Sarto