We recently connected with Shayna Simone and have shared our conversation below.

Shayna , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

Back in 2014, I was a solopreneur and rented a suite. It was just me. One of the things that I specialize in is healthy haircare and a lot of people said I had the growing touch. I ended up attracting a lot of professional women and found myself suddenly booked out six weeks in advance. They would call me, trying to schedule appointments and they would ask, “Do you have someone there that could do my hair?” At that moment is when I realized I needed to hire my first employee. I went on to hire my first commissioned stylist and from that point on both of our chairs were always full.

In 2016, I decided to move out of the suite and into a brick-and-mortar location. Scaling to the next level, I definitely ran into a lot of mistakes and encountered a lot of obstacles. I didn’t know anyone in my circle that, at the time, had a brick-and-mortar location. I ended up in a bad deal with a contractor where it took way longer than it was supposed to take. It completely depleted my funds because I was paying for two locations at one time. However, when we finally got in there, I had to hustle to just keep us afloat. We continued to focus on natural styling and healthy haircare. My business really took off when l hired four more stylists and got them fully trained. By hiring more stylists, I was able to get back on my feet and make the business successful. We did very, very well.

Presently, I have two locations and have scaled my business where we went to more higher-end services, where we can take less people and make more money. My stylists are happy and I’m happy. I opened the second location because I decided to become a certified Trichologist, specializing in hair restoration. I have a hair loss clinic, Amora Luxe Hair Loss Clinic, and Amora Luxe Hair Restoration Center. The reason why I decided to make that shift is because although hair has always been my passion, I wanted to pursue my purpose and have a bigger impact from behind the chair. I wanted to get the word out to women that hair loss is not permanent. My success is all due to me pivoting, realizing when it is time to make a shift – to make a change. Especially after Covid, it was really hard to have a full salon like we had before. We had to start scheduling people out. We could only have a certain amount to be at 50 percent capacity and unfortunately, had to scale back on certain services that were no longer profitable to business and went for higher ticket services

Shayna , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Shayna Simone’ I have over 9 years of experience in the hair and beauty industry, I am a Certified Trichologist and owner of two locations Amora Luxe Hair Restoration & Amora Luxe Hair loss Clinic. I would like to let people know is how I got into the hair loss industry and how I became a hair loss CEO. I realized that my clients were becoming younger and younger experiencing major hair loss. I really wanted to help them. The answers that they were getting from their dermatologist were not necessarily helping them and they often confided in me about their hair loss journey. It was at that moment I decided to become a Certified Trichologist. I wanted to help them in a holistic manner. I no longer wanted to treat the symptom, I wanted to find out the root cause of their hair loss. This is what makes my program unique — it’s all holistic. By treating holistically, I truly find out what’s causing the hair loss. We attack that. I have clients that have been achieving amazing growth in areas that have been thin for years. People think that I’m just using some type of product — some magic potion — or some hair growth oil…no! I’m healing clients from the inside out. I am pulling blood work, I’m educating them about the deficiencies they have. I attack those deficiencies holistically with some amazing therapeutic treatments that I offer in the clinic. I focus on detoxing, reducing inflammation, and promoting blood flow. People learn how the hair is truly fed with me. It all stems from the blood. If the blood is toxic, guess what? It’s going to affect your hair. That’s what makes me different from other hair loss professionals out there. There is no one size fits all when it comes to hair loss. My treatment plans are all custom.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

A story that illustrated my resilience was during the pandemic. The day that the Governor of Michigan shutdown salons was also the same day that I had my mammogram scheduled. Two days after that I found out that I had stage two breast cancer. I found myself literally fighting for my business and my life at the same time. I had to get very creative to be able to survive overall. It came down to me coming up with different ways that I could still make revenue virtually while my salon was shut down for three months. Luckily, for us, people had time to sit and look at our social media pages and do their research. I had just started offering a new service at my salon and it ended up going viral during the pandemic. I had people ready to come back to the salon and they were making prepayments and all.

Once we were back in the salon, my lease was up for my location — my brick-and-mortar location. I moved five times during the pandemic. To still have a business and have clients stay loyal to me, and still figure out a way to transition, I mean, that’s resiliency.

And this is all during chemo treatments, too! I decided not to renew my lease because I was in the process of getting another location. When construction completely stopped due to the pandemic on that location, I had to, unfortunately, walk away from that location because when the time came to open back up, there were no employees to do the build out and they were charging me three-times the amount to complete. It just did not make sense to me.

I walked away from that location and from the money I put into that business and moved to a temporary location. I was in that location for six months and ended up finding another brick-and-mortar location only two miles down the road from the last one. It was a blessing in disguise because it was already built out as a salon. All I had to do was to paint, change the floors, and install lighting fixtures. It ended up being the best location I could ever be in. It was way more attractive and brought in way more foot traffic. The word-of-mouth traffic was more than I ever did at my old location — and I was there for five years. My business is strong and thriving.

To keep my eye on the prize throughout everything — the pandemic, moving out of my old location and then moving into another location when the Governor told us we could open back up, to another build out at a different location — it was a great reminder to myself of why I’m in this, why I do what I do. If I didn’t love what I did, I would have quit a long time ago. I had a lot of hurdles that I had to overcome, including 18 rounds of chemo, radiation, and surgery. At the end of the day, I stayed strong. My business is in its best season right now — we are in demand. Just because things are hard doesn’t necessarily mean that things won’t get better. I realized in that moment I was in, it was temporary, and this test I was going through – what God had for me on the other side – was going to be simply amazing. I was more excited about the testimony I was going to have after dealing with what I did, more so than being worried about what was going to happen to me, or if I was still going to have a business – I really didn’t care about that part. I still moved in spite of fear — the uncertainty — because I knew the end goal. I knew the testimony that I could share with others could eventually help them get through what they may be going through. Nothing can stop me now. The pandemic couldn’t stop me. Breast cancer couldn’t stop me. I just want to let everyone know that the beast is woke and I am on to bigger and better things. Stay tuned. I’m not done.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

A lot of my research goes into marketing and how to get my business name out there. I have to stay on top of all the latest algorithms and social media trends. Instagram and Facebook have helped grow my business exponentially and have been, easily, one of the most effective strategies for my business. It has allowed women to see what I offer. I show up as 100 percent my authentic self on my platforms – and I’m transparent, too! I don’t post anything that I don’t do. The work you see on my page is what we can produce.

Aside from social media, we offer superior service, customer service, and visuals, too. Word-of-mouth has always worked in my favor as well. Clients that have found me on social media have often translated to word-of-mouth with their friends.

Contact Info:

• Website: shaynasimone.com
• Instagram: @shaynasimone & @amoraluxe
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/detroithairlossexpert
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaynasimone
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/shaynasimone

Image Credits
Melissa Douglas (headshot) Secara Jackson (action shot)