We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Steve Hightower a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Steve thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump to the end – what do you want to be remembered for?
To be remembered as a person that helped so many people feel good about themselves, laughing all the time, playing jokes on people and always helping the homeless.
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 background and context?
I am from Sand Rock Alabama which is on Lookout Mountain. My mother did kitchen hair and the color and perms came from Piggly Wiggly. I always watch my mother and as I grew older I would help her. After graduating I left the mountain and went to Jacksonville State University. I was a art major and a drama minor as well as accounting. Everyone told me I need a reliable career where art and drama was not. My main concentration in the drama department was doing costume and wig work.
I was in a mall shopping and was swept off my feet by my modeling agency and model professionally 5 years, the checks were not regular so I would cut hair on the side to make a little extra income but had no training other than what my mother had taught me.
When that career ended I landed in Atlanta and became an account for Lord & Taylor, a friend that I worked with asked me to draw out her haircut that she had appointment with Scott Cole which was a very prominent hairdresser in the city. I went with her and I drew out the haircut and the hairdresser asked me to explain the cut. I explained the cut and he handed me scissors and told me to cut it, when I was finished cutting he told me I did not need to be A accountant i needed to be a hairdresser. I quit the store that day and went to work the next week at a very prominent salon in the city as a shampoo boy and that is where my career started.
I work at that salon for 2 and a 1/2 years then I left and opened my own salon.
I have now been doing hair for 33 years.
I have traveled all over doing hair for major VIP and worked with many product companies as well as worked the film industry.
Before I became successful I would save my money for many many months and get the cheapest flight and the cheapest hotel to New York and go and set up meetings with different people just to prove I had the talent to do all the shows and the things that I want to do. I would tell the people I was sorry I could not go to lunch with them or dinner because I had an important meeting, when the truth is I had no meeting, I just did not have the money so I would go and eat my sandwich and then go to their meeting about 10 minutes late telling him I’m sorry that my meeting ran longer than expected. I just had to prove to them I had the talent.
Every hairdresser always says they specialize in something. I’m one of those hairdressers for years when perms were popular i specialized in Perms then I started specializing in color and then I found my true passion and that is specializing in fine and thinning hair. I applied my talents for working with wigs and hair pieces and started doing research on topicals and different solutions and products that helped fine and thinning hair. Today I’m one of the leaving hairdressers in the industry for a fine and thin hair. I love helping the cancer and other medical condition guest with their hair.
There is also a certain way I cut fine and thinning hair.. I cut it to the density, face shape, texture and lifestyle.
When it comes to products I am very picky in what I use because most products in the market are not suitable for fine hair. Most products will wait hair down so I always look for weightless products. I love Lanza and Awaken by Surface. I also love Nutrafol for hair lost. My wigs are from many different places and I LOVE Hairdreams and especially the Hairdreams Plus Microlink topper.
I feel that my Passion for fine and thinning hair and being able to work with it so well sets me apart from all other hairdressers.
One thing that is so important to me that I want people to know about is that I do care about my clients and I care about their hair and if they’re able to recreate what I do. I also teach my staff to care and to make sure their client are happy with their hair no matter what time it might be.
To me the smile on your face and the joy that I see when I’m finished with your hair is worth sometimes more than the total of your service.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
For me my most effective way of growing was to go to as many functions in the city as I could go to. If the event was free I was at it, if it cost I would save my money and buy the least expensive ticket and go mix and mingle among everyone passing out cards.
As my clientele grew clients began to ask me to go with them to the Gala’s and balls and different events and I would always make time to go.
As years went by I begin to buy my own tickets And ask different clients to go with me me as I thank you to them and I knew they would tell all their friends other friends their hairdresser asked them to go and would spread my name even more.
At this point in my life I may not go to as many clientele events or galas but I still attend the most important ones in the city.
I also highly recommend giving your services away to fundraisers. People love seeing you give back to the community.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
COVID!!! None of us never saw anything coming like covid. Covid shutting everything down was a true shock. I would sit there at my salon thinking is this the end of my career with tears rolling down my face.. How am I going to pay my house mortgage, my car payments, my rent at the salon, my staff, how was I going to pay for all these products? What was I going to do? I had to think how am I going to survive and I knew I was not alone but it sure felt like it.
I started thinking some money is better than nothing, so I let all my clients know that I would sell them color and produts out the front door. They were so thrilled.. I set up 3 different days and times and the clients would pull up I would go out with a brown bag with everything mixed ready to go with gloves a brush and instructions on how to do it.
I am lucky enough to have a huge deck on the side of my salon so I put styling chairs and mirrors out on the deck, lots of plants, hung art and open the gate and clients would come came running. They came with clean dry hair and we would use water bottles to spray them down and everyone wore mask.
It was the hardest time of my career. It was also the most eye opening time of my career. It made me appreciate my clients so much more than I had ever appreciated.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.stevehightower.com
- Instagram: Stevehightowerhair
- Facebook: Steve Hightower Hair Salon &Day Spa