We were lucky to catch up with Stevie Carter recently and have shared our conversation below.

Stevie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Any advice for creating a more inclusive workplace?

I’ve worked hard to not only have an inclusive workplace but a salon where EVERYONE feels welcome. I want everyone, employee or client, who spends even a moment in my salon to feel comfortable and relaxed. I know I’ve been to many salons where I’ve felt judged, passed around to various stylists and assistants without so much as a word about what’s going on, just completely uncomfortable in my skin during my entire hair service. When I became a hairdresser it was my top priority to make sure that everyone I worked with and everyone who sat in my chair felt like they were seen, heard and valued. Not only that, but that they felt comfortable around me. I don’t do gossip, drama, negativity, or judgment. Am I perfect all the time? Absolutely not! But you will never hear me bashing my clients, other stylists’ clients, or anyone I work with. I think we can achieve more together; I like an environment where we can all bounce ideas off one another, where new stylists feel comfortable asking more seasoned stylists questions without fear of ridicule, where my clients can come and chill and have a good time (some even stop by to hang and take a pause from the day even when they don’t have an appointment). My bios and logos say either “All hair types welcome” or “all are welcome here” and I mean that 100%. My clientele are from all walks of life, all ages, genders, backgrounds, etc. And I’m going to throw a party this year so that they can all meet, because I just know they’d all get along. I have a good vibes only kind of clientele and I love them. And I’d say more than a dozen of them have told me I’m their first regular hair stylist ever, and I’m the only one they’ve ever felt comfortable around. I cannot even explain how much that means to me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

So I’ve had an odd but interesting career path, one that veered directly away from the hair industry at first. When I graduated high school in 2002 (before my assistant was even born, ugh) I started college and found myself bored, withdrawing from classes that I just didn’t feel like taking, overall just floundering because there wasn’t anything I REALLY wanted to study, no career that I just knew I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I’d worked at a grocery store throughout highschool and into my first year of college, and I knew I preferred working better than sitting in classes I didn’t particularly care about so I decided I was going to take a “break.” Figure things out.

So I was always that kid growing up that would do everyone’s hair or give my friends “makeovers.” My friends’ moms had me do their highlights in the kitchen and I would spend hours pulling hair through the old school highlighting caps (it’s so tedious but I loved it). I sent several friends to the salon in need of color corrections and I accidentally caused my brother to need to shave his head before his very first date because I’d decided he needed a haircut… a layered haircut. My dad still makes fun of me for that one. My mom still teases me about bringing 27 bottles of nail polish (literally) on a beach trip one summer because I needed them all, just in case. So I’ve always been drawn to the beauty industry, and if anyone reading this has been personally victimized by my early, uneducated years doing hair – I’m so, so sorry!)

While taking a break from college I decided that maybe I’d look into cosmetology school, because it was something I was interested in and I’d be career ready in a lot less time than traditional university. I’ve always loved Aveda, ever since I discovered their retail stores and salons when I was around 16, so I decided to look into their school. I went on a tour at Aveda and I found myself absolutely intimidated by the experience. I didn’t feel like I’d fit in, I grew up playing hockey and running around the neighborhood with my brother and the boys in the neighborhood, I was not a beauty queen, As much as I liked playing with hair and makeup, being around professionals made me so uncomfortable. I had a friend who had just gotten her EMT license and was working on an ambulance and that sounded really cool, so I decided to start a career in EMS. Why I found that to be less intimidating than cosmetology school I’ll never know.

I spent 10 years working in EMS. I worked on an ambulance responding to 911 calls, I managed a dispatch center, I worked in the business office handling billing and contract issues. I did everything except work in maintenance really. While in EMS I had gone back to college to get my bachelors degree. Both of my parents are teachers and I just really wanted to have more than an EMT license under my belt, because I knew if I ever wanted to change careers I’d need more than a professional license to do that. I got my BA in English, which I really enjoyed and would compliment my experience in communications. While I was working in the business office at the ambulance service I decided to continue my education and get my MBA, after which I left EMS for a corporate career. I worked for a really big corporation in Atlanta doing accounting and corporate training. It was ok but I wasn’t passionate about it at all. I just didn’t care about what I was doing.and couldnt imagine doing the Mon – Fri 9-5 thing every week for the rest of my life. I didn’t want a life where I was constantly waiting for the weekend.

So two careers and three rounds of school later, I decided to go to cosmetology school. I had gotten divorced and had enough money from selling my house to quit my job and work only part time, and I had a really supportive partner at the time I made that decision. So I drove back to Aveda, where I had toured at 18, and enrolled. It was over a decade later but I was there, and this time I was fully ready to be there, I felt like I belonged, like I was supposed to be there. I thrived.

After I graduated I went to work for a high end commission salon where I worked for about four years and grew a large and very loyal clientele. I wanted to work for a salon where I provided all hair services for my clients, because personally I dislike going to a salon and being passed around to different people like I’m on a conveyor belt. I also wanted to make sure that I made each person that sat in my chair feel as comfortable as humanly possible. It’s not my job to judge people on their hair, what they’ve done to their hair, the products they use, or what their budget is. Its my job to help them realize their vision and to look their best, to educate them on proper haircare, answer any questions they may have, and to make them feel good about their experience with me. I do feel like I have an innate talent for hair, but I think the ability to establish and maintain relationships is crucial to a stylist’s success, not just with clients but with everyone they encounter in their work day. I know my clients know that I care about them, that I genuinely like them and that I want to spend that appointment time with them.

I set out on my own in August 2022. I had reached a point where I was doing my own marketing, my appointment book was full for months straight, and it just didn’t make sense for me to be paying commission to a salon anymore. Especially when my dream was to own my own salon, be my own boss. Having my MBA helped tremendously, but it certainly didnt mean that I knew what I was doing. It just meant that I had the tools to look in the right places, and fortunately my MBA was focused on marketing and leadership. I found a salon suite to rent, I registered my business and now had LLC at the end of Stevie Carter Hair. I spent a pretty big chunk of change on startup costs, (thank you Mom and Dad for the help), and I was on a roll. Things were not exactly smooth at first – not having a front desk staff meant that my phone rang off the hook. When I first announced on social media that I had left the salon and was now a solo operation I spent six hours straight answering calls and booking appointments. The response I got was overwhelming and an absolute blessing. I was so scared that I was going to start this venture and fail. Am I still scared? Yes, But absolutely less so. I’m now six months in to being a business owner and things are finally smoothing out and becomming a stable routine. I recently moved my salon into a bigger, brighter space with two salon chairs instead of one, with plenty of room for my clients to be comfortable in. I have an incredibly smart and hard working assistant who just finished cosmetology school, and being a business owner is becoming more manageable. I feel like I’m back to focusing on my clients in the way that I should be while also finding time for myself. I generally have about 35 texts and multiple messages on social media at any given time, but I’m learning to set boundaries for myself – I dont have to be available 24/7, I’m allowed to have some down time and get back to work in the morning.

I love being a hairdresser more than I can possibly explain. Its my creative outlet, its my social time, its everything I love and I get paid to do it. I no longer just look forward to the weekend, and in fact I find myself missing work after a couple of days off. My biggest love is hair color. I specialize in vivid hair and color corrections, any color really. I’m a colorist by nature, and I love crafting the perfect haircuts for my clients. No two people ever get the same exact thing because everyone is unique. I’m most proud of my clientele as a whole. I feel like I’m surrounded and supported by this community of wonderful, hilarious and kind people that never let me down. Many of them have told me that they’ve never had a regular hairdresser before, that they’ve never felt comfortable in a salon before until they came to me, and that makes me so happy and means so much to me. I want to be a safe and happy place for people to come and spend some time laughing and getting a little self care. Some of my clients will just stop by and hang out for awhile even if they dont have an appointment. I can’t put into words how happy it makes me that my little salon is a place people want to come to because it makes them happy.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I first started my business page (or my “hair page” as a lot of us call it) on Instagram I was still in cosmetology school and I would just post pictures of client’s hair I had done. Instagram is really where hairstylists’ portfolios live these days, so I started out just trying to show a little bit of what I could do, and also posting when I had availability on the school’s salon floor to take clients. I quickly realized that my page was horribly boring, so I started looking at industry leaders with huge followings to see what they were up to. What I found is that their content was engaging, educational, funny and real. No one wants to just look at pictures of hair over and over, its tiresome. What people do love is a good before and after transformation, or something funny, or real. By real I mean that I’m my true self all the time; who I am in the salon is the same person I am at home. I’m a professional but I’m also not putting on a fake customer service voice and making small talk about the weather. I want to get to know my clients and find out what their life is like and what they’re interested in. I approach my social media the same way, I do reels, photos, videos, post silly polls, share funny content, talk about what’s new or interesting in the business or in my life. I make sure that what I’m putting out there in the social media world is on brand (which for me is silly good chaos), is relevant and hopefully engaging. Its targeted both towards clients and potential clients, but also to the hair industry as a whole. I want other stylists to reach out and say hello, ask questions, share tips, etc. The more real and relatable I got on social media the more my following grew. My following is certainly not huge, but its important to remember its not just about numbers, its about actual marketing towards potential and existing clients. What good is 500,000 followers if only about 10 of those followers actually show up to your business?

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think the biggest thing for me is that my clients can tell that I actually like them and want them to be engaged with me during their appointment. I’m an active listener and I approach their hair as a teamwork kind of thing – I ask questions, I get feedback, and explain what I’m doing. I never leave my clients guessing what I’m doing or why. I never just dig into their hair without asking first. I don’t even initially touch their hair without first asking permission. I think its so important to gain my client’s trust, and what better way than to involve them in their service? I think technically I do really good hair, but theres so much more to being a hairdresser and business owner than just the hair. And word of mouth has sent a lot of people my way, largely because the overall experience was a good one.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: steviecarter_hair
• Facebook: steviecarterhair