Running a sustainable and fulfilling business model is obviously vital - now more than ever. The unprecedented economic climate that is growing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic feels unpredictable and unnerving. Closures of salons across the nation have left both clients and owners reeling, and wondering - what’s next? Under the pressure to reopen and get back to business, beauty business owners can’t help but wonder how best to proceed. The coming months will be a delicate dance between playing a rushed game of ‘catch up’ and monitoring the state of things, while trying to enjoy the process. What’s the trick to keeping your business afloat, keeping clients engaged and wanting more, and keeping your sanity?

Along with a healthy dose of realism, positivity, and good old-fashioned grit and determination, beauty business mogul Lindsay Mayuga says that the surprising element to her success has been waiting inside herself to be discovered all along: finding her self-worth and developing strong boundaries out of it.

I spoke with Lindsay before the national shutdown and state of emergency was announced, but the sage advice and powerful life lessons she shared with me are arguably more important to take to heart now, as we enter a new phase of business: re-opening, recovering and thriving post-pandemic.

Lindsay is the owner of Linmay Studio in Chicago, and has been in the beauty salon industry for 15 years. Beginning as a colorist at her “dream salon”, she’s learned that the differences between the world’s vision of success and her own are really quite distinctive - but it took her 12 years to see this clearly for herself. From the beginning, she understood that having a laser focus on success, a practical obsession, was needed to get to where she wanted to be - and from an outsider’s perspective, she really was making it, as she moved from her position as an apprentice to having a partnership and her own studio space, both of which became the catalyst for the changes she needed.

“I think that it just created this momentum in my life to start questioning the way I had been doing things because so much of what I had done was following the rules,” says Lindsay.

Throughout her journey, Lindsay had a nagging feeling that wouldn’t subside - her success didn’t feel authentically her own. She was overworked, over-extended, and she felt a huge disconnect between her success and what she really wanted for her life. When her partnership ended two years ago, she was presented with an opportunity to try something different. She rented a new street-level property on her own, and for the first time, she began to adopt a bird’s eye view of where she’d come from and where she could potentially be. She knew she needed to make some changes in order to feel like she was honoring her authentic self and doing her best work.

She started with the big question and moved outwards from there. Was the beauty business still where she wanted to be? The answer was a resounding ‘yes’ for her, so she asked another hard-hitting question that she now recommends all business owners ask themselves frequently:

Has my professional life gotten in the way of my personal life?

The answer to that question had a bit of a sting for Lindsay, but thankfully she felt empowered to do something about it. Lindsay believes that often what salon owners need is not ‘hair education’, but ‘self-worth education’. She explained that when she discovered that what she was lacking in her business was some real self-worth and boundaries, she started to really get to somewhere good. At the beginning of the process, something as small as getting a new personal phone number gave her the freedom to answer work texts during work hours, and personal texts in her down time. This small step was the much-needed push she needed to make more empowered choices about how to make her business work for her, and not the other way around. Lindsay calls it the “worthiness aspect” of her choices - making sure that she’s honoring her own needs and values while attending to her clients and running her business.

I asked Lindsay to break down some steps to claiming your self-worth in your business, and here’s what she shared with me.

To start claiming your self-worth, get quiet and reflect

Lindsay has worked very hard for her success. Long hours, sacrificed evenings and weekends with family friends, and a never-ending list of ‘to-do’s have certainly proven fruitful for her, but often they’ve left with her a sense of being stuck in an exhausting hamster wheel. It’s easy to lose sight of where we’re actually headed when we’re just in a constant state of ‘go go go’.

“I think getting quiet with yourself, whether it’s journaling or drawing or going on a nature walk - just don’t run from yourself and stay in a hamster wheel. Sit with yourself, maybe write down in a perfect world what you’d love to see happen.”

She believes that it was only when she began to practice the art of quiet reflection that the clarity of vision she longed for began to develop. Through this practice, business owners can start to get honest with themselves and find the answers they seek to take their business to the next level.

Get clear about what you want in your life, and write it down

A long time ago, Lindsay wrote a letter to herself for a year’s time from then, detailing her hopes and dreams for Future Lindsay. While the letter included lots of beautiful sentiments about where she hoped she would be in a year, Lindsay says there was a distinct piece missing from the letter: how exactly she planned to get to where she wanted to be. That lack of reflection on how to get to where she wanted was an ‘aha’ moment for her when she read the letter a year later.

“The thing that I think is interesting about it is when I think about that letter, nowhere in it did I talk about what success actually was going to look like for me. I needed to talk more about the feelings that I was going to have or the kind of the lifestyle I was going to have,” Lindsay explained.

Lindsay learned that she needed to be more specific in her intentions for her business. What kind of values did she want her business practices to reflect? What did she want her ultimate dream schedule to look like? She says it’s best to always be clear and concise, so that you can identify if you’re on track and alter course if you don’t like what you’re seeing.

Take real practical steps towards your vision

Now that you’ve reflected, clarified, and written down what you want your business to be, you need to be brave and take a step towards it.

Lindsay says she identified that there were a few ways in which her business didn’t reflect the ‘worthiness aspect’ that she was aiming for, so she started to categorically make changes to make it so. She gave the example of moving to a gratuity-free model as something that was uncomfortable, but needed, and so she chose that as her first big step to take.

If you’ve decided to, for instance, switch to a gratuity-free pricing structure, take steps to make it so, and be sure to communicate effectively with your customers about this change long before you hand them the bill. Price changes to services can be a lengthy adjustment for loyal clients, so give them time to understand the changes and get used to them.

Give yourself (and your clients) time to adjust to changes

“I’m really a big fan of not making a bunch of changes [at once.] So if I’m going to change one thing, I’m going to do that for a while. I didn’t want to work Saturdays anymore, but that was so scary. Like - you’re a hairstylist, what do you mean you don’t work Saturdays?” Lindsay explained that she slowly phased out her Saturday appointments by first only scheduling herself for every second Saturday of the month, and then she chose a ‘hard stop’ date and rescheduled all her Saturday appointments after that to other days of the week. This way, her clients had time to get accustomed to the change, and she had a sunny future Saturday to look forward to in the books where she would finally be free.

Allow yourself to sit in the process of a change for a while until it feels more natural and you’ve identified how this change will affect other aspects of your business.

Accept that you will feel uncomfortable and will disappoint some people

Lindsay knows very well that with change comes discomfort. From renting a salon space on her own to taking Saturdays off to be with her husband, she’s certainly felt the growing pains that accompany making changes and growing your business in the direction you long for.

“I feel like you have to be willing to be uncomfortable, but realizing that’s not something to run from, that it’s something to just sit in. I think it’s learning how to decipher what is just the uncomfortable transition of [for example] going, “we’re doing gratuity-free”. It was a lot of awkward conversations, but it grew me [as a person]. I think just having a deep understanding that some of the things you’re going to do are going to be growing you, and uncomfortable.”

And some clients just will not be happy with the changes you make.

Lindsay gave the example of a client specifically telling her that it was not okay for her to not be working Saturdays anymore. Lindsay was kind but firm in her response to the client, confirming that she was sad that she wouldn’t be able to see that client on Saturdays anymore, but that it was for the best, for the sake of her life outside of work.

“It’s just going to take a little time to get there and you are going to disappoint some of your clients. You’re going to disappoint people on the quest to honor yourself, but be okay with that and know that that’s going to come. And I say a lot, to create priorities, but then you have to have policies in place to honor those priorities.”

Policies like protecting her personal time by making a schedule that works for her, and keeping personal and work messages separate with two phone lines are ways in which Lindsay has honored her priorities, and beauty business owners should feel empowered to take the same types of steps.

Surround Yourself with Inspiration

Lindsay has found that identifying other business owners in her community that embody values that she wants to emulate has helped hugely with developing a strong and healthy business.

“I think seeking people out that you do see somewhere else with social media that [make you say] ‘you’re that person doing what I want to do.’ Be inspired by them and know that what you want is possible.”

In the same way, she’s learned to phase out both clients and personal and professional relationships that don’t reflect the healthy, positive vibe she aims for.

“There were people I had to let go of because I can see how when I started questioning my patterns, I started to be attracted to different types of people. So the kinds of people I’m drawn to now from a client perspective, from a friendship perspective or people that are just energetically clean, clear - I’m spending time with them, and I don’t feel like they’re taking [me] down.”

Coming back strong with your self-worth taking the wheel

Ultimately, Lindsay has learned that she can really enjoy her work, enjoy drawing boundaries and sticking to them, and create the healthy business she dreamed of at 19 years old- from scratch - playing by her own rules. She’s having more fun now than she ever has, and it all boils down to her realizing that doing it her way was the way to make her business for her.

As you prepare to reopen your doors and warm up your chairs with all of the clients who you’ve dearly missed during this shutdown, remember to honor yourself and your needs. It’s totally understandable that you’ll want to come out swinging and make a powerful relaunch, but I challenge you to look for ways that you can polish your policies to make sure you can keep providing the best beauty business possible while making your work, work for you.