How I Built a Heart-Based Business that Revolutionized an Industry

I’ve always said, SalonScale is powered by the industry. Our goal is to provide value to every step of the supply chain, including the supplier. The needs of our customers are always a priority, but so are the needs of the suppliers.?

We need each other, and to me, the only way to grow a successful business is to make sure we take care of one another and for each person to be fully invested.?

In other words, to build a heart-based business from the beginning.?

Changing a Dynasty?

When I first knew SalonScale was going to change the industry, I quickly realized that there would be some tough battles to face. I had to choose how I was going to approach them. Whenever something revolutionary is introduced into an established market, it creates a huge amount of upheaval. And not all of it is always positive.?

Supply chains, job roles, and even whole companies can lose business overnight. It can be a scary and fearful place to be when your industry evolves, but I knew, having seen it happen in my Salon, that there was a better way of doing things.?

I also knew that going all guns blazing to the industry would only end in fire, not the growth and freedom for business owners we were hoping to create.

The Players

As a Salon owner, I spent a large amount of my time right in the middle of the supply chain. I dealt with customers and suppliers, each with its own push and pull. However, the one thing I didn’t have much of was power or sway to influence any changes.

I did, however, build a network of trusted suppliers and stylists, something I credit my starting success to because these were the people I reached out to first when I launched SalonScale. People who knew I was brilliant, but also knew how much I could mess up their business models. It was an interesting position to be in. I had power in my hands in a way I had never had before, and this is where my choices began to matter beyond my little salon world.

I wanted to do things differently. My value proposition had more than enough fire-power to completely eradicate a huge part of the supplier chain but it was the people of my industry who would suffer the most. People could lose their whole livelihoods based on my moves. I didn’t want to mess up.

Removing the Target

For a while, I felt like I had a target on my back, but it wasn’t the way I wanted to build SalonScale. So I approached it with the same empathy and love I’d always had for my industry and chose to work with the people, rather than against them.?

Would there be a change? Yes, but change with kindness. I wanted to build a sustainable ecosystem that everyone would benefit from.?

Planting Seeds

I’ll admit at first I was shy to step into my power. I didn’t want to undercut my previous suppliers, and I wanted to respect the connection we had, and the friendships we’d built up over so much time. But at times it was hard to stay true to this sentiment.?

Can you imagine what it was like as a young female entrepreneur trying to tell someone who had grown their long-established career on the status-quo that their whole industry was changing, and they needed to change their business models sooner rather than later?

It most likely a difficult thing to hear but it was important for me to plant these seeds as early as I did. Knowing that in ten years they would be ready for it, and my business SalonScale would be there ready to assist in the next steps.

Growing a Business

In the meantime, the work became about how to remodel the industry in a way that would benefit all. I knew we could become a challenger to e-commerce giants like Amazon if we focused on building solutions together that would scale with the test of time.?

In my efforts to grow a heart-centered business, I made sure to never burn any bridges. The long-term vision always being more important than any short-term perceived ‘wins’.?

I focused on open communication. Telling both sides, suppliers included, about what I was building, so they could provide feedback on their needs and help me to build a solution that would last. I could see there was so much more in the possibilities of change, rather than the immediate technology transition. It was a worthwhile investment.

I think this is what allowed the change to happen more naturally. By treating my network with kindness, and they did so in return. Those early days were all about collaboration, bringing together our resources. Such as customer databases and collectively offering solutions that together would revolutionize and protect our businesses.?

Gratitude to My Industry

I’m grateful there were so many open to the change. The suppliers had to give up a lot of control and be flexible in new ways, but they had faith in me that I was operating out of kindness. They knew how much I cared about their businesses because when you’re building a disrupting business, you need to care about the ripple effects it will have on other’s people’s lives.

There were many decisions that if I didn’t know with a 100% guarantee people wouldn’t get hurt I wouldn’t do it. I learned your business became the decisions you made every day and how you treated the people in your company and outside of it. To build a heart-centered legacy, you had to lead from the heart at every turn in the road.?

The Future of SalonScale

Looking to the future, more of those well-planted seeds come to fruition, I know partnerships with suppliers will grow, and we’re preparing for it. There are so many opportunities for supplies and manufacturers to benefit from SalonScale’s technology. Our goal has and always will be to become a more efficient ecosystem that takes care of all its parts.