Deciding to become a business owner is a big step in someone’s life. It’s often fueled by hopes and dreams of what the future will hold. Unfortunately, lavish lifestyles and overnight success are not the norm. It’s great to have huge long-term goals, but it can be hard to manage expectations along the way.
In this episode, Kristen shares with us a couple of lessons in humility and entitlement that she had to learn the hard way. From sweeping hair to frothing milk, her path to success definitely didn’t look like what you see on social media. And that’s ok because what she learned on the journey to success helped shape the business she runs today.
Let’s look at a few highlights:
- Kristen’s personal story of humility and managing expectations
- The importance of creating your own success through networking
- How to feel gratitude for the journey
- Why getting a part-time job might help keep you out of a scarcity mindset
Learning humility on the way to becoming successful is a lesson all entrepreneurs should learn. Sometimes the things you need to do in order to reach your goals can feel like a step back. Taking a part-time job or learning new skills isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength. If you want to make career money, you have to make career moves.
The biggest event of the year starts TODAY! Business Reboot for Social Sellers is the brand new, highly anticipated training series to end your 2022 with a huge bang. Join Kristen LIVE Today through Wednesday (Dec. 26-28) for 3 days of intensive training to help recession-proof your business and show you how to turn your social selling business into a real financial asset. Click here to join in.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://Kristenboss.com/question
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If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Transcript for Episode #143 Sweeping Hair and Frothing Milk:
Kristen Boss (00:05): Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business. In today’s social media landscape, in this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way.
Kristen Boss (00:48): Hey, bosses, welcome to another episode of the show. So we are getting close to the new year. It’s the last podcast episode of the year, and I’ve kind of been in a little bit of a throwback mode. So I’m going to be, again, rewinding two different times in my life and I’m going to be sharing a unique story from each of them so that you can really gather and glean the most you can from this episode because it’s going to be about humility, expectations, entitlement, vision. Really it’s going to, I think, set up your mindset to be in the best place when you’re thinking about a plan for the new year. I know you’re excited about the new year. This is when we start fresh. We want to out with the old in with the new purge, our closets declutter, clean things up. I love the new year.
Kristen Boss (01:43): I am such a goal getter and the new year always excites me. And so before we go into the podcast topic for today listen, huge announcement got dropped at the three-day live event. You can still join us because the group closes tomorrow night at midnight. And then we do have access to the recordings until midnight on the 31st. But I have a huge announcement. I am dropping tomorrow inside, or actually Wednesday inside of the live event, the business reboot for social sellers. So if you haven’t already jumped in there go ahead and go in the show notes, grab that. There’s going to be some really exciting changes coming in the new year. Some things I’m going to be offering. I have a brand new offer I’m going to be sharing about in the new year, and you are going to want to hear it. If you have been somebody that’s kind of been looking for something a little bit more than social selling, like the next step up from social selling academy and you’re like, okay, I’m ready for the next step.
Kristen Boss (02:48): I got you, but I’m not going to share it with you yet. All right, so that said, let’s dive right into the topic today. Okay. So I was thinking a lot about the journey of being an entrepreneur and what it takes to reach your goals. And I do think there is a learning curve that we don’t prepare people for appropriately when it comes to building an online business online and making a serious income online. I actually think we tend to over glorify the idea of network marketing or direct sales or affiliate marketing being the primary source of income instead of an added source of income. Now, am I saying that there’s anything wrong with it being your primary source of income? No, absolutely not. I think that’s great. However, do not forget how lucrative and helpful having multiple streams of income is. It’s also it mini, it minimizes risk, it keeps you abundant.
Kristen Boss (03:44): So a lot of people that come to your business, they might not actually be looking for it to be their primary source of income. They may not actually be looking to retire their nine to five. They might actually love their nine to five, but they want to add more income into their home to the bottom line or be able to pay off some debt or allocate the money in other areas. I was talking to somebody else in my mastermind who her husband does really well and they technically don’t even need, they can pretty much live on his income and I told her, Hey, have you ever considered taking your insane social selling money, your paycheck and using that as an investment fund and putting that money into investments that make you money, taking your social selling money and making money with that money? And it kind of blew her mind.
Kristen Boss (04:30): And so I’m saying all this just because I want to help broaden your scope of what’s possible with the business model that you have signed up for. Even if you’re a coach or a course creator, I want you to think of how this is just another asset for your financial portfolio and not your only asset. And that’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately myself. And I think it’s just a smarter move. And I wish someone had been talking about this a lot earlier in my journey and so it’s kind of something I want to just plant in your mind right now. But as we’re thinking about the entrepreneur journey and the learning curve and people coming to this business, I do think there is this idea that people are often surprised or caught off guard by how hard growing an online business is or challenging it can be.
Kristen Boss (05:17): A lot of times you have to grow new skills, you have to learn how to grow an audience, maybe host your first online event, live event, host your first webinar. And I do think a lot of people come to it expecting to be good at it right away or they kind of put in the time. Or I think a lot of people can come to this entrepreneurship with great big expectations, huge goals, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But you also need to take a dose of humility with you when you are coming into a new territory or you’re being an entrepreneur. And here’s, I’m going to give you two example of times where I had to dig deep and I really had to have a pretty large dose of humble pie. I had to eat humble pie in order to have success down the road.
Kristen Boss (06:03): And it was hard. And I even took a pay cut in both instances. And this is what we’re going to talk about today because I do think there’s a great lesson here for you. So I’m want to rewind you back into my early twenties. We’re not going to talk about how far away how long ago that was. But yesterday when I was a hair stylist, I went to one of the most prestigious cosmetology schools that you can go to. I went to Vial Saun cosmetology school after I’d done two years of kind of gen ed at the local California State College university that I went to. And I’d done some stuff with business and economics and I loved it, I enjoyed it, but I was so itching to start my hair styling career. I knew I wanted to do hair when I was in ninth grade.
Kristen Boss (06:48): I just loved the creative expression. It sounded so fun. And I just knew I was never cut out to work behind a desk work, a nine to five job. I just knew that pretty early on. And so I went to cosmetology school and I had my sight set on being a Hollywood celebrity stylist and I was set on ki I wanted to be a big deal in the hair styling world. So I was like, well, where does anybody who’s in anybody go to cosmetology school? And it was vial soon. And I remember seeing Paul Mitchell’s son there getting his further continuing education from there. And so I did all my training there and I remember thinking as soon as I graduate from here, I’m going to be able to walk into any salon and immediately just start making big bucks and working with the celebrities.
Kristen Boss (07:39): And that was not the case at all. I’ll never forget, I think it was maybe halfway through cosmetology school, most of my instructors were from the UK and they were British and they said, oh, you think you’re going to go out? And I think they called it the salon. You’re going to go to a salon and you’re going to do here. And just like you think you’re going to be a big deal and you’re, here’s what it’s going to look like when you leave. You’re actually going to go to a salon and you’re going to start an apprenticeship and you’re going to be paid minimum wage and you’re going to sweep hair and shampoo hair and you’re going to shadow the master for however long it takes to prove that you’ve mastered your skills. And essentially you have to earn your chair. And so two things happened in my mind when they said that.
Kristen Boss (08:25): One was, I was like what? I thought minimum wage. How am I going to make a living? And it’s a full-time job. So I’m like, I was living in Santa Monica at the time, it was expensive then it’s even more expensive now. But I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to be able to afford to make things work if I’m working full-time at the salon while making minimum wage? And then learning that I wasn’t going to be getting the big wig stylists, it was going to be you. I was kind of starting at the bottom. I had to pay my dues and I was not happy about it. But I knew I had one. I had a few choices. The first choice was I could choose to go to a less high-end salon and immediately just get a chair and work my way up there.
Kristen Boss (09:15): I could have decided to do not join an A-list salon, not join a high performing salon, and just gone to one that wasn’t as prestige and just go right into getting my chair. Or maybe just having a less of an intense app apprenticeship. And I could do that or I could be an apprentice, start with the whole sweeping hair and make a minimum wage and I could give everything I got and be determined to get through the apprenticeship as quickly as possible while still performing extremely well. And then option three was complain about it, do nothing about it and just go my own way. And so I didn’t like option three, didn’t like option one. So I was like, all right, this is what I need to do. And so I made a decision that I was going to give it my best and I was going to put in whatever extra time I had to master my skills.
Kristen Boss (10:06): And then I was going to my goal. And when I found the salon, I interviewed at a bunch of salons when I found the salon that I was going to work at they had said the average apprentice, they will apprentice for a year. And I had said, okay I’m going to get this done in six months. I just rem. And they’re like, we’ve never had anybody do it in six months. I was like, well, I’m going to do it in six months. And at the time I also want to say I did this to make ends meet. I also picked up a job. So after cosmetology school, I went straight from there to working at a British pub just down the way. I was just around a lot of British accents at the time in my, that time in my life from my instructors at the cosmetology school to all of my coworkers at the British Pub just down the way.
Kristen Boss (10:57): And I was a cocktail waitress, or I alternated between a cocktail waitress and being a hostess in the evenings. So my days were 12, 14 hours long at least. And I’d be on my feet at least 15 hours. It was crazy. So I’d wake up, I’d start school, I’d go school nine to six and then I or nine to five and then I’d walk down the street, walk down a block to clock in to the pub. And so I did that for a while. So then I’m doing my apprenticeship and I tell them, I was like, I’m going to do it in six months. And I worked so hard. And one of the ways to accelerate your apprenticeship was to get models or free volunteers who would let you cut, cut and color their hair for free so that you could get practice in the off time that you weren’t already working for your stylist.
Kristen Boss (11:48): So again, I’m working 40 hours a week with my stylist. I’m shampooing, I’m making minimum wage. And then in my off time, if I’m not at the pub, I was bringing in models to practice in my off hours. So I was in the salon 24 7, but I was that devoted to my skill and I was willing to humble myself and pay my dues to get where I wanted to go. Do you hear where I’m going with this? Okay, so that was instance number one. And eventually, sure enough, I did graduate in six months and I earned my spot in the chair. And I’ve talked about this in a couple other podcast episodes and I am not somebody that sits and waits for money to walk in. I went everywhere. I went walking down the street, I handed out my business cards, Hey, free blow, dry if you want to come in.
Kristen Boss (12:37): Because I was amazing at blow dry. And I was like, if they just come in my chair and I shampoo and dry their hair, I know they’re going to ask for a haircut or a color. And that’s what happened. I just went out there and I found clients. I didn’t wait for walk-ins. And I really think that mindset served me really well. And I’ve talked about this in business too. You can’t be passive growing an online business. You can’t just wait for people to find you. You have to be networking and talking to people and making offers. And did some people look at me, I was crazy. What do you mean you want to shampoo and dry my hair? That was before the blow. Dry bars got big and now I’m aging myself, but we’re just going to move right past that. But some people looked at me like I was crazy.
Kristen Boss (13:18): They’re like, no, don’t touch me. That’s weird. But eventually I fully built out a clientele. Okay, we’re going to fast forward again. This is another time of my life when I had to pay the dues and then I’m, we’re going to tie it into apprenticeship or you’re a social selling business. Now I’m mixing things up. So now I have built up my career. And by the way, I also knew at the time, that was the first time I was trained by some of the best in the industry. And that was one of the first times I had decided that before I moved to Colorado. I think I was at that haen salon for about two years and I decided I want to be on my own. I don’t want to be a boss for anybody. I think I want to move to a rental based situation. I moved salons and the salon owner looked at me and said, you’re going to fail.
Kristen Boss (14:04): I’ll see you back here in six months. And that was the first time someone I looked up to looked me square in the eyes and said, you are going to fail. And I remember it lighting a fire under my butt and I went right into, I’ll show you want to watch me do something, tell me I can’t do something and then I’m, it’s going to just light my butt on fire. And it was the same thing when they’re like, we’ve never had anybody graduate in less than six months. I was like, well, I’ll show you so if you want me to do something, tell me I can’t and then I’m going to make do it. It’s a healthy dose of I’ll show you. So they said you’ll fail. And I ended up doing incredibly well and building up a mobile wedding styling business. I think I did, oh gosh, probably 500 weddings, maybe more, maybe a thousand weddings in my time.
Kristen Boss (14:50): And it was a lot. I was working a lot of weekends. So fast forward, very successful hair career, lots of flexibility. It was fantastic. My husband and I then moved to Colorado as a hair stylist. When you move, you don’t get to take your clientele with you. You have to start from the ground up. So I had to rebuild the business. You can kind of view this as maybe switching companies or starting over in your social selling business. It was the same thing. I had to do all the same principles all over again. I had to network, I had to meet people. And it was even more foreign to me because I was brand new. I didn’t know where people hung out. I was new to the city myself. And so I remember joining yoga classes and hiking groups and things I enjoyed doing to meet people.
Kristen Boss (15:29): But at that time while I was networking and money wasn’t coming in and we had bills to pay, I was like, okay, I can either sit in the salon and hope money shows up or I can negotiate with the salon owner. Hey, can I be in the salon three days a week so that I can pick up a part-time job the other f few days a week? And then eventually as my clientele builds up, I’ll add more days a week in the salon. And that’s what I did because I had to pay bills. Sure enough, I was like, okay, well what’s a job where I’m going to be meeting a bunch of people? And I was like, I’m going to work at a coffee shop again. Think about how strategic I was about while I’m networking and the money isn’t coming in yet and I don’t have customers yet, I’m going to actually go pick up a job.
Kristen Boss (16:12): I’m going to work hourly at a place where I know I will meet people. Okay? It’s no different than network marketing friends, it’s no different. Or if you’re selling coaching. So here’s the hard part. I went from making I think over a hundred dollars an hour at the time doing hair in California to frothing milk for $12 an hour. And it was so painful. I hated every minute of it. I’m not going to lie. But I remember saying to myself, Kristen, this, it’s just for now this, there’s two things happening right now. You are meeting people, you’re connecting with people, and you are at least making money being here and connecting with people. And it was just like, gosh, I think it was like, I don’t know, a hundred dollars a week. Gosh, I did not. It was painful seeing how much I worked. And then I had a boss who was, if I think she was eight years younger than me, it was so humbling.
Kristen Boss (17:16): And I was like, I feel like I’ve gone backwards on my life. Here I am steaming milk, making lattes $12 an hour when I used to be making over a hundred dollars an hour doing hair, living my life. I was my own boss. But I remember, okay, again, this was just another area. Are you willing to pay your dues or put in the time and the effort to get to where you want to go? Are you willing to humble yourself in order to get there? And sure enough, it you guys, I really only had to do it I think for four months. Four months. And then I built up my clientele, I built up my network, replaced my income, and then I was able to be in the salon. And guess what? Then I built up my clientele really quickly and then next thing I knew it was another six figure business and it was doing fairly well.
Kristen Boss (18:03): All that to say, why am I telling you these stories? I want you to think about, look at your business today. And look, I want you to think very clearly about where you want to go and where you want to take your business. If you are somebody who wants to make career money in network marketing, career money. So I’m going to say anything depending because it depends on your career. Anything from $30,000 a year and upwards, I would call that career money. If you are wanting to make career money, are you making career moves to make that happen? Are you investing in growing your skill sets? Are you paying your dues? Are you willing to learn skills? And are you willing to learn skills and be a beginner so that you can become a master? Are you making career moves or are you making hobby moves?
Kristen Boss (18:57): And I want to challenge you with this because here there are things I did where I’m like, I’m investing. This is a career. I want to grow my skills. And that meant I paid for continuing education. I was like, okay, I want to be on top of the newest trends of what’s happening in hair and new techniques and think about all the things you’ve heard that have changed so much in hair in the last 10 years. You guys, when I was the hot thing you guys might not know this story. You want to hear a crazy history hair lesson is when I was doing hair, it was during the recession. Fine. I’m just going to tell you how long ago it was. 2008. 2008 was when I was off on my own. I was a freelance hairstylist. And at the time there was the stock market crash. And a lot of people, what happened was everyone wanted to stretch out every four to six week root color and their highlights because people that were there typically every four to six weeks, now they wanted to stretch it eight to 12 weeks.
Kristen Boss (19:59): This is what actually created the ombre look that you all maybe remember. So if you’re like, why was it what created that super dark route to that light end? It was the recession in 2008. And hair kind of followed the financial needs of what was going on with clients at the time. So that was what started with the ombre trend. And then there was the balage and now there’s like there’s so many other things now. And now there’s like the baby lights and the tease lights and all the things that the money piece you guys, but you have to stay relevant as a hairstylist because if you don’t, your audience is going to look for somebody who is, how does this translate to you? Are you somebody who’s like, this is career money, so I’m going to go and invest in learning what’s relevant, what’s trending, what works?
Kristen Boss (20:50): I’m not going to guess. I’m not going to try and figure it out on my own. I’m going to learn for the experts and I’m, I’m going to invest the money knowing it makes me more money down the road. Or are you kind of treating it like a hobby, being like, well, I’m just going to learning it on my own, learning as I go. And listen, anytime you learn, as you go and kind of go with the scrappy method, yes you can do that, but it does take you longer to get from point A to point B because Y, you’re having to figure it out as you go. You don’t have an expert telling you, Hey, this is how we get there. And so I want you to be thinking about A, where do you need to be investing and what skills specifically do you need to grow?
Kristen Boss (21:30): And B, where might you need to humble yourself? Where might you be in a season? Maybe you’re in a season of sweeping hair and frothing milk. Maybe you are in a season where you might need to pick up a part-time job while you were growing your network, while you were growing your social selling business. And I realize this is kind of controversial on me saying this. Cause a lot of people are like, no, go all in. But if you’re all in and you are a basket case of need and scarcity and you’re chasing off all of your prospects because you need the money so badly, it would serve you so much better to be working part-time, get a contracting job, do bookkeeping for somebody, make graphic, make graphic, you guys, there’s so many remote jobs that you could be doing part-time while you’re growing your social selling business that keeps you financially abundant.
Kristen Boss (22:20): And I remember someone saying this in the academy, they were saying, I’m kind of in the season where I might need to go back to work. And she was ashamed. She thought it was the worst thing. I’m like, listen, the goal of network marketing isn’t to leave work. It’s to diversify your income streams. So let’s not have shame around working while having a network marketing business or picking work back up while having a network marketing business. Listen, if you’re in a place where maybe you need to go back to your job because you need to work on reestablishing your rank in your business and you need to go back into the working field, it’s not the worst thing in the world. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad network marketer. And if your pride is keeping you from doing what you need to do, I invite you to really check in with yourself and also tell yourself it’s so temporary.
Kristen Boss (23:12): It’s only for now. So I share my two stories with you because again, it was temporary both times were less than six months. And it required me to humble myself and learn from a master, invest in other skills and decide these are career moves that I’m committed to taking and I’m willing to humble myself in order to get to where I want to go. So I just want you to be thinking, what are the skills I need to grow? And what are the areas where I might need to humble myself and realize, hey, maybe I’m still paying my dues, maybe I’m still an apprentice in my skills and I’m not a master yet. I need to stop having master skills. And if you’re an apprentice and you want master skills, seriously think about investing. Okay? All right, my friends, I really want you to kind of sit with this as you were thinking about your new year goals.
Kristen Boss (24:01): And think about are you interested in making career money with your online business? And if you are, what needs to change? And if you ask yourself that, you’ll know. You’ll know exactly what you need to change. So I want to invite you to have the honest conversation with yourself and make a decision and draw a line in the sand and decide, I got this. I’m going for it. And any sacrifice I make right now, it’s just for a season. It’s not forever. It’s just right now. And your future self will. Thank you. We’ll catch you in the new year.
Kristen Boss (24:40): That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with a review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you are ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social selling Academy where I give you all the tools, training and support to help you realize your goals in the academy. You get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are new in the business or have been in the industry for a while, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer. Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
