What is your biggest fear? Is it losing the steady stream of income and clients from the salon you are working at? Do you have a full time job that you are already earning an income from?

Making the decision to stay at home and open a home based salon can be a terrifying experience. When we made the decision to open the salon at home we had spent a year and a half contemplating, being tempted then backing away because we felt like we couldn’t afford to make the jump.

Our theory was flawed. We were doubting ourselves! Julia had the talent and was providing great value to the few clients she did have. We became ingrained to American culture of working an 8-5 job and knowing we would be getting that paycheck of X amount every two weeks. Being responsible for our own income was scary and we doubted ourselves.

Finally, shortly after our daughter was born, the pressure of trying to coordinate daycare, us both working full time and wanting to take care of our own children, the scale was tipped to taking the leap of faith. At the time, Mike was still in school but we had a modest 3 months worth of an emergency fund.

Julia gave her two weeks notice  at the car dealership and we started telling everyone on Facebook to come get haircuts, dye’s and nails done. We were desperate! We didn’t have a real business plan for growing her book of business. All we had was fair pricing and a bit of talent.

Facebook and client referrals turned out to be our saving grace and helped us grow the business rapidly.

In our next post we will talk about how we utilized both of those tools.

 

What is your biggest fear in making the leap into controlling your future and opening a home based salon?