Nobody Wins When They Are Losing By Sam Squires

Throughout my barbering and business journey I have learnt the importance of a few key factors that I believe range from the most comfortable… to the most uncomfortable routes to success. I’m not just talking about success in a financial way or the look of success to the outside community; I’m talking about success that bleeds through your working life-to your home life, your friendships, and your work life balance.

These factors include building relationships well and taking calculated risks.

When we build meaningful relationships and take risks that we are willing to chalk a failure to, or even just ask for things expecting to get the big fat “NO” but take it on the chin and deal with the rejection it sets us up to get up and move forward stronger than we were before. We build a resilience, which I feel is integral to opening a business and running barbershops.

This has been especially evident in the last few years with the pandemic and how that’s affected our industry. We as a barbering community have learnt to pivot and work with the opportunities, we have had in front of us.

Due to the location my first barbershop which is on the Gold Coast I was fortunately able to retain operation, through parts of COVID-19. We became busier due to government pay-outs and our clients having time to come in more regular. We also dealt with heavy periods of too few clients due to border closures and COVID-19 hitting QLD harder than it had. During this time, I saw an opportunity to open a second location and had the plan to use this space to train barbers and utilize an academy or education space that could eventually aid in the skills shortage and feed our barbershops.

A massive learning curve during this time was that the initial ingredients that made our Currumbin location become so successful in a short amount of time was not a cookie cutter model. My wife and I had our beautiful daughter Sutton Squires in this time and its safe to say my plate was overflowing. I had the risktaking side down pat and it now came to keeping relationships strong within the business. Its safe to say the balancing act was challenging. starting from scratch. With the help of my friend and location manager Sean Hayes we made a larger space work and although facing constant challenges in staffing and bumps in the road when it came to the education arm of the business, the Miami location has held its own during a tough couple of years.

My three tips when looking to expand your business - When looking for a second location really dive into what worked for your initial business - Make sure you have a staff member willing to and able to step up and become an integral part of your decision-making process. - As hard as it seems go with the flow and weather the hard times while keeping sight of the overall vision and goal.

Thanks for reading and please understand these articles are here as an insight into somebody who is learning all the time from mistakes and successes. If you have any questions or want to delve deeper into business growth or need a soundboard, I welcome it with open arms. I learn a lot about my own journey every time I talk about or write pieces like this.

@Samthebarberman

@BackboneBarbershop

@BackbonebarbershopMiami