Finding Genuine Connections Beyond Your Client Base

By Murray Smith

For all of you currently working as a barber or owning a barber business, the reality is that most likely you are inherently a people person. With customers and colleagues in and out of your day every day there is always a person to talk to.

Increasingly though, when it comes to getting help for your business and or improving your skills, it can seem like no one is there or at least that no one has the time to genuinely connect, listen and to respond. And while there is a raft of tools out there to help reduce the administration time for barbers, they are now so highly automated (and artificial intelligence driven) that finding someone to talk to and to connect with is quite a challenge!

The shame of this is the fact that the barber industry is one of the richest pools of diverse experience and perspectives that you can encounter, a fact enhanced by the trends that are seeing so many people from all walks of life take up a career in this field. Finding real connections with peers colleagues and the people who orbit our industry is one of the best ways to continue to grow and love your work.

Right now there are more ways than ever to take advantage of connections as a barber. Everything from industry events (like Expo4Barbers) to professional development functions industry gatherings, there are many ways to grow both professional and personal relationships. And the benefits can be significant for you and your business.

Finding new staff, learning about new ways to manage and grow your business and brand, sharing experiences to de-stress the job, finding new and better ways of doing things or looking after your mental health are just some of the direct benefits of human to human connections.

The barbering industry traditionally always had a very strong sense of community. One senses some of that has dissipated over time with social media, email or chat bot-based help services and the like, but that it is coming back strongly now.

The reality of the appeal and desire for connection in barbering is exemplified by the experience of one of the industry’s newest participants. In building and developing a booking and payment platform for barbers, the team behind Trybe have been struck by the responsiveness of their clients to the fact that they are real people, accessible always and that they listen to a barbers needs and wants in trying to deliver them the best possible support they can.

“Perhaps it’s an advantage of being smaller than the big international software companies, but our experience with Trybe has been that we can really connect with barbers well beyond providing a service. We’ve even been able to introduce barbers to each other who work down the road from one another and who have never met” says Bailey Smith, one of Trybe’s founders. “And then once they have met, you see them helping each other out in all sorts of ways”.

Bailey’s co-founder Sam Stanley goes on to say that “while we started out determined to build the best booking and payments platform for barbers that we could, it did not take us long to realise the opportunity for Trybe to live up to its name and to help create connections for people”. “While of course we are hoping to make life easier for all barber business owners with Trybe, the real opportunity is to help individual barbers succeed and one part of that we are working towards is how to create genuine connections for them”.

So why not grab the opportunity to connect with your industry beyond your client base and coworkers? Even a small step like introducing yourself to the barbers in the shop down the road from you, attending a professional development course, or getting to something like Expo4Barbers, that step will pay off in spades. Perhaps the boys got it right with their brand name – barbers are a tribe - and a great tribe at that.

Murray Smith, Advisor Freelancer Trybe Pty Ltd @austrybe