Y L L A IC T E G O L O P A UN
By Louise May
WAK The Salon started as a home-based salon business in 2013 and partners Wade Ambler and Karl Fjeseth, have since built the WAK Brand to a 240sqm commercial salon with 14 stations and a team of 8. This powerhouse duo have a diverse background encompassing all things hair and combined represent a story made for success. Wade has worked all over the world from Newcastle to New York. Trained by the best, he started his hair and makeup career in 2004 and has competed nationally and internationally, receiving accolades such as IHS Australian Hairdresser of the Year and two times oceanic grand master. With over 120 trophies and accolades Wade is one of the most awarded hairdressers in Australia expanding his portfolio and experience by working for some of Australia’s biggest brands and working backstage with celebrities such as Lady Gaga, David Guetta and Kelly Rowland. Karl originally from Adelaide, moved to NSW in 2010 to study makeup artistry and soon after completing his course he moved to Sydney to build his book, working with big Australian brands. Karl’s passion is colour and is an expert in colour correction; a maestro in high end beauty photography, where his work has been published in magazines such as Cosmo, Grazia & Vogue Italia. In 2011 Karl started hairdressing at one of Sydney’s high end day spa’s and progressed to opening up shop in Newcastle’s CBD. Wade never wanted to open a salon as he was always pretty scared about the business side of things. He had a creative mind and an eye for marketing but doubted he had all it took to run a successful business. Karl , however, is very
business minded and a problem solver; the one who crunches the numbers and keeps the salon going on the back end, so collectively they make an awesome partnership.
KARL FJESETH
WADE AMBLER
Wade says…”We have always believed that the consistency of our branding and social media is a huge reason as to why the business has been so successful, and posting quality content is what has led our brand to grow our Instagram following to over 20k followers. Social media is so important to any business, but especially in our industry, as you don’t want to be left behind. It’s hard to keep up with the trends and where fashion is heading, but we found that most of our inspiration comes from our own backyard, working with a young team will always keep you on your toes, but we think it is very important to listen to the team and what our clients are loving, which is why we decided to constantly expand our retail offerings in salon. 2020 was hard for our industry, and it made us realise that social media and moving and expanding the business online was what we needed to be able to survive. We were posting on Instagram to sell retail, to be able to pay our rent and keep our space and realised a ‘niche’ of
what our clients were asking for, which was “on trend” Hair Accessories, which we were selling hundreds of a month in salon.” Launching www.gimmemorehairstore.com during the most recent lockdown, after years or sourcing hundreds of types of hair accessories to meet their clients wants and needs, the concept of this additional business venture was to simplify the process of salons and other businesses, to sell on trend Hair Accessories for an affordable price with high profit margins. “As branding is very important to us,” says Wade, “we have professional images available of all our accessories to download by link, so it makes it easy for our stockist to advertise on their social platforms. This concept has taken off, and to date we have over 30 salon stockists all over Australia. Selling online gives our team and stockists job stability and helps us in times like recently when online sales driven by social media and branding is what solely helped our business survive through the last 2 years. With their brand definitely going from strength to strength, Hair Biz Editor Louise May spent some time with Wade and Karl to learn more about their story.
Share with us some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the journey and how you overcame these, what’s the most challenging aspect?
We have dealt with a multitude of things from staff walk outs to our house burning down, and what we have learnt after facing these things that have happened, is you need to focus through the fatigue and disappointment and really knuckle down and think about what you really want and how you are going to achieve it. 42
Hair Biz Year 15 Issue 6
