Salon Leadership: How to Build a Team That Attracts Great Stylists and Stays Together

Building a Winning Team!  Why Your Team Is Your Most Valuable Asset

Every salon owner wants a team that stays, grows, and attracts exceptional talent. After building an award-winning salon that receives more than 100 resumes each year, I’ve learned one simple truth: your culture is your greatest competitive advantage.

First let me tell you what winning actually looks like.

It looks like your team’s families showing up to awards nights with tears in their eyes because their daughter, their spouse, their person is being celebrated publicly for the work they do every single day.

It looks like Salon of the Year, two years in a row. Community Picks. Rated Best Three. Small Business of the Year in Grande Prairie. A nomination for Best Marketing in Alberta.

It looks like 100 resumes landing in your inbox every single year from stylists who want to be part of what you’ve built.

That’s what a winning team creates. And it doesn’t happen by accident.

This may seem a bit braggy and honestly it is! I am incredibly proud of these not for the titles but for the work, and more importantly, the people behind it all: my team! 

But you know me — I never gatekeep my methods.  So let’s dive into it!  

In order to really unpack this we have to start with the truth nobody says out loud in this industry: most of us salon owners are secretly afraid of our own teams.

Not consciously. Not maliciously. But deep down, there’s a fear,  if I develop them too much, they’ll surpass me. And if they surpass me, they’ll leave.  

So we micromanage. We hold information close. We try and stay the smartest person in the room. And in doing so, we cap our team’s potential — and in turn, our own potential, and our business. 

I know this fear intimately because I had it too.

But here’s what I have learned in facing it: all I can control is my own behavior. So I made a decision. I would make it hard for anyone on my team to find a leader who would work as hard for them as I do. I have no doubt there is someone out there who can match my effort — but it won’t be for a lack of trying on my part.

When you lead from that place, something shifts. Your team stops being a liability and starts being your greatest competitive advantage. And you become a collaborative energy that becomes greater than anything any one of us could achieve alone.

This energy is hard to recreate overnight so it becomes a powerful moat (a competitive advantage) for your business. 

Step 1: How to Hire the Right Salon Team

Because building a winning team isn’t just hiring skilled people. Skills can be taught. (The depth of my eye roll when an owner posts only hiring experienced stylists). 

What I look for when I hire is simpler but it takes work and commitment on my part and on my team. 

Nice people. Genuinely kind, warm, and collaborative. The kind of person who makes everyone around them feel good.

Driven. Not just ambitious, we want people who want to grow, who have goals, who are building something for themselves inside the career they’ve chosen.

Culturally fit. This one can’t be taught either. Someone fits the energy, the values, and the way we operate, or they don’t. And no amount of talent makes up for a culture mismatch.

We find this through a combination of gut instinct and a trial day,  watching how they interact with our existing team before we make any decisions. We also ask questions that reveal character more than competence:

• Why did you choose us?
• How do people most often describe you?
• Tell me about the five people you spend the most time with.
• Where do you want to be in five years?

The answers tell you a lot..

Step 2. How to Build a Salon Culture That Retains Great Stylists

Here’s what nobody in this industry says clearly enough: your team will not stay if they have to choose between work and life. It is not sustainable long term. And frankly, it shouldn’t be.

At The Headroom, we build lifestyle professionals; not ‘just stylists’.

That means we build careers around people’s lives, not the other way around. This could look like matching shifts to spouse schedules. Building flexibility around school pickups, family events, and personal goals. We trade slower season hours for extra holidays. We help our team earn more during peak demand so they can work smarter, not harder,  and still have a full life outside the salon.

The reality is: someone can work six hours of prime booking time and earn more than someone who works twelve unfocused hours. We teach that. We celebrate that. And it creates a success that no pay rate alone can buy.

Not sure how to build them up? Read the book Prove Them Wrong

Step 3. Celebrate and Re-create: Recognition Improves Employee Retention

We celebrate income wins AND life wins. Because both matter. And then comes the ninja move – when when they hit new bigger milestones we break down the process and train the rest of the team to hit those milestones too! 

It’s a succession plan, it creates training opportunities for our top performers and trains the next generation all at the same time; now that’s what I call a triple win! 

This is where the team pride comes from. And not just inside our team, but inside their families. Parents, partners, kids, watching someone they love get recognized publicly for their work in a way that said this matters, you matter, what you do here matters.

That pride raises standards and when your team knows they’re part of something that wins, they start showing up like winners. They hold each other to a higher standard. They recruit people who match that energy. They become ambassadors for a brand they’re genuinely proud of.

Abundance attracts abundance. Gratitude attracts abundance. And when you build a team that feels both the results compound in ways you can’t manufacture.

The Result: 100+ Resumes a Year

How Great Teams Become Your Recruiting Strategy

Over the last year, we’ve built up significant demand to work with us. Today, we receive more than 100 unsolicited resumes every year from stylists who want to work at The Headroom. That isn’t the result of aggressive recruiting or sign-on bonuses. It’s the result of building a workplace where people genuinely want to belong.

You can’t advertise and recruit from another team to build this, you have to start from the inside. 

The team you build becomes your recruiting engine. The culture you create becomes your retention strategy. The pride you generate becomes your reputation.

And your reputation, more than any job posting, any sign-on bonus, any salary offer, is what attracts the right people.

Build the team. Build the culture. Build the life your team wants to be part of.

The resumes will follow.