Invested $15K to Start a Barbershop
do you want to run a six-figure barbershop or a beauty salon bernard franklin is a u.s navy veteran who started busy bee here in bellingham washington after graduating cosmetology school in 2004. now his business isn't just thriving it's also a fixture in his community show us the must-have equipment these are the three blades if i was going to start a shop up whoops you're looking at what it sounds like under a thousand bucks even less maybe way less super important yeah in your industry it's very important do you know of any options to finance and start up a smaller barbershop at least start somewhere that's it yup that's it does it cost you anything no it's free what did it cost you to get this up and running one thing i wish i knew before i started this business before that i know now do it earlier if you bring four people in five people in i'll give you a free haircut i'll give you five dollars off the haircut today i'm talking to bernard to learn what it takes to start and run a successful barbershop he'll share things like how he built his team how he attracts customers and everything else you guys need to know to thrive in this industry so let's go meet bernard busy bees here in bellingham [Music] i'm excited to share your story because i'm actually your customer yes so i'm excited to do this thank you good energy tell us when you started haircutting and why you got into the barbershop industry so actually i started cutting hair when i was really young i was about 12 years old when i first started cutting my uncles and um cut hair around atlanta right and i wasn't unprofessional i was just cutting uh be honest with you then i went to the military and i started cutting people from all walks of life started this barber shop in 2007 after going to cosmetology school and something i came here i i graduated from wycombe community college then i went into cosmetology then i came here gotcha well thank you for your service by the way it was a navy absolutely that was navy retire i'm not retired i came out the navy spent six years in the navy stationed at whitby island how did that experience bernard help you in this industry if at all so i could say it just it helped me afford like overconfidence and stuff right i've always been confident doing my thing but you know cutting people from all walks of life i think that's what really helped me tone in on cutting other people's hair cutting my a lot of buddies from south dakota uh oaxaca mexico philippines and stuff like you know you see people from everywhere and when you're in the military you know you pull into you pull into the country they don't care they want a haircut right [Music] what's your number one advice to barbershop owners who want to keep and attract new customers stay consistent um in their work always work on your craft and study you're to study your crap i mean that's what we do you know james and i we challenge each other quite a bit i mean i'm all my barbers are really outstanding barbers but like we educate ourselves all the time and stuff like you know people might not know it but we watch videos you know we read books about stuff by me constantly i used to go to a hair show or a class all the time in like nice or three times a year and you have an awesome personality which certainly helps you guys stay tuned keep watching because you'll find out what more they do here at busy bee to attract retain customers from coming here walking through the door and more so keep watching in terms of startup costs for this location this is your one another location right this is my one the first one and so far the only one yeah and even though some people steal my name that's okay rip off and duplicate i guess yeah like do what you do you can't beat me though let's talk about costs like if somebody watching this is ready they've got the license and they're not looking at bernard like okay let me learn from him and see what what did he do to get this open what did it cost for you to start this location i presume that you don't own the building so you lease i do lease the building so what did it cost you to get this up and running well it'll just give just be flat on it man it's like it's up it's all about the chairs like you know i mean each chair calls like from 900 to 2 300 dollars my channel is 2 300 each so that's times five then all the mirrors cost seven hundred dollars each give me a total number total number i would say yeah about 15 grand 15 000 15 15 grand in you you're in business but to run a successful business like you only charge 150 dollars to start up right in the neighborhood so i don't have to do this i can just rent a chair and i guess we'll dive in later in the interview in terms of the different chairs yes and you don't have to bring anything but your clippers i take care of everything on the back bar okay right so any anything on the back bar provided i don't provide like you know barberside towels and that kind of things but if you want to have certain product that's what you know you bring that yourself i need a little bit of fade okay do you mind cleaning me up making me look sharper a little bit all right how quickly bernard did you break even uh on your business with the money you put in uh another great question about five years so with the schooling costs the startup cost here took you about five years to recoup all that so yeah so for the schooling cost the great thing about the schooling cost because i was a military so i had the va i had the va that actually helped me out for the schooling i mean of course i got financial aid but the veterans i still had uh part of my veterans being on wow yes after i finished college at the toil i was able to go 12 months after i finished college i was able to go 11 months actually still on my v8 so i only did two months where the financial aid stuff really helped me out and stuff so for those that don't have money i mean how do they do you know of any options to finance and start up a smaller barber shop at least start somewhere what would your advice suggestions be there well um you can get loans man you get loans from different banks if they allow if they let you like an sba loan small business yes yep sba loans i had a company uh sba group that actually helped me um during the pandemic yeah i'm so sure um so yeah you can you can get an sba loan to start like you know i went to the sba community and got a template from those guys when i first started [Music] brad how did you generate buzz when you first opened to get customers through the door what did you do word of mouth that's it yup that's it does it cost you anything no it's free and uh you know and i had this little program i did when i did network marketing it's called armed and dangerous so dangerous arms and dangers so what me and my barbers would do we would get 25 to 50 cards and we will go out in town and you give them out until you get 25 of them out and you tell the guys and stuff hey check this out man if you bring four people in five people in i'll give you a free haircut i'll give you five dollars off the haircut and that worked beautiful okay no nothing else to it did you spend money on instagram facebook well that wasn't whatever it is social media wasn't that big at that time i mean you're saying basically when you when you first opened up uh handing out cards and word of mouth is the best way to get people through the door well handing out cards word of mouth is the best thing you have to always understand people are going to judge you a lot of time a referral is strong man if you go out and tell a little person like hey man i got a great haircut from this person it's going to go a long way right right it's almost like referring a movie or something like that right i mean some people are gonna check a movie out super important yeah in your industry it's very important and then you know the way you carry yourself i mean it's your energy and stuff right you mean i like to have the energy that you know i'm receptive to everyone that walk in my door all right so i mean you do a good job and you have a good personality beside that you're gonna do great regardless let's talk about the challenges that you face right now as a barber shop owner what did you face as far as getting up and going and new clients and so on just being being disciplined man being started like i'm on a mission then so i mean as far as for myself as i was asking a buddy of mine like was there anything that would have stopped you from being successful no there's nothing that stopped me so the challenge challenges that i always had and i think most people still have right now today especially after the pandemic it's just having people that's accountable having workers that you can count on right i mean for instance like there's five chairs in this shop and stuff and there's usually three or four of us in here right so as far as having people that's consistent accountable you know they're going to be there i see like you know i mean that's not just barbering industry a lot of industries are hurting like that right now i mean as far as accountability is strong like do you mean if they rent your chair you better kind of be here and and use it well i don't know i don't i don't i don't really do that i don't think if uh if you're behind the chair you're paying you you pay rent if you're not then you can't make money if you're not behind the chair so right you have to well we have got to show up you have to show up but as far as my my thing has always been being able to have the amount of people you'll be here like you know if you get 45 people coming in the door you only have two people working yeah you're gonna turn a lot of people around and stuff right i mean and just to have the personnel and then just not just that you have a personality also you need to have a great personality make a person you know you have to uh have some type of retention and stuff right so if you don't have a good personality to give a good haircut person might not come back right so you know we was before the pandemic it was a predominantly walk-in barbershop only um people loved it but they know that if you get here eight or nine in the morning you may not get out of here the one but one o'clock two o'clock in the afternoon so that became a major thing so after we after the pandemic we switched over to appointments mostly by the government it made us do it and a lot of a lot of my guys love appointments only because they don't have to sit here pl number one i talk a lot so everybody know that [Music] what's your average revenue for the shop here bernard just on on average per month probably about 9 000 probably more nine to 10k a month yeah i would say is that on uh the small side compared to other barbers or kind of average medium what's the on the small size smaller oh what is the fact that i we don't have i don't have my chairs filled up all the time like no it's like full time as you would need him and another young lady so if it was if it was every day operating and stuff yeah each of these chairs yes it would definitely bring in more revenue i always enjoy a good barber experience you know it's just chill come out better looking than you came in so some so many people it's about how many people they can get in in the in a day to make money for me it's about doing a good haircut yes consistency and you're going to get faster and all that stuff is going to it's going to grow like if you're trying to worry about like i'm going to get a thousand haircuts a day because i want to make this much money you don't really care about the client man let's be honest about it right you know yeah you want the paycheck absolutely yeah yeah it's more about your pocket than but like from for us and so i want the experience to be great i want your haircut to look great i want you to walk out the door i want people to say my goodness that looks great i mean where did you get it done at what kind of customer service mistakes you think other businesses make that you can just highlight we're not trying to bring anyone down we're just trying to identify mistakes people can make and avoid them so what comes to mind i would say not being consistent man not being consistent in your project uh maintaining that same self-awareness maintain that same respect when people come in your shop i mean every time someone come into your shop you should have the same receptive receptiveness i remember that one guy said to me he's a man of what make it great for him is that he remember people to name yeah when a person walks in the door they like you remember the name and they want to be respected they want to feel like i'm very part of this yes right what do you struggle with the most as a business owner right now that's a strong thing man me nothing because i'm a mole i'm i love it i'm motivated i let my struggles be my motivation and innovation to go forward anytime i'm looking for something to motivate me i think of where i come from right i think about my struggles with my past where i come from right and that's the energy to move forward and stuff right i mean you meet great people on the way up it's double that for sure you guys if you're enjoying this video take a second like the video we would greatly appreciate that yes please like the video show us the must-have equipment i mean it seems like you guys have more than you need yes but for somebody watching what can they start with when they rent a chair so two or three pieces i would definitely say start with for t edger this is the do a nice outline so many people try to use this the balding and stuff but this is good for outlining and getting sharp lines all right that's one what does that cost approximately this is roughly about a hundred dollars okay um of course ninja shears um a variety of shears you're not that variety texturizing shears would be great for some people that you know like to blend with different hair texture what is this kind of stuff that you think the shares would add up to just good cheers 250 yeah wow yes for barbering um this is a two-speed some people prefer to use the andes and stuff i use i use the two speed what's the advantage because it's two levels and number one bomb then i can go fast or slow and then i use detachable blades that's pretty easy um the reason i use detachable blade because i feel like you give a cleaner cut right um what would that cost bernard this clipper right here cost 225 these right here these blades roughly about twenty three to fifty dollars each okay so in terms of must-have equipments you're really looking at to start with you're looking at what it sounds like under a thousand bucks even less maybe less so 200 200 250. you have one you have this right here this is called the fast feet right and then you have a t edger right these are the three these are the three blades if i was in the star to shop up with not specifically these three clippers that's the three these are the three styles i would start with someone for fast feed i was told for two speed or anges or oscar or you can get a bob list right and then the t address of the must and then your clippers okay i mean your shares and stuff so you graduated cosmetology school in what 2004 you mentioned it was about 2004 when i graduated from bellingham beauty school where it was called at the time is that a must-have to start a barbershop like do you need to have it or what are the benefits of actually going through the schooling process i would say yes it is a process because you learn a lot about cosmetology a lot of people think it's about just getting in on the shop having clippers and cutting hair but there's a lot of other things that go along with it i mean i mean there's a lot of big words and stuff that go and it's not it's about having the analogy of the body can you legally start a barbershop do you know or you have you can go to school you don't have to have a license to start a shop you can own but you can't cut oh i didn't know that okay so i could be the owner of business unless you have a license okay that's interesting and i'm actually a cosmetologist so i do barbering and uh stylish style right okay i color lady's hair i cut lady's hair and i do haircuts well right now we're gonna go inside and show you guys how bernard set up his barber shop yes now i go here so i'm gonna say such a cool vibe here you got a lot of history and artifacts i would think right yes you got your products why don't you give us a quick overlook on how you set this up and why why this particular way number one i i said i wanted to be like where i grew up at like you know i mean very inviting for people and stuff right i want to shop that people from all walks of life feel very comfortable coming in like you know we can expound about you know a lot of things that the people haven't been exposed to right right you know i mean for so for myself growing up in atlanta being brought up around another another culture i mean being going to the military i've been to quite a few countries and stuff in the military and stuff so when i came here and i decided to open this shop up i wanted it to represent me my culture so i know i mean i wanted to express that an expression of me like so this came from kenya client gave it to me oh wow this is from ethiopia your client gave it to me a buddy of mine so it's not just stuff that was made here sort of about that code this stuff is actually from this country yes yes the guy that gave me this his parents still live in the map of africa it's actually it's from a piece of cloth his parents still live in kenya right now [Music] let's ask about advertising do you spend any per month and if so what platforms and how much are you spending in total man that varies i just recently did this grocery buggy advertisement how much did it cost you roughly about 650 for that per month no only one time okay i don't really do that per monthly stuff man because i mean you have to look at it like this if you go out and you advertise the place like say if i advertise at western washington university and i pay just a rough amount i pay sixteen hundred dollars for advertisement well if it's not bringing sixteen hundred dollars in the doors it's a waste of a night let's cover the cost absolutely so you need to know you need to be able to cover the cost something something that i did was great was i advertising golf courses mm-hmm right and a lot of guys play golf right one time one time as well and then i paid about four roughly about 450 500 to do that um what advertisement options are the best for barbers i mean for you you know your experience for example what do you think what about this word of mouth you're keeping it old school and classic i like it did you finance your investment into this business or where did that come from what can you share on that i actually borrowed money from myself um yes so you had some assets i had some assets i i had i was actually working at another shop i pretty much saved all my tips when i started up here i was able to take you know i was able to borrow money for myself and then open the shop up you know domestical amount of stuff right i just got what i needed from the at first like you know this floor i put this floor in myself you know for those watching really the purpose here is to understand how to run and operate so i'm just listening to you and realizing that you don't necessarily have to start your own barbershop right away right i mean what would be the best evolution say for me to end up where you are today the very first evolution i would say learn how to cut hair properly right go to school go to school learn and learn the industry some people get out of barbering and they think because they have a pair of clippers they're the best things that are not being cut far from it yeah right yes yeah absolutely and we have to give respect to like you know mean other people that's been in the industry for a long time which we've been cutting for a long time and still don't know how to cut really good would you say this is more of an art possibly or can be absolutely absolutely this isn't it's not [Music] tell me about your monthly overhead what's the most expensive or the cost to operate monthly what are you spending it out on mostly uh roughly about 3 000 probably a little bit more what's your lease here my lease is about 1500. all right and then
where's the rest go in terms of monthly expenses the other 1500 well between the this is like necessities you have television tv toilet paper just like phone service you know what i mean like just this minuscule stuff that you know on the add-in that you don't really think about i mean like you know on a regular basis let me i provide water but i charge for it a dollar and stuff right so different things man any kind of maintenance any kind of upkeep and stuff i have to take care of it on the inside and stuff right no they don't take they don't do it i do it myself [Music] all right we're we're improvising here we're going to do blitz with bernard blitz uh bernard quick short answers uh some of it from our fans adrian walker asks how important is conversation with customers for retention so they don't go elsewhere you know the conversations that we mentioned are great man i think are they important though to retain they're not no they're not important because some people don't want to talk right some people don't want to talk he likes to do something funny man people that wanted to converse i would converse and then people that didn't i would do a quiet cut which is like a lot of people that know me know that that's almost impossible almost for me to do but like it was always it was always funny man like you know me because some guys want to be in and out they don't want to really get no you have to respect that yes i have had a goddess of men you and your other buddies man you guys always chopping it up when you cut the hair what i mean it's like all right man okay bobby white asks what is the average time per customer a cut time probably i mean on the average cut man about 45 minutes i mean that wasn't that's why i'm running my mouth the whole time or not next question aso aso asks is barber school enough no the reason barbecue barber school isn't enough because you're not gonna see all the people that come into a barber school that you're going to see coming to your shop okay this one's from daniel why did you charge so much for a razor fade razor fade here only costs the same as a regular haircut so i don't know what that's not a lot right no a razor a haircut a regular cut is 25 and if you did if you wanted to put a razor on the side i would charge you 25 dollars so i don't really know what daniel's going with that yeah i don't know if he felt like he's okay people that charge more that does raise the fates and stuff reason they charge more because it's not as easy to fade the line out right so they're compensating for the amount of time it takes that's fair to me yeah it might it might take hour ten minute hour and 20 minutes to fade your line out if you don't know how to fade it out [Music] what's one thing you wish you knew before you started this business that you know now one thing i wish i knew before i started this business before that i know now do it earlier mm-hmm that's it that's it man man you you feel like you waited around too much waiting around way too long to start i mean you know i mean um it's a good tip you guys don't wait around no i mean i mean so so many times then we doubt ourselves right and i was working for other places and other things like i mean we let fear a lot of time keep us back from doing things so i mean just quickly man this is just like to take advantage and do it right now i mean do it sometimes you wait as my wife my mom used to say weight is what broke the wagon don't break the wagon don't break the wagon [Music] how often do you have somebody that's not really happy with a haircut and what would your advice be on how to just resolve that situation um not often at all but anytime a person have any kind of complaints the easiest quickest thing to do man is just resolve it if a person said hey man i wanted a little oil right there do you think it has a piece of hair right there just take care of it take care of it even if you know that you don't see any hair yeah it's quicker to go over that that spot and make them happy than argue about it everything's about customer service all it's always man customers you know it's customer service and stuff and and be receptive to it right you mean you don't have to be rude about it it's only about two or three seconds or so i mean think about it you're pleasing the client or you're losing the client right you're pleasing a client or losing a client guys if you want more advice on customer service and running a business check out uplift.com forward slash newsletter so that you can get that advice straight in your inbox do you have employees obviously you can but how are you set up do you have employees or contractors contractors let's highlight some of the important things between that relationship like how's that set up first of all so the way that it's set up um my my barbers and stylists that work here they rental chair out for forty dollars a day roughly okay um and they can bring as much as they want in um they pay me 40 in the register or on the put on the register they just pay me at the end of the week do you share with their tips or they take everything they keep all their you just keep the 40. i just take 40 dollars right i mean like james he used to register also when he he bring his haircuts over under the register but at the end of the week yeah we pay out weekly so he get paid out weekly i mean what's the upside or benefit uh for having contractors versus hiring and having an employee awesome or this doesn't work like that no like it does it doesn't incentivize there is um i feel like the incentive of working having employees and stuff uh i mean contractors over employees so employees you have to have l and i you have to maintain yeah more expensive yeah labor and industry you have all that so as a contractor like pretty much they pretty much do their own taxes i just give them a 10.99 and they take care of their own stuff right so i don't have to wait i don't have to babysit as much but you don't have to babysit as much or they're on their own yeah pretty much essentially yeah right [Music] when you're choosing a location what advice can you give our viewers who are thinking of jumping in before they decide on a location well that's a good question and be honest with you because location is everything however if you're a great barber and you you're good at what you do yeah once you can't once you get a name in the community and people love what you do it really doesn't matter where you're at but i will i will still say location location location is prominent because you want something easily accessible you don't mean to get to you don't want to be a danger to get to i actually lived here uh yeah for many years i never knew there was a busy business until i googled i'm like oh yeah let me go check this place out once i came here i mean look look at this man it's a beautiful location right here you know like in the good day you can see the mountain right there i thought it was great give us a quick snippet on certifications inspections licenses that you need to have as a barber shop we need a cosmetology license a shop license every year to every two years you have to keep them re-certified if you're going to sell products you have to have a city for taxes and stuff you're selling products of course you have to have a state license and things right if you do any kind of certification like straightening like me i have a certification for doing straightenings so nice i know yeah for brazilian blowouts and cheese you have to have certificates for that kind of stuff for special kind of work but for color and all that you don't have to have a light i mean that's a part of your license right [Music] tell me about this like how much percentage of your business or revenue is what's on this wall it's pretty small right that's very small beyond the software so why have it here and well because people like you know for a person if a person's in here and they're looking for something they don't have to go to the mall they don't have to go to salaries they don't have to go to beauty's convenience they can get it right here it's more convenient just to pick it up right here what do you sell most of would you say when jails you got the bunch of jealousy i see you guys your own branded stuff too about that i have this is a deep tissue rub um here deep tissue rub a deep tissue rub also give it to the camera absolutely and then these are this this is a beard bomb i'll make make the beer by myself that smells pretty good mm-hmm and then this is a beard oil so even though it doesn't bring in a huge amount of revenue for you um it's kind of cool that you still you know get to have your own products branded absolutely absolutely and i love making my own products man you know i mean you go together and you know put your little stuff together and when people get it enough the feedback is amazing and stuff i like that even more like oh man this is great um also an older gentleman that i gave some of this man smell that yeah it's pretty good i like it yeah cool that is awesome appreciate the gift [Music] what about your ratio of recurring clients versus new clients what would you say that is 80 20 for new or 50 50.
about 50 50 or let's say really all right yes i would say 60 40 in a lot of perspective because 60 percent of people that's here still come here 40 percent people that move to the community shop they'll come in also because people are always like they'll go to three or four shops and they find one right right you know what i mean and that's like oh i've been to every shop in town man and then i came here or they i've been here then i went to other shops i came back right so it's just the same thing i would say with the university also once again you get a lot of people coming here plus bellingham is a fast-growing city there's like 4 000 people coming here a year now yep you know so all right so 50 50 not a bad ratio let's head over to your office i mean if it's official or not i want to show your audience kind of whether it's worth showing or not makeshift you call it a makeshift all right well here we go not much to see but uh you don't do much out of here no i don't that's you know studying and stuff we don't put stuff in we pretty much study we do almost all paperwork um we have a printer over there and when we need you know print paper work out or if i'm you know bragging about something i want to share i can print it out right here james used it for his as far as no miss my little it's my wife and my daughter's office and stuff right so right they come in here and do paperwork and stuff when they're here my my daughter does homework in here i do i do on work when i want some quiet time and just want to kick back and i get tired i want to fall asleep out there i'll go in there [Music] bernard tell us a quick story on the name busy bee and where do you see yourself in five years as a business owner so the name busy bee actually came from a car wash back home when i was young growing up and there's actually a restaurant called the bisbee cafe in atlanta so what happens is you help people from all walks of life come to both of these places and then like you know it's a receptive place so i wanted to create that kind of culture here five years from now man i want to actually own a building i want to be able to um have do do this i want to be able to share most of my skills and with other people after i open a building and stuff and just do more things than like no other than barbering i'm just i'll do this because i want to i love barbering man this so this is like something i would do if i didn't if i wasn't getting paid for it right honestly like because i love this deal i love new people that's why i see myself more successful than i am today uh opening and hopefully still doing the same thing cool well this was awesome bernard thank you thank you so much well that's a wrap i hope you guys enjoyed this interview with bernard the owner of busy bee here in bellingham washington incredible service here incredible love for the industry from bernard and everybody that works with him you guys take a second to like subscribe and hit that bell and make sure you check out our other interview that we've done with maxwell the owner of narrative coffee makes over 80 000 a month i trust you guys will enjoy that as well and thank you for watching
2022-07-22 01:15
