- CEO Story: Anna’s dream was to start her own business. Pursuing it by studying Cosmetology blended with so much passion for customer service, 77 Barbershop was born with the mission to genuinely care for their customers.
- Business Service: Grooming for men. Knowing the details of each customer’s face to apply the best skill they are good at.
- Secret Sauce: Take pride in what you do. Show your customers that you care.
- CEO Hack: There’s always room for improvement. Getting honest feedback from customers.
- CEO Nugget: Be patient, take your time don’t rush.
- CEO Defined: What you put in, is what you harvest. Tough job but very rewarding.
Facebook: 77barbershop
Instagram: sevensevenbarbershop
Twitter: SEVENSEVENBARBERSHOP
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Transcription
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00:25 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
00:43- Gresham Harkless
Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Anna Wholet of 77 Barbershop. Anna, it's great to have you on the show.
00:52 – Anna Houlette
Hi, Gretchen, how are you doing? Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it.
00:56. – Gresham Harkless
Yes, appreciate you as well too, for taking some time out and all the awesome things that you're doing. Before we jumped into hearing about all that, I wanted to read a little more about Anna so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And she is an immigrant from Peru with over 35 years of experience in customer service. Initiated her career eight years ago when she decided to start cosmetology school left her full-time job and decided to start a new career.
And after five years of mastering her dream, she decided to start her own business. With the help of her family and friends, she rebuilt the men's grooming industry and opened 77 barbershops. An old barbershop filled with a modern view and a focus only on making the experience their best every time. Anna, super excited to have you on the show and all the things that you're doing. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
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01:41- Anna Houlette
Yes, absolutely. I'm ready for it.
01:43 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Well, let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit and hear a little bit more about how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
01:51 – Anna Houlette
So I immigrate from Latin America to Europe, where I live in England for a while. Then I got married, moved to the United States, and worked, you know, with my family. At the time, I pretty much did everything and I focused and concentrated on customer service. So I have a very heavy background in customer service. That's something that I love to do. I work for an international hotel branch but there was always something on me that I was missing. So when I went through my divorce at a time with my previous marriage, I didn't. I felt like there was something that I needed to do.
It is always me, my dream to have my own business. Why don't I go ahead and do cosmetology? And I said, okay, well, let's go ahead and do it. And I did. I went through my whole year. I ended up earning so many credits that I graduated earlier because I was so focused on getting to know the industry, which is mainly serving people. You know, it's a service industry. So the school that I went to, Paul Mitchell, back in Oklahoma, which is the state that I was living at, taught me a lot. I mean, I was top class dean list. I had done a lot of things. I was able.
Thankfully, I had never thought about going into men's grooming, because there's not something well-known in that industry. It's something different. It's something that you have to learn separately from what you do. So once I graduated, I decided to open my own business to say, I went to cosmetology school. This is what everybody does. So with the help of my husband, we ended up opening a studio, which I had a few girls that I graduated with working with me at the time. I ended up landing a job with a barber who got into a clipper. I could not stop.
And it's been seven years since I have been doing this. And it gets to the point that my team that I work with right now, they keep telling me, you know, how much, you know, it's like my clipper. I have to have the latest one, the best one because it's like a car to me. So. And that's how I ended up doing this. I wanted to go ahead and tell everybody that this is not what it was done 100 years ago or 50, even. Even though 20 years ago, the industry has been a welcome woman into this, we need to give them credit. So that, I guess, is something that we getting it.
And that's what I try to promote with cosmetology, especially with not everybody. I tell once you get the license, your cosmetology license, they want to go ahead and move and learn more. They wanted to open up. It's like a book that with many, many pages that you will be able to fill it in. So that's how I started as the passion that I had, and I tried to transmit that to everybody who works for me. So I've been blessed to have an amazing team. I'm blessed to have girls that are honestly half my age. They are so amazing and so good at this. And they want more.
They want not just to be considered in this little square box. They want to move. They want to keep going. They want to create, and that does not. It's not easy to find, so. But also, it's a combination. I always tell people, I can show you skills, but I don't. I cannot build a personality. So you have to match both to be able to work in this industry. So that's how I started.
05:25 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. Well, I appreciate you sharing that and especially, like, hearing and how you work with your clients and how you serve them. I almost feel like we sometimes forget. Like, I feel like being. And having good customer service is sometimes being excellent at your craft and learning your craft. So I love to hear, like, the progression of how you kind of sharpen the saw and wanted to kind of go full in and learn everything you could learn. And, like, you. You have that. That metaphor that you love so much, and the passion you could hear and everything that you're doing that they're like cars, and, you know, which one's the Mustang, which one's the Tesla, which ones might be the beater?
The beater car, and as well, too. And everything in between. But I love how that passion kind of reigns through and how you work with your clients. So I know you touched on a little bit how you serve your clients, and I think you might have to touch on your secret sauce as well, too. Do you think your secret sauce and how you serve clients is that you have that cosmetology background and you're kind of approaching it from a different, unique way than other people might be?
06:17 – Anna Houlette
Yes. And the reason why I said this is because I tried to explain it better by saying, you know, you have is whenever you know your skills very well, that you know what? It will work for everybody. It's the same thing when you have to learn about makeup. It's the same thing when you have to learn how to do a perm or anything like that. You need to know your environment to be able to know how to process things, how to process color, and how to do highlights is the same thing in this industry. You have to know the shape of the face. You need to know what works better for you.
And I tried to pass that to them, and they say you have to take prior what you do, and there will be good days and there will be bad days. That's. But mainly, you need to show the person who sits on you. Because that's what, makes us different. Because every time somebody sits on your chair, show them that you care. Do not show them that it is another person on your chair, show them that you care. And that's what we do. We care about it. One of the things that I built this business on is about caring. It doesn't matter how much it costs me.
It doesn't matter as long as they know that when they walk into the door, they know that we will take care of them. And they walk out thinking, oh, my God, this is the best experience I ever had. And that's how we are. Five stars.
07:33 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I love that, and I appreciate that so much. And I think there's a quote that says, people don't care how much, you know, see, they know how much you care. And that caring is such a, you know, huge part. And then I think even Martin Luther King has a quote, too, where he talks about no matter what you're called to do, even if it's being like a street sweeper, your street, you sweep those streets better than anybody else.
And I think we all have gifts, passions, and if we, like, have pride, I love that word, pride in what you do, because sometimes that can get lost in, quote, unquote, trying to make a buck, trying to build a business, trying to reach all those goals, but having pride in what it is that you do so that every time you have that. That ownership and that kind of caring, you know, approach to what it is that you're, you know, you're trying to execute for the clients that you work with. So. Appreciate that.
So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO Hackley. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
08:26 – Anna Houlette
So I love it when people tell me how good I am, and I always tell them, I cannot be this good. I have to always. There is always room for improvement. I don't care what it is. I don't know, is this smaller? It's big. But there is always room for improvement. Because if I believe that I'm good all the time, then my head gets bigger and I forget about everything else. So I always tell myself what I do wrong so I won't do it again. That's the only way. By having feedback, and by being open. All my customers, whenever they come in and they get the service, I'd survey and say, there is anything you can do to make this even better than what it is, let me know.
And they are 100% down. They always send me an email saying, hey, you are the best, but you can do this better. Perfect. And I do not punish people for doing things wrong because everybody had a good day and a bad day. But I always said, listen to what they're telling you so you can understand what you're missing, so you can be the best of the best. That's how we can get there.
09:24 – Gresham Harkless
Yes. I love that. And I think I love that you said, you know, asking for feedback, but also being open to it. You know, I always like to say, be better than you were yesterday. If you're able to do that and continue to do that, then, you know, over time, you'll be, you know, really excellent at your craft. So I love that.
09:38 – Anna Houlette
Exactly.
09:39 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a little bit more of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell who you're younger business self.
09:51 – Anna Houlette
So I will tell myself, be patient. I will say, just if it means to be meant to be. So just take your time. Don't rush. Sometimes we can rush thinking that's the best decision because we want to have something right away, and it lasts only a few seconds. And then, you know, you have to deal with the consequences of your act. So if I have, if I have to tell something myself, will just be patient, because I'm not a patient person at all. I have to have somebody to pinch me a little bit. Okay, calm down and slow down. You're going too fast just to slow down, you know.
10:27 – Gresham Harkless
Well, if you see my younger business self, make sure you pinch him, too, because I, too, kind of struggle with that. I think anybody that has that ambition and has that desire to be at a certain place, sometimes you can lose, you know, you just lose that patience. You want to kind of, you know, work in and make that happen. And sometimes that could be a double-edged sword. It could be a great thing. It could be a not-so-great thing at times.
But being patient is one of the things we have to remind ourselves of, you know, embracing the journey that we're on. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition, of what it means to be a CEO. We're hoping to have different, quote-unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Anna, what does being a CEO mean to you?
10:59 – Anna Houlette
Is it stressful, very time-consuming, and very tiring? But it's not a bad thing. It is. Reality is not simple, it's not easy, but also shows that you care because a CEO is not somebody who only gives orders. You know, it's like, well, what you got? You? I paid you for these. This is what you need to do. And it's not about that. I worked with somebody for over twelve years, who was a few years older than me, but wasn't even a lot. And is my mentor because she was my manager and she always tells me, to put myself in their shoes. That's the only way you will learn and then people will be loyal to you if you understand them.
And that's my motto every single day. If I wanted to be a CEO, I have to be a leader. It's something that I struggled with at the beginning because you are an employee before you are CEO, so you follow orders. So it was hard for me to stop being an employee, to be a CEO. So I understood that it was stressful. Yes, because I care about my people, I care about my employees, I care about my business, I care about that on top of everything, everybody is happy and they love what they do because that's the only way they're going to become loyal to you, that the only way they're going to follow you, they're going to be.
You have to lead them. I might have been doing something good, that we are growing, right? Because if you're not doing something good, that means that you should be going up. But no, we're growing. I have more people and I feel proud that people are looking for me now to work for me before you. Just to be the other way. Just to be like begging, please come and work for me because they didn't know who I was. So finally I'm building that. Finally people are seeing me as a role model. And that's what I always wanted to see, that there is light at the end of the tunnel because sometimes they think, oh, my God, this is another job, this is another, you know, pay. But I don't want them to see that. So that's what I will say. That's what it means to be a CEO.
13:05 – Gresham Harkless
I love that. And I love it because it gives a realistic look. And I think it sounds like even when you bring somebody else onto your team, you're trying to make sure that it's a good match for them. So that it's a win win win scenario. And I think even, you know, being a CEO, being an entrepreneur, business owner, starting a business, whatever, and however we call it so many times, people will skip over those three words. They don't hear the stressful, they don't, they don't hear that sometimes 24/7 how time-consuming it is and just all those different aspects.
So I think it's so important that definition because it gives a realistic look at what it is. And I think that's when you start to lean into how passionate are you about it. Because if you are passionate, you start to make that impact. It becomes worthwhile to make those sacrifices because you are making that impact to such a high and impactful degree.
13:50 – Anna Houlette
Absolutely. I mean, it's not simple, it's not easy, but I think every type of every kind of job, even if it's, you know, an employee, even a CEO, or even if you own the business in an accountant, any type of job is stressful. So it will be on our side. It will be difficult not to say that it's not as stressful because it's telling us, ourselves lies that we might end up regretting later. So, you know, you have to come with your wide, your eyes wide open to be able to conquer front and, and see what you're doing, to be able to understand that, you know, this is a struggle, but before or after the storm is the cone.
So we will get that. You have, like I said, you have to put in what you're going to harvest later. So it takes time and it took me two years right now and I still, until the point right now that I'm still stressing out, but that's my job, that's what I own. This, this is my, my sense, this is my essence. Sorry, this is my essence. This is what I wanted. So if I want something, I have to give it out to be able for them to be able to understand where I came from. So it's a tough job, but I'm up to it. I'm not giving up.
14:57 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I love and appreciate that. And I think, you know, sometimes we forget it's always darkest before dawn. That's one of the quotes that I always tell myself when you're going through those difficult times. But I think, again, if you understand the journey, you understand it's not going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time. There are going to be some less-than-ideal times. And if you get through those, then you'll have some higher peaks and valleys and things like that.
So truly appreciate that definition. I, of course, appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is just pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get ahold of you and your team and find about all the awesome things you all are working on.
15:33 – Anna Houlette
Well, I'm taking the hat off and I'm trying to do as much, as much as I can. But we're all on Facebook, Twitter, we are on Instagram. We have Snapchat, we have everything that you can think about it. We do it. If I'm wrong, I'm saying this. I think it's seven, seven barbershops. I think all the social media and our website are www.staffordhurcat.com and all our information is there if you can contact us directly, you can download the app.
16:00 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I appreciate that. To make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes too, so that everybody can click through and find out about all the awesome things you're doing. Appreciate you providing us with some value as well today and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:12 – Anna Houlette
You too as well. Thank you.
16:14 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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