How To Balance Life As A #MomBoss

It’s easy to see someone who’s thriving in their career and attribute it to luck. But no one got where they are, especially as an independent salon owner, without hard work, dedication and most importantly, effective systems to help them succeed.

Kelsey Morris, owner of Studio K Salon in Columbus, Ohio, is one of our 2019 Faces of Sola, a GlossGenius Ambassador, a Sunlights Balayage Educator and most importantly, a mom. Sola has provided her the unique freedom and flexibility to be both a stay-at-home mom and a successful business owner. How does she balance it all? She has developed strategies to help her work smarter not harder.

Check out Kelsey’s tips below to help you develop systems to thrive in every area of your life.

Take Control

Before becoming a hairdresser, Kelsey graduated from college with a degree in criminology. It was her parents who felt so strongly about her going to college and getting a degree, not Kelsey. After she graduated, she took back control of her path and enrolled in beauty school. It was something SHE wanted for herself.  She grabbed that beauty bull by its horns and got to work, mind you with a newborn in tow!

Stay Focused

It’s undeniably hard not to get wrapped up in the “what if’s” of entrepreneurship and life.

“What if I fail?”

“What if no one comes?”

“What if this isn’t the right thing for me?”

If you have established goals and a plan to support them, these “what if’s?” essentially turn into “what happens?”

“What happens if I fail?” You come up with a plan for that and a system to prevent it from happening. And guess what? If it happens, it happens. You will be okay.

Overcome Obstacles

You’re going hit some roadblocks. Kelsey sure did. When roadblocks present themselves, whether it’s in your career or your personal life, you have a choice to make. You can let the obstacles take over or you can use them to help you grow.

Back in 2008, Kelsey’s younger sister was killed in a car accident. As she says, “It completely changed my view on life and the person that I wanted to be. It reminded me that that life is short and you have to work hard. I can really relate with other people better and I'm more passionate and caring. Her death actually made me a better person. It has taken a lot of work and it made me figure out how to take a situation and grow from it. I started to look at life differently and started to grow; it actually made me stronger.”

Her sister’s silhouette is now the logo for her salon and the first thing she sees when she walks in the door every day. It reminds her of her strength and pushes her to pursue a career that would make her sister proud.

Define Success for YOURSELF

What does success look like for you? Is it having 300 clients and being booked out for a year with zero debt and having 20 uninterrupted minutes of morning meditation? Great, but remember, it’s not the same definition of success for the person renting a studio next to you, and that’s okay. Success and the defining components of it are personal and should always remain fluid. Your idea and goal of success may change next year or 5 years down the road, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, just as long as your plans to achieve it also adjust.

Embrace Technology

You wear many hats as a business owner and while the age of robots used to be limited to sci-fi movies, we now live in an era where technology can help us achieve so much more than we could on our own.

You’ve probably heard us talk about a little app called SolaGenius. Maybe you already use it to help build, manage and run your business. Kelsey was one of the first people to embrace our new salon management technology and immediately fell in love, quickly learning its many features, like client management, marketing tools, online booking, and analytics and reporting. Her success with the text and email marketing component was so impressive that we featured her in a blog post all about it over two years ago!

“In the salon, my assistant Ciera and I have a couple of apps we love to use,” she explains. “Plann allows me to lay out my Instagram posts and see my page as it will look before I post a new picture.  This is key when planning for a cohesive page. Snapseed is the best photo editor I have found. It allows you to target shadows in one specific spot of a photo instead of brightening an entire picture. It is amazing,

“To keep on time in the salon, we use Alexa,” she adds. “I set all my timers on Alexa and she keeps me on the straight and narrow.”

Be Proactive

“Setting goals has been an important task when building my career,” Kelsey says. “Often, goals are set and not accomplished because there is not a plan in place to achieve them. I’m a list maker. When I write that goal on my list (literally in the list app on my phone) I immediately start planning the details. I try to set daily, weekly and monthly goals. This makes it less overwhelming and more likely to be successful. Don’t stress over the big picture, instead go day-by-day, item-by-item, and check them off your list!”

Imagine your success is like a game of chess, and your opponent is…time. Are you going to let time get the best of you or will you be the one saying, “Checkmate.”