At MODERN SALON, we are celebrating 100 years in 2024, and for 100 years, we have been supporting hairstylists at every stage of their career.  An ongoing area of concern from creatives is financial management and how to make more, build wealth, and develop a sustainable career. 

To continue our focus on financial literacy, we are sharing this video podcast interview, in which MODERN SALON's Anne Moratto joins Cash Lawless, a former celebrity hairstylist (who counted Justin Bieber and Kylie Jenner among his clientele) turned entrepreneur and investor, to cover topics ranging from financial anxiety, business clarity, self-worth, and life partners...and all these topics are interlinked, as you'll hear. 

Below are the questions that jump-started this conversation. 

QUESTIONS FOR CASH

I wanted to jump start the interview by talking about some of the things you touch on, frequently. For instance, you talk about eliminating financial anxiety.  Because we know that anxiety contributes to muddled thinking, to poor decision making, it’s so important to look at this.  What do you think are some of the things we’ve told ourselves that might get in the way of developing a good relationship with money and with our finances?

Along these same lines, you have a class with the title, “Gaining Business Clarity.”  What gets in the way of clarity?

I loved something I heard you say onstage; that the pandemic in our industry is insecurity. Do you think hairstylists are evolving in their self-evaluation and starting to value themselves more? Or do you think we still have a ways to go?  And, if so, how is that lack of self-worth tied to a lack of financial clarity?

There’s a proverb that says: ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”  So often when you hear from any wildly successful person in the world about how they did it, they acknowledge the people in their life who supported them along the way.  Why do you think it’s important to have the right partners and people in your life—and how do you find and identify them?

We just did a webinar on pricing services, and we spoke with salon owners in three different locations—NY, LA, and Salt Lake City.  They each function differently as owners and artists, but they all agreed that beauty professionals have to stay out of their client’s wallets.  I have a theory that because beauty professionals tend to be empathetic people, they might have a harder time setting prices without worrying it’s a hardship for their clients.  Why do YOU think it’s so hard to raise prices without apology?

You wrote in an IG caption: “Wealthy people don't really have to struggle with making daily decisions with money, because they have already decided what happens to their money.”  What are some of those decisions they’ve made that you think beauty professionals should also consider making?  

At MODERN SALON, we try to speak to beauty professionals working in every type of environment—in a commission-based salon, in a solo suite, in a hybrid salon, as an editorial or mobile artist, etc. –because we know models of working will continue to change. Do you have any predictions of what is coming next? More independents?  More hybrid?