How I Built My Dream Beauty Business (Without Constantly Hustling)

Feeling burned out as a hairstylist? You’re not alone.

In this episode, I’m sharing exactly how I built my dream beauty business without constantly hustling—using my signature method, the Cycle of Success.

This is the 7-step framework I used to rebuild my business from burnout to aligned freedom… and the same system I’ve now guided hundreds of stylists through inside Stylist Soul Tribe.

If you’ve ever felt fully booked but secretly exhausted, this video will show you a new way forward.

✨ In this video, you’ll learn:
• Why the traditional salon “success model” is broken.
• The 7 steps inside my Cycle of Success (mindset, vision, schedule, clientele, income, whitespace, and big magic).
• How to restructure your schedule for freedom—without losing income.
• How to raise your salon prices strategically using data, not emotion.
• How Soul Tribe stylists are breaking free from burnout and building businesses they love.

This is for you if you’re…
• Booked out 8–12 weeks but still feeling drained.
• Wondering when (or how) to raise your prices again.
• Dreaming of more life outside the salon—without giving up your career.

👉 Ready to create your own dream beauty business?
DM me “SST” on Instagram   / lisahuffhair 
and I’ll share how you can apply the Cycle of Success to build a business that truly supports your life.

Being “in demand” should feel exciting, not exhausting. Let’s rewrite what success looks like—on your terms.

See you inside,
Lisa 💫

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Transcript

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Over the past eight years, I have built my absolute dream beauty business. To give you an idea of what that looks like, I work my dream schedule, both behind the chair and online coaching. I only work with people who light me up. I've reached a place where I don't have to interact with anyone who drains me, and that is what success really looks like for me. In the last month alone, I've generated over$45,000. I've scaled an online business that aligns with both my purpose and my passion. It's what I call my big magic, and now I help other stylists. Find and build theirs. I run Stylist Soul Tribe, a coaching community with hundreds of beauty professionals, and I tailor my coaching to meet each person exactly where they are. My coaching isn't one size fits all. It's very customized. It's very deep. It's very transformational. But it wasn't always like that. That's why I'm recording this video because the beauty industry is full of bad advice. Take every client, work, weekends, hustle until you burn out. I have tried it all in the past and I ended up exhausted. Broke and stuck. If you've ever wondered, why does this feel so hard? It's not just you. You've been following a broken model. In this video, I am going to show you a new one. I'll share how I went from burnout to big magic and my seven part system that I used, that I now teach inside of my coaching program, YL Soul Tribe. So by the end of this video, you will learn how you too can take these steps using my signature coaching model, the cycle of success. I'll go into that later. But before we jump into it, I wanna quickly share my core philosophies with you. Okay. So these are the philosophies that I live by and coach from. Number one, mindset is everything. Most of what we work through inside of coaching isn't even strategy. It's beliefs, fear, doubt, and self-trust. I always stay grateful af and I think that gratitude is genuinely a superpower. Number two, you can't hit a moving target. You need to define success on your terms, or you'll keep chasing someone else's vision. Number three, work smarter, not harder. Once you learn the levers of your business, it becomes a game. You get to tweak, adjust, and optimize until it feels amazing. Four, fast, messy action beats perfection. Perfectionism is a dream killer. Momentum matters so much more. Number five, white space is a superpower. Your best ideas won't land when you're overwhelmed and burnt out. You need space to receive your big magic. Number six, only work with people who light you up. You do not need to do business with people who drain you. In fact, it's a disservice to your energy and to them. These are my philosophies that have helped me build my dream business, but it didn't always look like that. Let me take you back to 2016. I was working in a salon inside of Walmart, smart Style. That year I brought in$8,000 total. I still keep that W2 to hold onto, to remind myself of where I started. I worked whenever they scheduled me nights, weekends, holidays, waiting on walk-ins. No strategy, no control, no vision. You can see here I am. I was doing haircuts for people, looking for a$12 special or haggling over coupon codes. Most clients didn't respect my time or my talent. Honestly, there wasn't much to respect. I hadn't built anything worth respecting yet. I was completely lost that same year, 2016 is when everything changed for me. I opened up my own studio suite. I found a mentor, and I started doing deep personal growth work. That's when I discovered the law of attraction. I began to understand that I could create my reality and it lit a fire inside of me that I didn't even know existed. I started to build a life that I loved on purpose. In 2018, you can see I won Best hairstylist. My business was booming back then. I came up with my very first digital product, the Hairstylist Systems for Success ebook. Those of you that have been around since those days, shout out to you. In 2018, I started Stylist Soul Tribe. Here's us at our very first retreat the summer of 2019. We took a couple years off because of COVID. Here's us in 2022. 2023 and just last year in 2024 in Miami. But just because I had gained awareness didn't mean that I was free quite yet. Even as I started to heal and grow, I was deeply entangled in the old beliefs that I had absorbed from the beauty industry, from life, from how I was raised. The belief that hustle was the only way that burnout was a badge of honor. The saying yes to everything and everyone was just the price of success. I was evolving mentally, but I was still operating inside of a broken system. That was the spark. But transformation didn't happen overnight because I was still tangled in industry messaging that made me think that hustling was the only way I had to unlearn so much of what I thought was necessary to make it as a stylist. The beauty industry teaches us that success means. Hustling nonstop. Taking every single client becoming fully booked, that you stop accepting new clients. People think that's the goal. Discounting friends and family, which then turns into discounting everyone working nights and weekends, doing business with people who drain you because you have to and because the customer's always right. I believed all of this. My early vision was hazy. I thought that success was just becoming booked out and maybe opening a salon one day, but I didn't realize that there was so many creative paths available in this industry, and what I do now wasn't even on my radar back then. I didn't even know it was an option. I was dealing with financial. Not charging enough emotionally discounting, living in feast or famine time burnout, working six days a week, 12 hour days, and still feeling behind emotional exhaustion, comparison, people pleasing, coming in early, staying late to make clients happy while I was falling apart. And the worst part is that I found out that burnout didn't come from building. It came for me. After I was fully booked out, I'd get in my car after a long day and just sit there numb. My back hurt, my heart hurt. I was smiling through appointments, giving everything to my clients and coming home completely depleted. I kept thinking, if this is what I've been working towards, why does it feel so hard? And that was my wake up call. I hit what I thought was the goal. A full clientele, yay. Fully booked out months in advance. But instead of feeling proud, I honestly felt trapped. I was resenting going to the salon. I dreaded certain clients. I had no room for joy, rust, or creativity. That's when I started dreaming really big. I visualized a different reality and I took aligned action. I cut my hours intentionally again and again until I had the schedule that I craved. I let go of the clients who drained me. I raised my prices based on demand data and alignment. And before I realized it, I was working less, making more, and finally loving my business again. I realized that being booked might look like the dream, but if it's built on burnout and obligation, it's not freedom. True freedom comes with building a business that aligns with your energy, your values in the life you actually want to live. That's when I started building differently and where I created my core method, the cycle of success, and it's how I help stylists go from burnout to breakthrough. Number one in the cycle of success is we have the mindset stage. This is the foundation. It's about breaking through the stories that are holding you back, energy, healing, journaling, rituals, routines, whatever it takes to raise your frequency. For me, it's my morning and evening rituals, daily intention setting, gratitude. I check in with myself. First where my energy's at, what I need, how I want to feel, and then I move into the work. So for me personally, when I was in the mindset stage for the first time, I went from being reactive, burnt out in survival mode, in constant comparison to finding mentorship, getting support, journaling, visualizing, and that gave me clarity and confidence. Stage two of the cycle of success is vision. Once your mindset is strong, you need a big. Bold vision. Every year I create a vision board, a visual representation of what I'm working towards and calling in. I audit what drained me and what energized me, and I dream so big that it scares me because that's how I stretch to my next level. So when it comes to the vision stage, you can't hit a moving target. I like to help my coaching clients get very clear on what their vision is. So we can set our finish line that we're working towards and we can start to reverse engineer a plan from there. Stage number three, schedule time is your most valuable asset. It's the one thing that you can never get back. I teach the four puzzle pieces inside of the schedule, stage behind the chair, admin time. Time for others and time for yourself. You don't need to implement your dream schedule right away, but you do need to know what it is so you can begin working towards it with intention. Stage number four of the cycle of success is clientele. This is where we Marie Kondo your books. I have stylists do a yes no, maybe exercise. Who sparks joy? Who drains you? What patterns do you use? C Then we make strategic decisions about services, specialties, and boundaries. For example, some stylists realize that all their no energy is coming from doing men's cuts, so they drop them. Others uncover a pattern of undercharging, longtime clients, which opens up conversations around boundaries and worth. Sometimes it's about finally letting go of energy draining guests. Other times it's about naming a niche and doubling down on what you actually want to be known for. This clarity makes space for aligned clients and work that you truly want in the clientele stage. Like I said, we Marie Kondo your clients very clear and very eye-opening, seeing who falls in the yes what services, what. Types of people really light you up. Who do you wanna double down on clarifying your brand and your target market for? And then the no column gives you so much clarity. Sometimes it's firing toxic clients. Sometimes it's enforcing certain boundaries, sometimes it's specializing, cutting services. It's such a clarifying stage. And in this stage, it's where we say goodbye to discount clients energy, drainers. Misaligned values. We make space for clients that light us up and it has a ripple effect into personal life. I love the clientele stage so much because you get to a point where you realize that you are only doing business with people that you love, and your clients are. Only doing business because they love you back. There's no weird unspoken obligation happening. You're no longer just doing friends and family's hair because you're friends and family to them. And I have found through these practices in the clientele stage, it's had a ripple effect into my personal life. So I'm no longer now just doing business with people that only light me up, but I'm no longer. Spending time with people that don't light me up through this stage, I've gotten the power of setting boundaries in my personal life and my personal relationships. I have looked at my friendships different, and the ones that really give me energy and light me up, I pour more energy into this. Clarity makes space for the aligned clients and work that you truly want. Stage number five is income. Pricing cannot be emotional. It has to be data driven. I teach a pricing audit based on four questions. One, when was your last price increase? If it's been less than six months, hold tight. You haven't seen the full ripple effect yet. If it's been six to 12 months, you may be due. If it's been over a year, it's likely time inflation alone. Justifies it. Two. How long does it take for a new guest to get in? If it's one to two weeks, your availability is still pretty open. Three to four weeks is a healthy, sweet spot. Six plus weeks, you're starting to lose money. Most clients won't wait that long, and it means that demand is far exceeding the supply of your time. Third question, how many new guest requests do you receive monthly? Fewer than five may mean that it's time to focus on marketing. Five to 10 is great. More than 10, your demand likely calls for a price adjustment. And final question, are you changing your schedule at all? With this price increase? If you're cutting days or hours, you must raise your prices to offset that change. For example, dropping from five to four days means raising prices by at least 20% just to maintain your income. Each of these questions helps us gauge supply, demand, timing, and growth based on your score. We determine whether you're ready for a 10, 20, or even 30% price increase. Or if you need to strengthen your foundations first. It's a formula that I have been coaching to for years, and because it is data-driven and it's a math equation, it works every single time. Okay. Stage number six is white space. White space is about creativity, intuition, and alignment. If your calendar is crammed and your nervous system is fried, your best ideas cannot land. Ideas are energy and they need space to arrive. This is intentional, purposeful, white space in your life and your schedule. Whether it's journaling on a slow morning, taking a walk without your phone, or finally claiming an uninterrupted lunch break, white space gives your mind the rest that it craves. It's a non-negotiable if you want to lead with alignment. Access your most intuitive visionary self. So once you have your dream schedule, your dream clientele, you've earned price increases, you're making incredible money, I now like to prioritize white space. For me, white space is a non-negotiable. Anytime I start to feel time poor, it is like alarms going off in my head and in my energy that I need to put some white space into my calendar. It's part of my creative process. White space is purposeful free time in your calendar, so you're not constantly just reacting. You have time to sit and plan and move on offense instead of defense. And like I said, white space comes right before big magic because this is what makes room for big magic ideas to find their way in last and final stage. It's big magic. Big magic is what happens because of white space. When you slow down and get quiet, the downloads start to drop in your next big idea, a project you didn't even know you had in you. A business pivot, a new offer, a bigger dream stylist, soul tribe was my big magic. Then marketplace, then jumpstart, then board of support, which I'll explain more here soon. I have this little visual here, uh, that I found, uh, with a quick Google search. Big magic is from the book. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I read it back in 2018 and it changed my life. She talks about how ideas are energy and how they float around the ether, and they look for a host to bring them to life. And once an idea drops into a host, its main purpose is to be brought to fruition. And if that host doesn't bring the idea to fruition or to life, the host will leave or the idea will leave that host and move on to someone else. When I was reading that book, the idea of Stylist Soul Tribe dropped in and I think because I was reading it, I took the idea super seriously and I realized that I had had ideas in the past and I didn't take action on them, and I saw them come to life elsewhere. As I'm saying this, you maybe are thinking of a time when you had an idea that was original to you that you're like, one day I, I'm gonna do that. Someone should do that. That would be a great idea. And then a few months, a year later, you see that idea come to life. So when Stylist Soul Tribe dropped in for me, I knew I really wanted to take fast, messy action. I didn't want this idea to leave me and to go to someone else. I wanted to be the person who brought this to life. And ever since then, I can really recognize when a big magic idea comes in. It's kind of my creative process as an entrepreneur and how I continue to grow my business. So I have a lot of examples that I wanna rapid fire move through because I think they're really cool, really important, and I wanna shout my Soul Tribe members from the rooftops. Okay, so here is some examples of big magic ideas that were born inside of Stylist Soul Tribe, evergreen Salon that Afton owns. Translating the Label podcast from Anna. The traveling hairstylist from Leisha, which I love, shouting her from the rooftop. Such a revolutionary, brand new, unique idea. I'm gonna pop off real quick about this. Leisha came to a vision casting workshop many years ago, and she shared that she was making incredible money. Her behind the chair business was so good, but she still didn't feel like she was. Serving her purpose. And I told her to close her eyes. Imagine five years from now you wake up in the morning, where are you? Who's around you? What do you see? What does life look like? And she goes, I'm in the mountains, which she was living in Ohio at this time. I see my husband, I see my dogs. And it really got her wheels turning. Alicia has since created, and she's been running it for years now, the traveling hairstylist. She and her team go to stylists who need medical or maternity leaves or long vacations cover for them so that they don't lose their clients. They make money. The stylist makes money and the clients are taken care of. It's literally brilliant. It's one of my favorite ideas. We have Breeze's web design from Alana Zukowski. She designs high converting websites for stylists and helps them with their SEO. Here's Molly and her assistant Brecklin, who are working in their suite together, the Nurtured Curl. I'm gonna talk about this in a second. Jamie has been an OG Soul Tribe member, and watching her journey over the last seven years has been incredible. She opened the Nurtured Curl in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We have Kalan Salon from Courtney Fields and off. Uh, so extra coaching from Leslie Flanagan. She helps extension artists grow their extension businesses. We have the Instagram Survival Guide from Laurel Guama. We have Canvas Academy, which is an extension education platform that Emily Carroll runs. We have Salon Au, which is Michelle Golden Salon in uh, Iowa. We have Verdant Salon and Suites, which is Grace Stevenson Salon in Lincoln, Illinois. Um, we have Main Salon, which is Deli's Salon in Oregon. Here's a picture of Janet at her solo location. When Janet started in Stylist Soul Tribe, she was a commission stylist in a salon, and she went out on her own, opened her solo. Big Magic looks different for everybody. We have both blush and bloom and rooted in Rogue two salons owned by Lucia Baez. We have Kimber Chapman, and her incredible team of Tone salon. Here's Autumn in front of Soul Beauty, her salon and spa that she owns in Dayton, Ohio. Here's Rochelle in front of the new salon that she just purchased. Here's the collective, A salon in Bloomington, Illinois that Megan I owns. Here's Emily with her incredible hair solutions Toppers. Emily has gone all in on specializing in toppers and hair solutions. She has an online store now. She helps other stylists, uh, give toppers and hair solutions to their clients. Here's the logo for Salon Link, an online booking platform that Karen has created who's a member of Stylist Soul Tribe. Here's industry hair coat, a salon in Canada that Asia Core owns. That was absolutely a big magic idea. HP Collective, Jen Santos Salon in Northern California. Here's Lori and her incredible team from Serene Salon and Spa in Pennsylvania. Here is the logo of balance, holistic hair and head spot. Two salons that Jamie Toth owns in Gilbert, Arizona, and Scottsdale, Arizona. Here's AM Web Designs, Athens Business, where she designs websites for beauty professionals, Haven Salon, which is Lisa Atkins Salon in Eureka, California. Hairnet, which is Annette Durkin's incredible large beauty studio that she owns in Lincoln, Nebraska, and so many more. If you can't tell, I'm starting to lose my voice. I can make an hour long video just talking about all the big magic ideas that have been born and brought to life in Stylist Soul Tribe. This is like truly my life. Work is helping people uncover what big magic is for them. I believe that every single beauty professional has their own version of big magic waiting to come through. You just have to create the space for it to arrive and be brave enough to follow it. Okay? And as you can see, the cycle of success is a circle for a reason, because once you get to a big magic idea, once that. Big idea drops in. You go right back to the beginning of the cycle because next level requires a new mindset, a new vision, and refining all of the pieces again. So the cycle of success just goes around and around and around again. Here's how this looked inside of my own business. In the mindset stage. Years ago, I didn't even know what mindset work was. I was reactive, burnt out, and living in survival mode, constantly comparing myself to others and questioning if I was cut out for this. Once I found a mentor and started learning about energy work and the law of attraction, everything shifted. I started journaling, visualizing, getting clear on my intentions each day. That inner work gave me the clarity and confidence to start making bold moves. It's what allowed me to believe that something different was possible Before I had the proof second stage vision. At first, I didn't have one. My only goal was to be booked and busy, but as I raised my energy, I started dreaming bigger. I made my first real vision board. I filled it with travel aligned clients, financial freedom, and one day Stylist Soul Tribe. That vision kept expanding and every time I got close to hitting a goal, I stretched it again. That's how I went from surviving behind the chair to building a full coaching. That serves hundreds of beauty professionals. Stage three, schedule. I used to say yes to everything. Nights, weekends, double booked days, squeezing people in on my lunch break, once I got clear on what I wanted my schedule to look like, I began slowly adjusting one boundary at a time. First I got Saturdays. Then I raised my prices. Eventually I created a part-time schedule that supported both my coaching business and my life as a present mom and wife, now I run a multi six figure business, and I still have time to pick my kids up from school clientele. I had to let go of misaligned energy. I said goodbye to discount clients, energy, drainers, and anyone who didn't align with my values or direction. That space allowed me to attract the clients who lit me up. I stopped doing services that didn't align. I clarified my brand, and over time my clientele became a reflection of the energy that I wanted in my business and my life. Now I work exclusively with clients that I adore in both hair and coaching. Okay. Income for me. Once I understood supply and demand pricing became math, not emotion, I started tracking how far I was booked out, how many new guest requests I was getting, and when I was adjusting my schedule, that's how I made my first big price jump with confidence, and it changed everything. I stopped apologizing for my worth, and I started designing my business around it. Every race since has been strategic, aligned and backed by data. Stage six, white space. I didn't realize how clogged my energy was until I started making space. Early on, I thought productivity meant doing more, working longer, squeezing in clients, and staying constantly busy. But I was always behind and my nervous system was fried. Once I cut back my schedule and started protecting my time, everything shifted. I began creating space in my calendar on purpose. Not to do more, but to be more, to rest, to reset, to reconnect with my intuition. Whitespace became a non-negotiable and it made room for magic. Stage seven, big Magic. Once I have the space. The ideas came Stylist Soul Tribe started as a whisper, a quiet knowing that stylists needed more than just strategy, they needed soul. That whisper turned into a movement. From there came retreats, the marketplace, the board of support, and so many ideas that I would've missed out on if I stayed stuck in survival mode. I believe that ideas are energy. They're looking for a vessel, and when you slow down long enough to receive them. That's when Big Magic Lands, and it wasn't myself. Soul Tribe members started seeing these shifts too. Let me tell you about Jamie. When she started Stylist Soul Tribe, in the very beginning, she was working for a toxic salon owner who was breaking her down. She made a leap into a suite and started focusing specifically on curl clients. She built a strong brand and her demand skyrocketed. Eventually, she and her team of employees were operating across three separate studio suites while she searched for the perfect commercial space. One day she was admiring the salon space next to her favorite coffee shop, and we said to her on a call, Jamie call and ask if they would sell you the salon. She did. It actually wasn't for sale, but the woman who owned the salon was struggling. Jamie's vision was so clear the owner was sold. They worked on an agreement where Jamie and her team transitioned into the space and the previous salon owner continued renting a chair there. It was an out of the box, totally unique situation, but this is the power of a mastermind setting. We think differently, and in this case. It worked. She now owns the Nurtured Curl, a thriving mission-driven salon that came from a vision and action, and that is big magic. Are you ready to get started? You've heard my story. The mindset shifts the method and what's possible when you build a business that actually supports your life. Now let's talk about what you can do starting today to create momentum. Okay? So here are some actions that you can take right now. First, identify where you are on the cycle of success. Are you stuck in mindset blocks? Are you lacking clarity in your vision? Are you overbooked with no strategy? Pinpointing your stage helps you know where to start. Next, you can audit your schedule. Look at your week. Where is your energy being drained? Are you over committed with clients who don't feel aligned? Do you have time built in for admin, for yourself and for white space? Just seeing it mapped out alone is eye-opening. You can get clear on your dream clients. Who are the people that light you up and energize you? What types of services do you love offering? Who are your yes clients? And what would your business look like if it was filled with only. Them start with five to 15 minutes a day of intentional white space. Sit in silence, take a walk, pull an Oracle card or journal. This is where your best ideas and your big magic will come through. Then I want you to DM me on Instagram and let's talk. If you want support implementing this, I am here. I'll walk through it with you and we will map out what growth looks like for you inside of Stylus Soul Tribe. So you've got the framework and you've got the first few steps that you can take today. But I also wanna give you a peek behind the curtain, a 30,000 foot view of what my big magic has turned into. Because the method of the cycle of success is just the tip of the iceberg over all of these years. What started is five stylists meeting regularly to support each other is evolving into a self-sustaining ecosystem, a living, breathing community called Stylists Soul Tribe that has changed hundreds of lives, including mine. And inside of SST support can look like so many different things. Most people find me through the podcast or social Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or maybe even a brand collaboration. From there, most stylists begin in Jumpstart, a 12 week high touch coaching container built for bold, clarity and real transformation. Next comes Mastermind, our monthly membership designed for continued momentum, deep community, and ongoing support. From there, if you want to go deeper, there are opportunities to join our intensives, which are focused action oriented sprints, or attend our in-person retreats for powerful connections, breakthrough and reset. Now, here's where it gets cool. The ecosystem doesn't just run on me, it runs on us. We've built internal engines that keep the whole thing moving. The Board of Support is a leadership team of Soul Tribe members who host calls, share wisdom and model what it means to lead with generosity. And then we have Marketplace SST marketplace. Where members bring their own big magic ideas to life and support one another through services, collabs and creative ideas. And then we also have our toolbox, hot seats, masterclasses, round tables Monday. Magic calls, KPI tracking and more. Everything is designed to meet you where you are in support. The next version of you. You don't have to figure it all out alone. You just have to take the next step. Working in the beauty industry doesn't have to feel like burnout. If your calendar is full, but your cup is empty, it's not your fault. You were taught an outdated model that does not serve you. You can build a business that feels like freedom, that supports your life instead of consuming it. That grows without grinding you down. You deserve a business that reflects your values, your dreams, and your energy. And I can help you build it. DM me SST on Instagram at Lisa Huff Hair and we'll schedule a discovery call. We'll figure out exactly where you're at, where you want to go, and what's getting in the way. And if it feels aligned, I'll show you how we can work together inside of SST. I am here for your growth. Let's find your big magic and build something that you are wildly proud of.