This tale belongs to Make It’s Ditching the Degree collection, where ladies that have actually constructed six-figure professions without a bachelor’s level expose the keys of their success. Got a tale to inform? Let us understand! Email us at As kMakeIt @cnbc. com
In the center of obtaining a tattoo, Sess Lee Cannon had a surprise: She was embeded the incorrect profession.
As a tattoo musician placed the complements on her ink– her child’s name, Elijah, inscribed throughout her left shoulder– he made little talk with Lee (that passes her center name skillfully) and her good friend.
The musician matched her good friend’s hairstyle, which Lee had actually offered her with a set of kitchen area scissors simply hours previously.
“He said, ‘Where’s your salon?’ and I told him I didn’t work at one, that I just did hair for fun,” Lee, 37, remembers. “And I’ll never forget, he said, ‘Well, you might want to reconsider what you’re doing for a living. It’s clear you have a gift.'”
The unwanted recommendations provided Lee, after that 20, time out. She liked doing her buddies’ hair and trying out brand-new hairdos on her curly locks however considered it even more of a leisure activity than a job.
It was 2007, 2 years after Lee finished from secondary school and one year after she left of Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, after learning she was expectant.
In the months leading up to Elijah’s birth, Lee relocated right into a studio apartment in her home town of Peoria, Illinois, and located a client service task she liked at Maui Jim, a sunglasses business. She experienced and obtained advertised to be an accountancy staff within her initial year at the business.
“Math always came easy to me, and I thought, by working in finance, I’d never be poor again,” claimsLee
But something was missing out on in her business profession. “I craved the creative freedom I felt doing hair,” she includes. “I guess I just needed encouragement from a stranger to go for it.”
She chose to switch over professions on the drive home. “I had no clue if it would work out, but I knew I would regret not trying,” she claims.
By all steps, the danger has actually repaid: Lee possesses Flourish Curls Salon in Arlington, Texas, a service that generated $1.1 million in income in 2014, according to economic papers evaluated by Make It.
After subtracting overhead and tax obligations, Lee’s net earnings is in between $100,000 and $150,000 a year (she decreased to share her specific wage).
Here’s exactly how Lee rotated her rate of interest in hair right into a six-figure profession.
Becoming a hairdresser
The early morning after obtaining her tattoo, Lee quit at a structure she had actually driven past many times: Regency Beauty Institute, a cosmetology college inPeoria
She signed up for courses and stop her task at Maui Jim as quickly as she paid her initial down payment. The cosmetology program, which took Lee concerning 18 months to finish, set you back $22,000 and needed her to be in courses 5 days a week from 9 a.m. till 5 p.m.
When she had not been in college, Lee, that is a solitary moms and dad, waitressed at a neighborhood steakhouse to pay her tuition and various other expenses. Her grandparents enjoyedElijah
The demands to become a hairstylist differ by state, however normally, possible stylists have to finish a cosmetology program at a recognized college and get a state-issued certificate by passing a created and functional examination.
Many states likewise need possible stylists to finish an instruction or job as an aide in a beauty parlor initially.
Once Lee ended up the demands for her certificate in 2009, she began tackling customers in the house and functioning part-time at a beauty parlor that focuses on all-natural hair in Peoria.
In her initial year as a stylist, Lee made near $30,000 a year. She remained to function part-time as a waitress for the following 2 years to cover her expenses.
At the moment, Facebook was ending up being extra preferred, and Lee chose to maximize the system’s totally free marketing chances: She produced a service web page, sent out good friend demands to possible customers, and began recording her deal with images and video clips.
She promptly gathered an online reputation for collaborating with various crinkle patterns and customers that were biracial like herself.
“My mom is white, my dad is Black and I always had curly hair, but my mom had bone straight hair, so she just had no idea how to style it for me growing up,” she claims.
That youth experience motivated Lee to begin coloring, highlighting, cutting and correcting her hair when she was a teen till she located designs she suched as.
“I wanted to learn how to make my hair look good, feel confident in my own skin, and I want to inspire that same confidence in others,” she claims.
Lee (envisioned below, 3rd from the left) with several of her workers at Flourish Curls Salon.
Photo: Sess Lee Cannon
Starting a service in a brand-new state
For the following 5 years, Lee remained to operate at the beauty salon and develop her adhering to on social networks. She claims she liked individuals she dealt with and really felt worked out in her profession.
But in 2015, Lee– after that expectant with her 4th youngster– began sensation “the itch to move.”
She had actually invested a lot of her life in Illinois and hungered for a modification of views and warmer weather condition.
A good friend welcomed her to invest a vacation with each other in 2 of Texas’ greatest cities, Austin andDallas
Lee claims she was immediately smitten with the southerly friendliness and wide-open areas. She explored homes for her and her 4 kids that very same weekend break.
The household of 5 moved to Arlington, a city in between Dallas and Fort Worth, in January 2016.
Moving to a various state pushed Lee to go after one more desire that had actually been percolating in the rear of her mind: Opening a beauty parlor.
Lee invested 10 months and $50,000 of her cost savings to open up Flourish Curls Salon, which began taking clients in 2017.
‘I’ve had the ability to develop a six-figure profession from functioning 3 days a week’
To Lee’s alleviation, word spread promptly concerning the beauty salon– within months of opening, she had a waiting list of clients.
Lee features Flourish Curls’ appeal to the target market she grew throughout Facebook, YouTube andInstagram
She began publishing hair tutorials, customer endorsements, design how-to’s, item referrals and even more online in the very early 2000s. Her YouTube channel has almost 60,000 clients.
“Having a strong social media community helped a lot,” Lee includes. “There’s also not a ton of salons that specialize in curly and natural hair in our neighborhood — many cosmetology schools and salons still don’t train their stylists to work with those textures.”
Flourish Curls’ solutions consist of hair cuts, spins, scalp peeling and designing that set you back anywhere from $150 to $375. Last year, 2023, was the initial year Flourish Curls damaged $1 million in yearly income.
The beauty salon has 11 stylists consisting of Lee, that just sees a couple of customers monthly.
She claims developing her personnel and employing 2 digital aides has actually assisted her fend off exhaustion and stand up to need to “always be on,” a typical obstacle for local business owner.
Lee front-loads her workweek, tackling conferences and visits Monday via Wednesday so she can invest even more time with her kids, currently varying in age from 8 to 18.
“In my 20s, I thought that to be successful, I’d have to work 50-plus hours a week,” claimsLee “But I’ve been able to build a six-figure career from working three days a week most weeks.”
As a business owner, Lee has actually taken pleasure in the freedom and versatility of developing her job routine.
However, one of the most meeting element of running her very own beauty salon, she claims, has actually been the favorable distinction she’s had the ability to make in individuals’s lives by revealing them exactly how to be comfy and positive with their all-natural hair– an area she wants she had accessibility to as an “insecure, frustrated” teen.
Adds Lee: “Nothing’s better than helping people feel beautiful.”
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