About this video:
Too many are focused on creating influence over a business in the industry, leaving a wide-open market for those who are ready to take advantage of this.
The separation starts with what the individual ultimately wants, not what they see as cool or for their ego. Long term results will always trump any short term flame.
I'll keep this written breakdown short and sweet, as the video does a great job breaking down why this confusion occurs and what to do if you find yourself optimized for the wrong task.
Ready to join the Elevated Mentorship program?
Click the button below to book a call with me and my team to see if we can help your business scale!
Hey everyone, Daniel Contreras (@dlucs_) here founder of The New Era Of Barbering. And on this video, um, I was focusing more on what is really holding, at least from my opinion, Barbers back from having the success that they want to create in their business. Um, when I talked to different barbers, when they want to join elevated mentorship, um, and a lot of them of course want to create success. But the problem is, is that their definition of success is, uh, is a little bit twisted or not going in the right direction. I think every single barber would want to of course make more money. But what they go ahead and actually do is set an objective of what success looks like to them, of teaching on stage, being recognized, being inspirational figure, which is all fine and dandy.But if your sole purpose is of becoming a successful barber or somebody who has successful business, um, and actually running something where you don't focus most of your time on doing 30 minute haircuts and you are charging premium prices, um, those are actually the wrong metrics to kind of in, in KPIs and focus on and really things to optimize what you want to be going direction of. And from talking to different barbers, what I've noticed at least is these things STEM from a couple of different issues. Um, one being the fact that, um, look, there is no roadmap, um, and a lot of people in the, in the industry, what they see as the roadmap to what they want is almost a monkey. See monkey do type attitude. They see, Oh, this person has a big following. They get me feeling good after a video.And I want to do that because they must be successful. But what I've learned, especially over the years of, of creating content, as well as running educational platform online for myself is in any industry, not just the barber industry, but really in any industry that's online or just in general, there's talkers and then there's doers. Um, and the biggest thing I can, I can make an S a little bit of assessment too, is like, let's say if you're running a business, there are talkers. And then there are doers. Um, I know everybody loves Gary V I used to be, I used to actually love Gary V myself, but what I realized is he is more of a talker rather than a doer. Whereas Jeff Bezos, you don't hear him, you know, going off and writing his fourth or fifth book, you don't see him doing, um, taking every, um, motivational speech opportunity.He's focused on actually doing the work, not as a speak. Yes, he does, but he didn't get there by, you know, running a social media platform, trying to inspire people. He got to the position that he's in right now because he ran a very successful business. And that's what got him recognized. And this is kind of the thing that I see with the barber industry. A lot of barbers who come to me because, um, or come to elevated mentioned have interest in this, because what I'm hearing a lot is Barber's want to create success, but their idea of it is to be, um, creating it from, I want to inspire because that's their metric that mostly everybody in the industry is going off of, whether it be people who are on, um, onstage teaching people who, um, have a bigger platform on social media.But the problem becomes is, is when I go ahead and say, okay, click on, um, their booking app, try to book an appointment with them, right? And then we look at the, what they're charging and they're charging, you know, they're doing 30 minute haircuts charging, 30, 40, 50 the books. And that's not to me, what I think in, in STEM of success, I think in general, why would you want to be cutting all day in the shop? Do you feel that that is successful and some people do? And I think that's where the disconnect is that some barbers thinking cutting all day in the barbershop and being busy is, um, successful. Whereas in actuality, that's just being a labor to a job that you created for yourself, right? There was a point for me when I was, you know, of course I talked about in the last video that I created, this tutorial where I was charging $20 per haircut.Um, and I was making about two to three, $400 per day, um, which was cool, but I was working like 16 hours and it almost became this redundant cycle. And even though I felt like in my mind, I was mentally like, wow, this is pretty good money for somebody who didn't even get through community college. Um, it wasn't to the point where I almost felt like I needed to be recognized because I was like, is this all that it's going to be for my career? And in my experience, at least from a lot of barbers, this is where they're at. They get in build up a business, which is all right, but they get to a certain level and just say, all right, this is all I'm going to do. And now it's time to be famous because I have yet to get famous about by the time now I'll be like getting accolades or getting awards and stuff like that.And then Barbers go ahead and try to hop on social media and really try to go ahead and make a name for themselves. Try to inspire and force almost what they need to go ahead and create when in actuality, if they just focus simply on the base business and went back two, okay, how can I go ahead and raise my business up to be able to charge a hundred, 150, $200? That's when you will actually get the, um, not Ricky, but you will, you will, you will start having impact on people's lives. And, and for me, I started realizing when I just started focusing and being more selfish on my business and actually just put myself first, instead of trying to put out content that quote unquote inspires or quote unquote motivates because that both of that leaves, uh, individuals after a while, as well as, um, it's very short term, right?Like, um, right now, you know, Gary V has to come up with a video like every single day and post that and be, say top on people's minds. Whereas Jeff Bezos can like drop a video once per year. And that thing will live on because there's so much game in that because he's achieved so much and learn so much. So what I'm getting to is like barbers themselves are confused, and this is the problem that I faced with myself when I was charging $20. I didn't know what was success and what was, um, kind of like a Mirage and the Mirage that I've seen from being in this position now outside of the industry, helping other barbers is that a lot of individuals want to create more income for themselves, but they, they think that that's going to happen by boosting up their notoriety or being onstage or, um, you know, being an influencer and all of this stuff is great if that's what you want to go towards, but it, from what I've seen seen, at least, um, nobody knew you're almost become a laborer to whatever company any that you were working for.And for me, I want to be able to create some type of, um, ownership. I want to be able to create some type of, of level bridge from myself and my business and not for somebody else platform. Um, and well, I see a lot of barbers doing, it's almost playing small. They play to not, to not to lose if that makes sense. Right. Um, and they kind of go about it in, in a way that they want to feel fulfilled. They don't see themselves making more money. They don't know how to make more money. So they say, I must have reached my peak. Let me go and do this thing. When, when you're charging 40, 50 bucks, you're just barely scratching the surface. There is more room to grow. Um, and it's from seeing this, that I see where a lot of the monkey see monkey do, comes into play because it, this recycle continues to happen.If Barber's continue to think this right of once it makes such such money, then it's time for me to blow up. Then it's time for me to get recognized, because this is apparently what you must do. We're always going to stay in this PR. And in this, non-progressive the cycle where I haven't see Barber's today, who are on social media. Um, and they have these giant profiles, but they don't know how to actually leverage that to their business. They have a hundred K followers, but are charging 40 bucks and doing 30 minute haircuts. And at some point in time, we have to question, what is it actually that we're trying to do? Are we trying to create more work for ourselves? Are we trying to create more freedom? And in my eyes, I always try to create more freedom in my business. And what that looked like to me was charging more while cutting less hair and ultimately building it using that time when I wasn't cutting hair to run a business, which I'm now full-time doing with elevate dementia, helping other barbers achieve the same thing of being able to charge a hundred bucks, no matter where they're at.And, um, Barbara's, it's very similar because like, uh, to like, you know, endorsement deals, right? So you see in like the NFL where, where certain players they'll just go after the endorsement deals because, um, they're famous or they want to capitalize on what they have built so far. Whereas the players who have long successful careers who will continue the longevity didn't really take those endorsement deals, right. They didn't try to go after and create, create the fame for themselves. They actually distanced themselves from those. Right. So one thing I even looked up real quick, um, the, the highest endorsed athlete in the NFL today is, is Odell Beckham, Jr. There is no way in hell that Odell Beckham Jr is the best football player like even around right now. Um, he's a talented individual, but when you think of the best player right now, or like the, the, the player has the who, who actually has the most success, you think of somebody like Tom, Bernie and Tom, Brady's actually fifth on that list.He's not number two. He's not number three. And it's individuals like this who don't focus on the fame, but focus rather on the product that will get them to that spot because they know what they input with that all that other stuff will come. But this, the, all the other stuff of the accolades, the recognition, the inspiration, the motivation figure that they became is not what they're actually going after. They're going after a success metric that is easily attainable. And they simply focus on that. So, you know, for me, when I look at the Barber industry, like I said before, a lot of people want that to be known. They want to blow up. Like I get a lot of people. I say, what is your motivation for joining elevated mentorship? And of course the results speak for themselves. A lot of people recognize the social media aspect.A lot of individuals also recognize the fact that, um, they are inspired by law of the barbers. You see South Bay, Chris King Cardel, suncutz these guys who like quickly and rapidly, um, really made a name for themselves in the industry. But where I always see the, the, the, the separation factor is they don't understand that. Um, we actually disconnected those guys from actually wanting to be quote, unquote famous and instead focused on the actual product and focused on, okay, what are we really going towards? If you watch the video I created a couple of weeks ago, I talked about focus, right? And how you must focus on one thing and going in one direction, uh, will allow you to get further and better results of mastery, rather than trying to focus on five different things. And most barbers, this is not just, just in what you do like on a day-to-day basis, but also in like the Goldie one sheet, right?So most barbers want to go, like they want to create a great online platform. They want to learn how to fade differently, or, or you share work. They want to, um, get onstage and educate. They want to come out with an online course, and then they want to create YouTube tutorials. And it's like, well, where in there are you going to actually create mastery? And where in there are you actually going to better yourself? Because it's not about, um, bettering industry as a whole, it's bettering yourself first doing something unique and doing something that's never been done before.And then if, if the opportunityPresents itself, then you can go ahead and turn that either into a business or continue going on and building that out, right? You don't see Jeff Bezos teaching others how to create a Shopify account or whatever, or how to create an online business.Um, he just continuesTo like, is he the best person at how to run a company like that? yes. Right? Like the, the, the results speak for themselves.Um, but he doesn't do that. He focuses on his business and he understands that he's not, he's not worried about inspiring people, the inspiration,Sure. Whatever will come, if he focuses on the product, which makes the boat go faster.Um, and I think for, as an industry, as a whole it's, uh, the, the Barber industry is a very friendly industry.We want to be able to be recognized because from my experience, and even myself, a lot of us didn't really get recognized for a lot of our talents. At first, a lot of us got overlooked. A lot of us got laughed at for being a,Um, of like, why are you going to be cutting itHair? There's no money in that. And so when we get to a certain level of quote, unquote success, whether it be charging $25 and you're booked out or $40 booked out, then all of a sudden ego comes into play and says, wait a minute, I'm charging this much. I thought I would be the most recognized figure in the industry. Now I have to go get my fame. Now I have to be recognized for my hard work. And you don't get recognized just because you did something that everybody else can do. You get recognized for doing something that nobody else can do.Right. So, you know, you don't hear about Jeff Bezos, you know, competitors. You hear about Jeff Bezos because he does, he's done something that nobody else has done and creating an online business that is literallyThe most successful thing outThere right now, currently. Um, same thing with guys like Steve jobs, right? Steve jobsSimply focused on creating the best products. And that's what got him to be recognized as a figure. He didn't try to go outAnd do, um, you know, beTalk shows and be this character personality. In fact, he was actually an,Right. And he didn't work.All he focused on was his product and actually what got him to, uh, and just focus on the simple product didn't focus anywhere else,Else. Um, and you could look upOther inspirational or not, or you can quote unquote inspiration figures, right? I think people would say definitely Steve jobs, inspiration, Jeff Bezos, Warren buffet is a, is, is somebody who a lot of people,Um, look up to, um, ElonMusk, bill Gates, all these guys who are very successful, they never focused on trying to be inspirational or motivational. They never try to be that figure of what can I say that inspires people. Um, they just simply on elevatingTheir skill because they understood the higher that they got or the more success that they got. It would trickle down because of their, what they've learned throughout the ability to actually taking action. Um, and it was w uh, when I seen that, I even made a switch in my mindset and approach the industry of, instead of wanting to go ahead and grow my profile or grow my platforms, um, to the biggest, and, you know, have people like me and everything like that. I simply just focused on my, on my product. What was I trying to achieve? And I clearly defined that, um, what I was trying to achieve, I didn't try to, I didn't try to fake it. I didn't try to input some metric that would make me more quote, unquote famous. I actually took a lot of my, uh, I actually took a step back from creating content as a lot of you've seen, I've just most recently come back onto YouTube because of just the simple fact that I want to focus more on the product of my online program.I want to get better results and see barbers, um, have the success and actually with elevate and mentorship of the program, I'm running actually have every single one of my students charging a minimum of a hundred bucks within a 12 to 18 month timeframe of when we first started working together. Um, and that's the goal that I'm trying to achieve. I'm not trying to go ahead and achieve, um, being the most popular, this, the guy that's getting booked out at every single show or doing seminars or doing any of that. Um, simply I I'm, I'm just doing, I'm creating like one video a week, right? I'm not on Instagram. I'm create one podcast a week. And the rest of my time is filled up with simply how do I make get better results for my clients? And how do I go ahead and build this business?And that should be the same thought of, um, every single barber your business is to cut hair at this moment, right? Your business is not to try and inspire people. Um, anybody can inspire, but not a lot of people can cut hair. That's, you know, charging 200 bucks. And that's where the disconnect is. And, you know, simply put, you have to really define what you want and if that's to be famous and to be inspired, inspirational figure, and that's all you focus on more. It's funny enough, more times than not. You're not going to achieve that because you're trying to simply force that anybody who is trying to be a motivational or inspirational person, Tom Brady, didn't think about, he wanted to inspire people. Tom Brady wanted to win Superbowls. He wanted to win. He wanted you to simply win, and that's all he trained for. And that's all he optimizes his time for. He doesn't say, Hmm, how can I go ahead and inspire a six year old kid to be, or, or, or whole entire, um, uh, country to either hate me or be obsessed with me. And my, my, my mindset, Michael Jordan, didn't give a about inspiring people or making an, or being on posters of, of kids walls growing up. He wanted to beat you. He wanted to win championships.So when we think about business, especially in the barber industry, it's very backwards when Barber's want to say, I want to be an inspirational figure on what to be motivational, because literally you can do that at any point in time. You could literally do that as soon as you pick up your Clippers, but that's not going to make you win business. You want to go ahead and actually focus on how can I build my business up and how can I do something so unique and actually push this industry for progressively. And that comes with extreme focus. And we talked about focus a lot on this, right? So cutting out all the distractions of whatever, like I went over five distractions I had right there, right. And simply focus on what makes the boat go faster to increase business, because at the end of the day, nothing else matters.Nobody is going to, there's always going to be somebody who is more inspirational, more motivational says two or three trickier words that get somebody inspired in a different tone, but charging $200 for a haircut is something different. And what I see is, um, I had a great, I had a great, I had a great idea just now and I lost it, but charging charging $200 is, is, is or charging a higher rate and actually building up your business and thinking of self first on how to progress my business, something greater Jay Z. He talks about it. And, and, you know, Jay Z is a, is a, is a character that I follow. I actually look up to more to Jay Z than do Diddy. Um, and you can say whatever you want, but I look at Diddy as somebody who's probably done the same thing over and over again for the last 20 years where JZ has continued to elevate himself.Now do their networks kind of are maybe a little bit similar while Jay Z is worth a little bit more, but you look at where Jay Z was maybe 20 years ago versus where Diddy was 20 years ago. And they're there, you see the difference in the elevation of thought process, as well as the elevation of actual adventures of their careers or wherever they they've gone into. Um, and that's the difference between actually going ahead and doing the work versus talking. And I think there's a lot of talkers in the, in any industry, especially the barber industry, rather than there are doers. There's more people who want to be recognized for what they say rather than for actually the, the, the hardcore results and evidence of what they do. Right. Um, and that's why I tried to shift at least with the new era of barbering and elevated mentorship, I put a hard, uh, I really wanted to go ahead and, and, and create a program that, um, goes against the grain of what the normal paradigm of the industry is like right now, because a lot of barbers aren't setting themselves up for success.And within the eight weeks that I work with, typically we go ahead and barbers, uh, prices anywhere from like 15 to 25 bucks at the end of eight weeks, our end of working together at least. And they're booked out now. That's great. And everything like that. But yeah, just that simple. If we take like the means of that, that means let's say $20, right? And let's take an average week. What I consider booked up that would be 10 haircuts on, on Thursday, 10, he care. Cause on Friday 10 haircuts on Saturday six on like a Wednesday and four on Tuesday, simple, right? You don't have to be like 10, 10, 10, 10, or 20, 20, 20, whatever that may be. So charging $20, extra dollars for 40 haircuts that adds up to adds up to about 800 per week. Now you multiply that by 52, for 52 weeks in a year, and you get up to $41,600.So at the end of eight weeks, we go ahead and put in place a system that if they just simply stay at that rate, or they simply stay at that one price raise, they will be adding onto their income per per year, $41,600. Now, is that like too much numbers wise? Because of course numbers will fluctuate, but that's just something that have like a, a ground park rule. And for me, what I see a lot of educators doing in the industry is more focusing on, on cool. Like they just redundant a lot of words, attendant, uh, information, which is not bad, but it's because a lot of individuals have not done something substantial in the industry. They have, um, taken other classes and say, Oh, this is great information. I can say it with more emotion, or I can say with more, uh, a different time, but what are the results?Because for me, I don't, I want to listen to somebody who is charging anywhere less than really 80 bucks. If I'm trying to make it to charge $200 and we have to start looking at the facts of things, and we have to really start saying, who do I want to listen to? And who, which direction am I really going to take my career from this point on? Um, and to be honest, a lot of barbers are too caught up in the show of what, of what is monkey. See monkey do have this redundant cycle and it gets them stuck doing 30 minute haircuts. It gets them stuck in a redundant cycle of feeling unfulfilled. So they think that the next step has to be a, have to create a tension for myself to pass on a base level knowledge, because I want to help. I really don't know who they're trying to help to be quite honest, but we have to think in a different, and we have to elevate the, the, the, the mind state of what we're trying to do.And that's why, that's what I created with The New Era Of Barbering and Elevated Mentorship. Um, so with that, like simply figuring out what you want to do, figure out what direction and what you're really trying to optimize for. And it isn't, this honestly is going to take a lot of individuals. Something that they don't want to do is just sit down for like a week. Don't have their phone round them. They get in touch with their values, really get in touch with what they actually want to accomplish with their life. The biggest thing that happened for me when I was charging $20 for a haircut is I remember looking up and I looked at my schedule and it was literally like the same thing for the next three weeks. And I said, Holy, is this all my life is going to be about, is just doing this redundant cycle, bullshitting in a barbershop, talking about the same sports, whether it be LeBron or Kobe or whatever.Um, and then when football season comes around, we talk about football again. And is this all my life is going to be like, and really taking a stand for that and saying, I know I'm worth more. I know I'm capable of more. Let me start are actually figuring out what I want to achieve. And those are like the first things you must do to actually start getting progress. You have to put in the correct foundation and a correct groundwork, and actually go in a direction of something that's going to positively affect your career rather than going after something. To be honest with you, that like is in other people's hands, motivation, inspiration is not up to you. Motivation. Inspiration is up to the other individual who you're talking to, if they feel, and in my opinion, that's one of the worst things to optimize for, because now you're just wanting to be liked and to be the trend more so than getting a result.And I said before JZ set, like spoken, the JZ basically made a whole album about this, right? It's talking about Magna Carta, Holy grill. He was in that first song. He was talking about how, um, simply he got caught up in trying to be the most hottest thing out or the most famous person out and had to re it was like almost a drug to them. He related to, to being like an, in a toxic relationship, right. Where he can't get enough of them, but it's not good for him. Long-term. And when we start thinking about stuff like that, yeah. We start thinking about what we truly want to achieve. We start, we start separating what is truth from what is just talk? And we're really able to actually start going into direction that we want to achieve. And a lot of barbers nowadays want to go ahead and be, like I said before, I said it through the whole video wants to be recognized, but a lot of them don't want to take out the time or break things down to, well, what actually creates that people who are highly recognized are only because of that, because they've achieved as something that nobody else can do.So what is that, that you will want to do that.And in elevated mentorship, we, we, we achieve this Barbers who wants to get to that next level quicker and who want to actually have a roadmap to have continued success. Like I said before, within 12 to 18 months, be able to charge a hundred dollars per haircut, regardless if they have a barber's license or not, regardless of their cutting any barbershop. Right. Not because it doesn't come down to the fact of, if you can cut hair hair. Well, I've seen barbers who cut hair really well, who charged 20 bucks and do 30 haircuts. And I've seen barbers who don't cut as well as them who make a lot more money and are able to put their time into other things because of the fact that they understand how to go ahead and actually progress in their business and what they actually want to achieve in life.So with that, I wanted to make a short video today, nothing too crazy, but I drop a video like this every Sunday. So most of you know, I have a podcast and I talk more in depth on these topics. I've also switched to, uh, dropping a podcast once per week as well, just simply because, um, I want to go ahead and have one podcast, one YouTube video, um, and it makes it a lot simpler on myself when creating content. So I'll go ahead and put the links to go ahead and check out, uh, my podcasts in the description below on Apple music and Spotify. Or you can just go ahead and simply look up dlucs_ podcasts, as well as if you're interested in, in joining elevated mentorship, and really figuring out how to go ahead and take your business to the next level and actually stop trying to, uh, fight against or go against, um, what is never going to work, which is going after fame, going after it being an inspirational figure or trying to be, um, somebody who hops on flight the flight, just to regurgitate the same information and really, and instead wants to be somebody who creates something completely against the grain.I'll leave. I'll leave that link down below in the description as well, too. And as well as look a lot during this time right now, and this, this video is made during coronavirus. We don't know what's going to happen, but we have a lot of time to go ahead and actually figure out what direction when we go back to work to really figure out where we want to take our careers. Do we want to continue to go ahead and make the same amount of money, or do we want to do something different? And if you want it to be able to do something different, now's the time to start devising a plan of attack so that when we get back in the shop, we can actually go ahead and start executing because when chaos happens again, and I don't mean chaos as like a pandemic, but I mean, chaos of the day-to-day working life of being a barber and cutting hair for 14 hours a day.A lot of us don't have the mental energy to put into anything outside of just that. And it takes a lot of things of cutting out certain that we do, um, focusing on intaking information from the individuals that you actually want to be going in direction of and finding out what's truth versus what is noise, because there's a lot of talkers in any industry. And there's very few doers, doers, and the doers are very simple to find they just have the results for themselves. So with that always figure out what direction you want to go in devise, a plan, make it matches up with actually what you want to do and how to get there is actually a building a business and not just trying to create fame or some for some egotistical type of point of view, and don't get lost in the sauce, simple as that.Right? So with Danielle, if you found this video enjoyable, like I said, I dropped one every Sunday and you can go ahead and like, and subscribe this video. Um, I'll be dropping one every, every Sunday next week. Typically I go ahead and upload videos either like this or an old tutorial that I created now, I don't cut hair full-time anymore. Like I said, my full time is being put into, uh, helping out barbers, who are my students right now. I have about 10 students currently to elevate their careers, to be able to be on a path that, that, that whether they want to be charging a hundred dollars. Ideally I want to go ahead and create barbers who wants to be charging anywhere from 150, $200. And as crazy as that sounds, a lot of people will be saying, that's not reasonable, but you're not their client. There's always a client for any type of price that you want to offer. It's all about how do you market yourself? How do you set up your business to create successAnd actually how good of a product do you have? Because a lot of barbers actually need a little bit of a slap in the face to see that the product really isn't that good. And typically it's not watching another tutorial. I've never watched a tutorial that allow me to raise my prices up that far. And at the same point, I asked a lot of barbers, how many tutorials have you watched so far? And they'll tell me hundreds of hundreds and hundreds, and then I'll ask them, where has that gotten you so far? And it's just that simple fact of how, how far has that has that mechanism value and why would you continue trying to do the same, expecting a different result? Because to me it's just a taking a different approach and the system I've instead implemented to go ahead and actually create a better product of a haircut is proven it's you see it in the results. So with that, y'all, I will see you guys next week on another video, make sure to tune in to the deal it's podcasts on Apple music and stay in tune, make sure to subscribe.
Daniel Contreras is spearheading the industry with his New Era model that helps overworked and undervalued barbers to work less and make more. His students are some of the fastest-growing barbers in the industry and he has helped them gain market dominance in their respected areas of business and online. If you're interested in getting out of the old traditional model of barbering and start your New Era journey, click the "FREE Demo Breakdown" button above to request a strategy session.