About this video:
This is how the industry views money
Charging more/ making money = bad, evil, greedy, pig, ridiculous
Charging less/keeping price low = good person, doing the right thing, one of us, buddy
Not exactly the perfect idea or approach when running a business, and as barbers/service providers, that’s what we are.
I think a lot of people on the industry are torn over this idea.
At one end, this is the norm, at the other end, they have their needs to provide for the family and accomplish their own goals.
I can say from my own experience, this can be confusing as hell to deal with. You want/need to improve your business, but the culture is about hating on those that actually do improve their business.
Now this isn’t everyone, but if you look below people’s comment sections when they are finally raising their service price, it’s like they have just committed a cardinal sin.
Because I see this trend happening too much (probably more from people who love to troll) I decided to make a short 23 min blog video breakdown on my website going over the above plus what occurs when barbers have this poor world view of money and how that affects the industry as a whole from progressing at all.
Hopefully this provides those that are a bit confused with clarity and a clear cut idea of what to work towards without being a martyr to your own business.
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 Conteras aka dlucs here from the new era of barbering. So we're back bald head sexiness as usual. As you guys know a shoot ahead from the last video now we're gonna try and get to the point a little bit quicker in this video, as well as I'm trying to stay on topic. And really one-on-one to talk about on this video is, is something I've, I've just in seeing not only in like common sections of other barbers but also with borrowers who have been a part of the program, as well as people who have just been talking on the phone in the industry. And it's, it's this it's like the relationship with money in the barber industry is something that's like walks up very well thin line. Right. Which I've had it, it's like this worldview of like money bad, right.Speaker 1 (00:45):Making a lot of money or charging, charging. Bad shame on you. Right. you know, being, helping people good. Right. And that associate helping people is keeping prices low. We're not charging that much. And you know, basically, I mean, if you want to think about being a martyr thinker, right. Being that martyr of like I have to sacrifice my life so that everybody else can be happy. Right. Which doesn't, it's not helpful for anybody. In fact, it's probably more detrimental than helpful. And why this, well, at least idea of like in the barber industry is in money is, is bad and is also very skewed from like what now there are proper reasons why people might think this too. Right. I mean, if you look at literally any Hollywood movie any like, I guess story that has ever been made about, you know, that prototypical, anybody who's rich is like anybody who makes a lot of money is evil, is bad.Speaker 1 (01:43):They're corrupt. And anybody who like, it's always like this, this character in the movie or story, that's like the unsung hero of like, you know, they come from they're, they're poor. They're like the good, they have a good heart and like, they're, they're supposed to right. Now understand that's Hollywood, it's not real life. Now there are examples in the real world where there's for sure scam. Right. like I think it was good. Yeah. Like I was writing this up. I was thinking about like, well, it's kind of funny because a lot of people, especially like barbers, you know, a lot of people are talking to Barbara street, like, or like really a movie that everybody loves is like Wolf of wall street. Yeah. Wall street is like one of the biggest scams. Like the dude actually went to prison.Speaker 1 (02:32):Right. If that doesn't scream, scam, I don't know what does and yet like, everybody's like wants to be like that type of like money man. And that's like what everybody associates. Right. but what, what a lot of people have to understand. That's why I like, I, I, I mean, like when I asked barbers too sometimes, like, why have they never like pushed their business forward? Why have they never been wanting to grow their business? And it's more stems from like this, this bad relationship or this bad worldview, I should say of what they think money is an inside of a business. Right. They think a business overall like especially your business, that's what you are as a barber or a service provider is a business. A lot of people think that that you're just there to right. Which in, I guess like in a very like wide view or bigger view, like, yeah, you are supposed to serve somebody, but that's not your purpose.Speaker 1 (03:28):Like you can't just serve and then like not make money because then it's, it's, I mean, it's not profitable. I mean, I've talked to a lot of barbers who were like barely scraping by, but yeah. A month. And I say this too, because I've been there before. I have no been like in that position where you're barely like being able to survive month to month, but also to like this bad worldview. I, for me, that's why I never like raised my prices above like 16, 20 bucks when I first started, because I was always like, Oh yeah, yeah. Like if you charge a lot of money, like how shame on you, right. How dare you charge anybody that much? So I actually relate with people who say that, like, whether it be in like my comment section or other people's comments, sections, or, you know, just talking about anybody who actually like has a business you know, I was always like, shame on you.Speaker 1 (04:16):How could you ever do that type of thing? You're not for, you know, you're not, you're not helping anybody out with that. And I think what a lot of barbers think about too you know, when, when I say like, why have you never grown your business? They, for some reason, there's like this idea of like you know, you take the clients that you already have, and then you just hold a gun to their head and say, give me your money. I'm charging more given your money. Right. And that's not what happens at all. Like if they don't like nobody forces anybody to pay anybody for any service, like somebody could just say like, you can put your prices and be like, Hey, I'm charging 300 bucks for a haircut now. And then somebody and be like, no, I don't want to pay that.Speaker 1 (04:57):They have free will to nobody's forcing anybody. So that's, I mean, it's always, it's always very surprising to me why barbers have this rope, but now I have a couple of, I guess, example from my own life and also work with barbers inside of Elevated Mentorship the program where we help build barbers businesses and help them scale. You know, right now we have a barber in the program. I'm not going to say his name because he hasn't publicly come out on this. And he's actually said that he wants to just be more about the clientele like he serving right now. Like have it a little bit on, more on low you know, he's, he's been able to be able to make 24 K a month as well as he's been able to raise prices up, he's going up to about 200, two 25 probably in the next month.Speaker 1 (05:40):So, I mean, and he's, he's not like a bad person, like he's one of the most genuine people I think I've known yeah. In my life. Yet most people, when they hear those numbers, they're like, how could you, like, who's going to pay for that? Well, people that provide, he provides value too. Right? That's what a business is. You can't generate income or, or money as a business. If you don't provide some type of value and the value is a like problem, you, you find a solution to a problem. Right. and you improve on that as well too. Now, like I said before, most barbers will think like this bad idea of money, like, Oh, money, bad charging, more bad. I can never do that because they they're, they they're so stuck in like, thinking about their own clientele. But like, and it's the reason to like, you, you create a very great, I used to create very great relationships with clientele when I was charging 16, 20 bucks or so you know, they become like family.Speaker 1 (06:33):And so, you know, you almost feel like you know, bad for charging more. And that is, I mean, I think that's a human trait too, when you create relationships with people you know, you're going to want to always take care of them. It's like it's caretaker type of mentality. However, in a business you're not a caretaker, right? You're not mommy or daddy to them. You are a business and they pay you for value. Now for me, when I first started out my idea was like, let me think back. You know, I thought of like, you know, I'm charging 16, 20 bucks. I take care of these people, right? And at some point later down the road, they're going to take care of me. I think, I think a lot of barbers can relate to that too.Speaker 1 (07:22):Right. At some point in time, they're going to take care of me and they're going to, they're going to award me because I took taking care of them for so long, however, two years down in, and that never happened. Right. If anything like that, people kept on using my business. People kept on whether it wasn't like tipping, you know? Always just not like there was never, like I never got saved and it was just like that martyr figure. Like always that hoping praying, like later on down the road. And I was always wondering like, why the is this happening? Like I thought, this is what I was supposed to do. I was, I was, I was a good person. Like I, I ran, I thought I ran a good business. And you know, I was, I was, I quit great relationships.Speaker 1 (08:00):I was good with these people yet. I was not getting rewarded. And it was kind of like a big slap in the face and wake up call was like, maybe this isn't what business is. Right. Maybe something being about me, of good person. Like you have to be a good, you have to be a good person, regardless whether you run a business or not. Right. Let's get that out of the way. And I'm not telling anybody to be a person or anything like that. However that doesn't provide value and that doesn't deem you worthy of generating more income. And I think when people can't get over that fact, they'll always stay in that like, okay, hope, hopefully one day they're going to reward me or like, I'll stay here and take care of them. Right. I mean, if that doesn't scream martyr, like self sacrificing, like I don't know what is, and, and I don't think that's, I don't think that's wrong. I do think, however, like if you do want to be number one or you do want to be the best, or you want to at least grow something, that's totally incorrect path, you want to go down. And it's not something that I think is enjoyable for anybody. Like, I don't thinkSpeaker 2 (09:01):Keeping yourself at a lower level to serve people that, you know,Speaker 1 (09:06):I don't think it'd be that doesn't stimulate any growth in any industry. Right. In any industry and in any business. And I've talked about this before on a video prior the main goal is to make money as a business, right? Because there's a business. If you don't make money you can't live like in, in today's day and age and world, like how we have everything set up and the economy, like you need to have an income and money to own or to survive. And here's where, like, the thing starts, like a lot of things start switching me if I don't survive or I'm not making money to be able to pay bills or even be, have peace of mind. I can't serve people. Right. Which is what I would like when I was trying to do before. But because I would just totally focus on serving people. It almostSpeaker 2 (09:49):Like maybe notSpeaker 1 (09:52):Able to serve people because now I've been like this scarcity mode. I don't have income and not money. Holy. What am I supposed to be doing? I thought this is what I was Liz about this business was,Speaker 2 (10:01):But you know, you kind ofSpeaker 1 (10:03):Have to start. I started thinking about at least of like, well, maybe this isn't what I'm supposed to be optimized for right now. Like, we're cool. So you have to be able to make money. That's the goal of any business. Now it's not like, like I said before, it's not like you hold a dump that somebody said and say, Hey, I'm charging more, gimme your money. Nobody's going to do that. And I think a lot of barbers like get scared of like, Oh God, they're gonna think I'm a bad person. Nobody's gonna think you're a bad person to be quite honest. If anything, like, I I've always had people like be very proud of like, at least how I've built my business up. And, and also it allowed me to help them build their business up as well too.Speaker 2 (10:39):Now I, I guessSpeaker 1 (10:43):I said, the next thing is like, okay, cool. Like, well, I don't want to be money hungry. Right. I don't want to ask. I don't want to, like, I don't want to go down that path to being money hungry or whatever. Yada, yada, yada, I think, I think also too, I've heard some of those things from barbers prior of like that's not how I want to be looked at us. And really it's it's I don't think, I think people have a poor, like worldview of money, the idea, yeah. You're going to eat. They're going to think of you like that because that's their, that's their whole world view of like how the world interacts with money. That's how we think the world is set up. However, when you look at the everything else outside, like, just look outside, that's not how everything is built.Speaker 1 (11:20):Like it's built off of value. It's built off of a problem solution based. I mean, I thought about this for two Steve jobs, Bezos Musk, all those guys create incredible value have like shaped the world literally today. Like jobs. I wouldn't be able to like record this video without Steve jobs. Right. That's value. Right. I don't mind paying like people. What was it? People like when he was first coming out the iPhone, that was crazy pay a thousand bucks. I w I don't think anybody has a problem with that right now. Oh yeah. This is useful. I need this thing. Right. And that's, you know, when you're able to at least like, make an income for yourself build your business up and generate something where you're not in scarcity mode, or just like, you're barely surviving. What you're able to do then is also to improve product.Speaker 1 (12:08):Right. which is like the whole, the whole idea behind this. Like you have to improve your product in order to be able to serve your customers, better, serve your clients. And also stay ahead of the curve and giving more value. I hate like value back. Right. but what most people think value is, is keeping yourself down lower servicing people like at a lower price point, because that's fine. That's not value. That's almost just, that's a self-sacrifice type of type of. Honestly, that's not going to, and it's, I know that a little bit harsh, but that, that is the reality of like, if you are running a business, which every all was areSpeaker 2 (12:48):That's the reality.Speaker 1 (12:48):You have to live it right. Either, you know, stay at this lower level. And, you know, unfortunately like there, it's a very painful to like, be at that lower level. I mean, I remember charging 16, 20 bucks. Speaker 2 (13:00):And I mean, it's, it's very, very Speaker 1 (13:05):Like mentally, like you, you, you you're, you kind of always stressed out. It's not like the best. You don't have peace of mind. You can't like, you probably don't have like clients that give you peace of mind that you enjoy cutting. You're probably not doing the haircuts or anything of services that you enjoy doing. Speaker 2 (13:21):And it's a very, justSpeaker 1 (13:22):Like ground level and nobody like elevates themselves off of that. And the biggest thing of why they, they don't might go up is just this worldview. They're, they're, they're scared that people are gonna leave because they're going to hate them because they think they're a scam, as long as you always like improve product, provide value. Nobody's going to think that way, right. People who have a messed up up worldview, and that's, you know, that's kind of how, like that crabs in the bucket mentality, like festers out to, and we see this a lot of times, at least when I talk to barbers who are in like a smaller towns, a smaller town mindset type thingSpeaker 2 (13:58):You know,Speaker 1 (13:59):I was always like, I can't charge that in my town. Well, how do you know? Right. That's always a question on our boat. Well, how do you know, have you tried, like, I didn't think I could charge like 150, 200 bucks in Sacramento by any means. For sure. When I was charging 16, 20 bucks, I never thought that I would have, I would've thought like my future self came back in time. I would've thought I was crazy. I'm like do crazy, dude. No, that's not going to happen yet. When I just focused on like those core things and understood that like changed up the idea of what money was what really pushed a business forward. You know, and just actually went to work and approving product and building things up, not really worrying about like, Oh God, people are gonna hate me for this. You know, you kind of end up at a place where you're like, Holy. Okay. Why, why did I think that was like impulsive?Speaker 2 (14:49):And I think a lot of people too, like, well, I'm, Barbara's that I workSpeaker 1 (14:52):With inside the elevator mentioned program. They're actually very surprised at like, I mean, I think tough, you know one of our, one of the barbers in the program, the tough, the Barbara who lives in Las Vegas, I think he said one time, like one guy, he was like, bald, your ball up top. And he cut his hair. I think he did his beard. I think dude pay him like 250, some odd bucks, 200, 250. And he's like, dude, that like kind of changed my paradigm. I didn't think people would like see value in that, but yet here's this guy who completely sees value in that for me and had noSpeaker 2 (15:22):I'm paying that. And you know,Speaker 1 (15:26):I think also too, like, like this, this money thing also like stems from like wanting to be liked, unfortunately, like not wanting to be like Speaker 2 (15:38):How can I say thisSpeaker 1 (15:39):Judge? Because like a lot of people, like when we're in a service business, a lot of our clients, when we start out with it's like family and friends, right. Which is like, it's good because like, it's an easy startup, but it's also bad because when we want to grow, we almost have to break away from that mold of like, I'm going to like, you know, most barbers have like this mentality of like, Oh God, where are they going to think of me? My family is going to hate me. And like, honestly, I have heard like some people that like where their family starts, like, you know, like, Oh dude, you're like, it's the crabs in a bucket mentality to get into. Right. Oh, why are you charging me? And you're supposed to be like, you're supposed to be like giving me the family discount. It's like, well, that's not how business works. You don't, there is no family discounts. Like family discounts don't pay the bills, family discounts. Don't like, do anything else to support you and your business?Speaker 2 (16:27):W like, what do you want, what do you want them to do? Like, you know,Speaker 1 (16:31):And that doesn't make the individual who's even saying that like, improve that life. Right. It's just allowing them to kind of skate by, at that lower level instead of like, okay. If I really want this haircut, I got to go ahead and build do better for myself as well, too, which I found also works.Speaker 2 (16:48):You know, business and life like this,Speaker 1 (16:51):The relationship with money it's about helping. It is about helping other people. And money is directly associated with two more people that you're able to help and improve their livelihood. Right. And, and solve their problems and issues. It's not this evil thing yet. I think we see even like a lot of barbers who are likeSpeaker 2 (17:10):I I'veSpeaker 1 (17:11):Seen even other barbers who are like higher up or just like, have more influence, like, say this too. Them, they like, they like knock like the the money thing. And it's like, that's, that's what a business is. And we are a business. So that that's like kind of today's rent and video. You know, I, well, I don't think I gave you guys anything of like practical things to do. Right. I didn't think this is more of just like a video of just like, kind of understanding likeSpeaker 2 (17:35):What thatSpeaker 1 (17:36):Aspect is, what needs to change. I guess some practical things to do. I mean, what did I do for like, fixing this thing?Speaker 2 (17:46):I mean, really what I started doing was I startedSpeaker 1 (17:50):Viewing money very differently. Right. I didn't view people who charge the higher price point for a certain service or anything like that as evil, which most people do. Like how could you I started actually investing in, I mean, this is going to sound like so perfectly, but an investing in myself. Right. and the thing is too, like, there are people who scam there there's, I mean, like there are people who do scam, but when you go ahead and start investing in yourself, are you going to get scared? Yeah. Probably like they're, they're all out there. There are different levels of like that too. But when you do it enough, you start learning what to look for and what to look out for. Like you start seeing, Oh, okay. The people actually like have a longevity type of business, actually provide the most value and provide the best product overall.Speaker 1 (18:37):And it becomes very, it becomes very simple as like, like, like pick out. Okay, cool. Don't follow this with this person says, cause obviously their product is. This person has a great product because and, and they're going to win long-term and then I would trust, of course, this person has a great product versus not great product scam wise. And people understand this also too, like you see their businesses. So I make, because they give back to the market, it stimulates the market to go ahead and do better. And then also too, like, you know, you need to have some type of reward as a business owner to progress everything forward. They're like, and I think that's why most of the barber industry really isn't farther ahead because this worldview of money of like, you know, you have to stay like you have to be for the people, all this stuff.Speaker 1 (19:24):And like, look, I, I think as a business use to, it can be for the people and like, be very good to people and serve people, but not at your expense, not at your livelihood expense, not like your income expense. As long as you understand what buttons to push and, you know, understand that too, like, you know, what is possible is about, right. I think there's a lot farmers who also, it's not just barbers and, and, and I don't want to have this idea of like, Oh, the people in my program, go ahead and make this much. I think there's a lot of barbers will make like above 20 K 24 K I mean, even above probably 30 K a month cutting hair. Right. I don't think we're the only ones. I mean, like what we're doing with the program, at least and helping barbers with that is, is we have our structured system that honestly, like it gets results, but it's not like the only way I think there's a lot of other ways.Speaker 1 (20:13):It's just, you know, we, we help people. We have our certain formula what we do and probably somebody else does it something some other way. So it's not like there's, there's only one way to do it too. I, so don't think this is like something like getting my program and getting into the new era of barbering. This is more just like, look, have a broader mind of like what money is because to, I guess, push this industry forward again, to, to transform this industry, Barbara and stream, and like really you know, so it's not so far behind from like, let's say other industries they're in the service space. You know, we need to have a better relationship with this money thing. Otherwise, you know, all this damage, like I hate when people say, you know, going to put people on or like give out free game and stuff like that, because all it does is like pass on poor, important information to like that next set of people to have poor initial conditions and that they just set a low ceiling and there is no progress.Speaker 1 (21:06):So, you know, I would say for those of you who are maybe conflicted with this or have this worldview money where they think money is bad, take, take a different look at it. I would say, right. Don't, don't be so closed minded off to like, money is bad. And people who have money are bad and charge a lot of money or like East scam artists and evil people just get into most, most of the best. Like most of them people I know that are like some of the nicest people also are like, I mean, they, they, their business is thriving. They make a lot of money because they understand how to provide value and help people. And, you know, when you help people and you get more word as well, too, it makes it give them positive reinforcement to help more people when you don't get reinforced with that and only get reinforced with this nice Pat on the back.Speaker 1 (21:54):It's not a great reward as a human, especially when, you know, when you're, whatever you're living in, you need, you need the money to, in order to survive. So that is it for this video again, to am I go a little bit more in depth with this? Well, this was more of just like, kind of like a I guess a little bit of a spiel talk you know, kinda go on going all over the place of like, you know, what I've seen, what I've heard and you know, what I've kind of experienced in the industry also with myself too. You know, we might go tap into a little bit more deeper topics of like this money thing. Cause I, I do think this is something that needs to be addressed for X mindset switched. Right. cause I think, I mean, for a lot of barbers in that I've worked with too th that, that paradigm shift and that new worldview honestly like helps them, like it like unlocks more levels.Speaker 1 (22:43):It's like, it's like that breath of fresh air, like, Oh yeah. Okay. I S I, I get it now. And they're able to go ahead and like really take off. So if you liked this video, go ahead and make sure you drop, like, let me know the comments below what you thought of this as well, too. I'm going to be back on here dropping a weekly video for a little bit of time for a little bit time for a little while. I don't know how long we'll be dropping the weekly video, what we're going to see, how long this lasts. Hopefully I can get a little better structured each and every single video it's going to improve. You know, like I try it. This is your first time watching a video from me. Welcome. I also do go ahead and like, I make all these videos on YouTube, also a blog post.Speaker 1 (23:20):So maybe I'll make the blog post a little bit more structured. I'll put them in. I put that up on my website. So the new era of barbering.com and you can go to the resources section, I'll go ahead and upload a lot of downloadable tracking sheets and spreadsheets that you can go in and implement your business. So you can go ahead and grow it as well, too. So highly suggest you can check that out. There's some that you're interested in. And then again, to like, you know, stay up to save the date and let me know what you thought about it in the comments below, like subscribe. And I will see you guys next time. Whether it be next week or whatever for another video. See you guys later.
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.