7 best books for self-employed hairdressers

Starting your own hairdressing business can be a daunting task. You’ll have to find your own clients, make your own appointments, manage your own finances, and source your own supplies and equipment. 

Luckily, plenty of books out there offer valuable insights into the different challenges self-employed business owners face. So, if you feel like improving your knowledge, here are the seven best books for self-employed hairdressers:

• The Fantastic Hairdresser (Alan Austin-Smith)
• The Salon Owners Bible (Simon Lotinga and Julie Eldrett)
• It’s Not Really About the Hair: The Honest Truth About Life, Love, and the Business of Beauty (Tabatha Coffey)
• Hair: Fashion and Fantasy (Laurent Philippon)
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey)
• How to Win Friends and Influence People (Dale Carnegie)
• Rework (Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson)

Alan Austin-Smith is a veteran in the hairdressing industry. He was the business development manager of L’Oreal before starting his own company, The Fantastic Hairdresser with Carolyn field – the editor of his book.  

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The Fantastic Hairdresser (book) is the best seller from among Austin-Smith’s three “Fantastic” titles – other titles include The Fantastic Boss and The Fantastic Salon. The book puts a strong emphasis on marketing, arguing that every customer interaction has an impact on your business, so consistently good customer experiences are the key to long term success. 

With a title like The Salon Owners Bible, Simon Lotinga and Julie Eldrett promise a lot, but they don’t disappoint. 

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The book asks the reader to think about larger questions when running a business. Questions like:

• Why does my salon exist?
• Why should my staff choose to work here?
• Why should my staff care about the business?
• Why would a customer stay loyal?

Answering these questions is the first step in creating a salon that makes a difference in people’s lives – the sort of salon that you’ll love running and customers will love visiting.

If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, then check out The Salon Owners Bible for practical tips on how to make it happen for you. 

Star of the hit show Tabatha’s Salon Takeover, Tabatha Coffey is well-known for her confidence and tenacity. Sharing her life experiences, Love, and the Business of Beauty is Coffey’s personal journey to success. 

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Coffey’s story is full of shocking and funny anecdotes that showcase her inspirational journey, encouraging readers to find confidence and acceptance in themselves. 

Alongside the inspiring message, it’s also full of great advice and guidance for small business owners. If you want to run a successful business and feel like a boss doing it, this is the book for you. 

Laurent Philippon explores the cultural significance of hair and beauty throughout the ages. It’s an informative celebration of all different styles and their origins, including braids, curls, loose hair, mohawks, chignons, coloured hair, wigs, crops. 

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Full of incredible images to illustrate her point, Hair: Fashion and Fantasy is for the hairdressing nerd inside you. There are also contributions from a number of notable figures, including:

• Yannick Dis.
• Veruschka
• Patti Wilson
• Amanda Lepore
• Dita Von Teese
• Vidal Sassoon. 

Recently celebrating its 30th anniversary, Stephen Covey’s book has been providing practical advice for over thirty years by exploring these seven titular habits:

• Be proactive
• Begin with the end in mind
• Put first things first
• Think win/win
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood
• Synergise
• Sharpen the saw

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The seven habits tread the line between self-help and business wisdom, teaching you to readjust the way you think to make you a more productive person that makes better decisions. 

Dale Carnegie has been helping people all over the world improve their lives by outlining expert advice on how to:

• Make friends quickly and easily
• Increase your popularity
• Persuade people to follow your way of thinking
• Enable you to win new clients and customers
• Become a better speaker
• Boost enthusiasm among your colleagues

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Carnegie’s lessons are easily translatable to running your own business. You’ll learn valuable, practical skills that can help you improve your relationships with customers and staff while making you a more well-rounded leader. Get How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Imagine succeeding in business by doing less – that’s the dream. Well, that’s exactly what you’ll learn how to do by reading Rework. 

The idea is to maximise your productivity by working smarter and ignoring things that don’t actually help you achieve your long-term goals. 

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Alongside practical advice, like how to be more creative and get more exposure, there are some more controversial opinions, such as:

• Why plans are harmful. 
• Why you don’t need outside investors. 
• Why you’re better off ignoring the competition. 

The unconventional guidance of this book has made it a breath of fresh air for some business owners. At the very least, it leads to some interesting ideas by challenging the status quo. 

Whether you’re a home hairdresser or a salon owner, Countingup is the perfect companion for a busy business owner, thanks to its many time-saving features. Record your hairdressing expenses, like equipment, supplies, and travel costs, and then they’ll be automatically sorted into HMRC approved categories. 

You can also share your bookkeeping with your accountant instantly without worrying about duplication errors, data lags or inaccuracies. Seamless, simple, and straightforward! 

Start your three-month free trial today. 

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