The most honest conversations happen in the staff room (or at least they used to)
The advice, support and straight-talking to make working for yourself work better, earn more and build a career that actually feels like yours.
The chats where someone admits they don’t have a clue what they’re doing with their accounts and aren’t really sure what “turnover” even means.
Where you show someone an awkward client message and say, “What the fuck am I supposed to reply to that?”
Where you realise the hairdresser you thought had everything sorted is actually winging half of it and questioning the other half, just like the rest of us.
Those conversations reminded us that none of us had everything figured out.
But as more hairdressers started working independently, we didn’t just lose the staff room, we lost that connection to the people who reminded us that not knowing something didn’t mean we were shit at our jobs!
Then we go online for a bit of advice and five minutes later we’ve decided everybody else is fully booked, earning a fortune and has this whole working for yourself thing totally sorted!
Spoiler…
they haven’t. They’re just not posting about the last-minute cancellation that’s left a massive hole in their week or the time they’ve spent comparing their career to somebody else’s and convincing themselves they’re falling behind.
Those conversations were far too important to lose just because the way we work has changed.
So I decided to give them somewhere to happen again.
Welcome to SLK’s Staff Room!
I created this membership to give independent hairdressers back what we lost when we stopped working alongside each other — and more of what I believe we’ve deserved all along…
Somewhere to ask, “What would you do?” before you spend the next hour overthinking it alone.
Honest answers to the business questions nobody taught us when we learned how to do hair.
Support on the days when one cancellation, complaint or quiet week has you questioning absolutely everything.
Help making your diary, money, clients and working week feel easier to manage ( and take up less space in your head!)
Access to the benefits, experiences and opportunities independent hairdressers have been missing out on for far too long.
Whatever success looks like to you, there’s room for it here.
Over the years, I’ve worked with independent hairdressers inside Host, mentored students and had thousands of conversations with hairdressers who all want completely different things.
Some want to earn more without adding more clients to their week.
Some want better boundaries, fewer awkward conversations and a business that takes up less space in their head.
Some want to explore education, brand work or a completely different part of the industry.
And some already love exactly what they do, they’d just like to feel more confident doing it.
That’s why I’m not here to teach you how to recreate my career or push you down a path you think you should be following because it looks successful from the outside.
I’m here to help you work out what you want from your career then give you the knowledge and support inside this community to help you create it…
So, what exactly do you get inside SLK’s Staff Room?
Answers to the questions nobody taught us when we learned how to do hair.
Everything has been created around the real questions, problems and awkward situations that come with working independently.
Nothing takes longer than 15 minutes so you can come in with a problem, find the help you need and get on with doing something about it!
Watch the video, turn on the subtitles or read the full transcript if you’d rather skip listening to me waffle.
Come in with a question. Leave knowing what to do next.
START HERE
If you come in and immediately think, “Where the hell do I start?”, then start here!
Tell me what you’re struggling with, what you want to improve or where you are in your career, and I’ll send you straight to the things that will help most.
No working through everything in order. Just start with what you need right now.
Self Employment 101
I’ll help with all the things nobody mentioned before you went self-employed and were suddenly expected to know.
We’ll cover getting set up properly, business banking, insurance, pricing and the foundations that help your business run as an actual business.
Basically, the important stuff you should probably sort before you’re too busy doing everybody’s hair to think about it!
MONEY
You’ll learn how to work out what you’re actually earning, where your money keeps going and whether your fully booked diary is actually making you any real profit…
We’ll cover things like paying yourself properly, setting financial goals and finding ways to make more without asking your clients for another penny.
Because being busy and making money are not always the same thing babe.
THE BORING BITS
Tax, expenses and all the other boring but important shit you become responsible for the minute you start working for yourself is all in here…
I’ll explain it like we’re chatting in the staff room, not like I’ve copied and pasted it straight from the HMRC website. The last thing I want is for you to feel even more confused than when you started!
It’s still boring - just much easier to get your head around.
WORK SMARTER
The Staff Room covers all the practical ways to make your business and working week easier to manage.
Get more from your booking software, make your diary work better, organise your stock, manage messages and automate the jobs you really don’t need to keep doing yourself.
Less admin. Less to remember. And far fewer things waking you up at 3am.
THE AWKWARD STUFF
Learn how to handle the conversations and situations you currently dread, so when the next awkward message comes in, you feel more confident knowing what to do, what to say and when you need to say no, without rewriting your reply 400 or 500 times.
Because you can be a lovely person and still have boundaries.
WORD OF MOUTH
Help more of the right people find you, choose you and keep coming back, without feeling like you need to turn your entire life into content.
This area is about getting noticed, building a business, people genuinely want to recommend and giving clients more reasons to keep choosing you. And if social media is part of how you want to do that, there’s help with that too!
Because you’re a hairdresser, not a full time content creator.
the next chapter
Get clearer on what you actually want next, whether that means exploring something beyond the chair or building a career you’re very fucking happy staying in.
This area is about showing you what else could be possible, with an honest look at different directions your career could take, so you can decide what actually feels right for you.
Because your career doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.
sarah’s sleepover
For the days when you’re doubting yourself, overthinking everything or need a mate to remind you that one difficult day doesn’t mean your entire career is falling apart.
Short videos to help you get out of your own head and find a bit of perspective.
Think of it as the next best thing to turning up at my house in your pyjamas, getting under a blanket and taking the whole thing out.
if you need this, join us now!
and we’re nowhere near done yet…
The education is only one part of what you’ll find inside!
You’re also getting the people, support, benefits and opportunities that make this feel like a place you’ll want to keep coming back to…
Your own private staff room
You’ll be part of a community filled with independent hairdressers who understand the brilliant, difficult and sometimes ridiculous reality of this career.
Ask a question, get another opinion, share something you’re proud of or talk honestly about whatever’s going on right now.
Because sometimes you don’t need another lesson. You just need someone who gets it.
a live staff meeting every month
Once a month, we’ll all get together to ask questions, share what’s happening and properly talk through the things that need more than a quick reply underneath a post.
I want to get to know the people inside this membership, and I want you to get to know each other too.
An actual Staff Meeting where we talk about the things that matter, not who forgot to empty the bin again!
Popz — the colleague who never clocks off…
Popz is my AI chatbot that I’ve trained using my education, experience and the advice I’d give you myself.
So when a question pops into your head, you can ask it there and then without waiting for me, the next Staff Meeting or 47 conflicting answers from Facebook.
It’s like having me in your pocket, except Popz doesn’t need to sleep and swears less 🤣
Brand partners who believe independent hairdressers deserve more
I haven’t asked brands to join so I can stick their logos on the website and call it a partnership, I’ve asked them what they can actually give you.
That could mean saving money on things you already use, finding new ways to earn more or getting access to something you wouldn’t usually have the chance to be part of.
If their involvement doesn’t benefit the hairdressers inside, I’m not interested!
more opportunities for you
Throughout my career, I’ve built relationships, gained knowledge and been given access to some incredible opportunities.
The Staff Room gives me a way to use all of that to create more experiences, events and opportunities for independent hairdressers too, including the things you might have assumed were only available to people with huge platforms.
Because you shouldn’t need 100,000 followers for somebody to decide you deserve something fucking exciting.
three chances to win every month
Three members will win prizes each month for getting involved, joining the conversations and supporting the other hairdressers inside.
Basically, the more you put into the Staff Room, the more you could get back from it.
And some much bigger things throughout the year…
There are exclusive experiences and opportunities being created specifically for Staff Room members.
I’m not telling you what they are yet because I need to keep some secrets 🤣
But they’re the kind of experiences independent hairdressers usually watch happening for people with much bigger platforms while thinking, “That’ll never be me.”
I want more of those moments to belong to you.
Your seat in the Staff Room is £37 per month
Yes babe, you’ll get all of this for £37 (or less with the annual membership), and if you’ve made it this far, you’ve probably already thought of questions you’d ask, the education you’d head to first or the situation you wish you’d had the SLK Staff Room for last week…
You’re exactly who I’ve built this for!
Pay Monthly
£37 per month
No minimum term, cancel whenever
BEST
VALUE!
Pay yearly
£444 £370 per year
10 months for the price of 12
Lock these prices in before they go up!
I’ve learned this stuff the hard way
I’m Sarah. I started in hairdressing at 14 and have spent the last 20+ years immersed in pretty much every part of the industry.
I’ve been employed, rented a chair, managed salons, worked on high-profile shoots, spent seven years at Bleach London, built my own education business and taught more than 15,000 hairdressers around the world. So I’ve seen a lot of what this industry can look like, from behind the chair to behind the scenes.
But I’ve also learned a lot by getting things wrong. I’ve experienced burnout, struggled through periods where cancellations meant I couldn’t pay my bills and had to completely rethink what success actually meant to me.
I know that being brilliant at hair doesn’t automatically mean you know how to run a business, make good money from it or work out what you want your career to look like next. That’s the stuff I’m here to help with.
WHAT PREVIOUS COURSE ATTENDEES SAY:
come and take your seat
I know you’re bloody brilliant at what you do but you still have moments when you wonder if everybody else has got this career figured out better than you have.
You’ve spent enough time being the person with all the responsibility, making every decision and trying to find every answer on your own.
Now you get to have somewhere that has your back.
Some days you’ll come in for an answer and leave with a massive weight off your shoulders.
Other days, you’ll find an idea, conversation or opportunity that changes what you thought was possible for your career.
And sometimes, you’ll just need to hear that you’re doing a much better job than you’re giving yourself credit for.
Whatever brings you here, babe, your seat is waiting and I cant wait to have you…
