At 35, Heidi Mendenhall thought the Charlotte business where she worked as a hairdresser was going nowhere.
So she decided to invest in herself, buying property in Charlotte's growing Steele Creek area and opening her own hair salon.
The first two years were the hardest. Mendenhall went from working four short days to six long days each week, even cleaning the salon on her day off.
Now, at 40, Mendenhall can finally see her investment is paying off. Her salon, Hair Design 49, provides a growing client base for herself and 11 colleagues. Mendenhall hopes to pay off the mortgage on her strip-center business condo within three years.
Mendenhall, a Fort Mill High graduate with a year of beauty school training, says her only management training is what she's picked up on the job. But colleagues and clients say her natural warmth and good sense go a long way in a complex business that can be rife with people problems.
“It helps that I have a laid-back personality,” Mendenhall says.
The hair stylist was betting on Charlotte's explosive growth when she zeroed in on a new strip center five years ago.
She paid $150,000 for an office condo off South Tryon Street near Westinghouse Boulevard in the city's southwest corner. She spent another $50,000 to outfit the interior with the help of her father, who works in construction.
She knew development was coming, but it's come more slowly than she had hoped. Ayrsley Town Center and Rivergate, new commercial developments, are close by. But the section of South Tryon around Hair Design 49 is sparsely developed.
Nevertheless, she says, the salon gets some walk-in traffic. But the bulk of business comes from “regulars,” clients Mendenhall, seven other stylists, two manicurists, an aesthetician and a massage therapist have developed over time.
Mendenhall says she has more than 200 regulars who come in monthly or every couple of months. Some are customers she's worked with for 20 years. She started as a stylist at 18.
So far, she says, the economic downturn hasn't hurt the salon much because those customers don't live paycheck to paycheck and aren't likely to skimp on hair services.
Financial experts generally agree on the salon-industry's vitality. Across the country, there are about 75,000 beauty salons and about 5,000 barber shops in a burgeoning $16 billion business.
A U.S. Department of Labor projection shows that between 2002 and 2012, the salon industry is expected to add 111,090 jobs. By 2012, the industry will include 865,000 workers, a 14.7 percent increase over 10 years.
Hair Design 49 is family-oriented and moderately priced, about midway between the discount chains and the high-end salons around SouthPark. Mendenhall charges $40 for a haircut, about average for the Charlotte market, she says.
On a recent Saturday, it was a busy but soothing place. Decorated in golds and browns with stylish concrete floors and granite touches, it was welcoming for male as well as female clients. Talk was lively, but not raucous. Some customers relaxed with magazines.
Generally, salon owners use one of two business arrangements, Mendenhall says. They can hire stylists and others as employees, train and promote them and pay them percentages of what the salon charges. The other business model, which Mendenhall uses, treats all workers as independent contractors. The stylists and other workers pay $151 weekly to rent their spaces and provide their own supplies. Mendenhall provides the building and its services. As a stylist, she also pays $151 rental weekly.
Mendenhall doesn't pay herself a management fee. She plows the fees back into the business, hoping to pay off the mortgage and become debt-free as soon as possible. Her sister, Lisa, a bookkeeper, keeps it all straight.
Mendenhall believes the salon is successful because its workers are experienced and responsible for their own piece of the business. They enjoy each other's company, but at the end of the day, they go home to personal lives. She says she's seen salons become almost cult-like, with owners expecting stylists to do everything together and socialize after-hours. That's not her style.
What she does do is to network with other area business people to promote the salon and bring in more clients.
Sami Nguyen, 30, a manicurist, has been with the salon since it opened. She appreciates Mendenhall for promoting the salon and most of all, for her dependability.
“Heidi always does what she says she's going to do, and gets it done on time,” Nguyen says. “Everyone gets along so good. There's no backstabbing.”
Says Paula Gurz, a longtime customer, “It's friendly and comfortable, a fun place to come.”
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