We recently connected with Brianna Rehm and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Brianna, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I would say I get my work ethic from both of my parents, but specifically my father. Growing up I always saw both of my parents working so hard. And they showed my sisters and I what happens when you work hard. However, my father has his own business. I never had a plan to open a salon of my own, but when it presented itself, I went with it. And I had my parents full support, and I ended up falling on my dad for a lot of questions and things that I needed help with when opening my salon. I was always told growing up that if you set your mind to something you could achieve it. I was never told you couldn’t do anything. Which pushed me to do as much as I could. My father always used to say work hard now play later. And that is instilled in my brain. And now that I have been in business 3 years I can fully understand that statement. I want to say yes to every job and work with as many people as I can. I truly don’t know what I would be doing if it wasn’t for my parents constant love and support.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
About me hmm, I feel it is always hardest to describe yourself.
I will start with how I opened my salon first. I have been doing hair for nine years now. I started off working as an assistant, then went to a chain salon, then went to renting a chair. The next stage would be opening a salon. But it was not really on my radar. Until, covid hit.
The salon I was working at was shut down for just under three months. All while the craziness of everything going on during that time I decided NOW was the time to open a salon of my own. The town that I have lived in my entire life had a building with a sign saying lease available. I thought wow wouldn’t that be cool to have my own space in the town I love in. I decided to not tell anyone that I was going to look at the space. When I went there I fell in love. I asked my parents to come check it out and a few other business related friends that would be the ones helping me renovate. EVERYONE was on board and saw my vision, and they all completely brought it to life. When I tell you the only difficult thing when opening the salon was trying to get meetings with the town or specific people because covid was at its craziest. But that was it everything else with renovating and picking things out to make the salon mine was a literal dream. I walk into work everyday happy knowing I was able to create a space that my clients can come to and relax and enjoy, all while I get to be on cloud nine most days because I still can’t believe I did it. Three years have gone by of me owning this salon and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Next I can tell you a little bit more about my day to day. My usual days consist of being behind the chair Tuesday through Saturday. And I have typically taking color and highlight clients, haircuts, I also am an extension certified specialist. If anyone were to come to the salon that is what you would see be doing behind the chair.
There is also many other realms of hair that I take part in. I have been working with a lot of amazing photographers lately. I have one photographer that specializes in lifestyle and branding photoshoots. So I typically would be styling hair and doing makeup for all the different looks for the photoshoot.
I also recently started picking up jobs for another amazing photographer where I do just hair styling for boudoir photoshoots for women. And that is something so special to be apart of because it is heavily focused on loving your body and women empowerment.
And the main thing you will find me doing other then being behind the chair is working most weekends from April/May to late November working weddings. I am typically styling the bride and bridal party or guests that would like to have their hair done. I LOVE being able to create beautiful and always different styles and updos for these beautiful women on one of the most special and happiest days of their lives. It truly is so amazing to be apart of.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Hardworking & Determined 2. Personable
3. Being able to ask for help
I can give you a brief summary as to why I chose those three main points specifically for my journey.
I think first off the reason why I chose hardworking and determined kind of speak for themselves. I personally feel like if I was not determined or hard working I would have never achieved this path that I am on. I think that I had my mind set on something and I didn’t stop until I was able to achieve that. I think that growing up I was always being surrounded by hard working and successful people. Not only my parents but the people in their circle. I think surrounding yourself with people you admire and achieve to be is HUGE. I never really realized it until I was older. But I have many friends with their own businesses. And we all support each other. And I would say that at the end of the day you have to be hardworking and determined.
As far as personable goes, I think that most career paths you have to be someone that people can talk to or enjoy to be around. In the hair world you quite often are doing hair for your client but also listening to them. I have had people tell me about deaths in the family, someone getting sick that is close to them. I also have heard all the exciting and good things whether it be a wedding or a new baby in a clients life. I hear all of the highs and lows from my clients. I do believe that they trust me and can talk to me about these things because of being more personable. I know that its half how I do the hair and the job and the other half is being there for the client.
And lastly I did chose being able to ask for help. I think that this is a hard one to pick too. Because at the end of the day most people do not want to ask for help. You do not want to appear weak or not able to do something. I however learned during this process of opening the salon that it is okay to ask for help. If you are asking for help it is not because you are not able to do it, it is because not one person in the world can handle everything on their own. There will be days you need to ask for help more then others, and that is okay. I had so many people helping me when I opened the salon I had to be okay with letting people in to do that. Otherwise if everything falls on you that opens up a spiraling kind of situation. I truly feel in the last three years of being open that asking for help is okay, and I am beyond grateful for the people that have helped me and supported me along the way.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I love this question especially now as an adult. Because 10 years ago my answer would have been completely different. When I am feeling overwhelmed in any situation I remind myself that everything will be okay, cliche I know. However what I say to myself is this going to affect me in five minutes, five days, five months and so on and so forth. I think that a lot of time when anyone gets overwhelmed you automatically get on the attack or defense mode. I need to almost have a conversation with myself. And know that if it is something less serious to let it go. And focus on the strengths and positive things going on. If you hyper focus on being overwhelmed for me that just makes it worse. Sometimes I just take a day and do absolutely nothing if I need a reset. When you have 5-10 different clients a day with their own personal things going on you want to be there for everyone which can lead to being overwhelmed so taking the time to just breathe and give myself time to reground myself helps immensely.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.luxesalonandbeautybar.com
- Instagram: brierehm_luxe
Image Credits
Photos by Sam Smalley Photography
