This story belongs to Make It’s Ditching the Degree assortment, the place women which have truly constructed six-figure professions with out a bachelor’s degree expose the keys of their success. Got a story to tell? Let us perceive! Email us at As okayMakeIt @cnbc. com
In the middle of acquiring a tattoo, Sess Lee Cannon had a shock: She was embeded the inaccurate career.
As a tattoo musician positioned the enhances on her ink– her baby’s identify, Elijah, inscribed all through her left shoulder– he made little speak with Lee (that passes her middle identify skillfully) and her good pal.
The musician matched her good pal’s coiffure, which Lee had truly provided her with a set of kitchen space scissors merely hours beforehand.
“He said, ‘Where’s your salon?’ and I told him I didn’t work at one, that I just did hair for fun,” Lee, 37, remembers. “And I’ll never forget, he said, ‘Well, you might want to reconsider what you’re doing for a living. It’s clear you have a gift.’”
The undesirable suggestions supplied Lee, after that 20, outing. She appreciated doing her buddies’ hair and making an attempt out brand-new hairdos on her curly locks nevertheless thought-about it much more of a leisure exercise than a job.
It was 2007, 2 years after Lee completed from secondary faculty and one 12 months after she left of Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, after studying she was expectant.
In the months main as much as Elijah’s delivery, Lee relocated proper right into a studio condo in her residence city of Peoria, Illinois, and situated a consumer service job she appreciated at Maui Jim, a sun shades enterprise. She skilled and obtained marketed to be an accountancy workers inside her preliminary 12 months on the enterprise.
“Math always came easy to me, and I thought, by working in finance, I’d never be poor again,” claimsLee
But one thing was lacking out on in her enterprise career. “I craved the creative freedom I felt doing hair,” she consists of. “I guess I just needed encouragement from a stranger to go for it.”
She selected to modify over professions on the drive residence. “I had no clue if it would work out, but I knew I would regret not trying,” she claims.
By all steps, the hazard has truly repaid: Lee possesses Flourish Curls Salon in Arlington, Texas, a service that generated $1.1 million in revenue in 2014, in line with financial papers evaluated by Make It.
After subtracting overhead and tax obligations, Lee’s web earnings is in between $100,000 and $150,000 a 12 months (she decreased to share her particular wage).
Here’s precisely how Lee rotated her charge of curiosity in hair proper right into a six-figure career.
Becoming a hairdresser
The early morning after acquiring her tattoo, Lee give up at a construction she had truly pushed previous many instances: Regency Beauty Institute, a cosmetology school inPeoria
She signed up for programs and cease her job at Maui Jim as rapidly as she paid her preliminary down cost. The cosmetology program, which took Lee regarding 18 months to complete, set you again $22,000 and wanted her to be in programs 5 days per week from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.
When she had not been in school, Lee, that may be a solitary mothers and pa, waitressed at a neighborhood steakhouse to pay her tuition and varied different bills. Her grandparents lovedElijah
The calls for to become a hairstylist differ by state, nevertheless usually, doable stylists have to complete a cosmetology program at a acknowledged school and get a state-issued certificates by passing a created and purposeful examination.
Many states likewise want doable stylists to complete an instruction or job as an aide in a magnificence parlor initially.
Once Lee ended up the calls for for her certificates in 2009, she started tackling prospects in the home and functioning part-time at a magnificence parlor that focuses on all-natural hair in Peoria.
In her preliminary 12 months as a stylist, Lee made close to $30,000 a 12 months. She remained to perform part-time as a waitress for the next 2 years to cowl her bills.
At the second, Facebook was ending up being further most popular, and Lee selected to maximise the system’s completely free advertising probabilities: She produced a service internet web page, despatched out good pal calls for to doable prospects, and started recording her take care of pictures and video clips.
She promptly gathered a web-based repute for collaborating with varied crinkle patterns and prospects that have been biracial like herself.
“My mom is white, my dad is Black and I always had curly hair, but my mom had bone straight hair, so she just had no idea how to style it for me growing up,” she claims.
That youth expertise motivated Lee to start coloring, highlighting, reducing and correcting her hair when she was a teen until she situated designs she suched as.
“I wanted to learn how to make my hair look good, feel confident in my own skin, and I want to inspire that same confidence in others,” she claims.
Lee (envisioned under, third from the left) with a number of of her staff at Flourish Curls Salon.
Photo: Sess Lee Cannon
Starting a service in a brand-new state
For the next 5 years, Lee remained to function on the magnificence salon and develop her adhering to on social networks. She claims she appreciated people she handled and actually felt labored out in her career.
But in 2015, Lee– after that expectant together with her 4th teenager– started sensation “the itch to move.”
She had truly invested numerous her life in Illinois and hungered for a modification of views and hotter climate situation.
pal welcomed her to take a position a trip with one another in 2 of Texas’ best cities, Austin andDallas
Lee claims she was instantly smitten with the southerly friendliness and wide-open areas. She explored properties for her and her 4 youngsters that exact same weekend break.
The family of 5 moved to Arlington, a metropolis in between Dallas and Fort Worth, in January 2016.
Moving to a varied state pushed Lee to go after yet one more need that had truly been percolating within the rear of her thoughts: Opening a magnificence parlor.
Lee invested 10 months and $50,000 of her price financial savings to open up Flourish Curls Salon, which started taking shoppers in 2017.
‘I’ve had the power to develop a six-figure career from functioning 3 days per week’
To Lee’s alleviation, phrase unfold promptly in regards to the magnificence salon– inside months of opening, she had a ready record of shoppers.
Lee options Flourish Curls’ attraction to the goal market she grew all through Facebook, YouTube andInstagram
She started publishing hair tutorials, buyer endorsements, design how-to’s, merchandise referrals and much more on-line within the very early 2000s. Her YouTube channel has nearly 60,000 shoppers.
“Having a strong social media community helped a lot,” Lee consists of. “There’s also not a ton of salons that specialize in curly and natural hair in our neighborhood — many cosmetology schools and salons still don’t train their stylists to work with those textures.”
Flourish Curls’ options encompass hair cuts, spins, scalp peeling and designing that set you again anyplace from $150 to $375. Last 12 months, 2023, was the preliminary 12 months Flourish Curls broken $1 million in yearly revenue.
The magnificence salon has 11 stylists consisting of Lee, that simply sees a few prospects month-to-month.
She claims creating her personnel and using 2 digital aides has truly assisted her fend off exhaustion and stand as much as must “always be on,” a typical impediment for native enterprise proprietor.
Lee front-loads her workweek, tackling conferences and visits Monday through Wednesday so she will make investments much more time together with her youngsters, at present various in age from 8 to 18.
“In my 20s, I thought that to be successful, I’d have to work 50-plus hours a week,” claimsLee “But I’ve been able to build a six-figure career from working three days a week most weeks.”
As a enterprise proprietor, Lee has truly taken pleasure within the freedom and flexibility of creating her job routine.
However, probably the most assembly ingredient of working her very personal magnificence salon, she claims, has truly been the favorable distinction she’s had the power to make in people’s lives by revealing them precisely the right way to be comfortable and optimistic with their all-natural hair– an space she needs she had accessibility to as an “insecure, frustrated” teen.
Adds Lee: “Nothing’s better than helping people feel beautiful.”
Are you apprehensive regarding money? Sign up for ‘s new online course We’ll instruct you precisely the right way to be further efficient and optimistic together with your money, and purposeful strategies to boost price financial savings, go away monetary obligation and spend for the long run. Start right now and make use of code EARLYBIRD for an preliminary low cost charge of 30% off through September 2, 2024.
Plus, register for Make It’s e-newsletter to acquire recommendations and strategies for fulfillment on the office, with money and in life.
