When clients drift away, some hair salons offer hefty discounts to lure them back. Salon Pink owner Kidist “Pinky” Emery doesn’t see any reason for discounts at her place.“We offer great services,” she said. “We have an amazing team. Our ideal customer has the spending power to walk through our doors.”And when a client is a little lower on cash, Salon Pink offers a tiered pricing system, based on the experience level of the stylists. When Ms Emery first opened Salon Pink on Parliament Street in 2011 many people said “don’t do it”. “My ignorance got me through,” Ms Emery joked. “Anyone can raise capital and open up a business, but to open the doors and keep that brand going is tough. I am one that gets hit down and keeps getting back up. I am always looking for the next best thing that suits us.”Opening when she did meant she had to be constantly innovative and on the ball.“Business has been consistent and been very good,” she said. “Our brand is very strong. When I opened, the challenges were mostly within myself. I was switching from being the operator to being the leader and leading a team.”In the early days of the business she worked “like a crazy person” to make sure her clients were taken care of, to the point where her quality of life suffered. “I have learnt that the market for employees is changing,” she said. “I realised that our younger people nowadays aren’t going to do what I did. People are dying left, right and centre. The girls need quality of life. We stagger our start times.“Some have mornings off and some have evenings off. One girl comes to work from 9am to 3pm on Monday and Tuesday so she can pick up her child from school. The clients have been fine with it. They get it.”Every day Ms Emery writes a thought-provoking message on the staff whiteboard. “This year, I am trying to put up a quote where action can be taken from,” she said. One recent whiteboard message was about creating lifetime value for Salon Pink clients, something Ms Emery thinks is very important. “Part of our lifetime value of the client is making it easy for them to go to other stylists within the salon so they don’t have to go elsewhere,” she said. “So they have two stylists in one place. We want to make sure that we can service them in the season of their life.”Clients range from entrepreneurs and chief executive officers, to mothers and their children. If you want to work while Salon Pink does your hair, there’s wi-fi for that; and if you want to have a stimulating conversation in the chair, Salon Pink is confident they can provide that, too.Over the years, Ms Emery has worked with six different apprentices. Most of them are still working with Salon Pink.She tries to impress on her staff that the Bermuda hair industry is quite different from overseas.“Bermuda is very much about maintenance,” she said.She said there are fewer opportunities here to work in different areas of hair dressing, such as education or theatre, but there is the chance to work one-on-one with clients and build lifetime relationships. “We get to one-on-one touch people, for sure,” Ms Emery said. “I don’t think there are many places to go in the industry here, but there are many things to learn.“Her stylists have the opportunity to go overseas to take courses at places such as Toni&Guy, Vidal Sassoon and the DevaCurl Academy in New York.Looking to the future, Ms Emery is feeling good.“The future holds a lot for myself and the team,” she said. “We are very optimistic about 2020. Obviously, we are not blind to what is going on around us, but at the end of the day, we are excited and we are here to stay.” • For more information see www.salonpinkhair.com, call 295-7465, see them on Instagram under @salonpinkhair or see them on Facebook under Salon Pink Hair.