Patrice Hector has been in the beauty industry for over 30 years and has worked as a professional hairstylist and an educator for Paul Mitchell Hair Systems, Design Essentials, and more.
Hector has been featured on the Lifetime reality show “Head 2 Toe” and has been a lead hairstylist for several other productions.
Hector shared a major tip for beauty professionals.
What did you learn early in your career that continues to be beneficial?
I’m not gonna really say it was a mistake. I think that as you grow in any industry, you learn what you like and what you don’t like. For your customers, you just have to be open and pivot in order to continue to grow. I think in any profession, you have to be open to learning and growing and always be a student of life. In order to be successful, you have to learn how to pivot and realize there will be challenging times but you just have to work through those times and make sure that you are just continuously growing.
What inspired you to write the book, The Ultimate Blueprint for Beauty Professionals?
What inspired me to write the book is just having different challenges and struggles in the beauty industry over the years, and finally getting to a point where I feel like I’m on an easy road. I wanted to share that journey with other stylists. I’m giving 12 chapters about different ways you can build your business and build your brand behind and beyond the chair for stylists to get clarity. Helping them and sharing what I did to get clarity [about how] to [find a] niche in the industry, how to market yourself, how to brand your beauty business, and how to take advantage of social media, which is huge in our industry. It took me about six to seven months to write the book from start to finish and I’m super excited about sharing this information with other stylists.
What advice do you have for aspiring beauty entrepreneurs and what do you want people to take away from your book?
I would say, for anybody considering coming into the beauty industry, find yourself a community, find yourself a mentor, and find a stylist that you admire, and like their work. If that’s the line that you want to go in, try to build an authentic relationship with them. If you are in school, make sure that you are staying abreast and staying connected with your instructors and your teachers. That’s how I was able to grow. Early on in my career with my mentor, I asked a lot of questions and I literally was set up on his feet. Being under the tutelage of people that are where [you] desire to be is super important. I will say that [would] be the major thing for young professionals is to get yourself a mentor.
