TRANSCRIPT: Caitlin Baird

Hendrik Baird: [00:00:00] Caitlin let’s talk about your business.

You’re a barber and you’re in Kimberly but you’re more than just a barber, are you?

You’re an artist quite a talented young woman.

Tell us about your business.

Tell us what you do and how you make your magic.

Caitlin Baird: Okay, so I’m a trainee barber.

There’s two ways to go about it.

One of them is to work at a shop and do three years before writing the trade test.

And another way to do it is through self-employment.

What I’ve done is I’ve worked two years and two months in an actual shop and I learnt a lot.

And then I took the step to open up my own business from which I would go down the self-employed route.

What I do for this business is obviously I cut hair shave beards, fades, all the fun cuts. .

It also entails photography, which I really, really love.

Content creation, marketing and people skills.

Ultimately, every client that walks through my doors as to have that experience of like, wanting to come back.

It’s not just about the cut, it’s about the experience.

And I think for many men who go to barbershops I think they find it kind of like every single barbershop looks the same and feels the same, whereas I take it as a moment to really pamper a man and give him his space and time to relax and have that spa moment that is so generally considered a feminine thing.

Taking that time for yourself and pampering yourself, I find to be very important for every man and every person.

So, yeah, my goal really is to create a safe space for every man walking through the door to feel at home and safe while I do my magic on their hair.

So they leave feeling their best and yeah, looking their best as well.

Hendrik Baird: Fantastic.

So you were, you were talking about all the things you have to do in your business and, and all the hats you have to wear.

Tell me as a new entrepreneur what are some of the  challenges that, that you are facing?

Caitlin Baird: Well, it’s a lot of behind the scenes just to get one client through the door.

A lot of marketing, a lot of the word of mouth that needs to be spread.

I’ve joined multiple WhatsApp groups and I’ve been posting in many groups on Facebook.

Like the local groups here in Kimberley, cuz Kimberley is a very small and uninteresting place.

And everyone kind of knows each other.

So word of mouth does spread relatively quickly.

So in order to get a client through the door, it, it takes a couple of hours slash days of work just to like introduce them and convince them from social media or through word of mouth that my barbershop is a place where they would like to try out, especially those who have really difficult hair, I kind of thrive on those kinds of clients.

Hendrik Baird: So, so you are niching into a specific kind of person looking for a specific kind of haircut, like you say, a difficult haircut. I know you also do special shaves – beard shaves.

Do you find that niching in and, and looking for a very specific kind of customer is helpful to your business?

Caitlin Baird: Absolutely.

The general consensus from what I’ve heard and spoken about and had conversations about within barbering and Kimberley, is there is no one barbershop that can do all hair types.

And some would considered, like for instance, Afro hair to be very challenging and very difficult.

But on the other side, with Caucasian hair, you get like very, very straight hair -intense crowns that stand up if you do even the tiniest minute mistakes.

So that it’s about really like paying attention to detail on every client and every head of hair that walks through. So difficult hair – you can’t just go into a shop and get it done.

It’s not a shop shop situation. It, it takes time and it takes generally maybe 45 minutes to an hour to really perfect a good cut with what is considered to be difficult.

And that’s straight hair, curly hair.

All the variations are difficult. 

Hendrik Baird: And do you also cut ethnic hair?

Caitlin Baird: Absolutely. It’s one of my passions and it’s something I want to make sure that I’m qualified in within my career because I love it.

And from the beginning it was always something that felt natural to me, whereas in the barbershop I did work in at the time everyone else was very resistant and closed off the idea of doing it.

Whereas I was just keen and ready and I really had to spend a lot of time figuring out.

What are the best products?

What are the best combs to use?

What are the different styles?

And it also, it all comes down to also the trim which is another way of saying lineup.

The lineup where it’s like nice and straight and then down, and then the curve that is the most important.

Like the lineup of a cut is very, very important.

And being able to do that has taken a lot of practice, a lot of trial and error, but now it’s to the point where I can do it in 10 minutes to perfection.

Hendrik Baird: Okay. What else can we talk about?

Caitlin Baird: Being a female barber

Hendrik Baird: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

When you think barber, you always think of a either an older Italian man or an older Afrikaans man or these days guys from from Pakistan and those areas of the world.

And a female barber is, is a little bit unusual, isn’t it?

Caitlin Baird: I would say yes, for the most part and specifically in South Africa, I have found that female barbers are kind of rare.

In Kimberley for some reason it’s very prominent.

We have a lot of female barbers. Yeah.

So here it’s normal, but a lot of people visiting from Cape Town, Joburg are just completely flabbergasted and like surprised.

And for a lot of the time with a lot of my clients, it was like the first time a female had cut their hair.

When we look at a barber, what comes to my mind when I see a barber in my head is this tattooed, cool looking hipster kind of guy.

And I think with females it can be a, anything from like, you know, really, really pretty girl that you wouldn’t expect to be a barber to like the eccentric looking girl.

I think it is breaking sort of the boundaries and, and the limitations to what we consider barbering and barbers- with a lot of the guys, I, I would call them Asian barbers, so Bangladesh, Pakistan, all those areas.

And they’re really, really good as far as I can tell, because it is, it does form part of heritage and it does form part of their culture.

I spoke to Bangladesh Barber, and he said that it’s something that’s taught from when you’re a child – as a career.

So when you’re a kid already, you’re busy shaving balloons, you know, and getting used to like the razor and that’s just what it is.

And it’s normally for the lower class in order to gain the skill and teach yourself the skill and have it be taught through families in order to have a job somewhere and be able to have this skill and trade.

So I find that very interesting and I find it very interesting that Kimberley being as small and uninteresting as it has a lot of female barbers.

It’skind of like the norm here.

But still with every shop in Kimberley, there is no one barbershop that can do all hair types as you know, sort of interesting as it is that we’re all females.

Yeah, there is still sort of a closed offness about it.

Hendrik Baird: Cool. Okay, let’s end this up with contact details and that sort of stuff. So Caitlin obviously you’re in Kimberley and if you need a haircut, you’d have to go to Kimberley to go to Caitlin.

You can’t do it online, like we do some of the other things these days. yeah.

And if somebody is interested in a haircut especially if they’ve got some difficult hair how do they get in contact with you?

Caitlin Baird: Generally through WhatsApp phone call. Facebook page, all of my Instagram, and on my LinkedIn profile.

Hendrik Baird: There you have it.

Caitlin is in Kimberley.

If you want to make contact with her, you can just find her on social media.

All the links are in the description below.

And yeah, go get a haircut with Caitlin.