'I mitched off school when I was 13 and asked a hair salon for a job. Now I own it'
Hairdresser Anna Hosty talks about the essential ingredients you need for a solid business partnership.
I SUPPOSE I fell into this business by accident. When I was 13, I wanted to leave school, but my parents wouldn’t let me. So I decided to mitch off school and get the bus to Galway city to look for a job.
The city was about 20 minutes from my home, and the day I went in the bus dropped me across from a salon. So I went in, told them I was 16 and asked them for a job. Today, I own that very salon.
I had an interest in hairdressing, but I don’t really know why – I felt it was the only thing I could do when I was that young.
They decided to hire me, so I went home and told my mum and dad that I had gotten a job and was leaving school. But that was never going to happen.
They were still adamant I was going to do my leaving certificate – my sister had gone to college and they wanted me to do the exact same. But they agreed to let me work every summer and go to some classes in the evenings after school.
The work opened my eyes to a whole different world. I was from a small country town, but here were all these really glamorous women coming in and I thought it was amazing.
I worked hard to build my way up in the business, but now I think why did I care. I should have just had a good time.
I was a really good employee, was really conscientious and never rang in sick. I missed going to loads of things because I was working. And it wasn’t even my full-time job, but my friends were going to festivals and I had to say, “I can’t go because I’m working.”
I look back on that now, I was so young, but I think I should have gone to the festival and not bothered going to work on the Saturday.
Carol Dixon and Anna Hosty (right)
Taking over
When I was 23, the owners of the salon, Helena and Philip Yourell, decided to retire, and that’s what presented me with my chance to take over the business.
At the same time, my soon-to-be business partner Carol Dixon was moving back from London.
Carol spent her time at some of the top salons in London to perfect her skills and then home she came. One day after she got back from London, she came into the salon to work for a few days to see if she liked it.
I remember that day exactly. We were all looking at her like she was alien. We were saying, “Who’s this one coming from London onto our turf?”
To get right to it, Carol wanted to take over the salon and I was in two minds about it. I was manager at the time and thought I would do that for a year and then go and open my own salon.
But after a few months we started to talk about going into partnership to do it together.
At the time, everybody I spoke to told me not to go into partnership. “No way, no how, partnerships don’t work,” is what they would say.
I see where they’re coming from. If myself and Carol met on a night out, we would definitely not be friends. We are polar opposites.
We started talking about the partnership and running the business together, so we went to see our solicitor, Philip Ryan.
When we first went to see him he gave us some words of advice that I’ll never forget. He told us to go away and think about it and put post-its up in our office of stuff that annoys us about each other as it comes up.
And that’s what we did, we went away and put post-its up on a wall.
He also said, “If after a while you feel you can do this, come back to me”. We arrived back in his office six months later and he drew up our partnership agreement.
Then, as we were going out the door, he said, “Here is your partnership agreement. I’ve got a copy for both of you. Put it in a drawer somewhere, but the day you have to take it out to look at it is the day you’re in trouble.”
It was the best decision we’ve ever made, and we needed those few months to see how tough things can get.
Working together
We decided from the very beginning who was going to look after what pieces of the business. Carol is great with figures, the books and procedures, whereas I am good with people, staff and running the salon on a day-to-day basis.
We never stood on each other’s toes on that. I knew whatever Carol was doing; she was way better at it than me, so I left her to it. It has meant we’ve had no big disagreements either.
At the end of the day, it’s great we have each other. I think both of our husbands are delighted that myself and Carol have each other because it means they don’t have to listen to us.
When we have a good day, it’s so nice to have someone to share it with. Or, if you have a day where you feel you can’t do it, the other person is there to pick up the slack.
We both have our skin in the game here and I want to do well for Carol as well as myself, and I know that’s Carol’s attitude too.
The fact we’re polar opposites has been crucial. I would be the type who would just like to get things done, whereas Carol would be the more cautious one.
But that means she would challenge me to do better and likewise myself with her. It means we hit that sweet spot.
Lucky
We’re been very lucky with staff over the years. There has been a very low turnover which means it has been easy to get stability in the business.
But we always knew in the back of our heads that if anything bad went wrong, even if it was just the two of us, we’re hairdressers and we can make it happen.
A lot of that stability we’ve had in the business has been down to Carol – I can’t stress enough how clever she is. Based on what she saw in London, she wanted to put in place strong systems and procedures.
What she put in place was a handbook on how to run this business. It’s so detailed that if aliens came down and wiped us all out, they would be able to run our salon without us telling them what to do.
At this stage she has a manual for everything down to how to make a cup of tea or coffee for the customers. It meant that when we opened our new salon, it was so much easier. The hard work was done, you just hand over the manuals to managers.
The good and the bad
There are good and bad days in the business, but the best moment that stands out is from one day I was in Dublin. I had to fill out a form for something and one of the questions was, “Where do you work?”
I wrote down ‘Yourells’ and the lady said, “Oh, I’ve heard of there.” We’ve won awards and they’re all amazing, but that to me is the highlight.
Not to say the awards aren’t valuable. I remember one of the first business awards we went for, you had to go into a boardroom with a bunch of men and we felt totally out of our depth.
I remember going into the room and one of the guys from Dragons’ Den was a judge. I thought, “We’re just pretending here. Are they going to figure us out or start laughing?”
You just fall into that trap of thinking you’re not as good as anyone else that’s here. But then when we won that, it changed my mind. Now I feel we can do it.
We don’t have a high turnover of staff, but a lot of them are young and part of a different generation. They want to travel and spread their wings. I’d never bear any grudge against someone who wants to do that.
Recently we had five or six people leave at the same time, which had never happened before. I was on maternity leave and I remember thinking, “What are we going to do?”
Seeing people leave are the low days for me. I feel we’re like family in here. On the flip side of that, I love to watch people grow. One of our managers came in at 16 and we trained her.
Then when we opened our second salon in Moycullen, she started managing that at the age of 22. To bring her from nothing to this amazing manager, those are the days I live for in the business.
Anna Hosty is the co-owner of Yourells hair salon in Galway. This article was written in conversation with Killian Woods as part of a series on unlikely entrepreneurs.
