Today we’d like to introduce you to Deanna Whiteside and Krista Burke.
Deanna and Krista, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I met Krista 9 years ago on the heels of the end of my 10 year marriage. I had been doing hair out of my home, I had 2 daughters and I was leaving everything I knew to start over. We met at a Salon in Northwest Indiana where Krista was already working and I was just starting my job there. She was a spunky, talented young girl fresh out of beauty school, ready to conquer the world and I was a young at heart, seasoned stylist, fresh out to single Momdom! We were fast friends and we began to hang out together outside of work. Soon after, I left the salon and started working at a male focused hair salon in Chicago and moved to Wicker Park. Not long after, Krista moved into the apartment above my daughters and I and we called it the Treehouse. We all lived in the building and had many fun adventures for a little over a year and then they tore it down. We got matching best friend tattoos to commemorate our fun times in the Treehouse! As our friendship blossomed, so did our careers. We grew from practically nothing to now, close to everything! Krista was doing well at a busy Chicago salon as was I and though we didn’t work together, we still hung out all the time and traveled together. Our personal lives changed, Krista got married and moved to Northwest Indiana and I moved to Evanston with my daughters, yet our friendship stayed strong and our clientele’s grew larger. Meanwhile, the salon I was working at was having difficulty and I knew I needed to get out with my clientele so I reached out to Krista to see if the salon she was working at was hiring. I sent my resume and within a week, I was doing hair in my new digs, with my best friend again!! It was super awesome to be working together again and for 2 years we were there and built even stronger followings. I would like to take a moment to say that we are so incredibly thankful for our amazing and loyal clients and we would not be where we are today without them. Because of them, we were able to take this huge leap of faith and start our own little business. After 2 years of working for our boss ladies, who we actually really liked, and were quite amazing entrepreneurs themselves, we decided to look into doing something of our own. We simply needed to have more autonomy and freedom to take care of our clients the way we like to and to take care of our lives the way we deserve to. We wanted to take all of the hard work and dedication we put into another person’s business, and put it into our own. We found an adorable suite, surrounded by other salon professionals, and took a leap of faith that our clients would follow us and they did and then some! We decorated our space reflecting exactly who we are, creating a vibe that is both cool and calming. We have a small 2 chair studio and are by appointment only and we are growing faster than we can keep up! We are so blessed to be able to work together, play together and grow in both our personal lives and our professional lives together! We have been in business now for a little over a year and we couldn’t be happier with our decision. We love spending time with our clients in an intimate setting and we have so much fun when we are working, that it almost doesn’t feel like work at all. I think most importantly, Krista and I are very similar in how we treat and feel about our clients. That is the main reason we work so well together, we both feel empowered when we empower our clients to feel their best by helping them to achieve a look that both suits them and encourages them to feel confident and attractive.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Navigating the hair industry itself isn’t a smooth road and building a clientele takes time and dedication and a lot of patience. You have to be willing to work long and late days and be willing to miss a lot of family and weekend plans. Clients aren’t always pleasant yet you will always have to be and they aren’t always on time, but you had better be. My heart goes out to young women in this industry because we really just want to do hair in the beginning and there is so much more to this job than doing hair. The people skills involved should really be a course in itself! (I actually did have this course in beauty school) My advice to young women, starting a journey in the hair industry, is this;
Take every single client and treat them like they’re your only one
Stand in front of them and make eye contact when they’re telling you about their hair
Listen with your ears and your eyes
Take your time but stay focused on your work and your timing
Have a plan, stick to it and continue to grow once you make your goals
There is always room for more education, styles and techniques are always changing
Find your salon home and stay there, until you’re no longer growing
Stay humble
What should we know about Spruce? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
We are hair stylists that have individually created little niches for ourselves in our amazing industry. Krista specializes in curly hair and Deanna (Dee) specializes in men’s hair and curly hair. We are both master colorists and love to have fun with hair color as well. We are especially known for our curly cuts and men’s cuts but we have a variety of clients with all types of hair! I think what sets us apart from others, aside from the talent to rock some hair, is our chair side manner and the relationships we build with our clients. They become our family.
Do you have any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general? What has worked well for you?
When you are building your clientele, you are going to have a lot of down time. Use that time wisely, don’t waste it reading trashy magazines or playing on your phone. Use that time to observe the busy stylists, find out what they’re doing that sets them apart. Pay attention to what they are saying and what they are doing and learn from them. Ask them questions, watch them while they mix color and ask more questions. Watch video tutorials, go to classes, both look and learn classes and hands on classes and keep learning. Go to hair shows and trade shows and network with other stylists and find senior stylists to learn from. Find that one stylist that is everything you want to be, and follow them.
Contact Info:
- Address: 2860 N Broadway St Suite 2
Chicago, Illinois 60657 - Website: Sprucechicago.com
- Phone: 312-806-1442
- Email: sprucechicago@gmail.com
Image Credit:
Tyler Drew Clayton
Deanna Whiteside
Krista Burke
Alison Schwartz
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