Ashlee Norman opened our conversation by casually listing her life: hairstylist, independent educator, mother of three, international artist for K18, Schwarzkopf USA and Bumble and bumble, patented tool designer, and founder of an online education platform she’s been building since 2018. She teaches in 15 to 20 cities a year, roughly 45 classes.
Then she mentioned it was her daughter’s birthday. That day. She was turning eight.
I offered to reschedule. She laughed it off. That’s Ashlee in one moment: fully booked, fully present, and not remotely interested in doing things the way everyone else does them. Here’s what stuck with me from our chat.
Nobody is ready for the floor
Ashlee finished beauty school at 19 and went straight to clients. “I really wasn’t ready,” she told me. “I definitely struggled for the first couple of years on the floor.”
I started in ’99, and I felt that in my bones. Almost none of us are ready when we get thrown out there. What changed things for Ashlee was a mentor, her own hairstylist, who opened a Bumble and bumble salon and made her the network educator. Ashlee would fly to New York to take classes, then come home and teach them back to the team. Over seven years she trained at Sassoon, Toni and Guy and studios in London and Paris, spending by her count around $100,000 on her own education. Every single class got taught back.
“I made a lot of mistakes and it was really painful,” she said, “and I would like you to not have to suffer.” That’s the whole origin story of her teaching. Not a career plan. A reflex.
Rejection is redirection
The part of the story I didn’t expect: Ashlee offered her mentor a business partnership and got turned down. Then, when someone asked her to teach out of state, that same mentor told her she couldn’t do it because she was about to become a mom.
“I was like, all right, now I’m gonna do it.”
She treated her pregnancy as a nine month deadline. She taught until four weeks before giving birth, driving to Las Vegas because the airlines wouldn’t let her fly. Her mother-in-law became the travelling nanny. Both babies had passports before their first birthdays. She describes those years as being an indie band playing every dive bar in America, and I think that’s exactly right.
Width versus depth
This one hit home. Ashlee talks about the difference between the artists a brand builds and puts on a stage, and the ones who earn a following one small salon at a time.
“There’s width and then there’s depth. I was only ever focused on the depth piece.”
So when she cold called a Vegas trade show in 2021 and asked if they needed educators, the rooms filled past capacity and the big brands were left asking who this person was. The fire marshal turned up in Orlando. The brands found her after the stylists already had.
And a reality check for anyone chasing the shows: a brand day rate, she says, is typically about a tenth of what you can earn as an independent educator. The pay is the exposure and the business class seat. Sometimes that’s worth it. Sometimes a 20 person class, a Hampton Inn and a plate of fake eggs is what pays off the kids’ college fund. As a parent, she weighs every one of those calls differently. So do I.
Teach the alphabet, not the words
Here’s where the episode title comes from. Ashlee doesn’t teach patterns to memorize. “I don’t believe that education is about memorization of one solution. I believe it’s about problem solving and critical thinking.”
Her analogy: you don’t teach a kid to read by memorizing words. You teach the alphabet and the sounds, and then they can read anything.
From Sassoon she kept the ABC framework (three shapes, three lines, three techniques) and the discipline of head sheeting a haircut like a map. Then she built the same kind of foundation for colour. Her Theory of Highlight class starts with the definition of the word: creating an area of accent. Which means highlighting is really about separating hairs, and there are only four ways to do it: slice or weave, open air painting, backcombing, and air touch. Pros and cons of each, when to use which, then a creative combination.
She taught that lecture to 700 people from 20 countries at Schwarzkopf’s biggest global show in Budapest, on a mannequin, without naming a single product. The global director of education kept her in the hotel lobby at three in the morning to tell her he’d never seen anything like it. They booked her back for the next one, because attendees could use it in the salon the next day.
Honestly, where was this 25 years ago? All I got was “violet cancels yellow” and a lot of hope.
Next up she’s working on a theory that ties cut and colour together, and she’s taking it to a crowd of a thousand in Latvia.
Her advice for new stylists
I asked what she’d tell someone just starting out. Three things:
Find a mentor who is actually booked behind the chair, not just good at content. Take the apprenticeship seriously, even if it means working for close to nothing for a year or two, because skipping it can set you back five to ten years. And if you pay for education, make sure it includes theory and hands-on. “We don’t do hair with our eyes, we do hair with our hands.”
Why you should watch this one
We covered a lot I couldn’t fit here: how she and her husband bought a house at the bottom of the 2011 crash, the “other people’s money” account that saved her when she had to refund a whole tour in 2020, and the two-station suite in Vegas she’s slowly growing into a real academy.
Ashlee is building depth in an industry that mostly rewards width. That’s rare, and it’s worth an hour of your time.
Watch the full episode of The Digital Chair, and you can find Ashlee on Instagram at @ashleenormanhair.
You can find Ashlee at:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleenormanhair/
Transcript:
Liam Shea (00:00)
Welcome to the Digital Chair by salonMonster, a podcast for indie beauty pros and salon owners who’d rather be themselves than follow the rules. I’m your host Liam, and this week we’ll be talking with Ashlee Norman about mentorship, theory, repetition, and building depth behind the chair. I hope you enjoy it.
Ashlee Norman (00:21)
So my name is Ashlee Norman. I am a hairstylist and an independent educator as well as a mother of three. So I have an independent education brand. I typically travel to 15 to 20 cities a year, teaching about two to three classes in each city for an average of 45 classes a year. I also have sponsorships with three global brands.
So I’m an international artist for K18, Schwarzkopf, USA, as well as Bumble and bumble. Yeah, I have an independent tool brand. So I actually started creating my own custom tools with the help of my family probably in about 2016, 17. And I also do booths at trade shows to showcase my patented designs.
I have a business partner. Her name is Christine Carver. She also has some patented designs as well as designs all of my apparel merchandise, including my signature tool belt. Wow. what else? I have an online education platform that I have been developing since 2018. So lots of exclusive lots of extensive education available online for both haircut and coloring. And it’s my daughter’s birthday today, so she’s turning eight.
Liam Shea (01:42)
Today, my goodness, we could have done this another time. Q D eight. Which which child is this in the set of three?
Ashlee Norman (01:51)
She’s the middle child. So she is my only girl and she’s a middle child and she’s a tourist and she is very spicy. Yeah, so
Liam Shea (01:59)
Yeah, love it. Three
kids and you’re on the road. That’s a lot.
Ashlee Norman (02:05)
Yes, yeah. So I married my high school sweetheart when I was 19. And thank God he is a wonderful Christian man who has been supportive of me from the very beginning. He’s my number one fan. And he was a structural design engineer, has his master’s degree in structural engineering. He has his PE and his S E, which is his professional and structural engineers license. So his license to build skyscrapers, schools, and hospitals.
he was running the grid of Southern California, the one that kept burning down before he quit and started supporting me full time. Wow. So he is officially my business partner, CFO, and the primary stay-at-home parent.
Liam Shea (02:51)
Nice.
Ashlee Norman (02:52)
Yeah, he does have a
You know, a job that he can do contractually when he is available, which is not very often because I keep him pretty busy along with the three kids. but it is nice that he gets to do it just to kind of he says scratch that itch because it’s a different level of thinking. but yeah, so he is the one who stays home and manages the home while I do the travel.
Liam Shea (03:19)
That’s amazing. That’s amazing. that’s so many things. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. that’s so many things you’re doing. How do you do that with three kids? I understand you have you know, a partner that stays at home, which which helps, but doesn’t make it easy. I mean, that’s not it’s just sort of like an emergency, not really a thing that makes it easier. And you said forty-five cities, did you say, or forty-five locations?
Ashlee Norman (03:48)
Yeah, 15 to 20 is like you know a couple different course topics within that weekend. So I might teach like a color class on day one and a haircut on day two. And so people can decide which day which days they want to attend depending on the course topic. Sometimes they attend, you know, two to three classes within a weekend. So that’s why I say it’s like it ends up being about 45 classes if you count each topic individually.
Liam Shea (04:13)
Right. Wow, that’s bananas. Yeah. how long have you been edu well, how long have you been doing hair? And then how long have you been educating? At what point did that happen?
Ashlee Norman (04:23)
Yeah, so I went to beauty school in high school when I was 17 through RLP cosmetology. So I went to high school half a day and then I would drag down to beauty school. And then I finished right around the time I was turning 19 in 2005. I graduated. And then I was pretty much went right to the floor and I really wasn’t ready. so I definitely struggled for the first couple of years on the floor.
I was also a newlywed and I was going to school at night for my bachelor’s degree, which I also have a bachelor’s degree in fashion merchandising and business marketing. It took me about eight years to do at night while working full time behind the chair. Wow. Yeah. So definitely been hustling a long time. I started in the education space, I would say about 2007, not because I was ready or qualified, but because there really wasn’t in an internal education.
Opportunity. So I had to create one. So there was a salon that opened and it was a Bumble and bumble exclusive salon. My personal hairstylist, who was kind of my mom mentor in the industry, was the one who opened it and she brought me on and she made me her network educator. So basically what that means is it was a liaison program that Bumble and bumble had back in the day, where one stylist within an exclusive Bumble network salon was selected.
To go and continue their education annually at the House of Bumble in New York City. And then we would come and do teachbacks. So we would basically go take the class and then teach it back to the rest of the staff. So within that time period from about 2007 to 2014, I was not only taking classes with Bumble in New York, but I was going to Sassoon, Toni & Guy, Peter Todd, Wella World Studios. So I flew everywhere from New York, LA, San Francisco.
London, Paris, easily spent $100,000 on my continuing education. Every single class that I took, I taught back to my team, along with building out their assistant program, which we grew the salon from about, I think when we started, was only like six or seven stylists. So when I left, it was like close to 30. So wow. We did a really good job within that time frame in terms of you know building a brand new salon, expanding it.
And I it was really busy. It was really amazing. It was it was definitely there’s some fond memories within that time period for sure.
Liam Shea (06:50)
That would have been intense though. Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s funny that education, it seems like there was so much. Like I started hair in ’99. There was access to so much less. Unless you were paying to fly to a place that had one of the schools, like not just a whatever hair school, but like you’re going to Sassoon or you’re going to a Bumble Academy or you’re going to a Tony and Guy Academy. There wasn’t access to much. And so you were talking about.
not being ready when you went on the floor. Is anyone, like are any of us? I feel like almost no one is on the floor and should be on the floor and is ready to be on the floor. Same with educating. I mean, most people when they start educating, you can’t know how to educate before you educate often. There’s not a lot of education schools for educators. It exists kind of, but not much.
Ashlee Norman (07:44)
mean the only really facilitation classes I had was at Bumble, you know, and they would film us actually educating them. We’d all have to sit and watch ourselves back and we would have a whole room like of, you know, other people where we were cr not criticizing, but giving constructive like, hey, like we could have done this better. You could have stood here better. You, you know, so there really isn’t
But at the same time, it’s just like you have to practice like anything, like a sport, like you know, a craft. Like you the more you do it, the better you get at it. Right. So that’s what it comes down to is is the proofs and the the experience as well.
Liam Shea (08:18)
Yeah. Did you love education right away?
Ashlee Norman (08:21)
Did yeah. And you know, I didn’t do it in like a I’m gonna be an educator. I never thought that. It was never like a specific ambition. It was more of a, well, I made a lot of mistakes and it was really painful and I would like you to not have to suffer. So here’s the little amount of knowledge that I know. And as I learn, I’m gonna teach you. And so that’s really where the heart of it came in, from the beginning. And then when it came to the independent education piece.
Again, it was never like, I’m gonna be a traveling independent educator. No, I I just was, you know, posting my work as social media evolved, you know, started with Facebook and then it moved into Instagram. And I was just putting up my work and my formulas and just, you know, sharing. And somebody commented, like, hey, would you ever teach a class outside of your salon? And that thought never had occurred to me that I was like, okay, I guess I’ll try it. And then as soon as I did, it was like, come here, come here, come here, come here, come here.
But then at the same time, me and my husband had just started decided to start a family. And so I was six weeks pregnant at my first independent education class. That was like 50 people for like a balayage demo and in Pasadena. And then it was like, well, let’s, you know, come out of state and do this and do that. It’s like, wow, how am I gonna, you know, become a mom and start traveling to all of these different states? And so that was a pretty scary time frame.
Liam Shea (09:48)
Out. I mean, do you need any more reason to already feel weird than being six weeks pregnant and teaching elsewhere? That that would be that would be tough. Yeah. Well, nice work. so when you started doing, I mean, I always love hearing the story about how it just happens. That that seems like, especially for when you got into education, it seems like it’s not like there was a a
pipeline or a funnel that people would go into and end up sometimes people it seems like ended up at one of the two or three types of academies or or salons where you were lucky enough to have that happen. so you have somebody just contact you, you go, but you’re also pregnant. At what point did you realize it was a thing? I mean obviously somebody contacted you and said, would you come and do this? When did you
How long did it take before you decided to make that a brand?
Ashlee Norman (10:51)
Well, I think I was at a crossroads anyway in my career. So I had worked with my salon owner mentor and I actually had made her an offer for a business partnership that she turned down. And when she turned me down, I was I was really devastated because I had felt like, you know, it’s almost like you’re dating someone for ten years and then you’re like, Hey, let’s put a ring on it and then they’re like, actually, never mind.
and then she ended up like partnering with somebody else very quickly with a less not as good of an offer. So I was like, whoa, okay. but it’s interesting because sometimes, you know, rejection is actually redirection. And here I was grieving the fact that I wasn’t gonna become, you know, the business owner to lead a team of whatever 20 something, 30 stylists instead.
you know, God had bigger plans for me to go and quite literally lead, you know, hairstylists around the world. So, you know, I had just graduated my bachelor’s degree and my husband had just finished his master’s and he was like, Hey, look, you know, we’ve been married for about what, eight or nine years. And we had done the Dave Ramsey program, which is like a very intense financial program to like, you know, save money and pay off debt and like buy a house, you know. So
We had done all the things. Like we got married super freaking young. And everybody was like, what are you doing? You’re probably just going to end up in divorce. And like, you know, why are you marrying your high school sweetheart? You should probably date around, you know. But you know, we were Christian and I was gonna move in with him when he graduated his math his bachelor’s anyway. And I was like, well, as long as we’re gonna move in together, we might as well get married. And and so we did that, and it was a very controversial decision. And you know, we were what 19 and 22 years old.
He had just graduated and just got his job at Edison. He was a new engineer. we didn’t have any money to put a down payment on a, I think we had like a less than 500 square foot studio apartment where everything was all in one room. And you know, commuting through LA traffic 60 miles each way, getting up at five o’clock in the morning to get on your 6 a.m. carpool van and
You know, then driving into the valley to go to school at night for his master’s and my bachelor’s and me working behind the chair and trying to build as a stylist. Like it was a very tough time, especially because we got married, it was 2006, which if people know is the last peak in the economy. And so we were looking at houses and people were like, yeah, it’s normal to be 50% debt to income on a home. And we’re like, excuse excuse me, like so we’re
Gonna buy this house, have no furniture, and eat like fucking mac and cheese, pardon my French, like on the floor because we have no couch. Like, so like it didn’t really, the math wasn’t mathing. And we were like, how are we gonna achieve the American dream? You know, we wanted the two and a half kids in the house, and you know, and Los Angeles being one of the most expensive cities in you know the US to afford, it was like, how?
So, you know, we worked our asses off. And I remember, I mean, I have this journal that I still write in and it was started from that time frame. And I read it, I’m just like, wow. Cause sometimes you gotta go back to the beginning to remember where you started because there’s challenges now. And it’s like, but at the same time, it’s like we were living in this shoebox and we had, you know, these
Cars that were just used vehicles that got good gas mileage and we were just driving our asses off through LA traffic and just saving money and living so cheaply. And we were like, is this gonna pay off? Like no one else in our generation is doing this. Like we looked around and all the 20-year-olds in our same generation were living at home, leasing a luxury vehicle, going out every weekend, wearing designer clothes, going to Starbucks every day, and we’re like, what?
The fuck are we doing? Like, so you know, it paid off like big time. we ended up being able to put about 50% down on a house in 2011 at the bottom of the crash after the stock market crashed in 2008. And we continue to live underneath our means and actually paid off that first home in three years. Wow. So
Liam Shea (15:22)
great time to have bought too like to be in the position to do that. Right. To have not done the fifty percent thing. That’s right. Probably have foreclosed shortly after.
Ashlee Norman (15:32)
Right. And we saw a lot of our friends do that. We saw friends, you know, even our parents were like, just get the biggest mortgage you can get because you know it’s LA, like the prices are always gonna go up. And like, thank god, my husband. I mean, he was 22. and this man, I swear to god, he’s genius. He started researching and he found this blog, it was called Dr. Housing Bubble, and it talked about the short the these mortgages that were going on within that time frame. Because if you remember
There was very loose lending standards. And that’s what led to that crazy run-up in home prices in comparison to the average income. And so these people were going in and not verifying their income and just buying these houses that they really couldn’t afford in hopes that the price would continue to go up and then they would just refinance. Well, instead, the cop the economy crashed, the housing prices went down. They could not refinance, they couldn’t pay their mortgage. And so they just, you know, short.
closed, you know, and end up with bad credit for another decade. So they couldn’t even buy in when it was good in 2011. So just that one fact alone that we were faithful, not only like in terms of like living beneath our means, but also paying attention and not doing something financially irresponsible, even though everyone else around us was. Cause I mean, if you’re a newlywed and you’ve lost a quarter million, the
That I mean, we saw people go through divorces. That that shit ruined marriages, you know?
Liam Shea (17:05)
Yes. It can ruin almost anything. Yes. No, no, no. There’s no you can’t no. It it will crush you. It will crush you. It’s hard to like anyone when you’re going through that. Right. and we do have a tendency to blame. It can be really hard to stay on point, stay on message, like to keep doing this to sticking with the plan. especially when I mean, you’re right, money was free. I mean, it was
If you had a pulse and could breathe air, people were giving money, giving money away. You can buy anything you want. It was crazy. well, that’s awesome. So staying on message, sticking with it, a little bit of luck, obviously. That’s always nice when a little bit of smarts and a little bit of luck meet up. that’s so great that that worked out. So you were prepared to
go independent to run a business. You were already in a position to be able to wrap your head around good choices and bad choices.
So it started, it sounds like by being invited to like a few salons here and there. At what point did it turn into platform work and stages and you know the next set of things? I don’t know if that counts as bigger. It’s not like it pay it’s not like it pays a bunch of money to be at a hair show, but but you know what I mean. at what point did that transition happen? The brand is going and you’re going on stage and representing other companies and
Ashlee Norman (18:37)
Yeah, so going back to like 2015, when I was like starting out, you know, I taught this first class and then I got this offer to teach out of state and I went to my salon owner and I was like, hey, so I just got this offer to teach out of state. And she was like, You can’t become an independent traveling educator. Like you’re you’re pregnant, like you’re about to become a mom. And I think that’s really when it clicked because I was like, okay, so first you’re gonna turn me down for this business partnership and now you’re gonna say what I can’t do.
And so I was like, all right, the now I’m gonna do it. So I think that
Liam Shea (19:10)
I
might have considered not doing it, but
Ashlee Norman (19:12)
I was like that now is reverse psychology. So but I think like I think that challenge to be like, okay, well, clearly this path has come to an end and you know I need to keep moving forward and find the next thing. And so at that point, I just kind of looked at my pregnancy as a nine month deadline. And so I just went hard, like literally taught and traveled all the way through until I was like probably four weeks before I gave birth.
So I was teaching my last travel class. They wouldn’t let me on a plane past a certain number of weeks. So I drove
Liam Shea (19:48)
Ask. Okay, yeah. Wow.
Ashlee Norman (19:50)
I drove myself to go teach in in Las Vegas where I live now, which is kind of ironic. And I taught at this salon and I did a two day class back to back. And I mean, my I my ankles had ankles. So like I had like three rolls on my feet. Like at this point, I couldn’t even put shoes on. I was in these like flip-floppy things with like and even that was like putting marks into the skin of my face. So it was it was pretty crazy. I worked 50 hours a week, you know.
behind the chair. And then I just traveled and I taught every weekend. I could. And as you know, as soon as I had my son, I already had a wait list of salons waiting. And my mother in law at the same time was a special needs teacher for about 30 years. And she had wanted to retire but couldn’t financially afford it. So we sat her down and we said, look, you know, we my husband did my numbers and he was like, you know, I think we can afford to pay my mom. And so we’re like, hey
you could will you would you want to be my traveling nanny essentially and so she started traveling with me when my son was about four months old and we just took him everywhere with us until he was about 18 months and then he started staying home and then I got pregnant with my daughter, did it with my daughter, started traveling with her. Sometimes it was both of them. We were like renting an Airbnb and it was like you know a toddler and an infant and my team members. It was just
Yeah, I mean it was a freaking circus, right? And both of my babies, they had passports before they were one. So I took my son with me up to Canada. I took my daughter over to London with me. So it was like I was already doing international, like before I had a single sponsorship. So yeah.
I mean, that was really back when you know influencing and independent education was was newer. So I think that that was a good time frame for that as well.
but also too, like word of mouth is still very, very important. You know, a lot of my gigs were a hundred percent word of mouth. Yeah. And, you know, the quality of my education pro, you know, was what preceded me. And I think that has everything to do with the foundation that I had prior to becoming independent. You know, I think anyone can be an early adapter to technology and a great entertainer on social media and call themselves an educator.
but really not have any foundational knowledge or even skill at facilitating a proper class. So I had that. And it wasn’t until pretty much like I had one sponsorship where the they were just basically sending products to me. So at first I was traveling with my own products. So I was buying
all this color and packing it with me and my mother-in-law stuff and my baby stuff. So like you should have seen our luggage rack. Like it was out of control. but eventually I finally had Oligo start supporting me with at least sending the products to the classes. So that was nice. And then about 2019, my daughter had just started staying home and I was like, you know, lost the baby weight. I was feeling pretty good. And Victor Val.
He was the guy who was running the Oligo Blacklight Tours. Yeah.
Liam Shea (23:03)
Okay, yep.
Ashlee Norman (23:04)
And he was the one who who hosted my first independent education class.
Liam Shea (23:09)
Hey.
Ashlee Norman (23:10)
Yeah. So now it’s like coming full circle, right? So he t he had me at his salon in Pasadena. It was called Salon Sessions. He co-owned it with Nico Aberall, who was Halle Berry and Pink and Little K See or Kent, he was doing their hair back in the day. they don’t own that salon anymore together in Pasadena, but anyway.
Victor called me up and he was like, Hey, would you want to do this little segment? It’s only 45 minutes. Yadda yaddy. The pay is this. It’s, you know, which was way lower than what I was making as an independent. And at first I turned him down because I was like, what can you teach in 45 minutes, Victor? Come on now. Like this is this is not education. And then he was, he challenged me, and I can’t remember the exact words that he said, but it went along the lines of like, you’re so
like adamant about the quality of your education that it almost comes off as arrogant was something along those lines. And I was like, wow, okay. So that kind of challenged me to like, okay, let’s take this format that you’re doing, which is like eight to ten hours a day, because my classes can be pretty intense. And how do you boil that down into a 45 minute minute segment and still really get something quality across?
Liam Shea (24:17)
Yeah.
Ashlee Norman (24:17)
And then that
was the first time I was in front of like, I think it was a good, like, I don’t know, maybe 800 people or something, because it was in Texas. And, you know, Lisa Walker was the headliner. Lisa loves balayage back in the day. And then it was, you know, a couple other influencers. So there was four of us. And then we did this hands-on the next day with like 60 people. And it was divided into these like 20-something groups and they were rotating around each one of the educators.
So they got like a quarter of a day with each of us. And I was like, wow. So it actually taught me a lot about being more flexible with, you know, how you create the curriculum, how do you work with edge other educators, how do you divide up a day? And so that was really the first time that I did a bigger, more stage show show like that. So like 2018, I had started launching my online education during my maternity leave with my daughter. And actually that was the year I passed up my husband an income.
And he was like, wait a minute, like you just had a maternity leave and like you just passed me up an income. And how is this possible? Cause I’m like, you know, master degree, like engineer, you know, literally like overseeing multimillion dollar you know, construction projects building massive power lines. so I was doing really, really well. And then of course, you know, so I start doing these big shows with Oligo in 2019 and then boom, like 2020 hits, right?
And I had already pre-sold my tour for the spring and I had to end up refunding like a hundred thousand dollars, which thank God I had because my husband manages our finances and he has a an account called OPM, which means other people’s money. He’s
Liam Shea (25:59)
Mm, that’s a great account to have, yeah.
Ashlee Norman (26:02)
like, You don’t get this money until you’ve taught the class. And th and you know, I I did know other educators that had spent their money and could not ret could not refund their tours.
And I don’t know how they maintain credibility after that because, you know, I don’t know. But anyway, so I was like, crap. And then my husband’s like, well, it’s a good thing I didn’t quit my job to support you yet. You know, it looks like it’s over. But, you know, long story short, I started, you know, introducing more tools that I was selling, got those online, started doing more shipping, not just selling them in person in classes, started releasing new online education that I had already pre-recorded.
and then that’s kind of when some of the other brands started to kind of talk to me, but they were also like, you know, they couldn’t do anything because everybody wasn’t doing anything live events. So towards the end of 2020, I had started traveling also to whatever s states were open. Yep. So I think I actually started traveling in the summer to like, you know, Idaho or Texas, even Vegas was open.
And my husband was looking at the the numbers. we had just gone through like more stressful stuff with his job. And he was like, you know what? Like you still out earned me in a pandemic. So I think that you’re pandemic proof.
Liam Shea (27:21)
I think you’re doing okay. Yeah.
Ashlee Norman (27:23)
And his job was just giving him stress illnesses. his anxiety was just killing him. Like I don’t know if remember, but they had those back-to-back fires in southern
Liam Shea (27:33)
I do. Yeah.
Ashlee Norman (27:34)
and then it was the flood in in Malibu. I mean, it was brutal. Like every time like something big natural disaster like that was going down, he was basically like part of the fire department because in that sense
If there’s power lines that are burned down or like ruined from a massive mudslide, you have to rebuild them immediately because people’s lives are online. Like if a hospital doesn’t have power, like people die. So he would have to rebuild the grid like immediately. And then I wouldn’t see him for like a month, essentially. Like he would come home to maybe sleep. And that was so hard because at that point we had, you know, two kids.
We had a two-bedroom townhome. Now, granted, it was, you know, our paid-off house. So we were pretty proud of that. But still, we had a boy and a girl sharing a room. We eventually needed to upgrade at some point anyway. And, you know, he was trying to work. We had no dedicated office. He wasn’t allowed to go into his office because of the pandemic. I was trying to film stuff in my garage, literally. And it was just chaos. Like, thank God we live close to the grandparents because they were trying to.
you know, help us watch the kids and still hold down these two jobs. And at one point he was just like, I can’t do this anymore. And he was like, honestly, like I don’t believe in what I’m doing, not as much as I believe in what you’re doing and you’re making an impact. And I want to support you. And once he made that decision to quit his day job, he was like, you know what? Why are we even in California? We could move literally four hours across the border.
And save $80,000 a year in state income tax. And you don’t you don’t need to be in California. You travel and work all over the world. And so we made that decision to move out of state right at the end of 2020. Got our new home in 2021. And that was the year that, you know, everybody was now wanting to come back in person. And since my husband was b was behind me full time, I was like, okay, let’s do this. I had taught a class,
in fall of 2020 in Georgia at Jacob Kahn’s salon. And he was like, Ashlee, why don’t you show up to any of the shows? And I was like, well, what do you mean? Like I’ve never been invited to a show. And so then he was like, well, you don’t need to be invited. You are a brand. And that thought never had occurred to me. And I was like, whoa, you’re right. So when we we were in Vegas, the Vegas show, IBS, was the first show to start back. And that was June of twenty twenty one.
And I cold called them and I said, Hey, look, do you guys need educators? And they’re like, Yeah, we do. And so they gave me like a really good deal. They gave me like a free booth. If I taught like, I don’t know, four or five free classes. And it was crazy because our, you know, we were like a big fish in a small pond. Like hardly any of the brands even showed up to this first trade show because they were still scared of probably lawsuits. Yep. So I mean, our booth was rocking. Like we sold everything out. We had
people standing room only in these like you know 200 person rooms with 400 people in them. And then I took all of those pictures and all of those videos and I sent it to Orlando Premier and I said, hey, I just did IBS. Do you guys need educators? And they were like, yes. And so that’s when I started doing Orlando. So around that same time, that’s when Schwarzkopf had kind of come back to the table and started like asking, you know, me some questions, interviewing me. And then
the same time that was the same year that K18 was launching.
Liam Shea (31:14)
Right. right. Wow. That was big.
Ashlee Norman (31:17)
Yes. So they like they that was the first year they showed up to the trade show. That was year one for them. And so they were like, Who the hell is this girl? Like literally we had lines wrapping around the convention center and like the fire marshal showing up to my rooms in Orlando, like, no, you’re past capacity. Like, we need to kick some people out. Like they’re just like, Who is this girl on her own brand? Because at that point, like I wasn’t really like
You know, I I had been offered BTC team, but it was for a product I didn’t really believe in. So I had turned it down. You know, I wasn’t Cosmoprof team. So I wasn’t like, you know, with the Larisa Love and Jacob when they were doing those big, you know, shows. I wasn’t doing any of that. you know, I wasn’t really doing any of the the hair showy things. Like I don’t even think I even showed up to a single One Shot Award. Like, so I was just like, you know, literally like going through pregnancies and and traveling with breastfeeding infants and like
sleeping in the same queen size bed with my mother-in-law while my assistant got their own bed and we all shared one room. Like I was just like in the grind, like head down, doing like every like two weekends a month, like you know, working behind the chair. Like I wasn’t paying attention to the industry. Does that make sense?
Liam Shea (32:31)
It’s different show. It’s a a it’s a completely different thing.
Ashlee Norman (32:35)
Yeah,
I wasn’t networking. I you know, I wasn’t doing any of that. So like I was just, you know, doing my thing, building my own brand and trying to make sure every single class was the best of my ability. Even if it was like, you know, every time I would have a maternity leave, you’re you lot there’s a loss of momentum and you gotta build it back. And so sometimes you show up for five people and by the time you pay your mother in law and your assistant, you’ve broken even and you still had to breastfeed on the road and you know, sleep every three hours and wake up and
feet again, like, you know, or pump like every three hours while trying to teach a master class, you know. It’s just like I was in the grind. And so I was building like the way I like to say it is like I was this indie band who was like showing up to every little dive bar, you know? And building this kind of like really underground, authentic following and relationships with people like in small salons across America. And that’s why when I showed up at the
bigger shows, people knew who I was, but like the brands, the trade shows, the, you know, the big you know, marketing people, like the behind the chairs and the all these they didn’t really know who I was, really. So it was like, who is this? And how does she have all these people who actually want to sit in her class? Cause there was people who had bigger numbers on social that were more produced, you know, and created like
like the type of artist that really doesn’t know how to put together their own, you know, event. They were just basically put on the stage.
Liam Shea (34:08)
Mm-hmm.
Ashlee Norman (34:08)
So it’s like those sometimes those people, they’re created by a brand, you know? And they don’t necessarily have that same deep connection. Like I like to say there’s width and then there’s the depth, right? And so there’s a lot of people who are like really focused on the width piece. And I was only ever focused on the depth piece of it. So
when people saw the depth in a wide audience, they were like, what is going on? And that’s when I started, you know, getting those those bigger brand deals and started getting on those bigger campaigns.
Liam Shea (34:43)
That’s amazing. Yeah, I mean the width thing, it’s interesting because the width thing doesn’t pay. The depth things pays. There’s it doesn’t the wit thing can be beneficial, but sometimes it’s just you’re just good at making a name, you’re good at making noise, you’re good at being seen by a lot of people. I mean, I see it a lot in the hair industry in general, where you’ve got the most talented people I know are not necessarily the most successful people I know.
And a lot of the most successful people I know are are fine at it. It every now and then somebody’s managed to do both of those things. It’s uncommon, but it happens. But I get when you’re building that depth, brands aren’t they don’t see it. It’s not coming across their feed. The algorithm isn’t showing them depth, it’s showing them width. How much access do they have to people, not how well known are they through word of mouth. I still take tell new hairdressers that you can use social media.
Use it, get on there, build it, build as much as you can. You’re still probably gonna build your clientele by people telling other people they had a good experience. It’s not gonna be the number of photos that you posted creates the the size of your clientele. It might create a larger audience, but it won’t necessarily create paid clients. And it sounds like you’ve done a really good job of building that part of it, like actually getting paid, hustling to get paid.
Not just hustling to be popular, although it it it has turned out to be both, conveniently.
Ashlee Norman (36:17)
Yeah, I definitely would say so because I think what people don’t realize that if you’re gonna do an event for a brand, you’re gonna get a day rate. And the day rate is gonna be typically about one tenth of what you can make as an independent educator. Yeah.
Liam Shea (36:34)
And mean it’s I get that it’s fun. I get it’s fun and it’s fun to go to the shows and it’s fun to hang out with the people that have gone to work at the shows. Like I totally understand going on the road doing that stuff is a great time, but yeah, it does not pay very much money.
Ashlee Norman (36:48)
Yeah. So like the pay the pay is the exposure. Yeah. The pay is looking like a badass. And like you still do need to look like a badass sometimes. And you do need that exposure. And you do need to have like some cool looking shit on your Instagram to give people that FOMO, you know? But then if you don’t funnel that into something else, that’s where it ends. And not to say that you can’t make, you know, good money, you know, in c in contracts or doing, you know, a lot of
you know, shows and stuff and have a lot of fun and obviously everything’s taken care of because your flights and your hotels are, you know, everything’s is scheduled for you. And if you’re flying to Europe and it’s, you know, past a certain number of hours, usually they have to fly you business class. So it’s a lot bougier,
Liam Shea (37:34)
Sure.
Ashlee Norman (37:34)
but that is a big part of the pay is is that it is that lifestyle. So I think it’s especially attractive if you don’t have kids.
Liam Shea (37:45)
Yes.
Ashlee Norman (37:46)
because it’s like, yeah, yo low, like you only live once. Like I got nothing else like I’m gonna, I don’t know, like when I retire, maybe I’m gonna be with some like in a nursing home where nobody knows me. I don’t know. So like might as well live now. Whereas like when you’re like, Okay, well, I you know, I gotta like have first of all, I don’t want to miss my kids growing up. Second of all, I wanna have a relationship with them and do good by them. And I want them to see, I wanna see them grow up to be
you know, good adults and I wanna be a part of their lives and it and hopefully they will have kids and hopefully I’ll get to be grandma and like when I’m you know old at Christmas time I want to be around my grandkids and like that’s my end game. And so I always have to weigh these decisions of like how much you know hype and badassery do I agree to at a lower cost that looks cool and is more fun because my
I’m eating a steak dinner and you know at some badass restaurant with these brands who have this money and you know laying flat on an airplane to Europe. But sometimes you’re going further, farther for less. Or do I do a small class in the US with 20 people? Doesn’t look that cool. And I’m staying at a Hampton and eating some like fake eggs. but I’m taking home that money and I’m paying off my kids’ college fund, you know, so there’s a lot that
As a mom, my decisions are weighed so differently.
Liam Shea (39:17)
yeah.
yeah. I’ve got two kids. It’s all about that. I’m involved in the decision making process, but that I it’s all I can’t just piss it all away. Yeah. That does I mean I guess you can, but that’s not who I am or what I want to do or be. So I hear you.
Ashlee Norman (39:37)
Yeah, so it’s interesting because sometimes, you know, I’m around there, you know, it definitely at the at that level where you are doing those bigger things, because it is extremely challenging to also be present as a parent, there is not a lot of parents at that level, especially not women and mothers. And so it’s like, you know, when you’re at
you know, a big global show. Like I just came back from Brazil, for example, and like I was definitely the only woman and mother. Like it was all mostly men. yeah, no, it was all men. And I and I think there was like maybe a couple females, but they were the assistants of the lead artist. Of course. And so it’s like and I don’t think any of them had kids or maybe they had one and maybe they have a state home wife. I’m not sure. So like for me I’m just like, you know, the I it’s just different. You you don’t
You can’t always relate it on a at a hundred percent because they can’t really understand fully your life, you know? but at the same time, the people that I’m serving are the women and the mothers in the industry. And so they see me and they’re the ones in my DMs cheering me on. They’re the ones who are saying, I took the last five hundred dollars out of my business account when I was just ready to give up and I gambled it on your class, and you were the one who saved my career.
You know, and that’s what keeps me going because I’m like, okay, you know, even going back to the first decade of my career, I had the opportunity to spend a hundred thousand dollars. Why? Because I was married to my husband who was an engineer and you know, he had a decent income, but we also lived very cheaply so I could afford that, you know. And now I’m still traveling and taking education from the top educators in the world, including, you know, my were two of my top favorites are like.
Vladimir Sarbashchev. He’s the original creator of Air Touch. Like he’s actually my very good friend and personal hairdresser now. and I’ve taken you know, classes from one of my my top favorite Brazil artist, Romeo Felipe. Like, and so I’ve gone and I’ve taken these classes and I’ve taken the golden nuggets of each. And I’m like, okay, like let me give it to you in a theory-based way.
So I’m not going to teach you a singular pattern because I don’t believe that education is about memorization of one solution. I believe it’s about problem solving and critical thinking. So let me break it down for you. And then this way you can choose when to use the proper technique in the correct scenario. And so that’s what I go and I take all of this information and I make it so that the average
part-time working mom in Middle America can provide for her kids. Yeah. And that’s what my passion is.
Liam Shea (42:31)
I love that. I mean, it’s it took me about 10 years of doing hair before I had any sense of what I was doing and how to replicate it because people were teaching me the memorization method. And that doesn’t work for my brain at the best of times. Mostly I masked really effectively and made people feel like great educators so we could move on. and then just did trial and error until one day I
figured out that I’d figured something out. And it’s nice to see I see a little bit more of that. There’s still not that much as far as I know people will talk about, well, I’m gonna teach you color theory and then you’ll know how to do color. Okay. I guess I I I understand what underlying pigment is and how to how to do that. It still didn’t help me on a day to day basis. And I I love when people break things down into systems and
things you can replicate in different scenarios as opposed to I know how to do this, but they have to have this hair if I’m gonna do it. Otherwise I can’t, I don’t know how to do that. I did a bit of Sassoon education at the beginning. That was sort of what my apprenticeship was. And I love Sassoon training and I Sassoon cuts, but I I struggled with being told, this month we’re going to do this haircut. Go find a bunch of people on the streets that want a haircut that no one wants right now.
right. I’m like I’m a nineteen-year-old boy walking on the streets trying to convince women that want Jennifer Aniston’s hair in the nineties to come and get a one-length bob. It’s like, first of all, stranger danger, get away from me. And second of all, no, I don’t want that. And then they would come in and I’m like, why isn’t it sitting the way it does in the picture here? And it’s like, well, that hair is you shouldn’t even be doing that on them. But yeah, once I figured out how to create systems for myself, it made a big difference.
So it makes me really happy to see that you’re doing that because there’s still not enough of that in our industry.
Ashlee Norman (44:33)
Yes. Yeah. The way I like to like explain it is like if you’re gonna teach a kid how to read, you don’t have them memorize words. You have them learn the alphabet, the sounds of the letters, and then they are able to critically think and sound out the words. So I think that’s a totally different approach. And my first continuing education was run out of use school. I did a six week comprehensive program at Sassoon in Santa Monica when I graduated in two thousand five. And,
Liam Shea (45:00)
Yeah.
Ashlee Norman (45:01)
you know, of course, like
Again, those haircuts were very geometric. The shapes were very hard and not necessarily what everybody wants. The one thing that I took away from it and still apply today was the A B C theory, which is shape, line, technique. You know, there’s three lines, there’s three shapes, there’s three techniques, and any combination of A, B, and C creates any haircut. And that gave us the ability to head sheet out a haircut as if drawing a map to a destination. But that’s just the structure.
Then it becomes about the finish to the line. Are you doing a blunt? Are you doing a dry cut with scissors and point cutting? Are you doing a slide cut? Are you using a razor? And then what about internal weight removal? Right. So then it goes, there’s more to that, right? So you have to start with that ability to head sheet. If you cannot head sheet a haircut, game over, right? then from there, I put that same way of thinking and teaching, but into color. Right? We
Liam Shea (45:59)
Fascinates me.
Ashlee Norman (46:00)
Yeah. So like we know violet cancels yellow. So that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is like, for example, I teach this class that’s called the theory of highlight. Okay. And it’s about basically when you look at the definition of highlight, it means to create an area of accent. So when we talk about highlighting hair, what we’re really talking about is separating hairs, deciding which one will be our accent, which one we leave for contrast.
Right. So it’s not a single process color. It’s not a global blonde. She’s not platinum. Some hairs will be highlighted and some hairs will be left. So we’re separating hairs. So in the world of highlighting, there’s only four methods of separation. There’s a traditional highlight that’s a slice or a weave. Then you have open air painting, which is classic balayage. Then you have your teasing or backcombing of hair. And the last one is air touch, which is using air pressure to separate hair.
Right. So I go over each method of separation, the pros and cons of each, when you would use which one and why. And then I show a creative combination.
Liam Shea (47:07)
Where were you twenty five, thirty years ago when I started? That was not that was not how that was explained at the beginning. It wasn’t explained, in fact.
Ashlee Norman (47:16)
No, and I taught that lecture in front of 700 people from 20 different countries when I taught this. it’s the largest global show that Schwarzkopf does annually. And it was in Budapest a couple of years ago. It was the first time that they did this massive show since COVID. So then when they brought back their their largest global show, they had me as their headliner. And I didn’t teach anything. I didn’t s I didn’t give a single formula. I taught theory.
Yeah. On a mannequin in front of 700 people. And people were like, What are you doing? Like you’re crazy. And then I brought out four pre-done models. Obviously, I had live models. But it’s interesting because the global director of education, he just retired. But he came up to me afterwards. It was actually three o’clock in the morning. Simon Ellis was there at the hotel at three in the morning when we got back. And I was just
I thought he was going to be tired and not want to talk to me. So I kind of walked past and he would call me over and made me sit down with him and a couple of other people there in the hotel lobby for an hour to tell me how he’s never seen anything like that ever in his entire life. Wow. And he was one of the original like Sassoon educators back in the day who brought Sassoon from Europe over to the USA. And he’s like, I can’t believe it. You just taught a Schwarzkopf class and you didn’t mention a single Schwarzkopf product.
And I was like, yeah, because I taught you theory that’s applicable to all brands. Like and you know, as a cutter from a cutter background to see me do it for color, he was like, Holy shit. So long story short, they’re doing they did the the their global show again last year. It was in Milan, Italy. And they had some big players and and they said it was amazing, but they want me back because they said what they saw was more avant-garde and more editorial, which is
more entertaining and inspirational, but not necessarily educational. No. And so they’re like, we don’t normally recycle a headliner for the for the largest show within a two year time frame. But we want you back because you actually taught us something that we could work with in the salon the next day. And so I’m like
Liam Shea (49:32)
Theory’s not that’s not worth you know, I understand recycling is what we would normally call it in a show. And if it were some unique concept that only existed in a bubble over here with this color line, I’d understand that. But like theory’s not recycled. I mean, it nothing else works without it. and color, it’s so great to see people doing it with color. Because you’re right, we’ve had theory and structure and building blocks for cutting for a long time. Not
you know, every school of thought wasn’t built for every type of person, but we’ve had it for a long time. I don’t even remember, you know, what I started in ninety nine. I don’t even remember its existence. The only thing anyone ever told me was, you know, violet cuts yellow. You know, and that was the end of it. Well, you know, you add at the time it was like, if you want to make six out of five and seven, you have to use two thirds of this and a third of this. And you there there was no
foundation like you’re talking about. It was just a little bit of math and hope for the best. so it makes me excited that you’re teaching that stuff.
Ashlee Norman (50:40)
Yeah, and it’s interesting because now I have this challenge of like, what well, how are you gonna top that? Right. So the next thing that I’m working on is how to combine the theory that I’ve created with the color with the theory of cutting. So now what I’m trying to do is go even beyond that, right? So we have foundational theory for cut, foundational theory for highlight. And now how does that relate to the combination of haircut and color? Where’s that marriage?
And so I do both, which is not necessarily a common theme
Liam Shea (51:16)
Not at all.
Ashlee Norman (51:16)
at a very, very high level. Like if you’re thinking about people who do a lot of these, you know, larger platform artist shows, they’re usually primarily colorists or primarily cutters or primarily styling, and they’re very specialized. So the fact that I try to do everything at a high level is kind of rare. And so
Now what I’m trying to do is kind of show, okay, now that we understand all of this foundation, let’s take it to the next level and think about how these two things intertwine. And if you’re trying to create a look, how you would think about where you’re going to cut it and where you’re going to place the color and then what method you’re going to use and work backwards. So I just did a show down in São Paulo for Hair Summit, and I did
kind of like a practice run of my theory lecture. It’s like a ninety minute theory lecture of cut and color. And it went pretty well. And so I’m thinking I’m gonna continue to kind of work on that and get it ready because this next show is going to be in September in Latvia. And this time it’s gonna be a thousand people.
Liam Shea (52:22)
Wow, that’s a big show. That’s it’s
Ashlee Norman (52:24)
Yeah.
Liam Shea (52:25)
big. Bananas. my goodness. Well, I can’t wait to hear about that. That’s exciting. okay, I’m just gonna shift real quick here. I’m cognizant of time. I want to ask you if I’m a new person either just about to start hair school or just finishing hair school. what’s
one of the pieces of advice you give them for moving forward? What’s one of the things people are missing? what would you tell them to do first if they’re about to start doing hair?
Ashlee Norman (52:58)
I mean, I think the hardest thing is finding mentorship. So I think the biggest thing that I would look for is a mentor. And the thing that, you know, the reality of it is like when you get out of beauty school, you have to realize what you’ve been taught is just enough to get the license. It’s not real world reality. And so you need to get in there and get that real salon experience. If you rush the apprenticeship piece and get to the floor faster, it will set you back.
past possibly five, 10 years. Because I didn’t have that assistant program when I got out, unfortunately. And so I had to go backwards and do all my continuing education while I was already doing clients would actually slow down the process. If you can try to be an apprentice for a year, two years, like I would highly recommend it. Now finding the right apprenticeship, that’s going to be the tricky part. When you’re
freshly out of beauty school, you’re actually not that helpful. So if a stylist is going to take you on, it’s actually going to cost them more of their time than it is than you are actually benefiting them. So you might even have to work for free, you know? So I think if you can find a way to get yourself on a budget and get yourself in a financial position to like earn very little, you know,
while you gain this knowledge. Because the thing is if you don’t gain this knowledge while working for minimum wage at the you know, most, let’s say, you’re gonna have to pay for it. And if you pay for it, it’s gonna be thousands and thousands of dollars. Now, I would say information is more accessible than it was, right? So like a Bumble and bumble class was like, I don’t know what, fifteen, twenty five hundred dollars, depending on the length of the class.
My first Vidal Sassoon class was six weeks long in two thousand five and it was six thousand dollars. Now six thousand dollars in today’s money is probably at least double that, right?
Liam Shea (54:59)
And
most of us had to get there. I mean, like conveniently you weren’t particularly far from the Sicilian Academy, but where I am, it’s like if I wanted to, I had to fly to LA. Yes. Pay for accommodation and pay for the course. So now you’re in the ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars. It’s great.
Ashlee Norman (55:18)
Yeah.
Like I had to drive an hour each way through LA traffic and pay for parking, but that’s still cheaper than flights and hotels for six weeks.
Liam Shea (55:25)
Yeah, I might prefer to fly over that, but yes, I under yes. So
Ashlee Norman (55:30)
You know, information is definitely more available, but like the thing is it’s kind of like decision anxiety, where it’s like you go into a grocery store and there’s like a million different types of like pasta sauce, so you don’t even know which one to get. Yeah. So it’s almost like too much information. And also not all information is verified. Like the thing about going to Vidal Sassoon is we knew that if they were an educator, they were tested on every single haircut before they were allowed to become an educator. Yes.
So there was an actual process to make sure that what they were teaching was legitimate. Whereas now everyone calls themselves an educator. So we don’t even know who’s actually great. Yeah. And if you’re a baby stylist, how the hell do you know? Like you might be watching TikTok and think that’s good hair. It’s not, you know, but that person just happens to be very entertaining and very good at, you know, keeping up with the algorithm. So that’s the that’s the confusing piece. So I think finding a stylist.
Who is actually succeeding in the area that you want to go into. Yeah. And not just from a virtual perspective. Like if you’re seeing it from like a standpoint of like they’re good, like just creating content about it, like I want to see someone who’s actually in a salon, booked behind the chair with a full clientele where you can you can work with them every single day and learn from them, right? that would be the most ideal like scenario.
And again, like if you have to work for the for free for that person and get a second job, like just do it because otherwise you’re gonna have to pay for it. The other thing I would say is if you are gonna pay for education, it’s very important that it has hands-on. So that’s one thing that I’ve always kept the main thing, the main thing. When I teach in person, I always have a hands-on element. Why? Because we don’t do hair with our eyes, we do hair with our hands. So just because you watch someone do hair on YouTube.
Doesn’t mean it’s like you can watch someone play football, but you can’t, that doesn’t mean you can score a touchdown. Like the actual hand-eye coordination is just as important as the intellectual understanding of the technique. So making sure that you are getting hands-on education, and that is very, very rare because if you look at most independent education classes, they are demo only. And usually they’re pretty short. They’re like four, six hours.
Where they don’t include the theory piece. Like I always start with an hour of theory before I even have to bring out a life model. I’m like, okay, let’s go over the theory of this technique before I start putting foils in here. Because if I just start demonstrating, you’ll have no idea where the foundation even comes from. Yeah. You know? So like make sure that there’s theory, make sure that there’s hands-on if you are going to invest in education and then put yourself around the right people that are actually doing what you want to be doing. Yeah.
That would that would be the best advice I could give.
Liam Shea (58:24)
It’s fantastic advice. yeah. Well I sure appreciate you coming and chatting with me today. That’s awesome. where can people find you either on social and what’s the next thing going on? I know you said you’re gonna be in Latvia, did you say or Lithuania? Latvia,
Ashlee Norman (58:43)
Latvia.
Liam Shea (58:44)
yeah. Where can people find you?
Ashlee Norman (58:47)
Yeah, so my Instagram is Ashlee Norman Hair. Ashlee is with two E’s, A-S-H-L-E-E. Ashlee Norman Hair on Instagram. I’m traveling a lot internationally right now with brands, so I’m actually might not be doing as much in-person education here in the US. However, I do have a salon academy here in Vegas. That’s where I am right now. It’s a small one. We’re basically just starting somewhere. So, you know.
I do have three kids and you know, I do need to see them sometimes. So for now, you know, my my third child, which I never even got to that whole story about how my when we moved to Vegas, my husband’s like, let’s go for number three since I’m the one home. And so we went for number three and now he’s finally in school. So he’s in school full time. So all three of them, you know, now that they’re in school five days a week, I opened a salon suite. So I have a two-station suite.
That I am doing private classes. So love it. I’m taking two people at a time and we’re doing two days. So basically, like one day is live model where we do any type of transformation depending on what it is that the students want to see. And then the next day we recreate whatever it is that we did on the live model on the mannequin step by step. So that option is available. It has to be flexible depending on my travel schedule. So, you know, Sunday and Mondays are pretty popular with trade shows and
you know, events. So usually the the classes that I do will probably be more midweek. but I kind of like that because the direction that I want to head eventually is to have this physical brick and mortar become like a true academy. It’s a bit tricky because people are so used to me being able to go to them that at this point people like we were just saying, they don’t, they’re like, I could just watch that online or or or like I can just make an educator come to me.
So it’s a little bit tricky to manifest this idea of a traditional academy. And I don’t know in a digital world if it is a crazy idea. But, you know, as long as I continue to build capital towards it and as long as I’m, you know, working with the brands, I’m thinking, you know, eventually instead of doing the independent education on top of the brands, on top of the trade shows, where I’m like so many weekends a year, as my kids grow up, once they do sports, I’m gonna be I wanna be a little bit more home for them.
So I’m like thinking long term that this is the piece that I’m gonna be driving forward while I do the other things on the side.
Liam Shea (1:01:17)
I love it. That’s exciting.
Ashlee Norman (1:01:21)
Yeah, it’s a big dream, so we’ll see.
Liam Shea (1:01:23)
Yeah,
good luck with it. thank you so much for taking time out of your day. Happy birthday to that kiddo. That’s nice of you to take time with that as well. And yeah, I look forward to seeing what what comes next with the academy. It’s exciting. Thanks, Ashlee, appreciate it.
Ashlee Norman (1:01:37)
Awesome. Thank you so much, Liam. All
right, take care. Bye.