Pionierin bei der Arbeit
Beschließt ein Zwanzigjähriger Gynäkologe zu werden, ist das normal. Verkündet eine Zwanzigjährige, Barbierin zu werden, muss sie sich erklären. Dabei wäre es sicherlich aufschlussreicher zu erfahren, warum der junge Mann nicht Urologe werden möchte. Jedoch geht es hier um die kreative Kraft und Ausdauer einer in Los Angeles beheimateten Gründerin, die als Pionierin Preise abräumt, weil sie extrem gut und innovativ ist.
LA’s best barber is this woman, and she’s breaking gender stereotypes
• Sofie Pok is an LA-based barber who has won Female Barber of the Year in 2017 and 2018, and Barber of the Year in 2017.
• She stood out in the male-dominated industry by offering extra services to her clients.
• She specializes in custom fades and custom beard grooming.
Following is a transcript of the video.
Sofie: When I first started, I think the first couple years were probably my hardest, because I had to work in a shop with 11 other guys, and I was the only female, so I think it was really hard for clients to trust me. Just from looking around and seeing who was available, they would not ever choose me because at the time, like no one really saw women in a barber shop, so it was really, I mean it could be a bad prior experience with another woman barber, or they just don’t believe that women are for the barber shop.
It was just like me versus 11 of you guys, like let’s see, you know? Pretty much I had like to fight for clients at some times. I had to do more than what everybody else I think. That’s when I started learning how to build packages and like offering more than what everybody else was giving, so I started off with doing appointments. That was like the first thing, giving people an actual timeframe.
People wanna know that their time is valued the same way that we want them to value our time, so that worked out for me, and then just being able to add like different things, like hot towels on the neck, just like little things like that that made ’em feel good, and then over time, I added in to the service with my like photography and videography, so now it becomes a thing where it’s like oh, I wanna go get a good cut, but I also know I might get that new default photo after my appointment’s over. So it became like a whole experience, and that’s kind of like the direction I’ve been pushing, like all my services towards.
I’d finish half, and then by the time I’d turn it around to work on the other side, the outside that’s finished is being spread to everybody else in the shop so they can actually see like, that’s another finished work. So it was a way of just marketing within the shop, but it started to kind of grow that way, and everyone knew me as like the girl with the tattoos, but she takes her time, and she does all these extra things, and it became a thing to where people were like, I wanna try that, like sure I’ll pay a little bit more, but like that looks different than what everybody else in here is getting.
And that’s kind of how I tried to kind of stand out in the shop. Beards are really hard. It took a while for me to understand it, because I think because I am a girl, like I don’t really have one, and I don’t know how to stretch certain parts of the skin. There’s certain parts of the nose where you have to stretch that I found it to be really, really difficult. I did a guest spot in Montreal, and because it’s so cold, all the men had beards, and I just remember passing them on to different people, and I wasn’t making any money, so I had to make that choice, like if I wanna make some money here, like I have to kind of try, so I started watching the guys work, and they were giving me like tips here and there, and then once I actually got to doin’ it, it got easier with time.
It just felt like I just need more practice, you know, just kind of like with fading hair and stuff, like it’s kind of the same thing. The more you do it, it just gets a little bit easier. It’s like a separate hair cut that I find to be so fun, because now we’re shaping it into creating better jaw lines, you know, making the face look longer or shorter. Like it’s really cool how that can change the entire face shape of a man.
Costumer- I’ve never gotten a a cleaner cut and beard line-up from anybody else, so when you kind of, once you find your person, you kind of need to keep going to that person, and I just love that she’s a female in such a male-dominated industry, and she’s out here like stepping up and being better than the majority of them and completely just blowing them out of the water.
Sofie is one of like the top, or if not the top female barbers, so she’s really one of the people that inspired me to go and pursue this career, as well. Even if I walked into a new shop right now and I started from scratch, I’m still gonna deal with everything I dealt with before, unless they had already seen my work prior, so it’s just a, I think the history of however it’s been has just happened for so long that I think the only thing we can do is try our best to take care of our small communities that are around us, and hopefully that kind of like domino affects all the way around us, and if everyone’s doing their part in educating themselves and learning different things and being more open minded, I think as a whole it should hopefully get better. It is gotten more open to where women feel comfortable cutting. It’s not such a weird stigma anymore to see like women in a shop. Obviously it’s still a very small group of what we do, but it’s gotten a lot better.
Customer: I’ve never gotten a a cleaner cut and beard line-up from anybody else, so when you kind of, once you find your person, you kind of need to keep going to that person, and I just love that she’s a female in such a male-dominated industry, and she’s out here like stepping up and being better than the majority of them and completely just blowing them out of the water.
Customer 2: Sofie is one of like the top, or if not the top female barbers, so she’s really one of the people that inspired me to go and pursue this career, as well.
Sofie: Even if I walked into a new shop right now and I started from scratch, I’m still gonna deal with everything I dealt with before, unless they had already seen my work prior, so it’s just a, I think the history of however it’s been has just happened for so long that I think the only thing we can do is try our best to take care of our small communities that are around us, and hopefully that kind of like domino effects all the way around us, and if everyone’s doing their part in educating themselves and learning different things and being more open minded, I think as a whole it should hopefully get better.
It is gotten more open to where women feel comfortable cutting. It’s not such a weird stigma anymore to see like women in a barber shop. Obviously it’s still a very small group of what we do, but it’s gotten a lot better.
Quelle: Insider >Reviews
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