Meet The Disruptors: LeAna McKnight Of SL Raw Virgin Hair On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Oftentimes being disruptive is indeed positive, especially when we’re talking about being innovative and loud. Newer studies have proven that the average attention span for the average person is eight seconds, which means we as business owners have eight seconds to grab your attention or we’ve lost you forever. For example, a good disruption for me would be HelloFresh — a healthy meal delivery that disruptively markets itself for simple recipes using fresh ingredients delivered right to your front door. I believe disrupting in a positive way means to provide a good or service that helps a large number of people in a major way.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing LeAna McKnight.
LeAna McKnight, affectionately called Stylist Lee, is a renowned talent in the beauty industry. With more than 12 years’ experience, LeAna is an acclaimed Film Hair Stylist, certified extensionist specialist and colorist, working on movie and television sets, and for editorial features. She has built a reputation for stellar precision, artistic styles, and reliability which led her to launch SL Raw Virgin Hair, an online store for premium quality hair extensions that accommodate hairstyle desires and everyday lifestyle, one of the few hair companies that produces its own hair extensions at source. Since it’s launch, the company has grown tremendously — with over 500% growth from 2020–2021.
Styling hair has always been easy for LeAna. In her early years, her family and friends continuously entrusted her with their most precious styles, and she honed her craft, doubling down after the destruction of her childhood home due to Hurricane Katrina. In addition to being an on-set stylist, LeAna is an and inventor. She holds two (2) patents, including the Vu Le Carré, a luxury line of leather holsters for freelance hairstylists. Her ability to work with speed and precision has earned her top-level insider referrals and recommendations as well as industry acclaim.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Thank you for having me today! My name is LeAna Mcknight and I’m an Entrepreneur, Beauty Expert, and Inventor. I’m best known for my work as being the top celebrity hairstylist for Hollywood stars such as Ari Lennox, Deborah Cox, and Dawn Richard to name a few. I hold two patents for Vu Le Carré which is a leather holster for freelance artists, along with a pending patent for my new thread weaving tool. I’m a first-generation hairstylist within my family, and I’ve always had a passion for beauty and believe that a fresh new hairdo can make a girls’ day all the better. Although my original quest was to be a dentist, the cards just didn’t fall in that direction. I found my love for hair in high school by attending a career academy school in New Orleans which offered Cosmetology as a curriculum. Growing up, I always gushed at the celebrities’ hair on the TV screen and told myself that one day I’m going to achieve those coveted hairstyle looks. Years later, I’m working with brands like Adidas, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, among countless others and on major TV networks like CBS, BET, and FOX. With over 12 years of beauty experience, I have learned a lot along my journey and grew to have an interest in developing hair products and tools that help women look and feel great. One of my companies is SL Raw Virgin Hair where we sell authentic human hair extensions so the average customer can achieve and experience the same quality of hair that my celebrity clients wear on the red carpet and tv screens.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Firstly, I’m a strong believer in education and I prioritize informing our customers about all of our hair extensions offerings by providing in-depth descriptions backed by tested products. I’ve found that most of our competitors lack beauty industry knowledge and background. Because of this, consumers are left dissatisfied or confused about their purchase. For this reason, I’m disrupting the beauty space by taking my years of beauty industry knowledge and packaging it in an informative way for our customers. I’ve been able to do this through in-depth YouTube videos showcasing SL Raw Virgin Hair. The content includes hair installation processes, before and after tutorial videos, insider hairstyling tips and haircare advice as well as my expert product recommendations. I constantly say that I believe my knowledge is all of our knowledge and this knowledge is for everybody. The amazing feedback and growth of my YouTube channel is a testament to the customer’s need for an educational component when shopping for hair extensions.
Unlike any other hair extension store, SL Raw Virgin Hair offers an expansive range of hair extensions in all types of hair textures to accommodate the average customer. When shoppers visit our store they can see our wide range of product offerings via hair models that I hand-picked and styled to showcase our extremely diverse range of hair products and display all the possibilities for wearing SL Raw Virgin Hair Extensions. We offer a hair quiz that customers can take to ensure they purchase the right hair extensions for their specific hair type along with our friendly chat box where customers can chat live with our beauty experts for additional guidance. In this business, hair extension stores have a bad reputation of long deliveries due to lack of inventory. SL Raw Virgin Hair is changing that narrative by providing transparent shipping expectations at checkout.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Oh wow, long story short we offer 100% package insurance options for customers, and when customers opt-in for our insurance it prints up as an item on customers’ receipts. Well, one day, I forgot to mark insured by the listed item and let’s just say I was in for a treat once our customer received her delivery. Since our customer lived in New York and we were located in California, I wanted to ensure that she received her expedited hair extension items on time and I clearly forgot to mark her receipt as insured. Well, when she received her hair items she left the company a lengthy email expressing her disappointment that she was missing an item but didn’t know what the item was, but she wanted it, although she received the (4) hair extension items purchased. My team went to look up her order receipt and saw that I didn’t mark her receipt insured. Talk about hilarious! We kindly replied back to our customer and explained that it was insurance and the insurance isn’t a tangible item. She immediately replied thank you and appreciate you clarifying. Since then, my team and I make sure to mark insured on every receipt.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I have never had an “official” mentor of my own. Having one would have been extremely beneficial given the challenges that arise when venturing into entrepreneurship. However, a majority of the times when I have a question pertaining to business I lean on my husband or my peers for suggestions.
Every obstacle that I encountered I had to learn from and make educated decisions. Let’s just say Google and reading self-help books from Barnes and Noble have gotten me this far. However, I do believe a mentor is vital to one’s career to excel to the next level, especially to build long-term relationships with like-minded individuals.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Oftentimes being disruptive is indeed positive, especially when we’re talking about being innovative and loud. Newer studies have proven that the average attention span for the average person is eight seconds, which means we as business owners have eight seconds to grab your attention or we’ve lost you forever. For example, a good disruption for me would be HelloFresh — a healthy meal delivery that disruptively markets itself for simple recipes using fresh ingredients delivered right to your front door. I believe disrupting in a positive way means to provide a good or service that helps a large number of people in a major way.
Additional examples of when disrupting an industry is positive would be with Bala Bangles and Vu Le Carre. I recently discovered Bala Bangles through a business convention and was immediately captivated by the bold colors they used to reinvent bangle to make working out more stylish. With Vu Le Carre, which is another company I own, we took the ordinary utility holster and reinvented it into a stylish high-end utility holster with straps and buckles. This would fall under bold and innovative. Now when we talk about the conversational disruption that has withstood the test of time, I would have to spotlight Google, Apple, and Amazon. Amazon introduced a new way of shopping by funneling all of our favorite brands into one spot, but on the contrary, this has made us shoppers less likely to shop in stores which may cause department store closures. Apple reintroduced a new way to stay in contact with family and friends by providing a futuristic phone design with video calling capabilities. As for Google, you never have to leave a question unanswered, you can just “Ask Google”.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
I love to surround myself with people that have their hands involved in different endeavors as I find they’re open to sharing a wealth of wisdom and advice. Before working in Hollywood, I had the pleasure of working in a top salon in North Hollywood where I was able to get my feet wet before ever setting foot on set. One piece of advice the salon owner shared with me, that I live by to this day is, “Always prepare for the unexpected.” As you can imagine Hollywood is a very fast-paced environment and you never know when your big break may be. Since receiving that advice, I always made sure to have my portable hair styling kit readily available. When the day finally came for that call, I was ready.
At times I find myself listening to Gary V’s talks for hours, but one talk that sticks out to me is when he said something along the lines of “To never compare yourself to the next man, stand 100% in your truth and be unapologetic.” This is one piece of advice that I live by daily. I’ve always been told that I can be very honest, and I would apologize for my honesty, but after listening to Gary V, I told myself I will not apologize for living my truth anymore. At times people express that my honesty was refreshing, and other times people may not like what I have to say, but I never share my thoughts that weren’t asked first. I use these same practices when managing my company, SL Raw Virgin Hair, and when I speak with my employees. I find that honesty makes for a better workplace and happy satisfied customers.
I enjoy working on set for many reasons, one major reason is being able to meet a lot of people from all over the world — you never know what takeaways you may get from these encounters. A year ago I did a campaign with Giorgio Armani, where I met a phenomenal photographer. We ended up chatting and expressing our interest in the business. I began to share some pain points I was having within my company and requested some advice. He was able to share a wealth of information as he owned a top talent agency in LA along with a restaurant in Beverly Hills. I wouldn’t have known this if we didn’t make intentional time to connect. We talked for hours, and he shared a small piece of advice with me. He said, “In this life of entrepreneurship, always be prepared for failure, but never be afraid to invest in yourself.” This really resonated with me. I found that I was moving in fear within my own company. I was scared of making the wrong decisions and investments because of the thought of failure, and then I would be upset when I didn’t see results. Since then, I back every idea with a strategy and then investment. I’ll say this, it’s the best advice that has ever been given to me. The saying is true, scared money doesn’t make money.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Absolutely! I’m always going back to the drawing board to see what new and exciting things we can add to the SL Raw Virgin Hair store. We’ll be adding some new hair tools and accessories in the near future. I’m also working on exciting products that are set to launch in the next year or so. Without revealing too much, we have a new weaving tool that I designed to allow hair professionals and knitters a simpler way of weaving, so stay tuned.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
Although I often find inspiration all around me, I have a book that I’ve recently read that deeply impacted my way of thinking. The book is called “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. I love how Dr. Dweck dives right into the different types of mindsets, leaving no room for excuses, you have to determine whether you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. I hadn’t heard of either mindset upon reading this book, and it caused me to self-analyze. I found that I had half and half mindset — half fixed, and half growth. The life situation I’m faced with would determine my mindset for those particular circumstances. For example, if asked to learn a new skill I would be open to the challenge, but not open to failing — meaning I want to learn something new and master it all in one, this is half and half. The book focused my mind to accept more challenges and look at failures as a learning opportunity. I recently watched the new “King Richard” movie about Venus and Serena Williams, and they are the true definition of a growth mindset. No matter the adversity or how hard it got they never stopped. I even have to shine a light on the father, Richard Williams, he is a true definition of a fighter. Watching this story encouraged me that all things are possible if you work hard and believe.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Slow Down, enjoy the moment, and celebrate all your achievements.” I know I’m not alone when I say that we as a people are living in a microwave era where we expect fast results without acknowledging the small victories along our journey. I remember, there was a time I felt like a failure and unaccomplished within my career, but it was that moment my husband sat me down and said you need to outline all your achievements for the year. You’d be surprised by how something so simple as writing down what I have done thus far has made me feel so appreciative. So guess what? Back in February of 2020, I was rated the Top 6 LA Celebrity Hairstylist for natural hair, now the old me would have moved on to the next, instead I celebrated the entire month of February. I showered myself with gifts and loved on me. In life, we often look to others to love us, but it’s in these moments we should love ourselves. It’s just a matter of slowing down and really enjoying the moment.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
If I could inspire a movement it would be to inspire adults over 40+ to learn a new skill/trade. As I get older my appreciation of time becomes more valued. Oftentimes, I find myself encouraging women and men over the age of 40, expressing that they too can have 3–4 careers in one lifetime, but we as people need to remove limitations from our minds. My father who is 60+ now went through foreclosure and bankruptcy 12 years ago which led to him suffering from depression and lack of purpose. Like most people who may have experienced this, my father felt this was the end. These past years, I’ve taken it upon myself to encourage my father through this storm in his life, by expressing that age is nothing but a number, and advising on how he can accomplish and do anything as long as he removes restrictions from his mind. He’s coming around and feeling more inspired than ever. I feel being able to live your full purpose is the ultimate gift of life.
How can our readers follow you online?
Absolutely, you can follow me on Instagram @stylistlee, Facebook facebook.com/stylistlee, and Twitter @stylist_lee. Visit my hair store at SL Raw Virgin Hair® | #1 Best Human Hair Extensions or say hello at Stylist Lee Celeb Hairstylist | Los Angeles
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
