A Product of Relationships
And How Hawthorn Salon Gets It Right
Together with stylist Lea Laskowitz, Christie Stracke and her husband Jim Stracke own Hawthorn Salon in the Five Points neighborhood of Jacksonville, FL. The city is just beginning to define the 21st century version of itself, and Hawthorn is helping residents establish and embellish their outward appearance — which, needless to say, is highly correlated to identity. Along the way, Hawthorn’s focus on consumers and the wellbeing of their staff has helped the salon establish its own unique identity.
In cities across the country, salons and barbershops are in the midst of a renaissance of sorts. Rather than seeking to be the exclusive domain of bourgeoisie types with unlimited means, more salons are popping up that cater to a wide range of incomes and backgrounds. And, with the popularity of Mad-Men styles like pompadours and tapered cuts, and the prevalence of shave-averse urban prospectors, salons are also more gender diverse.
Hawthorn opened its doors in 2010 — in the midst of the great recession,in the heart of a city racked by the downturn — with 6 salon chairs and 2 stylists. “We always wanted to move to Florida and we had kind of cultivated a friend base here in Jacksonville” says Christie Stracke, who does not cut hair, but handles just about everything else. Christie met her husband Jim in Atlanta and after a stint in D.C., the couple relocated to Jacksonville hoping to plant the seeds for a small, but a successful business. “Where else can you own a house, have a yard, and ride your bike to work?” she asks.
Jim, who is one of the main stylists, also fell in love with the area. “The idea of being close to the Atlantic Ocean and being able to surf was appealing, but also just living in a neighborhood where you really have everything right here,” he says.
Love for place is seeping out of the couple, but when speaking with Christie and Jim, it also becomes clear that Hawthorne places customer experience above all else. You can hear it in how they talk about other local businesses, the artists whose work they feature on the walls of their salon, and the customer base they’ve cultivated. “We really wanted this to be a place everybody can come to,” Christie says. “We try to make it so we aren’t crazy expensive, you know? So that it’s not just soccer moms who can afford it.”
Hawthorn spends very little on advertising. The owners decided to rebudget that money directly toward their customers. And the little things make a big difference for customers of the salon: quality espresso, a bar cart, a variety of beers, interesting and diverse reading material. “We do all this stuff to make people happy,” Christie says. “We definitely feel like word of mouth is the best advertising.”
Last year, due in large to word of mouth and good reputation, Hawthorn acquired an adjacent storefront and expanded. They now have 16 chairs, and consequently, more stylists“I never would of thought we’d be able to employ this many people,” Christie says.
As more salon experts joined the Hawthorn team, Christie and Jim placed utmost importance on their wellbeing and in creating an inspiring work environment. Hawthorn invests heavily in its employees, offering apprenticeships and sending each stylist to professional development seminars in New York, sometimes twice a year. They also employ an in-house educator. “All our stylists work really hard here, so we want to invest in things that make our stylists better and make them more comfortable,” Christie says. Virtually weightless Freestylist hair dryers, which are easier on the hairdressers’ shoulders, hang from Hawthorne’s exposed pipe ceiling.
In the hair business, stylists typically work as contractors, paying their respective solons fees in order to use work stations. Hawthorn’s stylists are all commission based. Jim, who started cutting hair 18 years ago in Gainesville, says it is important for his business to provide both educational and financial value to his employees. He wants everyone at Hawthorn to have access to the kind of quality education he feels he received.
The company’s management feels that the relationship with their employees is symbiotic; as employers, they want to learn from their stylists too. Christie says she relies heavily on her stylists’ insights when it comes to staying on top of the newest and best products. “[the stylists] will bring me stuff and say ‘this is a great product,’” she says. “And I’ll buy it so that they can feel confident we have the best stuff.”
At the request of their stylists, the owners of Hawthorn worked hard to get Bumble and Bumble products in the salon. “We want products that are not only highly sought after, but products that are supportive of the people that use the products,” Christie says of Bumble and Bumble, the product company that holds workshops that the Hawthorn stylists tend to frequent.
Hawthorn’s approach is indicative of major economic trends . Today, success requires more than a focus on profits. As consumers continue to reward transparency and collaboration, it’s the quality of relationships a business cultivates that will determine its long-term viability — in essence, the relationships are the business’s identity.
From clients, to customers, to employees, to product suppliers, to other local businesses, Christie and Jim both attribute much of Hawthorn’s success to their ability to cultivate relationships. “Sometimes in this business, people try to be really secretive, like people have their own salon secrets,” Christie says. Hawthorn takes an alternative approach. “Before we hire a new stylist, we often invite them to come work and hang out here for a couple of weeks, just to see if they like it,” Christie says. “We don’t hide anything from them, any of our practices or anything like that. In the end I think that kind of transparency is helpful for everyone. Everybody really knows who you are and who they are supporting.”
The community is supporting Hawthorn; and Hawthorn continues to respond in kind. Recently, they hosted an art show featuring the artist’s work that now adorns the salon’s walls. Local brewers and friends of the Salon, Intuition Ale works (the brewery that supplies the libations for these events), was on hand. “Its important to have these kinds of relationships,” Christie says. “I feel like every time we host one of these things, we make a bunch of new friends.” Every new relationship, new friend, new customer becomes a part of Hawthorn’s identity — and vice-versa.
