Sophia Hilton has become an international education sensation since investing heavily into top quality videos and courses that paved the way for online education in hairdressing throughout COVID and beyond. We were lucky enough to catch up with on her Australian tour with the L’Oréal Professional Products Division to witness first-hand her empathetic approach that puts the individuality back into every salon, writes Cameron Pine.

Throughout August Sophia has travelled throughout Australia with some of the best business boosting tips from her Not Another Academy and Hilton Hundred Education courses. The business now employs a full time team to manage her global commitments that have changed the landscape of education with honest, empathetic and a relatable approach to the diverse salon landscape. Titled ‘Not Another Marketing Course’, hairdressers and salon owners have received front row insight into the colourful niche Sophia has clients across the world scrambling for – with proven results that show finding your niche is the most powerful tool in marketing.

Not afraid to be bold, go beyond the norm and reach into the reasons why people come back to your salon, Sophia has melded awarded hair colour expertise with an anti-status quo approach to individuality, engagement and a premium environment for her fellow team members.

Building her brand through social media in the beginning, Sophia now uses her network to transfer genuine knowledge and sentiment through education, with her ever-increasing database of salon owners wanting to be just like her – unique, profitable and genuine.

Tackling many important subjects such as the importance of having a holiday from your business and time to reset and restore alone, to how she was the first salon to become gender neutral in 2017, Sophia has changed the way people communicate in a salon environment. Her unique approach has removed the divide between what we’d consider a creative and conservative client and allowed fun to be a currency in business.

“It’s important to continually go back to the DNA and culture of what you’ve created because if it gets too big you can generally lose that a bit. Our team uses Slack to voice note each other and it’s important to create that open environment of communication,” Sophia said.

Sophia’s salon, titled Not Another Salon, in London’s Brick Lane has a large staffroom designed like a 1970s living room with the comforts of home including bookshelves and comfy couches, all part of creating an environment where creative people can thrive and not be cramped.

“I’m happy to make a bit less money and have really happy stuff. I think it’s really important to invest in the team environment and not just the client experience. It’s part of what shows people your brand,” Sophia said.

“A lot of the older guys in the coaching realm like to help you with the numbers in business, focusing on numbers with a lack of emotion. They might help with the numbers or have a procedure, but why am I waking up at 2am worrying about something? It’s often an individual and emotional decision that needs some customised solutions. A long-lasting successful business will always be one with an emotional connection to something.”

L’Oréal’s long-standing relationship with Sophia is bolstered by the fact that she enjoys the polish and the professionally executed aesthetic of L’Oréal’s branding. “We blend something wild and fun with something classic at the same time, that’s why our partnership works really well. I quite like the French aesthetic too and their colour has something for everyone,” she shared.

A popular course in Sophia’s mix is called, ‘The Toxic Boss Test’. The five-hour course helps diagnose and bring to the fore strategies to reduce toxicity in the workplace. She even discusses the concept of the mirrorless salon, something she’s injected into parts of her own salon, and just how important diversity is to our industry.

Sophia has also introduced the silent haircut into her salon. “Even if the client is not booking a silent haircut I think it makes them a little more respectful of the energy and how they talk in our environment. There’s sometimes a very emotionally taxing element to the conversations in-salon,” she explained.

Sophia is a strong believer of not following what other’s do and that everything in a business has to make sense back to the core brand.

“Sometimes it’s just one idea from someone else that we can make our own, but whatever it is, it has to be collaborative,” she said. “We’ve essentially been working on how to keep telling the same message across our salon and education but in a brand new way so that everyone truly knows what we stand for. In 2017, we became the first salon in the UK to become gender neutral. In fact, on a Google search, I couldn’t find any others at that time across the world. Of course, there’s always people coming out the woodwork saying they were, but to do something properly you have to make it an active element in your salon message.”

During a time when a lot of people have held back on investing, Sophia took a leap of faith and invested heavily into videos. When editing for each one cost her £10,000 alone, Sophia knew that, in order to maintain her brand, she had to dig deep and continue to uncover what about her brand drives her, her team and others.

After a big leap of faith after the first year of COVID, Sophia financially doubled the businesses income, making back what she invested, which has enabled her to continue to grow, employ people and even buy an Airbnb in Brighton by the beach – a dream, almost castle-like building.

Sometimes in business we spend the most amount of energy on something that brings the least reward and, in Sophia’s case, the salon is a huge time and energy element but one she sees as essential to her brand.

“It’s not an option not to have my salon. Because if I’m showing you a colour, I want to show you that you can do it in commercial timings. If I’m showing you marketing content, I want to show you that it worked. I don’t really ever want to stand on stage teaching something that I don’t live by. Nine years ago, something that I really wanted to bring forward to the industry is that you can be fun and a bit punk but still professional. I think that’s something certainly back then wasn’t seen very much,” Sophia said.

Sophia’s salon will service £1000-a-service clients and, if it’s something like fancy dress day at the salon, she’ll be wearing a leotard or something ridiculous and out there.

“Sometimes I think to myself ‘I can’t believe I get paid this much money and wear this outfit’. This is my teenage dream, but we get all types of people in our salon and they trust us. Interestingly enough, even though my company is quite tacky, and quite, I use this expression ‘confidently cheap’, my hair isn’t. I would like the hair to look expensive and I still like polish.”

From social media to a full online business, Sophia admits it is harder to get engagement now and that you can’t just teach social media. You now have to teach comprehensive marketing and creating a campaign.

Sophia has had a social media membership group for seven years called the Hilton 100. She takes on 100 members every summer and 100 every winter in a 12-month programme. They can leave after that if they want, but most of them want to stay, as they create a network of like-minded people. It’s no wonder she says 90 per cent of decisions aren’t made by her, but the whole team in the business. It’s imperative for her to allow each individual to be themselves, as those who are stifled tend to leave.

“When we look at workplace toxicity, the whole point of it is to actually look at self- responsibility. So much finger pointing goes on as a boss, and the finger needs to come back at yourself and look at what responsibility you have the environment that’s been created,” Sophia said.

Knowing how it feels as a salon owner, Sophia focuses on the emotional side of business, being genuine and the meaning of evolving no judgement policies.

“We didn’t have qualifications to be a salon owner. I made so many mistakes, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I wish I could have just done a one-year course to run my business.

My job in my courses is trying to alleviate the pain I went through with other people, and remembering a time when you were just you starting what you do and why – if you keep coming back to it, it gives you the strength to go through.”

“I try and post videos of myself too, which are raw and in-the-moment because that’s when people seem to be really listening. That’s what you want, to find your audience when they are most engaged – engagement is the challenge nowadays.”

It’s often misunderstood how just a 12 seater salon has garnered such a global footprint, but all along the way Sophia has continued to break down every element that has helped her be successful and been transparent about it and that’s what people are drawn to. The concept she shared in her marketing course with L’Oréal was mostly about helping attendees uncover their bold facets and their unique aspects of business to use in their own marketing, rather than just give them a blanket approach.

Sophia wants to see more fun and less professional but without losing the respect that comes with professional services – all high-profile salons don’t necessarily need to behave a certain way.

If you ever visit Sophia’s salon in summer, you may just find her salon manager sunbaking out the front of the salon in his speedos. It’s embracing this wild side that people seem happy to pay for.

For more information visit www.notanothersalon.com

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