SOMETIMES AS YOU GO through life you don’t pursue the things you are passionate about. You do other things to pay the bills and earn a living and continue day by day.
Barber David Niles’ story is similar. When he was younger he loved cutting hair and did it on weekends with a friend, or at home in his kitchen, but instead of following his dream and opening his own shop, he did not think he could earn a living from barbering and worked in the tourism sector for a number of years.
He was also a salesman travelling through the region to ply his trade, as well as being operations manager at UPS for four years and also an electrician.
“Back then, guys weren’t getting their hair cut; everybody was becoming a Rastafarian, or twisting their hair. They were hardly getting their hair cut, especially in my area, and there was another barber too, so I decided to go out there and get a steady pay cheque. I was young and not thinking along the entrepreneurial line. I was thinking about getting money quickly,” he said.
He told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that after encountering some challenges with his health, he made the decision to go into business for himself and do what he always wanted. He opened Dave’s Barber Shop on Christmas Eve, December 2014.
“I was trying to get some of those children who had come out of school and those people who were going to church the next day and it worked. I got a few people, not a whole lot, but it was okay. I was actually trying to push to open the week before but I didn’t get all the work on the shop finished in time so I had to put it back till that day,” he recalled.
Since then, business at the Eden Lodge, St Michael shop has grown steadily and he expects it to grow every month.
Niles opens every morning at 9 a.m. apart from Wednesdays (his off day) whether he has appointments or not, and closes at 6 p.m. He does this because he believes the key to being a good businessman is professionalism, excellent customer service, and managing the books properly.
“I try to be as professional as possible. The worst thing to do is to leave home come to the barber shop and he is not there. Or anywhere you go and find the business closed, it is very upsetting. At least I feel that way. So I don’t like that someone comes to me and I’m not here so I try to be there as much as possible.”
He is the only barber operating right now, he said, but there are four stations and he is trying to get others to work in the shop with him. He said that his clientele was growing “slowly but surely” and every week “it is getting better and better. I can’t complain”.
Niles added: “It is moving at the pace a business should move at. You have to treat it like a business. Every time you get your money, you have to bank it, make a note of how much money you spend daily, how much you make so that you see that you’re making a difference and not just taking out more than you’re putting in. If that’s not happening, then that’s a waste of time.”
The businessman said that before he opened the shop he refreshed his skills by enrolling in the Barbados Vocational Training Board’s Skills Training Programme and he is a licensed barber.
What he has realised is that “a lot of people are getting into barbering to make money” and they were trying to “mass produce haircuts and get people out the chair in 10-15 minutes” which was “okay, ’cause it’s a business”.
However, he believes that a haircut should not take less than half hour and as a customer, he does not like being rushed out of the chair.
“I like to sit and feel as though I’m being well groomed and pampered. A lot of my customers tell me that when they leave my chair. My haircuts are really nice. Even if they weren’t nice they feel so pampered, and I pay so much attention to them that they’re always happy,” Niles said.
He also shows his customers how much he appreciates their patronage and during the first anniversary in December, they had a chance to win items.
Niles’ advice to prospective barbers is to simply follow the dream. (Green Bananas Media.)
