WELCOME TO THE Bobby Mack COLLECTIVE!
You’re here, I’m so excited!
Yesssss! I am so excited that you have joined The Bobby Mack Collective! Welcome to my digital platform where I will be sharing my passion for growth, education and success!
If I’ve met you in a class, I thank you deeply for your ongoing support over the years! And if you’re just getting acquainted with me, then hello it’s so nice to meet you!
Let me tell you, it’s been a long, but rewarding, journey to this point in my professional career. I started in the hair industry in 2007 after deciding college and a marketing degree wasn’t my path. This was well before every salon had a comprehensive website, let alone all of the media platforms we have now like facebook, instagram, yelp and tik tok. I started at a time when the popular haircut was an inverted bob and “balayage” referred to high contrast ombre. As a 19 year old just joining the business, I was obsessed with creating those “Victoria’s Secret” big bouncy hairstyles with bold dimensional color. While I apprenticed for the first two years out of hair school, I dove into the work of learning advanced color theory in order to fully understand how to CONTROL what I created. Working 45-55 hour work weeks, I shampooed dozens of heads each day and watched countless color applications and cutting techniques. This is when I fell in love with the art of being a hairstylist. As a child my Grandmother (gosh I miss her) and my Aunt owned a hair salon next to my family’s dog grooming shop. I would run between businesses sweeping hair in both, so I guess you could say I was always destined to work with hair in general. Lol.
Halloween 2007 during my apprenticeship, and yes, this is how I dressed up to shampoo all day.
With some determination and deep ambition for wanting my own clients, I left my apprenticeship and started at a boutique salon in Center City Philadelphia. I was lucky that the team took a chance on me as a young and relatively inexperienced stylist. But I was determined to prove that my eagerness to be a successful stylist would not happen by only providing services or experimenting on friends and family. Hopefully I have redeemed myself for all of the kitchen and garage hair experiments they allowed me to practice on them. Haha. With that, I knew that I had to hone in on my skills and curate my knowledge in order to cultivate the hair business behind the chair that I truly wanted. I’d watch countless YouTube videos, read magazine articles and learn from trial and error. There was a time in my career where a classic bob haircut would take me two hours. But I was patient with myself, and I recommend you to do the same. Since I was trained in the French technique of balayage throughout my apprenticeship, I brought the excitement I had for the trend to work. Over the next year, I built a strong book of mostly color clients receiving some version of balayage and color.
Here is an example of my balayage work in 2011 while I was building my book!
I had felt my dreams had come true, or at least my dreams at that time. For one of the biggest things I have learned through my life, is that we all shouldn’t stop dreaming, or get complacent with feeling only content with our work. I was making $70k a year, with a full client book and relatively healthy work life balance. Over the next two years, I continued to build relationships and receive referrals. Around year four, I started to realize that my income potential and work/life balance was becoming limited, maybe even stagnant. I wasn’t as stimulated with education and learning like I was when I started fresh behind the chair which translated onto my clients. My book changed as people moved or started to find other stylists, I knew I had to make a change for myself, that I was too young and motivated to slow down.
One day in fall of 2014 I sat down and created a dream board. By clearly laying out the lifestyle and stability that I wanted, I realized that the only way I would be able to have the control to create this dream future for myself would be by taking the leap into entrepreneurship. By spring of the next year the doors of my very own hair studio opened.
My first studio opening in 2015! Ahh, what an amazing day!
This accomplishment is one of the highlights of my life! By doing so, I was able to reinvigorate my passion for hair by building a team of some of the most talented stylists, traveling the country for education and receiving unparalleled support from the studio's vast clientele. Working through 50-70 hour work weeks and dealing with the stressors of business ownership, the salon’s recognition grew and appointment availability became waitlist-only making me realize that, more than ever before, I had to stay on top of the newest techniques and trends in order to maintain the demand. A few times a month I would teach my team various application techniques or have long discussions about client satisfaction and focus on learning from other inspirational stylists. Slowly I realized that my passion was not strictly behind the chair, it was also in front of other stylists, educating and sharing my knowledge! With a high demand for appointments, it was time to expand my team and move to a bigger location to make room for more education oppurtunities!
My new location and expansion in 2017!
Over the past four years I have shared my favorite application techniques and business building strategies with hundreds of stylists that have attended my classes. Now I don’t claim to have reinvented the wheel or to have come up with a technique that no one else is doing. But what I have realized is that as stylists, we all have our own unique vision for the creation of a hair color, cut or style. That by taking littled parts from each educational class or video I watched, then applying these new techniques behind the chair, I would slowly be refining my own education curriculum. Sharing my knowledge with other stylists helps me to constantly revisit how and why I use different techniques making me such a better stylist as a whole.
By teaching various size classes and training a wide range of stylists with different experience levels, I realized that the most rewarding classes for me and the attendees are usually when the class size is smaller with a more intimate environment. These settings allow everyone to feel comfortable with opening up about what they struggle with or what they would like to learn. As an educator I have received the best feedback when I customize the curriculum and target the attendees questions directly.
This is why I created The Bobby Mack Collective. In every class I have taught there are always a few attendees that pull me aside and ask more questions and share their stories. For me, these moments are the most rewarding! Through these interactions I get to see that the information I have shared is impactful. By directly answering their questions, the attendees can apply their new knowledge immediately. So, my goal is not to insinuate that I know everything there is to know about hair. In many aspects, I’m still a student myself. But helping people to feel the fulfillment of success by maximizing their potential through customized targeted mentoring is my GOAL. And that is my promise to you!
With The Bobby Mack Collective I have created three memberships to meet you where you are in your training. If you’re strictly looking for easy access education that you can read and watch weekly, the Essential Membership will bring further insight into how I work behind the chair through sharing my favorite tips on hair color, cutting, styling, book building and business strategy. If you’re looking for a deeper understanding or more intensive training, my Pro and Master Memberships allow me to work one-on-one with you to customize an education plan. With extended blog posts, exclusive monthly classes, shadow days and a direct line of contact with me, I will personally help you not only meet your goals, but exceed them!
Thank you for sharing one of life's most valuable things with me, your time. Let’s do this! I look forward to working with you on our path to success!
With love,
Bobby Mack
Owner, Bobby Mack & Co Hair Studio
Founder, The Bobby Mack Collective
