Miss Jessie's

by Miko Branch

  Meanwhile, I was happy to do every single head of hair that came through the door. Oftentimes it was a twelve-hour day, and we worked typical salon days, from Tuesday until Saturday. I was getting a workout, but I could not think of anything I’d rather do.

  Titi couldn’t do hair at first, but she learned as she went, starting by giving the best shampoos. Our customers used to look forward to seeing Titi at the sink, because she started with a soothing scalp massage. That was smart, because destressing our clients with a head massage and extra pampering made my job easier. They would emerge from the shampoo bowl feeling relaxed and more receptive to my styling suggestions.

  One thing about Titi I admired was that whenever she didn’t know something, she didn’t hesitate to research a topic. She was a quick study, carefully watching how I handled the process of cutting and styling, taking a few courses of her own, eventually graduating to occasional styling. It was almost as if she had been to beauty school; she was assisting me the same way I assisted Walter at Joseph’s. Now there were two of us carrying the load, and that enabled us to double our volume.

  Overall, Titi brought a fresh perspective to the beauty business. Her gift with people and her desire to foster long-term relationships with customers gave us a huge advantage. She wasn’t simply focused on the immediate return. She was building something. Her organizational and planning skills gave our tiny salon a professional patina that built confidence in the women who walked through our door.

  On many levels, we had the perfect combination of talent and business-mindedness. My sister had an innate ability to know when to pitch in and do what was needed, leaving me to focus exclusively on our clients and their hair. I didn’t even have to say anything. She read my mind.

  By handling all of the other aspects of our business, Titi allowed me to truly excel at my craft. She created an environment for me that was free of all of the politics and pitfalls of the salon and beauty industry. I looked at my sister as a savior of sorts, because without her influence, I might never have taken my career and our business to a whole other level. I was both happy and grateful. We were winning—together.

  Six

  HARD PRESSED

  You may be disappointed if you fail,

  but you are doomed if you don’t try.

  —BEVERLY SILLS

  Business was steady to the point where we were banking 50 percent of our earnings and using the rest to operate our salon. Our overhead was low because we were still living together and sharing everything, even our clothes, allowing us to amass a good amount in our savings account. Knowing that we were covered gave us a sense of security and well-being we’d never experienced.

  Titi and I were doing it all side by side, building the family business we’d dreamed about since the days we were locked in the backseat of our father’s Chevy, waiting for him to close on a deal.

  It was a warm morning in April, and I was looking forward to a full day of bookings at our salon when Titi, who’d stayed out the night, pulled up in front of the apartment in her red stick-shift Acura to take us to work. As soon as I climbed in the passenger seat, I noticed the look on her face. Something was seriously wrong.

  Pool your resources whenever possible. Doubling up saves money that can be put into the bank, or back into the business when necessary.

  “Miko, I have to tell you something,” she said in a way that made me think someone had died.

  “Oh my God, Titi! What’s wrong?”

  “We owe the IRS a lot.”

  My stomach lurched. After a little over a year in business, we’d allowed ourselves to think of our revenues as profits. It never occurred to us to do the math and figure out what we owed Uncle Sam off the top. Besides, our earnings had been subsistence-level for so long that we were used to getting money back from the IRS, not the other way around.

  “How much, Titi?” I asked, barely able to breathe. “Wha . . . what’s the damage?”

  “Seventeen thousand.”

  We had never seen a bill like that, much less paid one. But there was no way out; we had to cut a check. We were both clear that you don’t mess with the IRS.

  Our upbringing had taught us to be frugal, so we had the money in our account to cover it, but we weren’t as far ahead as we thought we were. In a way, it felt like all the work we’d been doing the previous year was to pay the government. But in that moment I knew exactly what to do. Things were going to be different the next tax year.

  “We have to buy something, now,” I told Titi. “If we’re going to sink our money into something, it might as well be a roof and four walls.”

  My credit was bad by this time. I’d overspent while at college and did not have the discipline or income to pay back a student credit card. Many young people get stuck with debt after getting their first credit cards. But Titi’s credit was good, so it was an easy decision.

  Always plan for taxes. Set enough aside, and put your income to work for you through legitimate investments in and outside of the business.

  We had enough savings to cover a down payment. Titi did her usual deep dive into the research and started looking for property immediately, to enable us to be in a position to write off something that tax year. But as Titi discovered, the prices in downtown Brooklyn were out of our league in 1998. A place in one of the less affluent areas of Brooklyn was all we could afford. Once I understood where the market was, and exactly what we had to work with in our budget, I knew I wanted a brownstone in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Although we’d always stayed close to the center of things, downtown, my friend Christine—the one who got me the bartending job—had invited me to her block party on Hancock Street the year before, and that memory had stayed with me.

  I was completely taken with the Old World charm of that particular street, with its grand Victorian brownstones and a line of mature oak trees planted in front of each stoop. Scattered in between the rough areas of Bed-Stuy were several blocks that looked like a stately village out of a time capsule. The turrets, cornices, columns, and arches of their nineteenth-century facades had been lovingly preserved over the generations, and reminded me of the romance of a European city—nothing like what we were used to seeing in Queens. I had never forgotten how majestic these pockets seemed, with the rust-red, brown, and terra-cotta rows of houses that glowed a fiery orange as the setting sun hit their stone fronts. It looked like a majestic village built for kings and queens. I know beauty when I see it, and I envisioned us owning property on that exact street. Mind you, that was all I had seen of Bed-Stuy.

  Working on my behalf, as always, Titi left me in our crowded salon on a Saturday to go to an open house she found in The Daily News for a brownstone on that exact block: Hancock Street, asking price $235,000. There were thirty people at the open house, but Titi eventually scored the property for us by calling the owner every day. It quickly turned into a teacher-student exchange when she confided that she had never bought property. She called that man a million times with questions, and he was happy to oblige. They wanted out of the property, and Titi let it be known that she was a serious buyer. Once the dialogue was established by my sister—the good cop—I stepped in and became the bad cop, negotiating the price down to $215,000. Again, we made the perfect tag team. In July 1999, our father attended the closing with us, and we could sense that he was proud. Now we owned a business and a home. “Do or die, Bed-Stuy, here we come!”

  WHAT’S GOING ON?

  But here’s the thing about success—you can never assume it’s going to continue. An entrepreneur’s life is complex and full of moving parts that include both the personal and the professional, especially when family is involved. Just when things seem to be going well, other pieces can fall out of sync. Working hard every day to expand the bottom line can lead to neglecting your happiness and a healthy life balance. It can lead to bad decision-making.

  Around two years into business, right after we closed on the house on Hancock Street, Titi started pushing
for us to make another move. I didn’t understand the urgency. Things were going well where we were. But Titi had larger ambitions. She shared that because we’d experienced such immediate success with the original salon, we could do it again. “Miko, we can’t even take fifteen clients at a time,” she argued. “At two hundred and fifty square feet, we’re busting at the seams!”

  In 1999 Titi talked me into expanding Curve again, two blocks up on Bond Street, to a space that was five times larger than our original 250-foot salon at 103 Bond Street. Before I had time to consider the move, she presented me with a lease.

  “Don’t we need a lawyer to look at this?” I asked her.

  “No, we do not, Miko. You’re so paranoid. No one checks every single thing. That’s not how business is done.”

  That’s what can happen in a family business. There is a familiarity that can all too easily lead to the dismissal of a valid concern. In a regular partnership, my objections would have been taken more seriously. But we were in the thick of our big sister/little sister dynamic, and it hurt the decision-making process.

  On some level, I could see Titi’s logic. She saw how booked out we always were, and identified an opportunity to expand. As a businesswoman, she believed our next step was to grow in capacity, spreading out in stages until, who knew, we could become our own version of Vidal Sassoon or the Regis salons. The problem was, we’d been in business less than two years.

  LOCATION, LOCATION

  We made the classic mistake of many entrepreneurs who, flush with their first success, get overly ambitious and expand too much, too soon, overlooking some key details. We made several rookie errors.

  Miss Jessie warned us we were making a stupid move. She was on the phone all the time, blasting my sister for her bad judgment. “Titi, you had no business being that reckless,” she told her. “You’re moving too fast, and it’s costing too much.”

  We hadn’t done the proper research. For starters, the new place on the corner of State Street and Bond Street was far too big, so the salon appeared half empty, which is never a good look. Those fifteen people who made the first salon look like it was busting at the seams did very little to make the second location look full. When choosing a location, especially in a place like Brooklyn, where a charming neighborhood can turn sketchy over a single block, one move can make or break you.

  The space was cute enough, although it had a more commercial, less personal feel. But the location, just two blocks away and on the other side of Atlantic Avenue, was seedy. Nearby were empty lots, a pawnshop, and a homeless shelter. Gone were the trees and cute row houses. There was only one working street lamp on the block, leaving passersby feeling vulnerable, as if any minute someone might jump out and mug them in the darkness. It meant our existing clientele no longer felt safe making the journey to our new salon. As a result, we lost business.

  Look-Before-You-Leap Checklist

  1. Dive deep into the research before you expand.

  2. Consider all the possible issues that could negate the benefit of larger capacity.

  3. Do a reality check on the present state of business for a realistic picture of future growth.

  4. Enter through that new door with your eyes wide open.

  The lease also had a few holes in it, leaving us at a significant disadvantage. Our landlord felt our rent was too low and was eager to drive us out, so he stuck it to us. He withheld our hot water and cut off the heat in the middle of winter. We were doing hair in our coats! Of course, we protested, but he defied us to battle him in landlord-tenant court. It was exhausting and demoralizing.

  Not that we had any intention of giving up. To fill the salon with bodies and create at least the appearance of success, Titi insisted we start offering discount rates—ten- and five-dollar wash-and-sets. I was working double time now. We could no longer afford an assistant, and it fell to Titi to put out the fires. There were plenty to keep her busy. The police came to our salon just about every other day in response to our ongoing disputes with the landlord, scaring away yet more clients. We lost a chunk of our savings, most of our customer base, and to top it off, my belly was swelling with a pregnancy. I had just broken up with my long-term boyfriend but decided to keep the baby, even if that meant raising him on my own. I was frightened for myself and my unborn child.

  In between appointments, I used to gaze out our windows at a new shop across the street from us called Polish. It was a nail salon, but not like any other I had seen. It was a one-to-three-operator business with the owner, Erika Kirkland, doing services herself. She even had celebrities like Star Jones, and many magazine editors, making the trek to our sketchy block, getting herself flattering write-ups in the press. Erika had some experience working with Bliss spas, and she’d learned a thing or two from the high-end chain. She required customers to make a deposit to secure an appointment. If they canceled, they forfeited their money to cover her time and loss of potential income. As we were drowning on the other side of the street, I became fascinated with Erika’s business methods and filed away what I observed.

  OH YES, IT’S PERSONAL

  Not that there was much time to act on this new intelligence. I gave all I had to keep our business alive, working my tail off. But it was becoming clearer by the day that we were on life support. In a matter of months, I’d gone from what I thought was the perfect life to this. It made me angry. People say it’s not personal, it’s business, but for me, business is always personal. It’s an extension of who I am, and when everything I’ve worked hard for comes under attack, it feels like a violation of my very being. I’d done everything Titi had asked of me and allowed her to make decisions for both of us. The situation was similar to the one that I’d permitted to happen with my father when we were running Branch Cleaning Agency. My gut told me it was wrong, and I didn’t listen.

  My business-wise sister put everything we’d built at risk. I was far more inclined to resent her for it because she was family. But the mistake we had made was fairly typical of small-business owners.

  Miss Jessie was no fan of mine during this period. While she was disappointed in Titi for taking us in the wrong direction, she told me: “There’s no need to be hateful to your sister. Your attitude will only make things worse.”

  Pace your growth to make sure it is sustainable. Many businesses fail when they expand too rapidly.

  Things went further south, and the tension between my sister and me went on for the duration of my pregnancy. Most business partners would be able to go to their individual homes and have some time and distance, but we had no money for separate abodes. We were right on top of each other 24/7: in the house, always aware of the other’s presence creaking up the old wooden staircase; in the car, driving past a barren, treeless wasteland of burned-out lots and storefronts on the way to work.

  Family Business

  Doing business with family can be as complicated as it is rewarding. There is a tendency to either dismiss or expect more of loved ones, and to blame when mistakes are made. To avoid these pitfalls, I suggest the following:

  Take the emotion out of communications and transactions. Remind yourself daily that this is a business, not a family crisis.

  Separate “church and state.” Keep personal issues at home and work issues at the office.

  Clearly state, in writing, what everyone’s role is.

  Ensure that expectations are understood and agreed upon.

  Listen with respect. Don’t dismiss opinions just because they’re from family.

  Ask yourself daily: “Would I speak to or treat a non-family employee, colleague, or associate this way?”

  I was also disappointed by the father of my child, who made it perfectly clear as the months rolled on that he wasn’t going to step up. I didn’t want to become one of those welfare mothers Daddy used to hold up to me as a warning for “where pretty gets you.” It was up to me to survive.

  GRAND OLD LADY

  Although getting back into the workforce and doing
a nine-to-five was not an option for my sister, Titi went about silently trying to fix things in the house. She took a course on home renovation to at least help make our new home in Bed-Stuy more livable. There was a great deal to do, because the previous owners hadn’t done any renovations in generations. It was evident that the property had been kept strictly for investment purposes. Besides the basic cosmetics of painting walls and finishing floors on all five stories, we had to upgrade all the electricity and plumbing on a shoestring budget. It was a lot of work for one person, but she never complained.

  Physically, I was limited as to how much I could help my sister. My pregnancy, which hadn’t been easy, precluded any heavy lifting. While I concentrated exclusively on styling hair, doing as many customers as I could while my ankles and fingers swelled and my back ached, Titi did everything else. For months, she went back to the menial labor she was doing from the very beginning, sweeping, shampooing, answering phones.