KERRY Anderson set up Scotland’s first hair salon operating as a social enterprise in 2016 as a way to merge her hairdressing skills with her qualification in counselling. The salon offers training and mental health support to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Name: Kerry Anderson

Position: Founder

WHAT IS THE BUSINESS CALLED?

Brave, Strong, Beautiful

WHERE IS IT BASED?

Edinburgh

WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?

IT’S a social enterprise looking to invest in young people’s training and mental health support. I started to meet young people who struggled to get employed by other salons and decided on a holistic approach as we needed an alternative way of training young people. We’re the only salon that works this way as far as I’m aware. Other salons just give hairdressing training.

I’ve been in the hairdressing industry for 25 years and took a break and went into social care. I have a diploma in counselling in hypnotherapy. When I came back into hairdressing it allowed me to develop a social enterprise. I did that in 2016 as I wanted to help people. There’s a good work/life balance with hairdressing.

You can get training in the salon or go to college. In our salon we provide one-to-one support. We’re different as we can offer support, nurturing and access to counsellors. We focus on supporting young people wholly. People come in from leading name brands to provide other sessions on things like colouring.

HOW HAVE YOU COPED WITH CORONAVIRUS?

IT has been a real challenge. Since it happened we have had to adapt to social distancing, spacing appointments out and allowing time for cleaning. We just opened a second salon so we must allow for social distancing there too. I think as an industry we need to find our feet again. We will recover. People have tried to cut their own hair or their partner’s hair and realised how difficult it is.

WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?

HELPING young people who have challenges into employment. Lots are from different disadvantaged backgrounds. I have lived experience of that so it’s important to me.

We have trained four young people in total and we are working with two who are about to qualify. They are responding well to the mental health support that we provide.

IS SCOTLAND A GOOD PLACE FOR THIS TYPE OF BUSINESS?

ABSOLUTELY. Scotland has a great small business community which has helped us. We won a Scottish Edge award in October 2020 and won £50,000 of funding. We have also been recognised by LaunchMe [a Scottish social enterprise accelerator] so they supported us to grow. All that support really helps a small business.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT RUNNING THE BUSINESS?

SEEING young people passing assessments and tackling something they have struggled with.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN RUNNING THE BUSINESS?

I’M very big on social impact and I’ve had to grow and develop as a businesswoman but I’m learning a lot of techniques. I had to learn about pitching and creating financial forecasts. I’m doing a lot of that on my own. I know my idea works and people believe in it.

WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS?

WHEN I started the social enterprise and saw it was working I saw some scope for it to grow. The more feedback I got the more ambition I had. I’m really excited to have this salon and we’re branching out to other cities and helping more young people on their journey. We have a really high client retention rate in the salon and clients feel part of our journey. They can access our mental health support too. It’s a really friendly environment.

Some people can feel intimidated going to hair salons – they feel judged – but here they feel accepted and welcomed. It’s like a hub – clients will stay for an hour after and have a cup of tea. We want to continue to grow and help young people have the confidence to grow their own career.