Dream and Hustle

How to Keep Ballin Hard Like a Boss with the Hair Extension Hustle

Right now, cats are out there selling hair extensions and making money on the side. Granted, it is a nice side hustle for sistas smart enough to see a demand and position themselves to get paid. I got this little teenage sista out there who has her own hair extension hustle over the Internet and hopefully will advise her how to step her game up and straight boss on these other cats and take over the world.

But here is the thing -I didn’t realize Dream and Hustle the past two weeks been covering the components of this hustle. I basically broke down all of the major components of how to straight boss on the hair extension hustle the previous articles I written on Dream and Hustle. If cats took this blog seriously and actually took notes of the stuff I wrote in the past several weeks, they would have put two and two together. This article is going to show sistas how to start and operate their own hair extension hustle on a boss level.

Sourcing the Hair

I wrote an article (link) about brothas and sistas need to start international travel. In that article, I told you cats what many famous and rich cats told me where the number one destination Dream and Hustle should tell their audience to focus on and where to go. They told me this is the place brothas and sistas better start looking at. By the way, do you know what is considered the best type of hair extensions coming from?

The reason why Malaysian hair is considered the best is due to the diversity of the Malaysian people. Malaysian has Indian, Chinese, Arab and Indonesian melting pot culture and they have a large variety of hair that can be curled or straight or mimic many styles sistas strive for with harsh chemicals. Second, the Malaysian currency is cheaper (believe is also cheaper than Brazilian hair) which mean you get more for your money with the US Dollar.

This is where you sistas probably want to source your hair from and get with someone local there. How you get your local connect determines how successful you are. The only thing I will give you a quick hint is to do research and find out the wholesale market and find out where the real market in Kuala Lumpur at to exchange hair so you can go directly to the source to avoid markups.

What I strongly advise is to make sure you are getting quality product from the source and use multiple suppliers and form a relationship with them. Again, keep that ignorant ghetto style of doing business stuff here in America and stay humble when doing business in Asia and show them the same respect as they have admiration for us African-Americans. We brothas and sistas have clout on the global level and most of brothas and sistas are too ignorant and stuck on local stupid crap to realize our global powers.

Creating the Packaging

I wrote an article (link) about how sistas should be selling beauty to other women instead of being some magazine butt model or rap video vixen trying to impress some horny broke $40k/year bustards. I gave as an example two successful Japanese entrepreneurial models who sold fake lashes and had their picture all on the packaging. This is exactly what I want a sista to do – I want her to put her own face on the packaging and brand it under herself.

Everybody else just sell hair, you sista is going to sell your brand and your hair and market that package to the people as a distinct brand. Don’t listen to some cornball talking out the side of their neck saying it won’t work – those two sistas in Japan sold false eyelashes with their face all on the packaging and don’t you forget that example either.

The reason why these cornball side-haters telling you branding hair extensions don’t work is because they quietly hating on you as a person, trust me. They don’t want to see you promote you to the critical mass because they don’t want to see you big like that. I do want to see you do big and that’s why I’m telling you sistas to put your face on that package and brand it!

Look, if there is anything I want to teach you from Dream and Hustle is the number of fake Black people out there trying to put doubt on your hustle. I already showed you the proof in that other article how the Japanese sistas blew up fast and other examples such as Raven Symone and Gwen Stefani was provided so you have to go that route.

The plastic bags probably can be ordered here in America or overseas. Then what you probably want is to use some cardboard that you print in full color of your hair extension logo and description of your product. Put this in the packaging so it can be seen as your distinct product. However, I do not know if the packaging needs to be airtight and if so, I suggest this air-proof and tamper-proof packaging be your preference to protect your brand, not some button packaging where anybody can get into it during the supply chain process.

This is not just you selling hair, you are selling your brand so you can come up and move into bigger and better hustle down the road – that’s how you become a boss like that Dolly Wink sista in Japan.

Setting up the Web Operation

This is the problem I have with Black tech and web programmers me and the 30 Rotten Dissidents run into because they all are really a goddamn pathetic joke but they think they know how to code. When it comes to the web, cats should focus on the simple ish but Black folks claiming they know tech tend to overcomplicate how web design and web architecture should be. The web site should be simple enough with HTML 5 or even basic HTML and use as little links or buttons so it can be accessed on a tablet or mobile device.

Women, especially Black women use mobile phones and tablets, rarely desktop computers. I don’t even see a sista sitting down idle anymore because they staring into a mobile device all the time. Now, I do have this one weird sista who sit down and look at a DVD player and I’m going to have to talk to her about that one day but most sistas use a mobile device when they sit down for a break. Your web site should be compatible with those devices and that is a simple web site.

Select a hair extension type based on country, style or length or combination. Then show pictures of the weave and price and buttons to buy. Then send them an invoice via email or text message– f*ck a e-commerce shopping cart checkout screen – they pay and you fulfill the order. Keep that ish simple on the mobile device.

Now, I wrote an article (link) on how to do geolocation services where you can use a web service and here is how you can use it here. You can have hair stylists pay you to be listed on your web site and you put in their latitude/longitude coordinates and you can show your customers the nearest stylist near the map who can apply your branded hair extensions. That can be done in HTML 5 using the navigation.geolocation feature.

Marketing with QR Code Posters

Last year, I wrote about Tesco in South Korea creating a virtual wall with QR codes that allow people to shop for products with their mobile phone. (Note: the reason I’m showing Singapore in the video above is to show you how fast technology moving in the Pacific Rim while brothas and sistas like Black Web 2.0 stay here in America stagnant and too busy reinforcing their ego). I also talked about creating large format QR code posters allowing people in the hood in a waiting lobby area to scan and shop or place orders. One way to market the weave product is to create QR code posters that allow sistas to shop for their hair extensions and have it mail-ordered to them.

Where do these smart QR posters go? They can go into the ladies restroom at nightclubs or restaurants in the Black community. They can go on at the bus stop or train station. You can have a table setup at the club showing ladies how to order. These posters can be even setup in church. You can past these QR code ordering as postcards. When a lady in a sorority want you to sponsor their program book, put this ad with QR codes on two pages. Ladies can use their cell phone, order their hair from their mobile phone and it is sent directly to their home.

Summary

When Black people start taking someone from the West Side of Chicago and Dream and Hustle seriously and stop reinforcing their ego with BS like Black Enterprise magazine who are not writing anything special, then brothas and sistas will be able to put real global boss-level hustles based on the articles we write on this blog. Me and the 30 Rotten Dissidents don’t have to brag or claim we are the best, we already know that ish because we put in that real work to make us the best in this ish.

Yeah, it’s a lot of cats out there selling hair extensions but they doing it as a two-bit side hustle. You can straight brand the hair weave hustle the same way Ralph Lauren branded the polo t-shirt style to his own name. The same way with the Japanese sistas did with the false lashes and that one sista Keyshia Ka’oire did with her lipstick line.

You don’t think of peddling to cats around the block, you think big like we need you to. You source in Malaysia and ship out to Africa, ship out to the Caribbean, ship out to America and Canada and ship out to Paris, London and Belgium. You go worldwide with your brand and make worldwide money with your brand, sista and blow up your empire from there.

You then realize sistas use their mobile phones and tablets and can do QR code ordering with their hair through this technology. You build smart posters that let sistas worldwide order from their mobile phone. You promote those posters everywhere sistas congregate and is idle. And just in case you didn’t realize, the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport with millions of sistas coming in and out is the type of airport hub we also blog about where you may want to reach them there. You can build a geolocation service for a sista traveling in Atlanta to know the nearest place to get some extensions done and you ship your extensions out to their hotel in an emergency rush.

This is exactly how the young brothas and sistas need to start thinking instead of that get a degree and hopefully get a job type setting because that get a good job thing ain’t going too well right now. We got to learn how to use technology and use worldwide resources to position ourselves in the global economy and stack paper. Once brothas and sistas learn to disrupt their ego and go worldwide on the hustle, then we will be where we really need to be at in the 21st century doing for self and building our empire on our terms.