Striving to be the Best Hair Salon in Portland

When Kaylee and I started yello we never made it a goal to be the very best, at least it wasn’t something we discussed out loud. Instead, we wanted to do the very best for our stylists and our clients. This meant doing things a little differently and sticking to our commitment to make a hair salon feel more like a brand that stands by something.

For our stylists, this meant ensuring we found people who were committed to making hair their career. A lot of stylists work multiple jobs and never really fully can commit to this as their main source of income (typically because the place they work doesn’t pay well or they don’t have a big enough clientele to keep busy). For us it wasn’t an option, we have seen how successful hair stylists can be so we only hired stylists who would join full time with us and we made sure they made enough money to make this their career. This meant setting non negotiables from the start, like our work hours which we are proud to say are Monday-Friday 9-5. Of course some stylists choose to work Saturdays or later evenings for their personal schedules, but this is what works best for them personally, not a mandate. We wanted to set a standard, which may not be the most convenient for clients, but neither is visiting the dentist yet we all do it Monday through Friday. Like a dentist office, when you visit yello you can be confident that this is your stylists’ one and only job, this is their career, and you are in great hands.

For our clients, providing a great service has always been the foremost priority. This meant spending extra time training new hires and getting them the experience they needed before putting them on the floor. We have a high standard and unfortunately we had to let go a handful of great people because they never reached that standard, but this had to be done to build trust with our clients. We want a client to be able to see any one of our stylists and know they are going to receive the same quality service.

Part of our client experience, aside from their hair service, was to ensure things operated smoothly. A huge part of why we landed on opening in Sellwood was because it was close to downtown while still being very convenient and easy to park (and no metered parking). We partnered with local beverage companies to ensure our clients had a list of premium drinks, something they would find at New Seasons. We are always actively looking for ways to improve our client experience through each and every touch point.

Building a brand name has been our ultimate goal in all of this. From our internal team chemistry, to our client experience, everything is always being fine tuned in hopes of becoming our version of the best salon in Portland.