Her Story
About Darlene
I knew I was going to be a hairstylist from a very young age - my mom knew it too when I was playing with my Barbie dolls. I went into cosmetology school in high school and started working full-time in the salon before I even graduated high school. I've never once derailed from it or thought anywhere different about it because I love the beauty industry so much. I started off as a hairstylist, then moved into the corporate world where I was not just a hairstylist and mentor, but also an educator. I took over several districts of education, working with brands like Matrix, Chi, Wella, and other various different techniques that I would teach to already established hairstylists that worked for JCPenney's. I was also a Matrix educator. Then I went into sales and got involved in business-to-business retail wholesale to salon professionals. In my current sales role, I do a lot of cold calling and business development, networking, meeting new people, and helping them understand their business. First, I have to understand what they think their business is, and then help them understand how to grow their business - things that would be beneficial to have knowledge-wise that they might not have already been experiencing. I get to help grow and cultivate such beautiful relationships and help them build their business, and a lot of them are women, so I get to be a woman helping other women succeed in business.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Darlene
01What do you attribute your success to?
Always evolving and wanting more. See what is out there and going after it.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
As long as I can remember, and multiple people have said it to me, if you're green, you're growing, and if you're not growing, you're just turning brown, and you're going to go off to sunset, because you need to always be able to learn and grow more. You always have to be learning, you always have to have an open mind, because it's going to get you further if that's where you want to go.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell them the same thing - you always have to be learning, you always have to have an open mind, because it's going to get you further if that's where you want to go. You can be literally a high school dropout, not that I did that, but you could literally be a high school dropout and still excel in the hair industry. You do not need to have extra formal training, but that's okay, you can do that too. There's just so many avenues you can take, but you need to have an open mind. You can literally do whatever you want to do in life, and find what is your niche, and excel at it, because there's no one that's going to hold you back. There's so many different ways that you can do things.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The way the industry has changed is a little bit more challenging, especially social media, especially people's expectations, and the way the bigger companies have - it's almost like a monopoly, where L'Oreal owns so much, and there's only so many different small companies at this point, where they keep getting gobbled up by larger companies, and that is a little bit different for new hairstylists to come into and experience. But the good thing is that you can literally do whatever you want to do in life, and find what is your niche, and excel at it, because there's no one that's going to hold you back. There's so many different ways that you can do things.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I love boosting other women up. I think that is so necessary at this point in life, because everybody is always struggling in a lot of avenues, and there's so many people out there that can help each other. And if we come together as a community, it's just so much stronger. It's so nice to be able to do things for others and give my skill set to someone, and have other people come with me and join in on the fun, and bring joy to people that are going through a really hard time.
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