This world will always need plumbers, electricians, and people who specialize in heating and air conditioning repair. We’ll always need hairdressers, too. As a friend of mine says, women will always get their hair did.
Which brings me to Salon Marsof, a mother- and daughter-owned hair salon that recently opened its doors on West Ponce de Leon Avenue in downtown Decatur. The shop’s moniker combines the names of Maria Poulos, the daughter, with her mother’s, Sofia Poulos. The senior Poulos has been a hairdresser nearly 40 years, first in her native Athens, Greece, then in Boston before Atlanta.
Maria Poulos imitated what she saw as a child and would pretend to cut her friends’ hair with her “finger scissors.” She trained at the same school as her mom.
“I grew up in the salon and in a family of hairdressers,” she told me. “I was in my aunt’s salon all day, watching all those years. It is all I knew growing up. I am artistic and it’s something that’s fun. I love mixing colors, taking a black and turning it into red.”
The Pouloses opened Salon Marsof in June. If you recall the headlines, the economy at the time was in the tank. The nation’s jobless rate reflected a lull in growth. High prices for gas and groceries hampered consumer spending. Like now.
But the Pouloses, Maria Poulos in particular, paid it little mind. This coiffurist didn’t let the economic gloom and doom derail her dream of becoming a small-business owner, of owning a hair salon. She found a location, negotiated rent and furnished the space to capture the look and feel of the salons of her mother’s European youth. She employs three people.
“I was pretty positive about it,” she said. “When we first opened it, the first couple of months were really, really slow. My mother was getting discouraged at first.”
Maria Poulos, though, kicked into survival mode. She’d call randomly selected salons and ask questions about their operation, how they did certain things. She sent handwritten thank-you notes to clients.
“The main thing that helped out the most was the free advertising,” she said, noting that a smartphone application helped her attract clients.
“Thousands and thousands of people get an automatic email,” she said. “Others get it on their Android phones, iPhones and their Apples. You eventually pay a percentage, but it brought people in.”
Today, their customer base is growing and Maria Poulos knows what many of us know about women — that their hair, generally, has to appear well-kempt, fabulous. And that’s not sexist. Just the truth.
“Getting your hair done is not cheap,” Maria told me. “Just to color highlights is, like, $120, and you have to do your hair about every six to eight weeks. I had no reservations about starting this business at all. My mom and I are so blessed. You always need certain services, like a plumber or air-conditioning guy.”
Talented hairdressers, too.
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