The Nicest Compliment

I got a call last week from a hair replacement centre in Los Angeles. It was kinda bizarre. At first it was one of their sales staff saying that they were having trouble with their suppliers. I told them that I had heard that many studios were dissatisfied with what they have been getting over the past few years. Then he asked me where I got my wigs and hair systems.

“Pardon me??” I was a bit taken aback.

He wanted to know where I get all the nice hair for my clients. He had heard of me from several other salon owners and his boss told him to call me and find out. I told him that I had spend many years, and my father many years before that, looking for the best places to get the best hair and training the best manufacturers how to make the most beautiful wigs and hair pieces that (evidently) people talk about.

A few hours later his boss called. She was very pleasant and chatty and insisted that we had met years ago at some conference, Okay, that might be the case but I’m still not going to tell you where I get my stuff. I mean, I sympathized with her predicament. And I have helped several of my colleagues that I am friends with whenever they have asked me my advice on this issue. But I have lately realized, as the days inevitably march on to my 50th birthday in a couple years, that I have spent my adult life looking for the best products for my clients. I felt complimented that someone in the biz (and I saw her website, she is quite accomplished) would like to copy me and that there is some professional buzz around what I do, even as far as California, but that is the result of a lot of hard work.

Work that my clients are able to take advantage of, not anyone else.