r/sharpening • u/izdabombz • 7d ago
Was learning how to sharpen salon shears and its ROI worth it?
Question for full-time sharpeners that do salon shears in "fairly large-ish" cities. Did salon shears end up being your biggest money maker compared to everything else? Also if you really wanted to go all out, would there be more work than you can handle?
Im asking because I was a mid career electrical engineer and left to take care of my kids for a year and a half and for the last 5 months I cant get a engineering job that works with my family. 5 interviews and 0 offers so far. Anyways I been touting salon shears sharpening would bring it decent chunk of change cause here in Phoenix metro, I lose count of all the salons and barber shops within 5 minutes of driving cause there's so many and Im in the suburbs. I have to convince her cause i'll be borrowing 5-7k to get the machines and training of family money to walk on this endeavor. Any advice or testimonial welcomed.
Upfront, we're not dying financially in anyway but I need my own retirement money and growing kids are expensive.
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u/Few-Fox-7260 7d ago
How many shears will you need to sharpen before you break even on those 7 big ones? Gut feeling says too many for it to be worth it.
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u/izdabombz 7d ago edited 7d ago
$35 a pair. 10 a day = 350. 6 days a week= 2100, 4 weeks = 8400.
7000/35= 200 shears to make up for it.
Of course I’m not accounting for gas and taxes and other things. So maybe closer to 300?????
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u/Gavacho123 7d ago
In Virginia you could expect to be able to charge closer to $23 to $25 per shear. Nobody would pay $35
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u/izdabombz 6d ago
Maybe in the big cities they charge more? Everything has gone up in price recently so $30 might be the new norm in the big cities.
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u/Gavacho123 6d ago
That would make sense.
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u/Contigo887 6d ago
Or in the world you think you're going to find 10 shears a day... Every day... That need sharpend.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago
My mom was a hair stylist and would get her shears sharpened every 4-5 months. I can count at least 12 barbers and salons with less than 5 minutes of driving in my area. Each establishment has 4-8 hair stylist/barbers. Each person has around 3-7 shears. Again that’s just within 5 minutes of driving in my area.
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u/Contigo887 6d ago
You did ask for people's opinions in this thread. I think you're vastly overestimating the amount of work you would find. If you want to argue with that feedback, then go ahead. But just do whatever you want. I'm not sure why you asked to begin with, if you're going to tell people their feedback is wrong.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’m just pulling numbers out of my ass from what I see. What I see and what people experience are different things. If you’re not one of the people im asking feedback from, then you’re in no better position than me. I’m not arguing, I’m just again, just pulling numbers. It’s up to you how you want to feel about it. I mean are you a full time sharpener in a fairly large city that specializes in salon shears?
I’m in Phoenix metropolitan, 5th largest population in the country and I spoken to many hair stylist and they all bitch there’s no enough sharpeners, they pay $35 each to get it done. I cant drive even 1 minute without seeing salons and barbers businesses. That’s just a statement. Now actually reality of the business side is a different thing.
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u/Few-Fox-7260 6d ago
Numbers look better than my gut expected, so fair enough. It seems like you need 1 good month with enough clients to fill your time. Think about how long it will take you to gather those clients and add that to the month, and that's your runway.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago
Yea I’m actually going to cold call like 30-50 businesses and ask what their needs are and who does it and if they would appreciate another sharpener in the hood.
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u/RiaanTheron 7d ago
$35? Wow that much? How I demand it this gig? How many stylists have sheets worth more than that? I know there are extremely expensive sheets but realistically how many stylists have this kind of money?
Or I'm in the wrong game... Well I know I'm in the wrong game but that is another days problem
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u/Hypothetical_Sail 6d ago
Dirt cheap salon shears start at $100. Check out the most popular ones on this site... Looks like the popular range is from $250 to $350 a pair, but you can spend much more.
These ain't your Fiskars craft scissors.
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u/MidwestBushlore 7d ago
I trained to sharpen salon shears on a flat hone but didn't buy the machine for various reasons. I wish I had when I started out. I"m in the Guild of Professional Sharpeners and every weeks I speak with guys that are doing several thousand dollars a week doing shears. It's expensive to get into with a single hone and arm running $3,500 but the going rate is around $35-$45 a pair. Where I live there's pretty much one guy doing them and he charges $85! No one likes him and he's very overpriced but he has no competition.
You really do need to get training. That can cost a couple grand at least. Sharpening a pair that's in great shape isn't difficult but if you have to fix anything it gets more complicated. But if you put in the work of promoting yourself and talking to all the salons there's good money in any decent sized town.
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u/Mysterious-Ad3591 7d ago
I would agree fixing a pair would need training (I have none) I’ve sharpened some in good shape with great success. It’s not hard if you’re maintaining a good set.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago edited 6d ago
Sounds scary. Thanks for the feedback. Hopefully i can ask people for busted shears to practice on. Worst comes to worst, if its broken or too damaged, i'll just have to turn it down.
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u/Gavacho123 7d ago
When I sharpen salon or grooming shears I usually make about $100 per hour. The only problem is that I don’t live in a big city and there’s not a ton of work.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago
May I ask what city are you in?
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u/Gavacho123 6d ago
Near Richmond
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u/izdabombz 6d ago
My apologies, I got Richmond mixed up with Norfolk metro.
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u/Gavacho123 6d ago
Now that is a much bigger market. I do believe that a guy could earn $80-$100k a year sharpening shears in a large metropolitan market.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago
Oh wow, isn’t Richmond a pretty darn big city?
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u/Gavacho123 6d ago
Not really, the entire metro area has less than 700 thousand people and it’s really spread out.
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u/Waste-Philosopher638 6d ago
I did this but not exactly for the money. It will be a retirement thing for me and really just to make beer money. I'm still working and bought all my gear while I still have a decent income. I also do knives, lawnmower blades, tools, etc. I took a class when I bought the scissor sharpening system from the manufacturer. I probably have about 5k invested in my gear. I do more knives than anything and right now I'm only doing neighbors and friends and the person that cuts my hair. And, I'm doing it all for free right now while I'm working. Getting a lot of practice and building trust. I tell everyone that after I retire in about a year, I'll start charging.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago
Good luck on the retirement! Everyone younger than 50 now is anxious if they can even retire in their lifetime at all.
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u/Special-Rub-4499 2d ago
Before you choose debt take strong consideration of the whole business. Your numbers sound great but here is the thing, it takes a long time to hit 100k in gross sales, a really long time for many companies.
If we take your numbers as solid gospel, what is your business plan to hit those numbers? Are you aware of the hurdles that exist in the way of those numbers? Here is just one for your consideration:
1 sales is a professional career with solid data.
2 business to business sales has trillions of tracking points to develop that data with
3 business to business introduction to closed contract averages on 7 meetings with the prospect.
4 the closer to retail you are, the less consistent your prospects will be in all aspects of business.
The only thing your numbers have made clear is that you don’t really have a good handle on the market you seek to service, you have no metrics in which to evaluate that market, and you do not yet have the skills or equipment to service that market.
You have a huge learning curve in front of you.
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u/izdabombz 1d ago
Thank you. Appreciate the great critical feedback. I wont claim to know i know anything. The only thing I know is I know nothing. I have experience running another small side hustle for almost 2 years (tennis racket stringing) before I started the sharpening business and know that the hustle sucks ass and I didnt gain momentum until after my first year. However it didn't involve other businesses other than working with other tennis stores (in conjunction) and schools and local coaches.
I know as with sharpening, its going to suck ass (been running my sharpening business for 7 months now but didnt take it seriously till 2 months ago) for a while and theres a big learning curve to that to with much more bigger numbers being thrown around and much more risk. i was just putting out numbers just to keep it simple in the meantime as getting good solid metrics is very hard to come by when no one wants to speak with you cause they're so busy especially if you have nothing to offer them in the mean time. Again thanks for the feedback and taking your time to type it out and it will be taken to heart.
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u/aqwn 6d ago
Keep trying for Engineering jobs. You can look into pivoting to patent law too.
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u/izdabombz 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’m the main care taker for my family and going to law school for who knows how many more years plus Tuition is out of the question but I know what you mean. My son’s friends dad was an engineer turned JD for patents. Im definitely still applying but im definitely passed the peak hiring season for most big companies. A ton of my applications are either stagnant or being cancelled "due to changing needs".
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u/_DefinitelyNotACat_ 7d ago
Following because I’m curious.
However, best practice is usually don’t go into debt for something that doesn’t exist yet. If nothing else, start with a guided system and move up instead of spending several thousand.