Welcome back to How I Made It, Metro.co.uk’s weekly career journey series.
This week we’re talking with Mark Maciver, 37, founder of Slider Cuts, a barbershop in London with a host of celebrity clientelle.
Mark always knew he had a fascination with hair, but it wasn’t until he started experimenting with his own – with lots of trial and error – that he started to think it could be something career-worthy for him.
After years of working in the industry, he set up his own business – something that look plenty of patience to get just right.
It was worth the wait though, because now everyone wants their hair cut by him.
Here’s how he made it all happen.
Hey Mark. How did you get into hair?
I got into barbering when I was 13/14 years old and have always been interested in hair.
Growing up I was always interested in people’s haircut or the way they styled it in everyday life or on the TV, however the trigger point for me to join the profession is that we never had money to go to the barbershop, so I would get my hair cut at home for my mum or older brothers.
What made you want to make this your career?
I enjoyed doing it, and the more I did it, the better I became. Truthfully, my first attempts weren’t great – I mean I ended up cutting off all my hair a number of times.
As I got better, people used to ask me to cut their hair, and I just used to do it for free, because I loved it.
It was these moments that helped me to improve my skill and led me to wanting to build a career out of it.
How did you go about setting up your own business?
I worked in the industry for 15 years before I went on to set up my own business.
During that time I managed a barbershop, which gave me experience from the ground up in running a shop and running a business.
When the time came to set up my own business, my first priority was to seek out the perfect premise – it took about two years.
While looking for a location I was simultaneously working out the finances to get the business up along with the costs to run it all.
I would run the worst-case scenarios in my mind, such as if I was the only person in the shop how much would that mean for me to bring in to make sure the bills were covered along with making sure if I was able to cover bills at home.
I had to make sure I had the right avenues of income to be able to start the business first.
What training did you have to do?
The most beneficial training I received was the years worth of experience I gained working in the industry.
I was managing and running a barbershop for about 10 years, which technically I didn’t have to do but in doing so turned out to be a wise choice for my business.
The little training that I did do and I believe was crucial, is training up my barbers to make them into senior fully fledge certified barbers.
I myself have a Level Two certification in barbering.
How did you come to get such famous clients – what work went into that?
It was simply just hard work. From the beginning, I wanted to give every customer a great haircut and great service which spread through word of mouth about my work.
Before social media, the reason why my business accelerated was because of my personality, my character, and my work ethic.
It then translated online and so I started getting noticed by people and soon famous people.
Through Instagram, Tinie Tempah, Anthony Joshua, Reggie Yates, Nelly, and many more connected with me.
I use my Instagram as a direct reflection of who I am, what I do, my thoughts and my morals around barbering.
I guess people saw how much I cared about the craft, the long working hours, and the haircuts I was giving.
I would consistently post a few times a day along with also putting up my opinions on cutting hair.
I think that’s what drove people towards me and want a hair cut from me.
It never came from me trying to get celebrities but doing what I am supposed to do at the highest level and allowing my work to speak for itself.
What was the biggest career hurdle?
My biggest career hurdle was definitely trying to find the right location for the barbershop.
When I would find something that I thought was a good fit, it would be gone straight away as you know how London real estate goes.
My brand had grown to a point where people saw me on the street and they assumed I owned my own shop because of how big the name Slider Cuts had gotten, but I didn’t.
I felt immense pressure and I asked myself if I should just jump the gun to open up a shop anywhere or if I should be patient and wait for the right location. The hurdle was having patience because things kept falling off.
After I had found the perfect location (which is next door to where my shop is now) and had communications to go through with the deal, the person I was in contact with suddenly just stopped talking to me.
Long story short, the post office came in to put a higher bid on the shop and I got passed on.
At that point I ended up going up and down the street to every shop that I thought was good and started knocking on doors asking if they were willing to sell it to me.
Ironically, the place next to the original place that I was going to buy said yes!
I am happy with how it all turned out.
An average day in the working life of Mark Maciver
4am: Wakes up and checks his phone to respond to important messages for 15 minutes.
5:15am – 6:30am: He goes to the barbershop and attend to three clients back to back.
7 – 9am: He takes his children to school and gets some exercise in.
10am – 3pm: Mark goes through a list of things to do for his business which would include people he needs to speak to in the barbershop, interviews, writing blog posts, creating content, and and interviewing people for jobs.
4pm onwards: He tends to his family and personal life.
On days he’s doing more cutting, he’ll have appointments from 6am till 7pm, with a lunch break in between.
What’s your favourite thing about the job?
This is going to be twofold because I have multiple job roles.
As an owner of a business, my favorite thing is being able to provide jobs for people.
It is an absolutely great position to be in as I am fortunate enough to be able to provide a livelihood for someone.
That’s why I have about 20 people that work with/for me.
As a barber, I just love cutting hair and the craft behind cutting hair.
But it’s also the conversations and the ways that I get to help people through the conversations that I have with them when they’re on the chair.
What’s the least favourite?
As a barber, it probably is just the demand.
The amount of phone calls, text messages, DMs on Instagram, and inboxes on every platform is a lot to keep up with.
It literally takes over my whole life just responding to people.
As an owner, my least favourite thing is that it is a full-time job, it’s always on my mind.
If anything goes wrong it falls on my head and so making sure everything is taken care of means there are no breaks.
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