Guest: Chelle Neff, founder of Urban Betty, an award-winning, four-time Inc. 5000 salon company in Austin, Texas.

Episode Summary

Chelle Neff built Urban Betty from six rented chairs and one booth renter into a multi-location salon company with nearly 100 team members, and every real structural change along the way, the shift to a commission model, bringing in a business consultant, finally stepping away from doing hair herself, happened after she'd already made the call, not before she felt ready to make it. This conversation is about what it actually took underneath the growth numbers: a decision made before the proof, and the discipline to keep asking for help even when it didn't come naturally.

This one is for the coach or business owner who already knows which decision she's avoiding and is waiting to feel more certain before she'll finally make it.

Key takeaways:

• Certainty Follows the Decision: why the feeling of readiness never arrives first, and what Chelle did instead of waiting for it.
• The Booth Renter to Commission Shift: what avoiding that structural decision actually cost her, and what finally forced the change.
• Asking for Help as a Turning Point: the loan from her grandfather, her first hired assistant, and the business consultant she says changed her life.
• Fear of Stepping Into Her Power: why fear, not a lack of skill, delayed the decisions that grew her business.
• The Slow Exit From Doing the Work Herself: the year-long taper from five days a week to zero, and the physical signal that told her it was time.

Guest Bio and Links

Chelle Neff is the founder of Urban Betty, an award-winning salon company based in Austin, Texas, with nearly 100 team members across three locations. She started her career in cosmetology at 16 and, without a traditional college path, built Urban Betty from six chairs into a multi-million dollar business known for its strong culture, education, and leadership development.

A four-time Inc. 5000 honoree and Salon Today Top 200 salon, Urban Betty has become a leader in redefining what success looks like in the beauty industry. Chelle is passionate about helping stylists and salon owners build sustainable, profitable careers without burnout.

Through her platform chelleneff.com, she shares real, behind-the-scenes insights on business growth, leadership, and scaling with intention. She also speaks on topics like vocational education, entrepreneurship, and building a people-first company.

Website: https://urbanbetty.com/
Personal platform: chelleneff.com
Instagram: @urbanbetty
Facebook: urbanbettysalon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/urbanbetty/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/urbanbetty
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/UrbanBettySalonAustin
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@chelleneff

Full Transcript

Dawn: Welcome back to the Self Trust Solution Podcast. I am your host, Dawn Ledet, the self trust coach. And today I'm joined by Chelle Neff, founder of Urban Betty, an award-winning salon company based in Austin, Texas. She started in cosmetology at 16, skipped the traditional college path, and built Urban Betty from six chairs into a multi-million dollar business with nearly 100 team members across three locations. The four-time Inc. 5000 honoree, Salon Today Top 200. A company known not just for great hair, but for the culture and leadership development happening inside it. But here's what we're talking about today, and it's what it took to actually get there. Not just the awards and the growth metrics, the inside of it. The season before anything was proven, when the chairs were empty, and the belief had to come first. Chelle, I'm so glad you're here today.

Chelle Neff: Thank you, Dawn. I'm excited to be here.

Dawn: Yeah. So take us back to the very start of Urban Betty. Six chairs, one contractor, an empty space. What was that season actually like for you?

Chelle Neff: Well, I would never want to go back there. Age 27, in a tumultuous marriage with a person who was not supportive at all. And I think it helped that I was young, because I still had that mindset of just leap and don't look. As we get older, we get a little more like, "I don't know." But I think it was me just on survival, figuring it out, trying to make it work. And if I hit a roadblock, I found a way to dig under it, go over it. I had one booth renter, which now we're an all employee-based model, and that's what it took me to get started, is having people pay rent, because I didn't know how to be a boss. I didn't know how to create paychecks. I didn't know how to do anything. I just had this vision of like, I'm going to open a salon and figure it out as I go, which is a lot of the way I live my life. However, that has worked out so far. I'm better at asking for help now, though.

Dawn: Nice. You describe moving forward while constantly questioning everything internally. Tell us what it was like to hold both of those things at the same time.

Chelle Neff: It's a hard one for me, questioning everything internally, because I'm an introvert, and so by nature I don't talk a lot or ask for help. Doing hair obviously helped me with that. But I feel like holding both of those, it was just... I'm an intuitive person as well, so I had a feeling, and it's hard to describe to people, that it was going to be okay and it was going to work out even though it was so hard. I would have this lingering feeling, it would just come back in and it would be like, "You've got to do this. You're going to do it. It's going to work out." And I can't tell you where or how, but that's just a weird thing. I really never talked about that before, but I just thought of that now. It's hard to explain that verbally to someone.

Dawn: Yeah, I love that. What you're describing sounds like, while there were these questioning and doubts, which are so normal any time we're doing something significant, you were also answering them with the response of, "It's going to work out. It's going to be okay."

Chelle Neff: Yes. Whatever you want to call it, higher power, source, God, universe, I had that feeling. And it drives my husband crazy, because he's very linear, asks questions, gets all the data, and I'm very just gut, go, do this, figure it out, make it work. And because I do have this inner alignment with something that I can just feel... I don't know, it's wild.

Dawn: Yeah, yeah. And so I would say that is your inner wisdom, your intuition, which is always tied to the divine, or like you said, whether it's God for you or source. But it's also a bit of self-trust, right?

Chelle Neff: 100%, yes.

Dawn: But you said that it was more conceptual than practiced in that early season. So what was that gap that you noticed between what you were saying and what you were actually doing internally?

Chelle Neff: Oh my God, yeah. What I was saying and what I was doing, it's just... I kept putting one foot in front of the other, just how do you eat the elephant. So I had gotten to a space where I had good credit, so to start the business I had to take out all these loans. I didn't have investors, I didn't have anything like that. And it got to where it was the last $10,000 that I needed to start this, and I had to ask a family member for help. I asked my grandpa, and he loaned me that last $10,000, with an interest rate that I had to pay back. So it's just like what I was talking about, if I hit a roadblock, I figured it out, I found a way. And it's so hard for me to ask people for help. And getting around that, I think the universe wanted me to ask someone for help. It was not going to give me everything and just be like, "Here you go." It's like, "I'm going to make you ask for help," and it continues to do that. So that was part of the process. And so when I would have to do something hard like that, I was like, "Well, I can't go back now." I've had to go through this really hard thing, and that's going to keep pushing me forward because I'm not going to do that and go through that for nothing.

Dawn: So it was this level of just commitment, it sounds like.

Chelle Neff: Yeah. I will kick a horse until it's dust. I will keep going and keep going to a fault. Like I said, to stay in certain relationships when they're not good, things like that. But when it comes to matters of business, I think that has actually helped me, for sure.

Dawn: Yeah. So it sounds like commitment, and courage more than even confidence, in these beginning stages.

Chelle Neff: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And just fear of failure, fear of messing up or losing or anything like that. I think ego played a lot of it, for sure. Still does.

Dawn: Yeah. So tell us about the decision to move to a commission-based model. What was actually at stake when you made that call?

Chelle Neff: So when I opened it, everybody was just paying me weekly rent, and I had six chairs, and four of them were rented out. And everyone was essentially the same age or older than me, and they were just doing their own thing. And no one liked me if I tried to say, "Hey, can you clean up?" or "Can you do this?" And it was just this really weird, toxic culture, I should say. I had hired an assistant six months in. She came to me, again I got sent this gift, and she was like, "Do you need help?" And I was like, "I don't even know how to make a paycheck, but I'm going to call somebody." Had a panic attack trying to figure out how to make a paycheck. But once I did it, I was like, "This isn't that bad." And she's actually listening to what I'm saying, like, "Be here on time. Can you actually dress up?" And I was like, "Oh my gosh, this isn't quite as scary as I thought it was going to be." I was dipping my toes in the water. And then when she was done being my assistant, after a year she went onto the floor and became my first ever stylist that was an employee. And I saw the margins were much better, this person and I were vibing much better, and I just thought, "You know, I am going to have each person that then becomes my assistant..." because I was like, "I'm not going back. This has been great to have someone to actually help me." There's the theme. And then it became a hybrid model. So after four or five assistants, I had half the stylists that were commission employees on the floor, and half that were still booth renters, because I wasn't going to make anyone leave. And then, when we moved into a bigger space because we were outgrowing our size, two of the booth rental stylists were going to open their own salon. And so they opened their own salon and took the other booth renters. And again, it was just, I got this blessing. It felt awful at the time because I had just doubled my space and half my staff was leaving. I'd gone from the smaller space that had six chairs, had upgraded to 10 chairs, it was crazy packed in there. So we moved downstairs to this larger space in the shopping center, 16 chairs. I went from having 10 stylists to five. And so I had to borrow money from a friend to pay my rent and my car payment. Luckily, because I'd done a build-out on that space, I got like $14,000 back from my tax return that year. And that's what I lived off of until I got enough people hired to break even. And no one knew that was happening. No one knew I was essentially like, "I can't pay for things." And I paid that friend back as well, thank God for her. And it just, again, perseverance, making it work. I went through hell with this build-out and expanding this space that really, truly, for the first time ever for me... the little space upstairs was cute, but I walked in there and I felt like this feels like a high-end, beautiful salon. And I had been wanting... I was like, "I don't want any booth renters anymore." But again, I wasn't going to be like, "All of you get out." And the universe is like, "Well, here, here you go, we'll make it happen." And I was like, "Oh God, not overnight." But a lot of things do happen overnight, and it was a blessing in disguise and it worked out. And it evolved into only employees that way.

Dawn: Yeah. What was the timeframe between them leaving and you getting staffed up to cover the costs?

Chelle Neff: I would say that took... probably not as long as you would think, because one employee, I made higher margins off one employee than I ever did off three station renters, booth renters, contractors. It's like, what's the buzzword now for that. So even hiring two more stylists after that, which I thought I had one that was working for me as an assistant at the time, and I just fast-tracked her and put her out on the floor. I was like, "I need you out there doing hair." And so it didn't take, I feel like, honestly, less than six months before we were back at the same. And I was like, "Oh, that speaks volumes about the amount of money and headache that I was getting, and not getting, from that model."

Dawn: Yeah. What do you think it took, that time of actually making that decision, of switching to that model?

Chelle Neff: I mean, obviously it was moved forward, it was made for me.

Dawn: Oh, it was made for you.

Chelle Neff: Yeah.

Dawn: But what do you think kept you from making that choice sooner for yourself?

Chelle Neff: Fear. Fear of stepping into my power. And I am, I will avoid conflict, not maybe as much now, but I just... I mean, I know most, 99% of us do not like conflict, and I don't like having those hard conversations with people. And I also felt it would've looked... it was again, it would've looked to me like I was just getting rid of people that didn't make me money.

Dawn: So it was a little bit of perception that you were worried about.

Chelle Neff: Exactly, yeah.

Dawn: Yeah. So what about on the other side of that now? What do you walk away with, knowing more about yourself, or how you would even maybe handle it differently, if at all, on this other side of that season?

Chelle Neff: Right. So I've thought about that, because I believe there are no mistakes. And when people are like, "What if you could've opened your business differently?" I didn't have the tools necessary. I needed to do it very slowly. And so to get off the ground, I had to run a model that was contractor-based, just having people pay me rent. I really had to... like three years after opening my salon, I started therapy. And then four years after opening my salon I went through a divorce, and then it was like the next year, two years after that, is when we moved to the bigger space. It was just all these things that kept happening. And I go off on a tangent about something, then I lose my original thought.

Dawn: What would you do differently now, knowing what you can actually handle? Not to redo it, not to say that what you did wasn't exactly what needed to be done, but just curious.

Chelle Neff: Well, I would definitely... this is what I would do differently, is I would bring in a consultant as fast as I could. I didn't even know that existed. I didn't find out about that until 2014, even though they said they approached me three times, and I was like, "Whatever, I don't..." And then when they were like, "We'll pay for a trip to New York, you can come see what..." I was like, "A free trip? I'll take that," and whatever, on getting a consultant. But then when I went through, of course they know what they're doing. I went to a three-day seminar, and they're like, "Here's how we're going to transform your margins, we're going to put all these systems and structure in place," because I was just letting people show up whenever they wanted. As long as they worked 40 hours, they get 50% commission. And then I learned quickly that is not the appropriate way to run a profitable salon. And again, I didn't change anyone's pay or structure or days that they were working. It was every new person that came on after we adopted these systems and structure, then they were part of that level system. Now, the existing people had to be wherever they were at in the level system. We have levels one through six, and that's how you get what your prices are, that's how you get what your commission is, all the things. And so we finally became a structured model, and I have a business consultant that I still have to this day, 12 years later. She's amazing. And that's what I would do differently, is I would hire that consultant immediately, because they pay for themselves, if not more. And it's not a contract to get people to this company by any means, but it changed my life and it changed my profitability, because I was negative $8,000 in the bank. And after hiring this consultant to come on, within three months, I was 50,000-plus in the bank. And it was just by setting up these structures. And we had all these package deals on our pricing menu. Gosh, people would love that now. We were just giving everything away. And again, that was tied to my self-worth. And once we started charging appropriately, which was so scary, I even had to have all those conversations with my customers. It's like, "Here are the prices. If this place wants to stay open, I've got to do these things." And that was the huge thing. That's what I would tell everyone. Ask for help. Right, which is the theme.

Dawn: I love it, because really what you demonstrated is exactly what being fueled by self-trust is, is like moving forward even when the circumstances are saying, "This isn't..." you know. And they're always testing you.

Chelle Neff: Yes, yeah, yeah.

Dawn: But also knowing that, that persistence, that belief, that being led by your inner wisdom, your intuition. And then also bringing in other people to help. Getting that guidance is so important. I think oftentimes, especially as entrepreneurs, we can think we have to do it all ourselves.

Chelle Neff: Yeah. And guess who's running the show up here? My mother's voice. Not as much anymore. But as you move forward...

Dawn: Yeah, yeah, it's... you had a really good mix of figuring it out, learning as you go, but also then bringing in people who could show you what you don't know.

Chelle Neff: Right, because we're not supposed to know everything. I would... I'm learning by making mistakes at that point, and actually have people come in that have already made the mistakes, or know how to avoid the mistakes. That's huge. And had I not brought on this company, for sure I wouldn't be at the level I'm at, at all, and I would probably still be doing hair. I did retire from doing hair in 2017. Three years after bringing on the consultant group, which changed my life immensely, because I could not do hair well and manage a business well that was growing. I just physically couldn't. Some people, maybe they can, but that was not me. And so, again, that took an enormous amount of self-trust, because I only got a paycheck by doing hair. That's where all the money came from that was paying me. The salon was not paying me. The salon was paying to maintain itself. And every time I would get a little bit of a profit, I'm like, "Well, how can we upgrade this? How can we upgrade that?" And then I finally got to, "Okay, there's extra money left over to pay me." And I did it very slowly. I would be like, okay, instead of five days a week, I'm now four days a week. Six months later, three days a week. Six months later, two days a week, two and a half days. And then I finally just ripped the Band-Aid off, and quit doing hair. And I was like, "Well, I can always go back, I'm never going to burn a bridge." And I can tell you that my salon did better, made more money, all the things, when I got out from behind, focusing on that all day, and actually could focus on my business and working on my business. But that was a huge leap, and I was even talking to my therapist about it. Like, "I don't want to do hair anymore," and I just felt this big pop in my ear when that happened. Even my body, like, I will never forget this. And she said, "Well, that's what you've got to work on, because your body just answered you in that moment, that this is huge and it's something that you've got to do."

Dawn: Yeah, wow. And then you listened to it.

Chelle Neff: I did. And again, it took me a little while, but I did.

Dawn: Yeah, yeah. So what would you tell someone that's in that before season right now? What would you want them to know that nobody told you?

Chelle Neff: I think I go back to finding a community of other salon owners, that's been huge for me too. That you can talk to, that are in the same boat as you, or even not even... don't go with the same boat, go with who you want to be. If you're a 500K a year, talk to the million dollar salon. You're a million dollar salon, talk to the two, three, four million dollar per year salons. Get in the room with them and pick their brains, because you may not be able to hire a consultant yet, or whatever it is, you may not even know where to look. And so just looking for those resources would be huge. And just, if you can't afford to be part of a group, like I'm part of the High Performance Salon Academy, which is where I meet the other salon owners, and we have these destination trainings together, it's amazing. But if you just start to have coffee with people, things like that. Just reaching out and saying... I get messages every once in a while from other salon owners in town like, "I'm redoing my handbook, what do you do about X, Y, Z?" And I just type something back quickly. And I don't ever feel like I would gatekeep anyone. So if another salon owner's listening to this, they can reach out to me. I don't gatekeep anything. If anything, I want to help people. And asking for help, again, we're back at that. That's life-changing.

Dawn: Yeah, yeah. I think that it always lifts up our industries when we are helping each other be better.

Chelle Neff: Yeah, it's that gatekeeping, the fear of competition, that's all scarcity mindset.

Dawn: 100%.

Chelle Neff: Yes, it doesn't do anything but keep you down. It does no service to you, or your industry, or the other people, so...

Dawn: Yeah, I love that you said that. It's such a good thing to share, good advice. That's the word I was looking for. So tell us where Urban Betty is headed, and what you're building on your personal platform right now.

Chelle Neff: So Urban Betty, we opened our third location two and a half years ago, so we're still growing that one out. It has 18 chairs, it's in Round Rock, Texas, which is like 30 minutes outside of Austin, where our other two locations are. So I'm still working on getting that one full. And then once we get that one full, I always say, every time... first location, I was like, "I will never have a second one." Second location, "I will never have a third one." Third location, "I'm never going to have a fourth one." So I'm never going to say never. So we'll see. And right now I'm personally working on my personal brand. I've had so many... I talk about other people helping me, I want to help other people, and so I launched shellyneff.com, where if you want to reach out and chat, I can give you the resources that can help you. I'm not going to be a consultant or a coach by any means. I still love owning my salon and being behind the scenes. But I was like, "I don't need to gatekeep all the information I have in my head anymore, and I would love to share that with other people." And so I've been writing blogs, doing more social media around it, because I feel like salon owners need that support. And if anything they need to know, they can look at you on social media and think everything looks perfect and you're doing everything right. And if anything, I share all the mistakes I made and all the things I've done wrong. So then they all go, "Oh my God, I'm not the only one." Because I feel like we all get in this bubble of, "I'm an idiot," and... you know. And it's not, it's every single one of us, we're all going through the same stuff.

Dawn: Yes. So where can people find you and follow what you're doing?

Chelle Neff: So shellyneff.com, you can find me, reach out to me there. Or on Instagram, I am urbanbetty. The salon is urbanbettysalon. But if you want to find me, you just go to urbanbetty.

Dawn: Shelley, what strikes me most about your story is something you said about that first season, where you had to just move first. However slow it was, however incrementally, but you just had to move and let the certainty catch up later, right?

Chelle Neff: 100%. That's the thing. That is exactly it.

Dawn: So most people are waiting for the certainty to arrive before they move, and what you lived and what you've described is that certainty doesn't come first. It follows the decision, the persistence.

Chelle Neff: It always does. Right. So you built something, and I've been so certain on things, and then I've done them, and I was wrong, so...

Dawn: So you built something real without a roadmap, without proof, and without waiting until it felt safe. And the fact that you can now hand that back to stylists and salon owners who are standing where you were, that's the full circle of it.

Chelle Neff: Yes.

Dawn: So thank you for being here, and for trusting us with the real version of your story.

Chelle Neff: Thank you so much, Dawn.

Dawn: Yeah. And if what Shelley described felt familiar, if you're in a season where you're moving forward but questioning everything internally, where the commitment is there but the confidence isn't, that's exactly where I want to meet you right now. Before we go any further, I want you to take one step. Go take the Where Are You Standing? assessment. Before strategy, before motivation, before more effort, you need to know where your identity is operating from, because that is what determines everything that follows. It's free, it takes three minutes, and it will give you a precise read on where your identity is actually operating from right now, and where to focus next. The link is in the show notes. Also, go reach out to Shelley, because all of her links are in the show notes as well. If this conversation moved something in you, the most generous thing you can do is pass it on. Subscribe, follow, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. These are real stories from real people who've stood exactly where you might be standing right now, and there are more coming. We'll see you next time.

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