How To Phase Out Clients And Services You No Longer Want To Do

In this episode of The Modern Hairstylist Podcast, Hunter Donia and Jodie Brown get into one of the most emotionally loaded business decisions a stylist can make: removing services from your menu and letting go of clients who no longer fit where your business is headed. Hunter breaks down both the mindset work and the actual strategy behind doing this in a way that protects your revenue and your sanity. Whether you are overbooked and finally ready to stop doing the services that drain you, or you are looking at your numbers and realizing certain services are quietly holding your growth back, this episode gives you the framework to make the call with confidence and execute it without burning bridges. Key Takeaways: 💸 This Is A Revenue Decision, Not Just A Feelings Decision: Hunter reframes the conversation entirely. Phasing out low-profit or draining services is not just about enjoying your work more. When you understand your profit per hour across every service on your menu, removing the ones that underperform or block higher-value appointments becomes a straightforward business move. 📊 Know The Data Before You Make The Call: Before removing any service, ask yourself whether you could fill those gaps with more profitable or more desirable work. If the answer is yes, the data is already telling you what to do. If the answer is no, that tells you exactly what demand you need to build first. 💡 Price It Out Before You Phase It Out: If you have high demand for a service you hate, Hunter’s first suggestion is not to remove it. It is to raise the price dramatically. If nobody books it at triple the rate, you effectively phased it out anyway. If people still book it, at least you are getting paid well enough to make it worth it. 😤 The Emotional Weight Is Real But It Cannot Be The Deciding Factor: Hunter and Jodie talk openly about the guilt and grief that comes with letting go of long-term clients. The reframe is simple: your business exists to create wealth and sustainability, not to maintain relationships that belong outside of a transactional space. You can go to dinner with someone you genuinely care about. 🎯 Use Your Specialty To Do The Hard Conversations For You: The easiest way to let a client go is to blame it on the direction of your business. If the clients you want to release are not getting your specialty service, you can honestly tell them your focus has shifted and you can no longer serve them at the level they deserve. It is clean, it is true, and it removes the personal weight from the conversation. Why You Should Listen: If you have been holding onto clients or services out of guilt, fear of lost revenue, or worry about what might happen down the road, this episode is the push you need. Hunter has lived through price increases, service removals, and client offboarding firsthand, and he has walked dozens of stylists through the same process in Mastermind. The data is usually already pointing you toward the answer. This episode helps you trust it. Let's connect on Instagram!