Presented by The Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce
Mike’s Barber Shop
The owner of Mike’s Barber Shop is a man of many names, but is mostly known as Barber Jon.
Jon Elliott started working at Mike’s in 2010 and bought the shop in 2012, where he now has ten barbers who lease chair space from him between his Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo locations. At one time, Jon owned four barber shops in the county and during that period accumulated a lot of gear.
When the County classified barbers and salons as non-essential businesses, Jon shuttered his doors and cancelled appointments. Within no time, he was contacted by desperate customers who needed haircuts. Abiding by the State and County health guidelines meant not being in contact with clients, even if that meant turning down exorbitant amounts of cash. He was offered anywhere from $100 to $1020 to perform a haircut during the quarantine!
Jon decided to take another approach to helping his customers. He gathered, fixed and sanitized his extra equipment so he could sell or lend kits to those in need. Clients text Barber Jon, who then assembles a kit based on their needs and sets it on the truck fender in his driveway to facilitate a contactless pick up. So far, he has provided over 20 kits at no charge to people willing to take a crack at facilitating a home haircut.
How do the cuts turn out? Clients often send him before and after photos. He says most end up just shaving it all off. After all, cutting hair is an art and most people aren’t both double jointed and ambidextrous.
As a business owner and landlord, he has waived booth rental fees for his barbers. He understands that they are hurting too. During the last month, Barber Jon has decided to make the best use of his empty shops and is focusing on getting them in tip-top shape for when they reopen.
“I normally work 80 hours a week. This is a good time to do all of those things that are on your list to be productive. I decided to detail and do the little repairs at the barbershop, which has been open since 1941,” said Jon. “It’s a good time to prioritize those other things now, such as cleaning, repairing and marketing. Everyone has a different list of things that are needed. As long as it doesn’t involve contact with other people, my recommendation to other non-essential businesses is to be productive and use this time to get organized in order to benefit your business in the long run.”
she ROSE journey
In times of crisis, there are people who rise to the top to take care of our wellbeing. Some are called into action to share with us new workouts and recipes to keep our body in shape and others are driven to support our mental wellbeing, with meditations and coaching. For some, these people have been literal lifesavers during this pandemic.
Audrie Marie is the website manager for Morro Bay Garden and a digital marketing consultant for Beads by the Bay, located in downtown Morro Bay. As non-essential businesses, the storefronts have been closed since mid-March and Audrie has therefore been out of work.
During this period Audrie Marie has been using her training as a certified holistic coach and healer to support the community by offering her favorite resources for managing high anxiety during these uncertain times. This includes conducting free daily Facebook Live sessions where she teaches viewers everything from EFT Tapping therapy to essential oils.
“We are in the middle of a collectively stressful time,” said Audrie Marie. “If people find themselves struggling with high anxiety right now, that is a perfectly natural reaction to have when we’re in a global crisis. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with them and there are many simple resources that can help, starting with being kind and gentle with themselves if they are going through it.”
Audrie Marie has leveraged her downtime to continue building towards her dream of working for herself fulltime. Her company, she ROSE journey, is an online business where she takes the tech and stress out of helping women entrepreneurs pivot their business quickly to be able to serve their customers online. You could say she has combined her love for helping others and her talent for marketing into one platform.
For more information, go to https://sherosejourney.com/.
