Thriving in Business by Focusing on Community Need
When Jabarha Nichols, affectionately called “Kutt” by those in the know, learned that barbers were going extinct in his hometown, he made it his mission to learn the trade, teach it to others, and help his community in the process. These days Nichols is head of Kuttz, a local barbery empire that includes Eastside and Westside barber shops, a barber college, a beauty college, and a barber supply shop. He’s also had a hand in training more than 50 barbers through his college, many of whom have stayed in Flagstaff or the surrounding area to set up their own shops.
Nichols’s aspirations extend far beyond just bringing barbers back to Flagstaff, though. He is truly committed to using all the resources he can to provide services and opportunities for the local community. Presently, Nichols and his staff are working through the process of getting accreditation for his colleges through the National Accrediting Commission of Career Arts and Sciences (NACCAS), which would allow students to tap into loan and grant money designated for higher education, including Federal Pell Grants. He is also planning to add a daycare to his list of businesses, eliminating for his students and employees the obstacle of finding childcare—one that keeps many parents from pursuing education or maintaining stable employment
Overcoming Challenges
As an adolescent Nichols was a hardworking athlete, but he struggled with academics, and graduated from high school with almost no reading skills. When he found himself ill-equipped for college he, like many others he knew, tried his hand at selling drugs. Nichols never felt right about distributing drugs through his community, though, and ultimately found work at a local gas station. There, he applied the same work ethic he used in high school athletics to move up the ranks. “I worked hard on the field. I can work hard in the job setting,” he told himself. That hard work paid off when Nichols became manager of the store, a position which he held for 7 years.
Nichols’s interest in becoming a barber began when he read an article in Flagstaff Live lamenting the decline of barbers in Flagstaff. At that time, there were only a handful, and most of those were on the verge of retiring. Still, Nichols wasn’t ready to change his lifestyle right away, or as he puts it, “I was getting DUIs, I was getting assault charges, I was still messing up…”
It wasn’t until Nichols narrowly escaped a prison sentence when a third DUI charge against him was unexpectedly dropped amid allegations of misconduct by his arresting officer that he finally took his first steps toward becoming a barber. “I got chills, ‘cause that changed my life,” he explains of the dropped charge. With the support of his boss at the gas station, Nichols moved to Phoenix the very next day to live with his grandmother and attend barber school near her house.
From Flagstaff Barber Shop to Flagstaff Barber College
Upon graduating barber school, Nichols returned to Flagstaff and opened up Kuttz Barber Shop on 6th Avenue. There he worked 7 days a week, offering haircuts for seven dollars apiece. Each year as Nichols became more experienced, he was able to charge a little more per cut and increase his annual income. He also learned how to refine his craft using different tools and techniques, and eventually was able to complete some haircuts in as little as 15 minutes.
As the only young barber in town—and the only one who knew how to cut the newer styles—Nichols never struggled for clients. After 10 years of serving customers all by himself he knew he needed help, but Flagstaff still had the same problem: there were no barbers here. Nichols decided that he needed to become a licensed barber instructor.
Nichols prepared, paid the $200 fee, traveled to Phoenix, took the instructor’s exam, and failed. He continued studying, taking, and ultimately failing the exam every three months for five more exam cycles. Finally, after his sixth attempt, Sam Labarbera, Chairman of the Arizona State Board of Barbers, reached out to Nichols personally, and asked if he could return to Phoenix. As a former educator, Labarbera recognized that “some people just can’t take tests on paper.” He asked Nichols the exam questions verbally and found Nichols’s answers to be satisfactory. Finally, Nichols’s hard work paid off and he was granted an instructor’s license.
A Bigger Location and A Beauty College
Nichols opened Kuttz Barber College in 2015, and immediately overcrowded his shop with students: “I had like ten students, right, and the facility could only fit, legally, five students… I’m talking about chairs was bumping into each other.” Nichols put out feelers and, through local contacts, was eventually able to find a bigger space—three adjacent units in a shopping center on 7th Avenue. In the first two, he put his barber shop and barber college, but he wasn’t initially sure what to do with the third.
As Nichols contemplated putting an ice cream shop beside his barbery businesses, the COVID 19 pandemic hit and dealt a death blow to the only local beauty school. As soon as he heard, Nichols knew what that third space was meant to be. He took all the pandemic relief money he was able to get and invested it into Kuttz Beauty School. Nichols claims he thought it was the end of the world, but still he “wanted to make sure [he] didn’t mess that money up.”
Going from operating a barber school and shop out of a 550 square foot space to a 4,000 square foot space has made a huge difference to the Kuttz business model. For one thing, Nichols now has an opportunity to employ staff members—5 in all including instructors and office management. He is also able to offer an eight month barber training course that includes a substantial amount of hands-on experience for his students (something Nichols felt was lacking in his initial training), and then provide employment to the professionals he graduates.
Changing Lives in His Community
For Nichols, pursuing the trade of barbery changed his life, and he is grateful to be able to offer that opportunity to others. After recounting a past that included illegal activity, homelessness, and financial struggles, Nichols explains, “Now I’m able to take care of my people, my kids, and then share this experience with these guys… Now they’re taking care of their families. It’s just crazy the difference I made from somebody that couldn’t even read.”
Students at Kuttz Barber College learn more than just how to cut hair. With Nichols’s support, they learn customer service, how to be good conversationalists, and in some cases how to make better life choices. Nichols recounts stories about helping a student who spent years in prison learn different nuances of interaction than he became accustomed to while incarcerated and about showing up to a student’s parole hearing to lend support when it seemed no one else would. Now with his moves toward accreditation and opening a daycare, Nichols is using his business to create more opportunities for people to learn a trade that can help them succeed.
Making Business Work
For those thinking about starting their own businesses or pursuing other types of dreams, Nichols is bursting with advice. He says, “If you’ve got a dream or you’ve got something you think can work, you’ve got to go out there and try to make it work.” Nichols is especially enthusiastic about people providing what is needed where it’s needed, as he did with barber services in Flagstaff.
As for how to “make it work,” Nichols has a couple tips that helped him along the way. First, he advises doing things right: “Once I started doing the legal stuff and kept legal, stuff started happening for me. Doors started opening for me. People started helping me more.” Second, Nichols recommends asking for help. He notes that “a lot of people are scared to ask questions,” including him while he was struggling through school. It was when he started asking questions and getting help that “things really turned around” for him.
Through a lot of hard work, Nichols has figured out how to make the Kuttz model thrive in Flagstaff. Although he can’t predict the future of the business, Nichols has begun to consider his model’s national potential and how Kuttz might be able to meet the needs of communities beyond his hometown.
