Business focus: It’s all about the guys

If the name on the door doesn’t give it away, then one step into Selina Guerra’s salon in Post Falls will tell you what market her business is geared toward.

With a variety of men’s magazines spread on a waiting-area table, a bar mere feet away and pinup-girl posters lining the walls, Hombre’s Salon For Men caters to the more testosterone-producing members of society.

“I’ve heard a lot of comments that I have the best lobby in the world,” said Guerra, the salon’s owner for nearly two years.

In a small, sometimes smoky room adjacent to Bob’s 21 bar on Seltice Way, Guerra has built her business around some of men’s favorite pastimes – pool, beer and a no-wait time for a quick haircut. Guerra has learned, as many last-second Christmas shoppers and most women will attest, that men usually don’t plan ahead let alone make appointments, but won’t hesitate to make a decision on a whim. Especially after spending some time next door playing pool and drinking a beer, or two, or six … whatever the situation calls for.

“I have gained a lot of patience since I opened,” Guerra laughed, adding that most of her customers are walk-ins.

A native of Moses Lake, Guerra, 37, started her career as a cosmetologist a few years ago by attending Headmasters School of Hair Design in Coeur d’Alene. She then went to work at a local salon, where she gradually built a strong men’s business base as her vision for a future business increasingly came into focus.

“I wish I would have done it 10 years ago but didn’t,” she said. Eventually, and after seeing many disinterested men come through the women’s salon with their significant others, Guerra took her chance.

“I decided it was something I wanted to do for myself,” she said. And giving men a salon that they could feel comfortable in was a niche market that Guerra felt was lacking in the area at the time. As Guerra explained, a lot of her former male clientele “just felt that they were in a women’s world in a salon.”

Guerra is a certified cosmetologist, but not a barber. Guerra is quick to point out barbers are trained in giving haircuts without the use of chemicals, as opposed to cosmetologists who are trained to use them, though she usually does not. She includes a neck and shoulder massage and hot towel wrap with every haircut. Guerra also offers waxing, though that has yet to really take off.

“I give them a lot of attention here,” she said.

However, Guerra’s most important driving force comes from her son, Kainan. As a single mother, Guerra was looking for a way to support her child. It just happened that becoming a stylist was also a personal passion.

With startup capital from her own savings and the blessings of her friends, Guerra grabbed the space she now occupies as soon as it opened several years ago.

“I was so excited for her,” said Colleen Smith, co-owner of AAA Inkworld Tattoo and Body Piercing in Coeur d’Alene and a friend of Guerra’s for several years. For the single mother, jumping right in and doing what she really wanted to do, “it’s awesome,” Smith said. “I think it takes a strong person to do that all by yourself, and I’m really proud of her.”

Now with a reliable clientele base ranging from professionals to construction workers – some of whom are getting much better at arranging appointments, Guerra joked – she is building her business on her own, with help from word-of-mouth advertising and a steady stream of customers coming from next door. “I’d rather pay for it myself and be my own boss,” she said.

“It’s been a long, hard road,” Guerra said, adding that her business is growing all the time. “You just have to believe that you are going to succeed.”