The ‘Wright’ way to entrepreneurship

COSMETOLOGIST, hair stylist and personal development consultant Pat Wright of Wright Style, a design and retail establishment that creates styles from Jamaican linen fabric, started out with a passion for hair which blossomed into an illustrious career as an entrepreneur.

Speaking at the launch of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED) on November 19, as part of a panel looking at the key enabling success factors of female entrepreneurship in Jamaica, Wright said when she started, she had no idea that what she was doing was entrepreneurship.

“I have been an entrepreneur from [age] 12,” Wright told those gathered at the Jamaica Pegasus to mark the occasion. “Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you can fly… I don’t know where I got this from, but I loved hair and my passion was hair. So I decided to buy a pair of scissors.”

She recounted cutting students’ hair in the bathroom while attending St Hugh’s High School in Kingston, which eventually led to the founding of PJ’s Beauty Salon in 1970, then called Wright Style in 1990.

What has she learnt so far?

As an entrepreneur, said Wright, you have to love what you do and follow your passion; you have to be determined and persistent; you have to build and maintain relationships; you have to innovate; and you have to overcome challenges.

Wright said when she told her father that she wanted to become a hairdresser, she was told that hairdressers were the whores of society and that he didn’t send her to school to become a hairdresser but to become a lawyer, doctor, nurse, or teacher.

But she knew then that hairdressing was her passion, and that it would be her chosen profession. So Wright said she decided to pursue it. After talking to her father she went to school and told her friends that they had to promise to be her clients.

“And so I followed my passion and went off to university,” declared Wright.

“What I know about entrepreneurship is that you have to own your passion, you have to love it because it is not easy,” Wright shared. “You have to have persistence and determination, as I had with my father. You have to also know what you are about; know what you are going to do.”

She emphasised the importance of building and maintaining relationships and embracing creativity as a way of operating, and not as a challenge.

“I knew where everybody was and that they relaxed their hair on this day, so we would call them and say, you know ‘this is PJ calling and your relaxing is due on such a date’,” Wright explained.

She said the clients appreciated this and added that she even called on their birthdays to wish them happy birthday.

“I also realised that September was the worst month of the year, as it was back-to-school… so what I did, I had a Mr and Ms PJs competition that was based on who came [in] the most,” said Wright. “So they started really pushing to see who would win.”

She said her salon also had other prizes, which were presented at a grand party held each year on her birthday in November. One of these was the ‘latest award’, which Wright said was targeted at clients who were always too late for their appointments.

She said with PJ’s Beauty Salon, innovation played a big role.

“I had PJ’s at Sunsplash. Now, when I look at Sumfest and so on, I don’t see people braiding (hair),” Wright said. “We used to get roaring business braiding hair at Sunsplash and we got to watch the show.”

She also came up with the idea of total care because she felt that if she was at her salon and people needed a comb and a brush, she should be able to provide them. And when people spoke about the clothes she wore, another idea was born.

“When people came in and said they loved what I was wearing, there came Wright Style. Because guess what, I had room to fit them in my salon,” Wright said.

But as an entrepreneur, Wright also had her share of challenges.

“At PJ’s and Wright Style, for those of you who know me well know that there were challenges, the challenges were mainly my health,” shared Wright.

“As an entrepreneur you never ever think that you are not going to appear. You are always going to appear because you don’t have a job where you can lie down in your bed and call in sick. The show has to go on, dependent on you,” Wright said.

“So, of course, I jumped in my car and drove to Kingston to be here this morning,” said Wright after mentioning that she wasn’t feeling well. “But that has been my whole life. I have had 27 surgeries, I have had cancer five times, but that does not stop me.

“And I don’t see why it should stop any of us,” declared Wright, who got a standing ovation.

Wright insisted that it is her entrepreneurial spirit that has kept her going and that it has made her who she is.

“If there is nothing else, you have the freedom to choose your dream. So why not dream big, why dream small? I always believe that if you dream big and it doesn’t happen exactly how you dreamt it, you’ll get a portion,” Wright said.