Jennifer Fintel’s Experience as a Businesswoman

Throughout history, women have taken great strides in their positions in leadership and business. To celebrate these strides and many others March is Women's History Month. In order to see women that have followed in the footsteps of powerful women in the past, we need not look any further than our very own town of Chadron, Nebraska. In Chadron, we have many women who hold positions of leadership, along with many women who own their own businesses. One of these women is Jennifer Fintel, who owns her own hair salon located at 127 West Second Street, Chadron, NE. She offers such services as waxing (eyebrows, lip, bikini line), hair cuts (women, men, kids) and color. Throughout her life, Jennifer has always known she wanted to be a hairstylist, and after working hard to educate herself she has not only become a hairstylist, but she owns her own business. 

When Jennifer was a child her aunt was a hairstylist, and at the young age of 5, Jennifer already knew that she was interested in styling hair. As a child, Jennifer’s Aunt Becky taught her to do hair by letting her play with the mannequin heads at her salon. Through all of this, her Aunt Becky had always been a role model to Jennifer. Another group of people that inspired Jennifer in her work were her previous co-workers, who were mentors during the start of her career. Along with the role model of her Aunt Becky and the mentors that she found in her previous co-workers, Jennifer says that she has always seen herself as her own role model. Jennifer said, “I have always looked to myself to be the best I can be.” Now that Jennifer is an accomplished woman in her field she hopes to be a mentor to other women in her field.

 When it comes to starting a business Jennifer says that you should first have a plan and be sure to do your research. Along with this Jennifer says it is extremely important to have a unique business idea that is not common in your location. Jennifer achieves this in her business by creating an environment that is comfortable for clients and building personal relationships with each of them. Finally, in order to start and own your own business, you must be properly motivated and have strong willpower. Jennifer achieves this because she simply loves her job and many aspects of it. 

Jennifer enjoys the aspect of her job in which she is able to ¨make people beautiful when a client walks out of my salon with freshly done hair, and they feel more confident.” Some other things that Jennifer likes about owning her own business are the flexible hours and the ability to tailor services to specific clients. Despite all of the things Jennifer loves about her job there are still struggles to own her own business. 

Because Jennifer is her own boss she does not have an employer who sets a retirement fund. This causes her to have set aside her own money for retirement. Along with saving money herself for retirement, she must also set aside money for taxes. Additionally, Jennifer does not like not having paid time off. It is difficult when she gets sick because that means canceling clients, which means no money. Along with these cons, there are a few threats to her business, such as bad word of mouth and other salons. If someone was dissatisfied with her service they could influence the opinion of others and give her a bad reputation. This could result in the loss of customers, as well as, no new customers. In theory, other hair salons should be a threat. However, Jennifer is confident in her clients as many of them have been long time clients. Jennifer has been running her business for a long time, 23 years to be exact. 

Jennifer first started her current business in 2010, after having another business for nine years. Prior to this, she graduated from beauty school in 1997. During her time at Shawnee Beauty School in Oklahoma, she learned many things including anatomy such as bone structure and nerve structure along with the chemistry of formulating colored dye for hair.  Unfortunately, Jennifer feels that her beauty school experiences only taught her the basics and didn’t really prepare her for the real world. She believes that she learned most of what she knows now through real-life experiences. 

As you can see, there are many women in Chadron including Jennifer Fintel, who have followed in the footsteps of historic women with their commitment and drive in business and leadership. Jennifer has worked hard to achieve her childhood dream by attending beauty school and becoming a small business owner.