Meet Wave Reviews
- Location: Main St, Lansdale, PA
- Year Founded: 1991
- Owner: Robin Dennis
- Years as X2PS Client: 10+ Years
- Favorite thing about X2PS: Free Paper, Customer Service
The Entrepreneur on #OwningIt:
“…I just love it so much. I love making somebody feel better about themselves, and making people laugh. Everyone is just wonderful, and everyday is just magical.” —Robin Dennis, Owner
LANSDALE, PA — In suburban Philadelphia, there’s no shortage of places to ‘get your hairs did.’ But one Main Street shop is proving that not all salons are created equal.
“People tell us we’re the Cheers of hair salons,” says Robin Dennis, proprietor of Wave Reviews in Lansdale, Pa. “Our clients say, ‘I was so scared to try somewhere new, but I left feeling like I knew everybody.’”
Wave Reviews—now approaching its 30th year in business—prides itself above all else on that sense of familiarity, and the personal connection it can create with just about anyone who walks through their door. Relationships are what keep clients coming back, Dennis explains. And relationships are what have allowed Wave Reviews to expand from boutique salon to full-service spa, offering nails, waxing, and even massages and facials.
“People tell us they feel like they’re sitting in their living room,” Dennis quips.
But the path to that reputation hasn’t been without its twists and turns.
“It’s been a road,” Dennis recounts. “When I was in a high school, I took one of those tests that tried to tell me, ‘You should doing this or that.’”
This or that, according to the test results, was Information Technology work. And so IT it was. Dennis began work in IT for a large firm, and stuck with it. For 18 years. But she’d been doing hair since age 16, and the compulsion to continue didn’t leave her so easily.
And so, Dennis became something of a Hair Superhero.
“I would go to work doing IT from 7-4, and then I would go to hair school from 6-10,” says Dennis. “I did that for three years to get my license, and I moonlighted for a salon for another two years after that.”
But then, in 1991, word came down that Dennis’s employer of 18 years was downsizing.
As entrepreneurs are fond of saying, everything is an opportunity.
“I decided this was the chance that I always wanted, to have a salon. So, October 31, 1991, I took the plunge. And here it is, almost 26 years later.”
These days, Wave Reviews is a team of 20, who range in age of 27 to 73 years of age. Some clients have been seeing their hairdresser for 50 years, Dennis says.
“We love when the mother, the grandmother, and the kids all come. Family is what we’re all about. That’s why we keep up with our education, and with trends. We go all range of the spectrum.”
Like other small business owners, Dennis knows a thing or two about all the work that comes with keeping up operations.
“Being in your own business, it’s nothing to be sitting there at 11:00 at night, thinking about all the different things that need to be done—ordering supplies, advertising.”
But one thing she never thinks about is her Merchant Services.
“[X2 Payment Systems] is really awesome. We get people at least once a week who come here. And I just tell them, ‘Look, I’m not interested.’ Everything is awesome. I love that I get free paper. It’s those little things that count.”
