Tavion Maultsby AKA Tee The Barber came from a family of hair professionals, however, Tee did not want to follow in their footsteps initially. Hence, he worked for a local electric firm in Florida, but his life changed completely when he was laid off. In a fight or flight situation, Tee saw working as a barber as the best option at the time. He was able to make ends meet, but this wasn’t enough for him. Tee had a desire to be successful and expand his business enough to make a comfortable living. As such, Tee forced himself to network and connect with as many industry professionals as he could.
In 2016, he dropped everything he had in Florida and established a new role alongside Dave Diggs at The Barbers Inc barbershop in San Jose, California. While this was a scary decision to make, it turned out to be one of the best decisions Tee has ever made. In this new position, Tee was able to quadruple his income within 2 years and has established his own product line, has been hired as the CFP National Championship official barber, and has earned the title of the official barber of local NFL organizations in the bay area. When asked about his motivation to pursue his career, Tee shares:
“I essentially had no choice. My experience in the hair industry started early. Do or die. Fight or flight. When I ran out of options I turned to what I had been around my whole life which was hair. I eventually fell in love with the hair industry. I fell more in love with the relationships I build with my clients and coworkers and other industry leaders which inspires me to be more involved within this industry.”
Through his experience as a barber and having expanded his network exponentially, Tee learned that you cannot rely on one source of income. Through his different businesses, Tee has realized the importance of passive income in order to succeed financially. This is why Tee has expanded outside his day to day job and owns 5 different businesses. Tee also sells favored essential hair products, favored essential merch, has a lux car rental company called Elite Fleet Motors, and is known across different social media platforms such as Youtube, Tik Tok, and Instagram. Furthemore, with the challenges of Covid-19, Tee has been expanding to house calls for celebrities.
“A great leader should be able to translate what they speak into their own results. They should also be easily able to replicate those actions in those who they are leading. A great leader must also be a critical thinker and a problem solver to make things easier for the people around them as well,” states Tee.
Tee is taking what he learned in 2020 and turning his knowledge into a mentorship program that will teach everyone and anyone how important credit, business credit, and passive income are. With respect to sharing knowledge, Tee is also in the works of writing an ebook to teach others how to build business credit and financial freedom.
At the moment, Tee is also expanding and creating new products for his organic hair product line, “Favored Essentials” with the goal of creating affordable and healthy hair products for all hair textures. It is in Tee’s plans to scale this business throughout the country and is already seeing growth.
To learn more about Tee The Barber, follow him on Instagram here.