A fresh cut: NC native find success with mobile barber business
CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Haircuts are just a necessary part of life, but a Charlotte man is making the sometimes-tedious errand a one-of-a-kind experience.
To most people, the constant buzzing of hair clippers is less than appealing, maybe even annoying, but to Joel Battle, the sound might as well be his heartbeat.
“I’ve always felt like a fire inside of me to keep moving,” Battle said.
Battle, better known to his followers as Mobile Baber Hawk on social media, has been in the business for more than a decade.
“I’ve worked at 13 different barber shops in my career,” he said. “Ain’t that crazy? 13 years, 13 barber shops.”
Now, a new set of wheels is helping him take his business to new levels.
“I’m on the move all the time. All the time. Big wheels rolling,” Battle chuckled.
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These days, the North Carolina native rolls all over the Queen City with his backseat barber chair, to meet his clients wherever they need him.
“There’s people out here that need services like this and that’s what this was created for,” Battle said.
Battle’s vision has come to life after years of dreaming and about 16 weeks of labor on the Mercedes Sprinter Van he’s turned into a mobile business.
The inside of the van certainly doesn’t look like your normal hair appointment: tricked out with LED lights, TVs, and a solo barber chair where transformations happen.
“When we open up the van, they’re so surprised and like ‘Yeah let’s do it,’” Battle explained.
While the Sprinter is now the center of Battle’s world, it wasn’t too long ago during a cross-country move to Las Vegas, a different kind of vehicle was all he had.
“When I first got to Vegas after 30 days, I was homeless,” he recalls. “You know, my credit was bad and everything, so I had to live in my car.”
This all happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, making things even more difficult with many businesses and services shut down.
“I had to go to the truck stop and pay $15 every day just to take a shower,” Battle said. “All I had was a Chevy Suburban and I would drive all around Las Vegas, you know, just trying to make something happen.”
It was enough to make any person lose hope.
“It was some dark times. I was alone, I was by myself,” Battle said, “Some nights I would open up the sunroof and look up at the stars and say ‘Stars you shine, but I shine too. You’re gonna see one day,’ and I still do it to this day.”
People ask all the time how he did it.
Battle said, “I just tell them, have faith. Just have faith. Draw it out. Believe that it’s already yours and take the actionable steps to meet that goal that you have.”
He also said it took a lot of grit and hard work too.
“You just have to have that type of discipline too. When everybody’s out spending and everybody’s out celebrating, you just focus on saving and what your goal is,” said Battle.
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Since moving back to the Queen City, Battle has started using the van for more than haircuts, by branching out even further into content creation through his YouTube and social media pages and networking.
He explained, “That’s the main reason I wanted to create this, was to collab with other business owners in the community, to highlight their businesses, entrepreneurs, who they are, what they do.”
It’s an opportunity battle is grateful for.
“I think that’s the most important thing with doing anything, is to help others who want to do what you do, because you inspire them,” he said.
Even though his social media is fast-paced and fun these days Battle said his time in Las Vegas is his constant motivator, pushing him to roll wherever his Sprinter will take him.
He said, “Being an entrepreneur, you’re gonna have highs and lows. It’s like a rollercoaster, but you’ve just gotta enjoy the ride, enjoy the process the whole way through.”
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