Curtis Smith founded Xotics, built the barber battle circuit people still talk about fifteen years later, and cuts Usher's hair on tour.
He also had one rule for every speaker at the Barbers Round Table.
I don't wanna hear anything about barbering. I wanna know your life story.
Five minutes on stage. Tell the room who you are, where you've been, what made you. He ran the Round Table starting in 2009 alongside Gerald Renker, at every major hair show. Hundreds of barbers showed up every time.
And every one of them walked away knowing something they didn't before.
What the Barbers' Round Table was built for
The barber industry is one where everyone knows each other, and no one really knows each other. You shake hands and keep moving.
Curtis wanted something different. He brought up five speakers per event and told them all the same thing: skip the portfolio, skip the technique talk. Tell the room your life story.
"If you wanna put in there what made you become a barber, that's cool. But we wanna hear your life story. We got five minutes on this stage to tell everybody who you are."
Take G-Wheelz. The whole industry knew his name. Nobody knew his story.
When he stepped off that stage, the room saw him differently. A barber you've known for years becomes a person you actually know.
That was the whole point. And it built something nobody expected: a real team.
What Entrepreneur of the Year actually measured
The Round Table gave out awards. One of them was Entrepreneur of the Year.
The winner was whoever hired the most people from the barber industry and put them on. The measure was how many people had a shot because you gave them one.
"We care about real-life stuff."
That is a different scoreboard than most people are keeping. Follower count means nothing in Curtis's world. Revenue is not the metric. How many people moved forward because you held the door open for them, that is the metric.
I get through the door, I'm holding it for somebody else
Curtis described it simply. If you hold the door open for people, they hold it when you get locked out. If you don't, nobody will.
He watched it work in real time, over and over. He believed in a barber's work, made one call to his contact at Paul Mitchell, and within five minutes, she had the job. She became a national educator.
"I don't need nothing out of it. I know her heart is good. Why would I not do that?"
Team Xotics started with three people: Pacino's, DC the Barber, and Christina Goree. It grew to 36 members. Every single one started as an unknown. Nearly half went on to launch their own companies, with Curtis pushing them to go do it.
"I enforced that. I pushed that. I told them to do it."
The people who came through became the legacy.
Why people still talk about those battles
People flew to Xotics battles on their own dime. Anybody who was anybody was in the room, and the room felt different from anything else happening in the industry at the time.
"It was hugs all day, everybody hugging, people jumping together, dancing, doing shots. It was a party with barbers and competitions."
Fifteen, twenty years later, people are still talking about those battles. The energy in those rooms is what they remember.
Culture like that is a product of how the person running it keeps score. Curtis kept score by who was lifted up, who got a real shot, who left the room knowing someone they didn't before.
The shops that last are built the same way
Curtis told a story about a barber who showed him his portfolio at Bronner Brothers. Curtis gave him honest feedback: this section needs work, this is not landing, fix these things. The barber walked away angry.
He went back to his job and asked his boss what he thought. His boss said everything was perfect.
"That's when he realized, 'I got a bunch of yes-men around me. Everybody's just telling me what I wanna hear.'"
He went back to the portfolio with fresh eyes, fixed what Curtis had flagged, and his cutting reached a level it never would have otherwise.
The barbers and shop owners who build lasting businesses run on the same thing. They tell clients the truth. They show up when it counts. They make people feel genuinely known.
Clients who stay for years are staying because their barber sees them. That relationship is the whole business. Protect it.
Watch the full conversation with Curtis on Standing Appointment above.
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