When you’ve been building a brand for nearly two decades, you learn something fairly quickly.
The people matter more than the accounts.
Some customers place orders.
Some become ambassadors.
A very small number become part of the history.
Patrick Forster is one of those people.
Patrick owns two barber shops in Newcastle and has spent years building a reputation that reaches far beyond the barber chair.
He has looked after footballers, celebrities and generations of loyal customers.
But Patrick didn’t just stock Hairbond.
He educated for us.
He worked with our ambassador network.
He recommended the brand when his own professional reputation was on the line.
And he opened doors for Hairbond that money couldn’t have opened nearly as naturally.
Somewhere along the way, he also became a proper mate.
Advocacy Over Distribution
Hairbond was never designed to sit anonymously on a supermarket shelf.
I wanted it inside proper barber shops and salons.
Places where the person recommending the product actually understood hair.
Patrick got that immediately.
His career took him from Newcastle to Dubai and back before he built his own business in the North East.
And when he established himself in Newcastle, he created the sort of barber shop men actually wanted to spend time in.
Football.
Music.
Conversation.
Personality.
And serious barbering.
Men’s grooming was changing quickly.
Patrick could see it.
So could we.
Men were taking more interest in their hair, the products they used and the people they trusted to recommend them.
Patrick wasn’t simply putting Hairbond tubs on a shelf.
He was putting them into customers’ hands and explaining why they worked.
There is a massive difference between the two.
One is distribution.
The other is advocacy.
The Newcastle United Dressing Room
Patrick also unlocked one of the great early chapters in Hairbond’s football story.
He got Hairbond into Newcastle United.
There was no corporate sponsorship agreement.
No advertising agency.
No enormous marketing cheque.
It happened because Patrick had something far more valuable.
Trust.
He was cutting the hair of Premier League footballers who respected his judgement.
Yohan Cabaye loved Hairbond.
Mathieu Debuchy loved it.
Paul Dummett used it.
Karl Darlow used it.
Ryan Taylor was another fan.
Suddenly Hairbond wasn’t something we were trying to persuade footballers to use.
They were already using it.
That distinction meant everything.
And through Patrick’s relationship with Paul Dummett, we were eventually invited down to the Newcastle United training ground.
I still remember what that represented.
We had gone from building a small independent British grooming brand to walking into a Premier League training ground because the players genuinely liked the products we’d created.
No manufactured influencer campaign.
No paid endorsement dressed up as enthusiasm.
Patrick trusted Hairbond.
The players trusted Patrick.
And that trust travelled.
It remains one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of how a brand should grow.
People Before Clout
The Newcastle United connection makes the obvious headline.
But it isn’t the most important thing about Patrick.
The person behind it matters more.
His relationship with Jonás Gutiérrez showed that.
When Jonás went through cancer treatment, Patrick supported him and offered supporters free head shaves in solidarity.
Forget celebrity clientele for a minute.
That tells you far more about somebody.
And that same integrity carried into his work with Hairbond.
Patrick worked with us on education and with our ambassadors because he knew his craft.
He could explain how to prepare the hair properly.
How much product to use.
How to create the finish.
How to make an honest recommendation to the person sitting in the chair.
Anyone can print the word ambassador on a lanyard.
That doesn’t make someone an educator.
Patrick could actually teach.
And when somebody like that puts their professional reputation behind your brand, it gives you something advertising can’t buy.
Credibility.
The Unofficial Boardroom
Naturally, not everything involving Patrick and Hairbond happened in particularly corporate surroundings.
We’ve had Hairbond meet-ups in London, Newcastle and Leeds over the years.
The official meeting would finish.
Then somebody would suggest a pint.
And, remarkably, our strategic thinking always appeared to improve as the evening went on.
At least until the following morning.
Patrick also travelled across to Lancaster to celebrate a Hairbond birthday with us.
That meant something to me.
He didn’t have to come.
He came because Hairbond wasn’t simply another account to him.
He was part of it.
Football inevitably became mixed into the relationship as well.
We’ve watched matches together at Preston and Newcastle.
Business became football.
Football became beers.
And occasionally the entire thing became difficult to categorise.
Which brings me to London.
There was one particularly substantial night out involving Patrick, me and Andy Carroll.
There are some moments in company history that deserve careful documentation for future generations.
That one is probably better left undocumented.
We’ll just say it was a good night.
Those memories matter, though.
Because somewhere between the barber shops, Hairbond meetings, football grounds and late nights, Patrick stopped being a business relationship.
He became a friend.
What a Brand Actually Is
Businesses are obsessed with measuring themselves.
Stockists.
Doors.
Units.
Followers.
Reach.
Market share.
They’re useful numbers.
But they aren’t what you remember.
You remember the people who believed in something before it became obvious.
You remember a barber in Newcastle putting your products into the hands of Premier League footballers because he genuinely rated them.
You remember being invited into Newcastle United because those players actually used what you’d made.
You remember someone helping educate your ambassadors.
You remember them travelling across the country for your birthday celebration.
You remember football matches.
You remember pints.
You remember friendship.
That’s what nearly twenty years of Hairbond looks like to me now.
Not a spreadsheet.
People.
Patrick now has two barber shops in Newcastle and has built something substantial of his own.
I’m proud that Hairbond remains part of that story.
But calling Patrick Forster a Hairbond stockist doesn’t come remotely close anymore.
He’s been an educator.
An ambassador.
A connector.
A supporter.
And, most importantly to me, a friend.
Some people sell your brand.
The special ones help build it.
Patrick helped build Hairbond.