Salon Staff & Leadership Problems [EP:168]

Overcoming Leadership Challenges in Salons: Insights and Strategies

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In this episode, Jen and Todd navigate common leadership challenges salon owners face. 

They discuss handling resistance to change, the importance of clear communication, establishing systems, and effective training. 

Jen shares a recent experience where a new salon owner struggled with implementing new systems due to a lack of leadership and clarity. 

The conversation emphasizes the need for strong foundational values, practical training, and consistent leadership to foster team compliance and improve salon operations.

00:00 Introduction and Greetings
00:08 Zoom Class Recap
00:43 Today's Topic: My Team Won't Do That
01:36 Handling Problems and Leadership
04:19 Salon Visit Story
06:59 Salon Organization Issues
12:42 Advice for Salon Owners
15:36 Establishing Basic Systems
16:27 Understanding Your Team
17:30 Effective Communication and Training
20:06 Foundations and Handbooks
22:33 Dealing with Change and Fear
26:25 Building Trust and Accountability
30:42 Wrapping Up and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

168
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[00:00:00] 

Todd: All right. What is up, everyone? Welcome back. Happy Monday. How's it going, Jennifer?

Jen: How are you?

Todd: Good. Good, good, good. You just had a Zoom class. How was that?

Jen: On eventful is great. No, it's good.

Todd: is good, right?

Jen: There's a lot of information, me just talking the whole time. I had a little Zoom problems with sharing my screen, but we made the best of it.

Todd: Okay.

Jen: Technical difficulties happens time to time.

Todd: What did you do? Was it product stuff? All

Jen: Product knowledge. Yeah. Someone new to a salon that just needs kind of the background information so she can have the knowledge to do a great job.

Todd: right. That's

Jen: Yeah. It's fun.

Todd: What are we talking about today? We are talking about, why don't you, this was your topic idea, so

Jen: We are talking about my team won't do that.

Todd: what does

Jen: Okay.

Todd: mean?

Jen: So I was recently in a salon and I was there to do some, some Hubert.

Todd: we'll, we'll get there. Just what does that [00:01:00] mean?

Jen: It means that when you want to implement new,

Todd: don't you for a second think you're skipping opening takes.

Jen: it just means I, so my notes were that like, you want it.

Todd: I don't want your notes, I want, just, like, real quick, are you

Jen: I'm trying. You're just, you're not letting me go.

Todd: Because you're going to give us the whole

Jen: Nope.

Todd: you're trying to

Jen: So

Todd: through an opening

Jen: basically my team won't do that. You want to try to implement something new and the excuse is always some will do it. Some won't, some don't care. And then you just don't do anything.

Todd: Alright.

Jen: How's that?

Todd: That was good. Good summary.

Jen: Thanks. That's

Todd: Opening takes. You want me to go or you

Jen: you can go. Hmm.

Todd: a quick one this week. the easiest way to solve a problem is to not create the problem. I see a lot of people online and a lot of people that I talk to who have these problems that wouldn't exist if they didn't create them on their own. And I think part of it might be what you are talking about here. I think part of it might be. [00:02:00] We create these problems in our heads and therefore they become problems when they aren't, they're not, like, they're not a thing, we've just created them in our head. It's the same thing like what you're saying, like, you're, oh, my staff, I want to implement a change, I'm afraid my staff won't do it.

Well, why are you afraid your staff won't do it? You haven't even implemented the change yet. You haven't trained them up on it. You haven't explained anything to anybody, but you're already convinced that nobody will do it. Go ahead, what do you got?

Jen: Oh, I'm slacking here. I have

Todd: Nothing.

Jen: nothing. Yeah, nothing at all. But let's go with, I believe in order to be a good leader in whatever position you're at who you like, how you handle, I think I've said this one before, but I think it's really important how you handle all the curveballs that come at you in your day to day life.

Presence is really important. So you got to like self check your attitude, your emotions, and put [00:03:00] those aside for all the problems or things that like come your way so that you can handle them in a way that takes the emotion out. And I don't think that's easy to do. Todd and I talk all the time, you know, I'm behind the chair and most often having to help our, our hair pros under hello formulate, but there's also then there's client issues that come up or one of my, our staff, they have an issue and it means wearing multiple hats at multiple times, but it also means being my best self and not letting my frustrations come out towards them and that is something that I've had to work on over time and I feel like I've gotten fairly good at.

But I think as a leader, if, if, if, again, this topic, you're like, my team won't do that, then the reflection becomes, well, what are you doing to lead your team so that they believe in the things you're doing and it's how you treat them and it's your actions. And it's how you approach the problems that are thrown at you when you don't realize they're coming your way.

It's easy when there's problems, you're like, let me get back to you in 24 hours, but it's how you handle it on the fly is really shows, I think, your leadership qualities. So you may need to work on handling things on the fly.[00:04:00] 

Todd: it.

Jen: Thanks.

Todd: So now let's dive into your

Jen: Okay. I actually have a topic, guys. I'm so excited. So you want me to tell you now?

Can I tell you how I got to my topic?

Todd: Yeah. Go nuts. Now we can talk about anything. I just didn't want you to try to weasel out of that. Opening take

Jen: I did it. High five myself. Pat Mountain back. All right. So I was in a salon this week actually I guess, cool story. I've been in the salon a few times. I knew the owner that was selling it. She actually offered the salon to Todd and I, I was like, you guys should buy this. It'd be so great. It's just turnkey.

And I was like, we're not, In a position, I don't have the bandwidth right now to do that. But anyway, so new ownership comes in and the same staff all stays there, which I guess is cool in some ways because you now have a salon with a staff, but you do have a staff that is clearly really led by the old owner, even though she's no longer there.

So every situation that comes in. So I'm in this salon to teach a color class, but also we had some questions after about retail and they're just trying to find their identity. The reason why [00:05:00] they're trying to find the identity is because the owner hasn't found hers. So this staff is trying to help in this kind of meeting that really should have been the rep, the owner, and if she needed some knowledge from me, the three of us, but she.

Decided to have her whole team on. So it's just becoming a battle of all these ideas. And, you know, I had explained some stuff that we do at hello with certain issues of like, where do you,

Todd: So,

Jen: oh, go ahead.

Todd: Can I ask a question? She has this. So this is a, this isn't a class. This is a business meeting.

Jen: was a class on troubleshooting issues they were having with the color line. Like just things that weren't working. Plus didn't realize some of the new products that had come out that are going to help them. But then it went into a retail class and then her and I were chatting after. I guess that's how that went.

Todd: Okay.

Jen: turned into a lot of things. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Well, you said something like her team was getting involved or something with what? Shouldn't they just be listening to the class?

Jen: At that point, the class had gone a different direction and the rep had taken over to talk about some [00:06:00] maybe new brands they'd put on the shelf. So then

Todd: like a nightmare to

Jen: it, it was chaotic. Mm hmm.

Todd: It sounds not organized at

Jen: Yeah. It was not organized, which I don't mind on the fly. Like I can,

Todd: Yeah, no, no, no, no. I just,

Jen: it wouldn't be how I would run something, but this is where I think.

Todd: somebody came in, if, if I showed up at my, so if I went into hello and I had somebody coming in from a color line or whoever, whatever brand coming in and all of a sudden we're in a discussion about business and my staff is chiming in, I would be pissed that person would never be back.

Jen: Yeah, but that's,

Todd: That's just being, that's just being me. That's just being real.

Jen: I think,

Todd: had that, we've had that happen before, where all of a sudden the educator, and I'm not saying you did this, but, the educator started talking about percents

Jen: oh yeah, yeah, no,

Todd: commission salons rip off people and all this stuff.

And I was like, wow, you're in a commission based salon.

Jen: I stay in my lane. I know where it is. I like to be right in it.

Todd: just [00:07:00] curious because it's, it's, I think this is part of the issue with a lot of people is that there's a lack of clarity anywhere. And there's just confusion because there's too many people trying to drive the ship. 

Jen: And

Todd: place.

Jen: case, this goes down to leadership. So this is where it all came from. I had said,

Todd: mean?

Jen: of like, basically everyone's complaining and I get it. They have these like stations where the products all go in the side. So all the products get lost.

So they might have, and they realized. A lot of the products I was talking about, they had in their shelves for Backbar, but either people hoard them or they just get hidden because they must never clean them or put them out. So I, I was explaining, I think they hoard them like they don't want to share them.

They want them at their station because they can't find any of the products that they're going to use. So, like,

Todd: don't understand. How big is this salon? Is it like a quarter mile across?

Jen: there's probably 8 stations, but if you don't know which station it is, you're having to look at 8 stations, so that's 16 sides. So you'd have to, if you don't have the product at your station, you're going in 16 [00:08:00] cubbies, or 15, because you have one, to find a product.

Todd: When, so, I'm so confused right now. So if I want to use hairspray, I have to go search it, search

Jen: Or people were trying to hoard them in their own cubbies so that they have it. Some people were hoarding 15 of them. They had them all in their cubby. It's a very odd system. It's very normal system

Todd: so is this, this is a commissioned space salon or a rent? So the salon owns those products, so why are they not just going back to where they're supposed to be?

Jen: I would assume. I don't know exactly.

Todd: a common

Jen: No, this is where I started to say, why don't you have a common area? This is what we do at, hello? It's a common area.

Todd: God, this is confusing.

Jen: This is where I think it's very normal actually, to be honest. 

Todd: So you go into the salon and there's no systems or nothing

Jen: don't think so. No.

Todd: Okay, go ahead, I'm just, I'm trying to help people understand it

Jen: So this is

Todd: I get confused, I feel like other people are going to get

Jen: this,

Todd: everyone's probably confused.

Jen: is where I was like, what, what we do at Hello works really, really [00:09:00] well. And I'm like, I used to have at my last salon the same station. So I understand the problems you're having with products getting lost or. They should just be cleaned and organized, but just not staying organized.

So it makes sense. And they have the space to do this, to have one area where you keep all your back bar. First of all, it's very clear as day where it all goes. And if you have a system of how it's put away, which we do, then it all stays organized. Over time, like now that we have a system with our backbar, it is always organized.

Everybody knows where to put everything and that's how they do it. And this way

Todd: open.

Jen: also, and this way too, when you're reordering, it's very easy to see what you're low for backbar products. So you're not just guessing or having to go through in her case, 16 stations to see, what do I need to replace? You know, I only need to have two or three hairsprays because we all share and it all goes back on, on the station.

So she was like, that's a great idea. But this is her exact answer was. Some of my staff will be all in some don't care and some won't do it at all. So she's like, so I, it's just wouldn't work here. [00:10:00] And this could have been now her whole staff's there. So they all hear her too.

Todd: Some of your staff can stay, some of your staff needs to work on some stuff, and some of your staff

Jen: Right. You just said, but so I don't think,

Todd: just solved the whole problem.

Jen: not that I don't think this watching this scenario from an outside standpoint, this salon is not led by a leader. I don't feel she's taken over and wants to like, Shake up the ship and be the owner and implement what she wants for a salon. She wants to own

very afraid.

And we had a little sidebar and I got all of that from her. And in return, she's starting to feel

I can see her feeling very defeated. We talked about that too. And actually, as we're sitting there, she was telling me she's been having all these headaches and all this stuff. And as I, you could watch this scenario of how the salon is run.

I think there's so many stresses. Cause she's like, they don't understand. They asked me literally, this is what she said. Yeah. They asked me to bring in these products. So I do. And I stock my shelves with a bunch of stuff for them to sell. And then they don't sell it. And then I'm at them like, why aren't you selling it?

And I'm like, and now in my [00:11:00] mind, I'm like, well, you should have a mission and a commission and mission, a vision and core values to make sure these products even work for your salon. But I think she's of the majority of a lot of. Salon owners that are trying or think they're leading a team by letting the team lead them, and then they don't understand why they're not profitable, why they're taking all these risks, and they're not working.

And it's because everything's kind of thrown to the wind, like, I'll just try this because that's what they want, and I want them to be happy. But at the end of the day, they, this staff clear is not happy and this owner's not happy either. So it's not working. But then to make changes is so uncomfortable.

That you're like, I'm just going to sit here and see what else maybe will work, which is nothing.

Todd: Yeah, good plan. Obviously that was sarcasm.

Jen: got that.

Todd: I just want to be clear for people listening. I don't even know where to begin on this. Do you have a question or

Jen: So I think,

Todd: just sounds like a cluster. And I'm not trying to be rude because I want to

Jen: no, I think it's great. I think anyone that's listening,

Todd: to help anybody. Yeah, I want to help

Jen: I [00:12:00] can relate.

Todd: Absolutely. I don't know if a person in that circumstances is open or willing for

Jen: Well, so, okay. So I think there's probably,

Todd: be willing to receive before somebody can give to you. Do you know what I mean? So it's, it's just a tricky situation. You also have like a rep in there that's trying to give their two cents and Like it's just too many.

It sounds like too many people trying to run it. Like the salon staffs trying to run it. You have people from the outside trying to help run it. You have the leader who's not leading, who's trying to run it. And that's when things get confusing. There's no hierarchy at all. And so, yeah, of course things suck. I,

Jen: so I guess it would be giving the advice of where, if you're an owner or wherever you are of any business, and you're just like, I, if you feel that same way, my staff won't listen. Some will, some won't, some will buy in, some won't care. And every. Every excuse comes to mind, right? It's always blaming.

Like, well, some aren't here all the time, so they're not going [00:13:00] to understand that we're putting new things in. Some are over here and they're only like half in, but we're like to that person. To me, the advice is, first of all, she's worried about too many things, right? It needs to be going back to getting a mission, a vision and core values.

Like, what do you stand for? And what do you want to see in the future for this company? Right. And then I guess it's Maybe a mindset for this person or anybody that's listening is like, that's me. And I don't know what I'm doing. And I didn't even realize I wasn't leading. And I didn't even know as I was letting my team lead me.

Cause I think there's, that happens, right? It's you get over time. If you're feeling exhausted, you just keep being like, all right, fine. Just do it. All right, fine. Just do it. And then you realize like, why is everybody just doing everything? I never co signed when you did, but like you. Didn't do it because of the way you want it to.

I think there's some, I guess, pieces of advice we could give if someone's in this scenario, like, what are a few things you could do besides just like, I don't fucking know.

Todd: Bye bye. No, I know the answers. It's just, it's, [00:14:00] it's like our, would that person even be willing to, I guess I'm, I was looking at it as we were talking to that person and not to

Jen: I think there's a lot of people in this scenario.

Todd: Or yeah, so the first thing is you've got to be open to change because if you're going to sit there, I think I just posted about this on Instagram or wherever, maybe it was in my newsletter.

I don't, I don't recall, but if you're going to sit there and just say that nobody's going to do it, nobody's going to do it, then you're not ready yet. To make any change.

Jen: I agree.

Todd: nothing that anybody says is going to

Jen: And are you also, as an owner, maybe you don't realize, are you working with the right team? You may need to change that. That's not comfortable either. But there's a point where you have to have the people in your, under your roof buying into what you want them to be doing.

Todd: I forget what I was saying before that. That's okay. It's not your fault. I was just saying like, you have to be ready. I guess my next thing would be [00:15:00] like, you have to have some sort of a system or something you've created. You can't just do this stuff on the fly. Hey guys, today we're keeping this here. Like, no, where do we keep it every day? Like, and that stuff needs to be drawn up and written out, like, like I joked about when we opened, we had, this is where the back bar is, this is where you return everything, and I still get annoyed, sometimes I, You know, sometimes people forget, but sometimes people are just freaking lazy. And at the end of your shift, you might be tired.

So you don't put products back and then guess what? That's the product somebody is looking for. And it's just a pain in the butt. So the shit back. Like that's our, that's one of our like few rules, you

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: But it's something that we opened with. We have shelving where all of the backbar products go that way.

We don't have to look for it. Obviously, if it's not there and it's a busy day, you glance around and you're like, Oh, we only had one of those left. And somebody has it. Like, that's not what I'm talking about. You know, when you're finished using something, it needs to go back to where it is. That's a [00:16:00] really super basic system, you know?

But if you're not willing to put that system in, then nobody knows it exists. So you can't get upset that you didn't, you can't get upset that people know stuff that you didn't tell them.

Jen: Right.

Todd: Step two or three or B or Q or wherever we're at with this cluster would be to I'm not, I'm not making light of it, but it's, I am kind of, aren't

Jen: Okay.

Todd: Anyways you have to understand the people you're dealing with. You have to have some sort of empathy, ask yourself why, and this is going to suck if you're an owner or a leader, manager, whatever in your salon or any business. I've had to do this in the past. Nobody's doing what you want them to do. When you ask yourself why they're not doing that, it's going to come back to

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: You're the reason they're not doing that. Why? Because, again, you don't have any systems and you're not leading

Jen: Right.

Todd: You have to lead. If you're not willing to tell people that they screwed up or that they're doing something [00:17:00] that's subpar or not meeting satisfactory requirements of, you know, working at your business, If you're not going to tell them that stuff, they're not going to know that.

I think I messed that sentence up, but I'm just going to move on.

Jen: No, I think I would agree. If you don't tell them, then they don't know. And if you don't tell them, they're going to do it again and again. And at some point you're so frustrated, but you never ever even let them know that what they were doing was frustrating you. Like you have to have these hard conversations.

It's not easy, but it's, it's your job as a leader, as an owner.

Todd: You know, another thing you can do as well, if you're listening and you're struggling with buy in from your team is to just have some, some sort of collaboration, so tell them that you're open to their ideas, but then make it very clear that you're still going to make a decision based on what you believe is best for the business.

Jen: Love that.

Todd: So we're, we're always open with our team. I'm always looking for feedback. I'm always. know, I, I really don't like spending time in the, in our break room, but I do sometimes sneak back there [00:18:00] and just chat with people and try to get feedback or try to get how people are feeling, how people are thinking about certain things, and then take that into consideration because, you know, they're the ones working behind the chair.

Most of the time, they're the ones that are, you know, working in the salon. And if we can logistically make things easier for them. want to be able to do that. But that's not the same thing as letting, letting the, what is the saying about letting the crazy people run the asylum or whatever? Something like that, like that's not what you want to

Jen: Right.

Todd: And I know sometimes people will be like, well, I don't want to, shake things up, but you really kind of do, you need to.

Jen: Yes. More often than not.

Todd: The other thing I would recommend is some sort of actual training. Like what have you done to train these people? Like you said, this, this example of, [00:19:00] of a salon and you said it's common.

And I've heard you talk about this a lot because you've been in a lot of salons and a lot of them run that way where it's just sort of whatever. And then the owner gets pissed because it's not going their way, but everyone's just been doing whatever for so long. So what. Like if you're an owner, what sort of training have you provided?

And I'm not talking about you signed them up for an online blonding course, talking about training in your salon. When we were opening, hello, we ran through with our team. A couple of days worth of like a soft opening almost where we brought people in and we worked through the workflow and we moved things around.

And we were like, this needs to go here. We thought this would be better here, but needs to move here. And then We worked the space and then you have to support them after, which would mean follow ups and checking up with them. Yeah, I would, I would do all of that stuff.

Jen: I agree. And those should be things that you've already been doing. And those, if they seem [00:20:00] overwhelming to you, you've got to start with one because those are just things that should be on the daily, like that you're just always doing,

Todd: you, said in this example, I, I think I was trying to get at this and then I kind of lost my thought, but you said in this example, it's a new owner. So somebody came in and bought this salon. What did they buy? Was, like, what is, like, so if this salon came and was like, we want you to help us right this ship, I would be like, great. Let's start with your foundation stuff. I'll need to see that. And then I'll need to see your playbook or your staff handbook or whatever. Like, so if you don't have that stuff, what did you purchase equipment? Like,

Jen: I don't know.

Todd: yeah. So is it an actual business? Like, is there, is there anything that I can hold that's like sellable

Jen: Don't know.

Todd: equipment?

Jen: Right.

Todd: Like, so what, what I guess I would ask them, like, what are, what are we working from? You know, it should be a staff handbook, right?[00:21:00] 

Jen: Should be.

Todd: So if you,

Jen: And hopefully if there was, then you reinvented it for what you wanted.

Todd: yeah, yeah, I just, I'm, hard to talk about this stuff without any more detail, I

Jen: Too bad it wasn't an interview, not an interview, but you know, I

Todd: but yeah, I would, you need that stuff. If you don't have a handbook, you have to have a handbook. If you don't have foundations, like what, when that person came in, were they buying, did they buy into the mission and the vision and the core principles of the existing business, if not, they needed to have an attack plan for how they were going to implement that stuff and how they were going to. Make changes. Like if one, if one salon owner's vision includes education and one salon owners does not, those salon businesses look drastically different. So you're going to need a process where you're weeding out [00:22:00] probably people like staff included, because if you have a bunch of people that are expecting weekly education and. You're not somebody that's looking to provide that, then those people aren't going to work there because they shouldn't work there.

Jen: think in this area too, yeah, I wonder if when, and I, I, you see it often that people are getting, they're getting rid of their salon and or selling it or whatever. And people think it's a good deal to be buying it and not realizing, like, maybe it looks profitable on paper. It's like, Oh, this is great. But also like you said, like, do you align with what the salon is doing?

What are you going to do to make it your own? Like, these are things you should be thinking of. And when you come in, what is your presence going to do? In this scenario where I'm just like, Oh, I have a salon now, which I think often people even just open, like, Oh, I have a salon, I'm an owner. I prefer to tell nobody I'm the owner.

I don't want you to know that's me. Mm hmm.

Todd: with our staff is that we try to appreciate the why. So whenever we make a change, we'll have some staff that are like, why would we do that? Or [00:23:00] we'll have staff that tries to come to us and they're like, Hey, I thought about this and we should do it this way.

And which is cute. But I didn't ask because we already thought about it from every angle, trust The thing that the staff are looking for is the why. They want to understand. So, if you understand why your staff wouldn't buy in, I guess, to your changes, then that might help you too. So what are some reasons that staff might not buy in to your changes? I think the first one would be lack of quality. Communication clear communication and that would again come from your business foundations and your principles and how you make your decisions. So if your staff doesn't know that. running your business from a certain perspective or back that up. If you don't know that you're running it from a certain perspective, then how are they

Jen: Right.

Todd: they're not, they're not, it's impossible. So you have to have some sort of [00:24:00] clear communication. we're constantly talking about our core values at our business because it's important

Jen: Mm hmm. Mm

Todd: how we make our decisions. Integrity is the first one. We deal with it all the

Jen: hmm.

Todd: Hey. that is what you're about to do or is what you're considering something that you could say has

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: you know, and it should be really clear

Jen: All the time.

Todd: yes or no, right? I, I think for a lot of people, it's simply the fear of the

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: So I don't want change because this works

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: though I'm miserable. People would rather stay miserable than change.

Jen: I was going to say fear is a huge one.

Todd: yeah, fear and we all have it, but a good leader can show you what it's going to look like on the other side and how it's going to benefit you and the business, which benefits everybody.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: But you need that good leader. That's the missing piece

Jen: I think to with that, a lot of times I think fear is a big one.

Todd: it's all, it's all clarity.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: It's all just breaks down to

Jen: I think when you're fearful [00:25:00] of doing things and until you get on the other side of that where now you're excited about your idea. If you present it when you're in the stage of fear. Everyone around you is fearful, but if you've gotten to the stage of excitement and then you when you when you present your new idea or these new systems and you're so excited, that is so contagious, just as the fear part would be.

But if you're showing them exciting inspiration, it's gonna be really fun. Like, and this is what we're gonna get out of it. And to what you just said, Todd, this is why we're doing this. You come in with this enthusiastic idea. You are going to get more embracement than not. And you're always going to get pushback or you're always going to get people asking questions as they process it.

A lot of times then if someone's asking you a question as they're processing it, now you feel pushback. It's not always pushback. They're just processing it. And everybody has a different way of doing that. Then as your staff grows, you get different people with different ways of processing. So as a leader, it's, you know, Your job to let them process and then come back, but not lose your steam and not take some of their processing as the pushback [00:26:00] that may not be what it is.

And even if it is a little, it's still your job to keep leading in the same direction and pushing forward and get them excited with you. Or then you're in a position where the decision needs to be made. Is this person right for your team or not? Those again, aren't easy things, but this is how you progress your business.

You took all the risk and how you get your business to where you want it to be.

Todd: My next point too, I wanted to make was there's probably some sort of lack in. Of trust, right? From the staff to the leadership. They're not necessarily buying in and we, we talk about buy in so often that it's probably annoying people listening. If somebody came in and bought salon, what, how would our staff feel? Would they believe that they're Jen and Todd? know what I mean? Would they truly trust them? Would they buy into their vision? I don't know. That person would have to sell that to the, to the team, which is what it sounds like this person has

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: And their way that you would do that is through consistency and modeling the behavior that you want to see. And [00:27:00] holding people accountable for the behavior that you don't want to see, you cannot let stuff slide because then it's just when you let the first thing slide, and I'm not talking about being hard on your staff, but I'm talking about accountability, which I hate to sound old. I'm Gen X. Okay, so I hate to sound like a boomer here, but know, back in the day, your boss told you what to do and you did it or you didn't have a job. That's how it went. Nowadays, everyone is super sensitive and that's just too bad. You can't, you're not in charge. I think we have to get back to as owners, as business owners in general, not just salon staff, but any business, we have to get back to these are the guidelines, rules, whatever you want to call them.

I don't care.

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: And if you can't follow these rules, you can't be

Jen: Right.

Todd: But people live in fear so often that that's, but that's on, that's a different topic that's on the lawn [00:28:00] owner. Like, I don't know, go take some class or something somewhere or hire a mentor or whatever, work your own shit. But you, you can't be a leader if you're constantly going to be like. I don't want to shake things up. just not going to work. I think people had negative experiences in the past as

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: big one. We hear that all

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: And I tell people I I'm so blunt about it. People were laughing on Saturday. Someone said what my last salon? And I said, fuck your last salon. do not care. Don't bring it up anymore. I don't want to hear about it. It's, and it's not anything against the specific salons. It's not, it's just your past experiences. Don't bring them with you,

Jen: And we want it. You need to come into our salon with an open mind. If this is what you're doing now, that's why we all picked each other, right? You're so stuck in the past. You're never going to arrive in the present.

Todd: Yeah. And you might think I'm great. If you're just listening, you're like, I would never talk to my staff like that. Okay, cool. Don't, but I'll tell you what it's effective because I had [00:29:00] everybody laughing. And then I explained exactly what I

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: I wasn't saying like F you to

Jen: Right.

Todd: I was just saying, get the idea of everything negative, which includes that last salon out of your head. Why are you holding onto

Jen: It's got to go.

Todd: We only have so much

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: Yeah. It has to go because I need you to focus on the positive stuff that you're doing now. I guess the other thing it like where people could run into issues to kind of wrapping up is just like a low morale sort of thing where people are like, why would I do that?

No one else

Jen: Right.

Todd: And that's that's I guess you'll just have to re inspire people. You'll have to as a leader come in and celebrate people. You'll have to be like, Hey, You, it could be little silly stuff, like just complimenting their work or shouting them out on social media, or you should have some sort of private communication.

We use Slack you can shout people out on there. Hey, you got this review and I wanted to share it with everybody. Not just you, you

Jen: Right.

Todd: [00:30:00] pumps people up and it makes them feel good and it makes them feel engaged. And it definitely shows your staff that you're bought in, that you're actually paying attention.

You're not just. not just like a number to you,

Jen: Yeah. It

Todd: remember at your last salon wanting to, when I came in to help out with stuff, I was like, this person has to go and. resistance was that person brings in a shit ton of money. Well, I don't know what to tell you.

You, so you can have it one way or the other way, but that's not going to, you're not going to have both. It's just not going to work. And I was right. It didn't work. I was right again. No, I'm just kidding. Do you have anything else to wrap it up? I feel like I sort of took over

Jen: was great. I talked the whole time in the beginning. No, I think that's awesome. And hopefully it helps some people think of some, maybe just different things and different approach. Ways to approach things, and if you're feeling, you know, kind of like you can't push ahead, [00:31:00] you're gonna have to internally ask yourself why, and, and do some work on yourself, and, or like you said, hire a mentor, even a, a call with us like once sometimes can help just get you inspired and feeling like, alright, I got this, like I, I can see a few things I can do right now, and I can make a plan for the future of things I can do in a little bit.

Todd: Yeah, and I want to be clear to people listening, like, I don't think I'm, I know I come across sarcastic and dry a lot, but I don't think I'm better than anybody, but I do think I'm really good at is adapting and changing. I think we're really good and we taught ourselves and we've worked hard to be able to pivot. And when things come up, they're not the end of the world to us anymore, because I'll sit back on it. You, you had a couple of things that you wanted to bring up to me. Yesterday and you normally would and sometimes that leads to friction because not the right time. we're having like family, my phone light just turned on. We're having like family time and stuff. It's not business time. So [00:32:00] it would have not worked. We've learned how to sort of sit on certain things that need to be sat on. Some things can go on the back burner for longer than you think, and some things need immediate attention. And it's okay wherever those fall. Some stuff is going to be able to be changed instantly, and some stuff is going to take weeks, months, or however long. that's just the reality. You can't become frustrated with it. If there's a process or something that you want to implement, say you 2025, you're probably not going to sit down and do that in two days. That's probably going to take you some work. You're probably going to have to reach out to people unless you're doing it all yourself, right? Unless you're a heavy lifter and someone like you that educates. Like, but if you're bringing people in for classes, you're not going to be able to lay that out in a week. It's going to take some legwork. So don't, don't become frustrated. I'm yeah, that's it. All right, get on my newsletter list

Jen: It's a good one.

Todd: If you're not on there get on there. You can click the button. I'll put it in the I'll put it in several [00:33:00] spots. I've been getting a lot of good feedback from it.

Jen: That's good.

Todd: and which makes anytime you get good feedback.

You're like, all right, I'll

Jen: Yeah, it's exciting.

Todd: because I definitely had some periods where I was like anyone reading this thing who cares like I'll just stop doing it and

Jen: And someone goes, Oop, I love your newsletter,

Todd: yeah.

Jen: Mm-Hmm.

Todd: because it pulls me back in. And then I was like, you know what? I got a couple of those. I'm going to restructure this just for fun. And I restructured the whole thing. So every I'll just give, give it, give it a plug. Right. So restructured it into like a three to one style, which you've probably seen if you get newsletters and you should, you should be getting newsletters because there's so much free, amazing information

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: And what I do is I share three business insights every week that'll help you either as a business owner. or as someone with their career. And then I share two either quotes or stories, and then I end with a question or a thought I leave you to think about.

Jen: It's awesome. Mm-Hmm?

Todd: of fun. And I will say that all [00:34:00] of the stuff that I write about is stuff that we've done,

Jen: Mm-Hmm.

Todd: Hello!,

with our gym, With your past salon, with businesses that I've run or managed. It's all stuff that I've actually done. It's not theory or, Oh, this sounds cool. Like, this could work for businesses. Cause I see a lot of that stuff. I unsubscribe to

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: Where it's like, this could work. And you're like, you did not do that.

Jen: Love

Todd: way you did that. It doesn't even make sense. But anyways, yeah, it's all stuff that's coming from a business operator from, from my perspective, and it's designed to just help whoever's reading. That's all I

Jen: it.

Todd: All right, we'll see you next time. Thanks, everyone.

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