Christmas Countdown: Self-Care & Staff Ideas [EP:171]

Preparing for the Holidays: Staff Parties, Self-Care, and Business Insights

Jen and Todd dive into topics to prepare for the holidays. 

They emphasize the importance of self-care during the busy season, discussing topics such as hydration and rest for their salon staff. 

They share insights on managing slower business periods and planning for future growth. 

The team also outlines their salon’s fun holiday plans, including a catered party, Secret Santa, and personalized gifts for their staff. 

They stress the value of maintaining a consistent marketing strategy and supporting local businesses year-round. 

The episode concludes with a reminder for business owners to reflect their brand's values in their holiday activities.

00:00 Welcome and Holiday Countdown
00:33 Today's Topics Overview
01:09 Opening Takes: Slow Success and Life Lessons
06:08 The Christmas Tree Struggles
09:19 Taking Care of Yourself During the Holidays
12:45 Why Business Might Be Slower Than Expected
17:22 Building a Consistent Brand Identity
18:25 Holiday Staff Activities and Bonuses
19:25 Personal Touches for Staff Celebrations
23:46 Thoughtful Holiday Gifts for Staff
26:29 Encouraging a Fun and Relaxed Atmosphere
29:17 Wrapping Up and Reaching Out

Links and Stuff:
Our Newsletter
Mentoring Inquiries

Find more of our things:
Instagram
Hello Hair Pro Website

Transcript

171
===

[00:00:00] 

Todd: All right, welcome back. What's up, everyone? Happy Monday. we have two Mondays before Christmas?

Jen: I think, yes,

Todd: week you corrected me. I think I said there was two weeks and you were like, it's two and a half.

Jen: I think,

Todd: I said there's two or three weeks until Christmas and you were like, it's two and a

Jen: I think right now it's actually two and a half to be honest,

Todd: Okay.

Jen: two Mondays and then a half. I don't know. Anyway,

Todd: likes being corrected.

Jen: I would agree. It happens often around this house.

Todd: So, it does. So, we're talking about a few different things today. We're talking about taking care of yourself. I think that's an underrated thing that people need to look at. You're just better, right? We'll talk about it. But, you gotta take care of yourself first. You're no good to anybody if you're junk.

Jen: Agreed.

Todd: we're talking about people that are slower than expected. I think a lot of people are struggling this time of year who thought they would be busier or [00:01:00] whatever. We'll jump into that. And then another topic, which is staff holiday stuff. Like what are you doing for your staff? If anything, do you need to do stuff for your staff? I don't know. We'll talk about it, but we'll start with opening takes. Do you have one or do

Jen: You can go first.

Todd: to go? I'll go first. So I actually, I have two, I'll give you two quick ones. Okay. Thanks. Or actually one's quick, one's a story. That'll give you time. So I heard this the other day and I was like, I agree with that 100 percent that slow success builds character, fast success builds ego. And I thought, how perfect

Jen: Mm hmm. Mm

Todd: a social media world that we live in where everybody wants, you know, a million followers and thinks, if can just do this one thing, I'll have all the success. But you're, you're missing all the other things that everybody's doing before that stuff. You know what I mean?

Like the whole bottom of the iceberg, I'm sure everyone's familiar with that photo where they show an iceberg and on the tip is like success, but all the stuff that's under the ocean, [00:02:00] all the years of work, all the practice, all the mentoring, all the books, all the, podcasts they've listened to, whatever, to get to where they are. My second point I wanted to make, this one's a little A little more in depth is that got to be ready for anything in life and business in Relationships in having kids whatever. You're going to make what you believe to be the best possible choice and sometimes you're going to get smacked in the freaking face for it because that's just the way the universe works.

So I'll share a story. I met Jen. I don't remember what year, what year did we meet?

Jen: Two thousand, I think.

Todd: Probably 2000. So we went to a party. Do you remember this story? Do

Jen: I don't know where you're going with it, so no. A

Todd: We went to a

Jen: little scared.

Todd: Jen was of age. She was 22, 23 and I was 20. So I was not 21. [00:03:00] Somebody at the party says, I'm gonna go get more beer.

Jen: Oh yeah.

Todd: had been drinking. They had been drinking a lot. So I came up with this brilliant plan and said, hey, I was gonna go grab some sandwiches or pizzas or whatever we were going to grab. We were going to grab some food. Jen's old enough to buy you beer. So these people that are involved, these people are all over 21, so I think, I'll drive Jen, pick up the sandwiches, they can pick up whatever beer they need, and we'll come back. And I'm doing service, because we don't want somebody that's been drinking on the road, right?

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: Well, it didn't work out as planned. even though I was doing the right thing, a cop pulled us over because they saw Jen come out of the store.

I think it was like a 7 Eleven or

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: So Jen comes out of the store, sticks the beer in the back seat, hops in the car, we got our [00:04:00] food. We got the beverages, we're going back to the party. Now, had not been drinking. I didn't have any alcohol, not drinking, driving. Get pulled over, long story short, cop does not care. He says, I know what you're doing, I know you're doing the right thing. It's still technically illegal. You should have had her drive. And we were with another friend too that was of age. You should have had one of them ladies drive. So I thought he'd let me off because I was doing the right thing. No, I got charged with whatever, whatever they call it, like a minor and possession of alcohol or whatever in New Hampshire. It's not a huge deal, my point is, even if you're trying to do the right thing and keep somebody that's been drinking off of the road, you're still going to get screwed over sometimes.

Jen: And maybe walk home too with the pizza or the food.

Todd: Yep, made you walk home. They confiscated the

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: in New Hampshire. They view the driver. I don't even know if it's still like this.

This was 20 something years ago. The [00:05:00] driver is the one that's in possession of everything vehicle. So even though I wasn't drinking, even though I couldn't reach the alcohol, it's not like I was, Going to drink it on the way back. Nobody was drinking in the car. Nobody had been drinking. I still got screwed over and still had to go home and explain to my parents why I got arrested for possession of alcohol .

So you might laugh at that story, but I was thinking about it the other day. And I was like, I really want to share this story because sucked.

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: feel, I still don't feel like I did anything wrong, but I technically, I guess in the eyes of the law, they didn't care.

Jen: Correct. And then you just got bailed out in like two seconds. It was wicked stupid.

Todd: Yeah. And then the person who I went to the store with. Was pissed because or not to the store with but to the store for was pissed because they towed his vehicle and I was like, you want me to do I got I went to jail for you, bro.

Jen: Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: I did time for you. Yeah. So [00:06:00] that's my story. Stick into it.

Jen: Okay. I like it.

Todd: prepared.

Jen: All right. So I don't really have much, but I just want to talk about people who get Christmas trees because I feel like, so we do a real tree and a fake tree and every year I put the fake tree up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right after Halloween, because I just like it. It's pretty and makes me happy. And then the day after Christmas, I mean, Thanksgiving, we go get our real treat, which in theory, I love this whole idea, but somehow it always stresses me out to where it's not enjoyable.

So really what I'm, I would like to know if somebody would please reach out to me is do you and your family every year, have fun getting a Christmas tree because the year before it was the stupid stand and I don't know, but I knew you, I get a new stand every year, trying to make it a better, better stand.

And the. Damn tree. Always. It's just a pain to get in there and I can't screw it in. Right. And it's sideways and I'm mad and I'm angry and I want to throw the tree over the deck. And then finally we get it up and it's all [00:07:00] beautiful. So this year I was like, I'm going to avoid this stupid stand issue. And I'm going to invest in a great stand, which.

By the way, you must admit it was like 130 for a stand. I'm like, is this really going to be worth it? But I will say the stand was worth it, but still, for some reason, when it was the best stand ever, like if you want a gift for somebody that's like getting married, that's going to do a real tree. Everyone in the world should have this stand.

It is. So it took the stand stress off my plate, but somehow still, when we got to this tree thing, I don't even know what's happening. I was just in a bad mood and it still was not this most fun, magical time of the year. And a lot of my clients that I talked to are like getting a tree is just so not magical.

And. I'm going to have to agree. Maybe I just have to lower the bar. Getting a tree is not always magical and it is what it is, but really, I'd like to know if someone does have some magical tree experience that I'm missing out on. And maybe I need to reevaluate next year how we go get our tree, but getting a good tree stand does make a difference.

Opening tape.

Todd: I think part of it [00:08:00] is we go the day after Thanksgiving. So you've been sitting around a fat ass eating food for like two days, having too many drinks, having some cocktails. And usually in the Northeast, it's that's around when it starts to get a little bit actually cold.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: So we're not completely prepared.

We're like in hoodies probably we should have had jackets and some gloves. I think that's part of it. You know what I mean? Like

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: it's just, we're not, we're not geared, we're not prepared yet.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: so we try to force this thing. Cause this is what we do. We go the day after Thanksgiving and whatever. Other thing is too, that we have three kids that are crazy lunatics. And one of them's rolling down the hill and one of them's running around looking for the perfect Christmas tree and he thinks it should be taller. And, Gwen is just Gwen. She's like, is it time for hot chocolate yet?

Jen: Seriously.

Todd: I was irritated too, because somebody was tailgating, Excuse me, some kid was tailgating me on the whole [00:09:00] way there, and then when I was turning in, I slowed way down, and he started flipping me off. And I'm like, dude, you're the

Jen: So not magical.

Todd: going, going over the speed limit. by a lot. If there's any officers listening, cause I don't want to go back to jail. But anyway, yeah, so I'm not sure. It's just, it is what it is. Let's get to some business stuff. So I know it's the holidays, so our brains are everywhere. So the first thing I want to touch on is taking care of yourself.

Jen: So important.

Todd: tell people, tell people what you do for our staff. Cause I know you, we do a lot of mentoring for our team and just having them ready to be at their best. And as you would say, arrive at their best self or whatever, whatever you say. talk about that a little bit because younger people, they're not, they're not trained. They're not tired yet. might think they are

Jen: It can push through certain things, but

Todd: Your body recovers so much

Jen: yeah.

Todd: it recovers now, you

Jen: So,

Todd: at

Jen: I do feel this time of year we're going to talk about how some people aren't feeling as busy as they are, but in our [00:10:00] salon currently most of the staff is busier than they're used to during the year. So I am always reminding them, did you drink water?

Have you had water today? It's like being like a mom in the salon, but it's a, it's such a silly thing, but I'll ask like, I haven't had any water today. And I'm like, and you wonder why you're not feeling great. So, you know, water. I also say a lot of them order takeout, I get it, whatever. They don't pack their food.

That's fine. But I, I, we coach them to bring snacks in because even though your food may come and usually you can just eat it cause you have more downtime other months, this month is generally going to book in. If you have a gap, you're going to be busier than you. are used to. So you need to make sure you're eating throughout the day.

And that may just mean snacking till you can get to eating your big meal. But it's just really taking care of yourself. We've had a few people that even run down, got sick and one of them was leaving Saturday. I'm like, make sure you get some rest over the weekend. Make sure you really take some time to let your body heal.

We've got a busy two weeks coming up and like, I know But it's reminding them to like take a break because they're trying to go out with their friends and do this and friends giving, and then this party and that party, and [00:11:00] then, you know, whatever else is happening and then come to work and they're wondering why they feel banged up.

So again, it's just reminding them like that, you know, drinking water, eating healthy, fueling your body and taking some rest, exercise, move, go for a walk certain things just to keep them in a good head space while we're coming into the holidays. And then, you know, hopefully it creates some really good Muscle memory type thing that they continue into next year.

That would be really, or some really great habits, right? That they continue into next year and realizing when they are drinking water that they feel their best. We actually this year had got a big water bubbler because people weren't drinking more water. And we thought we were out of water, a big one, one day.

And one of the girls was like, Hey I don't think we have water and I didn't like fill up my jug before. And I'm like, Nope, there's an extra one over here. And she was just like, Oh, great. I need water during the day. And this is someone that probably last year drank no water at all. So it's such, it's maybe such a silly thing to drink water, but it's really important to drink water.

Todd: Well, before this, I was a personal trainer. And so not drinking water is absolutely wild to me.

Jen: Yeah, me too.

Todd: Like to tell [00:12:00] people, I do want to go back though, because I've seen a bunch of stuff online and different groups. will say, I treat my stuff, staff like they're my children. So when Jen says, I'm trying, I'm almost like a mom, like she means in that sense, in

Jen: Yeah. Don't not a mom to them. I have enough kids.

Todd: If you're doing that, if you're treating people like they're your children, you're going to have a bad time. They're employees

Jen: Yes.

Todd: should be treated. You can treat employees well,

Jen: Yes.

Todd: they are not your family and I don't know why you would want more family. Maybe your family is perfect, but I think our family is just exactly where it needs to be. You've got to treat employees as employees and it just, there's got to be lines there. So let's jump into because we want to keep this stuff moving, right? Let's jump into people are slower than they've been. They're expected or are slower than they had expected. They were going to be what's going on there. have some thoughts, but you.

Jen: I'm sure there's a lot of things. One, I would say, if you didn't [00:13:00] set your year up to be busier, you can't just expect to be busier. It doesn't just happen like that. So there's steps that you take throughout, which is what you would plan coming into 2020, 2025, to Every month gradually get busier and you should see an uptick every month ish, or at least, you know, kind of normalize.

There's always some months that maybe there's not an uptick, but things that you're doing every month throughout the year to get you to the end of the year. We talk a lot about marketing, SEO, Google friendly stuff, like these are things that get your brand in front of more and more and more clients.

And in today's world, you need to be seeing a multiple. on multiple times in order for a client to want to come in. It's not just about referrals anymore. It's, it's making sure that you've got all your marketing things happening throughout the year so that it sets you up. So your whole year starts to get busier and busier.

Every month should be a little busier. But it is interesting to me, there's this mindset of like December. She's going to be busy just because it's the holidays. And in [00:14:00] fact, that is not actually true. There are a lot of people that will push off December, spend their money, other places, and then you may see them in January or February.

We just talked about taking care of yourself. A lot of times in December, people actually put themselves last on the list. So that means getting their hair done does not actually happen, or they do something at home to get them over. Cause they don't either have the money or the time to spend getting their hair done, where I do feel.

Years past maybe like even 10 years ago, it was a big deal. More parties were happening and things like that. But in today's world, I don't see it as being the number one thing is, is their hair getting done for the holidays? They don't mind putting it off.

Todd: I think people are slower because of the planning, like you said, and because they, they aren't keeping up with stuff year round. Like, I see a lot of people that are probably complacent throughout their year and just think like, well, it'll be busy when it's busy or it'll be slow when it's slow and there's nothing you can do about it.

And I don't know where that mindset comes from. I don't know if that's something that's taught in schools. Where

Jen: I don't know.

Todd: going to just [00:15:00] have slow times. Like I, for example, we talked about this before we hit record, but you see a lot of like shop, small business, small business Saturday or whatever, whoever made that up, I don't know who made that up.

Probably Amazon, probably the biggest company ever.

Jen: Probably.

Todd: I, if, if that's so important to you, why aren't you talking about it more than just this one time a year you were talking,

Jen: That should be your vision for the whole year.

Todd: Yeah. If it's that important to you, otherwise leave it alone.

You're just, you're just monkey see monkey do. I used to say all the time when we first started this podcast, but you're just mimicking like a parrot because you saw some influencer, write shop small. And now you're like, Oh, small business Saturday. Now there's nothing wrong with asking people to support small business, but it seems weird that you're only doing it that one

Jen: Right.

Todd: the year. it's again, if it's important to you. not make it a focal point? Why not talk about that every week? Why not go on Instagram, social media, Facebook, [00:16:00] YouTube, whatever you use, or start a blog, or have a podcast, or do one of the other million things you could do, and talk about how people can support small businesses.

Jen: And also, you know what that would do when small business Saturday comes up, they're going to think of you because you've been in their brain every week, every month, and now all the advertising, the big companies do on that day, I think it's, is it in December or I don't know, whatever it is, they're going to think of just your business because you've been talking to them.

Todd: Yeah. I, I think it's a, it's a noble cause. You just, if you want to support small businesses, support small businesses, talk about the things you're doing. What are you doing? I see this post too, and it irritates me. I don't even know why it's just like a pet peeve, but I'll see this post and every single person listening.

If you have Instagram, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. It'll say here are 10 ways to support a small business with that cost. 0 tell a friend, leave a like, leave a review, do all this stuff, right? What are you doing? Are you doing that stuff for the business next door to you down the street? [00:17:00] Like what are you doing? And so if it's important to you and you're making it part of like your culture or your brand is this small business thing. make it woe, is me. But flip it. Hey guys, I'm supporting this small business. Hey, we're doing this. I'm going to go over to this place and bring my staff for lunch or for coffee or whatever to support a small local business.

That stuff is cool. And that stuff is something that could be trendy and catch on. And if you do it right, it could, again, be part of your sort of brand identity. And people will think about it. So you don't have to wait until You know, the Saturday after Thanksgiving or whenever it is to be like, support, small business, support, small business, come buy a gift card, cut it out, cut it out.

Cause everybody sees right through that stuff. I wish there was a nicer way to say it. I'm trying to be as nice as possible.

Jen: I think it's a great point to make, like if it's, it's silly when it's just one day, but if that's your thing, then you should be consistently driving that message. All the time.

Todd: So[00:18:00] 

Jen: With anything you do.

Todd: This is totally random, but she's sitting over there. I, so she's not near me, but we just got a cat. So if you're watching on a clip or something, or I'll put this on Instagram, here's a picture of her

Jen: She's so cute. Her name is Sora.

Todd: So anyways we're talking about holiday staff stuff. So what is, sorry, it's the holidays. It's random.

Jen: We got a cat.

Todd: Do what I want. It's also my podcast, or our podcast, so I'll do whatever I want.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: what are people doing for their staff? I see all sorts of stuff, like, should I bonus my staff? Should I do this? Should I do that? I'm interested in getting your thoughts, because I know what you're doing. But I think it just, it just depends. Like what, like what is sort of the vibe? What is your

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: you, are you a salon that's like formal business KPIs like this based numbers, numbers all year, it probably. That's our dog barking for probably

Jen: [00:19:00] Amazon.

Todd: shop small. Just kidding people.

Don't hate me. If you're like that super structured business sort of thing, like maybe a bonus, like maybe a

Jen: I would agree. Yeah.

Todd: what's appropriate there. Cause that's what you're, you're, you're.

Jen: You're driving that. Yeah. Absolutely.

Todd: exactly. Are you somebody that's sort of chill vibe?

Like I would say that's probably us.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: can talk about what we're doing, but it just kind of depends. I see a lot of people that are like, I take my staff out for a nice dinner. Like that's fun too. We've tried the dinner stuff before and in taking the staff out and it's, it's fun. It's fine. It's just, you're not going to be able to talk to everybody.

You're sitting at a

Jen: Yeah. You can only talk to who's either next to you or across from you.

Todd: Yeah, so like for us that doesn't really work. We're too we're like too chill for that. So it's not to say that we won't go out around Christmas and definitely in January and say to our team like, hey, Friday after we close, we're going to go over [00:20:00] to there's a restaurant

Jen: It's always nice to

Todd: next to us. Small biz, support, support local.

Jen: have a free out.

Todd: you know, we'll say like if anybody wants to come out, have a cocktail, whatever, we usually will pick up the tab for that and have fun. But why don't you talk about what we're doing this year? Because we have a few, a few little things, I think.

Jen: Yeah. And I can because this will air after our holiday party. So to what you're saying, I think Todd and I take great, great pride in getting to know all of our staff. So things that they like and all that. So to me at the holidays, it's really it's fun to. Gift, give, because we have a pulse on our staff.

And we have tried going out in the past, like you said, for dinners and stuff. And it's just super not chill and it it's not fun. It's not fun at all. So we will do our party at the salon, which Todd has catered for the past couple of years. But this year we decided to support in our town, the local Mexican place, and we're going to have them cater it.

So. That it's just less work and it also caters to the [00:21:00] needs of all the dietary restrictions with the staff. So again, we had to take that into consideration and Mexican works for all that. Then we supply, you know Todd's going to make a fancy dessert that will also meet all the dietary needs. And then we did a secret Santa.

So we

Todd: I would call cookies fancy.

Jen: Well, again, thoughtful, right? It wasn't just like, let's just get a bunch of desserts. Like, you know what people can eat and not eat. So he's like, I'm going to make these cookies because everybody can eat them. So again, it's just,

Todd: will love them. Yeah, I

Jen: yeah,

Todd: my gym. They're

Jen: you know,

Todd: little bit of a twist on a chocolate chip cookie, and it's not anything crazy, but they're really good.

Jen: but it's also taking the consideration who, what, what is this party for? It's not for us. It's for our staff. So making sure we're hitting all the things that makes it about our staff and not about Todd and I like, Oh, look what a great year we had or whatever. It's all about the staff. So we have a secret Santa.

We all got picked,

Todd: is a key, that really is a key component too. Like this holiday party isn't for me to sit in the middle of a sofa and [00:22:00] have everybody around me and take a picture to be like,

Jen: right?

Todd: am. Now if you do that, I'm not knocking you.

Jen: But this is what we do. And

Todd: but it's all in good fun.

Holiday cheer people.

Jen: we make it about the staff. So we, this year have one of our staff. Her name is Brooke and Brooke, I would call captain fun. I am not into games at all, but Brooke for this party wants to play games. So we are going to give her some money and she is putting together a bunch of games that I will play for her.

To be supportive, but I'm definitely not usually into organized fun, but that's a, we've never played games like this before, but with Brooke on our staff, she's like, I really want to do this. I want everyone to have fun and everyone's embracing it. And I think it's actually looking forward to it. But again, it's about our staff and what they want this party to be.

So we're chill. It's like staff led. And then there's gifts that we do. So this part.

Todd: gonna get into the games,

Jen: Yeah, because it's what they want us to do. Right.

Todd: again, it's not about me, I would not, if you were like, hey, what do you want [00:23:00] to do at a staff party, I, play games would not be

Jen: No, me either. But it's this is where we're at. And so we will support the games.

Todd: up until recently, if you asked me that, I'd be like, I don't know, go home, like, I don't, but we have an amazing staff, and I want to spend time with them, and I want to be excited, because when they're excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, And the more excitement you can foster in your culture, not just say, not just say the things, you know, people have like, Oh, we have the best culture.

How do you define that? Well, we're like family. Okay, well, I already said that doesn't work. You know what I mean? I want them to have excitement and be excited. And then it just, it's, it's a fun time of the year too.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: Plus I'm getting older. So there's some nostalgia

Jen: yeah, for sure. Right. And then for the actual gifts for the staff we do the same. So again, talking about small business. This is funny. I can actually, If you want, Todd, get you the companies we're using so you can tag them in the podcast if people want to use them in the [00:24:00] future. But so I use one small company.

It's like a husband and wife company. They do different type of embroidery and kind of printing and together her and I picked out these bags for the staff. And then she'll put Hello Hair Co on the front of the bags. They're just really cool, and I sort of like doing a tote. I think it's fun. So everybody will get a tote.

Then we're using a company out of Massachusetts that does these embroideries on our hats, and we had two different color hats made up. So everybody will get a winter hat that says Hello Hair Co. on them. And then I'm using a local florist to make each hat. Staff member, a Grinch tree, so they'll get their own little Christmas tree.

It looks like a Grinch and she is, she hand makes them. So they're really cool there. And then decided to go with Evo put out a candle this year that I had smelled back in January in Australia. So we got a case of those. So everybody will get their own Evo candle and that pretty much rounds up.

Todd: I knew about. I don't think I knew about the candle.

Jen: Yeah, yep. So when I ordered those right when they came out saying they'd sell out [00:25:00] fast I just thought that'd be a nice kick. And then the last thing we're doing is we reached out to our rep and I asked, you know, Hey, can you help me out? I'd like to get some products for the staff, something holiday ish.

So her they, her and I should be touching base, I think this afternoon. And so Each staff will get some product in that bag to basically help kind of inspire them, maybe to try different hair products or something. Sometimes people think, no, you do hair. You must like just have all the products, but sometimes people don't think to get products for themselves.

So each bag will also have some sort of a product that we carry at Hello Hair Co that hopefully gets them to try something new. And that will be their kind of, that's their whole gift.

Todd: And then you had a little advent calendar going on, so each day somebody picks a different,

Jen: Then we did the, the foil from our foil advent calendars. So we picked someone each day. I made sure that they were working and we assigned them a number and then they get their box of foils on that day. And that would just had enough for the whole staff. So that just sort of worked out and kind of created, it actually leads right up to the day before our party.

So it just sort of worked out that way.

Todd: [00:26:00] yeah, that's fun. I think you can, I think people should probably stop overthinking it. Like, what do you want to do for your staff?

Jen: Have fun.

Todd: do get that everyone like I'm, I'm in this one Facebook group, you know, the group I'm talking about, Jen, but It's like every day, three people ask the same question.

First of all, I don't understand why you're not like, how are you not seeing it or searching it? And then a whole bunch of people were right. Following on the thing. And I'm like, what is wrong? You guys

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: following it. Just hit the little three dots and

Jen: I think when it comes to holiday stuff, you should have fun. And if it's not fun, find a different way or find something else to do that it brings you joy. Because if it's fun for you, everyone else will have fun. I enjoy gift giving. It's something that's really fun for me. So putting This gift together was no stress at all.

If anything, it was just, it was a blast. I can't wait. Everything should be in the day before the party so we can get it all together. And I, it makes me like have a lot of joy handing them out. And I love seeing the staff's face for the different things that they're excited about.

Todd: We also do, I don't know if you [00:27:00] mentioned the secret Santa,

Jen: I said that and quickly, but yes, we have the secret Santa too. So that is just another

Todd: things

Jen: thing.

Todd: have going on that keep the holiday buzz holiday vibe going throughout the month.

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: It's not just like 1 day. We're focused on this. It's like the whole month. Like people are talking about the holiday party because it's fun. The holiday gift bags are always a hit.

You put together great ones. The food usually I think the food's gonna be excellent because the restaurant is great, but normally the food is like kick ass because we, I'll, Make like a big custom menu and

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: we'll have all that stuff. COVID year, I did individual meals. We packed

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: up. So, and I even went, someone was sick,

Jen: Huh.

Todd: sick, so I even went and I dropped it off on her porch and I waved to her through the window

Jen: Oh, I remember.

Todd: I am. Like, yeah, poor kid was like sick at home with

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: anyway think people should probably just like relax a little bit, take a deep breath

Jen: Mm hmm. [00:28:00] Mm hmm.

Todd: what your, like, what does your business represent?

What do you stand for? Whatever. Like for us, it's just, we want to get together and we want to not worry about anything and just have a low key chill vibe. I'm not stressed that anybody's not going to have a good time. sometimes people bring, you know, boyfriends or whatever. I don't care. Last year, I think someone brought a dog.

They just showed up with a dog. I don't care. Like it's whatever. It's just,

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: it's time to get together. And you don't have to go. Everyone goes, but you don't have to go. You don't have to stay a certain amount of

Jen: Nope. Stay. Leave. Whatever.

Todd: at a certain time. It's just, Hey, we're going to be here.

We're probably going to be here for a couple hours, two or three hours. Whenever,

Jen: Stop by. Hang out. Whatever.

Todd: yeah, stop by and hang out, have a cocktail, whatever. We can start with the secret Santa if you

Jen: I even got Capri Suns this year, because some of our staff likes to drink Capri Suns like my children.

Todd: who doesn't Pacific Cooler,

Jen: Yeah, I think so. I don't know. It's in the bathroom.

Todd: All right. Anyways, I guess that's all I [00:29:00] got. All right, cool. Well, happy holidays,

Jen: Happy holidays.

Todd: we'll have. We have two, we'll probably have two more podcasts before Christmas.

Jen: I think maybe

Todd: no, this,

Jen: this one. Yeah.

Todd: and then another one we've recorded or we, we'll record will come out on the 23rd.

It's getting close. Anyways. If you need help, reach out. We had a couple of intro calls with people today. Good, great stuff going

Jen: Awesome. Very exciting.

Todd: Started mentoring some new people

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: it's been exciting If you need help, reach out. you reach out through the send us a text feature that the podcast has. don't have your contact info, so you'll have to get that to me. You could also reach out through the links in the bottom of the show notes. I forget exactly what it says. It might say like book an intro call or something like that. If you use that, it's through my email, so you'll get me directly. Or you can also message social media. Jump on Instagram message there, [00:30:00] or you can go through our website, hello hair pro or hello hair co, and then we have a pro section. So that is how you can get ahold of us. If you have questions, comments or fun facts or whatever.

Jen: And

Todd: Thanks everyone.

Jen: on that, when you do reach out, so we had one of the calls we had today, she was like, I don't really know. I have a couple of questions, but I'm not sure. And we ended up talking for an hour and it was just, it, It was organically this amazing conversation. So again, you may come with one question, like, is this worth it for one question?

But generally the conversation flows in so many different directions that that one question just opens the door to answering a lot of things that you may not have even known that you needed to know. So just reach out. We're here to help.

Todd: Yeah. Happy to help. Thanks everyone. you next time. Bye.

​