Is Being "Independant" a Flex in 2025? [EP:181]

Profit Margin vs. Revenue: Why a Million Dollars Doesn’t Make You a Millionaire

In this episode, Jen and Todd discuss why profit margin is more crucial than revenue in determining business success. 

They emphasize the misconceptions surrounding hitting a million dollars in sales and explain why a high revenue does not equate to high profits. 

They also delve into the importance of setting realistic business goals, focusing on profit optimization, and the challenges independent stylists and commission-based salons face. 

The episode also highlights the importance of mentorship, constant assessment of business decisions, and strategies for remaining innovative and succeeding in the hair industry.

00:00 Introduction and Greetings
00:24 Opening Takes: The Million Dollar Misconception
03:53 Reevaluating Goals and Progress
04:45 The Reality of Renting a Chair
08:11 Challenges of Independent Stylists
09:14 The Importance of Mentorship and Leadership
14:00 Adapting and Innovating in Your Career
16:55 The Influence of Schools and Social Media
18:37 Understanding Profit and Pricing
19:13 Planning for Time Off and Unexpected Events
19:35 Setting Prices for Salon Chairs
22:00 The Importance of Mentorship
23:35 Building a Strong Team
31:43 Defining Success and Profitability
34:33 Final Thoughts and Reflections

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Transcript

Untitled project from SquadCast
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[00:00:00] 

Todd: All right. What's up, everyone? Happy Monday. Welcome back. What's going on, Jen?

Jen: Not much.

Todd: All right. Snow, for sure. Give me one second. I have to close this door.

Jen: Yep.

Todd: And I'm back. What are we talking about today? I think a bunch of just random thoughts that we had.

Jen: Sure.

Todd: Why are you laughing at?

Jen: I don't know, random thoughts. I like it.

Todd: Okay. So opening takes, we'll start with an opening take. Mine is a little bit math related, I guess you could say. So I keep seeing everywhere that, well, it's not everywhere, but I've seen it a bunch of times. That people are like, how do I get to a million dollars? How do I get to a million dollars? And I don't think that people understand what a million dollars does for you.

So if you hit a million dollars in sales, what does that mean? Does that mean you're a millionaire? Cause I've heard somebody say that before and it's quite silly. You got to look at your profit margin. That's the important number, not [00:01:00] your sales. So let me ask you a question for people listening. Would you rather do 1 percent profit or would you rather do like 350, 000 in sales with 25 percent profit?

I'll take the

Jen: number

Todd: 25.

Jen: the bigger profit, I'm in.

Todd: Exactly.

Jen: Mhm.

Todd: 1 percent and I've, I've seen businesses, we've seen a handful of businesses do this. They run at 1 percent or negative 1%. And they hit a million dollars and there's no money and they're like, but I did a million dollars. Where did it go? Exactly. Great question.

Where did it go? Cause you're not paying attention. Whoever's helping you guide you guiding you is not paying attention also. So you just did a million dollars in sales and at 1 percent that's 10 grand. So you got 10 grand after taxes. What is that? So you're doing all this work and you're not getting rewarded for it.

So, I just think people should focus on profit margin and increasing your profit margin. So in the example earlier that I used was what, 350, 000? [00:02:00] That's 87, 500, so almost 90, 000 of profit at 25%. That might seem like a lot or not a lot to people, but it's better than 1 percent of a million.

Jen: Right.

Todd: And you could double your business and still be, so you could go to 700, 000 in service sales.

And if you can maintain that 25 percent margin, now you're at almost 180, 000. Rather than 10 grand, I don't understand which one, but people want to focus on the million and that top line, it's really about what's the, what you can get as a business owner, your dollars come into the top line and it's how many of those dollars can you make work for you in a way that they get to the bottom line.

That's how you have to think about it. And. Stop worrying about the top line. Like it is important you need sales, but just hitting an arbitrary seven You know, I want to be a seven figure for what what's your commission rate? What is this? What is that? Like how much of that do you get to keep how much that's going out?[00:03:00] 

So those are the questions that I think people need to start Asking instead of like, Hey, how can I, I've never once seen somebody in any group that I'm in say, Hey, how can I increase my profit margin? What are some things you've guys have done to increase profit margin? It's always, what are some things you guys have done to increase sales?

How do I get more people in? And on top of it, most people would recommend discounts. And I know I'm just going on a rant here, but I don't understand what's going on.

Jen: to say it's,

Todd: It's just not everyone should own a business. And if you do, that's great. I think everyone should try.

Jen: of

Todd: We live in the United States.

Jen: do

Todd: the right to

Jen: Sorry

Todd: open small businesses.

And I think everyone should give it a shot. But it takes a lot of work. So maybe do a lemonade stand or something. A little less Well, well, it's true. Sorry to be a jerk, but here we are. What do you got?

Jen: My opening take is to re evaluate. So, we are in the middle of February. [00:04:00] Hopefully, you had goals coming into the new year of 2025. Now's a great time to take a look at what's working, what's not working. for tuning in. What have you implemented? Have you even started? January 1st came before, you know, it's the middle of February and you're like, Oh my gosh, I haven't done anything.

Okay. So here's your friendly reminder to start doing what you set out to do for the new year. if you don't get started, you're never going to get there. And then the end comes and you're literally just behind, or it's the same year as last year, and you're wondering why nothing's changed. So start something, do it, get going, take a step, work on your goals.

Todd: Great. All right. See you next week.

Jen: Okay. Bye.

Todd: All right, let's go. What do you want to talk about now?

We had so many, we, we had such a long conversation yesterday because we had a snowy day here in Southern New Hampshire and we talked about everything from People trying to go off and do things on their own before they're sort of quote unquote [00:05:00] ready I don't think it's for us to decide when people are ready.

So that's why I say quote there But definitely we've seen a bunch of people who go off say to rent a chair Because they think that that's the promised land they think it goes back to the million dollars mark A lot of people think if I just rent if I get to renting a chair, then I'm successful Like it's supposed to be this Sort of end goal for stylists, and I guess we'll just dive in, right?

But what we've been seeing is we've actually had some, I'll say veteran, like 20 plus, 25 year plus Hair pros reaching out to us saying, you know, I'm thinking of making a change and I'd like to maybe work with you guys. And so I'll say, you know, like, just so you know, we're a commission based salon and they're like, yeah, I know it's perfect.

And people are really looking, some people, not all you're going to have the younger generation that just thinks no matter what anybody says, nobody knows their situation. And we were young too, right? Once [00:06:00] where you're like, nobody has ever gone through this. Like, no, the whole world. Yeah, you don't understand.

Like, no, we actually do. I said it to our staff or some of our staff the other day, I was joking and I was like, I know you guys think that, you know, I haven't been through what you're going through, but in fact, I was your age like 15 years ago. So it's, you know, 20 years ago for some of them, maybe.

Jen: most of them, my whole career is their whole life. So

Todd: Yeah. And again, it's not to pick on anybody, but you know, I've heard, I guess we're just sort of randomly talking here, but I've heard from a couple of people that beauty schools are putting people on to renting as like an end goal. I had somebody once tell me this was not in New Hampshire. It was, I want to say Connecticut.

Either way. He's, he's owned a salon in Connecticut or owns a salon in Connecticut and said that schools are pushing people to enter the workforce. Basically get some education and whatever they can, build a clientele and [00:07:00] then go rent. That's the only way that you'll make money. And I'm like, they can't be telling people that.

I mean, they can tell people what they want, but they can't tell people that's the only way you'll make money. One, because we know that that's false. Like we have people at our salon that make more than a lot of people that are renting.

Jen: Correct.

Todd: So it, it doesn't make any sense at all.

Jen: employee, let me

Todd: Right there.

Jen: so that you're like, wait, how, what we can tell you. Yeah.

Todd: Yeah. Go for it. If you want to talk a little bit about that, because that was another topic that we had talked about, which is, I think why a lot of, there's so many reasons why a lot of commission salons aren't doing well, and it all breaks down to basically leadership. And I think a big part of it is showing people that there is a path and then guiding them along.

Jen: to show them that, right. So this is

Todd: Yeah. That's, that's the key, right?

Jen: I think you could look at a commission salon, a renter salon an independent suite, however it is. And all of them, there's, there's shitty ones out there and there's good ones out there. And that, [00:08:00] that's just no matter what you're doing, that's life, right?

There's not, not everyone's always great. Not everyone's always really bad. I think equally, you're going to see both of that. What I'm seeing right now is there's. lot of people that I know that went out on their own, and they're too afraid to raise their prices and they need to make more money. So they're either working more hours or they're trying to double or triple book to get more people in rather than make their life easier and have a price increase, which most of them should have done over the last few years and just never did. And they're too scared. What happens is we have people in our salon, it's no matter when, whenever you have a price increase for some people, it's always going to be scary for some people.

They're always going to embrace it. It doesn't matter even where you work. But at

Todd: Are you talking about clients or the hair?

Jen: of a hair pro,

Todd: Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Jen: at our salon, what we find when we are coaching people that are ready to move, move on and raise their prices have support, they have us, and we go through the numbers and we go through the math and we explain what clients can [00:09:00] tolerate versus, you know, what would be too much and what is too little and why we're not doing it that way and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the, all the things. So a support system there. And this conversation happens, whether it's every year. Twice a year. It just depends like you're gonna be ready for it. This is what you need to do where when you're out on your own, you don't have anybody coaching you unless you hire a mentor. But again, I don't think a lot of people do that or they're hiring a mentor to just tell them what to do rather than get them to be more mindful about their approach and everything they're doing, right?

We want you to be thinkers. It's really important salon that you, Can think for yourself. So what we're finding is, is that these people are out on their own and since they can't raise their prices or they're too afraid, they're not going to education to gain more skills and technically get better because they don't have enough money. They're just sitting there kind of flat and complacent. And it's very interesting right now. Cause there's at ours, like we're getting people that come in as clients. Now I'm going to talk about on a client perspective that are [00:10:00] literally emailing us to help And it's interesting because these emails are coming through not just like I went somewhere and I need my hair fixed.

They're coming through and they're telling us and I don't know why. I went to an independent stylist and they did this and I want to be in a salon that has, you know, education and this and that. So. There's this kind of trend now where I think the word independent may not always be what you want to lead with because there's now such a flood of all these independent people.

Some of you are super talented, great. You're doing awesome. But there's a lot, like you just said, that are coming out of school with very, very little experience. They go out on their own and they don't know how to do anything. And they're just literally. drowning in a sense. And so now we're getting this like, kind of client base that's coming our way.

Like, I want to be back in a salon with great culture and great education. That was kind of our conversation from yesterday. And then I think there's also where I think this trend started of people going out on their own because they didn't have any leadership to help them grow. I was recently in a salon.

They all charge the [00:11:00] same, no matter there's people in that have 30 years experiences, people right at school, their haircuts are all the same across the base. Their colors are all the same. Their foils are all the same. Nothing goes up. So there's no. Way for these people in the salon to truly get ahead. So in that scenario, their best option is either to find another commission salon that maybe does things differently, but like we said, there's not a lot of them that are really great, can coach you, can lead you to where you want to be and to the money you want to make.

So their only option then is like, I got to go on my own. Which is unfortunate because they, they still need the support. They want the support, but there's nothing in their area that actually truly offers that. and then here you are and they, they go out and they're not really able to progress in the way they were hoping. Which is where we come in if you need help.

Todd: It is interesting that people have started telling us that they're coming from, excuse me independent stylists.

Jen: And that they're leading with that. It's not even

Todd: Yeah. We're.

Jen: was

Todd: We've had several people recently and it's like, why is this? It is a little bit of a trend, at least at our salon. I don't know if other people are seeing [00:12:00] this at commission salons, but, and I don't think I've said this a million times.

I don't have any problems with renting. I'm not anti, I'm not pro it is what it is. It's just an option. It's, it's what option works better for you in the industry. That's what you should do. And for some people, it's great. And for some clients, it's great. And for other people, they're not going to want to go sit in a closet to get their hair done.

Like it's, you know, to your studio or whatever, and it might be spacious, but I've seen some that are not spacious and they're like crammed. And

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: might not be the experience that people want. Now, there is a whole demographic that does want that people want, you know, private, they don't want to be out in the center you know, of your salon.

On display, but for a lot of people, it's quite the opposite. They like that. They like the talking. They like the. I'm communicating. I was just telling somebody, and then I think I wrote it in last week's newsletter, that if you want to increase your retention, you have to build [00:13:00] triads. So what I mean by that is you have a client in your salon that you service and you don't want them to go anywhere.

The easiest way for them to be a client for life is to have a relationship with another client of yours.

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: So if you can start forming those triads where you have, you know, if there's like you have cousins, I think that come in,

Jen: hmm.

Todd: right? Stuff like that. So if you have people that coming in together, it's far less likely that they're going to leave you and go somewhere else because they both like coming in and that would disrupt too many people, you know, it's not just one relationship, so that's a way that you can help boost your retention.

But either way, I feel like we're jumping all over the place and I kind of am here for it. I I'm digging it this morning.

Jen: I

Todd: What else were you saying about,

Jen: I wanted to, to shed some light on some different things. Like there's a lot of hair pros out there that are struggling. They, they may not enjoy either the place they're working at or the decisions they made. [00:14:00] And, you know, if you're one of those listening, you can make another decision. Like if you made one and it didn't work, then what's next? You don't have to sit there and be miserable. And what next could be a lateral move could be an up move, it could be a move in a different direction. say you went out on your own. And you're like, Wow, I didn't realize without support from people to help me inspire me to do more with education, help me raise my prices.

Well, then you may be someone that needs to find the A commission salon with great leadership. Now I know that that's difficult, but it should be started like their path now to be like, all right, let me find a place that I can truly grow my career. Because the last thing you want is your 10 years, 15 years in, and you're still making the same amount of money.

Nobody in any career. is like that. Every time, every year, they should be making more money. And that doesn't mean in our career that it means you have to work harder and double book and triple book and work an extra day. It should be that you are always increasing your price or [00:15:00] reducing whatever you're spending so that you're still making more money, however that looks for you. or maybe you are in a suite. I've seen this and they're like, I thought, you know, I really want to be in a quiet place. I was so done with a busy salon and now I'm. I'm bored and I'm uninspired because I have no one else working next to me. I have nobody to like, you know, kind of, can I pick your brain type thing?

And now I wish I was around some people. And again, then you're going to sit there and be like, but my clients wanted this. Okay. Well, you need to be happy first in order to make your clients happy. Right? Todd, you use the analogy all the time on an airplane. Like you have to put your, your mask on first before you should be helping anyone else. So. If you are listening to this, you're like, wow, I really am not happy with some of my choices. Well, you have an open range to have a new choice. Like, you don't have to stay miserable. And I think it's just doing the research to figure out what's next for you. Or maybe you started out doing hair and you did it, and then you became a mom or a dad, and you have kids, and you have certain things that you're like, wow, I need less responsibility.

So maybe now you're like, that's it. [00:16:00] Being on my own doesn't work because I have so much to do outside of my job. It's just finding what's next for you. And you should always be innovating. You should always be pivoting in any direction. I now have this year, a few people coming from salon suites.

They went out on their own. And they want to come learn at Hello Hair Co because they're like, I need to get in a salon. I need some inspiration. They've seen, actually, some of them have come to me because they've seen. My client's hair. And they're like, can you teach me what you're doing on your clients?

Cause I have nobody to teach me. And they'll come in and we'll work one on one. And I guess that makes me a independent educator of some sort. Sorry. I had to say that. But like they're, they're looking like, I love what I'm doing. I love what I've created, but now I need to get outside of it. So what does that look like?

And that's their way of pivoting. That's their way of innovating and making sure they're bringing the best to their clients in 2025.

Todd: yeah, I think a lot of it too, like I try to think about where does this stuff stem from? And I've heard from some people that schools kind of push, you know, people towards [00:17:00] rental. And again, I'm not pro or anti. I don't care what you do. I just try to share insight.

Jen: best for you.

Todd: Yeah. Either way, you have to figure out, you Like what you want to do and then how are you going to accomplish it?

And I guess that like social media would be another thing. That's where I was trying to go with the schools. Cause we had already kind of touched on that. Cause you only see like the positive stuff and the good stuff. And even when people share, like, I had a bad day today. Well, not bad enough to set up a camera and record yourself.

Like even their failures are curated. You know what I mean? To put out this vibe and you see a lot of places that are like, keep a hundred percent of your money. Like, and it's misleading. Generally young and generally not as well educated group of people. And I don't mean that if you're in the hair industry that you're not smart.

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you're at that age of your early twenties, you're not smart, sorry, like you, you don't have any life experience,

Jen: for a small amount of time. You have a

Todd: right? You, [00:18:00] you've been an adult for like two years. It's. It's a lot to learn. There's, there's so much to learn and you need mentorship and you need guidance and leadership.

If you want to open your own business. Great. I say go for it. I will support you a hundred percent, but you've got to do some work. Don't just go out there and be like, all right, I have 50 clients. That's enough to like, cause that's I've had conversations with people that are like, I have X amount of clients so I can go off on my own.

And I'm like, you're looking at the wrong stuff. It doesn't matter how many clients you have. I just told you, you could do a million dollars in sales and make no money. So like having X amount of clients, that's great. But what, like, are you charging for a profit? Do you even know what that means? Are you going to raise your prices?

Are you going to,

Jen: your own?

Todd: yes. What is it costing you to just to do business?

Jen: in daily, weekly, monthly to make sure you're at least breaking even?

Todd: Right, we looked at someone's rough numbers recently, and I was like, this person's gonna need to do, like, they're working one full week, it was like 30 hours, [00:19:00] I think, to just break even, that's their break even point. So I was like, they have to raise their prices, otherwise they're not gonna make money.

Jen: Right. they're working a lot to

Todd: when you get sick, or what happens when you have a vacation? We have February vacation coming up, so like, you know, if you're out on your own, you should plan for that. I'm not saying, again, I'm not saying don't be on your own, but have a freaking game plan. Like if you, if you know you're away for a week, how are you making that money up?

You still have to pay for your chair, unless it's one of the places that doesn't charge you I guess? If you're not there? I don't know.

Jen: Right. And don't expect that to stay, because eventually when they realize they're not being profitable, they're going to have to change that.

Todd: I've seen, I've seen that too. Somebody said, I have a 20 chair salon and I'm not breaking even. I'm barely breaking even on rental, renting these chairs. And I'm like, how,

Jen: Right,

Todd: did

Jen: didn't look at

Todd: how did you set your prices

Jen: chair.

Todd: under, right? Why would you set your prices under what you need to make to break even, even?[00:20:00] 

Like, why would you even do that?

Jen: Conversation really just stemmed from, you know, you want everybody to be successful. You don't want to see anybody fail. I do

Todd: Most people. Most people. I have a small list, and I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be kind of funny, but I have a small list of people, and I, I don't care if they fail, they are not good people.

Jen: Okay, so most

Todd: Just getting that off my chest there.

Jen: And I think if we don't have this conversation and shed light on certain things that should be thought of before you make any decisions Then we feel like we're, we're failing you, right? So just kind of putting out some ideas of things to think about.

If you're going to go work for a salon, you have to have a list of things that you want to get out of that salon. When you take that job one should be how much money do you want to make? And, and how am I going to get there? Because that salon should help you. If you're going to go out on your own, you should know how much it's going to cost you to run that chair. every single day, weekly, monthly, and what do you want to profit so that you understand what you need to be making where your prices need to be for you to hit those numbers. not just guessing, [00:21:00] like it shouldn't be a guess. you're coming from a commission salon, you're going out on your own. A lot of times we see two things.

They keep the prices the same or what I actually see more of. They keep They take their prices and they make them lower. And I don't understand that at all. They should be higher because now you have to do all the jobs, pay all the taxes run everything that needs to happen behind that chair. So you need to make sure you're making more money.

That should not be the opposite. if you're afraid, then you're not ready. You need to really do some hard work mentally, mindfully, so that you can take that next step and do it with a business mindset. Just because you can do good hair doesn't mean you can do good business. Those things are not equal at all. It takes a lot of work to get good at business,

Todd: Yeah, it's especially if it's not something that you've done, ever. It's, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to mess up. And, it's, you, You want to almost do those things fast. You want to mess up as quick as possible. And like we have talked about that too, like mentorship [00:22:00] and working with people and we're not, we don't usually like push working with us like super hard.

You're going to need help from somebody out there. And what mentorship does for you and that guidance is if you have somebody that's already built or is in the process of building what you're working on. Wanting to build, then they're going to help you get past those mistakes. And what it does is it just brings speed to the equation.

Yeah. So you're learning as fast as possible. But what I would argue more often, I would, I would guess is that people are just doing stuff for social media and they're never going to be like, I need help. You know, I've, I've had a ton of people say that to me. I had one person that was like, I'm going to do hair for like three years and then open my own space.

And I was like, okay, cool. How come three years? I was just curious. Right? So I asked how come three years and they were like, well, I don't want to ever have to ask a question. And I was like, what? And they were like, yeah, I want to know everything about hair and be good enough that I don't have to ever [00:23:00] get help.

And I was like, what? How would you be?

Jen: never in life. Will

Todd: How in three years would you know everything about a topic, any topic, pick anything? You're not going to know everything about it in three years. And you're never going to know 100 percent of anything at all. Ever like that's not possible. So it's just a flawed mindset.

Jen: should be building your team that you can go to to ask all the questions to the right people.

Todd: Yeah. If you're what's that?

Jen: It might take you that long just to figure that out.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. Or longer.

Jen: when we had our, we just re signed the lease, right? I don't need to even really go through the lease.

I do with Todd, and then Todd and the lawyer go through it all, and bring up like, what's going on, how has your last few years been we tell what, where that is, and then the lawyer, Tells us like what we should be focused on in that lease. Is it a good lease? Is it not? Is it in favor of us? Is it in favor of them?

Blah, blah, blah. It took us a long time to find this lawyer who we trust. And now we have a great working relationship over the last five or six years. Prior I had a bunch of different lawyers. Same thing with the accountant. Same thing with [00:24:00] the, the business woman at the bank. Like that we have our, our loan with. But these things take time. Like I think we just saw something on some Facebook. group where they were looking for a space for a salon or something. And forget what the question was about the space and signing the lease or something. And someone's like, you should have a

Todd: Oh, I remember this.

Jen: And they were like, Oh, I thought you secured your space first.

Then you did a business plan. And no, like you need to have all of these things lined up the business plan, your networks, all of that. So that. As you progress, you're ready to go. Those are the people that are going to answer all your questions, your business plans, where you're going to go back to your mission, your vision, your core values.

It's a lot of work just to get to going to look for a space. It's not just about looking for the space. Otherwise you're just winging it. And if you're lucky. Cool, but most people aren't that lucky for a long period of time and then you're kind of looking at it Like what did I get myself into which we see a lot also like I [00:25:00] brought I thought that I was doing good by you Know taking over this space and all that and I'm upside down and that is more often the conversation We're hearing and generally by the time we're hearing it the road.

It's gonna take to get them successful They're out of funds. They're out of ambition. They're out of inspiration. They they're just they're out of bandwidth So They don't have a lot of options where it should have been in the beginning, where they were already making traction daily, weekly, monthly, so that they didn't get to this point.

Todd: Yeah. It's, it's hard when you see somebody that's frustrated and they're like, I thought I've been working on this stuff and it's like, you really haven't.

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: And it sucks to see people. Right, working behind the chair is not the same as, like, it's, you know, you've been there and it's easy to get in the mindset when you're the busiest person, you're like, if I don't work all the works, make all the monies, like, this place isn't gonna exist, but then you're not building a business, you're just sitting there on your hamster wheel spinning your wheels because you're If you [00:26:00] stop now, how, like, where's the money going to come from?

And it's easy to get sucked into that. What's that?

Jen: I said yes.

Todd: Yeah. It's easy to get sucked into that cyclical sort of mindset. And then, yeah, you get salty and then you're like wondering why, like I saw somebody asked, like, how can we get commissioned salons full again? Like in the old days. And I was like, well, first of all, things probably look different.

Like, what do you mean by full? But people in the comments were some of them were like, You have to build a business. You have to offer flexibility and freedom. You have to offer blah, blah, blah, X, Y, and Z.

Jen: You have

Todd: And then half of the people, yeah, half of the people were like, it's too late. I saw one person that was like, it's never going to happen.

One person was like, after COVID, I know one salon in my whole area that is successful. One person was like, chair renting changed the industry forever. There's nothing we can do about it. And I was like, it just sounds like a lot of

Jen: else except

Todd: complaining. Yeah, build your freaking business. Like, we don't [00:27:00] have trouble staffing our Salon like it's we we have people we I get every week.

I get multiple applications through our website And now like I said, we're we're in a position where we can be picky. We're gonna this year We're expanding a little bit and adding some stations and we're growing and so but I'm not gonna add by me I mean us Jen and I I'm not gonna add someone to the team just because So it's gotta be the right fit.

So a lot of people out there who are, you know, seasoned stylists and stuff like are reaching out to us. Like I said, I think I said that in the beginning, didn't I?

Jen: Mm hmm. I think so.

Todd: And yeah, it's, so we're seeing people that I don't have to just hire people out of school and train them up. But also on the flip side is what do we have to fix

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: as far as leadership?

Like, I don't,

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: we talked a little bit about that and like, it's exciting to have people reach out and it's exciting to have. The opportunity to because [00:28:00] people, if you talk to any commission salon owner, they're like, where do I find a stylist with clientele? That's what they want, right? They want insta just plug in.

And that's great. And that might work, but that person's also coming with 20 years of bad habits or just habits that are different than your business and the way that they work and function. And maybe they're not the clue. Yeah.

Jen: set of training.

Todd: they're not the cleanest person, or maybe they always run late, or maybe they're disheveled or maybe they're whatever, whatever the case is.

Jen: want to learn, right? Like someone coming out of

Todd: Yeah, exactly.

Jen: They don't want you to teach them everything. Maybe this person's like, well, I know everything, or I don't need to. So, it's, it's a different set of problems. Even if one comes with a clientele versus not.

Todd: Yeah. And it's interesting because those people are out there. Like I said, they're reaching out and We'll talk to them, and we'll meet, and if there's good fits there, there's good fits, and we've had plenty of interviews where we're like, Hmm, not for us. Like, that's not a good fit, you know?

Jen: I love to meet with most anybody. Because I think it gives you a pulse of what's out [00:29:00] there, what people are looking for. It sort of helps us innovate with what we're doing. Like, are we doing what people are looking for? Do we want to be do we want to change some stuff that it sounds like people are looking for?

And is that, does that work for us? But it does, it keeps us like new and fresh and it keeps our interviewing skills on point. And just, like I said, it's, it's really great to see what's out there. I think that's important.

Todd: I'm gonna give you a pro tip, if, so, I actually want to do an episode on this, but how to get hired? Hello.

Jen: Ah,

Todd: Oh, when you come in, I'm going to ask you about yourself. Don't tell me about hair. I do not care. I do not care. I, I know you can do hair. You have a hair license. You do not need to tell me about hair at all.

What I'm trying to do is be like, could I sit down and have a coffee or a tea or a beer or a glass of wine or a soda or water or whatever you want to do? Can I sit down and talk to this person? Can I spend time with them? Do I want to be around them? That's what is going to get you hired at our salon. So I just, I want to plug in cool [00:30:00] people.

I'm not going to plug in somebody that I'm like, eh, I'm not really sold on this person because we don't need to. We don't need, we're in a position where, and you know, we're fortunate and I don't want to use the word lucky, but that's where people would say like, Oh, we're lucky because we're in this. But we worked our asses off over the last six years to get to this point to, to be quote unquote lucky.

And it's hard work and it's ups and downs and it's having people on your team that aren't good fits. So you have to let them go. Some let go on their own, some get the hint, some we have to be like, you can't be here anymore. You're a jerk. Sorry, it is what it is. So if you're listening, thanks for listening.

I think that's it. Do you have anything else?

Jen: So

Todd: We could go on and on.

Jen: I

Todd: this topic forever. I feel so lost time. So I have two quick things. I was talking to

Jen: talk numbers, it's like. Some of you just shut it out, right? But numbers are really important. So Todd alluded to, you know, a million dollars and really making sure you understood that profitability is far more the number you should be looking at than anything else.

But I, my salon prior to [00:31:00] hello, we were at a million dollars and I've said this before on other podcasts. had a million dollars in service sales and you would think that that's amazing. And it didn't fucking matter at all because you want to know what our profit was? Negative 1%. So we lost money that year.

And I will tell you. ex business partner thought to brag to people that we did a million dollars in sales, like just, it was telling everybody and I'm like, you're not looking at the right number. You're not seeing our negative 1%. We have to change stuff. That million dollars did nothing for us, but she was happy to tell the staff and they're looking at us like we're making tons of money when we were operating at a negative. So it's really, really important. I said this, I think an hour ago. What you think will make you feel successful. You need to define what success is for you, not for anyone else around you, just for you. What's your end goal? What will make you feel really great about what you're doing in any career? But also understanding like that, you know, If it's money, then you have to know profit.

If it's to be out on your own, then you need [00:32:00] to start doing the work now on how to run a business. It's not just like, I'm going to do this and make it happen. There's work that needs to be done. So don't be me. Don't, don't do a million dollars in sales and have a negative profit because that sucks.

Todd: somebody about somebody else's business and I'm, I'm not going to give any specifics cause I don't want to blow up somebody's like their spot, you know, but they were talking about a deal that this one person had done and brought, I think it was like close to 2 million of revenue into this business.

And the person they were talking to was like, what are you going to do with all that money? And I was like, Wow, you have no clue how business works. They don't keep that. That goes to, just because you did the sale, like you're not running at a hundred percent efficiency. Nope. That doesn't even make sense.

So it's, you don't keep kind of your money.

Jen: becomes arbitrary because you don't understand all the expenses and everything that comes out of that.

Todd: Yeah. This person's paying like dozens of employees and all this stuff and all has [00:33:00] massive overhead and there's probably not even a lot left on the bone to pick at when they're done. The other thing I saw recently was somebody commenting on one of those, like, how do you get staff and whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think it's this major mindset thing. This was coming, I think from an owner who said it was something like you can't compete with the renting situation, which I don't even know why you're trying to compete.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: even make sense. You're spending way too much time thinking about that.

But anyways, they said, you can't compete with the renting because why would a stylist want to give half of their money to you? And I was like, that's not what's happening. A stylist that work for us are not, we pay them.

Jen: Right.

Todd: The clients pay us, we pay the stylist. Like, what are you talking about? They're not giving us

Jen: You. You do a great job breaking down with each style so I understand like where the money goes on the other side and how it should be, but a lot of people don't understand that.

Todd: Yeah, I have some of our, even our staff, I'll explain it, [00:34:00] and they're like, shrug, they'll shrug and be like, Cool, Todd, you did not need to tell me that. And then I have other staff that's like, Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, some don't give a shit. And they're like, whatever you tell us to do, we're gonna do.

Because,

Jen: yeah,

Todd: we're, we're, they're seeing the results.

Jen: yeah.

Todd: It's like, when you do this thing, you will see this benefit 90 percent of the time. And then the people that do it are like, wow, this works. And we're like, yeah, I'm not, I, the more successful you are, the better. My job becomes like part of our goal at hello.

Our vision is to serve our employees, serve the staff.

Jen: to be wildly successful.

Todd: Yeah, we look at it as, as we work for them, they're, we're providing a service to them, which is to create an amazing place for them to do their work and be creative. And not have to worry about blackened days out and calendars and all the old school stuff that, you know,

Jen: It's

Todd: to be frank, a lot of older salon owners are holding on to that shit and then they're wondering or they're blaming [00:35:00] everything else like, no, it's you.

It's your stupid rules that are 30 years old.

Jen: don't even know why you're doing it.

Todd: It's your stupid business setup. I'm sorry. It's stupid when, excuse me, when people are. Not okay with other people charging more for something. So I see this, we, you've talked about it today, but

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: you know, at a salon, like I can't charge more than this person.

Why, what are you talking about? I want my staff to charge 25, 000 times more than I charge. That's amazing. I want to build them up. I want them to be so happy and successful that I don't have to worry about like going on AIDSes.

Jen: that someone surpasses me. I'll be so freaking pumped. I'll do a

Todd: Yeah,

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: I, yeah, I just, I, I don't want to have to be that person that goes on these, you know, Facebook groups and stuff. And it's like, what was me? You know, I want to be like, this is how we've done it and we're proving it and it feels good. So it's pretty cool. Congratulations. I guess we're coming up on our five year anniversary.

Jen: Mm-hmm [00:36:00] Yes.

Todd: All right. Anyways, I rambled way too long. Thanks for listening. Everyone talk to you next week.

Jen: Bye.

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