How to Run a Successful Commission Salon in 2025 Pt 2 [EP:200]

In this milestone 200th episode, Todd and Jen continue their in-depth exploration of what it takes not only to build a successful commission salon but also to sustain one. 

From emotional intelligence behind the chair to their refined hiring process, leadership growth, team retention strategies, and handling conflict like pros—this episode is loaded with actionable insights for salon owners and hair professionals alike.

🕒 Timestamps & Topics:

[00:00] – Opening Takes

[07:00] – Recap of Part 1 + This Week’s Focus: Culture & Hiring

[08:00] – Early Hiring Mistakes & Leadership Growth
How the initial team didn’t align with the Hello Hair Pro mission—and how Todd and Jen refined their leadership and hiring approach as a result.

[10:30] – Hello’s Current Hiring Process
From culture fit first to post-hire model evaluations, shadow days, and hands-on onboarding.

[15:00] – What They Look for in New Team Members
Hiring for personality, not just skill. Todd looks for people he genuinely wants to be around; Jen assesses presentation and willingness to learn.

[18:00] – Common Hiring Traps in the Salon Industry
Why relying solely on technical ability is short-sighted, and how mentorship and real education matter more than ever.

[20:00] – Maintaining Culture & Retaining Your Team
What do you do after the hire? Jen shares how they constantly create opportunities, set goals, and keep their staff engaged long-term.

[22:00] – Fighting “The Social Media Carrot”
Why your team is being recruited 24/7 online—and how Hello Hair Pro stays ahead by offering real, meaningful value inside the business.

[24:00] – Education & Growth Opportunities
Daily education, peer-led classes, paid teaching gigs, and goal tracking. Jen explains how these initiatives keep their team connected and motivated.

[26:00] – The Power of Little Things
Sometimes, upgrading the breakroom fridge is the culture win of the year. Small gestures = big impact.

[28:00] – Making Work Fun: Games, Challenges & Contests
From Google review competitions to team videos, Todd and Jen explain how they use fun strategically, so it doesn’t become “just another thing.”

[29:00] – Treating Staff Like Adults, Not Children
Professional respect is key. Feedback is given directly, respectfully, and constructively.

[30:00] – Handling Conflict the Right Way
Disagreements happen. Jen and Todd discuss how they approach staff conflicts, encourage resolution, and maintain healthy team dynamics.

[32:00] – Wrap-Up + Teaser for Next Episode
Todd will be asking the team, “Why do you stay at Hello?” and they’ll share those answers in a future episode. 

💡 Key Takeaways:

• Hire for character, teach the skill.
• Retention is the real growth strategy.
• Create a salon people don’t want to leave.
• Your culture is built on what you tolerate and celebrate.
• Conflict is natural—how you handle it defines your leadership.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript – How to Run a Successful Commission Salon in 2025 (Part 2)

Hiring the Right People [00:00]

200

Todd: [00:00:00] All right. What's up everyone? Hello. Happy Monday. Welcome back. All that fun stuff. It actually is Monday, but we're not recording like for today, but yeah, anyways. How's it going Jen?

Jen: Good. How are you?

Todd: Good. Uh, last week we started,

Jen: I.

Todd: last week we started talking about what we do in our business. To what we did in our business to build our business and grow our business.

And we want to continue with, uh, we sort of ended on culture and we want to continue with that because it's a big part of, I guess once you've built your business, you have to maintain it. You have to keep it, and it's not in the business world and well in anything really. It's not set it and forget it,, you gotta constantly work at things and.

So we can jump into that. We'll start obviously with our opening takes. I still don't have an intro, but I have been working on it. [00:01:00] And I don't mean intro, I mean the uh,

Jen: take.

Todd: Yeah. Sound bite opening takes. So I have some different stuff I'm working through, so, uh, soon, in the next couple episodes for sure.

I'll surprise you with that. You won't even know it's coming.

Jen: and

Todd: So you, uh, yeah. You said you had an opening take.

Jen: so I, I, as I've promised a couple episodes ago, trying to be a little more organized here, but, um, I decided to use Google and I just put in like, I was trying to get inspired for my opening, take insight to hairdressing and this was really cool 'cause. I like what it came up with and I think it just touches on some of the things that people think doing hair is about and what they forget that it is actually about. So anyway, hairdressing, while often seen as creative and a social profession, also demands technical skill, strong customer service, and a good understanding of business and marketing. Last one, not so sure depending on what you're doing, but I loved [00:02:00] the strong customer service because we talk about it so often.

I think people forget. They see hair as, I'm an artist. I have to do all this stuff, which be creative. I love it all, but the customer service skill is so extremely important. then it went on to, and I really loved this last one, it talks a little bit about the physical demands, which we know, but also this emotional intelligence and understanding and managing client expectations and emotions even when dealing with difficult situations.

And I. You're faced with this a lot. This is the part of being, uh, behind the chair that I think isn't talked about enough. But you are going to go through conversations with clients, making them happy. This is your work. It might feel, uh, hurt your feelings if someone doesn't like what you're doing, but the more you can build your emotional intelligence and be more confident in your work or have great conversations like, okay, so you're not happy with your hair today,, what can we do to make it better rather than take it so personal, like. Have it like shut you down. So that to me is a really [00:03:00] important skill to stay behind the chair longer. And we talked about this than that three to five year mark. I think there's so many things that add to people stop doing hair. But I think this could be one of, of a, of the bigger factors because if you are not good with dealing with people in customer service and getting people to, to say, Hey, I don't like what you did last time. They're telling you they didn't like it, which means they still wanna be part of your hair journey, right? They still want you to do their hair. They're just trying to create a relationship here. And if you can change the way you think of it, like, wow, I'm just not good at it. No, they're telling you, they like everything about you, everything you're doing, whatever it's, you're bringing to the table.

Just these few things on the hair. If we could tweak it, you could have a long-term client. Um, I have clients that have been with me for 25 years. That's my whole entire career, and I definitely. I didn't do hair then like I do today. So something I brought to the table must have been, um, some sort of great customer service skills and that built my clientele. So there you're,

Todd: Yeah, that could be a whole [00:04:00] episode.

Jen: yeah.

Todd: could be a whole 20 episodes. Super important to understand people in general. I love it. Yeah, we, we do talk about that a a lot in roundabout ways.

Jen: Yeah, it was just neat how it came up and I, it's, I think, really important to think about and also that maybe if you're, if you're taking certain things to heart more than you should, like either work on your technical skills, work on your customer service skills, and get better at those things, and you'll have a really fun time doing hair.

Todd: Yeah, when you can make stuff about other people, everything gets better, everything improves. So in business, in your personal life and everything, just make things about other people be of service to other people. I like it.

Jen: Thanks.

Todd: My opening take is related to questions and asking the wrong questions because I think that's where a lot of people [00:05:00] fall, and I get it and it makes sense, but you gotta stop. You gotta realize at some point you're asking the wrong questions. So I would argue that a good portion of people that are struggling would ask you something like, how do I get more clients?

That's just, that's the wrong question. So if, for example, I dumped a hundred clients into your, let's give it a little bit of parameters. Say, I, I helped you market and I dumped a hundred new clients into your business over the course of three months. So you're pretty much seeing a person, a new person a day.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: Okay. How many would you still service after a year? That's where the issue is. The issue is your retention. The issue is your systems. It's your business foundations. It's something that's throwing people off and there's a disconnect and they're not coming back to you, or they're coming in once or twice, or maybe they're confused.

I see a lot of confusing [00:06:00] stuff on the internet because people just put up stuff that they think is supposed to be true. But if it's not true, if it, if it, like, we talk about branding a lot. If your physical location resembles nothing about what you have online, it's gonna confuse clients and they're not gonna stick around

Jen: Absolutely.

Todd: and, and I think that's a big chunk of it.

Same thing goes for owners, looking for staff. What happened to the ones that you already had? Why are people leaving? Um. Instead of asking a question, probably in that case, which was,, should I post on Indeed or should I post on Facebook? You should be worrying about what, why are you not retaining staff?

Why are people leaving? Or why are people not finding you? There's, I think, deeper questions that we could be asking in business and in life in general that I [00:07:00] think would get us further. So that's my opening take.

Jen: Love

Todd: Cool. All right, let's jump into this episode. So we talked about, I'll just quickly go through, so for people that forget, or if you haven't listened to the episode, it's part one, I think it's called, um, well you'll see it.

But how to Run a Successful Commission Salon in 2025, part One. So that was episode 1 99. So this is episode 200. Jen, congratulations

Jen: we should

Todd: of a party. Yeah, definitely. Uh, so what did we cover in that episode? We covered understanding, running business, uh, and doing here are different skill sets. We talked about leadership.

We talked about some bad marketing strategies, things that we avoided. We talked about the importance of foundations, uh, which is your mission, vision, and core values. We talked a little bit about marketing and a little bit about culture, and we want to continue with culture. [00:08:00] Again, these are all things that we've actually done in our salon.

They're all things that we've proven work, at least in our model, and they're things that we believe will help people. So, Jen, you had a good starting point. You talked about, um, did you start with stat? You, we just went over this before we clicked.

Jen: hiring, and then I went

Building Buy-In Through Culture [07:00]

Todd: Oh, hiring. Okay.

Jen: um, the, you have to create opportunities for them to wanna stay in your business. So what we're seeing, I love

Todd: Well, why don't we,

Jen: Oh, go ahead.

Todd: why don't we start, why don't you start with the hiring? Because we gotta get the people first. So you, you opened this business, you, we opened, hello? What did we do? How did we hire?

Jen: Hmm.

Todd: Because we've gone through a few versions now, right?

Jen: yeah. Um, we started with, I don't even know if they had to come into shadow. I just remember they had to do a model, but to be honest, in the [00:09:00] beginning,

Todd: Well, when we opened, hello, we pretty much opened with a staff.

Jen: yeah, I, I, sorry. I just jumped through because then it was. A crazy time. It was COVID.

Todd: It.

Jen: we, we had, we opened with, um, I had an apprentice and I think we had three stylists, two seasoned, one brand new. So that's where, where we were, um, with opening. Um, and they were just people that I had connections with.

So I, I knew sort of what we were going with. Um, but that wasn't enough to keep us going. So of course we had to hire, um.

Todd: Oh, a big part of it was that particular group didn't buy into our, what we were building.

Jen: Yes, for sure. So that was

Todd: So they,

Jen: to get through.

Todd: yeah, so, and I think that's important to mention because I don't think it, uh, well, we should have done a better, we should have come up with a better process of explaining our why [00:10:00] earlier on,

Jen: Yes.

Todd: and I think we do it well now.

Like basically what we tell our staff is that we want them to take care of the client.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: That's basically what everything breaks down to. And for us, our, our mission becomes to support our staff

Jen: correct.

Todd: and we give them everything that they need so that they can support the client and give them everything that they need.

And in that early year, half year, year and a half, whatever, our staff did not buy into what we were doing. And a lot of stuff got missed and a lot of opportunities got missed. And eventually that team ended up leaving. We all parted ways and then I guess jump into our hiring

Jen: Yeah, so one thing on that too, I

Todd: is where you were.

Jen: when

Todd: Cool.

Jen: opening, for those of you who have listened to previous episodes, I was. Coming out of another salon that I was owning, we were breaking up that partnership and moving on with Todd. [00:11:00] And I don't know, was so chaotic and it was so much going on that I don't even feel that I completely bought into what we bought, Biden bought into what we were doing.

Like I knew what we were creating. I, I knew certain things, but if you had asked me then like, what is the vision? What are the core values? I would be like, I don't know. They're just words we came up with and I understood what they meant, but I, I wasn't. Truly following those. So that's probably from, we talk about this all the time from a leadership aspect. If not fully on board, it's hard to get a staff fully on board. So there was that part of like, there's a growing pain, right? And the growing pain was like, whoa, this business is truly different than my last one. And I have to understand what does this look like for me? So through that growing.

Todd: That's why I wanted to bring that initial team up because I don't want people to think like, oh, you just build this and then it's all set. No.

Jen: It's

Todd: Like we, we were, we were trying, but going through COVID and all that uncertainty and everything, and then having your business basically closed,

Jen: right.

Todd: it is [00:12:00] a lot. And it affected us.

And it was, there was a period of, I guess like a little bit of coasting, which didn't work.

Jen: No. And we were then, when we opened, starting from Behind, and there was just so many things, and these are not excuses, these are things that we talk about because what's what we went through and it's why we are where we are today. Um, those growing pains were like, okay, we gotta figure it out. And actually coming into this year specifically, was like. the team we currently have, it made sense to go all in and put lots of effort in and look at this team as a team of today and where, where we wanna be with our salon or business. But anyway, so go back to then we need to hire, right? So interviewing process. I will say, for those of you that don't know me personally, um, I do tend to be a little spazzy.

So another growing pain for me was to learn to chill, um, and go through the hiring process with Todd. Not just like sitting there and being like, okay, you're hired, taught, you figure it out. And that did happen one time [00:13:00] and. Sometimes you make mistakes. So I learned to take a deep breath to truly in that hiring process, listen to what person in front of us was talking about.

Opportunities That Keep Staff Engaged [14:00]

Ask thought provoking questions that I needed to know as Todd asked his questions that he needed to know. Um, and then from there, if it was a fit for both of us, um, or at least sometimes we've had ones where one of us maybe is more all in than the other and we figure that out too. Uh, but they bring in a model. Um, so I can see their skillset because I'm the one that's teaching, so I need to see how much effort or what their technical, um, education plan looks like. It's different for each and every person,

Todd: So at this point, if somebody's bringing a model in, they're already hired.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: how we do it. We don't do, we hire for the personality, we hire for the person, not the skillset,

Jen: Nope, that's just for me

Todd: because.

Jen: what basically. They're, some people come in and they're allowed to do everything. You know, they're at a point and we, I, they know what they need to work on and some, [00:14:00] they might only be able to do some things in the beginning and then we work on the other things.

So we can add that, um, to their service menu. It just depends. And it's really per person. Um,

Todd: I wanted to point that out because I've heard a lot of places that'll have you come in and do a model and then decide if you're hired or not, which I think is backwards.

Jen: correct. So. If I could jump forward, what we do today as an interim step there that I like even better, is now we have that initial conversation. We have them do a shadow day, um, which then allows us to see how they interact with the staff. Just different parts. Some people stay for a good appointment of the day, a good portion of the day.

Some come in for 20 minutes and they leave. Um, but it just allows a little bit more of get to know you in a different. Environment. And then from there we do the model. once they do the model, then the next step is to have someone on our team do a shampoo and blow dry for them. So now they understand the expectations of at least that first service. Um, what a shampoo should [00:15:00] feel like, what the experience of, if you were a client should feel like, uh, what a blow dry looks like. What we. Everything start to finish. Um, and that sets them up. And then the next step is for them to do a wash and blow dry on one of the staff or a friend of theirs. I don't care.

And eventually it leads to them doing it on myself so that I know where their skillset is and then now they can do that service.

Todd: Awesome. That's our hiring process.

Jen: process.

Todd: How do we, how do we go about picking a person? Wanna talk about that a little bit?

Jen: sure.

Todd: comes in, how do we know if we wanna move forward with them or not?

Jen: Um, so I'll

Todd: I can talk about what I, what I think, but you, you're on a roll, so roll with it.

Jen: it is first and foremost how they show up. So we are a beauty industry,, do it, did you show up as your best self, like hair and makeup, all that stuff. And I'm not talking, you have to look like you're gonna the prom or anything, but, um, I need to know that you give a crap about your appearance. [00:16:00] so that's not one thing that I wanna have to micromanage. From there. Then I wanna ask, um, their opinion on their skillset. What do they feel they're strongest at? What do they feel they have to work on? That kind of stuff. Uh, and some of it, I, subjective, but I like to know where, where their headspace is coming in as to who they feel they are or where their talent lies.

And I doesn't even really matter 'cause I can teach anybody. Um, so it's more just to see where their head's at. Um, that's. Kind of where I go. Sometimes I'll, we usually, well, we will give a tour when they come in and explain the setup too. Um, then from there, usually Todd takes over and asks his questions. I.

Todd: Yeah, you generally, what I'm trying to figure out is nothing to do with hair because I understand that we can, we, one of our core values is education. We didn't talk about our core values specifically, but one of 'em is education. And when I tell you that there are opportunities weekly, I'm probably [00:17:00] rounding down, there's probably an opportunity every day for people to learn if they really want to at our salon.

And we've built it that way. So I believe that we can take somebody and. Move them to being successful from wherever they're at. And we believe that so much that we have apprentices and apprenticeships, so we can take you from nothing to everything. So, and we've done it successfully. Well, you've done it successfully, I think, what, eight times now.

Jen, have you had eight apprentices? That's wild. So,

Jen: still in the hair industry, which is really impressive.

Todd: which is cool. The big thing for me, when we're doing, I, I don't even call them interviews, just like a chat or a talk. I wanna know if I can hang out with this person, if I can be around them, because I think that's important. I think that's where things start.

If you hire somebody just simply based on talent, but you can't stand the person, you're gonna have issues

Jen: I absolutely agree

Todd: if.

Jen: I can, if I could just [00:18:00] jump for one second, there were some people that I, we had hired and then you'd be like, why aren't you giving them a schedule? And I had to like take a step back and I'm like, they're not someone I wanna work with. And you'd be like, why did you hire, why did you like sign off on this?

And I'm like, I don't know. Again, growing pains, I had to grow as a leader. Like not everyone that steps in the door. Is gonna get a spot on our team. And it took me a bit to arrive at that and to, what Todd's saying is I had to look at what I wanna work with this person. If I don't, then I don't, it doesn't even have to matter why I, 'cause sometimes I don't know, but it's just a gut feeling. But it, it's very important for Todd and I both to want to be in our business with this person.

Todd: Yeah, I always say if I, uh, I don't drink coffee, but can I have a cup of coffee with this person or beer or whatever? Like, do I wanna be around them? Can I chat with them? Are they funny? Um, they, they're, they need a certain personality to fit in with what we have going on, and I think that that is okay. I think it's okay to hire.

Based on those things.

Jen: I [00:19:00] think it's important.

Todd: Yeah. Well, I know a a, a lot of people just will focus on, and, and I see it on groups and stuff. A lot of people focus really just on the skill, really on the technical ability. And I get it because you need somebody behind a chair that you don't have to worry about. But again, as an owner, as a leader, that's your responsibility to take them under your wing and to build them regardless of where're.

Calling something an apprenticeship, but it's really an assistant and you really have them trapped for three years sweeping and answering phones.

Jen: Yeah. Awful.

Todd: That's a mistake.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: Yeah. And we hear about it so often. It blows my mind every time. I'm like, why would you stay there?

Respect and Professionalism [22:00]

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: You've been an, you've been an apprentice.

You're not even an apprentice. You're an assistant, but you've been doing that for 1, 2, 3 years. That's wild. So anyways, if I can just hang out with the person, I'm willing to give them a shot. And it's not always that it clicks or it's not always that you have that [00:20:00] vibe. Um, and then the other stuff is like secondary,?

And Jen, Jen, you are the one that does the bulk of education at our business, like 99% of it. So that stuff is always on you. You ask the technical questions and then I'm always asking somebody like, tell me about your family. Tell me about where you grew up. Tell me about anything that's not hair related.

'cause people will always default to, well, I wanted to do hair because my aunt was a hairdresser. I don't care. I don't care about the hair stuff. I know you're, I know hair. I get it.

Jen: wanna know who you

Todd: Tell me, tell me about you. Yeah. And then what, because what you're doing is you're identifying the things that are important to these people, and then you're figuring out if they align with your core values.

Uh, do you think that these people can help you accelerate your mission or move towards your vision? Is that what you're getting from these people? That's important. People need to buy in. What's next?

Jen: So the next part I think. the maintaining, [00:21:00] and I find this

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: is probably, if you haven't thought about it, an extremely difficult thing to do for a lot of people because you constantly need to be offering opportunity, um, showing the why it's so great to be at your business. setting goals, helping them get there, maybe setting goals that are bigger than even they thought of.

If, if, depending on the person. Um, part to me is, is where it's at and where I see probably why a lot of salons are like, how do you hire, can you even find the right people? And the other struggle here is, right. Um, I. There's social media and there's every other salon in the area that also needs to hire.

So your staff has, I used the analogy earlier with Todd when we were not recording, but like a carrot dangling in front of their face daily. Either a salon is reaching out to them or. Or, uh, somebody else in some salon is reaching out to them, basically [00:22:00] offering them something that maybe sounds better, looks better than what you are offering them. Um, and this with social media is happening all the time. Some people use the word poaching. Um, it is what it is. Get over it. It's happening all the time. If you have a stylist that's. pretty much on social media, a lot, some other, so Salon is seeing them enough. They want them to work with them, so expect that your stylists are getting reached out to all the time.

It's just how it is in today's world. But the problem is if you cannot. Get over it because don't focus on that. Focus on what you are doing. What are you offering to them? You are the one seeing them every day, every week, every month at the end of the year, more than their family probably sees them. So it's your job to make the dangling carrot even bigger in your business than what they're seeing outside of it.

Todd: So let's talk about that then. What? So I think that actually I know, 'cause I,, you hear things a a method that. Some salon owners, I'm not gonna say [00:23:00] everybody out there will use is to trash another place or talk down. And I don't think that that's a scarcity mindset. I don't think that talking down about a place makes your place any better.

Jen: I

Todd: So I

Jen: worse.

Todd: don't, yeah, so, 'cause we, we hear about that a lot and. People do reach out and people try to, uh, quote unquote poach. Um, I don't believe in that. I'll, I mean, I don't have a problem. Reach out to whoever you want. It doesn't matter to me.

Jen: right?

Todd: But anyways, so what are some strategies, what do we do at Hello Jen to, I guess, remind people of the good things in our business or the, the highlights or the pros or the reason, reasons that they should stick?

Jen: So, um, one comes from just even what you said in the beginning is we're there to take care of our staff and if we take care of them, they take care of the clients. I, I say that 'cause I'm gonna come from probably. even all the other great [00:24:00] things that we do, but sometimes it's even reminding our staff to drink water, bring a lunch, um, to take care of themselves.

Because if they take care of themselves, then they could take care of the client. It may sound silly, but I'll joke with my apprentice daily, where's your water? How much water have you had? And it's, it's funny, right? Everybody in the salon now laughs but I want them to be there. Healthy so that they can do their job right. So we take care of them from, from that aspect at, we have sometimes staff that's like, I'm, I just need a day off. Like, can I just take the day? I'm not feeling a hundred percent sure. What I'm asking for you to do is make sure you take care of yourself. Get a walk-in, drink some water, make sure you're eating food today.

Like I, we take care of them from a different. Perspective. And then after that we offer like education daily. So I will work with people one-on-one. Um, I will do group classes. We have this year even more exciting, some of our own staff teaching classes where they see an opportunity, Hey, came in recently.

Like I think I could really help with some, some balayage type, uh, techniques that I think would [00:25:00] help people. Um. With their clients. So, and then some other stuff for just color formulation and she knocked it outta the park. So this year it's not even all me teaching, we're offering opportunities for our staff to get in front of our staff and teach and they feel like they're, they not feel they are helping our staff get better. Um, and that right there just creates a community and a culture that is organic. You can't make that happen. it's wicked cool when you're approached by one of your staff members like, Hey, I think that I can teach this and really help. Awesome. So teaching opportunities we have this year created opportunities.

Todd: and these opportunities are compensated.

Jen: Yes, yes, for

Todd: I think that's important too. We're not taking advantage of people. If you teach a class, you get paid to teach a class.

Jen: Yeah. Um, and then

Todd: So.

Jen: we went even bigger this year and we started our own platform of education to reach out to stylists. Whoever wants to come. And we have two of our, um, hair [00:26:00] pros teaching those. And those are another way for them to make money, not just behind the chair, and they're having to create a class content.

I work with them to do that, um, and then deliver it. And then they're getting paid and they're feeling fabulous about it. Um, then we have other opportunities, but just goal setting that some people are just like, I want to hit this number every week. How do I do that? And we talk through that with them and help them get there.

So it's, it's constant. Things like that. And then even the next step is changing little things in your salon like. We added whatever, it's stupid, but we had a mini fridge, we got a bigger fridge, made everybody really happy. Um, there are things like this, if you just listen to what your staff is saying, like the mini fridge wasn't enough for them and they needed a bigger size fridge, which agreed. Um, we're not like going into this big celebration of the fridge. We just bring it in one day and they're like, well, this is so cool. But sometimes it's a surprise and delight

Todd: I.

Jen: some of the things. Yeah. A fridge made their. Yes. Um, a [00:27:00] surprising delight of some of the things that just maybe aren't in your business that would help make their job a little bit easier or, or whatever.

Um, for us it was a fridge for you. I don't know what that could be. Um, and these may,

Todd: A big part of it is just simply doing things for other people. It all comes back to the service. So Jen and I just try to be of service to our staff.

Jen: customer service.

Todd: Like, what, what do they need? What do they need to be successful? And like you joked about a refrigerator, well, it takes a worry off of them. Like they, like we had one of those stupid little mini refrigerators when we opened, just because we had, like, we had one, so we have one still out on the floor.

So that. Clients can grab a water or a seltzer or whatever. But yeah, people need a place to put their lunch. And it was just something that in the beginning we weren't even allowed to, like what? Eat together.

Final Thoughts [30:00]

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: just,, COVID. So, uh, yeah, little [00:28:00] things like that go a long way and it shows your team that you care.

Like I, I hope that I'm just gonna ask them, actually, I'll ask them. Like during this week, and then we can, we can, uh, record and tell people, but I'll ask them why, why do they stay? What do, what do they get out of the deal? Because like you said, Jen, with the carrot of social media dangling in front of everyone's face, this staff has an opportunity to go wherever they want.

They

Jen: super

Todd: stick with us and for, for some reason, and they tell us like, Hey, I love it here. Here's why. So I'm gonna ask the staff why.

Jen: Okay,

Todd: If they're willing to share why they stay with us, and then we'll talk about that. We can talk about that next week, but

Jen: Um,

Todd: yeah.

Jen: some of the other things,, sometimes you just need different engagement with the staff. So the beginning of the year to kind of get people just, I dunno, it's beginning of the year, something fun to do, right? Like get everybody kind of engaged in stuff. Um, I think it was you and Brooke and they, you guys ran [00:29:00] some like social media type fun. Um. Videos and stuff that you put together, engaging the staff who wanted to do it. We ran some contests with certain things, um, to get Google reviews and things like that, just to make it fun, because if you make it fun, it's not like a job to them. Um, and then the fun part, it, it, it feeds two things for the Google reviews.

It helps the business, which helps them, which And then they see it as a contest, so they have fun doing it. They don't even realize like they're, they're working at it,? those are things, and those aren't things we do all the time because that would make it boring, right? We, we, we put them in when, when necessary.

We do it when we're like, we need something different happening here, let's do this. Um, if we did that every month, if every month we ran some challenge, then all of a sudden this challenge now becomes a job. So we, we sprinkle that in when necessary and when we feel something fun is needed, uh, it, it just makes it like more exciting and not just like, oh, we're doing another challenge this month.

That's cool. Like. then at the end of the day, to be honest, we [00:30:00] treat the staff professionals. We treat them like adults, not like children. Um, that's very important. They are a professional. Maybe the people in your staff, I don't care what level of professional they are, but they are professional.

And if they're not at the level of professional that we want, we have a conversation. No big deal. Hey, need you to step up this, this is what we're looking for. And it's always received well because it's right to them. We talk to them and we deal with them as if they are, they are adults. Um, they may be young adults, but they are adults.

They are the next generation of hair pros. Um, and they need to be treated at a certain level of respect.

Todd: All right, so we gotta wrap up in a minute, but let's deal with conflict.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: that's gonna happen in your business.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: You're gonna have people that don't necessarily get along, and we tell people all the time in our business, you don't have to be friends. You guys just have to respect each other here and help each other here, because that's, that's our vibe.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: Those things aren't [00:31:00] negotiable. There are times though, where people maybe. Don't get along. For whatever reason, there's a miscommunication or somebody's mad at this person because they did this or thought they did that. And that happens not because we have cattiness or anything like that. That happens because we have interpersonal relationships.

And that's gonna happen in any scenario. Not necessarily business, not necessarily a salon. It's nothing to do with, it's just a lot of women. It's, it is what it is. You put people in a box and conflict will happen. So how do we deal with that when that does come up?

Jen: Um, so what, uh, what, we've done this in the

Todd: Fire somebody first. No.

Jen: Normally I'll check in, like I hear a chatter when things are happening and since again, we treat them like adults, I go to the per to the person or one of the people or both, like, Hey, did you guys handle this? Are you all set or do you need some help? Right?

Because an adult would just deal with it and nine times outta 10 they're like, Nope, we squashed it. We're good moving on. Um, there are cases where that's not enough and then I'll [00:32:00] sit down, um, and we just hash things out. What's going on? happening, and generally it's both people's feelings are heard about something.

They're just not, they're, they're not, they're not understanding which each one's coming from. And it just really ends up being a conversation. And then before it, you're over it. They're both people are like, oh dang. Sorry, sorry, moving on. Um, but more often it's from a place of, we, I just make sure I just check in.

Are we good? Are we not good? Um, and if I hear of it more than once, then we're not good. And then we're just gonna sit down and have a conversation and I'm there just to be the mediator usually. And just let each person know, like. What's up? So you just handle it, I guess.

Todd: Yeah, I think it's important to just dive in there. And you as a leader, sometimes the best thing for you to do is step back. So if your team is handling something that's good for your culture, that means people care. So I'm not saying if there's sides, all of a sudden you have a six on six street fight out front.

That's not what I'm saying. But if you have some staff that are stepping up and they're like, Hey guys, figure your shit out, or [00:33:00] something like that,, I think that's a good thing and you wanna embrace that. I always follow up after, so I'm the after, after person. I'll be like, Hey, you guys squash that bullshit.

Like, I try to make it a little funny. Um, and because laughter and keeping thing, things light also helps because, like you said, nine times outta 10 it's, or 10 times outta 10, it's just a misunderstanding. And everyone's upset. That everyone's upset. It's, it's like, I didn't try to hurt this person's feelings, but I did.

So now I'm upset that I hurt their feelings. But what they maybe said back to me. Out of reacting, hurt my feelings, and now they feel bad about that. So it's, it's, it's just having a little,

Jen: type

Todd: a little bit of a powwow. Yeah. A little get together and, and we're good to go. But I, yeah, I just wanted to touch on that because it's going to happen when you have people in your business.

So, uh, anything el we'll wrap on that and then we can dive into [00:34:00] some more stuff about what we built for our business.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: get on our email list if you're not in there. If you want more help with stuff, it's in there every Thursday. Uh, and that's it. We'll see you next time. Thanks everyone. Bye.

Jen: Bye.