Salon Staff Retention, Episode Re-Do! [EP:202]

Real Talk on Hiring, Culture, and Why People Stay.

After a technical hiccup on Monday’s episode (sorry if you caught the glitchy one!), Todd and Jen are back with a full redo—and it might be even better than the original. 

This episode covers team retention, leadership, and how to build a salon culture that people don’t want to leave.

They cover everything from how to attract new talent straight out of school, why “luxury” means nothing if your client experience doesn’t back it up, and how simplifying your systems might be the key to long-term success. 

Oh—and they don’t shy away from calling out toxic industry mindsets that are holding people back.

Whether you’re running a salon or running a rental model, this episode is full of practical, experience-backed advice you can implement immediately.

🔥 Key Topics Covered:

[00:00] Why We’re Re-Recording + Behind-the-Scenes Podcast Real Talk
[00:03] Luxury Isn’t a Word—It’s a Client Experience
[00:06] Simplicity Wins: What Lego Can Teach Salon Owners
[00:11] Bad Advice on Facebook and the Mentorship Void
[00:12] Why You Should Always Be Interviewing
[00:15] Don’t Be Salty When Stylists Leave—Plan for It
[00:18] Creating a Clear Career Path with Visible Growth Opportunities
[00:22] How to Build Education Into Your Salon Model
[00:24] Stop Waiting for the “Perfect Stylist”—Hire Out of School
[00:28] Buy-In Beats Experience
[00:29] Flexibility + Rules = Sustainable Culture
[00:32] Why You Might Be the Reason You Can’t Retain Staff
[00:34] How to Structure Your Team to Handle Turnover
[00:36] The Secret Power of Station Sharing
[00:38] Culture Can’t Just Be a Buzzword—It Must Be Defined
[00:39] The Fun Factor: Why Energy, Leadership, and Respect Matter
[00:41] Culture > Commission: What Stylists Really Want Today

🧠 Key Takeaways:

• “Always Be Interviewing” – Even when you’re fully staffed, build relationships now to avoid panic hires later.
• Set Clear Growth Paths – Show stylists how they’ll grow with you—financially and professionally.
• Hiring Out of School Isn’t a Last Resort—It’s a Strategy – Create systems to train and retain future superstars.
• Flexibility Without Structure Fails – Your culture needs rules and systems if you want people to respect their freedoms.
• Culture is More Important Than Commission – People don’t just want money—they want meaning, clarity, and momentum.

📌 Mentioned in the Episode:

• The failed “luxury” experience rant
• A breakdown of our real-world commission system
• How Hello Hair Pro does internal education
• Our philosophy on interviewing, even when not hiring
• The deep clean bonus opportunity for staff
• Why hiring the “perfect” seasoned stylist isn’t your best bet

📣 Connect With Us:

🎧 Subscribe to the Hello Hair Pro Podcast
 📸 Instagram: @hellohairpro
💌 Join our weekly newsletter: 321 Pro Push!
🌐 Learn more:

Links and Stuff:
Our Newsletter
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Find more of our things:
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Hello Hair Pro Website

Transcript

Episode Transcript – Salon Staff Retention: Proven Strategies to Build, Lead, and Keep a Thriving Team

Opening Take [00:00]

202

Todd: [00:00:00] All right. What's up everyone? Welcome back. Happy Wednesday special edition. Uh, so here's the deal. and I recorded, we released the podcast on Monday. I don't know if anybody listened. If you did, I apologize because somehow the audio got messed up and like a third or a quarter of the way through my mic obviously just cut out and there was nothing on my end.

When we, when we published the episode, I could see. My track and I had no clue that it wasn't, that it was blank. For some odd reason because I never, I, I listen to the episodes as I publish them. Jen knows that, or as I edit them rather, so I know what's in there. So I, it's rare that I go back and listen to an episode, but for some reason I was like, this episode on and see how it was so. I put it on like one and a half speed hit play, and it starts going through, and then all of a sudden you are talking, Jen, and I'm like, she's talking for a long time. And then I'm realizing there, these pauses are long and [00:01:00] then I'm realizing there's no me.

Jen: So hopefully you didn't listen to all episode of just me talking and Yeah, that would be hilarious.

Todd: it, I, I don't think it would've made any sense. So I

Jen: I'm sure.

Todd: made through the episode. So anyways, this episode is gonna release on Wednesday because we're replacing Monday's episode. So. Here

Jen: Here we are.

Todd: with that issue before. My bad. Um, one thing that was cool, and we're not gonna be able to recreate this, there's no way to recreate it, is that we, Jen and I kind of disagreed and there was a point in there, there was a point in there where it kind of got like chippy

Jen: Yeah. I had to actually apologize for being a brat.

Todd: and so it wasn't a big deal, but I thought it would be cool to leave it in because that's what's real, that's what it's not always. Unicorns and

Jen: Right.

Todd: perfect. And when we sit down and do these podcasts, most of the time we agree because we're talking about stuff for our business, but sometimes we don't. And it's really rare. I don't [00:02:00] know, in 200 plus episodes that we've caught something like that.

Jen: No, that was the first. So sorry. You guys missed it.

Todd: yeah. But go us. 'cause here we

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: did over 200 episodes and we haven't really gone at each other like that. And it wasn't even, it wasn't even anything crazy, it was just. On the fly. I disagreed with something Jen said, and she didn't get what I was saying, then I just played into it. And then she played into her part, which was, as you said, Jen being a

Jen: Yeah, I was,

Todd: Uh, but

Jen: whatever.

Todd: we're talking about staff retention

Jen: Yes.

Todd: and how to maintain a team,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: how to grow and maintain a team, I guess. So, uh. you have anything to add before we jump in?

Jen: No, I'm ready to go whenever you are.

Todd: All right,

Jen: I'm organized.

Todd: Let's start with our opening takes. That was awesome.

Jen: Oh, geez.

Todd: All right. You wanna go [00:03:00] first?

Jen: I

Todd: now.

Jen: will go first. Sure. So. I was just scrolling through. Um, I actually over the summer, really try not to be, um, on social media too much. Uh, whatever I have to do to repost for the business in there and then get off and read a book. So that's kind of my goal. Uh, two books down this summer. So I'm, I'm actually hitting my goal, which is pretty proud of myself.

But anyway, stumbled across this. Uh, and I think it's important to talk about, because we do talk about this all the time, about how, um, being in the hair industry. It's customer service. And it seems to be forgotten often that we are a customer service industry. And I see often, um, it turn about the hair pro and it's all about how it affects me, me, me, what you are not doing for me.

And so this one just kind of, I, I guess it resonated with I think a lot of the banter I see. And I just wanted to speak to it. So this person, I don't know her. Um, but anyway, she basically was. Talking to her audience and said, please be mindful of respecting my schedule, like I respect [00:04:00] yours. Uh, it goes into the cancellation policy and how she's had a lot of cancellations and she's been lenient on her policy and then wants to remind you if she doesn't work, she doesn't get paid, and that your cancellation directly affects her income.

Um, basically you, you, you, and everything you are doing wrong and how it affects her. The next part that I think blew my mind is I was like, this is interesting. Let me see kind of what she's about. I, I think she's independent in a suite or something like that. Uh, but at her, all over her page runs, you go on it is that she is luxury, luxury, luxury, luxury.

So I read this post, which, first of all, if I was your client, I would cancel you. I would not be your client any longer. 'cause I, I think that's just super negative and it's all about you and not about me. Um, and I'm the one paying you. And second.

Todd: It's the opposite of luxury.

Jen: So it doesn't match, like if you're luxury, you're all about the client.

You're all about the guest. It's all about them, and everything she posts is all about her. So those just don't match for me. Also, you're blaming your clients. About you being lenient with your [00:05:00] cancellation policy, which means it's your problem. I see this all the time. People have a cancellation policy and they don't enforce it a hundred percent of the time.

Um, I think that means you need to reevaluate your cancellation policy because you need to treat everybody fairly. At our salon, we do it on, it's a, it's a need basis, uh, because I would, we would never be able to enforce something a hundred percent. So we kind of look at different things, situations, if it needs to be enforced or sometimes it just needs that the client and, um.

Hello, need to part ways. Um, but we don't say it's a hundred percent because you would never, ever do something a hundred percent of the time. So I just thought it was kind of just a piece of information. Talk about it, think about it. Um, hopefully it resonates and, and maybe it gets some people to be like, whoa, I need to be more about my, my customer, more about my client.

That's what I'm here to do, to serve them. Um, and also maybe you look at your cancellation policy and if you can't enforce it, that's on you. And that would mean you need to change that policy to something that feels comfortable, what you can enforce. That's my spiel.

Todd: [00:06:00] Excellent. Agreed. Uh, mine might be a little long, but that's okay 'cause it's Wednesday. So my opening take is that often than not, the simplest solution is the best answer. Where, where does this come from? Sometimes I wanna help people if you couldn't tell. So I'll post replies in Facebook groups and stuff, and only post the truth, which are things that we've done or that we do.

That's my rule. I'm never gonna give someone some sort of like theoretical advice. Which I see a lot, but anyways, I'll stay on track. Uh, the other day I replied to a question about commission rates and the other person, I don't know who it is, 'cause they all post anonymously anyways, they write to me easier isn't always better. 'cause I broke down our commission structure it's super simple and I don't think people can grasp that. They wanna think that it's harder because if it's harder it means maybe you're smarter because [00:07:00] you understand it or something, but. Yeah, so easier isn't always better, and I mean maybe, but probably not. So probably most often, the simplest solution is quite literally the best solution. It's how it works in lots of other fields, like in mathematics, people are looking for the most elegant solution, which is the simplest, right? Those are the most powerful equations, the simple ones. So also look at what CEOs of the largest companies do.

They almost always simplify things when. A company is struggling. When a company is having a problem. A CEO, a good CEO will always, or almost always, simplify something. Remove something. what I want to do is take a look at Lego. knows Lego. How could you not? Lego is fun. So. I don't know what year this was.

Let's say, oh, 2003. So not long ago. [00:08:00] Lego was $800 million in debt.

Jen: Wow.

Todd: They were losing $1 million a day, right? What was the issue? They had too many products. They had too little focus. They started expanding into theme parks. They were doing clothing they were doing. Merchandising. They were doing retail, they were doing all these things and they lost their core, which is what makes Lego.

Lego. So their CEO, I'm not even gonna attempt his name, give it a go. Jorgen Vig n Stewart.

Jen: Sounds good to me.

Todd: he, he came in and he slashed 30% of their product lines and cut 1000 jobs. And then he asked this question, is the problem Lego? I

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: because we talk about when you have something going on in your business, it's your fault.

When it's good, you take credit [00:09:00] when it's bad, you also need to take credit. You are the leader. Everything stops with you. Uh, he cut over 7,000 different types of bricks and went back to the essentials, and they doubled down on what fans actually wanted. So think about that again. Jen was just talking about.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: from 35 from Star Wars alone, 35%

Jen: Wow.

Todd: just from that one thing. they did was they cut, they simplified, and they listened. They went from losing a million dollars a day, which is insane. You couldn't even fathom that probably as a hair stylist, uh, to the number one toy brand. There's our dog barking again. Awesome.

Jen: [00:10:00] You got that on the last pass, um, podcast, but I just thought we'd share that again.

Todd: Yeah. So the point of that little story is that complexity kills and focus wins, and you can argue all you want. Simplest isn't always the best, but almost always gonna be the best.

Jen: Absolutely.

Todd: Do you wanna stop him or do you want me to

Jen: It's because Instacart's here, so if you wanna pause for a moment, we can. Or UPS.

Okay.

Todd: All right, let's edit that out, that pause.

Jen: Yeah, that's what it was.

Todd: All right. And so also I post on those online groups because I like helping people, and I'm smart enough to understand that there's multiple approaches to each challenge. But I also understand that in that case, I'm, I'm right. So anyways, um.

Jen: I think it's great 'cause I do see, I don't post in them, it's just [00:11:00] not for me. But there's a lot of really bad information and a lot of people giving information on an opinion and not on fact and unfortunately. There's a lot of people that take those opinions and are using them to better their business when they have, it's not going to work.

Um, so I think it's great to, to be in those and, and try to try to help where you truly can, right? Mm-hmm.

Todd: Let's dive into, yeah, so real quick also in those groups. Yeah, I see a lot of terrible advice that you can tell people are either making up or it's just bad advice or they're mimicking it from somewhere else. I see a lot of, uh, chat, GPT stuff, just either. They'll say either check, chat, chat, GPPT, or can tell that their answer is just generated from chat GPT, and they just copy and paste. And then the other thing that I see is, uh, buy my course and that'll fix your problems. [00:12:00] So I, I don't, there's so much free information out there. Um. We do do some mentoring that we charge for, but it's very, it's not like templates and whatever. It's just to help you work through whatever

Jen: It's customized to the individual.

Todd: Yeah. So there's nothing for me to really sell if people want that. If you want to work with us one-on-one to accelerate progress because you have somebody that's checking in with you and that sort of stuff, we have that available, but I'm never gonna push that. So. Yeah. Anyways, let's dive into this retention.

We're talking about retention of staff, of, and this could translate to renters too, I suppose.

Jen: Yeah, I mean, we're seeing retention issues, um, on across the board, right?

Todd: Yeah, we run a commission salon, so that tends to be where we speak from. Uh, but Jen, you've been a renter, you rented for a while,

Jen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Before I started my first salon in a few different places. Yeah. I.[00:13:00]

Always Be Interviewing [05:00]

Um, so the first thing I have on my list is interview always. So. We currently are, are not hiring. Um, at the moment we still though, will take interviews. Um, what I love about this and the position we're in is, is I, I probably unique, but I it is really great. So we get, I think Todd could attest to this better than me, but, uh, every week a couple people coming out of school, like, are you hiring?

Are you hiring or hiring? So, um. We've always just interviewed anyway because we want to meet with these individuals. We wanna understand the hair pros that are coming out of school, um, what the schools are teaching them. 'cause every school's different, right? So what are they coming out with? Strengths and weaknesses.

Um, what are their wants and needs because. They're coming out of school, they're the next generation in the hair pro industry. So we need to understand what they're looking for and again, what their skill level is so that we can see what we need to pivot in our business and how we need to innovate to meet the needs that [00:14:00] we can, but also kind of make sure we're operating, um, in a world that is able to kind of blend those together basically.

So what Todd will do is,, hey, we're not hiring currently because that's our situation. Uh, but if you still wanna meet and one out of 5, 6, 7 a, a small percent will still meet, which is great because that's someone who's truly looking for us for. A job that fits them, not just a job in any hair salon, but the goal here is, is to make relationships for the future.

So the more people that you interview, you'll start to find, well, you'll get better at interviewing, um, and you'll start to find different questions that start to curate what you're looking for in your business if you're not sure yet. Um, but also you'll just get to meet and know what the schools are producing, um, and what the needs are of the future.

Hair Pros. Um. It's very important because you want to start to build these relationships because salons have turnover. It's just where it is. You don't have to like it, but it's in any business, there's turnover. So the more people you're interviewing, you're creating a streamline of different [00:15:00] conversations and maybe future relationships.

Uh, and I think that's really important. So even if you have a full staff, don't stop interviewing. If somebody's reaching out and they want a job, Hey, we're, we're full right now, but I'd love to meet. It's just keeping that. Interviewing process and, and that door open all the time. So when you do have the next turnover, you might have some people you interviewed that are kind of in the back of your mind that now you can reach out to and you have some sort of a relationship.

It's not just this cold kind of like, I need to, I need to hire, who am I hiring? You'll have some people that you're like, oh, they, they kind of sparked an interest with me. I'm gonna reach out, see where they're at. So that's my first thing and I, I think, um. My last salon, we didn't do that. And whenever we would have turnover, we were spinning our wheels to try to catch up.

Um, I love what we're curating now. I think it's just great that we're always having people coming in, um, interviewing and shadowing and I, it's great even for our staff to see 'cause it gets them excited.

Todd: I'll add to that, that don't be discouraged when you offer to meet with somebody after telling them. So [00:16:00] be honest and tell them that you're not hiring. At the moment,

Jen: I.

Todd: uh, and bring them in unless you are hiring, of course, but be honest with that. And then if people ghost you, don't be, don't, don't take that the wrong way. That's on them. That's a missed opportunity for them.

Jen: Yeah, just move on.

Todd: that's the type of person, that's the type of thinking that you are not interested in either. Or you shouldn't be somebody that's only looking for a place to work is not, that's, they're not even searching for the right fit.

Jen: Right.

Todd: We tell people all the time, it's nice to be picked, sure you're picking back.

Make sure you're choosing the place that you're going to make sure that the, the salon or barbershop that you're going to sure their, uh, core values align with your core values. If things don't even make sense, don't, don't do it.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: know, but the, the industry is, I don't want to, I don't like the word saturated. But there are a ton of people looking for jobs. So I, it's always interesting when people are struggling to [00:17:00] hire because there's, I feel like in our area, maybe it's different. are always people looking for jobs.

Jen: Constant coming out all the time.

Todd: you just have to figure out how to curate and how to extract the best ones, the diamonds in the rough, really. So quick story. We hired,

Jen: I was just gonna say this.

Todd: two, two years ago.

Jen: Yeah, about.

Todd: Year and a half. I don't know. Uh, we hired three, so we probably did 15 interviews,

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: like

Jen: we went to a career day at, at a local hair school, um, and met like 300 and something people that were in the school at the time.

Todd: I'm misremembering that. I thought it was like 120

Jen: Oh, okay. It could have been, but it felt like a lot of people,

Todd: it felt like a lot. Yeah. Regardless of the

Jen: I felt like it was 300 people, even if it was a hundred.

Todd: so. Out of that, we got like, say, 15 interviews. We narrowed it down to three that we thought were the best fit. And we were [00:18:00] like, maybe one works out, two would be great. But you don't know. You

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: always know in the beginning, so it's difficult. Uh, one girl, uh, left. It was the grasses greener

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: and that happens and. of luck. We wish. Sure luck. Nothing. No hard feelings. one girl decided she was going to be a bully, so we fired her. Um, because bullying is trash and you're trash if you bully somebody. And one girl is kicking ass at our salon and now needs to be coached how to take care of herself because she's getting

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Mm-hmm. And an important aspect of, of longevity, right. Don't always be afraid to take a shot at somebody and don't always be afraid if, or discouraged rather, if they're like, no, I don't wanna meet with you. if they just ghost you.

Jen: And understand you're gonna put time into people that are gonna leave. Like in this case, we knew with these three people, um, [00:19:00] like Todd said, we were hoping for one, and I, at the time, I just couldn't tell which one was going to be the best fit, but I wasn't. Let's just see where it goes. You never know. Um, I wasn't salty about the time that was invested.

Um, and we parted ways when needed. And then,, like Todd said, one, um, went somewhere else, but we ended up with the one that fit us best and, and we're the best fit for her too. So it was great. I.

Todd: Um, you get people into your business, the. Next thing you need to think about is opportunities, some sort of a career path. You know it's funny in, I think it was in high school or middle school, we had a class that was called Career Paths,

Jen: Ah,

Todd: where we just like learned about careers and we always took like those tests that would tell you what you were gonna do.

Jen: that's awesome.

Todd: take those, like an aptitude test

Jen: I don't think in school, but I don't remember maybe.

Todd: I got police or entertainer.

Jen: Oh, nice. Uh, yeah. I don't remember taking that. Maybe I should see. See now.

Todd: of those things. Anyways, [00:20:00] uh, I think it's important to lay out not only your pay structure, 'cause that stuff has to be transparent for people so that they understand completely.

I ran into issues before with, uh, other businesses where people didn't understand the pay, and I was like, how do, how do they not this? It's so easy to understand. But that was my inexperience. Clearly it was on me to explain it if I was the manager at a restaurant or if I was whatever. Owning a gym or whatever, but I remember those things happening and falls on on you because things need to be crystal clear and you need to assume that nobody has common sense.

Don't assume anybody has common sense, you'll be a lot better off. I'd rather go over things and be like, sorry if I'm annoying you and going over this for the 19th time, but I just wanna make sure you really

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Or if have questions that will prompt them to ask them then,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: And so what do opportunities look like? At our salon, the number one [00:21:00] thing I can tell you right now is education. 'cause Jen, you do an apprentice apprenticeship

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: There is almost daily some sort of form of education and I'll let Jen talk about that in in a minute. I'm sure you'll get into that. But other things are showing them a path forward.

How do they get raises? What is that based on? What does that look like? Even if this is somebody that's brand new out of school, if you tell them, this is what I'm thinking for you six months, I want you to be here because in 12 to 18 months I want to do this. I want to be promoting you. For them to hear that sort of forethought is gonna be like, wow, this person has a plan for the

Jen: Huge.

Todd: This person has a plan, period. This person wants to promote. They just said they want to promote me. And it starts to build that relationship where they're excited now to be there because they're working towards something. They're not just working, doing hair, getting a paycheck, working, [00:22:00] doing hair, getting a paycheck. That gets old fast for anybody.

Jen: Absolutely.

Todd: create something. We can talk about culture too, but you have to create something where people feel like they're part of something that's bigger than them. They're part of like a team.

Jen: I agree.

Todd: something there?

Jen: Uh, yeah, I just, I think this growth opportunity is so important, especially now where you're seeing hair pros come outta school and they're like, do I rent a chair? Do I go in a commission salon? First and foremost, if they went out and rented a chair. If you can't show them the opportunity, they're like, well, these are the same thing.

So the part of you showing them growth opportunity, you showing them how to promote themselves, you showing 'em how they're getting promotions, um, these are things that they wouldn't be able to do on their own coming out of school. Um, so it's, it makes it where it's like, whoa, I have so much opportunity here, then it's gonna be your job though, in that 18 month period or however long.

You set out to what's the next growth pattern for them and what's the next one after that? So we have people in all different, um, categories of that. Some coming in newer, some in the middle, some that we're creating growth [00:23:00] opportunities to start educating, um, at our salon for a, a platform outside of our salon.

So there are so many ways that you can create opportunities, but the goal here is, is really to. For what, in my opinion is to show them opportunity like that they wouldn't be able to do on their own. Um, and for some that's even price increases because I, we've seen people go out on their own all the time and they, they are too afraid to raise their prices.

Some of them lower it. So even if you're constantly talking about what's the next price increase in this and I wanna push you to this, um, with the right staff that shows them that they would rather be nowhere else but with you. Um, it's very, very important to be always showing them the opportunities.

Todd: And these don't have to be hair related opportunities. They can be, for example, Jen, you brought up our education. So we are building Hello Hair Pro, uh, our own brand of education and, we've run classes in the salon where we've now passed the torch, sort of two, uh, two of our stylists that we've promoted and they get paid for those things. [00:24:00] And then we've run a couple of small classes where they, we brought some people in from outside who paid to attend the class, and our staff gets paid for those opportunities as well. And they're generating, or they will be generating that income. So if you're like, I can't afford to pay people, of course you can't. That's not how business works. If you are thinking that, you gotta reset your thinking immediately because you can only pay people what they generate. They have to generate income. you that have to guide them. like the how to, the, how to build my clientele, how to build, um, a successful career out of this thing.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Uh, the other thing we do, we have somebody that deep cleans our salon for us, who's on our staff. We had, we had hired an outside company. There just wasn't, it wasn't clicking. They weren't our vibe. And so we got rid of them rather than take over the cleaning again. We had someone on our staff that was like, I actually love cleaning.

It's therapeutic for me. I'll come in after hours and. We pay them now at, does she come in

Jen: Once a [00:25:00] month. Mm-hmm.

Todd: So she comes in once a month and deep cleans the salon. It looks fantastic. It's absolutely wonderful to have her doing that. And she cares. She buys in because it's her work environment.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: So even something like that, it might seem silly and you might be like, that's not a ton of money for somebody.

Show Clear Career Paths [10:00]

Why would they care? Let them

Jen: Right.

Todd: have the opportunity first. You might have a staff that maybe they're all slightly older and they have children. They probably don't have time to clean. Maybe you have a staff that actually wants to get out for a couple hours and that would be great for them.

So you're getting them out for a couple hours and you're paying them, know what I mean? So you never know what's gonna, gonna pop up. So it's important. Just have conversations with people constantly and, and be finding out what they want. What do they want? Not what do you want,

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: you to work every Saturday

Jen: Oh God,

Todd: days off.

Find out what they

Jen: that's old school.

Todd: Yeah, true.

Jen: Um, you had touched on education, so I guess I'll go there next. Um. So I have this and, and you can agree or not agree and [00:26:00] I'd, I'd love to hear opinions on it, but expect to hire out of school. I see so much, like how do I attract a seasoned stylist? How do I, I it's very,

Todd: Jen, I, I just, um, I got an email the other day from a woman that owns a salon and she was like talking about finding, I'm trying to find like stylists with clienteles and whatever, and I'm like, yeah, those are your unicorns.

Jen: yeah,

Todd: are rare.

Jen: very.

Todd: don't exist regularly because generally if somebody's super successful, they're set, they're happy where they

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: makes you successful. Um,

Jen: come with another set of problems too. So if you're looking to hire someone seasoned with a clientele.

Todd: I mentioned this

Jen: They come with their own bad habits. They come with their own ego. They come with like it. It just depends on what you're getting and not always is that your best option. To me, if you expect to hire a school, you come up with an education plan, you can help grow them and mold them and they'll buy into your culture as long as you're crystal clear what that is.

Like [00:27:00] we, we talk about this in the podcast all the time. We have a mission, core values, vision. We go over that. Over and over with our staff, um, what we're doing next, the why behind what we're doing. And, that younger generation, they wanna be part of something. So they're excited to like, wow, they're doing this, they're doing that.

They're, they're including me on what they're doing. You know, to an extent. We, we run the business, we take all the risks. So,, there are certain things that are, they're not included, but for the most part, like you're creating this culture organically by bringing in these younger. This younger Hair Pros coming out of school and as you grow your team and these hair pros coming outta school, become hopefully with you 1, 2, 3.

We have some people with us since we opened five or six years. They start to help,, bring those, those younger people come in like, remember I was there too. You know, you can shadow me, you can do this. And then before it, you have this organic education happening, like Todd said, daily. Um, and you have your seasoned stylists that have been with you since the beginning and appreciate what you've done for them and see the growth like we talked [00:28:00] about for their future.

Um, and it, it becomes this. I'll say a hamster wheel, but a great hamster wheel. Um, but I, it, the idea of coming, finding someone seasoned with a clientele is just, uh. I'd say get over it. And the sooner you move on from that and change your mindset and your focus, you'll attract what you need if you keep that interviewing happening, if you create an education plan, um, if, if you want to have them assist first or whatever, whatever that looks like, and then be very clear when you're hiring them what that looks like.

Um. We use some assisting when people come on. Um, really for, I think at most it's like three months-ish and then they just test out and when they're ready to do stuff, they're on the floor doing that. It may not be everything at first, but there's always some strengths they come to us with. So once I can work on that for a small amount of time, um, they can at least do those services while we work on the other ones.

But, um, yeah, I think just to create your own education program to. Teach them out of school. And that's gonna be from a skillset of technical to consultation to how to [00:29:00] be more professional. They, they need all of these things. So you as a leader and an owner are gonna have to take that on or work with someone on your staff to, to be that team leader and maybe they take over that for you.

I.

Todd: For me, I, what it breaks down to is buy-in. When you have someone come in out of school and you just build them, build them, build them and help them grow. And I'm not talking, just build their clientele. It's all the things like Jen just said, it's how to navigate life. We have people that are, um, know, in the position where now they're starting to look to buy properties and things and we've done that.

So we can give you a little bit of guidance there. And. When you bring someone in, if somebody, if you bring in a successful stylist, and this is not a hundred percent across the board 'cause nothing is, but odds are they've built themselves or they feel they've built themselves. They're just looking for a cool place to work. It might not mean they buy in to your culture, it might not mean that they wanna help you grow your business. They might just be looking for a chair to do [00:30:00] hair and then go home. Not saying anything's wrong with that, but I see. People wanting both sides of the coin where they want the buy-in, but they also

Jen: Hmm.

Todd: a stylist that's established.

And I don't know if that's going to be, that's probably even less common than finding someone to begin with.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: else are we going with this?

Jen: So, um, the next thing I have is having system and, and rules. We talk a lot about flexibility and freedoms that we offer our employees. Um. With that they understand the rules and how to basically what is expected of them. It's very important that we lay out expectations and by doing that, we can allow them these flexibilities and freedoms within our business.

So right now, this generation,, if, if they don't, if everybody wants off a Saturday, right, which it happens, I rarely but it, it does happen. Or any day we will just close that day. Like that's just where [00:31:00] it is. Because what would be the point to be like, Nope, sorry, you have to work

Todd: We haven't had to do that.

Jen: I don't think it's ever happened, but it is a conversation that you and I have had with this flex of freedoms and understanding.

Todd: We've had it with our staff

Jen: Yeah. That it's

Todd: you guys on it off, if you were the last person on a Saturday because everyone took it off and then you got invited to the beach, and

Jen: just go.

Todd: clients or you had one client like you can. You can maybe

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: or you can, whatever you, it's, it's, again, it's an individual thing.

Jen: Yeah, but we've also,, having said that, we have to make sure the business is protected. That,, we're, like I said, we're, we're the ones responsible for all the risk here. So with this flexibility and freedom, like I said, there are rules, there are systems in place that everybody understands how to follow, and that's why this works at Hello.

Um, without that, it would be a free for all, which would not work at all. Right? So making sure.

Todd: this also goes. to your team, because often what I'll see on,, Facebook and on social media is that the younger [00:32:00] generation, they don't wanna do this, they don't wanna do that. That's bs.

Jen: Right.

Todd: are just not taking the time to find the right people.

Jen: leading them

Todd: How

Jen: to get there.

Todd: how many times Jen does it happen where someone takes a day off and somebody jumps in to take that shift

Jen: Yeah. We have that all the time. Yeah.

Todd: All the time. So, and what I mean by that is if a shift opens up, we have young people that are like, Hey, can I work that shift? Hey, is there a chair open on this day? Could I work? I have a couple people I can squeeze in. Can I work a few hours on this day? So I know, and these are people that are, are from teens to early twenties.

Jen: they're in that generation that people are pointing fingers at and saying they're lazy. Uh, we don't have that.

Todd: what. know what you're talking about. I just, that what that tells me is you're just not finding the right people. You might need help. Maybe you're just snap hiring because you're like, I just need bodies in here. 'cause I, I do see that a lot where people will say, I'm turning away business. Well, long have you been doing hair? You should have had a system in

Jen: Right?[00:33:00]

Todd: So, and it's, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just don't blame other people because that doesn't do anything for you. You can't always just go around talking about problems. Sometimes you have to find

Jen: Mm-hmm. All the time.

Todd: about your problems constantly is like watching the news. you ever see solutions on the news? No. You just see them talking about problems because it's what sucks you in. It's negativity.

Jen: Agree.

Todd: this downward spiral. And when you start doing the echo chamber thing on, on Facebook where you're like, well, the younger generation, I,, I'm struggling because they won't work and I'm turning away business. just not true. It's not their fault. Need to find better people or you

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: be clearer about your expectations

Jen: Absolutely

Todd: know. 'cause it's individual,

Jen: right. You need to be a better leader. It starts with you either way, whether you like it or not. Um, you have to lead your team by the, by what you do.

Todd: Yeah, for sure. I think too, I, I don't know where you were with your thoughts, but had talked about systems and, and we talked about a little bit of a mission and vision. [00:34:00] So you have to build your brand, uh, your brand needs to be solid and there has to be some sort of cohesiveness. And that's important for your staff, it's also important for clients,

Jen: Right.

Todd: And I think this is what we disagreed with on the last podcast where we kind of got a little bit chippy. Um, and it's not necessarily that Jen disagreed with that you need to have cohesion in within your business, but it was the way I think I delivered the point. But either way, people. Like if they know you have, uh, meetings once a year, once a month, once a day, whatever it is that you wanna have them.

'cause I see wild stuff out there. Um, if they know that's coming, they feel like that's, they can have a connection with you, right? Because you're building that connection. Uh, if you're approachable, you're not just behind the chairs slogging away because that's not gonna work either. You have to have time for your staff, you have to have time.

How many times, Jen have you sat down and take a lunch and you have to work through?

Jen: [00:35:00] Yesterday,

Todd: With somebody. Yeah. So it's, it's constant. But guess what? That's part of being an

Build Your Own Education Pipeline [16:00]

Jen: I get up with a smile and I'm like, yep, I will help you. What do you need every time? That's my job.

Todd: I'm not even talking about getting up. Sometimes they just need to talk

Jen: And.

Todd: that's not even

Jen: Yesterday was, um, some help with a haircut, but yeah, it just depends, right? I had, we had, um, one of our staff yesterday, she had messaged and I was in the salon. Todd wasn't like, can I just chat with you real quick? Um, and wanted to work through some ideas for her future and, um, how she maybe could be at the salon mower.

Uh, and just was like, I, I just need to talk through this. I'm gonna talk to my mom tonight, but I needed to talk to you first. You know, and like, sure. I'm like, I got 15 minutes. You wanna use it, it's yours.

Todd: Yeah, being available for your team and building that. Culture because again, everybody wants to drop that C word, right? You want, I have the best culture, the best culture. Do you,

Jen: Mm.

Todd: if it's not clear to your, to your team what it looks like, then it's not the

Jen: Correct.

Todd: So, and again, it's just, you just need to work on it.

You just need to build it. It's not [00:36:00] the end of the world, but it could be part of why you're not retaining staff. For

Jen: Agreed.

Todd: What else do we have going on?

Jen: Um, I think I, I have something that sort of works with employees, but also just could help you create a, a wider foundation in your business. But I wanna just touch on this real quick, is that we talked about turnover a little bit. Yes. We have to invest in our staff. That's just where it's at and you're.

Gonna have to get over feeling salty when those people leave and realize that that's part of running a business and being a leader in your business. Um, it's just going to happen. But you can't not invest in these people's future with education and getting them where you want them to be because you're afraid they're all gonna go.

Um, if that's where you're sitting, you might wanna decide if you still wanna run your business. Um, the minute you get over that and just realize like. Get them more successful. Um, eventually you'll have the right people, um, or you have the right systems to [00:37:00] replace them when they do leave and you're just like, I wish you luck.

And that's totally fine. Um, that's where we sit today. I don't anyone that leaves for the most part wish them luck unless they're. Not nice, like a bully. Um, but for the most part,, hey, I, I hope everything is as good as you hope it to be wherever you're going,? Um, but I also wanted to touch on, I had talked about this in the last podcast, but it's not really about employee in re retention, but is, um, is this station sharing that we do, um, and I do think this is really important for culture, um, in your business.

So. I see a lot of salons out there. There are six station salons, so they think they have to hire six people. Um, and you're selling yourself short because then what happens if you only have six stylists? Let's say you fill all your stations and one or two leave, it's gonna hurt your business. Really, the impact financially is really, really big, right?

So if you station share. Like I say all the time too, everyone has to work a Saturday, that you don't have to work Saturdays if you don't want to. At our salon, uh, we have people that work every other, I would be fine if it's once, if they don't, it doesn't matter. Um, so with station sharing, we're able to be open.

We are [00:38:00] now seven days, um, which means people work three to four shifts a week. That's about it. That's where they should be anymore. I think it's too much in my opinion. Um, but it allows us to have a staff. I think there's 15 of us in total, uh, which is a fairly big staff. But then daily, when we're open, it feels nice and small.

But also it allows if one or two people were to leave, the impact on the business isn't as large, isn't felt as big. And again, I said we're interviewing all the time. We have a wait list. Now we're kind of like, who wants to interview next? Or we have people that might be at three shifts in our salon that are like, can I pick up the fourth?

I I would love that day. Um, and it's created this wonderful scenario where the idea of people leaving. Doesn't cross my mind and isn't scary because we have broadened our base enough to really help protect the business. So just something to consider and if you don't know how to do that, we're happy to sit and chat and explain how we create that at our business and and how it's become very successful.

Todd: I'll give it to you in a nutshell. Stop [00:39:00] hiring to fill chairs. Hire to build your culture.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: If you have 10 chairs, great. Don't look for 10 stylists. Look for people that fit your. Look for people that want to help you get to your vision. Look for people that align with your core values. That's it.

It's, it's, that's it. That's the, in a nutshell, what you need to do. And if you don't have those things, get those things. If you have those things, use them.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: You know, if you, if you have those things and maybe you're like, I don't know if this is what I feel any longer, we will revisit it. okay to pivot in business.

It's okay to change your

Jen: It's important to do that.

Todd: Agreed. Yeah, you have

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: working through ours. By we, I mean me, our uh, mission and core values and, and vision because we've been doing this now for going on six years, and

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: just felt like it was time. We needed a

Jen: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Todd: I think it goes back to our staff too.

They feel like we're not just set it and

Jen: Right. Mm-hmm.

Todd: [00:40:00] We're actively pursuing. How do we make this better? How do we create more opportunity for people? How do we bring on, how do we bring more opportunity to more

Jen: Right.

Todd: And you could get in a situation when you hire the wrong people. And we've had this, we have had this in the past, but we've worked through it where people get almost salty, they have some sort of animosity.

And I've been asked before, how many people are you guys gonna hire? And I know it comes from a place

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: 'cause they're thinking. Well, now I'm not gonna get all the clients like that's, we don't have people that think like that. I've been asked before when we're hiring Jen, how does new clients work?

Jen: Oh yeah,

Todd: what do you mean? What do you mean? And they're like, well, a new client comes in who gets it? And I'm like, interesting.

Jen: yeah.

Todd: Um, think there's some sort of rotation. What we do is we consult with the person and see who the best fit is for them.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: So

Jen: Also, if you're coming in and bringing nothing to the table and you're just asking, what do we give you? Like, okay, hold up here.

Todd: A [00:41:00] little bit of a red flag there. Um, I don't think it's necessarily like a, an invalid question. I do think it's important to know where clients are coming from in a salon, because that's how you're gonna make

Jen: Right? Yeah.

Todd: I also think it's important to simmer down and bring something like Jensen, bring something to the

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: ? Um. Yeah, that's, that's all I had to say about that. Is that it.

Jen: Yeah, I think the, the last two things I have is at the end of the day, you, you have to bring the fun factor, right? Like there's gotta be some element of fun coming into your salon that makes people wanna be there and treating. People like hair pros, uh, we've talked about this a bunch. I just see like next generation, they're lazy.

They don't wanna do anything, and if you bring that negative energy, you're, you're never gonna grow or hire the right people because you're bringing in the negative energy. So I'm super careful in our salon to,. These are our next generation of hair pros. What do they [00:42:00] need? What can I offer them?

How can I grow them? Um, I think you just gotta change that mindset and they're not gonna work like you did 25 years ago, and maybe they shouldn't. Um, when I started 25 years ago in the first salon, we were judged, or, um, I don't, I was say like graded, but basically my meetings were all about every 15 minutes.

How can you fill this spot? I don't want. To be coaching our staff on every 15 minutes. How can you fill this spot that's, that's not fun. Um, and if I did do that, they, we'd have nobody. So,, making sure that you are bringing in the good energy because it starts with you. Um, and that you're treating the people that are working with you, like professionals, because if you treat them that way, they will reach up to that.

They'll, they'll wanna be at that level. Um, so I guess just kind of self-evaluate, um, sort of what you're bringing in for energy to your business.

Todd: Yeah, and the leadership component's not optional.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: You

Jen: suck it up buttercup.

Todd: You need

Jen: Suck it up buttercup. Like you just gotta do it.

Todd: So [00:43:00] you have to understand your business. You have to understand your numbers because here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna go in those Facebook groups and be like, I'm paying 80%

Jen: Oh.

Todd: How come you're not attracting stylists? It's don't chase that. Again, you're just trying to beat someone else's commission. So if someone does 40, you're gonna do 45, someone does 80, you're gonna do what? 85? Like it doesn't make sense. So, and you wanna talk about the younger generation? Let's lean into. The younger generation and what they want for them.

Culture is more important than commission.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: know because we've had people take less money in their commission to begin. They make more money now, less to to start because they bought into our culture. They bought into our vision and what we were doing, and now they're more successful than I would say if they went to somewhere

Jen: Right.

Todd: we're constantly building

Jen: Yep.

Systems, Standards, and Flexibility [22:00]

Todd: If you don't have an awareness of your numbers, if you don't know what you can afford to pay, and if you just are guessing on a commission structure because [00:44:00] someone down the street has one and it seems to work for them, even though you're not in their salon, but you see their social media, and I guess that's good enough for you, then you're gonna run into trouble. So. your shit. Anyways. All right, uh, get on our newsletter and all that fun stuff and let's wrap up. So we went a little long, but apologies and sorry again for having to repost this episode, hope, hope you guys enjoyed and

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: somebody out there got,

Jen: Something out of it.

Todd: outta it. All right, reach out if you need help.

Bye

Jen: Bye.

Todd: All right. What's up everyone? Welcome back. Happy Wednesday special edition. So here's the deal. and I recorded, we released the podcast on Monday. I don't know if anybody listened. If you did, I apologize because somehow the audio got messed up and like a third or a quarter of the way through my mic obviously just cut out and there was nothing on my end.

When we, when we published the episode, I could see. My [00:45:00] track and I had no clue that it wasn't, that it was blank. For some odd reason because I never, I, I listen to the episodes as I publish them. Jen knows that, or as I edit them rather, so I know what's in there. So I, it's rare that I go back and listen to an episode, but for some reason I was like, this episode on and see how it was so. I put it on like one and a half speed hit play, and it starts going through, and then all of a sudden you are talking, Jen, and I'm like, she's talking for a long time. And then I'm realizing there, these pauses are long and then I'm realizing there's no me.

Jen: So hopefully you didn't listen to all episode of just me talking and Yeah, that would be hilarious.

Todd: it, I, I don't think it would've made any sense. So I

Jen: I'm sure.

Todd: made through the episode. So anyways, this episode is gonna release on Wednesday because we're replacing Monday's episode. So. Here

Jen: Here we are.

Todd: with that issue before. My bad. One thing that was cool, and we're not gonna be able to recreate this, there's no way to recreate it, is that we, Jen and I kind of disagreed [00:46:00] and there was a point in there, there was a point in there where it kind of got like chippy

Jen: Yeah. I had to actually apologize for being a brat.

Todd: and so it wasn't a big deal, but I thought it would be cool to leave it in because that's what's real, that's what it's not always. Unicorns and

Jen: Right.

Todd: perfect. And when we sit down and do these podcasts, most of the time we agree because we're talking about stuff for our business, but sometimes we don't. And it's really rare. I don't know, in 200 plus episodes that we've caught something like that.

Jen: No, that was the first. So sorry. You guys missed it.

Todd: yeah. But go us. 'cause here we

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: did over 200 episodes and we haven't really gone at each other like that. And it wasn't even, it wasn't even anything crazy, it was just. On the fly. I disagreed with something Jen said, and she didn't get what I was saying, then I just played into it. And then she played into her part, which was, as you said, Jen being a

Jen: Yeah, I was

Todd: but

Jen: whatever.

Todd: we're talking about staff retention

Jen: [00:47:00] Yes.

Todd: and how to maintain a team,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: how to grow and maintain a team, I guess. So, you have anything to add before we jump in?

Jen: No, I'm ready to go whenever you are.

Todd: All right,

Jen: I'm organized.

Todd: Let's start with our opening takes. That was awesome.

Jen: Oh, geez.

Todd: All right. You wanna go first?

Jen: I

Todd: now.

Jen: will go first. Sure. So. I was just scrolling through. I actually over the summer, really try not to be on social media too much. Whatever I have to do to repost for the business in there and then get off and read a book. So that's kind of my goal. Two books down this summer. So I'm, I'm actually hitting my goal, which is pretty proud of myself.

But anyway, stumbled across this. And I think it's important to talk about, because we do talk about this all the time, about how being in the hair industry. It's customer service. And it seems to be forgotten often that we are a customer service industry. And I see often it turn about the hair pro and it's all about how it affects [00:48:00] me, me, me, what you are not doing for me.

And so this one just kind of, I, I guess it resonated with I think a lot of the banter I see. And I just wanted to speak to it. So this person, I don't know her. But anyway, she basically was. Talking to her audience and said, please be mindful of respecting my schedule, like I respect yours. It goes into the cancellation policy and how she's had a lot of cancellations and she's been lenient on her policy and then wants to remind you if she doesn't work, she doesn't get paid, and that your cancellation directly affects her income.

Basically you, you, you, and everything you are doing wrong and how it affects her. The next part that I think blew my mind is I was like, this is interesting. Let me see kind of what she's about. I, I think she's independent in a suite or something like that. But at her, all over her page runs, you go on it is that she is luxury, luxury, luxury, luxury.

So I read this post, which, first of all, if I was your client, I would cancel you. I would not be your client any longer. 'cause I, I think that's just super negative and it's all about you and not about me. And I'm the one paying you. And [00:49:00] second.

Todd: It's the opposite of luxury.

Jen: So it doesn't match, like if you're luxury, you're all about the client.

You're all about the guest. It's all about them, and everything she posts is all about her. So those just don't match for me. Also, you're blaming your clients. About you being lenient with your cancellation policy, which means it's your problem. I see this all the time. People have a cancellation policy and they don't enforce it a hundred percent of the time.

I think that means you need to reevaluate your cancellation policy because you need to treat everybody fairly. At our salon, we do it on, it's a, it's a need basis because I would, we would never be able to enforce something a hundred percent. So we kind of look at different things, situations, if it needs to be enforced or sometimes it just needs that the client and, hello, need to part ways. But we don't say it's a hundred percent because you would never, ever do something a hundred percent of the time. So I just thought it was kind of just a piece of information. Talk about it, think about it. Hopefully it resonates and, and maybe it gets some people to be like, whoa, I need to be more about [00:50:00] my, my customer, more about my client.

That's what I'm here to do, to serve them. And also maybe you look at your cancellation policy and if you can't enforce it, that's on you. And that would mean you need to change that policy to something that feels comfortable, what you can enforce. That's my spiel.

Todd: Excellent. Agreed. Mine might be a little long, but that's okay 'cause it's Wednesday. So my opening take is that often than not, the simplest solution is the best answer. Where, where does this come from? Sometimes I wanna help people if you couldn't tell. So I'll post replies in Facebook groups and stuff, and only post the truth, which are things that we've done or that we do.

That's my rule. I'm never gonna give someone some sort of like theoretical advice. Which I see a lot, but anyways, I'll stay on track. The other day I replied to a question about commission rates and the other person, I don't know who it is, 'cause they all post anonymously anyways, they write to me easier isn't always better. 'cause I broke [00:51:00] down our commission structure it's super simple and I don't think people can grasp that. They wanna think that it's harder because if it's harder it means maybe you're smarter because you understand it or something, but. Yeah, so easier isn't always better, and I mean maybe, but probably not. So probably most often, the simplest solution is quite literally the best solution. It's how it works in lots of other fields, like in mathematics, people are looking for the most elegant solution, which is the simplest, right? Those are the most powerful equations, the simple ones. So also look at what CEOs of the largest companies do.

They almost always simplify things when. A company is struggling. When a company is having a problem. A CEO, a good CEO will always, or almost always, simplify something. Remove something. what I want to do is take a look at Lego. knows Lego. How could you not? [00:52:00] Lego is fun. So. I don't know what year this was.

Let's say, oh, 2003. So not long ago. Lego was $800 million in debt.

Jen: Wow.

Todd: They were losing $1 million a day, right? What was the issue? They had too many products. They had too little focus. They started expanding into theme parks. They were doing clothing they were doing. Merchandising. They were doing retail, they were doing all these things and they lost their core, which is what makes Lego.

Lego. So their CEO, I'm not even gonna attempt his name, give it a go. Jorgen Vig n Stewart.

Jen: Sounds good to me.

Todd: he, he came in and he slashed 30% of their product lines and cut 1000 jobs. And then he asked this question, is the problem Lego? I

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: because we talk [00:53:00] about when you have something going on in your business, it's your fault.

When it's good, you take credit when it's bad, you also need to take credit. You are the leader. Everything stops with you. He cut over 7,000 different types of bricks and went back to the essentials, and they doubled down on what fans actually wanted. So think about that again. Jen was just talking about.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: from 35 from Star Wars alone, 35%

Jen: Wow.

Todd: just from that one thing. they did was they cut, they simplified, and they listened. They went from losing a million dollars a day, which is insane. You couldn't even fathom that probably as a hair stylist to the number [00:54:00] one toy brand. There's our dog barking again. Awesome.

Jen: You got that on the last pass podcast, but I just thought we'd share that again.

Todd: Yeah. So the point of that little story is that complexity kills and focus wins, and you can argue all you want. Simplest isn't always the best, but almost always gonna be the best.

Jen: Absolutely.

Todd: And so also I post on those online groups because I like helping people, and I'm smart enough to understand that there's multiple approaches to each challenge. But I also understand that in that case, I'm, I'm right. So anyways,

Jen: I think it's great 'cause I do see, I don't post in them, it's just not for me. But there's a lot of really bad information and a lot of people giving information on an opinion and not on fact and unfortunately. There's a lot of people that take those opinions and are using them to better their business when they have, it's not going to work.

So I think it's great to, to be in those and, and try to try to help where you truly can, [00:55:00] right? Mm-hmm.

Todd: Let's dive into, yeah, so real quick also in those groups. Yeah, I see a lot of terrible advice that you can tell people are either making up or it's just bad advice or they're mimicking it from somewhere else. I see a lot of chat, GPT stuff, just either. They'll say either check, chat, chat, GPPT, or can tell that their answer is just generated from chat GPT, and they just copy and paste. And then the other thing that I see is buy my course and that'll fix your problems. So I, I don't, there's so much free information out there. We do do some mentoring that we charge for, but it's very, it's not like templates and whatever. It's just to help you work through whatever

Jen: It's customized to the individual.

Todd: Yeah. So there's nothing for me to really sell if people want that. If you want to work with us one-on-one to accelerate progress because you have somebody that's checking in with you and that sort of stuff, we have that available, but I'm never gonna push that. [00:56:00] So. Yeah. Anyways, let's dive into this retention.

We're talking about retention of staff, of, and this could translate to renters too, I suppose.

Jen: Yeah, I mean, we're seeing retention issues on across the board, right?

Todd: Yeah, we run a commission salon, so that tends to be where we speak from. But Jen, you've been a renter, you rented for a while,

Jen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Before I started my first salon in a few different places. Yeah. I.

Rethink Hiring: Station Sharing and Broad Foundations [28:00]

So the first thing I have on my list is interview always. So. We currently are, are not hiring. At the moment we still though, will take interviews. What I love about this and the position we're in is, is I, I probably unique, but I it is really great. So we get, I think Todd could attest to this better than me, but every week a couple people coming out of school, like, are you hiring?

Are you hiring or hiring? So, we've always just interviewed anyway because we want to meet with these individuals. We wanna understand the hair pros that are coming out [00:57:00] of school what the schools are teaching them. 'cause every school's different, right? So what are they coming out with? Strengths and weaknesses.

What are their wants and needs because. They're coming out of school, they're the next generation in the hair pro industry. So we need to understand what they're looking for and again, what their skill level is so that we can see what we need to pivot in our business and how we need to innovate to meet the needs that we can, but also kind of make sure we're operating in a world that is able to kind of blend those together basically.

So what Todd will do is,, hey, we're not hiring currently because that's our situation. But if you still wanna meet and one out of 5, 6, 7 a, a small percent will still meet, which is great because that's someone who's truly looking for us for. A job that fits them, not just a job in any hair salon, but the goal here is, is to make relationships for the future.

So the more people that you interview, you'll start to find, well, you'll get better at interviewing and you'll start to find different questions that start to curate what you're looking for in your business if you're not sure [00:58:00] yet. But also you'll just get to meet and know what the schools are producing and what the needs are of the future.

Hair Pros. It's very important because you want to start to build these relationships because salons have turnover. It's just where it is. You don't have to like it, but it's in any business, there's turnover. So the more people you're interviewing, you're creating a streamline of different conversations and maybe future relationships.

And I think that's really important. So even if you have a full staff, don't stop interviewing. If somebody's reaching out and they want a job, Hey, we're, we're full right now, but I'd love to meet. It's just keeping that. Interviewing process and, and that door open all the time. So when you do have the next turnover, you might have some people you interviewed that are kind of in the back of your mind that now you can reach out to and you have some sort of a relationship.

It's not just this cold kind of like, I need to, I need to hire, who am I hiring? You'll have some people that you're like, oh, they, they kind of sparked an interest with me. I'm gonna reach out, see where they're at. So that's my first thing and I, I think, my last salon, we didn't do that. And whenever we would have turnover, we were spinning our wheels to try to catch up.

I love what we're curating [00:59:00] now. I think it's just great that we're always having people coming in interviewing and shadowing and I, it's great even for our staff to see 'cause it gets them excited.

Todd: I'll add to that, that don't be discouraged when you offer to meet with somebody after telling them. So be honest and tell them that you're not hiring. At the moment,

Jen: I.

Todd: And bring them in unless you are hiring, of course, but be honest with that. And then if people ghost you, don't be, don't, don't take that the wrong way. That's on them. That's a missed opportunity for them.

Jen: Yeah, just move on.

Todd: that's the type of person, that's the type of thinking that you are not interested in either. Or you shouldn't be somebody that's only looking for a place to work is not, that's, they're not even searching for the right fit.

Jen: Right.

Todd: We tell people all the time, it's nice to be picked, sure you're picking back.

Make sure you're choosing the place that you're going to make sure that the, the salon or barbershop that you're going to sure their, core values align with your core values. If things don't even make sense, [01:00:00] don't, don't do it.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: know, but the, the industry is, I don't want to, I don't like the word saturated. But there are a ton of people looking for jobs. So I, it's always interesting when people are struggling to hire because there's, I feel like in our area, maybe it's different. are always people looking for jobs.

Jen: Constant coming out all the time.

Todd: you just have to figure out how to curate and how to extract the best ones, the diamonds in the rough, really. So quick story. We hired,

Jen: I was just gonna say this.

Todd: two, two years ago.

Jen: Yeah, about.

Todd: Year and a half. I don't know. We hired three, so we probably did 15 interviews,

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: like

Jen: we went to a career day at, at a local hair school and met like 300 and something people that were in the school at the time.

Todd: I'm misremembering that. I thought it was like 120

Jen: Oh, okay. It could have been, but it felt like a lot of people,

Todd: it felt like a lot. Yeah. Regardless of the

Jen: I felt like it was 300 people, even if it was a hundred.

Todd: so. Out [01:01:00] of that, we got like, say, 15 interviews. We narrowed it down to three that we thought were the best fit. And we were like, maybe one works out, two would be great. But you don't know. You

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: always know in the beginning, so it's difficult. One girl left. It was the grasses greener

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: and that happens and. of luck. We wish. Sure luck. Nothing. No hard feelings. one girl decided she was going to be a bully, so we fired her. Because bullying is trash and you're trash if you bully somebody. And one girl is kicking ass at our salon and now needs to be coached how to take care of herself because she's getting

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Mm-hmm. And an important aspect of, of longevity, right. Don't always be afraid to take a shot at somebody and don't always be afraid if, or discouraged rather, if they're like, no, I don't wanna meet with you. if they just ghost you.

Jen: And understand you're gonna put time into people that are [01:02:00] gonna leave. Like in this case, we knew with these three people like Todd said, we were hoping for one, and I, at the time, I just couldn't tell which one was going to be the best fit, but I wasn't. Let's just see where it goes. You never know. I wasn't salty about the time that was invested.

And we parted ways when needed. And then,, like Todd said, one went somewhere else, but we ended up with the one that fit us best and, and we're the best fit for her too. So it was great. I.

Todd: You get people into your business, the. Next thing you need to think about is opportunities, some sort of a career path. You know it's funny in, I think it was in high school or middle school, we had a class that was called Career Paths,

Jen: Ah,

Todd: where we just like learned about careers and we always took like those tests that would tell you what you were gonna do.

Jen: that's awesome.

Todd: take those, like an aptitude test

Jen: I don't think in school, but I don't remember maybe.

Todd: I got police or entertainer.

Jen: Oh, nice. Yeah. I don't remember taking that. Maybe I should see. See now.

Todd: of those things. Anyways I think it's important to lay out not only [01:03:00] your pay structure, 'cause that stuff has to be transparent for people so that they understand completely.

I ran into issues before with other businesses where people didn't understand the pay, and I was like, how do, how do they not this? It's so easy to understand. But that was my inexperience. Clearly it was on me to explain it if I was the manager at a restaurant or if I was whatever. Owning a gym or whatever, but I remember those things happening and falls on on you because things need to be crystal clear and you need to assume that nobody has common sense.

Don't assume anybody has common sense, you'll be a lot better off. I'd rather go over things and be like, sorry if I'm annoying you and going over this for the 19th time, but I just wanna make sure you really

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Or if have questions that will prompt them to ask them then,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: And so what do opportunities look like? At our salon, the number one thing I can tell you right now is education. 'cause Jen, you do an apprentice apprenticeship

Jen: [01:04:00] Mm-hmm.

Todd: There is almost daily some sort of form of education and I'll let Jen talk about that in in a minute. I'm sure you'll get into that. But other things are showing them a path forward.

How do they get raises? What is that based on? What does that look like? Even if this is somebody that's brand new out of school, if you tell them, this is what I'm thinking for you six months, I want you to be here because in 12 to 18 months I want to do this. I want to be promoting you. For them to hear that sort of forethought is gonna be like, wow, this person has a plan for the

Jen: Huge.

Todd: This person has a plan, period. This person wants to promote. They just said they want to promote me. And it starts to build that relationship where they're excited now to be there because they're working towards something. They're not just working, doing hair, getting a paycheck, working, doing hair, getting a paycheck. That gets old fast for anybody.

Jen: Absolutely.

Todd: create something. We [01:05:00] can talk about culture too, but you have to create something where people feel like they're part of something that's bigger than them. They're part of like a team.

Jen: I agree.

Todd: something there?

Jen: Yeah, I just, I think this growth opportunity is so important, especially now where you're seeing hair pros come outta school and they're like, do I rent a chair? Do I go in a commission salon? First and foremost, if they went out and rented a chair. If you can't show them the opportunity, they're like, well, these are the same thing.

So the part of you showing them growth opportunity, you showing them how to promote themselves, you showing 'em how they're getting promotions these are things that they wouldn't be able to do on their own coming out of school. So it's, it makes it where it's like, whoa, I have so much opportunity here, then it's gonna be your job though, in that 18 month period or however long.

You set out to what's the next growth pattern for them and what's the next one after that? So we have people in all different categories of that. Some coming in newer, some in the middle, some that we're creating growth opportunities to start educating at our salon.

So there are so many ways that you can create opportunities, but the goal here [01:06:00] is, is really to. For what, in my opinion is to show them opportunity like that they wouldn't be able to do on their own. And for some that's even price increases because I, we've seen people go out on their own all the time and they, they are too afraid to raise their prices.

Some of them lower it. So even if you're constantly talking about what's the next price increase in this and I wanna push you to this with the right staff that shows them that they would rather be nowhere else but with you. It's very, very important to be always showing them the opportunities.

Todd: And these don't have to be hair related opportunities. They can be, for example, Jen, you brought up our education. So we are building Hello Hair Pro our own brand of education and, we've run classes in the salon where we've now passed the torch, sort of two two of our stylists that we've promoted and they get paid for those things. And then we've run a couple of small classes where they, we brought some people in from outside who paid to attend the class, and our staff gets paid for those opportunities as well. And they're [01:07:00] generating, or they will be generating that income. So if you're like, I can't afford to pay people, of course you can't. That's not how business works. If you are thinking that, you gotta reset your thinking immediately because you can only pay people what they generate. They have to generate income. you that have to guide them. like the how to, the, how to build my clientele, how to build a successful career out of this thing.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: The other thing we do, we have somebody that deep cleans our salon for us, who's on our staff. We had, we had hired an outside company. There just wasn't, it wasn't clicking. They weren't our vibe. And so we got rid of them rather than take over the cleaning again. We had someone on our staff that was like, I actually love cleaning.

It's therapeutic for me. I'll come in after hours and. We pay them now at, does she come in

Jen: Once a month. Mm-hmm.

Todd: So she comes in once a month and deep cleans the salon. It looks fantastic. It's absolutely wonderful to have her doing that. And she cares. She buys in because it's her work environment.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: So even something like that, it might seem [01:08:00] silly and you might be like, that's not a ton of money for somebody.

Leadership and Energy Start With You [34:00]

Why would they care? Let them

Jen: Right.

Todd: have the opportunity first. You might have a staff that maybe they're all slightly older and they have children. They probably don't have time to clean. Maybe you have a staff that actually wants to get out for a couple hours and that would be great for them.

So you're getting them out for a couple hours and you're paying them, know what I mean? So you never know what's gonna, gonna pop up. So it's important. Just have conversations with people constantly and, and be finding out what they want. What do they want? Not what do you want,

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: you to work every Saturday

Jen: Oh God,

Todd: days off.

Find out what they

Jen: that's old school.

Todd: Yeah, true.

Jen: You had touched on education, so I guess I'll go there next. So I have this and, and you can agree or not agree and I'd, I'd love to hear opinions on it, but expect to hire out of school. I see so much, like how do I attract a seasoned stylist? How do I, I it's very,

Todd: Jen, I, I just I got an email the other day from a woman that owns a salon and she was [01:09:00] like talking about finding, I'm trying to find like stylists with clienteles and whatever, and I'm like, yeah, those are your unicorns.

Jen: yeah,

Todd: are rare.

Jen: very.

Todd: don't exist regularly because generally if somebody's super successful, they're set, they're happy where they

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: makes you successful.

Jen: Come with another set of problems too. So if you're looking to hire someone seasoned with a clientele.

Todd: I mentioned this

Jen: They come with their own bad habits. They come with their own ego. They come with like it. It just depends on what you're getting and not always is that your best option. To me, if you expect to hire a school, you come up with an education plan, you can help grow them and mold them and they'll buy into your culture as long as you're crystal clear what that is.

Like we, we talk about this in the podcast all the time. We have a mission, core values, vision. We go over that. Over and over with our staff what we're doing next, the why behind what we're doing. And, that younger generation, they wanna be part of something. So they're excited to like, wow, they're doing this, [01:10:00] they're doing that.

They're, they're including me on what they're doing. You know, to an extent. We, we run the business, we take all the risks. So,, there are certain things that are, they're not included, but for the most part, like you're creating this culture organically by bringing in these younger. This younger Hair Pros coming out of school and as you grow your team and these hair pros coming outta school, become hopefully with you 1, 2, 3.

We have some people with us since we opened five or six years. They start to help,, bring those, those younger people come in like, remember I was there too. You know, you can shadow me, you can do this. And then before it, you have this organic education happening, like Todd said, daily. And you have your seasoned stylists that have been with you since the beginning and appreciate what you've done for them and see the growth like we talked about for their future.

And it, it becomes this. I'll say a hamster wheel, but a great hamster wheel. But I, it, the idea of coming, finding someone seasoned with a clientele is just, i'd say get over it. And the sooner you move on from that and change your mindset and your focus, you'll attract what you need if you keep that interviewing [01:11:00] happening, if you create an education plan if, if you want to have them assist first or whatever, whatever that looks like, and then be very clear when you're hiring them what that looks like.

We use some assisting when people come on. Really for, I think at most it's like three months-ish and then they just test out and when they're ready to do stuff, they're on the floor doing that. It may not be everything at first, but there's always some strengths they come to us with. So once I can work on that for a small amount of time they can at least do those services while we work on the other ones.

But yeah, I think just to create your own education program to. Teach them out of school. And that's gonna be from a skillset of technical to consultation to how to be more professional. They, they need all of these things. So you as a leader and an owner are gonna have to take that on or work with someone on your staff to, to be that team leader and maybe they take over that for you.

I.

Todd: For me, I, what it breaks down to is buy-in. When you have someone come in out of school and you just build them, build them, build them and help them grow. And I'm [01:12:00] not talking, just build their clientele. It's all the things like Jen just said, it's how to navigate life. We have people that are know, in the position where now they're starting to look to buy properties and things and we've done that.

So we can give you a little bit of guidance there. And. When you bring someone in, if somebody, if you bring in a successful stylist, and this is not a hundred percent across the board 'cause nothing is, but odds are they've built themselves or they feel they've built themselves. They're just looking for a cool place to work. It might not mean they buy in to your culture, it might not mean that they wanna help you grow your business. They might just be looking for a chair to do hair and then go home. Not saying anything's wrong with that, but I see. People wanting both sides of the coin where they want the buy-in, but they also

Jen: Hmm.

Todd: a stylist that's established.

And I don't know if that's going to be, that's probably even less common than finding someone to begin with.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: else are we going with this?

Jen: So the next thing I [01:13:00] have is having system and, and rules. We talk a lot about flexibility and freedoms that we offer our employees. With that they understand the rules and how to basically what is expected of them. It's very important that we lay out expectations and by doing that, we can allow them these flexibilities and freedoms within our business.

So right now, this generation,, if, if they don't, if everybody wants off a Saturday, right, which it happens, I rarely but it, it does happen. Or any day we will just close that day. Like that's just where it is. Because what would be the point to be like, Nope, sorry, you have to work

Todd: We haven't had to do that.

Jen: I don't think it's ever happened, but it is a conversation that you and I have had with this flex of freedoms and understanding.

Todd: We've had it with our staff

Jen: Yeah. That it's

Todd: you guys on it off, if you were the last person on a Saturday because everyone took it off and then you got invited to the beach, and

Jen: just go.

Todd: clients or you had one client like you can. You can maybe

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: or you can, whatever you, it's, it's, again, it's an individual thing.

Jen: Yeah, but we've also,, having said [01:14:00] that, we have to make sure the business is protected. That,, we're, like I said, we're, we're the ones responsible for all the risk here. So with this flexibility and freedom, like I said, there are rules, there are systems in place that everybody understands how to follow, and that's why this works at Hello.

Without that, it would be a free for all, which would not work at all. Right? So making sure.

Todd: this also goes. to your team, because often what I'll see on,, Facebook and on social media is that the younger generation, they don't wanna do this, they don't wanna do that. That's bs.

Jen: Right.

Todd: are just not taking the time to find the right people.

Jen: leading them

Todd: How

Jen: to get there.

Todd: how many times Jen does it happen where someone takes a day off and somebody jumps in to take that shift

Jen: Yeah. We have that all the time. Yeah.

Todd: All the time. So, and what I mean by that is if a shift opens up, we have young people that are like, Hey, can I work that shift? Hey, is there a chair open on this day? Could I work? I have a couple people I can squeeze in. Can I work a few hours on this day? So I know, and these are [01:15:00] people that are, are from teens to early twenties.

Jen: they're in that generation that people are pointing fingers at and saying they're lazy. We don't have that.

Todd: what. know what you're talking about. I just, that what that tells me is you're just not finding the right people. You might need help. Maybe you're just snap hiring because you're like, I just need bodies in here. 'cause I, I do see that a lot where people will say, I'm turning away business. Well, long have you been doing hair? You should have had a system in

Jen: Right?

Todd: So, and it's, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just don't blame other people because that doesn't do anything for you. You can't always just go around talking about problems. Sometimes you have to find

Jen: Mm-hmm. All the time.

Todd: about your problems constantly is like watching the news. you ever see solutions on the news? No. You just see them talking about problems because it's what sucks you in. It's negativity.

Jen: Agree.

Todd: this downward spiral. And when you start doing the echo chamber thing on, on Facebook where you're like, well, the younger generation, I,, I'm struggling because they won't work and I'm turning away business. [01:16:00] just not true. It's not their fault. Need to find better people or you

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: be clearer about your expectations

Jen: Absolutely

Todd: know. 'cause it's individual,

Jen: right. You need to be a better leader. It starts with you either way, whether you like it or not. You have to lead your team by the, by what you do.

Todd: Yeah, for sure. I think too, I, I don't know where you were with your thoughts, but had talked about systems and, and we talked about a little bit of a mission and vision. So you have to build your brand your brand needs to be solid and there has to be some sort of cohesiveness. And that's important for your staff, it's also important for clients,

Jen: Right.

Todd: And I think this is what we disagreed with on the last podcast where we kind of got a little bit chippy. And it's not necessarily that Jen disagreed with that you need to have cohesion in within your business, but it was the way I think I delivered the point. But either way, people. Like if they know you have meetings once a year, once a month, once a day, whatever it is that you wanna have [01:17:00] them.

'cause I see wild stuff out there. If they know that's coming, they feel like that's, they can have a connection with you, right? Because you're building that connection. If you're approachable, you're not just behind the chairs slogging away because that's not gonna work either. You have to have time for your staff, you have to have time.

How many times, Jen have you sat down and take a lunch and you have to work through?

Jen: Yesterday,

Todd: With somebody. Yeah. So it's, it's constant. But guess what? That's part of being an

Final Thoughts [40:00]

Jen: I get up with a smile and I'm like, yep, I will help you. What do you need every time? That's my job.

Todd: I'm not even talking about getting up. Sometimes they just need to talk

Jen: And.

Todd: that's not even

Jen: Yesterday was some help with a haircut, but yeah, it just depends, right? I had, we had one of our staff yesterday, she had messaged and I was in the salon. Todd wasn't like, can I just chat with you real quick? And wanted to work through some ideas for her future and how she maybe could be at the salon mower.

And just was like, I, I just need to talk through this. I'm gonna talk to my mom tonight, but I needed to talk to you first. You know, and like, sure. I'm like, I got 15 minutes. You wanna use it, it's yours.

Todd: [01:18:00] Yeah, being available for your team and building that. Culture because again, everybody wants to drop that C word, right? You want, I have the best culture, the best culture. Do you,

Jen: Mm.

Todd: if it's not clear to your, to your team what it looks like, then it's not the

Jen: Correct.

Todd: So, and again, it's just, you just need to work on it.

You just need to build it. It's not the end of the world, but it could be part of why you're not retaining staff. For

Jen: Agreed.

Todd: What else do we have going on?

Jen: I think I, I have something that sort of works with employees, but also just could help you create a, a wider foundation in your business. But I wanna just touch on this real quick, is that we talked about turnover a little bit. Yes. We have to invest in our staff. That's just where it's at and you're.

Gonna have to get over feeling salty when those people leave and realize that that's part of running a business and being a leader in your business. It's just going to happen. But you can't not invest in these people's future with education and getting them where you want them to be because you're afraid they're all gonna go.

If [01:19:00] that's where you're sitting, you might wanna decide if you still wanna run your business. The minute you get over that and just realize like. Get them more successful. Eventually you'll have the right people or you have the right systems to replace them when they do leave and you're just like, I wish you luck.

And that's totally fine. That's where we sit today. I don't anyone that leaves for the most part wish them luck unless they're. Not nice, like a bully. But for the most part,, hey, I, I hope everything is as good as you hope it to be wherever you're going,? But I also wanted to touch on, I had talked about this in the last podcast, but it's not really about employee in re retention, but is is this station sharing that we do and I do think this is really important for culture in your business.

So. I see a lot of salons out there. There are six station salons, so they think they have to hire six people. And you're selling yourself short because then what happens if you only have six stylists? Let's say you fill all your stations and one or two leave, it's gonna hurt your business. Really, the impact financially is really, really big, right?

So if you station share. Like [01:20:00] I say all the time too, everyone has to work a Saturday, that you don't have to work Saturdays if you don't want to. At our salon we have people that work every other, I would be fine if it's once, if they don't, it doesn't matter. So with station sharing, we're able to be open.

We are now seven days which means people work three to four shifts a week. That's about it. That's where they should be anymore. I think it's too much in my opinion. But it allows us to have a staff. I think there's 15 of us in total which is a fairly big staff. But then daily, when we're open, it feels nice and small.

But also it allows if one or two people were to leave, the impact on the business isn't as large, isn't felt as big. And again, I said we're interviewing all the time. We have a wait list. Now we're kind of like, who wants to interview next? Or we have people that might be at three shifts in our salon that are like, can I pick up the fourth?

I I would love that day. And it's created this wonderful scenario where the idea of people leaving. Doesn't cross my mind and isn't scary because we have broadened our base enough to really help protect the business. So just something to consider and if you don't know how to do that, we're happy [01:21:00] to sit and chat and explain how we create that at our business and and how it's become very successful.

Todd: I'll give it to you in a nutshell. Stop hiring to fill chairs. Hire to build your culture.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: If you have 10 chairs, great. Don't look for 10 stylists. Look for people that fit your. Look for people that want to help you get to your vision. Look for people that align with your core values. That's it.

It's, it's, that's it. That's the, in a nutshell, what you need to do. And if you don't have those things, get those things. If you have those things, use them.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: You know, if you, if you have those things and maybe you're like, I don't know if this is what I feel any longer, we will revisit it. okay to pivot in business.

It's okay to change your

Jen: It's important to do that.

Todd: Agreed. Yeah, you have

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: working through ours. By we, I mean me, our mission and core values and, and vision because we've been doing this now for going on six years, and

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: just felt like it [01:22:00] was time. We needed a

Jen: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Todd: I think it goes back to our staff too.

They feel like we're not just set it and

Jen: Right. Mm-hmm.

Todd: We're actively pursuing. How do we make this better? How do we create more opportunity for people? How do we bring on, how do we bring more opportunity to more

Jen: Right.

Todd: And you could get in a situation when you hire the wrong people. And we've had this, we have had this in the past, but we've worked through it where people get almost salty, they have some sort of animosity.

And I've been asked before, how many people are you guys gonna hire? And I know it comes from a place

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: 'cause they're thinking. Well, now I'm not gonna get all the clients like that's, we don't have people that think like that. I've been asked before when we're hiring Jen, how does new clients work?

Jen: Oh yeah,

Todd: what do you mean? What do you mean? And they're like, well, a new client comes in who gets it? And I'm like, interesting.

Jen: yeah.

Todd: Think there's some sort of rotation. What we do is we consult with the person and see who the best fit is for them.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: So

Jen: Also, if you're [01:23:00] coming in and bringing nothing to the table and you're just asking, what do we give you? Like, okay, hold up here.

Todd: A little bit of a red flag there. I don't think it's necessarily like a, an invalid question. I do think it's important to know where clients are coming from in a salon, because that's how you're gonna make

Jen: Right? Yeah.

Todd: I also think it's important to simmer down and bring something like Jensen, bring something to the

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: ? Yeah, that's, that's all I had to say about that. Is that it.

Jen: Yeah, I think the, the last two things I have is at the end of the day, you, you have to bring the fun factor, right? Like there's gotta be some element of fun coming into your salon that makes people wanna be there and treating. People like hair pros we've talked about this a bunch. I just see like next generation, they're lazy.

They don't wanna do anything, and if you bring that negative energy, you're, you're never gonna grow or hire the right people because you're bringing in the negative energy. So I'm super careful in our salon to,. These are our next generation of hair pros. What do they need? What [01:24:00] can I offer them?

How can I grow them? I think you just gotta change that mindset and they're not gonna work like you did 25 years ago, and maybe they shouldn't. When I started 25 years ago in the first salon, we were judged, or I don't, I was say like graded, but basically my meetings were all about every 15 minutes.

How can you fill this spot? I don't want. To be coaching our staff on every 15 minutes. How can you fill this spot that's, that's not fun. And if I did do that, they, we'd have nobody. So,, making sure that you are bringing in the good energy because it starts with you. And that you're treating the people that are working with you, like professionals, because if you treat them that way, they will reach up to that.

They'll, they'll wanna be at that level. So I guess just kind of self-evaluate sort of what you're bringing in for energy to your business.

Todd: Yeah, and the leadership component's not optional.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: You

Jen: suck it up buttercup.

Todd: You need

Jen: Suck it up buttercup. Like you just gotta do it.

Todd: So you have to understand your business. You have to understand your numbers because here's what's gonna [01:25:00] happen. You're gonna go in those Facebook groups and be like, I'm paying 80%

Jen: Oh.

Todd: How come you're not attracting stylists? It's don't chase that. Again, you're just trying to beat someone else's commission. So if someone does 40, you're gonna do 45, someone does 80, you're gonna do what? 85? Like it doesn't make sense. So, and you wanna talk about the younger generation? Let's lean into. The younger generation and what they want for them.

Culture is more important than commission.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: know because we've had people take less money in their commission to begin. They make more money now, less to to start because they bought into our culture. They bought into our vision and what we were doing, and now they're more successful than I would say if they went to somewhere

Jen: Right.

Todd: we're constantly building

Jen: Yep.