Attracting Stylists & Renters: Why Experience Comes First [EP:213]

Too many salon owners start with numbers such as rent prices or commission percentages when hiring and attracting talent. In this episode, Todd and Jen flip the script with a lesson inspired by Steve Jobs: start with the experience and then work backward.

Whether you run a commission salon or a booth or suite rental space, you’ll learn how to design an environment where stylists and renters feel valued, supported, and inspired—and why that approach keeps people around longer.

Episode Timestamps

• [00:00] – Todd introduces the episode + Steve Jobs’ philosophy
• [01:30] – Opening takes: self-talk and work-life balance myths
• [07:00] – Why skipping fundamentals holds stylists back
• [10:00] – Hello Hair Co’s early culture decisions
• [13:00] – Common hiring mistakes salon owners make
• [16:00] – Why leading with commission % or rent price doesn’t work
• [18:00] – Why “luxury,” “family,” and “cutting edge” job ads fall flat
• [20:00] – What stylists actually want in a job today
• [23:00] – Stability, trust, and leadership as retention drivers
• [25:00] – Work-life balance: freedom without laziness
• [27:00] – Recognition and respect as key motivators
• [28:00] – The stylist journey: awareness → exploration → interview → onboarding → growth
• [34:00] – Why strong onboarding matters more than shadowing
• [39:00] – Writing job ads that attract culture fits
• [43:00] – Attracting booth renters: what they really want
• [47:00] – Booth rent vs. experience-first recruiting
• [49:00] – Key takeaways + closing thoughts

Key Takeaways

• Don’t lead with commission or rent rates—lead with experience.
• Stylists and renters want to belong, have growth opportunities, experience stability, trust, and recognition.
• Job ads that sound generic (“luxury,” “like family”) fail to attract the right people.
• Clear systems, mentorship, and education are the real differentiators.
• Booth renters value independence, but also want a professional, client-ready environment.
• Build a culture where stylists want to be—that’s the ultimate recruiting advantage.

How to Keep Your Salon Staff: What Our Stylists Said When We Asked Why They Stay [EP:204]

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Transcript

Episode Transcript – How to Attract Stylists and Booth Renters by Leading With Experience

Why Experience Comes First [00:00]

213

Todd: [00:00:00] What's up everyone? Welcome back. So today we are talking about hiring and attracting stylist if you are a booth rent. So we will talk about both sides. And here's the deal. I'm gonna give you the answer up front and then we'll break it down. So the inspiration for this episode was actually twofold.

I got a bunch of questions yesterday about hiring and looking for renters and I happen to stumble across an old quote from Steve Jobs and his philosophy way back in the day, I think this was in like the eighties, I'm not sure, was to start with the experience and then work backwards. So by focusing first on the stylist or the renters

experience what they're going to have in your business instead of leading with, this is the commission, this is the rent, this is the price, this is the software, this [00:01:00] is all that stuff. You wanna create an environment where they feel the things they wanna feel, so they want feel, value, valued, they wanna feel supported, they wanna feel inspired, and then you work backwards and back those things up with your systems, your education, and your benefits.

So there you go. If that's all you wanted to know, less than 90 seconds, you can tune out. If you wanna know how to break those things down, stay tuned because Jen and I are going to talk about them. But as always, we so always start with our opening takes. Opening takes. Jen, would you like to go first?

Jen: Sure. Only speak words that you want to be true about yourself. Self-talk is everything. So when you say stuff like, I'm just not good at this, or I could never do that, you're setting yourself up to be limited. we, last week or Monday, whatever you last, if you listened to the last episode we were talking [00:02:00] with Tori and Brooke, and though they're two of our what?

Todd: Just a heads up. That'll be two episodes ago now.

Jen: Oh. Okay, well if you listen to the Brooke they are two of our stylists that. Brooke especially, was very much limiting herself. Like, I could never do makeup, I could never do this. I love doing it, but I can't. And sometimes as a leader, you have to listen to what your staff is saying and ask why. Why do you think you could never do this?

And maybe put 'em in a position where they could try it, where they feel comfortable, where they don't feel like they're gonna fail. And then before it, you start to see things that they're limiting might actually be things that they actually wanna do, but they're too afraid, they're too scared. And we all know when we're. In a process of changing, it's very uncomfortable. So most people push back on that. So listening to people that are limiting themselves and maybe asking why they're doing that, or is it something that they wish they could do and we need to have a conversation of how we get them there.

For some people it could be a jump right in, and for others it may be baby steps to lead them to where they wanna be and see that the limits they're [00:03:00] setting are really just an obstacle and they can get where they wanna be. It's just gonna take a, a different path.

Todd: Awesome. Good stuff there for people. A little mindset touch this morning. So I, I have a quote that I heard and I'd actually like to discuss it. We can discuss it briefly before we jump into the bulk of the episode. And so, the Palantir, CEO, if you don't know what Palantir is, it's a, it's a giant software company.

They make software for all sorts of stuff. It's, it's a like a government. Sort of level stuff.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: Their CEO said, gen Z may crave work-life balance, but they best forget about trivia nights and bar crawls, at least if they wanna make it big in business. I wanna talk about that a little bit

Jen: Okay.

Todd: because on the surface, I 100% agree worklife balance is not i, I don't [00:04:00] think it's what people think it is.

I think that work-life balance, we talk about it all the time. Jen and I'll, we'll get your thoughts to see if you would agree, but sometimes in business, you're in a sprint. Sometimes you have to go all in. You have to focus. You have to be at work when you don't want to. You have to be on your laptop when you don't want to.

When you're trying to initially build yourself in the hair world, you're trying to build a clientele, you should be going really freaking hard on fundamentals. What are you doing?

How are you even holding a comb? I see people all the time cutting hair without combs. I don't know how you do it doesn't even make sense to me. How are you even holding the tools? Working with your apprentice a little bit on some clipper work and short haircuts. So we're working on the fundamentals.

How do you hold this clipper? And I know it seems silly, but if you don't double down, if you don't go hard on that stuff, you are not gonna make it quote unquote big. [00:05:00] It's not gonna happen. And too often I see people that just try to skip ahead to the end. We've been doing this for decades, so we've been building businesses, building teams.

Helping people for decades, over three decades between Jen and I. And so I agree a hundred percent with that quote for all the reasons that I just said. If you work hard, then you can play hard. It's not my quote, but I, I think it applies here.

Jen: very

Todd: so too often do people wanna like. Take a bunch of time off or not really focus on this or, what, I'm just gonna dick around on my phone instead of like, do something productive.

And you are not gonna make it quote unquote big. Do you want to get to the level that Jen is at? You have to do the things that Jen did to get there, not do the things that she does Now you think you're just gonna do like one post, like generally do one post. [00:06:00] You think that that's what got her to educating.

That's what got her to people hiring her one-on-one for stuff. That's what got her to people constantly emailing, saying, will you please apprentice me? Do you think that's what got Jen there, just a post or just sitting on her phone or doing whatever? No, it was all the stuff. I was there, so I saw it. It was me sitting on the couch in our first apartment in Haverhill watching Jen's presentation that she put together on color theory.

That was the stuff behind the scenes that I don't think this generation, and I, I love the generation, so this generation is, gen Z is what, 28 and younger. So I love this generation. I think they're so much fun and I think, I don't think they're lazy. I just think they're being misled and I think that social media has a, a big part of that and it's unfortunate.

If you want to get to the people that are at the top, you have to do the things that they did [00:07:00] that your journey's gonna look different. I get it. 'cause times change, but you still have to put the work in, can't half ass something and get full ass results. Someone probably said that somewhere too. What do you think about that quote?

Jen: Oh, well, I think if you just take even the work life balance, I think it's three words that have been overused time and time again and are now becoming an excuse. I, I, I think you're like, people are like, ah, just,, I, I, I have to have this work life balance. And I think it creates laziness in a sense because it's like, you keep hearing this, so you're like, well, I deserve this vacation because I worked two days this week.

Or I put in a little bit of effort. It's, it's not enough to warrant, like most of you probably don't even need a work life balance. You already have it. Or honestly, you're probably living your life more than you're working. It's just sort of where it is. But I think it's easy to take a. A saying and sort of use it to your advantage when it fits the narrative that you want it to fit. You gotta work your ass off to get to a work life balance. I feel if you don't put that work in, you are going to [00:08:00] be at a marathon pace for probably most of your life. And if that's fine for you, totally cool. But if you are like, I wanna be, say you wanna be where I am. If gonna have, like, I, that's all I did is work.

I still do a lot of work. It just looks different now. Like Todd said before, it was putting together and doing a presentation over and over and over. Now I present so much my work life that I don't have to practice it on my other time. But all the things that you have to do to get your work where you want it to be, and then you can kind of curate this work life balance.

But think it's of work. Not, I think I know to be successful, and I do feel that with social media, people see successful people and they only see the steps they're doing now and not everything that came before that.

Todd: People always wanna skip all the, like, the good they want. They wanna skip the good and go, go get straight to great.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: And that's not a thing. What's that other quote? Good, better, best. Never let it rest until your good is better and your better is Best. [00:09:00] People want to skip to best. They're not putting in the good to get better and then from better, they're not putting in the work to get to best.

And that is so backwards, but it is what it is. Anyways thanks for humoring me there. So Steve Jobs work backwards philosophy that can help salon owners attract and hire stylists and booth renters. I think.

Jen: For

Todd: You know when we, why don't we talk about briefly what we did with Hello? I think the first question we asked when we decided on the project, 'cause I don't think we were exactly sure.

You were in a frustrating spot. You were breaking up with a business owner, a business partner, rather, you were renting a chair somewhere in the same building. You were trying to figure out what you even wanted to do. I know you even questioned hair at one point. Which is weird. I think that might be the one time you ever questioned hair.

And I was deciding if I wanted [00:10:00] to get into the hair industry 'cause I had never thought about it. And I don't think that took long. But the first, some of the first questions that we asked, I remember was how can we create an environment that we wanna work in?

Jen: Always.

Todd: And it was always about the environment first.

We never talked about pay structure. We never talked about hours of operation or amenities. We talked about how can we make this business fun?

Jen: And that goes back to starting from the top. If we wanna be in there, then we're gonna attract other people that are like us that want to be in there too, right?

Todd: Certainly.

Jen: Especially where we work in, in our business. So I, I'm in there working behind the chair more than Todd does, but it's very important that that atmosphere was creative and inspiring for me as a hairdresser too. And as a business owner for both, both sides.

Todd: Right, so that's a great point. Creative and inspiring. So we want people to feel, we want our hair pros, our our staff, [00:11:00] to feel creative. We want them to feel inspired. And so when we realized that first, that allowed us to then put systems in place that would allow them to express themselves through creativity.

Jen: that for them.

Todd: Yeah. And we didn't do, we didn't come up with our rules first,

Jen: Right.

Todd: and that's what we're gonna harp on today in this episode. But. That's a huge thing. We weren't like,, you have to work this many shifts if you take a Saturday off. No. We created a foundation that supported people being creative and feeling inspired.

Yeah.

Common Hiring Mistakes [06:00]

Jen: We created a business that we would wanna work for. Like if, if we weren't the owners, I would want to be an employee at Hello Hair Co. Sometimes I actually would like to be an employee at Hello Hair Co. That would be a really nice place to be. But the goal was to create a space that, or a business within a space, like I said, we wanted to be and that we enjoy being in, that we look [00:12:00] forward to going to that's extremely important. If you're waking up every day like, oh, I have to go to work. Like that sucks. Especially in a field, if you love it and it's creative majority of people really do hate their jobs and some of them have to do them just because they need the paycheck. I think in the hair world, you're pretty lucky that you can salon, hop around to find the one that supports you and has your best interest in your future.

Todd: For sure. And so

when we first decided what our culture, we'll use the word culture. Was going to look like and what that needed to look like. The creativity, the inspiration, the growth, the opportunities, the collaboration. Those were the things we, we asked ourselves. Then after that, what systems can we put in place to make sure that people feel these things and get these things?

And that's where we came up with our, the importance of, for example, cleanliness. Jen had never really had systems in place for cleaning, and I just thought if we can create a system. We can make it super simple, [00:13:00] then our employees don't even have to worry about it. They don't have to think at all.

They know how we clean, how we operate, and they know more importantly, why it's important to us. So by eliminating that from their bandwidth, they can focus now more on creativity. Every little thing that you do after your decisions of what your salon or shop will look like should support those things.

So what are some mistakes that salon owners make when they're hiring?

Jen: I don't think they know what the avatar looks like for who they want to hire.

Todd: That's a great,

Jen: just hiring just to hire,

Todd: we talk about that all the time, right?

Jen: problem.

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: You should wanna work with that person. Even if you aren't behind the chair, you should want to, like, you should be like, wow, this person's cool. Like I would, Todd always says I would have a coffee with this person.

That that should be part of it. That you actually enjoy their vibe, what they bring to the table as a, as a person, as a [00:14:00] human being first.

Todd: We just hired somebody and I. I messaged her the other day and I was like, will you meet me at the coffee shop? And we sat outside. It was a gorgeous day, by the way. We sat outside and we had a we actually got iced chai tea from coffee berries. Shout out. So good. But we sat there and we just talked for a few minutes, and then I was like, okay, so we're gonna offer you a job if you want to talk about that now.

But first things first, are you? Yeah. You have to be able to wanna be around the person. That's definitely a good one.

Jen: I have hired people in the past that had a time period where we were so understaffed. We just needed people and bad decisions, but we make them all the time. That's why we share them. So hopefully you don't make the same ones. I remember in certain like interview processes of like, technically they're working on their client, their models, whatever.

And I'm like, I'm not enjoying this person's vibe at all, which I should have in that minute, had a conversation. But unfortunately it leads to we hired and then had to let them go too. But I, I wasn't able [00:15:00] to, I guess. Realize in the moment sort of what was happening in my brain or what was going on. And, and now it's just different because I've been through those scenarios.

I'm very aware of, of how I need to feel around somebody for it even to be the next step.

Todd: I agree a hundred percent. One of the mistakes that I see people making that don't use this backwards approach is, for example, they lead with their commission rate. So here's the commission. It's say it's 45%. Great. How do you now as a salon, salon owner beat that? I gotta go to 48, then you gotta go to 50, then you gotta gotta go to 52, then 55.

Jen: Now you're just losing all over the

Todd: And then we see crazy stuff. And the reason is because you're trying to po, you're trying to position the commission rate as the strategic difference over the culture.

Jen: Right? Which everybody gets paid a commission rate or a flat rate or whatever it is. So you're, you can't compete on that level in that sense. [00:16:00] Everybody gets paid, so you have

Todd: I mean you,

Jen: But that doesn't need to be what you lead with or it doesn't a, like you said, it's not a strategic difference.

Todd: right. Everybody pays commission. So it's, it's trying to find the culture fit first. Another one is just being generic. So a generic job ad,, here's what we offer and it's always all these amenities that every other salon has. So that's not setting you apart. And rarely do you talk about your culture other than we're a luxury salon we're like family, we're cutting edge. What are some of the other like generic things that we see out there?

Jen: I think those are even just good,

Todd: Yeah. Okay.

Jen: that everyone's using and

Todd: Every single,

Jen: at all.

Todd: right, every single salon sounds that way and offers those things.

Jen: you're using those words, you've gotta define them because what's luxury to you or cutting edge to you may not be to someone else [00:17:00] or the person sitting there. Those are just words, like put a meaning behind those words. Why are you those things? What actually does that mean to you? A lot of times when we're meeting with people.

Like even if, obviously we talk about pay at some point, right? But it's not like we offer this for commission. It's we offer this, here's why. This is how it runs. They know if they're taking this position where we stand in the numbers game, where we stand in the growth game. These are all things that are discussed. If we were to say, which we don't, we, we talk a lot about education, so I'll say that. So our vibe, our culture, the conversation we have in there is that we do a lot of education. Here's what that looks like, here's what's expected. 'Cause some people will come in and they want certain things and then we go over it and it's way more than they really want.

You want education, this is what this looks like. Oh, I don't want that much education. Well then we're not for you. I think part of it is having a stance. You need to have a stance. What do you stand for in your salon? are you gonna back up? What are the rules like? And these are things you have to follow. have to put those systems in place. I'm [00:18:00] sure you're

Todd: E education is built into our culture, so that's why we emphasize it so much. It's one of our core values. And so, yeah, I don't think that's work. I don't think that's not working backwards though.

Jen: Mm. Okay.

Todd: I think it's, yeah, I think that's we, 'cause we started with education. We wanna attract people that are. I really excited about learning and like Jen, like you said, defining it.

We live that shit. I'm going to a color class with you guys. I don't do color.

Jen: We have in the next, I

Todd: I,

Jen: 10 days, three education classes coming up.

Todd: yeah. And that's not even, that's, that's what a lot of salons do. They sub out their education. I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. A lot of owners probably don't have time. They don't care. They don't wanna educate. There's nothing wrong with that. But when we talk about education, we're talking about there's education daily at our salon

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: daily.

There is something for you to learn, sit in on, talk about every single day.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: But [00:19:00] that's what we wanted to attract people like us that wanted to push the limits and learn as much, excuse me, as they could. Again, I'm going to a color class with the group. Why? Because education is important to us, and I will learn something from that class, whether I learn it from the educator or I bump into somebody else and we're just kind of talking or whatever.

There's something to learn. Oftentimes we'll talk to the educators off to the side before or after the class usually get introduced, and it's nice to make a connection. You learn something

Jen: Right?

Todd: so. If those are the mistakes that salon owners are making, they should really be asking like, what do the, what do the stylist want in a salon?

What Stylists Want in a Salon [12:00]

Jen: Extremely important.

Todd: So,

Jen: that.

Todd: yeah, let's.

Jen: That's gonna change yearly. Maybe by yearly. It doesn't at some point. It's always changing. It's always evolving. So you always need to be figuring that out so that you can look at your systems and see where your flaws are and if you can even [00:20:00] meet them with what their wants are.

And if not, then those are conversations you're gonna have to have of why you're doing it a certain.

Todd: Yeah. And then once these things, once what a stylist wants in a job, then you can create. That journey, that map for them

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: and give them that guidance. So what are, what are they wanting out of a job? So currently these are the things that we are noticing. People want belonging and community.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: wanna feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. I don't know if you want touch on any of these or you want me to just run through the list I have,

Jen: I'll, I mean, that's just kind of self-explanatory. It's very important for them to feel part of something For sure. And make relationships.

Todd: This next one is big for us at, Hello. We identified this early on. It wasn't immediately clear to us, but then once we got rid of that first round of people, it became clear and that's people want clear [00:21:00] opportunities for growth and mentorship. If people don't want that, I would, I would stay away from them.

Because they don't wanna be part of a team. They don't want to grow.

Jen: are your people that are, you're like, I can't keep any staff. Well. If you, if you're not talking about growth with them and what you can offer them, then they're, they're not gonna stand anyway. And there are those people that just, you're their placeholder till they find something better. You have to be able to see the difference.

Todd: Yeah. And sometimes people won't be. Willing to grow with you, or they'll grow to a certain point and then they just stop and they plateau and they're just not willing to grow past that point. That's fine. That's where you part ways. Hopefully at that point you have a wait list, so you just plug in the next person.

That's how it works. And that might sound cold, but the, I'm talking about business and the business requires people to run.

Jen: And your team needs to evolve,

Todd: Yeah. And, and people.

Jen: new team members or your current team always growing and changing. It's a, it's, it's, it doesn't matter where you sit with that, but for most people though, growth is [00:22:00] uncomfortable. So you may have a team right now that doesn't actually wanna grow with you, or you're not able to push them to where you need your business to be or where you want your business to be. you need to find new people that will grow with you. So that would mean your team now has to either evolve or you're hiring new people to come in and push to the next level. Again, owning a business is not easy. Leading a team is not easy. These are the things you're gonna have to deal with.

Todd: A hundred percent. And so that's actually a perfect segue to the next one. People are looking for stability and trust in their leadership. That's so important. If you are the type of person that's like, oh, we're gonna bring in this product line now. Oh, we're gonna try this. Oh, we're gonna switch this.

I'm switching the commission rates. I'm, I'm changing this. People aren't gonna buy into that. There's, there's no stability and you don't have any. Foundations, it's clear that you don't have a solid mission and vision. It's clear that you don't have core values that you rely on to run your business.

And even if the people don't have the language to [00:23:00] use those terms, they see it. They see it a hundred percent and they want to trust you. How many times, Jen, over the past, well, how, how many times in 2025. Have we done something and we've had staff say, whatever, I trust you guys

Jen: Everything we do.

Todd: constantly.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: But that took work that took us constantly demonstrating that, look, if you follow our lead, we will get you to where you wanna be.

And now we're at step three, four, or five with some of these people for hitting goals over the years. So that's a huge. A huge chunk of the puzzle work on leadership and work on stability.

Jen: Absolutely.

Todd: This one is contradictory to my opening take, but in a, we can break it down a little bit, but people wanna work life balance. Here's what we mean by that. People don't want to [00:24:00] be given a hard time. If they want to take a vacation or they want to go see their family, or they have, God forbid, a loss, or we have somebody that's dealing with a surgery coming up, they wanna know that that's okay, that they're not fired,

Jen: Right.

Todd: that they're not.

Violating some blackout dates that they're not allowed to take off consecutive Saturdays, or they have to find someone to cover their shift, or they don't want that stuff.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: They want the business and the leadership to take care of that stuff so that they can deal with whatever. I think where people get that twisted, which we already talked about, is where they're like, oh, I worked an hour.

I need two days off. I worked 45, I worked 45 minutes. Can I have next week off? Like stuff like that. That's crazy. You are never gonna make it doing that. So there is a, there's lines, right?

Jen: Yes.

Todd: We allow people to take unlimited, unpaid time off.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: It's just something that we've built in. It's something that [00:25:00] we acknowledge that people will enjoy because.

They don't have to stress. That's, I think the, the big part of it is that, and, and what I really wanna stress is that they don't wanna stress.

Jen: Correct. And they don't take advantage of it because we've seen people before, like, well, if I give unlimited time off or flexibility and freedom, everybody's just gonna, it's gonna be a free for all. Well, then you're not, you're not showing them the right path for that.

Todd: And that's,

Jen: oh,

Todd: and that's because, that's because you're pushing that as.

You're pushing that in the wrong way. You're framing it as a feature and not part of your culture.

Jen: Right. Our staff wants to be in the salon, they wanna work, they wanna be busy. Some of them are in on their days off just to hang out and say hello. But I think the freedom and flexibility, again, it comes back to leadership and mentorship. It's, if somebody, I've said this before and we don't have this, but if somebody were to be taking off. A lot of time and then coming to us and [00:26:00] being like, I'm not busy enough. I'm not growing fast enough. Now we're gonna have a conversation about, well, with the time off you're taking, you're not you're not allowing yourself to build. We, we definitely. We know when it's on us and we know when it's on them.

And that conversation, it just has to happen. Hard conversations happen all the time as a as an owner. It's not always fun. But that's a conversation that has to be had. We also, I had someone over the summer ask about kind of just like busy times, slow times, and,, just. Clear as day, like if you want to enjoy the summer day 'cause it's sunny.

I totally get it. Understand though, if you take off every Thursday in the summer, then when you get into the fall, you're not gonna have clients on Thursdays and now you have to rebuild that day because of all the time you took off. So we are just open and honest with those conversations and most often they're like, ah, I didn't think of it like that.

And of course they didn't. They're, they're just there to work. Like they're just there to have fun and, and be creative. So it's our job to plant seeds that get them thinking and being more mindful as a human being.

Todd: I am gonna finish my thought, but I don't remember exactly what I was [00:27:00] saying, but I I was about to say, which means you're attracting the wrong people. You're attracting people that are gonna take advantage of those things.

What Booth Renters Want [20:00]

Jen: Yes.

Todd: Thanks for the yes. The other thing I had on here for what stylists want is they want recognition for their contributions. They want to feel seen, they wanna feel heard, they wanna feel respected. All those things, and however you do that is totally fine, doesn't matter, but make sure you're doing it. Make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.

Make sure you're doing it for them, not you. That's all I would say there. So now that we know what stylists want, how can we create that journey map? How can we create that user experience? Where the user is the employee. I would say you probably wanna start with awareness.

People need to know you exist. Before anything else matters, and I don't know how you want to do that. I would say the easiest thing right now you could probably do is social media. [00:28:00] It's free and you can really use it to set yourself apart. A lot of people on social media will just simply post like the trends.

So, hey, this salon did this, and then 50 other salons did it, so we should do it too. That stuff is fun, but it doesn't really separate you, and by it doesn't really, it doesn't separate you at all. It just means that you're copying and pasting someone else's idea. Again, if your goal is to get likes on social media, great.

If your goal is to fill your chairs of your business, don't do that. Or use it like seasoning. Use it like salt and pepper where you sprinkle it in so that people are like, oh, this is fun. But what, what about this salon is different from the other 200 salons that just posted this TikTok trend?

Jen: Right.

Todd: That's where you have to start to think different.

People are gonna come into an exploration phase where they get wind of your business, they know you exist now, and they're doing a little poking around. [00:29:00] So you should make it really clear what your core values are. What are the things you stand for? Because if those don't resonate with that person, they're gonna weed themselves out and now you don't have to worry about weeding them out.

Jen: Right.

Todd: If you are constantly posting like us about education, you are going to tend to attract people that want education. Is it gonna be perfect? Like Jen mentioned earlier, no, it's not gonna be perfect. You're still gonna have to weed people out over time, but that's just business and leadership.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: You really wanna make it crystal clear what your values are and then what sort of vibe, what's going on?

Is it a team atmosphere? Are you guys on your own? What does that look like? And showcase that, and I'll give you a pro tip right now, it's gotta match.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: whatever you post online actually has to be true, or you're going to have confused people that are working for you. We've had that the opposite direction.

We've had people [00:30:00] that come in and we'll say,, educate or let's use something else. So we'll say cleanliness. Cleanliness is super important to us. If you drop something, pick it up immediately, not when you're done, immediately pick it up, work clean. Don't have your station be an insane, nightmare mess.

That's just not our vibe. And so we'll stress that stuff. We'll have people come in and I think they think we're kidding, or it's optional and take a guess. Those people don't work for us anymore. They don't last. Whether they move on on their own 'cause they don't fit every other person or we move them on is sort of irrelevant.

But the point is they just don't last at our salon because what's important to us is truly important to us.

After you put yourself out there and then people start to find you, you are gonna have to go through some sort of an interview process. What does that look like? A lot of people, a lot of people out there, Jen, I still see this. What sort of questions do you [00:31:00] ask?

Do you ask about how they did in school, or do you have them do a model and then grade them? All these things are backwards thinking to me. We talk to people about, we, we usually start with your family, where are you from?

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: And then we get into what are you looking for? Why'd you get into the industry? Do you like coffee or tea? Stuff like that. Because again, we wanna show people at the end of the day for Hello Hair Co. Co is collaboration. We wanna show people that we're collaborative. We want to express in those interviews.

We don't even call 'em interviews, but we wanna express to people that we're gonna work for you as hard as we can as owners to get you to your goals. We need from you to work as hard as you can on yourself and on providing the best services possible to best experience is possible for the clients.

Jen: [00:32:00] Mm-hmm.

Todd: That's how we focus. I don't care if you can cut hair or not. If you're outta school, you cannot cut hair.

Jen: Right?

Todd: I'm sure there's some phenoms out there that are like, I'm better than you and I'm six months into school. That's great. I'm not talking to you. You're, you are an anomaly.

Jen: The technical ability is,

Todd: Irrelevant.

Jen: Well, it's just like you, you went to school to do hair. So we know a little bit about wherever you, whatever school you graduated from, we know what, what's coming out. We know what kind of education they're putting in because we pay attention. So that, that's irrelevant, but I think letting the person you're interviewing or that's come into your business just talk a little bit and, and get to know them. Rather than like poke them with a bunch of questions like, tell me about yourself. It'll also give you how they are with having conversations. It will show you where they are confidence wise because you'll see how they interact with you while they're speaking.

You'll get so much by just kind of asking some basic questions getting to know them as a human being that will. you into your next segment. And I think it's, it's [00:33:00] really important at this, at that point that you're just listening, pay attention, what are they telling you? What signs are they showing you?

Literally get to know them.

Todd: So we've gone through the awareness. People know you exist, we've gone through exploration. They're poking around a little bit. We're at. We just passed interview process. Now we're onboarding. We're hiring this person. We've decided they're a good culture fit. They're not accepting whatever commission we're offering at this point.

You know what's funny? We usually offer people a job. They accept and then they ask about pay. So I would say our model works. So if you're there thinking, I don't think this would work. It works. We do it. We do all this stuff that we talk about, none of this is theory for us. So you're at onboarding.

Onboarding is a tricky one. We have a system for it because a lot of places will say, oh just go over and watch Lisa today. That's not onboarding. You are setting that person up for failure. What, [00:34:00] what is somebody that's new supposed to get out of watching somebody that's a veteran? Work at speed.

You're taking someone that's brain. Isn't even functioning at the foundational level yet, and you are throwing in a bunch of probably advanced techniques, probably doing stuff with their eyes closed or hands behind their back because they've been doing it for years and good for them. But now you are skipping, right?

The good and the better and you're trying to just get to best, like we talked about earlier. And that is a recipe for disaster because now that person thinks. A couple of things. They think I need to be able to do this, or they think worse, they think I can never do this. And that goes to your opening take

Jen: Right?

Todd: and we've dealt with that before.

So now we have a pretty robust we aim for 12 weeks, but it could be less system in place that's customized for each person. And we've proven it to be pretty successful. I'd say like [00:35:00] 90% of people make it through that. So after this person is onboarded, they're ready for some coaching, they're ready for some additional things, they're ready for their career path.

So you need to be able to show them how they can grow, and that might be in the beginning, just building a clientele.

Jen: Right.

Todd: Here's how I want you to talk to clients. Here's the information I want you to get during a consultation. Here's how I want you to talk. Back to clients during your consultation, all these fundamental things, as you go further along, you're gonna start working with people that you've been with for 2, 3, 5, 6 years that are doing different life stuff, right?

We have people that are buying vehicles, buying houses, doing these things that we've done. So now we can help them if needed, with our experiences and give them a little bit of extra. So, and that's, that goes back, I think, to being part of something that's greater than the sum of its parts. We're older than our staff, so we have more life [00:36:00] experience.

We don't push it on people. 'cause work is work and life is life, but there's a lot of overlap there because you need work to have life. Right. Alright, here's an example of just to pound this in people's heads of leading with like the tech first, so, well the tech was Steve Jobs's quote, but leading with the like the amenities, right?

So if somebody that leads with that would say,, we pay 50% commission and we use this software, but really. A way that you could flip it is you want them to understand what they're going to experience. So most people don't think in 50%, they're, they're thinking, oh, that's it. The other salon pays 52.

That's what you've just put in their head. So instead you could say, Hey, stylists here after like 18 months typically earn X. [00:37:00] How do they do that? Well, we support them. We give them mentoring. We give them education. Here's what education looks like. Jen's had talked about that a lot earlier. Here's how we have a strong pipeline, strong client pipeline.

Here's what we do behind the scenes. Here's our marketing. Some of our team doesn't even know. They don't even, they're not even aware of some of the stuff that we've been doing, so we need to step that up a little bit.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: But you can see how both things are talking about money, because that's what's important.

The Hiring Process Done Right [28:00]

At the end of the day, people need to make money at their job, so it's just framing it. You gotta frame it for their experience.

Jen: picture. Conversation than just one scenario of this is the percent you're gonna make, like,

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: make, you're gonna make hourly or this whatever's greater. They're like, cool. But to show them the value of all the things that are offered that support the money they'll bring home.

And to what you said we have staff that. You start talking about,, within 12 months, the ones that [00:38:00] worked hard, they were already here within 18, they were here. So it's also giving them like, wow, if I work hard with what they just told me to do for marketing, could, I could do really well pretty quickly.

Or, if, if it took me 18 months, I'd be fine with that. You start, they start in their mind almost picturing themself in your business and being busy and how they're gonna come up with their work ethic. So it's, it's really quite fantastic.

Todd: Yeah, it's, I, I like it. It's actually fun and it's really, it's engaging as the leadership to be able to look at those things and solve those problems in a different way.

Jen: And

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: looking to hire people that are. Like they use their brain, right? We're not looking for the people that wanna be robotic. Tell me what to do and I'll just do it. I, I don't want you to be me. A, a version of it, fine, but I want you to be you as the best person you can be. And what does that look like for you?

And we want people that have that way of thinking, like, oh, if I do this, I could be this busy, rather than just like, just gimme the playbook and I'll just do it. That's boring. We don't want that. We want all different types of people under [00:39:00] Hello, so we can service all different types of clients.

Todd: For sure. Okay. So if you are someone out there and you're like, I have these job ads out there, I'm trying to attract stylists, I gotta rewrite these. Yeah, you do. And so how can you rewrite those? Lead with the culture, lead with with the experience.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: with

Jen: them a feel.

Todd: how they're, I I was just gonna say start with how they're gonna feel day to day.

How do you feel in the salon? At our salon, if you asked our staff and go back and listen to that episode, I forget which one it is, but we asked our staff why they stay. I'll link it in the show notes, and they gave us their answers. None of them were commissioned percent, none of them were.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: That becomes secondary.

It was how you treat us. You make us feel seen.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: We feel like we can come to you with anything and you're not gonna attack us or shut us down. You'll always listen. You'll, even if you aren't gonna make a change, you are open to hearing our suggestions. [00:40:00] You care about our lives outside of work. You don't view us as a dollar sign.

Those were some of the answers that we got when we asked our staff. So use whatever your experience, whatever you wanna build, and feel free to copy ours, but please make it your own. Don't just copy and paste it exact because it's not gonna work unless you truly buy into it with your heart.

Jen: And not authentic.

Todd: Right after you have that, you, you lead with that.

At our salon, our stylists say this about us. At our salon, stylists feel seen and heard at our salon, stylists tend to grow however many percent because we offer mentorship and we guide them every step of the way. Then you back it up with your systems and clarify any of the details. That's when you do that stuff.

Definitely use language that paints a picture of that feeling, that emotion.

Jen: It's really

Todd: What do you want people to feel when they are in your [00:41:00] business? We want people to have fun. We want people to be excited. We want people to be all those things. And so that's what we talk about with Hello and don't again. Sorry to keep saying this, but don't be generic.

Don't, don't look at what other salons are writing out there because they're all just copy. Everyone's just copying monkey See, monkey do. And it's funny, if it worked, everyone wouldn't be going. How do you hire?

Jen: Well, you have to stand behind your product. Whatever you're, whatever it is that you're growing, whatever it is, however you want your salon to be, you really have to first start with yourself. Do you believe in it? Do you believe you can create it? Do you believe you can run it? Do you believe you can lead it? If you get your mindset there, then everything else is, is. Going to fall into place. But if you are, like you said, if you're just copying and pasting what everyone else is doing, you don't buy it, you don't believe it. You probably don't even really care at that point. So when you go to hire,

Todd: Too, don't they

Jen: they're just like, this is, and if they've already been to five other salons and you're all saying the same [00:42:00] thing, they're like, what is happening here?

Like, this doesn't even make sense. I'm looking for the one that's really, really doing stuff.

Todd: Go back to the education thing for two seconds, Jen. How many times have we. Sat down with somebody to interview and they said,, you're like my sixth salon that I'm interviewing at. And all five of the previous ones said,, we just watch whoever's busy that day for education.

Jen: Right?

Todd: And you were the first salon to lay out a a plan.

So I work here now we've got that. We, we didn't even offer, we have people on our staff that we didn't offer a job. They were like, we, I work here now I have to.

Jen: We've had, even someone we've hired and then now I'm working with them with education and they're like, oh, we're really doing this. And I'm like, what do you mean? They're like, well, I, the last one I worked at said we were doing stuff, we never did anything. I'm like, we are really doing this, and this is just step one, so get it together here.

And they're excited. But it, it definitely, there's always, I think in the beginning where they're floored that we're actually doing the things that we said because if they've come from [00:43:00] another salon. That never happened. So it's it, it still surprises them. Even though we said it and we laid out the plan, it still surprises them when we're actually doing the things we said we were going to do.

Todd: Let's, I, I want to talk about. Booth renters, how you can attract booth renters. So we have to start with what they want and let's work it backwards because everyone's starting with, I have this square footage you can have and it's the cheapest rent in town. Because I looked around and then I made my rent cheaper instead of basing it on math and what I need to break even.

And that's obviously some sarcasm built in there. But if you've been listening for any amount of time, that I'm sarcastic and that I love to push the limits. If you haven't been listening for any amount of time, welcome, I am sarcastic. But what are they looking for? They're looking for an environment that makes their work easier, safer, and they wanna feel fulfilled.

They wanna be a business owner. They wanna own the business. So what do Booth renters [00:44:00] actually want? They want a client ready environment. What does that mean? It means clean, professional, welcoming. They wanna be proud of where they're bringing their clients. They don't want to have to take a tram from the parking lot to get to your building.

That's not convenient. Their clients have to do that too.

Jen: Right.

Todd: They don't want to have to go three floors down to the bathroom.

Jen: Right.

Todd: Clients have to do that now too. They don't want stuff like that. So build around what these renters are actually looking for. They want community, and here's something that I thought of recently, Jen, correct me if I'm wrong.

They want community, but they don't want the pressure that comes with it.

Jen: I'd agree.

Todd: They want education opportunities or to be included. They also want the independence to make the decision on their own. Like, Hey, that's not for me and I'm my own business, so I don't have to go.

Final Thoughts [36:00]

Jen: they want the offerings, but they're probably not [00:45:00] gonna more often take advantage of it because that's just where they are

Todd: Yes,

Jen: and salty about that.

Todd: Nope. They want support, but they don't want it forced. It's another thing that we see too. So we see people that are like, I can't get my booth renters to support each other or to answer the phones for each other. No, they don't need to.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: They want support, but they don't want the pressure of having to do it.

So when you start telling people that they have to do stuff that's an employee, I would go back and look at that. They want simple operations. We already talked about it, but parking bathrooms. They want that stuff to be simple. They don't want one bathroom for 27 suites.

Jen: Right.

Todd: They want things to be included.

They want simple things. Laundry access. Do you have that? Yes or no? Don't tell me about what you're including. And towels and capes, they don't need all that stuff. How does the laundry work? Because they're thinking, how do they simplify my lives? 'cause they're probably bit off more than they can [00:46:00] choose starting their own business.

We're being honest. Does your wifi work, is it reliable? Everyone's booking on their phones and tablets now I, I need that. That might seem silly, but some places might struggle with it. I would include your utilities, but include it in your rent. So, and nobody needs to know that exactly the numbers and the breakdown.

Jen: but make sure it's included.

Todd: They just need to know that this price includes these things and then you've just simplified their life. They probably need some support with marketing. That doesn't mean you have to pay for their marketing. In fact, you shouldn't.

I would argue that you shouldn't pay for their marketing. They should pay, but maybe you are willing to teach them how you built yourself, and that is a great addition. That's a great perk right there, because they're truly learning. If you just do it for them and you are paying for it for them. How is that benefiting them?

Because now if they move, they can't, they they, they're not retaining anything because you [00:47:00] didn't, you didn't teach anything.

Jen: and then you have to remind them you chose to run your own business. So these are the things you have to do. I can show you the way I can lead you there, but that's on you to take it to the next step.

Todd: Yep,

Jen: not mine to do for you. That would be owning a commission salon.

Todd: exactly. And the, the only other thing I had on my list, Jen, was that they are looking for a respectful. Environment. They want a respectful culture. They want an owner that they want a, a booth rental owner that supports their independence

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: and treats them

Jen: left alone too.

Todd: and treats them like a business, not like an employee.

They don't have to do what you say. I'm not saying you can't have rules, but that's a different podcast. So again, let's do, you've got an ad out there, you're trying to attract renters. Here's an example of the not backwards way. We'll say the tech first sort of way as Steve Jobs would put it. You would say, Hey, I've got a 12 by 12 private suites, 2 75 a week.[00:48:00]

You know, utilities are this, blah, blah, blah. If you flip that into an experience, you start with, okay, you wanna run your business, you can run your business independently inside our modern Client Ready Salon. You can enjoy these utilities. We've got wifi, laundry access. We'll talk more about that and we can even help you with some marketing support if you need.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Plus, we've got a community of professionals that respect your independence, but also are there for you if you need anything. And again, you are not going to going to be able to force people to participate in community. But if people are, if that's important to you and you tell people that's, that, that's important to you, you're going to tend to attract those people that that's important to them.

Jen: They're finding those words and they're picking them out of like what they're looking for, where they want to work. So those words you have to say over and over again. And then you'll find like, community, community, oh my gosh, this is exactly what I've been looking for. I think even like you.

To what you just said, something about client [00:49:00] experience, because most people, if they're going out on their own, it, it's very important to them if they're going on their own to take care of their clients. So having that in there more than, we offer martinis, but client experience, we have these things, like that's what they're looking for.

Todd: So let's run through some quick key takeaways from the episode. Do you wanna start with the stylist or the renter's experience? Not your systems?

Jen: Create a feel.

Todd: Start with,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Todd: Create a feel. That's a great, I love that, Jen. I, it's not the first time we talked about it, but it applies so much to today. So this topic second thing you wanna do is work backwards.

Your policies, benefits, ads, all that stuff, that's going to be what you build after you decide the experience that you want not before. And then focus on experience first, recruiting. 'cause that's what's gonna attract the right fits. And those right fits are gonna stay at your business longer. They're gonna wanna be there more.

Jen, this is going, we're going a little long, but that's okay. [00:50:00] We've had people, or we have people. For example, that come in on their days off, they just hang out at the salon. I, we've had people that, we have hairstylists that will come in on a day off and start helping out cleaning stuff, rearranging products.

I don't know if we just lucked out or if the systems we built actually work. Maybe, maybe we just lucked out. I don't know.

Jen: A little bit of both.

Todd: So it does take luck, right? Everything takes a little bit of luck, but it also takes persistence and it also takes fortitude. You've gotta be able to push through when it gets hard, and you've gotta stick to the guns.

I, I've seen this so many times recently, like, Hey, I'm a commission salon but there's a person that wants to rent. How much should I charge 'em? And I'm like, you're gonna just upset your whole model because you're just trying to get money. It's not worth it. I know short term. You gotta pay bills. I get it.

We've been there, we've made choices that weren't great. I'm telling you right now, you're going to [00:51:00] regret it when you're like, if I didn't do that, I would be three to five years further down the road than I am now. And I've seen the opposite side too. Hey, I'm a rental salon, but I just interviewed this person.

They're really cool and they wanna be commission because they don't know how to run their own business. Well, you built a business for people that wanna run their own business. How is that gonna work?

Jen: not a fit for you

Todd: It's just not a good fit. Have that person come to some, right? Have that person come to some classes, have that person meet up for a cocktail.

Jen: Yeah. Maybe

Todd: Have that person

Jen: renter, but she's not for you today.

Todd: right, or maybe it's just a friend. You made a friend. You don't have to make money off of every single person that comes into your life, right?

Jen: your business model because every single person that comes in, that's not a business model. You've gotta stand behind what you're creating.

Todd: Do you have anything else to add? I feel like we covered a lot of stuff. Basically experience first. People Experience first.

Jen: Create feel.