The Conscious Salon
Welcome to The Conscious Salon.
Here for the real talk salon owners actually need.
The Conscious Salon Podcast is where salon owners get clear guidance without the fluff. Hosted by Nic & Tess, we break down leadership, team culture, money, client journey, systems and numbers into simple moves you can use this week. Expect straight talk, real stories, lots of laughs and practical frameworks that help you lead well, grow profit, and have a life outside the salon.
You will hear from salon owners, industry leaders and working mums who have done the hard yards. We cover mindset that holds under pressure, meetings that improve your team culture, and the habits that build a self led team.
Follow the show and start with leadership posture, client journey design, and money mindset.
Listen in, implement, and stay conscious.
The Conscious Salon
"Did the water at your basin just go cold?"
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Salon life isn't just about the glam; it's a roller coaster of hot water crises right before the holidays, team reshuffles, and the thrill of sharing a client's financial success. This episode peels back the curtain on the importance of alignment within a team, the resilience needed to keep a business afloat, and the power of a good debrief. Whether it's overcoming icy showers or celebrating the wins that we've carved out, we're all about keeping it real with stories that resonate, advice that inspires, and a touch of gratitude that ties it all together.
Wrapping up this episode, we're turning the mundane into the thrilling — think Taylor Swift concert-level excitement — as we count down not just the seconds, but the successes, lessons, and joyous moments that have marked our year at the salon. We're here to remind you that the challenges we face are just preludes to celebrations, and with a little intention-setting, support, and a few good laughs, there's always a reason to raise a glass. So, join Nicola, Tess, and our vibrant community as we leap into another year at the Conscious Salon, where every moment is worth tuning in for.
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Conscious Salon Welcome Back 2024
Speaker 1Here at the Conscious Salon, we acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which we stand today, the Boon Rung people of the Kula Nation. We pay our respects to the elders, past and present, and extend their respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Speaker 2Welcome to the Conscious Salon.
Speaker 1Welcome back to the Conscious Salon 2024. Here we are.
Speaker 2Yeah, we're all nervous when Tess introduces everything? No, we're not at all.
Speaker 1So, guys, the announcement today is I will now be taking over. We've just lost most of our listenership. Don't worry, guys, I'm actually handing it back straight away, because I'm already uncomfortable.
Speaker 2Welcome back Nikki.
Speaker 1Oh no, I don't, I feel it actually feels great Welcome back yourself. Thank you, guys. New Year, could you be here?
Speaker 2everyone yeah Same egotistical chaos between the two of us, absolutely. But we're very happy to be back in action. Yep First party for 2024.
Speaker 1I'm pretty relaxed. I've actually just realised. My stance is quite relaxed, tess is lounging. Yeah, literally lounging on the lounge.
Speaker 2But, tess, it's been a cracking start to 2024.
Speaker 1You did just preface me before saying not too long on the lake. What did you call it? I can't actually remember.
Speaker 2I don't know, but one thing that I really want to do is be super high impact, low output. So we're not going to spend a year sitting on each podcast episode because we know that the people are busy. We're busy, let's get into it.
Speaker 1Yep, so that doesn't get you going, I don't know, that's actually what she says to Pete for every Sunday night. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2It's low impact, it's low output on my behalf.
Speaker 1Pete's nodding along.
Speaker 2He is, but no welcome back New year. It's very exciting to be here. This is the first party that we've recorded. We did record a couple of episodes last week, but we had a bit of technical difficulty.
Speaker 1I'd hate to tell you, guys, they were absolute nuggets. We really did try and pull every string that we could to resurrect them, but no.
Speaker 2Actually we gave up pretty easily. We were like this sounds really shit.
Speaker 1I was like hurricanly. I can do some editing there. Producer Leah is pretty wizardry like qualified.
Speaker 2We've got too much respect for Producer Leah to put her through that. I was happy to push it.
Speaker 1I was like, let's see what she can do. I was happy for her to like. You know, when you have to get in what's like? You know when people have like movies or something and then like the character, like the actual actor dies and they have to bring in someone else to like.
Speaker 2Oh, like a. Yeah, I was like I don't think you can do that. Is there an?
Speaker 1understanding.
Speaker 2No, that's in theatre dial but.
Speaker 1I don't know what it is, but you know like they do it.
Speaker 2That would be awful. Do you know why I'm actually Like imagine filming the entire movie and then someone I mean tragic actually dies. Yeah.
Speaker 1It hasn't, it's happened. A couple of Well, actually no, my reference is the Harry Potter's. Naturally, it's where my brain goes, as I've just watched the first four of the six or seven that there are. So good Six, but the last one's explicitly.
Speaker 2I never actually understood any of the story.
Speaker 1All right, get out right now, Like I understand that he goes to.
Speaker 2Anyway, we're not going to do that.
Speaker 1No, actually, let's hear your version. What happens? Give me Harry Potter's. As I understand it, he is a wizard and he doesn't know it.
Speaker 2And then he goes to wizard school and meets all the other wizards and wizardesses. I was like, oh, witches, witches, witches, whatever. And then they. And then I don't really understand what happens with. I was going to say Lord Farquhar, but it's not, Lord Farquhar no.
Speaker 1I was going to say some shriek, but Lord Farquhar, and they?
Speaker 2you know he wants to kill Harry for some unbeknownst reason. And then something about Tom. Riddle, but it's he, Lord Voldemort as well.
Speaker 1Yeah, cool.
Speaker 2I remember that but I never understood that. And I remember when we left and I debriefed with someone in my movie companion told me that they were like the same person and I was like oh, I don't remember Probably Kieran Gill from my primary school, just as listening as Hello to. Kieran Can't wait for the next movie Movie of Bayard. What the hell.
Speaker 1So I just don't you know. We'll probably tell me he didn't go to the movies Probably because she kept asking for companions. Oh goodness me, that is hysterical, Anyway anyway.
Speaker 2So yeah, never really like I sort of glossed over it, but I really enjoyed all the magic and all the fun and everything and, like the spider scene when all the big spiders come, loved it, but never, never understood it. Never understood what the Philosopher's Stone was, never understood all of the like horses with legs. I never really got this Like. I just yeah. No, it was a no.
Speaker 1Well, my point of bringing Harry Potter up is because we've just watched the first couple in the first two. You wouldn't remember this because you've grasped about 1% of that movie.
Speaker 2Hoster is each sharing popcorn with Kieran Gill.
Speaker 1I mean, we know she wasn't making out, she's just a companion. Actually, kieran would have definitely been up for it, I just wasn't up for it with him. Sorry, kieran, if you are listening. He's tuned out, he's done. We'll never give him again, that's gone. No, but in the first two movies, one and two, there's one Dumbledore, the actor, and the actor then passed away.
Speaker 2So then the third one.
Speaker 1You come back and he's totally different. Hang on.
Speaker 2doesn't he have like a really deep voice? Yeah, I mean, he do remember.
Speaker 1So the first one. He's kind of like Harry. That's why I just got confused with Lord.
Speaker 2Farquad, because it's the guy from Lord of the Rings. I think it's the guy from Lord of the Rings. So, ian, isn't it, sir Ian? No all right cool. Anyway, look, we should, we would recommend no, we can't leave this research task for you guys.
Speaker 1Get back to us, let us know it was the end.
Speaker 2But that would be ideal. But Tess, the week that was. How's the week been?
Speaker 1Well, pretty good, I'm going to do. You'll hate this, but I'm going to do a couple of weeks, wrapped up really quickly, I assure you, because we haven't touched base for a couple of weeks. I think he's not happy with this, but anyway, we'll see. We'll see. I know I've just completely ignored it. Tess always gets 10 minutes in this segment.
Speaker 1I get 25 seconds, that is literally, if that could not be our brand. Small, that is like 100% her. The ADHD of me losing my mind and I know you've said, especially since I've been diagnosed, it's become my brand. I feel like I've got on meds and gotten worse. So we're going to do a couple of weeks and then you can do the you know get everything's great. We've got the reports in. Yeah, Perfect, Okay, Go ahead.
Speaker 2I'm losing it.
Getting Pet Chickens for the House
Speaker 1I've come at Kieran Gill so I'm dying. Kieran Gill. Nikki's also had some additions of some chickens at her house.
Speaker 2So we did get chickens. Actually, you know what. I'm going to go first, why so?
Speaker 1I got some pet chickens. Well, you did all solid. I thought that was solid.
Speaker 2Well they were, they were all of us really. But yeah, the pet chickens, could we run?
Speaker 1through the names. How many are there? What are their names?
Speaker 2Four, we made them say letting out a three year old son name them.
Speaker 1So I don't even get some mistake.
Speaker 2It was a great choice. Their names are Bobby, oh, bobby, bob, chloe he's never met someone called Chloe, so I'm like I don't really understand that. Poppy for our former team member yeah, but he was like zero. Oh, he was a little bit of you.
Speaker 1That's sure. Poppy, poppy, yep, and do you reckon that's after Mick's grandpa? Probably, and grassy hop, grassy hop.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's my last one. So I said oh well, we'll just. We'll pencil those names in, but we won't actually land on them until we're 100% sure, Cause I'm hoping they'll change, Are you?
Speaker 1100% sure you don't have a rooster Cause. We were there the other day 100% once the rooster. Yeah, we could hear some croak going on.
Speaker 2And.
Speaker 1Pete did say to me that the guy really wanted to send him home with the rooster.
Speaker 2Oh, and of course Pete was in charge of you know, getting like sourcing the chickens, building the heart, all those things and anything that's Pete young certified and it has no involvement of me. Like we're guaranteed to have probably four roosters yeah, I'm actually that is probably likely.
Speaker 1He did tell me the price. He said it was $40 for a lot which he there for roosters. He said it's less than the cold chicken, the barbecue oh, it's chook. So you can get that one, which? Will last, you a couple of days, oh a long life One.
Speaker 2Do you know that that's nicknamed the tradies handbag?
Speaker 1They told me the other day it's nicknamed the tradies handbag because they just go and get a roast chicken for lunch, yeah actually yeah, anyway, cool. So your week, you got the chickens, got the chicken.
Speaker 2I better not take up any more time, because I can see your bursting to tell you a live story.
Speaker 1Go on. What's happened with you?
Speaker 2this week no, no, live story mate.
Speaker 1No, it was good. We had a lovely Christmas, didn't we Close for Chrissy? Yep, we had a Christmas day here. That was really good. I wasn't under too much stress. I don't know why I like I've, I think because I was hosting. I thought that and I say me as in, I did nothing, I did.
Speaker 2I was like you actually did nothing.
Speaker 1I cleaned it. No, actually that's rubbish. Well, I set you up for success with. Nikki came round to do the set up a Christmas table on Christmas Eve and Mick and I forgot that we could probably actually put it in place Like have a.
Speaker 2I said I'll come and decorate the table. And I got here and I'm still a bit prickly about this. I drove here no, it was just a pain in the ass. Whatever got here, and they hadn't actually moved the either one table outside or a table inside, so it was just two tables, one outside, one inside.
Speaker 1Yeah, so I think Mick assumed that Pete would be coming, which he didn't, and then we were at Mick's dad's Christmas party on Christmas.
Speaker 2Eve yeah, almost yeah. So yeah, we went down really well.
Speaker 1There were a couple of threats of not coming to Christmas the next day, but they fell through.
Speaker 2Thanks for being so gracious when I turned up on the 25th. I appreciate you overlooking that.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, so that was quite a time. Yeah, I definitely look, it wasn't my best move. I don't know what I thought you were going to do, but yeah, we had 20 people and I just thought you were just going to do it with our six-seater table and just work that out yourself. Yeah, exactly, never mind, we got the table sorted the next day, but we did have a couple of I'm going to slurn it quickly with through a couple of the key moments for me. Idea zero cooking. That was great.
Speaker 2That was the condition of my answer. I was going to say that's probably a preference for a lot of people, so Detesive. If you're not cooking, I'll be there, absolutely.
Speaker 1So I didn't do a thing. Mick did all of it, which was he had cooking things going on everywhere, which I again wasn't allowed to touch which suited me. Cooking things going on, yeah, I mean that sums up the no cooking, but we did have. We had lunch scheduled for two o'clock and we had my family, which is quite small. It was just, you know, our core, how many of us.
Speaker 2Are there Five or six?
Speaker 1Six, yeah, and then mix both sides of the family, which is a lot more. I think it was about 20 odd people here. And then we had the two o'clock start. So mum was here early. She stayed with us and was helping me clean, getting the household prepared, and then we got the text message from the in-laws all six of them. Oh yeah, we'll be there in 15 minutes. This is at 11 am and I was just like, oh my God, so having your entire family come two and a half hours early, nothing better. You know, actually, when you're in that, your knickers. I literally was in my knickers in a t-shirt vacuuming the floors and I was, you know, straight away to me. No, absolutely not. Like. This cannot happen. And he was like.
Speaker 1You're gonna have to tell them to sit in the car. I did, he was like, and he did. He called them and was like you can't come, Like we've got this, it's in this, Like Katali wasn't even here yet and yeah, no, they were like we're on the hill. So I was like, oh good, they're pretty much in the driveway. So I says, no choice now, but lovely to have them love my family. And it was a great weekend Week. No, we had a week with them all.
Speaker 1It's great, lots of family time, lots of fun it was quite nice.
Speaker 2It was quite nice to have just like a nice chill start to the year. We usually closed for a little bit longer and it was short and sharp this year, but it was a nice way to start the year, like nice and clear-headed. On Tuesday was our first day back in the salon and we did a really beautiful intention setting ceremony with our team, which was incredible. For any of you who haven't listened to the intention setting episode, go back and listen to it and feel free, if you would like, to DM us. We do have a resource that you can use with your team to do a similar one.
Speaker 2Yes, just shoot us a DM and we'll send it out to you via email. Really beautiful way to kickstart the new year with your team and sharing intentions, sharing reflections, things like that.
Speaker 1Yeah, also to just point out as well, that's a free resource, so there's nothing you need Free resource. Yeah, it's nothing that's going to be in it, no strings attached. Just if you want it, we've got it, no strings attached.
Speaker 2What's that song? If you want five star review at Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1Yes, actually, that's a great little segue. Anyway, that's all the things. Should we crack into our first segment?
Speaker 2Yeah, what's it called? Look at me.
Speaker 1I am the host, aren't I? You are. What's our first segment? You called. Well, what's Nikki Utah? Tell the people it's called Hot Girl Hotline.
Speaker 2Hot Girl Hotline, hotline, hotline, hotline, hotline, hotline, hotline. All right, so, tess, we have an interesting actually for anyone who's new around here, we run a little segment each week. It's called Hot Girl Hotline, and every week on Instagram we put up a questions box and we ask you guys for your troubles, your woes, your business hardships, whatever you're dealing with at the moment, and then we offer our advice around that. So this week, tell us what we are going to be chatting about on Hotty.
Salon Reflection
Speaker 1So we're reviewing this. One of our private clients, we're reviewing how everything went in. Her final week in the salon had an incredible week. Incredible results turned over I think it was like nearly 10 grand in profit, so really great result for her. We all love the big finish of the year, especially sitting in those sort of numbers, feeling incredible it's all going over her numbers and just really celebrating how much profit they'd have, how incredible the last week was, all the things that they were able to do. But she did mention, as wonderful as it all was, she did feel like they had really low energy towards the end and it was kind of that snail crawl towards the finish. And I know this will resonate with quite a few people that are listening to this at the moment. And I just wanted to share some of the things because I think, realistically, when we were finishing the year last year, Nikki, we probably should have had a bit more of a snail crawl mentality, but we didn't, because we're really conscious about it.
Speaker 1And I think it would be really great and like, if you think we should go on with this, I think we should continue, or maybe, lea, you'll be doing a bit of cutting here. I think we should really share what happened for us during the last couple of years.
Speaker 2Absolutely, we're not going to keep around here.
Speaker 1Fantastic, all right, she's on board. No, throw those scissors away, lea, we don't need them. Nikki, would you like to kick us off? I really do feel like I'm in host mode today.
Speaker 2Well, look we have. Don't get too comfortable in that mode, Jess.
Speaker 1Yeah, I was going to say.
Speaker 2So I think this is really good and we did actually share this with our private client of a little bit about our experience and what we'd had going on and how we kept the vibe so high in our salon.
Speaker 1So how do you guys heard of Harry Potter? We had that playing in the background. No, we didn't Sorry.
Speaker 2Continue. We basically went into this Christmas, really consciously, around the end of November I'm just going to like skim over this without going too much into detail, but around the end of November and I just want to also say if people think that you get to a certain level in business where you know it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have, you get better at dealing with things, but everybody, no matter how much or how little experience you have, everybody deals with the same thing and this is one of the really humbling moments. You know, tess and I still plan every detail of our finances. Tess and I still have courageous conversations with our team. Tess and I still get client complaints in our business, so it's not like you ever get to this destination, that's just. You know, narnia.
Speaker 1Problem free yeah.
Speaker 2And it's like this, this destination of paradise where you don't have any issues. We all have the same issues. You mean Narnia instead of Narnia Is Narnia like the witch in the wardrobe.
Speaker 1I can't do this podcast. I was like Narnia, narnia, yeah, narnia.
Speaker 2Okay, like bliss, what it's what I mean. Bliss is what I mean. So if people think that you get to a certain state where it's like all your problems go away, but that doesn't actually happen, what happens is you get better and more resilient. From learning different tools and strategies and putting things in your toolkit, you get better at being able to deal with every situation, but we still have the same problems that everyone listening has in their business. Absolutely, we just deal with them differently.
Speaker 2So towards the end of November, we'd had our team grew quite a lot in 2023. So we had at 1.8 on team, with one, a new person coming who just started this week. So we had eight, almost nine. That's the biggest team we've ever had. We usually sit around like five or six people. So our team did grow quite a lot and Tess and I had been quite I guess, mentally checked out of the salon. So running bringing in a second business really distracted us this year. But also, I think the last few years have been so high-pressured for us that we actually needed a year or, you know, a few months, where we checked out and didn't necessarily have to absorb the pressure of having the brick and mortar salon. So now we can look back and reflect and know that our first of all, the number one thing to remember in these situations is whatever is going on in your business at the end of the day, is your responsibility and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter who you have in your team or you know what they bring to your team or what they. You know how they bring your team down or how they bring your team up. What actually matters is not the client's fault, it's not the team's fault, it's not the brand's fault. It literally comes down to the leader in the business. So we also start this conversation by knowing that the issues in this business were from us, and largely from us checking out Yep. We've also owned this with our team and had really, really courageous conversations and actually asked for their forgiveness for the way that we showed up as leaders in 2023 because we weren't plugged in the way that we should have been Yep.
Speaker 2So towards the end of November we had. It came to our attention that a couple of team members were unaligned, again through no fault of their own and no like, no bad feelings or anything towards them. They just weren't aligned. So in the space of November the end of November to the end of December, so about a four week period we had three team members leave really suddenly. Some left in really beautiful ways and it was completely harmonious. Some left in really disharmonious ways, yep.
Speaker 2But basically it came clear to us that there was a few people who weren't aligned and needed to be removed from the business, and that's exactly what eventuated. So in the space of a four week period we had, we shrunk down our team dramatically. Our team went from being eight people down to five people, which is obviously not ideal, timing-wise, christmas-wise, no. So we're fully booked. We had some team off with sickness as well, yep, and we had to think on our feet really quickly. So I came in and worked all the hours that I possibly could, while still working conscious, nikki was back on the tools, back on the clients.
Speaker 2They all loved it.
Speaker 1They were like oh Nikki's back on the floor. Exactly Don't get used to it.
Speaker 2We're just doing a little bit. It was actually so much fun. But, yes, I came back down, got back on the tools and then you stepped in and worked full time and absorbed a lot of clients as well.
Speaker 1Yep, magic Megan. We had Meg come in and step back in, of course, Thanks, megan, love you again. Oh, I keep trying to get her to come back in full time.
Speaker 2She's not coming back in full time. She won't come back. She won't come back, but yeah.
Speaker 1I definitely am working on it.
Speaker 2I tried to get her in the front of house position recently. I was like there is a position going for front of house if you would like to take that, but no, no, megan still says silent on the job acceptance. But we really had to dig into the resilience tank. So we were. It was all hands on deck, all resources used and we definitely had the feeling of like I guess it could have really been a snail crawl to the finish line because we were under, I think.
Speaker 1What did we talk about the other day? It was more like a commando crawl, like when you're in the like battlefield and you're like just like trying to like commando crawl to the end and like stay safe and like not get shot effectively. That's kind of what was going on. We're like guys, just like keep the energy high, let's not get sick. Like, let's keep like all of our vitamins and all of those things. And yes, it was definitely it was extremely high pressure.
Speaker 2However, I will say it was very optimistic high pressure. So the team was still really happy. We had all of our strategies in place that we talked about a couple of episodes ago in place to support our team and support ourselves, and things were going pretty well. We were Christmas week. Nikki'd organized some great bladders for the team to have little snacks on.
Speaker 1So really high energy we're all having. Like really, I think it's thing is it was definitely smaller and like we're under a lot more pressure, but we're all really happy and like the vibe was so high.
Speaker 2The vibe was stunning. It was so fun.
Hot Water Crisis at the Salon
Speaker 1The energy was amazing. There were clients commenting on the energy in the salon. Like how would people asking us if we'd like painted? It looks so fresh in there where it's so desperate for a for a paint and a bit of you know love and nurturing in it. It's got that real arm like warehousey sort of feel. Now I would say, wouldn't you say with the?
Speaker 2not really, but it's like it needs a Renault for sure. No, I mean, it's like a warehouse feel no, no, no, not like.
Speaker 1It's like, you know, a Tomcat in the corner, whatever they call it, whatever it is like the, the lift, what are you talking about? A forklift, a Tomcat?
Speaker 2is like a cat that goes out at night.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, sorry, I've got the two good teeth.
Speaker 2No, but it was. It was the really high vibe. It was beautiful. The teamwork was incredible. The vibe was light and fun. It didn't matter, you know, we were all just supporting each other. It didn't matter what we had to deal with. We were all supporting each other, working together, jumping in and helping each other out. It was just beautiful. It's great.
Speaker 2And it was Tuesday of Christmas week about 10 30. And we're at the base and doing some treatments. I'm doing a toner, got a team memory. The side of me Love it, you love it.
Speaker 1Nikki was back in a toner element.
Speaker 2Yeah, You're loving it.
Speaker 1I actually loved doing it, but anyway it was good, though, as well, because that girl kept turning to you and saying like oh, you know, whatever you think, nikki, I was like can I get?
Speaker 2you everything on this and I just go with whatever you think. And I was like love the confidence guys, but I'm going to need a little more direction. But so we're shampooing beautiful head massage. When I turned to the friend next to me and I said, has your water just?
Speaker 1gone cold. So was it that sudden, because I actually wasn't at the base in it was that sudden yeah, it just all of a sudden.
Speaker 2It went cold and then it went. It was all the way on hot and then it went. Oh, it's actually painfully cold.
Speaker 1It was like ice bath cold, I see, yeah, which we are advocates, for we do love an ice bath.
Speaker 2We love an ice bath, but not we don't love an ice bath in the massage chair.
Speaker 1No, with the treatment on.
Speaker 2There's times for ice baths. This was not. It no. So I turned to my neighbor on the other side and I said what about you? Have you got hot water? And Hannah said, no, I don't. And I could feel the blood drain from my face.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, because.
Speaker 2I thought hang on a second. Sometimes, occasionally, we'll run out of hot water if we're absolutely under the pump, but it's only happened a handful of times. We'd only been open then for about an hour and a half An hour, and a half and the blood literally left my body.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, she was panicked, let me assure you. So I kind of looked up and went what's up, because I could say that the other girls were kind of coping and you were.
Speaker 2They were fine. I was like did anyone hear me say we have no hot water?
Speaker 1Vicki literally looked like she'd just seen Voldemort.
Speaker 2Well, also I just have to say Also, I have to say with like, when you, I could be under so much pressure in the office and I can deal with anything. I could have legal matters, I could have anything going on.
Speaker 1I could pretty much deal with anything, and she's got you covered. Put her in a salon with the hot water gone, no, but if you haven't done a job for years Totally, and all of a sudden you're like what? Nothing was fine, but I was like did anyone hear me?
Speaker 2No one's panicking yeah we don't.
Speaker 1No one no one panicked. To be fair, when we've had the hot water issues before, you've never been there. When it's happened, it always happens like at nighttime, and that's usually when you're at home with your family. That sounds like she's not working. Nikki starts at like 4 am, so you've left her without working.
Speaker 2I just don't, I don't, I don't work nights. I'm too old to work nights.
Speaker 1So that's probably where we weren't super panicked, cause I just thought it was just like a standard. You know, oh, we've run out, it'll come back. Yeah, I swear, guys, we are very much an A level salon, but anyway, but not this week, cause they have. What happened was so the batteries went down, or what we thought, so I changed over the battery. That didn't fix it. We then got you know what's serious if we've got to call Pete Young.
Speaker 2Yeah, pete Young. So he got on home. It's not on the floor with Pete Young, by the way, pete Young hasn't worked in such a long time. Like Pete works for himself, he works from home, has a cactus nursery.
Speaker 1Yeah, we know he hasn't worked for a long time. And also like labels himself as a really bad plumber. He's like I am qualified but I'm not a good plumber.
Speaker 2Totally, but the one day, the one day that Pete goes to work with his brother. Oh yeah, so he was on a job site somewhere and wasn't available to drop everything and come right in.
Speaker 1So we called Pete, so that went down well.
Speaker 2Yeah, called Pete and then I said, fuck, I'm just going to have to get an emergency plumber out.
Speaker 1So called the emergency plumber. Do you remember we called the hot water service people and they were like, what kind of shop do you have? He said a hair salon.
Speaker 2No, she goes, yeah oh, you probably won't be able to get someone before Christmas. What kind of shop is it? What kind of business is it? And I said, oh, it's just the hairdressing salon. So she goes, oh shit, shit indeed.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly. Thank you, marion, for your sympathy, but it was hectic. You swapped over the batteries. That didn't work. We realized, ok, we need to get someone into services. Hot water system Plumber came out, had a look at it. Pete Young then rocks up that's right, and he changes the element. So he changes over the element, goes to get to new one. Meanwhile we've got clients galore. So we said, ok, great, we're just going to boil the kettle and we're going to start mixing up.
Speaker 1They've got a container, let's get a big trough.
Speaker 2Oh my god. So we had no containers. And then the options for watching the hair.
Speaker 1The NutriBullet smoothie cups, all lunch containers without fruit in it, I might add. They were clean.
Speaker 2It was a lunch box or a smoothie container, so every time we'd go to the basin, mind you. I will say the client wouldn't have noticed a difference. Some clients would just like just wash my hair with cold water. It's all good, don't stress, they were really good sports about it. But Tash also had a new client and she was like Elena. I'm not sure if you'd heard, but we've actually run out of hot water. This could be a bit interesting. We're going to do a little bit of warm water from the kettle.
Speaker 1Yeah, she loved it too. Elena did love her experience, which I will say she was thrilled with the color and very happy. She was like, oh, the warm water was fine it was like yes we do normally have a bit more pressure than that, but she loved it.
Speaker 2Thanks, elena, for can't wait to see you in March for your appointment, so every time we would go to the basin Tash, would start saying, are you going to have the smoothie cup or are you going to have the lunch box? And we'd just be fighting over who wanted which water vessel.
Speaker 1The smoothie cup was the choice. If you guys were ever in this situation, I want you to remember.
Speaker 2Actually, the girls preferred the container.
Speaker 2No, no, we're all fighting over the smoothie cups. No, that was just you and I. The girls preferred the container. Anyway, we're not going to get into some antics here.
Speaker 2But Pete Young rocks up, changes over the element and we ended up working the full day on Tuesday without any hot water system.
Speaker 2Pete changes over the element and says it's going to need about four hours for it to heat up completely. We're going to leave the hot water system for tonight and by tomorrow morning it should be hot. So I said to Pete right well, you'll be getting up at 4 AM. You need to go down there and make sure that it's working by 5. Because if it's not going to work, I need you to have a hot water system ready to go to swap over. So he goes and buys the hot water system, gets it all ready to swap over and he ends up going down there at 4 AM. Water's stone cold still. So now he's got two hours to be able to install a new hot water system so that the water can get hot by the time the girls get in for work. So he does that, changes it over, and then we realize that the fault is actually from the electrical that the previous owner of the building put in.
Speaker 1And the punch to him.
Speaker 2And the switchboard or the safety switch whatever has effectively melted. So then we had to get the emergency electrician in and basically had to redo everything and ended up getting hot water back finally on Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker 1Well, when we were closed, so it was fantastic. It's a good morning. Thursday clients were thrilled. It was a bit touch and go. Thursday morning we were a bit like, oh my god, what are we going into day three of Christmas week with no hot water? Totally, but thankfully it was a joyful moment.
Speaker 2But then Friday, do you remember?
Speaker 1Come Friday, so Thursday was. Thursday we had the hot water, the regular salon, everyone happy sharing our story of what had happened so far. Salon was really a high vibe. Friday comes around. Oh yeah, we've got the internet.
Speaker 2Why the Wi-Fi is dropped out. So just for some context, the Wi-Fi controls our music in the salon, our system we can't tell who's walking in it has everything is built on our system and the whole Wi-Fi has gone down.
Speaker 1So it really has us on our knees when the Wi-Fi goes down. We're in. We're in real strife.
Speaker 2So test text me saying good news the Wi-Fi is gone down the water, immaculate boiling.
Speaker 1It's too hot, too hot.
Speaker 2It's fucking funny. I did hear a client yesterday when someone said how's the temperature of the water? They said it's too hot and I was like that's a bunch of Christmas this week.
Speaker 1But it was. Everything was perfect. But I've got no idea of the system, so I'm going to be running everything off my phone today.
Speaker 2Yes, which is?
Speaker 1always a nice fun moment. So there was very fun time in the salon with no progress, like the internet's gone and test text me.
Speaker 2I was working from home, I was working in Conscious. On the Friday of Christmas week, tess sent me a text saying we've got no Wi-Fi and I just texted back saying I think I'm going to vomit, because that's when I was really starting to feel quite a lot of pressure bubbling over and I was like, ok, still not a snail's crawl, but I was like I'm hoping that nothing else is going to eventuate from this, because they say that bad luck comes in threes.
Speaker 1Well, that was a lot of bad luck.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And it was also. Of course. I know people are going to be like what was going on with the moon? Yes, guys, mercury was in retrograde, so, yes, we covered that. It was breaking everything down.
Speaker 2There was points where Tess and I were basically in Mercury ourselves. I think I lost.
Speaker 1Mercury for a moment.
Speaker 2It was a really, it was actually a really big lesson for us, because, despite being able to tell a story like that and it's sounding chaotic Was that the end of what happened?
Speaker 1Yes, didn't we lose F-POP machine for a little bit as well?
Speaker 2No, that was like in the optosadage or something, was it? No, we had to do transfers.
Speaker 1I don't remember, but my point is that we but I mean, if we're going to do this big one thing, and then we got the internet back the next day. I think it was yeah, we had one day with no internet.
Speaker 2But the point of the story is that you, you know that can sound as a really chaotic situation. However, how you show up in those situations is really important. Yeah, so Even immediately, when I was panicking at the basin, straight away I said, just come and swap with me. I needed to actually go out and have a walk around the block just to clear my head. But the rest of the week showing up, the way that our team showed up, they were all just so calm and incredible and just went straight into problem solving mode. Okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to work as a team? Let's help each other. I'll boil the kettle. You, you know, you get the buckets. The team was so amazing it was even the third forward thinking.
Lessons in Teamwork and Resilience
Speaker 1I remember then how I think it was. It was Hannah or Megan one of them, I can't remember which one, sorry guys, I know one of you did it Hannah or Megan had the great idea of like, let's just move the kettle down here. That is a brilliant idea, yeah.
Speaker 2Megan, this is why we need you to just front of house, but it really was just a really telling moment of um, you know, reminding us of our why and reminding us of people who are aligned with our business, but also keeping the vibe calm and high, and that's a really beautiful combination calm and high.
Speaker 2Um, when you are under pressure because, majority of the people listening would have been under pressure Christmas week. In some. To some extent, you may not have been under that much pressure, or you may have been under more pressure, but the way that you show up for your team and the way that you're uh, leading is really important and it was a really beautiful lesson to us to remind us how to show up, and I really do believe that you know when you it's from.
Speaker 2that week in November, things started to unfold, but every single thing you know, quote unquote bad things happening, um, every single thing led us to this moment of having a really incredible and aligned team where it feels happy and it feels light and it feels purposeful and it feels fun and it feels trusting and it feels loving, beautiful, and if we didn't go through those those things that felt really difficult at the time, we actually wouldn't have had the feeling that we had. You know, on Tuesday, when we were in setting those intentions, and for one hour and 15 minutes when we did our intention setting ceremony with our team, we were laughing, we were listening to each other, we were showing support, we were showing gratitude to each other. It was really beautiful and I don't believe that it would have had the same um experience if we hadn't have gone through all those things.
Speaker 1I 100% agree and I would just like to really like, as Nikki saying, during these moments of like what could be really stressful and really like panic in, and there still was the stress and the panic. Don't get me wrong. Like, I think everyone had a moment or two. Being like this is not. This is not an ideal situation. We don't need to try and put like you know, okay, guys, let's make the best of this. It was shit, it was a shit show, it was definitely stressful, but the reality of it was that it was, it was, it was it was. It was.
Speaker 1The reality of it was how much, as Nikki is saying, the teamwork that we had together and we were all just like, okay, we can like choose to have this consume us or we can really see, like, how quickly we're thinking on our feet and how much we're able to make. You know this, find the silver lining in the fun and the like, joy and the playfulness in it and even just kind of making it a bit of a funny like situation with clients, rather than be like sorry, we don't have any hot water, we were just like, right, well, we've got a couple of options for you. We've got, you know, this water that we can do with a smoothie cup or you can try a nice bath Like which one would you prefer? And it was just sort of light and playful and fun, which kept the energy really light and playful and fun. It wasn't something that was like daunting or overwhelming. Yeah, and I think again, with that all of these things with work out it really cemented our teamwork. The energy in our team was just so beautiful and even though we had all of these chaotic things in there, there was no chaos that went with it. It was smooth and positive and supportive and super fucking empowering and we were just having such fun every day in the salon, like even with all of this stuff coming down, we were constantly like the end of the night we were all hanging around for like half an hour, 45 minutes and like just talking and laughing and like enjoying each other and playing together and it was just such a beautiful thing and it's something that we've become so aware of.
Successful Year With Tips and Gratitude
Speaker 1So if you're hearing these and kind of thinking, how do we tie this into a nice little bow, when we were talking about this with our one on one client we were going back to, you know, she just felt like it was starting to. There was kind of the countdown starting and it was like that real snail croak crawl to. You know, just just only you know, two more days to go on the you know. And you can still have those countdowns, but in a fun way. It can be that you know, you can look at it two ways. You can go into it with you know, come on, like you know, we've only got two days left. Like let's just, you know, get this one done and there's only one, and that's got that real kind of like low vibe sort of thing. We were doing a countdown.
Speaker 1But it was a lot of fun. When we were like setting their team up in the morning, it was like, all right, amazing guys, like you know. So our last night shift, this, you know this, this is our last night that we're doing in 2023. Let's really, you know, smash it and have a great time together Like woohoo, a lot of cheering, a lot of pumping up, a lot of high energy leading into our countdown, so that they become more like excitement building rather than this kind of relief at the end. We don't want to do the like collapse at the finish line. We want to really have that, like you know, breaking the ribbon and the. You know the stream is coming down and the celebration, the celebration to be there, and I think for people that are wanting that help with how do we change this moving forward, maybe if we do a couple of tips for people of how this will benefit.
Speaker 1I definitely think, in terms of like, if you are a silent likes having a countdown, making that a real celebration countdown. So you like as though you're like when you're counting down for a holiday or you're counting down for a I don't know a Taylor Swift concert that will be coming up that I did not get tickets to that sort of thing where you can have something that's got a lot of like excitement behind it and a lot of like power in that.
Speaker 2Yeah, the energy of how it is, yeah for sure.
Speaker 1Do you want to mention the platters? They were really great. The platters were good. You know what?
Speaker 2my tip is actually, I just think, one tip each. Your tip was perfect. My tip would be whatever you've just experienced in Christmas week, I think, get a pen and paper out, because de-briefing so we debrief everything in our business. Tess and I debrief like we micro debrief, but debriefing is the way that we're able to learn. So debrief your Christmas, see what worked well, see what didn't work well. So for us, for example, you know, last year, 2022 Christmas, we had a lot of cancellations and movement and rescheduling.
Speaker 2Christmas week and I remember we over, really over staffed the Christmas week. We had so many extra team members on and there was one day in Christmas week in 2022 where people were standing around for like half a day and I remember when that happened, I got my phone out, I put an alert in my calendar for July 2023 and I made a reminder for myself as of Christmas 2023. We need to take a $50 non-refundable deposit for every single client in December. So we learned from what we do the year before and we put that in place this year, what we talked about, because obviously we were under so much pressure with team members leaving.
Speaker 2We also had a few team members off sick in December right up to the pointy end of Christmas time, and we debrief that and came to the conclusion that we need to have one team member who's off the floor, not seeing any clients, not scheduled for any clients, as a backup, as a resource if we have sickness, if we have things that go pear shaped, and basically have that person as a floating person. That was really, really helpful. So my tip is debrief, debrief what hasn't worked this Christmas and what has worked really well. Take a note and put a reminder in your phone now to give you an alert in like, depending on when you start booking. Most beauty salons will start booking like September October. Most hair salons will start booking like July or August. Make it alert and stick to it.
Speaker 1That's a great tip, beautiful, and that really was a game changer for us, because then I think when we actually had clients that were moving their appointment, like I think it was only like what three.
Speaker 2No, so in the whole of December the amount of people who moved their appointment were four people.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Four people in the whole of December that actually moved after we had taken their deposit. Oh, you know, due to sickness or working or whatever.
Speaker 1And the ones that did lose those deposits. There were sports about it. There was no backlash. There was no, like you know. But you know why it was because it was so clearly communicated.
Speaker 2And that's again where communication is everything. So good Guys. What a beautiful episode. Tess, we end every episode in gratitude. We do, I am super.
Speaker 1I'm actually super grateful for all of the things that went wrong, because it just felt so right, it felt so beautiful and so truly the way that we finished the year. I have so much gratitude for that. I'm so grateful for our crew and, just like the enormous, like you know, that family vibe is just so in our crew and just the joy that I get from them, I am so grateful for exactly what we just all the chaos that we just spoke about I'm so grateful for every second of that. Wouldn't change a minute of it. Oh, the hot water would change, probably. That's the one thing I change. But even then, no, I wouldn't, because it was you know, we wouldn't have this movie, cup stories and all the fun and like silliness that came out of that. So I'm just super grateful for what we just experienced and the fact that we saw it as such a positive rather than feeling like it was a negative. I'm super grateful for that. What about you?
Speaker 2I'm grateful for a lot of things. I'm grateful for Pete Young coming down last minute.
Speaker 1I'm grateful for.
Speaker 2Matt Young, my brother in law, the electrician.
Speaker 1Be young boys. We're very happy with you, young fellas, a lot of you guys.
Speaker 2I'm really a sitting gratitude for the team that you and I are the duo that we are because we handled it really really well, all of it. You know team members leaving and like that's never comfortable for a variety of different reasons, whether they choose to leave or we choose for them to leave. I'm really grateful for how we handled that. But the thing I'm the most grateful for in this situation is our team, because Even just looking around at our team on Tuesday and the women that we're surrounded with at the moment every single one of them, I see so many gifts. In every single one of them I love so much and I would truly do anything for I agree and every one of them is so aligned with what we're doing and what we're wanting to do, and that is an incredible feeling and I haven't felt that, Honestly, I haven't felt that for a while. Yeah, so 2024 is going to be an absolute beast for us.
Speaker 1It's going to be amazing. Yeah, we've got it. We're focused, we're excited. Join us guys. We'd love to hear from you what you thought of this episode, what I really am in host mode. Please take over immediately. Concerning for all. In part, I'm like what am I doing?
Speaker 2But thank you guys for taking your time out of your day to sit and listen with us. We've got some really beautiful episodes planned for 2024. We want to absolutely knock your socks off this year and really nurture and feed our community so that you guys feel so empowered to go into this year in the strongest way possible.
Speaker 1Yes, thanks, guys, love you all. Stay conch.
Speaker 2Thanks so much for listening to this episode and hanging out with us today to hear more about our journey. Follow us on Instagram at the underscore conscious underscore salon If you're a shit speller, check the spelling of conscious or at a head hair underscore. Thank you so much for joining us today and we'll see you in the next episode.
