SALON Ins and Outs of 2026

Ready to stop being the emergency contact for every problem and build a salon that runs smoothly without you hovering?

We mapped out a 2026 playbook for salon owners who want calm, high performance, and real freedom: pay for meetings during work hours, lead with courage, and turn your numbers into a shared compass. Instead of venting at home or hoping issues fade, we walk through how to hold direct, respectful conversations that reset standards and lift trust across the floor.

We dig into weekly number debriefs that bring clarity to services, retail, and rebookings, plus why sharing your break‑even converts anxiety into agency. You’ll hear why a 60‑minute monthly one‑on‑one is non‑negotiable if you want self‑led, connected teams, and how simple tools like love language and personality quizzes help tailor feedback, reduce friction, and grow genuine support between colleagues. This is people-first leadership backed by structure, not slogans.

On the flip side, we call time on habits that keep owners stuck. Running the salon from your head creates key person risk; it’s time to document, digitise, and systemise so holidays and sick days don’t collapse operations. We show how to enforce cancellation policies without feeling cold, when to let go of unaligned team members, and the steps to finally eliminate shoulder taps by building playbooks and clear escalation paths. If you’re craving a confident, drama‑light culture with stronger numbers and fewer fires, this conversation gives you the exact moves to make now.

If this helped, follow the show, share it with a fellow owner, and leave a quick review, then tell us which “in” you’re starting first.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Allen podcast. This one is going to be a fun one. I actually brought this to Nikki. I said, we were going through, we went through our notes and we were like, all right, what are we going to do for our episodes when we came in? And I was like, let's do something, let's do ins and outs. And actually, first you were like, no, everyone does ins and outs. I was like, no, we're not doing ins and outs, but. And I said, let's do ins and outs separately, so not together. I'm going to do all ins and you're going to do all outs.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And we don't know what each other said yet. So hopefully we don't have like um opposing advice. That would not be good. So obviously we don't need too much of an intro, just the ins and outs, the things that we want you guys to leave behind in 2026 and the things that we want you to call forward in 2026. Exactly. The sell-on owners, or just people in general, really. Actually, no sell on owners, it's really important. It was very specific to sell the owners, yeah.

Why Meetings Must Be Paid Time

SPEAKER_00 0:58

But like you do your own for your own industries, and that will work great as well. Tess, what's your first in? My first in for 2026. All meetings to be done during paid work time. And extension of that, scheduled in for the entire year, treated like a client, not moved, and to be respected.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Obsessed with this. Why didn't you put that in?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

So this is something I actually was thinking when I was creating the ins. What are the things that we get the most feedback on? So things of like, and that's one of the biggest ones. Do you pay your team like for your meetings? How do you get them to come in outside of their work hours, etc., etc.? This is truly how we've done it. We've scheduled our entire appointment book around our meetings that we need to have in place. If we have the meetings in place, we have the structure. If we have the structure, we have consistency, high performing, self-led, all of the things that we want. For us, if our team have got that happening during their work time and not outside of that, they're going to show up and really make sure they're giving it 100%. And I say this because I I actually worked for eight years in a company that didn't do that. And we would just have to come in half an hour beforehand to have a meeting just whenever it was called. And it was just not it. So that's why I was really passionate about it. Comes from a bit of a first hand lived experience that I've had.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Just want to show you$6,240 at minimum that you would be owed in paid work time.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, well, I'm not gonna 20 years later be like, all right, yeah, I'm ready for that.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

No, but I just think it's I think it's it's a matter of time before you it bites you on the ass. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah. And I think, you know, I want my time respected, so the same thing I want my team's time respected, you respect it by paying them for showing up and being there and for for doing it. But put it in their work time.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

I feel like it's one of the very few industries that this is an expectation in, and it's so common. So so so common.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

So it's my first in. My meetings done during paid work time.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Love my first out or do you want to do all the ins and then all the outs?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Whatever you think. Let's go all the ins.

Conscious Leadership In Practice

SPEAKER_01 3:15

All right, great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Second one is conscious leading.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So can we just pump um the conscious meetings course as well? If you don't know what meetings to have that you're gonna be paying your team for, go and do our conscious meetings course. We've got it. It literally shows you the blueprint of every single meeting. It's such a good course. It's a great course. I love the course. It's amazing and it shows you the format to all five of our meetings. It's like self-paced, so you can literally just purchase it and get full access today and have lifetime access. There we go. You don't need to wait for a container to open.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

That's right. Everything in there that you need. My second in are conscious leaderships. Leadership, sorry. Conscious leadership. So I'm not talking about becoming conscious leader, although you definitely should. I'm talking about really being intentional about how you're showing up, having clear and conscious conversations with people that are affected, not trauma bonding with other team members about specific problems, not dumping on your partner and family at home, not piling on in a salon, not creating drama, no more passivity, no more avoidance. I'm talking about when something happens and you see it, not turning a blind eye or hoping that someone else will go and do it for you. Having those conscious conversations or courageous conversations, whatever you want to say, challenging conversations. But actually making the choice of not being passive or ignoring or avoiding and going, nope, I'm gonna do this head on. I'm gonna have a conversation that I need to have. Because I feel like so often one of the biggest things that we see play out when we're meeting with teams and with salon owners, we hear about this passivity that can happen, or this like great unspoken, or this avoidance that plays out of issues happening. Sometimes issues happening within a salon that the entire salon knows about bar the person that it's actually about.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

And this is where we can start really removing the topic.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Or the husband who's never owned a business or stepped one day, like not a not a step into a salon before, never owned a salon, never been in our industry, but we'll go home and get the husband's advice. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

This is the thing, this is where true, and this is I think one of the biggest game changes for us because Nikki and I, you know, we've done episodes on this before. We I was a reactive leader, you were passive and then avoidant, I think. Wasn't that right?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

So I was everything. Oh yeah. I think passive, I would just talk to you about it.

Weekly Numbers And Break-Even

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yeah, yeah, rile me up, and then I'd go in and like get all reactive and head headbutt someone. Yeah. And this is the thing, if you want things to change, you have to change what you're doing. So for things to level up and to be the way that you want it to be, you need to be so conscious about how you're gonna be leading, how you're gonna be showing up, how you're gonna be directing your team. Stop having conversations with everyone else other than the person that it needs to involve. Go and talk directly to them. Don't go home and take it to your husband, don't go home and take it to the family, don't do any of those things. Take it to the individual. When we start having those conversations, watch everything change. Love. Third in debriefing your numbers with your team every single week. Good one. Good, bad, or in between. Your team need to be aware of what you're working towards. What's going well, where we need to improve. No more gatekeeping. I think this is so important.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I feel like numbers, you need to focus on being horny for numbers if you're a selling owner in 2026. Yeah. If you don't feel like you know your numbers, you need to really get to know your numbers.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

100%. And I think this is the thing. The reality is for those that are gatekeeping, your team can work it out. Like we've all got a calculator and we've all got the price list available to us. So if you're worried about your team knowing what money's going through the salon or how much each week you're making, share this with them. Be open about it. Set a goal that you want to achieve. Hey guys, we've predicted to make this much this week. I'd love to set a goal of this. Let's hit services here, retail here, rebooking here. The more that you debrief and the more you openly communicate this and have this from a really positive place. Again, freaking cough. I'm so sorry. When we have this from a positive place, this is when your team can get really excited about what they're doing. They're really clear on the direction that they're going on. People aren't sitting there wondering what they should be focusing on. So if you're wanting a 85% rebooking rate, debrief that. Get really clear on that. Setting those like truly debriefing numbers is such a game changer. And if you start debriefing numbers, also start sharing your break-even. Because that will really take it to the next level as well.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Good tip.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Number four in having one-on-ones with your team individually. This is essential for growth, for connection, for safety, for high performance, for being self-led. I've written a whole list of this for being self-led, for knowing where your team is needing support. If you are wanting to have a team that is self-led, high performing, and you feel deeply connected to, you have to have one-on-ones with your team. I'm talking 60 minutes once a month and book that out and respect it the way that you do for a client. That time will be one of the most valuable investments that you make as a business owner. Truly, truly, truly get really intentional and really see how impacting a one-on-one can be. It's truly where we can see the growth. It's also one of the best ways to avoid any catastrophes in your salon. So if you have I've got um it's a really because you have the space to be able to give feedback, you have the space to be able to hear about challenges or things that they're struggling with and support them in a really private, intimate moment so that they can share really openly with you and you can connect and inspire them and support them with either getting through it, getting past it, or you know, um something else really empowering. Getting through it, getting past it, or getting over it, to be honest. That is incredible. Getting through it, getting past it, getting over it. But what this doing, this is I feel like the biggest thing or the first thing when we start working with um salon owners, and they start marking out one-on-ones, and we'll follow up, we'll hold them accountable. Like, how do you go with, you know, you had Sarah's one-on-one this week? Oh no, I had to move that because we had a client, or you know, I've moved it to next week, or X, Y, and Z. The only way that our one-on-ones move is if a team member is sick on that day. Otherwise, they are it's concrete, nothing for them.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

And you need to start treating your meetings like they are a client because I'm telling you, if you're prioritizing those meetings, the clients are absolutely moving around them, and you are getting the incredible clients that you're wanting without having to like push. And like these meetings truly are where growth and like self-led and freedom, flexibility, and financial abundance all come from. There's a reason that we bang on and on and on about consistency with meetings.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Our salon would not be as successful as what it is without these meetings. Absolutely. If we didn't do these meetings for three months, I think our culture would suffer, our numbers would dramatically suffer, but also our productivity levels, like even people's connection to the business would suffer.

Love Languages And Team Fit

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Agree. So, yes, make sure that you have your one-on-ones. My final one, this one's only one that we've done in the last few years, and I feel like it has just created such a great level of understanding between our team and for team to really start learning how to support each other and communicate with each other and like have that connectivity has come from these things. Do you know what I'm gonna say? What is it?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

I'm trying to work it out.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

I have said do a love language quiz or get to know each other quiz and share your results. So it doesn't matter what it is, you can do like there's a generic, you know, the love languages and share your love languages because we're not all built the same. So my love language, for example, is words of affirmation. Mick, my partner's, is um physical touch. We're very opposing love languages. So for him, he'll be like, Come and hold my hand. I'll be like, Well, tell me I'm not, and he will, and then I will. And this is one of the things because if I go up to him and say, I love you so much, you're so amazing, like you make my world whole, quite often he'll go, thanks, and continue on. Whereas if I go and give him a you know kiss and a cuddle or a bit of a wink, he'll be very responsive to that. And vice versa, if I'm doing that, come home and he, you know, wants to love on me, and I'm like, back up, I've I've had enough. For him, if he comes in and goes, How was your day? It sounds like you've had a you you've you've wow, you've moved mountains today. Let me get you a glass of wine and a steak and put your feet up and don't you move a muscle, I will respond differently to him. And this is something that we see such transformations within team and understanding connection, is learning that we're not all the same, and the way that we need to receive feedback or um show our appreciation or what's really important to us as individuals, this is where we can really understand each other really well with that.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Even just thinking about like how I mean, obviously, we bang on about the personality tests that we do with our clients, um, team members, so that we can understand them better and so that the selling owner can understand what motivates them, how to give them feedback, how to communicate with them, what their love language is. Even just thinking about, for example, with our two team members with Jazzy and with Tay, two totally different personality types. I know that every time I see Jazz, I need to give her a hug.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And that's really, really important to her. I need to give her a hug and I need to look her in the eye and really connect with her. I know that with Tay, every time I see her, I need to support her with words of affirmation. She needs to hear what an incredible job she's doing. And the days that I don't do that, like I have to actively really work on talking to the team in their specific love language.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Absolutely. So they were they were my um they were my ins. I mean, I did have like a little sp speech around it all. I put at the bottom of their um love language and personality test. This will give you a blueprint into how to show gratitude to your team and also for them to support you in the ways that you need. Yes. This is massive for growth, understanding, compassion, really learning that we aren't all the same and learn how we can connect to each other better. That was my five ins. So we've got to recap meetings done in work time, conscious leadership with appropriate um people that are involved. No husbands, debriefing your numbers with your team every week, having one-on-ones, do a personality quiz, love language, doesn't matter. Do something together with your team where you get to know each other more and not from a sense of like what's your favourite colour? How do you like to receive feedback? How can I best support you?

SPEAKER_01 14:28

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

What do you got?

Stop Running Your Salon From Your Head

SPEAKER_01 14:30

All right, cool. My outs of 2026. This is the shit that you guys are leaving behind.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

One stop running your salon from your head. I know. So we have, I didn't even realize this wasn't a thing. We have always had the mentality, we've always treated our salon, even when it was just me and Tess, and we had like five clients in total, not that day. Six of her including mum. We always, always ran our salon as if it was going to be or if it was like literally a franchise business. Yeah. We started that from day one. I don't know where we got that from. I had worked at Boost Juice for like five minutes, but I remember their onboarding process was so thorough and so digital. And I remember seeing that and being like, oh, there's no reason that we can't bring this into our business. And from that day, we wrote protocols, policies, procedures. Like we were obsessed with digitizing and I guess automating our business as much as possible. And so many salons don't have this. So my biggest out is not running your salon from your head. That is going. We are leaving that behind because what it does is it leaves you vulnerable in the business. You are the key person in that business, and you suddenly have key person risk where you can't leave the business for a holiday, for a sick day. You know, I often think about some of our clients who have given birth to premature babies. I often think about, because we've had quite a few people in our world who that's been their reality. Like they've they've had babies at seven months, six months pregnant as opposed to waiting the full term. And sorry, as if they had a choice, as as a you know, going early and having their whole world and their whole business flipped on its head overnight. Something that they could never foresee coming. Exactly. Something that they would have never been prepared for. And I often think about that. Like I think about Pete when he broke his leg. My boyfriend broke his leg a couple of years ago, and his leg was broken for 18 months. 18 months he couldn't walk properly. It was like this freak accident. And he couldn't work for 18 months.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

And I think about freak accident is you fell off a retaining wall. People are gonna think you like flew off a motorbike or something. He he felt he actually fell from like 30 centimeter heights. Like it actually wasn't. I know. There was a freak injury. Freak injury, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Freaky dude with a freak injury.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Like bungee jumped and the rope broke. No, no.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

But um he yeah, so like freak accident, that's what I'm trying to say. Freak accident, terrible injury, basically broke both of the bones in the legs, you know. Just my point is that he couldn't work for 18 months. And I, you know, back when we were on the floor, I look at that and I'm like, what if that was us? What would we have done? Our business relied so heavily on us in those days.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Do you know what I think though, even when you're saying that, I feel like we started systemizing things because we would often say, We're gonna do this so that if one of us isn't here, if one of us got hit by a bus, is what we used to say.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

If one of us got hit by a bus, you need to know how to do payroll. If one of us got hit by a bus, you need to know how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

It was really designed for me to begin.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

No, it wasn't. Do you know how many blueprints and those all the phrases that you've helped me with with leadership? Yeah, mate, I could never have done that. And if you got hit by a business.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

But I wouldn't be able to pay our team, so like that's really we wouldn't have a team because I wouldn't know how to speak to them. I'd be like, help me. But that's a good one, yes. But I also think it's if you are running it from your brain, think of like human beings can only retain 20% of what was like you walk out of this now, we're gonna remember 20%. And that's if we're listening really, really well. 20% of what's being said. So if you are running it from your brain, how much are you falling out? Like, how much is dropping away? Like all the goodness is not gonna be there. I love that. That's a great one.

Facing Hard Conversations

Enforce Policies Without Fear

SPEAKER_01 18:16

So, yeah, stop running your salon from your head. You need a structure in place, you need systemization. If you can't be fucked into it or you don't have time to do it, you're going to go immediately, pause this episode and go, don't even worry about the last four outs because that's your most important thing. You're gonna go and get into the conscious structure. The conscious structure is literally our blueprint. It gives you a plug and play backend system with every system, every checklist, every protocol already pre-written for you. Just go in and change the name and change anything that you want to. It's done for you. There's like 200 or 300 policies or something in there. It's wild. But you need like a digital searchable, you know, if you want to build one out yourself, digital, searchable, um, easy resource that can be updated with all of your protocols and checklists. No more running sell on from head. Love that. Number two, avoiding hard conversations. Wow, so we were similar. Yes, avoiding hard conversations. We're just not doing that. We're going to take a nice big deep breath in and we're going to deal with the conversations that need to be dealt with. You're going to take a nice big deep breath. You're not going to spiral and create a story or a narrative that isn't there, because we all love to do that. We're not going to do that. We're just going to sit down and actually have the conversation that needs to be had. Love that. Out number three, not honoring your cancellation policies. Yes. Number one question we ask selling owners do you have a cancellation policy? And people always look at us like we've got two heads, like, yeah, cool. Do you actually implement it? Do you honor it? Do you charge people when they cancel last minute? Do you charge people when they know show? Do you have that conversation when a client tries to rebook? No, we don't. I reckon most selling owners are like, no, it's a real weakness, or you You know, we say, Oh, so sorry, your child's got gastro, I'll allow that, but I won't allow the sniffles that you know Marianne has. It's this is so blurry. We just need to honor the cancellation policies and the salon policies. If you guys have a no-children policy and someone rocks up with a child, have that conversation. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Also, if you get stuck, I'm just gonna say we have done an episode on this. So we have done the um how to honor your cancellation policies. Great, search that um cancellation policies, search cancellation policies conscious on podcasts. It's really good. And if you need to literally give phrasing in it, so go and listen to it. If it's uncomfortable for you, or you really struggle with this, go and listen to that episode. I promise you, you'll feel so valuable, isn't it?

Letting Go Of Unaligned Team Members

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Um and if your team need help, send the potty to them. Absolutely. Okay, the next one keeping team members that are unaligned.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

It's a big one. We just had this actually pop up on our um first facts call, didn't we? Of one of the girls in there sharing how much of a lesson that was for her of really keeping unaligned teams. She knew they weren't aligned, but kept trying to make them aligned. And then the chat just went berserk of like seeing you and this, like been there, and everyone was like, Yes, me, me, me.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

It was like ding ding ding ding.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Everyone was like, yes, yes, yes, me. I've done that. So true. And we do, we do it all the time. We always like we the people pleaser comes out and wants to believe that we can. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

So I feel like again, we're one of the only industries that's like we will continue to go square peg, round hole, square, yeah, square peg, round hole. This my body's rejecting this theory. Square peg, round hole. Like if we're one of the only the only industries that will actually put up with things for such a long period of time rather than just calling it and being like, you know what, my gut instinct is just this person doesn't belong here.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah. And I I always ask the question, is this because we are people places, or is it because we desperately like don't want to like give up? We constantly want to like keep going with something.

Eliminate Shoulder Taps

Recap And Sign Off

SPEAKER_01 22:11

I feel like it's- I think you don't want to feel like you've let people down or you've wasted time, like so many different things. Our industry is so performative, it's so public when someone leaves. Like, there's so many different things, but there's just that little piece of all of us that's like, I want to be liked, I want to do this right, I want to do this well. That's a great one. Final out is this year in 2026, every salon owner that's listening to this podcast is going to uh eliminate shoulder taps. We talk about this so much. If you are the emergency contact for every single tiny little problem in your business, we have a huge issue. Huge. So if you can't go on a holiday without being contacted, if you can't drop your kids off to school without being contacted, if you are dealing with every client complaint, every shoulder tap, every single team member looks to you for direction, yeah, we have a problem. So this year in 2026, every single move that you make with your business, I want you to think about what is one way I can reduce or remove shoulder taps. I love that. So good. Oh my goodness. There we go. We've just solved the whole industry's problems in 20 minutes. But there's your ins and outs for 2026 for becoming conscious salon owners. That's right. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the Conscious Salon podcast. That's great. Love you guys. Stay conscious.