Our Salon Update

Ever felt your team lose its spark and slip into autopilot?

In this episode, we share how we recognised the shift early and led a full culture realignment: resetting standards, strengthening communication, and recommitting to people-first leadership. Between school drop-offs, travel, closures, and a packed calendar, this is how we brought clarity and momentum back to the salon floor.

This wasn’t about new colour formulas or more product training. The real shift came from mindset work, honest conversations, and a team willing to recommit out loud.

Inside this conversation:

• The early signs your team is drifting into autopilot
• What a true alignment reset looks like in practice
• Why training humans matters more than training technique
• The weekly leadership rhythm that protects culture
• How to repair behaviour quickly without drama
• Why mindset work lifted performance more than technical education
• Rebuilding energy during closures and sick leave
• The role of community in sustaining long-term culture

Strong culture isn’t accidental. It’s built through cadence, courage, and clear standards.

To follow our journey:
Instagram @aheadhair_
@the_conscious_salon

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Welcome back to the Conscious Salon podcast. I feel like I'm on the panel, like interviewing you guys on a panel, test and tear in front of me. I feel like that.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

I feel like we're in the naughty chair. Yeah. Coming into the principle. Oh my god. I feel like I'm in the throne.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Mum's not mad, she's just disappointed.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

100%.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Like, what have we got?

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Um, guys. The fact that we're like sitting the same too. Oh, look at those business pants. Sorry. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Actually, Jen's. Thank you, Jen. I did wear them today. I'm sorry. I don't remember saying it.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Look at those back to your ASAP doll. Uh, but guys, it's been a wild old time in our world.

Family Life Update

SPEAKER_03 0:38

It's been a big time in our world. Yes. It has been. Actually, let's do a little quick update. Sully Blue started school.

SPEAKER_04 0:45

My son started school.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

He's in prep. Yes. He's loving it.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

Prep vibe, which has been amazing.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Well, he self-removed himself from Kinder at the end of last year. He came in and said to you, I'm wrapped.

SPEAKER_04 0:57

He had three weeks to go, and he just he I walked in and the teacher's like, Oh, Sully's let us know that it's his last day today. And he literally like unenrolled himself, and they were like, Oh, we've taken him off for tomorrow. Like, we'd just want to double-check it with him.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

And I thought, I thought he needs to do a class on confidence, and I would love to take it.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

100%. He told her it was his last day. It was like, Oh, I'm I won't be coming back to this school. And they were they were they were all quite happy with that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

So you weren't thrilled. You you had a few things on. So I've been a bit of three weeks in between.

SPEAKER_04 1:27

So he was literally on my hip for three weeks, which was hard because I was still running all the businesses and doing all the things and whatever. So um whenever people kids need a lot, and yeah, and when people are like, Oh my gosh, I'm like so emotional about my child going to school. I was like, I feel pretty good about it. Thank you. Bye. So today is actually his first full day of school, which but he was really good about it too.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Like last week he said to him, E nervous, and he said, Mum, why would I be nervous?

SPEAKER_04 1:53

He literally said, Mom, he was like, he looked at me like I had two heads. He's like, Why would I be nervous? I was like, I don't know. I just thought maybe you've inherited my overthinking.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Obviously, it's really not.

School Confidence Story

SPEAKER_04 2:02

Um but yeah, Soly started school. We've had so much going on in the salon. We're going to Tassie in two weeks. Yes. We've got the salon Christmas party this weekend. Yes.

unknown 2:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

So that's going to be a wild, fun adventure. Taya has no idea what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

No. Like I know them. Like I literally have no idea. But I also love it that way. I like that I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

The element of surprise. Do you know what, Tay? It's going to be so amazing. And I think you're going to have a fucking incredible time. I know I will.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

I know. It's going to be so good.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

But it is, it's a big week. We've had. And then we've got, are we allowed to talk about the thing? Yeah, because this will come out afterward. We're going to um Tasmania for air festival. Salon Forum. Salem Forum.

Big Week And Travel Plans

SPEAKER_04 2:49

Just a like work trip. She was like, yeah, mate. I'm there.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Oh, yeah. Salon Forum. Salon Forum. Can't wait. I've made a mission. So, well, Jess Lewis is going to be there. She she's coming in for Sissy Vibes. She she memoed us the other day and it's like, can I tag along to everything with you? It's like, yep, you can obviously be part of our crew. It's like, oh, alright. We've got to take Jess along with us. So she's in.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

What a shame.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

I'm going to make it my mission because Tabitha's going to be there. You're doubtably thrilled with that. Yeah. John Templin is a huge Tabitha Coffee fan. So I'm going to I'm going to befriend her. We'll see how this we might edit this part out. Might just be blank and then something else. And then Sophia Hilton's going to be there as well. So you've gotten uh a little bit and in with her.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

She said, like, oh my god, I can't import my um colour to Bali. It got like stopped at custom. So she's like, is anyone going to Tasmania anytime soon? I was like, hey Joel, I'm your girl. Ship it to my house and then I'll bring it to Tassie. So I'll just be like, I'll um give you these colours if you come on our podcast too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

I do have next to this microphone if you'd like to talk.

Industry Names And Networking

SPEAKER_04 3:58

But it's been welcome. I feel like there's opportunity coming towards us from everywhere. We've started becoming a conscious salon. And it's been so incredible and expansive for so many salon owners to like, do you know what's really interesting? My I'm so logical, and like whenever I'm trying to up level in business, I'm just like, just give me strategy, give me like, give me the how, give me the how, give me the how, give me the how. So many women in there, so many women are in that space for the who. They're in there for the community and they're in there for the self-discovery. And I really had to take a step back this week because one of the girls came in with this huge, huge thing that she's held in for so many years, and she came in and shared it with the group. And I came in this morning, it was over the weekend, and I I was locked out over the weekend, came in this morning and read all the messages, and everyone in there was holding each other and supporting each other. And it was this really weird moment of being like, oh wow, the women in this space, like this community is so much bigger than us. It's like so much more impactful and so much bigger than what we do. So that was an incredible moment, but I think there's just so much happening in business at the moment for us. Tay, do you want to talk about what's happening in the salon?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah, the salon is doing great. I think like they the girls are all working really, really well together. I think we had a really good meeting at the start of this year about realignment um and about how um, you know, how we want to communicate as a team, how we want to work as a team, how um we want to show up for each other. Um, you know, there was some behavior at the end of last year that wasn't probably the most representable of our values at ahead. Um so it was a really good time for us to have a meeting as a team to be like, does everyone still align with this? How do we want to show up for each other? How do we want to feel we're in this space? Um, it was an incredible session run by Nikki. Really upset she didn't um record that one. But um, it was really amazing. And I think the way that everyone came out from that.

SPEAKER_03 5:57

Um You might have been nervous because the last time we had a conversation with them around that, some people were removed or removed themselves from the previous alignment conversation we had.

SPEAKER_04 6:08

Yeah. So that was good. You wouldn't want to film that. That's probably where it was. Probably should have filmed that actually and showed what not to do. But yeah, I've learned since then.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

But that was uh yeah, that was definitely a really impacting one. And I think alignment is something that comes up a lot in business, and I think it is constantly that conversation of making sure that there is alignment, we have alignment, we have clear communication, all of those things. So that was a really great session, I agree.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

How do you feel sitting in that as a team member?

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Um as team leader as well.

Opportunity And Community Growth

Salon Alignment Reset

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah. I think as a team leader, no matter what's going on, I kind of feel a bit of responsibility for, you know, anything. Um, you know, whether that's someone else's behavior, like obviously you can't control that, but I definitely do feel like, oh, maybe I should have acted earlier on this, or you know, just kind of use self-reflect on yourself and be like, okay, well, where did I kind of go wrong? But sometimes that's not you have no part in it. Sometimes that's just that human making that decision that day. Yes. Um, so I think in that, and I think I messaged you both after that, um, reflecting on it and going, uh like I did have a moment where I was like, oh, how did I contribute to this, even though I wasn't even involved in the whole situation? But as the leader, I'm like, I don't know where where do I take my part in this. Um, but other than that, like the actual session was absolutely incredible. I think it was really, really interesting to see how everyone, you know, kind of um really put themselves into it and how they came out of it. Each team member had had a conversation with me, or most team members had a conversation with me after that individually about how it had impacted and how incredible it felt after. Um, so I think even though like when you look at a conversation like that, it looks like, you know, if you look from the outside, it's gonna be like quite a negative like conversation, or you know, you would kind of build it up to be something that's bigger than what it is. But the way that you facilitated and the way that you went about it, it just left everyone feeling really, really powerful, empowered, really like connected to the business. And I think it's really easy when you're in a salon and you, you know, that's your your home out of away from home. You get complacent, you get lazy, you know, you get comfortable, you just go through the flow.

SPEAKER_03 8:17

These humans at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

So I think things like that where you you're like, oh, like, you know, it's a bit of a wake-up call to be like, this is a business, you know, we have to act a certain way. How do we want to show up for each other and really live by how we say we do as well? Um, rather than just saying we are this team where you know got a great culture, blah, blah, blah, and things are always going to come up, but really to realign and really reconnect on that, on how we want to keep showing up every single day for each other or how we can support each other better and all of those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_04 8:48

Huge. You brought something in actually when we were debriefing on this, and you said um something that you kept saying over and over was like this is an opportunity for us to practice being the team that we say that we are. And you kept bringing that to the forefront. And this is where I think it's so important. Like this w we never want to sit in front of anyone and pretend that our culture is amazing all the time. We work at this literally every single day, and every I break it down to almost like every moment that I have an interaction with a team member. I'm practicing being the best uh people and culture person I can be while also having my business hat on as well. And it's a fucking balance and it's a fine line between both of them. But you keep bringing it back to always saying, like, this is our opportunity to realign as the team that we always say that we are. And it is human nature, it's human nature to go off track, it's human nature to get unaligned with something, it's about how you realign your team or how you empower them to move on if it's not what lights them up anymore. Absolutely. Incredible. What's the change been since you've since then?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, it's been good. I think you know, there's like I feel like everyone's got a bit more of a pep in their step. I feel like the teamwork has been really good. I feel like the communication has been really good on the floor. I feel like people have been a lot more productive in their downtime. Like I think it's you know, there was a while there where it was kind of like, hey, what are you doing? Hey, what are you doing? You know, those shoulder tap sort of things to get everyone moving with like intention. But I feel like now it's a little bit more impactful, which is really, really nice. Um yeah.

Leading Through Reflection

SPEAKER_04 10:20

We have conversations like this in our business so often. And I think like this is another thing that we talk about often. We've got our whole team off the floor every Tuesday morning for 90 minutes. So in that time we do our morning pump art, we do either a team meeting, which is where we often bring in things about around alignment and just get people back on track. And in the alternating week, we do a education, which is essentially an hour of up-leveling that we do as a team. I would say 70% of the time we're teaching on or facilitating something around mindset, around alignment, around our values, and probably 30% of the time we're doing like product knowledge or maybe even less than that.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Yeah, I can even I actually can't remember the last time we did like an education on something that was actually like to do with our job. Like if from an outsider looking in in the sense of like products, you know, that sort of thing. I couldn't even remember the last time that we did because all the other stuff is so much more important, or you know, things that have come up in the business, or you know, that sort of thing.

Culture As Daily Practice

SPEAKER_03 11:21

I think that is something that's like really massive with this though, is that we spend so much time thinking that we need to teach more skill and go over products and do all of these things, where in reality what we have seen the most tangible difference in our business has been when we have conversations around mindset. We uh really go over client journey, team journey, um nutting out more of those things that people often won't prioritize because I'll just assume that people will do the work behind the scenes. Whereas making that part of a collaboration, part of a the experience, it really does, I think, keep things aligned, keep things moving. Because when we have dropped that in the past, that's when the alignment falls out. That's when we have toxicity starting to rear its head, that's when we have um things kind of spiral out of control and spiral out of control quite quickly. So I feel like prioritizing these and having these these these conversations and these um level ups or sessions, whatever you want to call them, they're so necessary to have because it will keep your business running with momentum, it will keep your team aligned, it will keep um mindset strong. Because at the end of the day, it's like we're all human beings and people don't want to just be like um what's it flogging your dead horse, just you know, there's another product coming out, and we're gonna go and we're gonna do foil techniques and we're gonna go over this and that and the other. These things don't motivate people. Whereas if you're like, cool, how do we level up as human beings? How do we level up as individuals? How do we level up as a collective? This is where you can really see things change up. And I feel like for you, as we had that snail like that not amazing end to last year, through natural, you know, people being tired and that more of that sn um, what's that thing? Not the what do we call it? The s the snail crawl to the end where people are just like wanting the end to be insight. Having that conversation day one straight in has really set the tone for the past month. And I think even when I look at numbers-wise, you know, we weren't super because the end of the month, I I've just been doing the numbers yesterday. It wasn't a like we had a team away, we had um we were closed, we had um sick leave, we weren't fully booked, all of those things. However, performance-wise, it was a really great month because of these conversations, because we had motivated, because we had alignment, because we had consciousness being at the forefront. And I really think this is the impact where so many times people can prioritize other things. Whereas when we have these conversations, that's when the real level up can happen.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Agree. Guys, we've got I just want to give a couple of quick updates for conscious of what we're planning this year. Okay. So we are currently really focusing on team support of how we can support sell-on owners' teams more because one of the big things that we've realized is like we give all this information to sell and owners, but they've already got so much on their shoulders. We want to also be able to come in and connect with their team and for them to have someone who understands what they're going through. So, Tay, we are working at the moment to build out a team platform in our online portal so that teams can come in and have support from you. They can share their wins, they can ask questions and really working out how that looks. But what are you excited for this year?

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Um, in terms of that.

SPEAKER_04 14:35

Yeah. Um even like the leaders' meetings that you're gonna have.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Yeah, there's so many things happening. I was like, where do I start? Um, yeah, I think I'm definitely excited to have a community. I feel like that's something that's kind of lacked a little bit from my point of view of being able to connect with the teams a little bit more and really know, like not day-to-day, what's going on, but instead of having a month between catching up and having a whole um class there, being able to really kind of support them even more through that. So I'm really excited to have that. I'm really excited to start an Instagram. Um, I think that'll be really, really fun. I think having a space again just for team members because I've literally been exactly where they are, especially if they're, you know, a team that's working in um backs at the moment or one-on-one with you guys, or even, you know, someone who isn't a part of our work community or our world yet. Um, you know, all the things that I've learned, um, you know, I've had some time over the last month to really reflect on where I've been and where I want to go and that sort of thing. And, you know, I've changed so much. And I think, you know, the things that I'm learning in like the flow-on effect from your mentoring has gotten me to where I am, obviously doing the work and everything, but it's really pushed me to be able to see my potential and I'm being able to do those things. So I'm really excited to be able to have that space for other people to hopefully do that as well. Um, but I'm really excited for um Tassie. I'm really excited for the summer forum. I'm really excited for the retreats this year, I'm really excited for our Christmas party. There are just so many things going on. I like it's an endless list.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

I feel like opportunity is raining on us at the moment.

Tangible Shifts On The Floor

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Absolutely. And yeah, have to having to have um not having to have being able to have um meetings with the team leaders that are in our world as well. So one-on-one kind of um mentoring. Mentoring space. Yeah, mentoring a sharing and magic, yeah. Yeah, and just like being able to hold space for them because you know, again, I've come from managing our salon to another salon to you know going from an apprenticeship to a manager, you know, so many different things. And I think last year was definitely my biggest year of expansion and how much I have really grown and like really backed myself and have as much self-confidence. Um, so I'm really excited to be able to share that with people as well.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Hell yeah, how exciting is that. We're also flirting with the idea of a tour. So we should do it. So we could go.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Oh, we've been talking about a few conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:46

We're talking about a tour, I'm putting it out there because I want to talk it into uh existence. Take it into existence. Opportunity is raining on us at the moment, ladies, and it feels really good. And we have some huge plans for world domination in 2026. Yeah, that's right. But we just really wanted to give a little business update and let you guys know where we were at. We're planning on a different episode, but it's gone in this direction. Yeah, meant to be. Exactly. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the Conscious Ellen podcast. Do you want to take us out?

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Stay conscious.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

Love you guys, stay conscious.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Sorry. Love you guys, stay conscious.