If you can't leave your salon for a month... This episode is for YOU

Are you so busy working in your business that you've stopped working ON it?

In this episode, Nic, Tess and Tae unpack one of the biggest reasons salon owners stay stuck, and it's not a lack of technical skill.

If you're constantly behind the chair, putting out fires, struggling to find time for leadership, planning or growing your business, this conversation is your wake-up call.

We dive into:
✨ Why taking time off the salon floor is one of the best investments you can make
📈 The difference between being a great hairdresser and becoming a great business owner
💰 Why leadership, marketing and numbers matter more than another colouring or cutting course
🤝 How investing in yourself creates a stronger team culture and a more profitable business
🚀 The mindset shifts that helped us build a business that doesn't rely on the owner being behind the chair every day

Whether you're feeling overwhelmed, stuck on the hamster wheel, or wondering why your salon isn't growing despite working harder than ever, this episode will challenge the way you think about business ownership.

If you're ready to stop surviving and start leading, this conversation is for you.

Ready to take the next step?

🔥 Limited seats remaining for Off the Floor! 🔥

Join us for our intimate two-day retreat designed for salon owners who are ready to step out of the day-to-day, strengthen their leadership, master their numbers, and build a salon that thrives without relying on them every minute of the day.

📍 QT Gold Coast
📅 7–8 September 2026
🎟️ Strictly limited to 36 salon owners

With only a handful of spots left, now is the time to invest in yourself and your business.

Secure your ticket now:
https://the-conscious-salon.circle.so/off-the-floor

To follow our journey:
Instagram @aheadhair_
@the_conscious_salon

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Welcome back. Don't eat lollies on our podcast. Goodness gracious.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Monday source stuff. Excuse me, it's a source.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

Welcome back to the conscious element from the takeover.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Welcome back to the conscious element podcast, guys. Um, it's an exciting start to the potty. But we're gonna get straight into it. And we want to talk today about why you need to prioritize taking time off the floor. Pardon, pardon. No, wait, what's the word? Not pardon. Pun intended. Like, no, no, no. We want like shameless plug. Why you need to take time off the floor to actually work on your business and the repercussions if you stay on the hamster wheel, stay on the floor, stay tied to the business, and why you would actually be better off going and working for someone rather than being a business owner if you are not prepared to

Why Time Off Matters

SPEAKER_01 1:50

actually work on your business. So I want everyone to take a nice big regulated deep breath in and know that we say all of these things. Okay, cool, you guys are doing that. Uh, we say all of these things from a place of love. Um, and this is the reality check that I wish someone had have told me. I'm so grateful that we got into mentoring three years into business, and we've invested in mentoring for 10 years straight. But I wish someone had have told me this harsh reality day one, because we would have had three years where we didn't have to be stuck on the hamster wheel and be exhausting ourselves and trying to work out why is this not working? Like what is it, why is it easier for so many other people and why is it so hard for me? So today we're gonna talk about the importance of being off the floor. Anyone that's new around here, obviously we bang on about the fact that you need to have time off the floor as a business owner. I have not worked on a client for six and a half years, and I have worked completely off the floor in our salon business, and Tess, you have worked off the floor for two years, is that right? Nearly two years? Not touching a client, and then Tay, you work half off the floor or like a third off the floor in your role as well. So all three of us work off the floor, working on on and in a business. And I think that this is a really important piece because even yesterday I was talking to a salon owner and she said, Do you actually believe that a salon can run without you being on the floor and working on clients? And I said, Yes, I think I do believe it after six and a half years of not doing it. So first and foremost, Tay, I want to also get your opinion as to what it's meant for you when we've taken you out of the salon and taken you, like literally plucked you out of the salon and taken you to work on the business and how that's been for you. So before we get into the details, I want to start by saying we want to have this conversation because we are so conscious that people we have this event coming up off the floor, the Gold Coast, September 7th and 8th. It's gonna be incredible. It's a two-day retreat for salon owners where you come and you sit in a room with us, you get our brains. We're working with Kate Slater, who's an accountant for Salon Owners. So she's gonna be going through tax, preparing for tax, numbers, profit, all of the things. Then we have Renee Andrews who's doing AI marketing. She is incredible for helping salon owners to be more searchable and coming up in AI searches and really maximizing the search engines that people are using nowadays to find salons, so getting more visibility. And then we will be there delivering nervous system regulation, leadership, team culture, all the things that we love. And there's so many people that we've had conversations with who are getting so caught

The Retreat And The Excuses

SPEAKER_01 4:40

up in I can't leave my kids, I'll have to check with my husband, I can't take time off, I've already got clients booked. And for me, when I hear those excuses, it kills me because I think this is the reason why you need to come to this event. The exact reasons that you're giving is why you need to come to this event. So hopefully, our intention is at the end of this episode, whether it's our event that you want to come to or someone else's event, we want to inspire you to book the conference, book the trip where you go out of the salon to work on the business, book the planning day, book a session with a mentor, do something where you invest your time, energy, and money into working on your business. Taya, as a team member, how has it been for you coming off the floor and being invited to conferences?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

It has honestly been life-changing. Like it's I remember I have a terrible fear of heights. I remember after the first one that I went to with you guys in Queensland, I remember I was on the flight on the way home and I was looking out the window. I was like, I could go skydiving right now. Haven't. Haven't. Don't want to. We're not we're not doing that. It wouldn't happen on my walk.

SPEAKER_04 5:50

I've got an excruciating fear of heights, so it wouldn't definitely not happen when I'm around.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

But I think it is so incredible because I mean, you can do so much in your business, and it's so important to look at the business side of things. But if you're not looking at yourself as a human or your team as humans and like developing them as their own person, then you're always going to be capped. You're never gonna get to that full potential. And this is what I have taken the most out of the mentoring, all the conferences we've gone to, and that sort of thing. It's really deep diving

A Team Member’s Transformation

SPEAKER_00 6:20

into becoming your ultimate self, whether that's in the cell on outside of the cell on. And I have just learnt so much, I've changed so much as a person, really prioritise myself. And I think especially in our industry, that's what people really struggle with. We're so good at looking after others, but not ourselves. And even with you saying, you know, people saying, Oh, I can't leave my kids, I can't do that, it's exactly the reason why they need to come. Because if you're not regulated and you're not looking after yourselves, then you can't look after everyone else in your world, or you're going to and you're gonna start resenting them or going to burnout, and then it's just all gonna come crumbling down. But I've just learned so much about myself and how to show up and be there for others and really just I think to just see my potential. I think it's really easy to cap yourself and be like, okay, cool, I'm a hairdresser and I'm just gonna do this for the rest of my life and just go through my life. But I think going to these events and going into rooms where it's very expansive and learning from so many other people, you realize that there's so much more out there that you can have and you know, you show up in so many different ways. And yeah, I don't know. I think I I can't even put into words. I've learned so much.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

But how does it make you feel in terms of being more connected to the business? Like I feel that that's one of the biggest returns on investment that we've gotten when we've taken you away is like you come back and you're like, okay, cool. I've got this vision, I want us to do this. It re-inspires you, but it also connects you to the business and really anchors you into what we're actually doing day to day.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Absolutely. And I think it too, it gives, as a team member, it's given me the confidence to be like, they're investing in me. Cool, what can I bring to the table? And like team members have so many ideas, but they can be so scared to bring it up to their team leaders or to their salon owners. But for me, going to those events, it gave me the confidence to be like, okay, they're investing in me. What can I, you know, what ideas do I have, or what do I want to bring that's going to make the experience better? Or um, you know, things in the salon that we can bring in, events that we want to do. Um, and like kind of it gave me a bit more of a voice and it gave me so much more confidence to be able to be like, no, I think this is a really great idea.

SPEAKER_04 8:24

You know what I think, especially when I think back to like when you started this journey with us and the girl that started working with us so many years ago, and now the woman that sits next to me on the couch. What it can actually do is it can really bring not only visionary um like you you've got the visionary ideas as well, so it really like ignited that. It cre it created um like self-trust, belief within yourself, you trusting like your gut, you having um like peripheral visions, seeing yourself in leadership, like so much evolution that came from that. But one of the biggest things that I know has like I know to be true with what I've seen from you, is that when you do this and from our lens with doing it together, we all start moving and growing together, and it sort of becomes like a bit of a snowball effect. So we start picking up momentum and start motivating each other. We can support each other when we're down, and like at different points through the past eight years that we've had together, there have been different moments that we've all three of us have been down in the dumps and we've really rallied and supported and coached each other out of it. And what I think happens in so many of these things, no matter what it is, whether it's an event like what we're doing up in September in Queensland, up yes, I'm saying that's the right way. Or if it's mentorship ongoing or whatever it is, or listening to a podcast that you're getting tips and tricks, if listening to this and you're picking up bits and pieces and implementing it into your business. Anything that is going to inspire growth will inspire change. And if you're wanting things to improve, change needs to happen. Growth needs to happen, improvement will happen from that as well. But it won't happen for those that like I feel like so many people have got it's not even businesses, just things and they are waiting for like when is this going to happen? Well, what are you doing to make it happen? How are you showing up? How are you going for it? What what choices and um investments are you making into doing it? Like how much are you prepared to go? What are you prepared to do for it? And one of the things that I feel, and this is sort of a bit of play on words with off the floor, because obviously all three of us are off the floor in some capacity. Outside of that, I feel like one of the biggest bottlenecks we have with Salem and Clinic Owners when we talk about taking chain adding meetings into their um calendars, you know, having one-on-ones, having team meetings, having education hours, things like that. The biggest bottleneck that we have, I don't want my team coming off the floor. I want them, I I need them to be that's money that they're losing out of the team. They're not income generated. And this is where I love the naming that we've done on this because I feel like this is the two biggest things that we get from salon owners is that they want to be working less, they want to be off clients more and being able to work on the business more, or they struggle to invest in their team to trust that if they take them off the floor for however long, there's gonna be a return investment on that. And what I am here to say, and there are a lot of salon owners who are coming with their team leaders, this is the time for you to create impact and create change in these next two days that we're

Stop Fearing Team Time Off

SPEAKER_04 11:31

gonna be doing up there, you will have clear strategy, you will have clear vision, you will have clear understanding as to what's gonna come next.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

God, even for your team leader just to hear about tax. Exactly. Like for your team leader to understand the why we need to be numbers focused in the business will be huge.

SPEAKER_04 11:48

Yeah. And I feel like this is something that, like, as you said, we go back to 10 years ago and we started working with mentors and getting into personal development and growth. If we went back to that moment, at that time we were a hairdresser and a beauty therapist who had a salon. We didn't know how to run a business, we didn't understand numbers, we didn't understand how to market ourselves, we didn't know how to do any leadership or regulation or anything. There is so much that we did not know. And what I see day in and day out of salon owners, people have these spaces, but they are hairdressers or beauty therapists who have a space. But they don't know how to do any of the other things. Yeah. So if you're hearing this and going, I think this is me, jump in. Jump in. You need to be at off the floor because we are going to help you get off the floor.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Do you know what I think? I'm just gonna be so blunt right now, and it's probably gonna offend a lot of people that are listening to this and realizing this. Most salon owners are focusing on the wrong things and investing in the wrong things. It's here's the latest big person in hair doing another balayage course or another course in cutting or another this. Like, how many courses can you invest in before you realize that no matter how many of these workshops you attend, it is not going to fundamentally change your business. It is going to change your colour technique, it is going to change your client's hair. It is not going to change your business. I need you to understand that first and foremost, because so many salon owners will drop 10 grand a year in going to every big hairdressing influencer and every big beauty influencer's workshops. And while that is, I totally understand that investment, you are very hesitant to invest in your business knowledge. And most of you don't know the ins and outs of how to run a better business. Most of you don't understand tax and where you can save money and how you can increase your profit. Most of you don't know how to plan for tax. Most of you aren't maximizing the way that you are marketing and you're constantly looking for the secret source in marketing and you're making it way harder for yourselves. And most of you have a very reactive or avoidant style of leadership. And no workshop is going to help you with that in terms of colour skill set or cutting skill set. So if there's one thing that I can say to every salon owner listening is make 2026. It has never been a more pressured time in business. I'm going to say that. We've been in business for 13 years. Has it been has there been a more pressured time? Maybe. Right now, everything that is going on for businesses and small businesses right now in Australia, your best, safest investment is coming into a room and learning more about how you can run a more efficient business, how you can be a better

The Hard Truth About Workshops

SPEAKER_01 14:36

leader and create a better team culture so that you don't have team hemorrhaging, so that you can market easier without having to constantly tie yourselves in knots trying to find what the next thing is that's going to work. And how to actually understand money and numbers. Because I know that you guys mostly don't have those skill sets yet. Why? Because people DM us all the time and then they're like, I've got X amount of money owing to the ATO. I'm drowning in bills, I'm doing X, Y, and Z. Meanwhile, I've just put five grand on the credit card to go to the latest workshop. Yeah. And I really implore people who are hearing this and they're like, oh God, that's me. Please look at where to invest differently. Whether it's with us, whether it's with someone else, learn more about business. Invest in understanding your business, your numbers, your team culture, your leadership, the different dynamics that it actually takes to run a business. That is where your safest investment will go. And I implore you to bring your team leader to be in that room as well so that they can actually be there with you in that vision. And this is one of the things I said to you the other day. We get messages literally every other day with people saying, like, I see your retreats online. I love the look of your retreats. Please can you do a retreat to the public? Please can you do a retreat to the public? And then here it is. And it can be really scary. It can be so scary of I'm going to come to this alone. I'm terrified to come to this alone. And this is a small, intimate room. There's only 36 people who are going to be in this room. And that's been really intentional. We have really intentionally said we want 36 people, we want it to feel intimate. We want every single person to have really beautiful touch points. And we want to know every single person in that room. We don't want a room of 100 people. But if you're listening to this and you're feeling like, oh, I've always wanted to go to one of these retreats. I've always wanted to understand more about business. I am finding these three topics really hard leadership, marketing, tax, numbers, money. This is the room that you belong in.

SPEAKER_04 16:33

Agree. I think that you nailed it with that. Because I feel like whenever I actually think so many about so many people in our industry think that what will get them to the next level is another workshop. Improving skills. Skill sets always getting refined.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Our industry does not Maybe if I learn wolf cuts, my um tax bill will reduce. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

Our industry does not need better skills. Yep. The skills are set. We've got the standard. Everyone's doing amazing work. We need to get better at understanding our business. We need to get better at having great mindsets. We need to work on our leadership, understanding our numbers, marketing ourselves. Literally comes down to those three things.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

And it's also going to flow on to your team as well. Like the inspiration and the motivation and the you know excitement and everything that you come back with

Who The Room Is For

SPEAKER_00 17:22

from these retreats is going to flow on into your team. They're going to get excited about the next thing. They want to be more involved in your businesses. And if you're going to this and not bringing your tin leader, then you're silly. You need to bring them. But if you're not, then you need to then have a debrief with them and debrief with the team about the things you're learning. And I think as a team member who's been along the journey, I could not be more like invested in this business because of the journey you guys have taken me and the rest of the team on with the whole business. And we know that the things that we're learning, we're going to grow as people, but as a team as well.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Totally. Everyone wants the self-led team. But yeah, this is how we built it. This is truly how we built it is giving a reason for your team to want to be so invested in it. But I want anyone who's sitting on the fence, I want you to think right now in this moment that in eight, seven weeks' time, when off the floor comes around, first week of September, I want you to think that you could be sitting in a room, the eve of off the floor starting, and you check into a hotel room with your team leader in there, and you're excited and you're anticipating this two-day retreat, and you go into this incredible room that holds amazing space for you, and you connect with other people, and you find your community. And you find that best mate that you've been looking for in business who actually understands what you're going through, and you have these life-changing moments, and you're courageous enough to put yourself in the room, and you share in this room, and you're held in this room, and you plan in this room, and you get clarity in this room, and then you get on a plane home, or you travel home in your car, and you drive back to your salon, and you have had a completely life-altering experience. And I know because I've had this so many times, every single time we step out of our businesses and go and have that time away, it is life-changing. And I want you to think about that moment and that potential for that moment. And I want to draw a line in the sand and say that in seven or eight weeks' time, you're going to be one of two people. You're going to be the person that said, Fuck, I'm glad I went to that event, or you're going to be the person who watches it all unfold on Instagram. And I think it's a really like 2026 is not the year to be fucking around in your business. It's the year to double down on leadership. And I think that you've just got to put yourself in the room. Absolutely agree. Taya, any last words?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Just get into met like just go and invest in your team. Like I think, yeah, like you said, there's so many workshops out there. Like, how many foil placements can you learn before you uh touch on the stuff? Is this too shady to anyone? Oh no, we love we love an education, love it. There's there's space for it, but I think it's not the only thing. And I think before even like meeting you, like meeting you guys and working with you guys, I would have no idea that there was these spaces for salons or you know, people to grow in that kind of way. But I think

Draw The Line And Commit

SPEAKER_00 20:23

this is where it's becoming a really big shift in our industry. So many people are now driven by culture and you know, understanding the numbers and inspiring and motivating their teams. And if you're not putting yourselves in these rooms, then you're gonna be left behind. You're gonna be the person that's always losing team members and you know, people are moving along, and you know, just because you uh have the best foil placement, but you don't know how to care for your team, nurture your team, you know, inspire and motivate them, you're gonna be the ones left behind with no staff.

SPEAKER_04 20:49

I think this is such an important one. No, but it's true. Excuse me. It's it is one of those things, and I feel if not now, when. And if you guys are wanting to change and wanting things to be different, you've got to do different.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Nothing changes, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

You guys all say that you want different is your opportunity. Jinx. Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the Conscious Sell on podcast before we go. Actually, off the floor, 7th and 8th of September. Tickets are in the link in our bio. Gold Coast, stunning location, rooftop. It's gorgeous. It is so beautiful that is designed that way. Small intimate room, two days with us and our brains. Life changing. What more can you want? Love you guys, stay conscious.