[00:00:05] Antony Whitaker: Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast. I'm your host, Antony Whitaker, and it's great to have you here with us today. Thank you for the compliments regarding the podcast. I really do appreciate it. And if you're one of those people who haven't yet left us a review for the podcast, then I would love it if you did ratings and reviews.
[00:00:24] Antony Whitaker: Are extremely helpful. They do matter in the rankings of the show and it helps us to help other people find my podcasts. And of course, I always love to hear what's been helpful for you. All you need to do to leave a review is go to the Apple Podcast app, search, grow my Salon business, scroll to the bottom of the page and leave a review and you'll make us very happy.
[00:00:45] Antony Whitaker: So with that said on with today's show, A couple of weeks back, I got an email from Rita, a Chicago based hairstylist, who purchased my online super stylist course, and my conversation with her is what has inspired this episode. So I'm gonna come back to Rita in the second half of the podcast because it'll make more sense why I want to talk about her.
[00:01:09] Antony Whitaker: The Super Stylist course for anyone who doesn't know is the only course that I have that is directly aimed at the hairstylist or the technician as opposed to the owner of the business. Super stylist is about the communication skills, the, the mindset, and the soft skills of what it takes to succeed in our industry because.
[00:01:29] Antony Whitaker: It's the individual who is ultimately responsible for their own productivity and therefore they have control or certainly influence over their earning potential. It's essentially a course about how just being good at the technical and creative side of doing here on its own won't make you successful.
[00:01:49] Antony Whitaker: The other half of what makes you successful is the soft skills, meaning the communication skills and the mindset of the individual stylist. So. As a salon owner, let me ask you this. How do you train your team in those areas? Because, very few salon owners actually do. In fact, most salon owners sort of assume that their team will just pick it up over time, or they assume that it's common sense, or they assume
[00:02:18] Antony Whitaker: that you either have it or you don't. Or they assume that just because you are good at cutting or coloring hair that the clients will come flocking back to you. But spoiler alert, they won't. As a business owner, making sure that your team are well-rounded professionals in all areas of what it takes to succeed is part of your job as the owner of the business.
[00:02:41] Antony Whitaker: So as the owner, have you developed a training program for your team that not only covers, uh, technical, creative skills needed to succeed, but also the personal skills, the communication skills, the client service skills. Or as a salon owner, do you do one-to-one coaching to help stylists to get better at what they do in the areas other than cutting and coloring. And as a salon owner, do you define the standards, the expected levels of productivity, or do you just leave it to chance? And as a salon owner, have you put in place incentive and reward programs?
[00:03:18] Antony Whitaker: And as the owner, do you demonstrate leadership and good management practices yourself and as the owner, have you got a marketing strategy in place to help stylists maximize their productivity? There are multiple areas of growing
[00:03:33] Antony Whitaker: a successful, profitable business and as the owner that you need to get right, whether it's dealing with the day-to-day management functions of a business, or the financial functions of a business, or the marketing functions that go on within a business or the HR side of the business.
[00:03:50] Antony Whitaker: Everything from recruitment to training, to creating career paths and other opportunities for those that are on your team. Now, all of those are important,
[00:04:00] Antony Whitaker: But ultimately the success of the business is when and where it all comes together or not. And what I mean by that is what I refer to as where the rubber meets the road. Meaning that when the stylist is standing behind the chair, that is what I call the moment where the magic either happens or not.
[00:04:21] Antony Whitaker: That is where the great consultation happens or not. That's where the client's inspired or not. That is where the relationship, the professional relationship is built or not. That's where the client has a great experience or not, and that's where they're educated about what to use on their hair at home or not, and that's where they feel that they've got value or not.
[00:04:42] Antony Whitaker: And that is where they decide whether or not to come back. So why do so many salon owners leave it to chance that somehow all of those things will just happen? Because a stylist has been taught how to cut and color hair. So now let me get back to the beginning of this podcast. When I mentioned an email that Rita had sent, Rita is a stylist working for someone else, and she purchased a super stylist course for herself, which is quite unusual in itself.
[00:05:14] Antony Whitaker: But she emailed me asking me whether or she should also do my one-to-one coaching program. So I got on a call with her to see why she felt that she needed one-to-one coaching as well as the super stylist course. So if you had to take a guess, let me ask you, who are you thinking that Rita probably is?
[00:05:35] Antony Whitaker: You see, I'm thinking that Rita is probably young. I'm thinking that Rita is probably new to the industry. Maybe he'd been in it one- or two-years sort of thing. But when I got on the Zoom call with her, she's been hairdressing about 20 years, and we had a great conversation. Rita was positive, she was passionate, she was looking for distinctions about how she can do it better.
[00:05:58] Antony Whitaker: Many other stylists after 20 odd years in the industry are completely burnt out. They're negative, they're disillusioned, and in a lot of cases they've given up. And let's face it, a lot of them have already left the industry way before the 20-year mark, but not Rita. We talked about her challenges that she faced every day.
[00:06:17] Antony Whitaker: We talked about all the usual things like retail and rebooking and getting more referrals and client retention, all the stuff that really matters when it comes to productivity. We talked about the minor distinctions about how you communicate when advising a client about retail or about the minor distinctions that you make when you're talking about rebooking or developing the client experience or about building better relationships with the aim of locking those clients into you.
[00:06:49] Antony Whitaker: And some people would've missed the point of that conversation. Some people would've been looking for the shortcut, the magic wand. But not Rita. She absolutely owned it. She owns her productivity and she's always looking for the answer to the question, how can I do it better? She's not that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:07:10] Antony Whitaker: I know all that stuff. She knows the devil is in the detail. She knows that you never stop learning. She knows that what might have worked yesterday doesn't mean it's always gonna work today.
[00:07:23] Antony Whitaker: knows that if you're serious about your own personal and professional development, if you're serious about growth. Then you need to constantly be reinvesting time and sometimes money into your own ongoing education. She knows that you need to be constantly looking for a better way because just like every other industry, the hair and beauty business is constantly evolving.
[00:07:47] Antony Whitaker: I. The consumer expectations are constantly changing. The technology is constantly changing, and with every new generation that comes along, they look at the world through different eyes and they ask what if? 
[00:08:00] Antony Whitaker: And so no matter how long you've been in this industry, and regardless of whether or not you're a salon owner, a new stylist, or a veteran in the industry, either way, just like Rita, you need to constantly be asking that question of yourself. The question being, how can I do it better? Sometimes I get interviewed on someone else's podcast and I'll often get asked a question along the lines of who inspires me.
[00:08:27] Antony Whitaker: And of course you could answer that question in lots of different ways. And name people like Vidal Sassoon or Trevor Sorbie. Or you might say people like Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama. And certainly, people like that do inspire me, but in reality, I get inspired by people like Rita because there needs to be more Rita’s in the world, people who are always looking for the 1% improvement.
[00:08:51] Antony Whitaker: And that is what inspires me more than anything else. So that's enough of today's rant, I hope. I know I got on my soapbox a little bit there, but with that said, we need to start wrapping up this week's episode. So for further information, if you want to find out more about the stylus course, then go to www.growmysalonbusiness.com/course/Super Stylist
[00:09:15] Antony Whitaker: and I'll put that link in the show notes. So have a great week and don't forget to tune in next Tuesday for another great episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast.
[00:09:28] Antony Whitaker: That's bye for now.