It’s not hard to make a good team, but there is a certain recipe to creating an outstanding team. You really need to focus on salon recruitment and building a system for hiring. This successful salon owner has perfected the alignment of his team, his community, giving back, and his profit journey.
As part of my HuddleTime with Ronit series, I had the following conversation with one of my Salon Cadence members. Salon owner Scott Allison of S Salon & Studio in Fairbanks, AK. Scott is enrolled in our mastery program. In this mastery program we have a leadership apprentice section. This is where members elect one of their top employees or salon managers to also be coached.
Scott’s protege, Anika Lynn Smith has taken on this role and has played an integral part of their success. Especially in regards to their salon recruitment. Our interview is eye-opening, light hearted, and inspirational for all salon owners.
Ronit: We salon owners have so much passion and all we want is to grow a community. We’ve got so much, we opened the salon, and before you know it, many times the salon becomes the biggest source of stress in our life and it’s not delivering to our dreams.
How can we reinvent or reimagine our company?
Anika: I definitely think setting clear goals and finding the path to achieve those goals is the number one thing. And then having that team mentality of getting there together, pick your goal, create a plan, and then just attack it together.
Scott: Yeah. And talk about it and keep hitting goals and striving and rewarding and moving forward. Communication.
So why is that hard for salons to actually accomplish?
Anika: I think its is the mentality going into it. A lot of the time you are in a blue bubble, and it’s harder to see outside of that. So I think being able to just go into it with a team mindset of “I’m here for you and you’re here for me, let’s do this together,” will better everybody’s lives. I think that’s really important.
How do you find the right people with your salon recruitment?
Scott: So a lot of things go through my mind. You know, we’re artists and it’s a lot more fun to do art in a room of people. And if you’re doing a class or however you’re doing it and are inspired from each other, then go do art by yourself and see what happens. You won’t really get to bounce those ideas off each other. Creativity does slow down a little. So education, communication, always pushing our art form, I think is one of our main focus.
Ronit: Anika, how are you managing and how do you keep as a stylist? You’re a mentor and educator in your salon. How do you keep the building together and how do you keep the motivation and inspiration every day to come to the salon right now?
Anika: I think that during quarantine and just being away from our clients is the motivation behind it. You’re at home and thinking, what are they doing? How are they dealing with it? Coming back and being able to see them again and just be like, yes, we’re in this together, we all made it through and we got this, no matter what happens. I think that that’s a big motivation.
What is the key to consistent salon profits?
Ronit: Scott, you went from not being profitable, to being very profitable, to being even more profitable during COVID-19. What are the things that make it work? And what are the things that you fell on your face and you try it again?
Scott: Loaded question. Ultimately, we have a whole new look on our business. A business model we’ve actually been developing for two years and working and understanding. We’ve been working with Salon Cadence, and all the different programs that you have set up. From really figuring out our ‘why,’ and having staff meetings and figuring out everybody else’s ‘why.’ And then taking the focus off of, ‘Oh my God, are we going to pay rent to?” to “Oh my God, are they going to live their ‘why’?” Because I’m trying to live my why.
So we’ve been working on this business model for two years and I feel coming back from COVID, we really took it seriously on the value of our time and what we provide to our guests. We realized during COVID how much they valued us. And we were able to work the books in such a way that we’re trying to provide the best lifestyle for the stylist from the moment they come on the floor. For example, what service do you want to provide? What service can you double book? And then what is the next service? And what’s going to be the most profitable for you and for us and for moving things forward? But the most relaxed and energetic and creative day at the same time.
But when COVID came, we really hit a reset button. We had to just push reset on our books and then start adjusting and rebuilding our books. We also focused on how we want continue to develop and train.
How was it for you when you were in a lockdown?
Anika: At first it was, I mean, I’m sure everyone feels this way, but it felt so unreal. It felt like “is this really happening right now?” This is life for a while. You go from being a working mom, to stay at home mom where you have all of this time and you kind of start going a little stir crazy. So I started focusing that energy into, you know, keeping the house clean, working out.
Also, I want to stay connected with my clients. So something that I always wanted to do, but was too nervous to do, I started doing little tutorials from home. I love doing makeup, but it was not something that I ever posted. So I kind of went out of my comfort zone with that. And then we did a bunch of interviews on the S Salon YouTube page. We got to interview some people which is again, outside of the box.
So I think it was just redirecting that energy that usually goes into work into something positive and beneficial to us and our clients.
What does it take to build a good team?
Scott: I’m going to have to say, you need to find like minded people with the same values and goals. Because if you have a bunch of stylists in one salon who see their career going all these different directions, you can’t really build yourself together to get those because you’re not heading in the same direction.
What commonalities do you share in your company that makes it work for you?
Scott: So I think that we’ve all shared our whys with each other. And if you’re a stylist out there and you’re trying to figure out what you want to do, find out your why; why do you get up and go cut hair? Is it the artwork? There’s so many different variables. And so we know each other’s ‘whys’. We share all personal goals with each other, we do storyboards. It seems elementary, but at the same time, cut out some pictures and sticks and glue and stick it on a board. And then all of a sudden you kind of see your life in front of you.
How do you still keep that bond now with split shifts?
Anika: This is very new. We implemented this maybe a month ago, so we’re still figuring it out. At first we did huddles every single day prior to opening. So every single day we show up 15 minutes before our first client, we went over our numbers for the day, our goals are for our month, here’s your new clients, what does your weekend look like.
There’s all these little conversations that we were having that kept us really close. Then we initially went into split shifts so that everyday connection wasn’t there. And now we are doing Zoom huddles. We have created our own private Facebook page, where we post all our numbers in there. We can post things and talk to each other and then just open communication. Like, “Hey, if you do need to talk to any of us, reach out to the other shift, we’re still here. We just can’t be there in person.”
What part of this industry makes you happy?
Scott: Mine is, what brings you joy? What guests at your chair brings you joy? And focus on getting those guests in your chair. Who do you want to be around day to day? Not just coworkers, but also from a guest point of view and go do something about it, go get those guests, go hang out wherever they are, go donate your time to them. The cool thing about our industry is that we get to be artistic and creative, but we also get to connect with everybody, the whole community. And they all sit in our chair.
Also, writing out my goals and figuring out a way to achieve them. Not just write them down and stick it in a drawer, write it down and continuously remind yourself where you want to end up and just figure out how to get there.
Ronit: I love that, I think that’s so important. Thank you guys. This was really great working together. I’ve seen you guys both grow. I am so amazed about how you approach every day and how you are thriving even in times like today and how you personalize the experience that everybody is getting to get today. You know, I think it’s really important that you listen to your staff more than ever right now you come closer together and make decisions. And it’s a collective leadership approach. Then everybody is a winner.
For more details on some of the steps we teach at Salon Cadence for recruiting, view our programs here.