Training Associates with Coach Chris Baran

Crystal: 00:00:02

Well, hey there, friend, and welcome back for another episode of the

Crystal: 00:00:06

Your Hair Mentor podcast, where I'm your host and your hair mentor, Crystal Green.

Crystal: 00:00:11

And I'm not just a host and a hair mentor.

Crystal: 00:00:14

I'm also a human with a cold.

Crystal: 00:00:16

So you'll have to excuse my, uh, little nasally voice here.

Crystal: 00:00:20

It's been kind of a doozy, took me out, but I'm here and I'm

Crystal: 00:00:24

not going to let it stop me.

Crystal: 00:00:26

And.

Crystal: 00:00:26

Good thing.

Crystal: 00:00:27

I didn't have a cold during the interview here that I'm about to share

Crystal: 00:00:30

with you because it is pure gold.

Crystal: 00:00:33

Um, you're going to love coach.

Crystal: 00:00:35

Chris.

Crystal: 00:00:36

He's really fantastic.

Crystal: 00:00:38

Has a lot to offer.

Crystal: 00:00:39

I mean, it's obvious.

Crystal: 00:00:40

This guy has been in the industry for a very long time.

Crystal: 00:00:44

Um, but he's also kind of at like the forefront of what's happening too.

Crystal: 00:00:48

So he's not just like old and crusty at all.

Crystal: 00:00:50

Don't get me wrong.

Crystal: 00:00:51

Um, coach Chris Barron.

Crystal: 00:00:53

Was really really fun to chat with and I actually ended up trimming out a lot of

Crystal: 00:00:59

our Conversation that happened before and after the podcast and sometimes I include

Crystal: 00:01:04

that in the chat because it's just good stuff But oh my god, we just had so much

Crystal: 00:01:07

I need to bring them on for another show.

Crystal: 00:01:09

Honestly But not only does he have great things to say, but his

Crystal: 00:01:14

actual voice is like buttery and smooth and very easy to listen to.

Crystal: 00:01:21

So, I know you're just going to really enjoy this interview.

Crystal: 00:01:24

So, I am going to go ahead and introduce you to Coach Chris M.

Crystal: 00:01:29

Barron, whoo!

Crystal: 00:01:32

Ready freddy.

Crystal: 00:01:33

Hey there chris.

Crystal: 00:01:34

Hey Thank you so much for coming on the your hair mentor podcast I'm, super happy

Crystal: 00:01:40

to have you here today and share this awesome stuff that you're working on Um,

Crystal: 00:01:44

and also I just kind of want to know a little bit about your story and how you

Crystal: 00:01:47

got to be where you are So would you do me a favor and just kind of give me a quick

Crystal: 00:01:51

introduction of like where you're at?

Crystal: 00:01:53

And then I kind of want to hear how you got into this industry in the first place

Chris: 00:01:58

Well, first of all, uh, Crystal, thanks for having me on.

Chris: 00:02:00

Uh, it's a real honor and pleasure.

Chris: 00:02:02

Um, now you said one thing that really might throw this a little

Chris: 00:02:05

thing off, you said quick, and I've often been introduced as, here's a

Chris: 00:02:09

gentleman, uh, that can say in 10 words what other people can say in one.

Chris: 00:02:14

So um, so let's, uh, first of all, uh, where did I come from?

Chris: 00:02:19

Um, well, um, Um, I came from my background was my

Chris: 00:02:23

mother was a hairdresser.

Chris: 00:02:24

She anointed me as a hairdresser.

Chris: 00:02:26

I didn't necessarily want to be one, but knew I couldn't get fired.

Chris: 00:02:29

So I started there.

Chris: 00:02:30

And then I had a life changing thing that happened to me where somebody come

Chris: 00:02:35

in and said, don't cut my hair today.

Chris: 00:02:36

Cause I'm going to Montreal to get a good haircut.

Chris: 00:02:39

I'm Canadian.

Chris: 00:02:39

If you haven't figured that out and that changed my life.

Chris: 00:02:42

And so actually the first two years of my career.

Chris: 00:02:46

Uh, was more the thing that, um, uh, as an owner, you wouldn't have wanted to hire

Chris: 00:02:51

me because I was interested in partying.

Chris: 00:02:53

Uh, it was partying and, uh, staying out till two to three in the morning

Chris: 00:02:57

and then coming in probably with a little bit of a headache, uh,

Chris: 00:03:01

must've been too much Coca Cola.

Chris: 00:03:03

And, um, and, um, my point was, is that I, I wasted pretty much the first two years.

Chris: 00:03:09

Uh, then I got, then I got hooked on, I went to Sassoon's and I got hooked on

Chris: 00:03:13

haircutting and that became my passion.

Chris: 00:03:16

Then, um, and this is the Reader's Digest version of the timeline, um,

Chris: 00:03:22

opened a couple salons, um, had, uh, then there was a gentleman that came to

Chris: 00:03:27

speak, uh, at a training we were having.

Chris: 00:03:32

His name was Blair Singer.

Chris: 00:03:33

Uh, he's one of the Rich Dad Poor Dad advisors, speaks on, uh, wealth.

Chris: 00:03:38

He also speaks on, um, on, uh, facilitation skills.

Chris: 00:03:43

And that changed my life because I can remember him saying, let me back

Chris: 00:03:48

it up a second, because before when I would, I would teach on stage.

Chris: 00:03:50

I never really taught on stage.

Chris: 00:03:52

All I did was I would write my comedy routine and I did more of a comedy routine

Chris: 00:03:56

than anything, um, to the point when I asked one person after they sat in my

Chris: 00:04:01

class for, you know, A six classes in a row and said to me after every time that,

Chris: 00:04:05

you know, Chris, I'd loved your show.

Chris: 00:04:06

I laughed and laughed.

Chris: 00:04:07

And I said, what did you learn?

Chris: 00:04:08

And she said nothing, but I laughed and laughed.

Chris: 00:04:11

So I, I had to figure out what this training thing was so that I could

Chris: 00:04:15

actually teach the things that I was passionate, passionate about.

Chris: 00:04:18

And that's where Blair, um, and since then other people have really helped me

Chris: 00:04:22

along people like Jason Everett, who have helped me become more focused on what

Chris: 00:04:27

it takes to help to connect to people.

Chris: 00:04:30

Because I remember standing up in Blair's class.

Chris: 00:04:33

After he talked to us how a good, uh, educator, facilitator, trainer

Chris: 00:04:39

connects with the audience.

Chris: 00:04:40

And he said, I remember saying back to him and stand up because he asked,

Chris: 00:04:44

what did, what did you take away?

Chris: 00:04:46

And I said, Blair, from what I heard is it's not what you

Chris: 00:04:51

say, it's not the content.

Chris: 00:04:53

It's how you say it.

Chris: 00:04:55

And that stuck with me forever.

Chris: 00:04:56

And that changed my Changed my life and it turned me in probably to who

Chris: 00:05:01

I am today where, um, my point now is I just want to give back to people.

Chris: 00:05:07

That's

Crystal: 00:05:07

awesome.

Crystal: 00:05:08

You know, and isn't that a lesson that could be learned for hairstylists

Crystal: 00:05:12

talking to their clients too, right?

Crystal: 00:05:14

Where it's, it's not necessarily just your hair skills.

Crystal: 00:05:19

It's how you present

Chris: 00:05:19

them.

Chris: 00:05:20

Yeah.

Chris: 00:05:20

Yeah.

Chris: 00:05:21

And you know, it's, I'm going to use an old, I didn't, I didn't come up with it.

Chris: 00:05:25

We hear it all the time.

Chris: 00:05:26

Part of it's true.

Chris: 00:05:27

Part of it's not.

Chris: 00:05:28

Yeah.

Chris: 00:05:28

But when they, they say that there's all these people out there that, uh,

Chris: 00:05:31

that don't do hair particularly well, but they're fully booked, et cetera.

Chris: 00:05:36

So my, and the reason why I say that I don't believe that's partially

Chris: 00:05:39

true, I think that it is true because those people are authentic, they're

Chris: 00:05:45

caring, they love their clients.

Chris: 00:05:47

Uh, and I know this is something you and I talked about before and

Chris: 00:05:50

I don't want to steal your lines.

Chris: 00:05:52

It was your line that I want to use as references where you make them the hero.

Chris: 00:05:56

And, and, um, and I think that's the part that I would like those

Chris: 00:06:02

people to think about that.

Chris: 00:06:05

What if, what if you did all of that and you really knew how to do hair,

Chris: 00:06:12

if you were really skilled at it, how exponential could your growth be?

Chris: 00:06:18

Mm hmm.

Chris: 00:06:19

And, and I think that's, that's where.

Chris: 00:06:21

Um, what's always stood for me is because, you know, uh, with a bit

Chris: 00:06:25

of my Sassoon background, no, I would, I never worked for them.

Chris: 00:06:29

I was a Sassoon freak and traveled to every show, everything.

Chris: 00:06:32

And people like Tony Beckerman and the like of those people really helped me to

Chris: 00:06:36

ingrain in what discipline really meant.

Chris: 00:06:39

And, and I think that.

Chris: 00:06:40

Um, that for all the young listeners and watchers that are out there that

Chris: 00:06:45

are saying right now, and we're, we've all went through, we went through COVID.

Chris: 00:06:48

We went through all that crap.

Chris: 00:06:49

We reevaluated our lives.

Chris: 00:06:51

We take a look at what we were doing.

Chris: 00:06:52

We said, I want more out of my life and more quality just

Chris: 00:06:56

to remember that quality.

Chris: 00:06:57

And time is, are not a parallel that exchange for one another.

Chris: 00:07:01

In other words, when people say, I want, I want, um, to have balance.

Chris: 00:07:05

Balance just means that you're present wherever you are.

Chris: 00:07:09

It doesn't mean you give up and you do less of one thing or more of the other.

Chris: 00:07:13

So, uh, I always think that for me that that's okay.

Chris: 00:07:17

I'm going to give a really controversial statement right now.

Chris: 00:07:20

If that's okay with you, bring it on, bring it on, bring it on, baby.

Chris: 00:07:23

Um, uh, and I'm, I'm stealing a line from my good friend, um, Stephen Moody

Chris: 00:07:29

and, um, and he said, our industry has shot ourselves in the foot.

Chris: 00:07:34

Um, and, and don't get me wrong, what we're doing right now makes

Chris: 00:07:37

us a ton of money and it's good.

Chris: 00:07:40

Um, but we've spent the last seven, eight, nine years, balayaging long

Chris: 00:07:47

hair, balayaging is wonderful.

Chris: 00:07:50

I love it.

Chris: 00:07:51

It makes us money.

Chris: 00:07:52

I'm not saying bad things about that.

Chris: 00:07:53

I'm not saying bad things about our hair.

Chris: 00:07:56

Here's where we shot ourself in the foot.

Chris: 00:08:00

Cyclically, it goes long and it goes short.

Chris: 00:08:04

It goes long and it goes short.

Chris: 00:08:06

We spent so many years on long hair, uh, with retouching, without

Chris: 00:08:14

retouching, without the certifiant coming in, needing us every six weeks,

Chris: 00:08:19

they've transferred to every three to four, sometimes six months or more.

Chris: 00:08:24

And that's where we've shot ourself in the foot.

Chris: 00:08:26

Now, here's the reason why you watch in the next two to three

Chris: 00:08:30

years, it's already happening.

Chris: 00:08:32

Short hair is starting to come back.

Chris: 00:08:33

And I remember not everybody's going to have short hair, but the people

Chris: 00:08:37

that want short hair are going to come out and they're going to be

Chris: 00:08:41

looking for people that can do it.

Chris: 00:08:43

Our industry.

Chris: 00:08:45

I mean, I'm a part of a group that owns 30 beauty schools.

Chris: 00:08:48

And what, what happens is the Students are terrified of short hair and I go to, I go

Chris: 00:08:57

to teach in salons where they don't want trend right now, they want me to teach

Chris: 00:09:02

them how to analyze a picture so they can duplicate the picture and use a principles

Chris: 00:09:09

of haircutting to get what they want.

Chris: 00:09:12

And that switch is happening and it's, you know, I beat every cup steep

Chris: 00:09:19

and keeps talking about Armageddon and all this stuff that's happening.

Chris: 00:09:21

I think the Armageddon that's happening in our industry is it's going to hit us

Chris: 00:09:26

with this, this everybody wants short hair, just like in the 70s when Linda

Chris: 00:09:30

Evangelista cut off her long hair.

Chris: 00:09:32

Everybody wanted short hair.

Chris: 00:09:33

Everybody wanted above the shoulders.

Chris: 00:09:35

And there was this people flocking into salons.

Chris: 00:09:39

And if you knew how to do it, your salon grew and that was the kind of the, uh,

Chris: 00:09:44

the separation that happened at that time when it first happened, there was three

Chris: 00:09:48

kinds of salons that were out there.

Chris: 00:09:50

There was the high end salon, there was a mid salon, and there was a low end salon.

Chris: 00:09:54

At that time, it blew away the mid salon.

Chris: 00:09:58

Because everybody wanted, they wanted, uh, cost and they didn't want to

Chris: 00:10:01

have to pay a lot, or they wanted to pay more and they wanted all the

Chris: 00:10:05

things that went along with that.

Chris: 00:10:06

And, and I think that's, that's what's going to happen in

Chris: 00:10:09

the next few years with us.

Chris: 00:10:10

So, I, I would say to, that I don't want to, uh, discourage people by that, but

Chris: 00:10:16

what I want to say to them is that's where your education come in, that's

Chris: 00:10:19

where your discipline comes in, that's where it's really important that you know.

Chris: 00:10:23

All of the skills, not just one or two.

Chris: 00:10:26

Mm hmm.

Crystal: 00:10:27

Absolutely.

Crystal: 00:10:28

You know, I experienced even myself the other day going and getting my hair

Crystal: 00:10:32

done in a salon here in Reno, Nevada.

Crystal: 00:10:35

And I was, uh, my blowout was done by the Junior stylist.

Crystal: 00:10:40

She's not an assistant.

Crystal: 00:10:41

She's like a couple years in licensed stylist and she asked me How do

Crystal: 00:10:45

you want your hair styled today?

Crystal: 00:10:46

And I said, oh, you know, I would love just kind of like a bouncy round

Crystal: 00:10:49

brush Blow dry just something simple.

Crystal: 00:10:51

It doesn't have to be perfect, but just something with a little oomph to it and

Crystal: 00:10:54

she goes You know, i'm really sorry, but I have to tell you I don't know

Crystal: 00:10:57

how to use a round brush I was like, oh and I could tell by the way She was

Crystal: 00:11:02

blow drying me like she's like i'll try and i'm like cool I can help coach you

Crystal: 00:11:05

through it if you want like no pressure, but like you should know how to do this

Crystal: 00:11:08

girlfriend Um, she's like well, I mostly just do iron work and I said, okay

Crystal: 00:11:12

Well, like what kind of iron do you use?

Crystal: 00:11:13

She's like my wand I was like, okay So you fall into that category of like you've got

Crystal: 00:11:19

that that beachy wave dialed in and that's all you've got That's all that has been

Crystal: 00:11:23

asked of you In the last couple of years, but I'm like, yeah, things are changing.

Crystal: 00:11:27

I was like, I got these like little flippy bangs and like, I want some oomph.

Crystal: 00:11:31

And she did not know how to do it.

Crystal: 00:11:33

And so I walked away going, Oh my gosh, I don't think she's alone.

Chris: 00:11:37

Yeah.

Chris: 00:11:38

No, I agree with you a hundred percent on that crystal.

Chris: 00:11:40

And I, you know, I, there's what I love in your title that

Chris: 00:11:46

you have is your hair mentor.

Chris: 00:11:48

And I, and I think that's where.

Chris: 00:11:50

A lot of this is gonna come from right now.

Chris: 00:11:52

The mentors that we had right out there have been YouTube.

Chris: 00:11:56

So, and that's all wa, that's all watch.

Chris: 00:11:59

And again, nothing wrong with that.

Chris: 00:12:00

I watch YouTube too.

Chris: 00:12:01

I pick up great ideas from them.

Chris: 00:12:03

There's some, you know, spectacular people out there, but you can't get

Chris: 00:12:08

your foot stuck in one area, you know, because you'll do great when that's there.

Chris: 00:12:13

But when a trend, a shift happens, you're gonna get, you're on the outside and it's

Chris: 00:12:17

gonna be harder if you get in the inside.

Chris: 00:12:19

So the time to train, the time to learn.

Chris: 00:12:22

Is when that others is hot.

Chris: 00:12:23

It's just one thing that I always mind, and I think the numbers are a little

Chris: 00:12:27

skewed from right now to when, uh, when we talked about it in the past.

Chris: 00:12:31

But what happened is trends generally happen about, they take about six

Chris: 00:12:37

years and we call it two years in two years, hot two years out.

Chris: 00:12:41

So they kind of overlap.

Chris: 00:12:43

So two years in, it's hot.

Chris: 00:12:45

People think it's ugly.

Chris: 00:12:46

Well, let me phrase that.

Chris: 00:12:47

The, the young kids that are out there, the ones that are cool, the ones that

Chris: 00:12:50

are looking at, they go, Oh, that's cool.

Chris: 00:12:52

Nobody's doing that.

Chris: 00:12:52

I want to do that.

Chris: 00:12:54

The mainstreamers are going, Oh, that's ugly.

Chris: 00:12:57

You know, just the same thing as when skulls came in, you know, skulls came in.

Chris: 00:13:01

Uh, uh, I believe it was Alexander McQueen did, uh, clothing wedding

Chris: 00:13:06

dresses with skulls on it.

Chris: 00:13:07

And they, they really went, Oh my God, what are you doing?

Chris: 00:13:10

What's going on?

Chris: 00:13:11

That's that's, uh, that's for Bolton.

Chris: 00:13:14

And, and then so, but every, all the young kids went, that's cool, that's

Chris: 00:13:17

new, I I, they jumped on that bag when everybody else thought it was ugly.

Chris: 00:13:22

Two years in, everybody was wearing it and the mainstream is now going,

Chris: 00:13:27

Oh, Oh, I thought that was ugly.

Chris: 00:13:29

It's pretty cool.

Chris: 00:13:30

Now, as soon as that hits now, those young kids are going, I don't

Chris: 00:13:35

know, mom and dad are wearing that.

Chris: 00:13:36

I don't know if I want to do that anymore, you know?

Chris: 00:13:39

And then, and particularly when grandma has her knickers with skulls

Chris: 00:13:43

on it, they know it's really out.

Chris: 00:13:44

Oh my gosh.

Chris: 00:13:46

But the reality is, it gets, there's, uh, it's two years in,

Chris: 00:13:50

two years out, or two years in, two years hot, and two years out.

Chris: 00:13:54

When it's out, the people that have just been holding back for four years

Chris: 00:13:59

are finally getting into it, and that's when you go to your hairdresser and they

Chris: 00:14:02

go, oh my god, if I had to do one more.

Chris: 00:14:04

friend's haircut.

Chris: 00:14:05

I'm going to blow my brains out.

Chris: 00:14:07

That was, we could cut that last part out.

Chris: 00:14:12

You know, is that if they, they see that one more friend's haircut and they

Chris: 00:14:15

say, well, I don't want to have that anymore because it's just, it's gone.

Chris: 00:14:18

It's, it's, uh, It's passe.

Chris: 00:14:20

That's the, see, that's the thing that's happening right now.

Chris: 00:14:23

The times may be off.

Chris: 00:14:25

I think that what we've had with long hair and balayage has gone

Chris: 00:14:27

on for way more than six years.

Chris: 00:14:29

It shows how amazing it was and um, but I think that we, we need to

Chris: 00:14:34

really understand that haircutting is going to start to make its way back.

Chris: 00:14:38

I

Crystal: 00:14:38

think so too.

Crystal: 00:14:39

I honestly hope so because I love all the different shapes and styles that

Crystal: 00:14:44

come with haircutting being a trend.

Crystal: 00:14:46

Yeah.

Chris: 00:14:47

Yeah.

Chris: 00:14:47

And it's, I find it really interesting going to a hair show.

Chris: 00:14:51

You know, where it's hair shows.

Chris: 00:14:52

And then I was, I can't remember which premiere last year, I think we were at,

Chris: 00:14:56

and I was walking down the aisle way.

Chris: 00:14:58

And I was trying to count the number of really cool short

Chris: 00:15:03

heads of hair, uh, that I saw.

Chris: 00:15:07

And I counted about eight.

Crystal: 00:15:09

Oh my gosh.

Crystal: 00:15:10

Out

Chris: 00:15:10

of how many people?

Chris: 00:15:12

Out of all those people.

Chris: 00:15:13

But not, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that those people weren't cool.

Chris: 00:15:17

I'm just saying that they're caught in that cycle of.

Chris: 00:15:21

Two years in two years hot two years out and and you can tell it with their colors.

Chris: 00:15:26

You can tell it with their shapes with what era they get stuck in.

Chris: 00:15:29

And I think it's sometimes that because of the psychology behind it,

Chris: 00:15:34

they do something they made a change.

Chris: 00:15:35

They might have went from, um, one color to Uh, uh, putting some rainbow

Chris: 00:15:41

color in their hair and somebody said to him, that looks amazing on you.

Chris: 00:15:46

And that anchors in their head.

Chris: 00:15:48

And they want to carry that through forever, you know, because

Chris: 00:15:52

that was what somebody told me.

Chris: 00:15:53

I look good on.

Chris: 00:15:54

Therefore, as I change and I grow and I change, my look stays the same.

Chris: 00:16:00

And now is it the same response you're getting?

Chris: 00:16:02

And if you're not getting that response of, wow, you look great.

Chris: 00:16:06

That's one thing I always used to say to my clients is that

Chris: 00:16:09

when they'd say, uh, they'd say, well, that I want the same thing.

Chris: 00:16:12

And I'd ask them why.

Chris: 00:16:13

And he said, because my husband loves it.

Chris: 00:16:15

And he said, I said, okay, well, first of all, um, I never say go to the person who

Chris: 00:16:20

can't match their socks to, for fashion advice, but I do understand that you

Chris: 00:16:25

want your spouse happy and so on, but.

Chris: 00:16:28

You know, are your friends complimenting your hair?

Chris: 00:16:32

And, and if that's the case, then you're probably still in and looking good.

Chris: 00:16:36

But if nobody is saying the thing that they said to you five years

Chris: 00:16:38

ago, maybe it's time to have a bit of a change and a refresh.

Chris: 00:16:43

Um, oh, sorry, go

Crystal: 00:16:44

ahead.

Crystal: 00:16:45

I was gonna say, I love this so much because, um, so much of what I

Crystal: 00:16:49

preach is, right, the, the client.

Crystal: 00:16:52

Is the hero of the story like you mentioned briefly earlier and what that

Crystal: 00:16:55

means is you are a contributor to their happiness You're like their guide and

Crystal: 00:17:01

their mentor And helping them in the story of their life And so it's so important

Crystal: 00:17:06

to ask those kind of questions, right?

Crystal: 00:17:08

Like because what are we here to do?

Crystal: 00:17:09

We're here to make them feel good We're here to make them look good, right?

Crystal: 00:17:13

If they're not getting the input and the feedback that they need from the

Crystal: 00:17:16

people in their lives Where they're feeling good about their looks

Crystal: 00:17:19

then we need to help them Right.

Crystal: 00:17:21

And I love that you bring that up because that's such an important question that

Crystal: 00:17:24

I've always asked all of my clients too.

Crystal: 00:17:26

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:17:26

How are you feeling in this style?

Crystal: 00:17:29

Are you still getting what you need out of it?

Crystal: 00:17:31

And if not, let me try to make some suggestions and like how out of

Crystal: 00:17:35

your comfort zone can we step today?

Crystal: 00:17:37

Right.

Crystal: 00:17:38

Yeah.

Chris: 00:17:38

Yeah, the, um, when you become an expert, people don't pay you for your

Chris: 00:17:47

knowledge, they pay for your opinion.

Chris: 00:17:52

So when you're going to a hairdresser that's your expert, that helps you,

Chris: 00:17:55

that's been growing you, grooming you, helping you evolve, that person

Chris: 00:18:01

is paying you for your opinion.

Chris: 00:18:04

And your opinion should not be, what do you want today?

Chris: 00:18:07

Your opinion should be, your opinion should be, can we have a talk?

Chris: 00:18:12

And, and I'm going to give credit where credit is due, uh, a chapel salon out

Chris: 00:18:16

of the UK has a really interesting concept that I absolutely love.

Chris: 00:18:21

You see, they, first of all, every time somebody comes

Chris: 00:18:24

in, they give a consultation.

Chris: 00:18:27

So everybody gets a consultation, everybody.

Chris: 00:18:29

It's not just a continuation on and I'm not going to belabor the whole

Chris: 00:18:34

consultation things and people say that 97 percent of the people that

Chris: 00:18:37

are out there that are consumers say they didn't get a consultation.

Chris: 00:18:40

And it's the same thing for hairdressers say that they give it, but or I'm

Chris: 00:18:43

saying that hairdresser says they give it, but only 7 percent of the people

Chris: 00:18:46

that are out there say they get it.

Chris: 00:18:48

So it's the quality of the conversation.

Chris: 00:18:50

So I'm going to get back to Chapel Salon.

Chris: 00:18:52

What they do is they spend.

Chris: 00:18:54

Every time they come in portion of their because they pay by the hour, the

Chris: 00:18:58

customer pays by time, not by the service.

Chris: 00:19:02

And so they spend that time giving a quality recommendation.

Chris: 00:19:06

And then here's what I love.

Chris: 00:19:07

So they book out sick.

Chris: 00:19:09

No, and I don't say book out.

Chris: 00:19:11

If you're going to be my customer, we're going to set up six months

Chris: 00:19:14

of, uh, six months of appointments.

Chris: 00:19:18

And in the spring and in the fall, we're going to book out a

Chris: 00:19:21

separate hour that we're going to have a complete consultation.

Chris: 00:19:29

And, and in that frame, We're going to talk about the new colors that are coming

Chris: 00:19:34

out for fall, the new looks that are coming out for fall, where you want to go

Chris: 00:19:39

and how we're going to, now catch this, how we're going to evolve your shape over

Chris: 00:19:44

the next six months until we hit spring.

Chris: 00:19:47

And then we're going to evolve it again.

Chris: 00:19:49

Now you think about the dynamic there.

Chris: 00:19:52

Not only that, how you're grooming them, you're evolving them and

Chris: 00:19:56

you're building trust with them, but they're not going to anybody else.

Chris: 00:20:02

You know, there's, if, if Chris comes along and says, Hey, I can do your hair.

Chris: 00:20:06

No, Crystal's been doing my hair and she's got a whole plan for my next six months.

Chris: 00:20:10

I'm sorry.

Chris: 00:20:10

I just can't go there.

Crystal: 00:20:11

I've committed myself to a membership with this

Crystal: 00:20:14

person that I'm going to see.

Chris: 00:20:15

Yes.

Chris: 00:20:16

Bingo.

Chris: 00:20:16

Bingo.

Chris: 00:20:18

I've just bought a subscription.

Chris: 00:20:20

Yes.

Crystal: 00:20:20

I love that.

Crystal: 00:20:21

So much that is incredible and I bet you Like when if something happens

Crystal: 00:20:28

apocalyptic recession wise, whatever those sort of businesses are going

Crystal: 00:20:32

to survive They are going to thrive they're going to make those people feel

Crystal: 00:20:36

so special and they're going to their clients and their customers and their

Crystal: 00:20:40

Consumers are going to be willing to cut budgets elsewhere so that they can still

Crystal: 00:20:44

be taken care of there because there's

Chris: 00:20:46

loyalty And that's what did happen in in the great recession that happened.

Chris: 00:20:51

I mean, I wasn't alive for it.

Chris: 00:20:53

But in the 30s, when they had that people were still making themselves good.

Chris: 00:20:57

They were making themselves look good.

Chris: 00:20:59

That was the whole part about it.

Chris: 00:21:00

That's the only thing that they had that they could.

Chris: 00:21:03

Feel good about at the time.

Chris: 00:21:05

Yes.

Chris: 00:21:06

Yes.

Chris: 00:21:06

So my

Crystal: 00:21:06

mom tells me.

Crystal: 00:21:07

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:21:08

Right.

Crystal: 00:21:08

But you know, you see it in other countries too.

Crystal: 00:21:10

Like, you know, you don't need money to have like a pride

Crystal: 00:21:12

of ownership necessarily.

Crystal: 00:21:14

You just, you focus on certain things and a lot of people want to have their

Crystal: 00:21:17

home look clean and tidy and they want to look good themselves because that boosts

Crystal: 00:21:22

their spirits and makes them feel like, you know, nice contributing members to

Chris: 00:21:26

society.

Chris: 00:21:28

Yeah, no, I agree.

Chris: 00:21:29

A hundred percent.

Chris: 00:21:29

I love

Crystal: 00:21:30

that.

Crystal: 00:21:30

Um, okay, Chris, I want to ask you about your, um, Salon Associate Accelerator

Crystal: 00:21:36

program, because we chatted about that beforehand, and I feel like we

Crystal: 00:21:40

could tie this in really well here.

Crystal: 00:21:41

So can you tell us kind of what that is a little bit?

Chris: 00:21:44

Well, yeah, I would love to, but let me give you kind of a,

Chris: 00:21:47

a forerunner, a precursor on this.

Chris: 00:21:50

Okay.

Chris: 00:21:50

Is, um, the need that, that, uh, our team saw was, um, there's two kind of things

Chris: 00:21:58

that I hear from, from salon owners.

Chris: 00:22:01

Everywhere is two things.

Chris: 00:22:03

Number one is, um, my, I'm training my people and they leave, excuse me.

Chris: 00:22:11

I train my people and they leave.

Chris: 00:22:14

And the other one was this new generation of people.

Chris: 00:22:18

I just can't relate to them.

Chris: 00:22:19

They don't want to work.

Chris: 00:22:20

They don't want to do anything.

Chris: 00:22:23

Um, both are true.

Chris: 00:22:27

Um, I want to deal with the first one first is, and just with a little

Chris: 00:22:30

story that, um, I remember hearing this story of, This, uh, there was a

Chris: 00:22:37

corporate meeting and, uh, the CFO, the chief financial officer and, uh, was

Chris: 00:22:43

meeting with the team and the chief, um, financial officer said, look at our

Chris: 00:22:47

training that we're doing with all of our people is costing us too much money.

Chris: 00:22:52

It's a big line on our budget.

Chris: 00:22:54

And, um, I want to, I want to pose to people like, uh, you know,

Chris: 00:23:00

that we reduce the training and reduce, stop training them so much

Chris: 00:23:06

because what if we train them?

Chris: 00:23:08

And then they just leave and go to another company.

Chris: 00:23:11

And the chief executive offer, the CEO said.

Chris: 00:23:15

Well, okay, that might work if we, you're worried about if we

Chris: 00:23:18

want to train them and they leave.

Chris: 00:23:20

But what if we don't and they stay?

Chris: 00:23:22

So the reality is, is that when, when you're going to train people, it's

Chris: 00:23:27

our obligation as an owner to train.

Chris: 00:23:30

Here's the problem that, that generally happens is the

Chris: 00:23:34

owner does all the training.

Chris: 00:23:38

And then they're working, they're trying to get the vision of their business

Chris: 00:23:41

going, they're trying to do all the work, uh, they have a family just like

Chris: 00:23:46

everybody else, they're cutting out their time, they're often the highest

Chris: 00:23:50

ticket earner, and because nobody wants to work after hours nowadays,

Chris: 00:23:54

they have to do the training during the salon, they do the training during

Chris: 00:23:58

salon hours, so now they have two factors that are in there financially.

Chris: 00:24:03

Number one is, I've taken myself away from the station.

Chris: 00:24:07

So therefore I'm I'm not generating revenue.

Chris: 00:24:10

And if you think about what that is, and let's just say that it's an average ticket

Chris: 00:24:14

is 100 an hour that and they've taken.

Chris: 00:24:18

Let's say just even two to four hours to train time, that's 400.

Chris: 00:24:23

And then you times that by, even if you're just doing one training

Chris: 00:24:25

a week, times 50 weeks and so on, you know, I'm not the math guy.

Chris: 00:24:29

So anybody listening and watching right now, you can get out

Chris: 00:24:31

your calculators and do that.

Chris: 00:24:32

None of us are.

Chris: 00:24:33

It's okay.

Chris: 00:24:33

No.

Chris: 00:24:34

So, but the reality is, is the time that it takes and ends up with either the

Chris: 00:24:40

owner and or an educator that you have on board, if they're doing it all themselves.

Chris: 00:24:44

They burnt out and then it doesn't happen.

Chris: 00:24:47

And then the promise that you made of training up the people

Chris: 00:24:51

doesn't get met and they leave.

Chris: 00:24:54

And it's this cycle.

Chris: 00:24:55

It's like this, like the, the, the, the front door Bergdorf Goodmans.

Chris: 00:24:59

When you, you take that, you walk in and if you keep going, you just jump back out

Chris: 00:25:03

rather than getting into the good stuff.

Chris: 00:25:05

And it's the same thing that happens in the salon.

Chris: 00:25:08

So that's the first part about what if you train them and they leave.

Chris: 00:25:12

And then the other part is the, the young kid that's out there, they want balance.

Chris: 00:25:17

They went through all this stuff.

Chris: 00:25:18

They, they, they want balance in their life.

Chris: 00:25:21

But more than anything, if you look at them right now, they're cause driven.

Chris: 00:25:27

So what are you doing to create a cause for your salon, for the

Chris: 00:25:32

vision of where you want to go?

Chris: 00:25:34

People will buy into a vision and money is not a vision.

Chris: 00:25:38

No.

Chris: 00:25:38

So, but they will buy into your vision.

Chris: 00:25:39

I'm not saying you shouldn't be compensated, you should be compensated

Chris: 00:25:42

a lot for it, but is what are you doing to create something that

Chris: 00:25:47

those kids want in the future?

Chris: 00:25:51

It's funny just on this last, uh, just a couple of days ago, I was speaking and

Chris: 00:25:54

somebody came up to me after and he said, your, your, your definition of want versus

Chris: 00:26:00

goals is, was it really impactful for me?

Chris: 00:26:03

And, and what I, uh, this came from a training that I did, and I was

Chris: 00:26:07

trying to find out what this, this particular person wanted as a goal.

Chris: 00:26:10

And it went just down this dark hole and I couldn't pull them out of it.

Chris: 00:26:14

Uh, so I have a, a teacher, uh, that clears people.

Chris: 00:26:19

You know, clearing just means when you have issues in your head

Chris: 00:26:21

and they help you talk about it and get through it and so on.

Chris: 00:26:24

And she said to me this, that it was really interesting.

Chris: 00:26:27

Um, uh, you know, it's funny when she told it to me, I wrote it and I have

Chris: 00:26:30

it every time right near me here.

Chris: 00:26:33

And she said, and I mark this, goal setting often brings up a negative charge.

Chris: 00:26:38

Because if we didn't get the goal in the past, we'd set a goal, we

Chris: 00:26:41

didn't get it, doing whatever.

Chris: 00:26:43

So we feel we're failed at our goal.

Chris: 00:26:45

So there's that negative charge.

Chris: 00:26:46

So the emotions come up.

Chris: 00:26:48

And so that's what happened from past fails goals.

Chris: 00:26:53

But if you, instead of saying that it's a goal, if you say, what do you

Chris: 00:26:57

want, it brings it into the future.

Chris: 00:27:00

So if, if the salon owner would just, we advise this in our salon

Chris: 00:27:05

associate accelerator is before you even start your training, sit down

Chris: 00:27:09

and sit down in a want meeting.

Chris: 00:27:11

And the want meaning can be very fast.

Chris: 00:27:13

We have, we have, um, sheets that we get them to fill out where you

Chris: 00:27:18

fill out the things that you want for personal development, um, for,

Chris: 00:27:22

or just to improve for your career.

Chris: 00:27:25

What do you want personally?

Chris: 00:27:26

I want to buy a new house.

Chris: 00:27:27

I want to buy a new car.

Chris: 00:27:28

I want, uh, I want to get out of my rental unit or I want whatever that is.

Chris: 00:27:32

And then what is it that you want, uh, for yourself for the future?

Chris: 00:27:36

Like I, I You know what's about for family.

Chris: 00:27:39

I want I want to have take my family on a European trip, or I

Chris: 00:27:43

just want to be able to pay my own.

Chris: 00:27:45

We're going to Europe in two years, and I want to have enough of this.

Chris: 00:27:48

And if that owner can take a look at what are your wants help you to get that.

Chris: 00:27:54

If that just means taking a little bit of money out every, uh, month, every

Chris: 00:27:58

week, just to set aside, to set up a, a bank account for that person so that

Chris: 00:28:02

now you see, now what you're dealing, dealing with here is you're building up a

Chris: 00:28:07

loyalty or a trust in that in the person.

Chris: 00:28:10

'cause I'm not just looking at how much money can you make me.

Chris: 00:28:13

I am investing in your future.

Chris: 00:28:16

And that would that cause driven effect.

Chris: 00:28:19

I don't know about you, but I'm getting goosebumps up right now.

Chris: 00:28:23

But if you can invest in that person's life and you can make a

Chris: 00:28:27

change to them where they grow, they attribute that to you.

Chris: 00:28:33

My, my, my, uh, I learned that inadvertently from Bill Ross, who was,

Chris: 00:28:39

um, my, one of my very first, not my first salon owner, but the first salon

Chris: 00:28:43

owner that made a difference in my life.

Chris: 00:28:45

And he would do that with me, inadvertently, it wasn't

Chris: 00:28:48

called that then, but he said, look, Chris, what do you want?

Chris: 00:28:49

What do you want to go?

Chris: 00:28:50

What do you want to do?

Chris: 00:28:51

And I had no money.

Chris: 00:28:52

Um, uh, and I said, I want to go to Sassoon's and he said, look,

Chris: 00:28:57

well, let's make that happen.

Chris: 00:28:58

Here's how we're going to do it.

Chris: 00:28:59

And so on.

Chris: 00:29:00

And so that what that was pivotal in my, in my life career, and if I

Chris: 00:29:05

wouldn't have had somebody that would help me along on that, I would, I would

Chris: 00:29:10

not say I would have never got there, but I wouldn't have got there sooner.

Chris: 00:29:14

And, and so to this day, I, I trust, I respect, uh, that person changed my

Chris: 00:29:19

life, even though when I said, look it, I want to leave, um, and, and, but I

Chris: 00:29:23

want you, I want, I would just assume you and I made a partnership together.

Chris: 00:29:28

And he said, okay, let's do it.

Chris: 00:29:29

And then, but then he said, no, Chris, you're better on your own.

Chris: 00:29:32

And you know what he did?

Chris: 00:29:33

He took me to the bank and he explained to the bank why, at that time, I was

Chris: 00:29:39

a bad risk, why I was a good one.

Chris: 00:29:41

And when I left, he said, Chris, here's your three months bookings that you have.

Chris: 00:29:46

I've all told him where you work.

Chris: 00:29:48

You know, and amazing.

Chris: 00:29:50

And so it's when you do that for people, when you do that for the

Chris: 00:29:53

young kid, if you're going to do that, I can, for those of you listening

Chris: 00:29:56

right now, I've got this grizzly old white beard and hair and so on.

Chris: 00:29:59

So I'm not, you're probably going, who the hell is this?

Chris: 00:30:01

But I've learned that, um, You've got to help people along, you've

Chris: 00:30:06

got to help them in their mission of what they want to get a life.

Chris: 00:30:08

And if, and it's an old, old saying, but if I give you what you want,

Chris: 00:30:12

then you'll give me what I want.

Chris: 00:30:14

It's not the other way around.

Chris: 00:30:16

I've got to give first,

Crystal: 00:30:18

man, Chris, as I'm listening to you describe all of this, I can't

Crystal: 00:30:23

help, but literally consider what you did, what you just described as.

Crystal: 00:30:30

It's all the same principles and the same ideas, right?

Crystal: 00:30:33

Like earlier how I said, Oh, you put the client with the, with the stylist

Crystal: 00:30:36

and the client interaction, right?

Crystal: 00:30:38

The client is the hero of the story.

Crystal: 00:30:40

I always tell people to, um, to figure out what their desires are.

Crystal: 00:30:43

their wants, just like you said, right?

Crystal: 00:30:45

Where do they want to go in their life with their hair?

Crystal: 00:30:48

How can you help them?

Crystal: 00:30:49

How can you set the stage for this is our relationship that we're having together?

Crystal: 00:30:54

It's literally the same thing, but it's the salon owner putting the stylist

Crystal: 00:30:59

as the hero of that story, right?

Crystal: 00:31:01

And they're the mentor and they're the guide.

Crystal: 00:31:03

And so I just, I love this so much because I feel like you

Crystal: 00:31:06

can step back so many layers.

Crystal: 00:31:09

Right?

Crystal: 00:31:09

And the same principles apply, but we try to just get in our heads

Crystal: 00:31:13

and get all confused about stuff.

Crystal: 00:31:14

And it's like, it's, it can be so beautifully simple.

Crystal: 00:31:17

So I just had to share that, that like, as you're describing

Crystal: 00:31:19

this, I'm like, Oh my God.

Crystal: 00:31:20

Yes.

Crystal: 00:31:21

Yes.

Crystal: 00:31:21

It's a, it's a consultation.

Crystal: 00:31:23

It's literally a consultation.

Crystal: 00:31:25

It's a life

Chris: 00:31:25

skill, you know, is that is if you want to get things out of life, you have

Chris: 00:31:29

to know how to communicate to people.

Chris: 00:31:31

It's just like, um, and, you know, again, I'm a hair cutter.

Chris: 00:31:35

So for the people that's scary right now, uh, just, you know, listen to me anyway.

Chris: 00:31:39

Uh, but.

Chris: 00:31:41

I always knew that I had an eye where I could tell what looked great on

Chris: 00:31:45

people, but I wasn't so bold and so in your face that I would say, this is the

Chris: 00:31:52

only thing that is going to help you.

Chris: 00:31:53

This is what you must do.

Chris: 00:31:55

So in other words, I had no, no problem.

Chris: 00:31:58

Somebody had long hair and I saw them with short hair.

Chris: 00:32:02

I knew that that's what, where they needed, but I also know that some

Chris: 00:32:05

people want to do it right away.

Chris: 00:32:06

And some people need steps.

Chris: 00:32:08

So I would never go to somebody and say, you should wear your hair

Chris: 00:32:11

short because if they said no, well, then I'm kind of out in that field.

Chris: 00:32:14

But if I could say to them, listen, I've got, I've got some ideas

Chris: 00:32:19

and I've got about three, four ideas that I want to run by you.

Chris: 00:32:23

And, uh, I'll, I'll talk to you about them.

Chris: 00:32:25

And then I'd love to know.

Chris: 00:32:28

Which one excites you the most and then you can go anywhere you want, you know,

Chris: 00:32:33

I can talk about, listen, I want to go like, I'm just making stuff up right now.

Chris: 00:32:37

I'm coming from the University of MSU making stuff up.

Chris: 00:32:41

I don't usually that word, but that making stuff up as well.

Chris: 00:32:44

You can put any S word you want in there.

Chris: 00:32:48

But I would say to them, look at, uh, you know, I'd love this is what

Chris: 00:32:51

I really, this look, et cetera.

Chris: 00:32:53

This is what it would do to you, but also, okay, good.

Chris: 00:32:56

That's one side.

Chris: 00:32:56

Let's set that aside for a minute.

Chris: 00:32:57

And then I would talk about something that was more medium or how we could transfer

Chris: 00:33:01

this, this link from one to the other.

Chris: 00:33:04

And, uh, and, and, and inevitably.

Chris: 00:33:07

I would always get them to the end game because I planted the seed

Chris: 00:33:12

and some would bite right away.

Chris: 00:33:13

Say, look, take it off because they trusted me.

Chris: 00:33:16

The others would say, I want to go from three to two to one and

Chris: 00:33:20

I get them there eventually.

Chris: 00:33:22

Or I might've just get them to two.

Chris: 00:33:23

That might be the only place that they ever, they ever, that was their,

Chris: 00:33:26

that was their stop line in, uh, in where their taste and where their.

Chris: 00:33:31

Uh, the fear level was so comfort.

Chris: 00:33:34

Yeah, their comfort.

Chris: 00:33:35

Yes.

Chris: 00:33:36

So, but anyway, that's, that's kind of what I feel is that's

Chris: 00:33:39

a life skill that's in there.

Chris: 00:33:40

And if you can use that in your associate program prior to telling

Chris: 00:33:45

them what they need to do to get up to what, and here's the biggest thing

Chris: 00:33:50

that I think that it's the hardest part for trainers, um, is that.

Chris: 00:33:56

They, they have internally, they have a benchmark of what work should look like.

Chris: 00:34:02

Just like, you know, to use your example, you said I went into a salon, I wanted

Chris: 00:34:07

a round brush with a nice bouncy curls.

Chris: 00:34:11

But if that girl doesn't know what round brush, round brush, bouncy waves curls

Chris: 00:34:17

are, and what she has to meet up to.

Chris: 00:34:21

Then she's floundering.

Chris: 00:34:22

That's why she had to go.

Chris: 00:34:23

Well, I usually use an iron and I can get something similar out of that.

Chris: 00:34:26

The point is, what is the salon doing to identify what is the

Chris: 00:34:31

minimum salon standard for a bob?

Chris: 00:34:34

What is the minimum salon standard for for a curling iron?

Chris: 00:34:38

It might be a root tongue or a spiral tongue or beach waves or what or or or

Chris: 00:34:43

or and what are all those disciplines and what is your minimum salon standard?

Chris: 00:34:48

If you can apply that, even if it's just use an old fashioned look book, you

Chris: 00:34:52

know, in our, in our, in our program, sort of our next step that we're adding

Chris: 00:34:56

into it is templates where you take your pictures, you put them on your template.

Chris: 00:35:03

And that is, I won't say the minimum salon standard, but that's a standard

Chris: 00:35:07

that you expect anybody to reach before they earn a spot at a chair.

Chris: 00:35:14

And I'm going to repeat that again, earn a spot.

Chris: 00:35:17

At a chair.

Chris: 00:35:18

It's not an entitlement.

Chris: 00:35:19

I didn't hire you to do this.

Chris: 00:35:21

You have to meet the salon standards.

Chris: 00:35:24

And if I can train you as quickly as possible to get up to that salon

Chris: 00:35:29

standard, I'm helping you grow.

Chris: 00:35:33

And it doesn't work the same.

Chris: 00:35:34

Like when, you know, a few years past, it was, you went under a six

Chris: 00:35:38

month to three year apprenticeship, making nothing, sweeping the floor.

Chris: 00:35:42

That taught me a lot.

Chris: 00:35:44

Sure.

Chris: 00:35:44

But what if I, what if I could work ahead?

Chris: 00:35:47

What if I'm an ambitious young person, and I, and I know that there's only one or two

Chris: 00:35:52

training nights a week or training days, um, in the week, I do not subscribe to,

Chris: 00:35:58

that was a slip of tongue, what I used to do when it was allowed, train after hours,

Chris: 00:36:04

but nowadays you can't do that, you've got, they should come in, they need to

Chris: 00:36:07

be paid, your educator needs to be paid, and you train them, but you get them up

Chris: 00:36:11

to speed as quickly as possible, however, As an associate, if I'm ambitious and I

Chris: 00:36:17

want to work ahead, then I can do that.

Chris: 00:36:20

And, and that's where the difference was, Crystal, is what I find that people want

Chris: 00:36:26

right now is, and what burns educators and salon owners out, is I'm teaching the

Chris: 00:36:33

same thing and then I get somebody on the floor and they either get caught in that

Chris: 00:36:38

revolving wheel and they go out and I got to train another one or I grow my business

Chris: 00:36:42

and I got to train another one and I'm not doing the things that I love to do.

Chris: 00:36:46

Apply, you know, apply the vision that I have for my business and doing hair.

Chris: 00:36:51

And we all know that training happens in what's called a see do environment.

Chris: 00:36:57

I've got to see it.

Chris: 00:36:58

In other words, you know, uh, Salon Owner X has to show me how to do

Chris: 00:37:03

that bouncy blow wave and blow dry, blow out, and then I've got to do it.

Chris: 00:37:10

And I have to practice it a few times until I get my standard up to

Chris: 00:37:15

at least what that is or exceeded.

Chris: 00:37:20

Then, then any, but then the owner can go, Hey, listen, I'm doing a haircut and

Chris: 00:37:24

how I can just go and do another haircut.

Chris: 00:37:27

You can do the blow dry and the stylist, the consumer is just

Chris: 00:37:31

as happy as when you did it.

Chris: 00:37:34

I mean, for those of you right now, my, I have had, uh, two trigger, trigger

Chris: 00:37:39

fingers that have, you know, from braiding and braiding and braiding

Chris: 00:37:43

and doing these avant garde looks that I, I screwed up two of my fingers,

Chris: 00:37:47

my hand, I just had surgery on them.

Chris: 00:37:49

But when I went there.

Chris: 00:37:51

The, I was in there for three, uh, I think it was three and a half hours.

Chris: 00:37:55

Uh, everybody else took care of me.

Chris: 00:37:58

There had people filling out files, doing all these things, doing this thing.

Chris: 00:38:02

I only saw, I didn't even, when I went under, I didn't even see

Chris: 00:38:05

the, uh, the, uh, the doctor.

Chris: 00:38:07

He talked to me for two minutes before we went in and no regrets.

Chris: 00:38:12

Yeah.

Chris: 00:38:12

But when, when, um, I never saw him at the end, they checked me out.

Chris: 00:38:17

So out of that three hour or four hour procedure.

Chris: 00:38:22

He, he did the operation.

Chris: 00:38:23

The operation lasted about 20 minutes.

Chris: 00:38:25

Everybody else took care of me, you know, and that's the way that you turn

Chris: 00:38:29

people into six figure stylists is you can't do every one of those stages.

Chris: 00:38:34

And, and say, Oh, look at what I did.

Chris: 00:38:36

It's how do you compartmentalize?

Chris: 00:38:38

How do you, or departmentalize what that's happening?

Chris: 00:38:41

Train my associates so that they can do the blow dry.

Chris: 00:38:43

They can do the root retouch.

Chris: 00:38:45

They can do, uh, they can do whatever I need to do so I can move

Chris: 00:38:49

on to my next higher ticket item.

Chris: 00:38:51

That's the way we make money, you know, and

Crystal: 00:38:55

then, you know, in the medical field, just to relate this

Crystal: 00:38:57

back, like they have, what's known as a standard of care, right?

Crystal: 00:39:01

So there's an assumption that every nurse, every person that worked on you,

Crystal: 00:39:04

they understand the standard of care.

Crystal: 00:39:06

So you're going to get the same level of care from everybody and

Crystal: 00:39:09

it's interesting that we don't Employ that more in the salon, right?

Crystal: 00:39:13

A typical standard of whatever you want to call it, standard of hair, right?

Crystal: 00:39:17

Oh, that's kind of a

Chris: 00:39:17

cool.

Chris: 00:39:18

Yeah.

Chris: 00:39:19

Well, it's, it, it comes from, I'm, I'm wondering, and this

Chris: 00:39:23

is not, not based on fact.

Chris: 00:39:25

It's not based on anything else other than, you know, I think

Chris: 00:39:29

that we've come, we've lived in an industry where it's so competitive.

Chris: 00:39:33

It's my it's about look at my work as opposed to the salon quality of work.

Chris: 00:39:42

So if I do, I can do an amazing haircut and that's what I want to do, then I

Chris: 00:39:46

can do that for those people that just want to do if they're only doing color.

Chris: 00:39:50

Great.

Chris: 00:39:51

Do the color.

Chris: 00:39:51

I realize nowadays, everybody's switching back and forth, but it is

Chris: 00:39:56

stay to what, you know, you don't know it and you want to know it, learn it.

Chris: 00:39:59

But the reality is whatever you're doing that cut and color, that's

Chris: 00:40:03

what they came here for you for you.

Chris: 00:40:05

You know, they came for you the highlight.

Chris: 00:40:07

They didn't come to you for the retouch.

Chris: 00:40:10

You know, the retouch can be done by any way.

Chris: 00:40:12

That's just maintenance, the creativity, the, the spark.

Chris: 00:40:17

Came from you to do the transition of the Balayage, the highlights, the custom color

Chris: 00:40:24

that whatever, but you know, you can get somebody else to apply all those things.

Chris: 00:40:29

Do the apprentice.

Chris: 00:40:29

That's now.

Chris: 00:40:30

Now they're contributing back to what their finances.

Chris: 00:40:35

We did a little study just a little bit back for this, for the show.

Chris: 00:40:39

And we were looking at what the average associate costs you.

Chris: 00:40:42

And, and, uh, I, I based it on that.

Chris: 00:40:46

If you had, uh, if you had to pay.

Chris: 00:40:48

Okay.

Chris: 00:40:48

Your, uh, we always tell the owners should not teach you if

Chris: 00:40:53

you got to do at the beginning.

Chris: 00:40:54

Great.

Chris: 00:40:55

But you train somebody else so they can take that over.

Chris: 00:40:57

And then we said if that high ticket item, let's just say they were 100.

Chris: 00:41:03

Uh, that your average ticket price with everything included,

Chris: 00:41:06

and I know it's far more than that, but let's just keep it low.

Chris: 00:41:09

That's 400 a week, times say, 50 weeks.

Chris: 00:41:12

That, there's that cost.

Chris: 00:41:14

Then, what do you, that's what you just have to, that's your lost revenue that

Chris: 00:41:19

you would be losing if an educator or the salon owner is teaching the lesson.

Chris: 00:41:25

Then, then you have to add into that, so you do that plus your 42 weeks,

Chris: 00:41:29

I think it came to, I can't remember what it was, like, I had the fingers

Chris: 00:41:34

here, but I'm just gonna let it go.

Chris: 00:41:35

Uh, then you have to pay your minimum wage or whatever that you're going to pay for

Chris: 00:41:39

your associate just for those four hours.

Chris: 00:41:42

And then you have to think about what is it that, um, uh, that

Chris: 00:41:46

you, what are you missing out on?

Chris: 00:41:47

What are the wages you have to pay for both those people?

Chris: 00:41:49

And it ranged.

Chris: 00:41:51

Anywhere between 16, 000 and 29, 000 to train an associate over six months.

Chris: 00:41:58

Wow.

Chris: 00:41:58

So, you know, our mission is how do you get them on the floor contributing faster

Chris: 00:42:06

so that they're paying for themselves?

Chris: 00:42:09

You're not having to go out of pocket and to me, that's the, that's the biggest

Chris: 00:42:14

thing about the associate programs.

Chris: 00:42:16

So we help to train them on what's your, uh, what's the standard of

Chris: 00:42:21

the shampoo that you're doing?

Chris: 00:42:22

What's the standard of being able to, um, even for, uh, for rinsing out a foil and

Chris: 00:42:28

a, uh, and a retouch at the same time.

Chris: 00:42:31

So you're not mixing together for your blow dries.

Chris: 00:42:33

What is it?

Chris: 00:42:34

And then as you consider past, we always say, We don't, we don't feel that you

Chris: 00:42:38

should train haircutting in at least the first month or so of your training.

Chris: 00:42:43

It should be all on the standards for the minimum services that they

Chris: 00:42:46

can contribute to financially, then get them on their cutting program.

Chris: 00:42:51

I had an interesting conversation with a, with a young lady out of Alabama just

Chris: 00:42:55

the other day, who's using the program, and she says that we also do, uh, before

Chris: 00:43:00

they can graduate onto the floor, what we do is we have opportunity days.

Chris: 00:43:04

And Saturday is our Saturday is our slowest day.

Chris: 00:43:08

That still freaks me out because in my era, that was always the busiest

Chris: 00:43:11

day, but she said that that's our opportunity day because it's the slowest

Chris: 00:43:16

day and that's where we put our juniors on the floor and they have to do.

Chris: 00:43:22

At least just a minimum of two clients a week in order to graduate, you have

Chris: 00:43:28

to, and these are people you have to bring in to the fold and then, uh,

Chris: 00:43:33

and, and they're paid for services.

Chris: 00:43:35

They're just at a lower rate, et cetera.

Chris: 00:43:36

So in the, in the program that we have, we have quizzes that so you, we can

Chris: 00:43:42

tell that, you know, the information and you've gone through the information.

Chris: 00:43:46

So the C do that we do instead of you doing the C and the

Chris: 00:43:50

associate doing the do the repeat.

Chris: 00:43:52

Okay.

Chris: 00:43:53

We do it with the videos where you we train them on the videos in some, uh,

Chris: 00:43:58

in segments of what you do, they do it.

Chris: 00:44:01

And then all the owner or the educator has to do is check their work.

Chris: 00:44:07

So they're still behind the chair.

Chris: 00:44:09

They're still earning.

Chris: 00:44:11

So the main income that you have to worry about is just how do you get them

Chris: 00:44:15

on the floor quickly so that they're taking over service that the educator

Chris: 00:44:20

is, or that the senior stylist is doing so that pays for their wages.

Chris: 00:44:26

Wow.

Chris: 00:44:27

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:44:28

Chris, all of this is so great.

Crystal: 00:44:30

Um, I've, I've enjoyed all of this conversation.

Crystal: 00:44:33

I do feel like some of it is a little bit.

Crystal: 00:44:35

high level thinking, right?

Crystal: 00:44:37

And like, it's kind of hard to wrap our brains around if this is the

Crystal: 00:44:40

first time we've heard this kind of conversation and information happening.

Crystal: 00:44:44

So I would love for you, like if I have some listeners that are

Crystal: 00:44:47

like associate curious, right?

Crystal: 00:44:49

Like maybe they're independent stylists that are ready to take on an assistant

Crystal: 00:44:52

or maybe they're salon owners that are like, Hey, this sounds pretty awesome.

Crystal: 00:44:56

What would be like step one to dip their toes in something

Chris: 00:45:00

like this?

Chris: 00:45:01

Uh, now you're referring to step one as if you want to take on an associate.

Chris: 00:45:05

Is that what you're saying?

Chris: 00:45:06

Yeah, or

Crystal: 00:45:06

like if you're yeah, if you're gonna take on an associate,

Crystal: 00:45:09

what's like the best first steps here?

Chris: 00:45:12

Yeah, well the to me is is um assessment Um, you know usually and this

Chris: 00:45:19

is what I hear from so many people right now that I They're people are having such

Chris: 00:45:22

a hard time hiring That they, they want them just to pass the mirror test, you

Chris: 00:45:28

know, put a mirror underneath your nose.

Chris: 00:45:30

If it fogs, you got the job problem is you're bringing in all of the other

Chris: 00:45:35

problems that they've had before.

Chris: 00:45:37

That makes sense.

Chris: 00:45:38

So what we say is you need to assess.

Chris: 00:45:40

And that's one thing about the training program that we have is that we

Chris: 00:45:44

build in assessments, one of which is what we call a new hire assessment.

Chris: 00:45:49

And inside there, you would, I would hire them.

Chris: 00:45:52

Because you, they, they're going to come from a variety of sources.

Chris: 00:45:55

They're going to come from a school.

Chris: 00:45:57

They're going to come from another salon, uh, or wherever.

Chris: 00:46:01

But you need to know what their level is from the minimum

Chris: 00:46:05

salon standard that you have.

Chris: 00:46:07

So before you hire them, you know where they stand.

Chris: 00:46:11

Now, so many people will say to me, Chris, Uh, you handsome devil.

Chris: 00:46:15

Um, see everybody laughs when I say that too.

Chris: 00:46:19

So we'll just say, so Chris, um, and what I'd say to them is look at

Chris: 00:46:24

get up, you know, is get them to do come in and on their first visit,

Chris: 00:46:30

they should do, um, a haircut.

Chris: 00:46:33

That includes, uh, you know, a iron work or and a blow dry

Chris: 00:46:38

and, and here's the kicker.

Chris: 00:46:40

Did they sell any retail?

Chris: 00:46:43

Did they talk about retail?

Chris: 00:46:44

Did they purchase it or not?

Chris: 00:46:46

And when we bring this up, we have a.

Chris: 00:46:52

We have a form that you fill out and you just grade them.

Chris: 00:46:56

Now, this to many is going to sound like, oh, they did bad, so I don't hire.

Chris: 00:47:02

And that's not what this is at all.

Chris: 00:47:03

It's an assessment, so you know what to train on.

Chris: 00:47:08

And you ask, you can ask them at the end, is Are you willing to go through this?

Chris: 00:47:13

Cause this is going to be your training program.

Chris: 00:47:16

So just hiring and getting somebody to do stuff can set it up for a

Chris: 00:47:21

consumer, the person that's coming in.

Chris: 00:47:24

And if you're getting them to jump in and do the color service, the blow dry,

Chris: 00:47:26

the whatever, and it doesn't meet your standard, that could be a bye bye notice.

Chris: 00:47:32

You know, client goes, Oh, well, I'm not, you know, crystal is just

Chris: 00:47:35

now pawning me off on somebody who doesn't do as good a job.

Chris: 00:47:38

Therefore, my trust and my loyalty has gone away.

Chris: 00:47:42

So the first step that I would say, assess, simple assessment, do it on one

Chris: 00:47:49

visit, where they bring in a customer, they bring in a client, they do the cut,

Chris: 00:47:55

the color, the iron work, the retailing.

Chris: 00:47:57

And you grade them on it.

Chris: 00:47:59

Secondly, they come back for a second visit.

Chris: 00:48:01

And they bring in a color client.

Chris: 00:48:04

Could be the one that they did the week before.

Chris: 00:48:06

They have to do, uh, uh, a retouch.

Chris: 00:48:09

You're gonna ask them to do a foiling.

Chris: 00:48:12

You know, and that, they could do that on a mannequin as well.

Chris: 00:48:15

You know, if they can't find somebody to do it.

Chris: 00:48:17

Because you want them to do a couple of different patterns.

Chris: 00:48:20

So you find out what their blow dry skills, uh, what their, what their foiling

Chris: 00:48:24

skills are like, and again, not to hire, not to fire, but to grade so that you

Chris: 00:48:31

know what your training schedule is with.

Chris: 00:48:34

And here's the other thing, is so many people will bring somebody on and say,

Chris: 00:48:44

you have to know everything before I'm going to grant you access to something.

Chris: 00:48:48

Right.

Chris: 00:48:49

At least that's the way when we trained, you had to be good at cutting.

Chris: 00:48:52

You had to be able to do it.

Chris: 00:48:53

All of this, you had to have your 10 haircuts that you had

Chris: 00:48:55

to do, and you had to do them.

Chris: 00:48:56

Well, uh, they had to be repeated 10 times so that you showed you were consistent.

Chris: 00:49:02

And, um, you can't do that anymore.

Chris: 00:49:06

You've got it.

Chris: 00:49:06

They want to be on the floor.

Chris: 00:49:07

They want to get to it as quickly as possible.

Chris: 00:49:10

So if they can do a shampoo as, and you graded them on their

Chris: 00:49:13

shampoo, they can do it, get them doing the shampoos right away.

Chris: 00:49:16

If they can do a color.

Chris: 00:49:18

Excuse me.

Chris: 00:49:19

I don't remember eating that.

Chris: 00:49:20

Um, okay.

Chris: 00:49:25

Old jokes.

Chris: 00:49:26

Old jokes.

Chris: 00:49:27

Um, if they can do a, a, a, a proper.

Chris: 00:49:33

Uh, retouch that meets your standard, get them doing it right away.

Chris: 00:49:37

You know, you, they don't have to wait the two weeks, the three weeks.

Chris: 00:49:39

Get them to do the skills that they do really well, get them on

Chris: 00:49:42

the floor, get them participating financially, and then train on the rest.

Chris: 00:49:47

Simple.

Chris: 00:49:48

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:49:49

Man.

Crystal: 00:49:50

It's so funny because when you describe it, it sounds so simple, but if you've

Crystal: 00:49:53

never even thought about this before.

Crystal: 00:49:55

Like, I've had assistants before too, right?

Crystal: 00:49:58

And it was like, I didn't know what I was doing.

Crystal: 00:49:59

I just had someone that was curious and wanted to come learn from me.

Crystal: 00:50:02

So I was like, sure, come on in.

Crystal: 00:50:04

I didn't have any systems.

Crystal: 00:50:05

I didn't have any processes.

Crystal: 00:50:06

It was just like winging it the whole time.

Crystal: 00:50:08

And it was kind of clumsy.

Crystal: 00:50:10

And it took a long time.

Crystal: 00:50:11

So I love that.

Crystal: 00:50:12

Um, Chris, I would love for you to tell me if my listeners would like to get ahold

Crystal: 00:50:17

of you and learn a little more from you.

Crystal: 00:50:20

Where can they find you on this?

Crystal: 00:50:21

Big wide internet.

Crystal: 00:50:23

Yeah.

Chris: 00:50:23

Well, first of all, thank you.

Chris: 00:50:25

And, and the, the best way to do is, uh, is, uh, go to, um, trainers playbook.

Chris: 00:50:32

com trainers playbook.

Chris: 00:50:35

com.

Chris: 00:50:36

And that will give you all of the assets that we do.

Chris: 00:50:39

And we have on there.

Chris: 00:50:40

And if they want to go inside there, then, uh, inside there, that'll

Chris: 00:50:44

talk about the salon associate.

Chris: 00:50:47

Program that we have.

Chris: 00:50:49

So, uh, and I believe, um, we have a short site, a shortcut to that.

Chris: 00:50:58

Um, and I think if it's just.

Chris: 00:51:02

Uh, I'm afraid I'm going to give the wrong information,

Chris: 00:51:05

but I know there's a bitly bit.

Chris: 00:51:07

ly slash, um, slash trainers playbook, I believe is what it's called.

Chris: 00:51:14

And they can go there as well.

Chris: 00:51:15

It's a shortcut to get to it, but it'll tell it gives all the stuff

Chris: 00:51:18

that we do on there, but that'll take them right to salon associate

Chris: 00:51:22

training and it's on there.

Chris: 00:51:23

And what we've done is we figured out that based on if you look at that, somebody

Chris: 00:51:28

is training anywhere between 16, 000 and.

Chris: 00:51:31

Um, and 29, 000 to train over six months.

Chris: 00:51:35

And if you can do that and do that for a price that's marginal on that,

Chris: 00:51:41

then it makes it worth your while to have somebody else to do the training

Chris: 00:51:45

and then free up your own time.

Crystal: 00:51:48

Amazing.

Crystal: 00:51:48

I will make sure to have links to those in the show notes here

Crystal: 00:51:51

to make it simple for everybody.

Crystal: 00:51:53

Um, and then last quick question for you here on social media, do you, are you

Crystal: 00:51:57

the one that handles your social media?

Crystal: 00:51:59

Like if someone sent you a DM, is it you, or do you have an assistant doing that for

Chris: 00:52:02

you?

Chris: 00:52:03

Yes.

Chris: 00:52:03

I mean, first of all, you're a parent and you take a look at my, my grizzly

Chris: 00:52:07

beard, my white hair and you went, no, he probably doesn't do his own.

Chris: 00:52:10

Uh, you're very correct on that.

Chris: 00:52:11

I have, I have my peeps look after a lot of that.

Chris: 00:52:14

I do get into some of it when they, when they get to it because, uh, they

Chris: 00:52:18

deal with it much faster than I do.

Chris: 00:52:20

But if they DM even at, um, even at, at coach Chris Barron.

Chris: 00:52:26

And that's, uh, C-O-A-C-H-C-H-R-I-S and then B-A-R-A-N.

Chris: 00:52:32

Then that'll get right to this, either myself or people, and my

Chris: 00:52:36

peeps will take care of them.

Crystal: 00:52:38

Wonderful.

Crystal: 00:52:39

Well, Chris, this has been such a pleasure to have you on here, and

Crystal: 00:52:42

I feel like we could just spin in circles about this stuff all day long.

Crystal: 00:52:45

'cause like I'm just nodding the whole time as you're talking.

Crystal: 00:52:48

Yeah.

Crystal: 00:52:49

I'm like, yes.

Crystal: 00:52:49

I love it.

Crystal: 00:52:50

I love it.

Crystal: 00:52:51

It's obvious that you have.

Crystal: 00:52:52

Um, experience in this industry and that you have some great stuff to share.

Crystal: 00:52:57

So I can't wait to get this episode out there for you.

Crystal: 00:53:00

And again, just thanks so much for coming on today.

Chris: 00:53:02

It was absolutely my pleasure.

Crystal: 00:53:04

Awesome.

Crystal: 00:53:05

Okay, well, we'll be in touch and uh, I guess I'll see your

Crystal: 00:53:07

peeps on Instagram, . Thank you.

Crystal: 00:53:10

Okay, bye-Bye.

Crystal: 00:53:13

I mean, did he, or did he not deliver?

Crystal: 00:53:17

That was fantastic, right?

Crystal: 00:53:20

I mean, thanks again to.

Crystal: 00:53:21

Coach Chris Barron for coming on the show and sharing those

Crystal: 00:53:24

little nuggets of wisdom with us.

Crystal: 00:53:27

Um, I truly feel like conversations like this are going to change and shape

Crystal: 00:53:33

our industry for the better, really.

Crystal: 00:53:35

So excuse me and my cold.

Crystal: 00:53:38

Uh, I hope that you got some helpful insights and little nuggets to carry

Crystal: 00:53:43

with you of ins inspiration and information, um, moving forward.

Crystal: 00:53:49

And also, if you enjoyed this podcast episode, friend, I have an ask of you.

Crystal: 00:53:54

Will you share this with a fellow stylist that you think would enjoy it and gain

Crystal: 00:54:00

something from it and, um, pass it on?

Crystal: 00:54:03

Maybe send it in a text message.

Crystal: 00:54:04

I know when I send my friends Text messages with links to podcasts.

Crystal: 00:54:08

I usually get responses from them.

Crystal: 00:54:11

And when they do it to me, I actually go look.

Crystal: 00:54:12

So, um, what I'm trying to say is tell your neighbor, tell your friends, if

Crystal: 00:54:17

you liked this, it definitely helps share the message, spread the joy if

Crystal: 00:54:22

we share it with more stylists, right?

Crystal: 00:54:24

So, um, thank you so much for listening.

Crystal: 00:54:27

It's always a pleasure for me to be here as your hair mentor.

Crystal: 00:54:31

And as I always love to say, Have a wonderful hair day my friend,

Crystal: 00:54:35

and I'll see you next time.

Crystal: 00:54:37

K bye!