ep91 – Frank Gambuzza

Can’t wait to share this week’s podcast guest. He is a salon owner with over 170 employees across six brands, a former VP and president of Intercoiffure America and Canada, and a board member of Summit Salon Business Center. His salon has been voted Best Barber Shop in America multiple times and he’s recognized by Self magazine as one of the top 30 hairdressers in America. He is the co-founder of Strictly Business Seminars and is a sought-after public speaker. Let’s welcome Frank Gambuzza!

• 5:13 Frank’s journey in the beauty industry
• 12:32 The evolution of Men’s hairdressing
• 18:06 The importance of Culture and Education in Men’s Salons
• 24:33 Challenges and Lessons in Business Growth
• 25:00 Reflections on Business Failures and Lessons Learned
• 1:09:00 Final thoughts and contact information

Contact Frank: frank@salonvisage.com

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Complete Transcript

Chris Baran 0:00
How great would it be to get up close and personal with the beauty industry heroes we love and admire and to ask them, How did you learn to do what you do? I’m Chris Baran, a hairstylist and educator for 40 plus years, and I’m inviting all our heroes to chat and share the secrets of their success. You

Well, welcome to this week’s episode of head cases. And I have to tell you this, I just had the most amazing conversation with one of the industry’s business legends. And I have to tell you he is, besides being a good friend, he is a salon owner. He has over 170 employees that he has spread across six brands. He has been voted best barber shop in America multiple times. He services up to 600 clients a day. He’s recognized by Self Magazine as one of the top 30 hairdressers in America. He’s the former VP and president of intercoire America and Canada. He is a partner and board member of Summit salon Business Center. He is an internationally sought after speaker and the co founder of Strictly Business Seminars. So let’s get into this week’s head case the business guru, Mr. Frank Gambuzza,well, Frank, welcome to head cases. It has been too damn long since you and I have had a chance to talk to one another, but I was so excited when you agreed to come on here. So welcome. Thanks, Chris, thanks having me. And yeah, you’re right. It seems like if it was only two weeks, it’d be too long, because every time we talk, it tends to be very energetic and inspiring. So thanks for having me. Yeah, and, and I will say we’re all also there for the comedic value, which I love. So I have to say this now, do we call you Mr. Legend now? Or is it?

Do we have to go by Sir Frank or anything.

Frank Gambuzza 2:03
I think I know wherre you go with this.

Chris Baran 2:05
Yeah. Well, is this so the people watching and listening now that Frank Woolley, who is a photographer, hairdresser, etc, out of London, put together, in a different year, put together the North American Legends out of the that were British. And he just got finished doing the North American legends in hair, and Mr. Gambuzza, you were on that list. So I have to say, congratulations. It was it’s a pleasure to know you, and believe me, well deserved. So how did it feel when when they contacted you about that?

it was very flattering, and I’m honored to have been a part of that with such great people. Yeah, well, congratulations again. I’m just looking at it right now and and you picture, you’re surrounded by, you know, other great people you got, I got

outcome, the barber, the barbers from from Amsterdam, what’s grown strong? They’re just right around you. You got laces just around you. You know, there’s all these amazing people that are on this sheet and that that put, that that put that, he put together, and it’s phenomenal. I would highly suggest anybody that’s listening or watching, if you go on to, I believe it’s called a mark Woolley electric, I think is the name of the site, yes. And if you go on there, you’ll be able to see it. And it’s just an amazing piece of work. And once again, congratulations. And I know that sometimes it’s just really good to have that recognition for everything you did, you put in and you did, you did put that in. Iva,

Frank Gambuzza 4:24
oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I think hats off. Go to mark too. You know, sometimes you can do that, and you can do things good, and then you could do things great. And I think the level of excellence in which he executed that, and the amount of time and effort he put into it, it really made it something special. And it it made it somewhat, you know, legacy, like for the industry, more so than just us individuals. I think it speaks for the whole industry, yeah, which would be darn nice if they would do more of that outside of our industry, to let us let people know. You know, all the greats that are in the industry, and I think sometimes.

Chris Baran 5:00
Times, even the students that are going to school, you know, a lot of them nowadays that I, let me rephrase that. What’s nice about this is if people can look at it and know that they’re their peers, and there’s the people that they can look up to and know where a lot of the things came from, whether it’s hair or business or whatever. So and I know that you’ve done both. I mean, you’ve done that. You’ve, you know, you’ve been a bar, you were barber first, then a hairdresser, and now you have successful businesses. You travel the world, talking on business and helping people to be good, good business people, because it’s always nice to have the skill, but it’s nice to make money too, and be able to have a good, positive experience. But So tell us a little bit. How did your hair story start?

Frank Gambuzza 5:45
Because I started back when I was a freshman in high school. Actually, it was previous to that I was shining shoes in barbershops. I say barbershops. It was one, one barbershop in specific.

I grew up in a small town in West New York, New Jersey, and I was shining shoes in taverns. And my father wasn’t big on me going into the bars to shine shoes and hanging around a bunch of degenerates.

He said, You gotta go find a spot. And he knew a local barber by the name of Giuseppe Vita Lupo in English, Joe Lupo and I started shining shoes and Joe lupo’s Continental barbershop, and at the time it was, it was men’s hair styling, it was barbering, was kind of passe, and men’s hair styling was in Yeah. And it was just a I fell in love with the atmosphere. Immediately, not only the staff that I work with. But the clients that come in, and they would come in dressed up and hats and fedoras and cashmere coats and and I got to shine their shoes and but the stories and the environment just was something that I was excited. I was excited to go to work. And, you know, I was quite young doing it, but in the inner city you come from, you know, a family of five boys. If you want anything extra, you’re going to go out and have to make the money to get it. So you want to hustle, yeah, yeah. You gotta get a job if you want something. So, you know, obviously, I thought my father and mom always provided food and clothing and a place to sleep. But at the end of the day, if I wanted, you know, Chuck teleconverse Back then I had to go find nine $9.99

Chris Baran 7:24
Yeah. So, yeah. So I started off in the barber shop. Fell in love with the atmosphere and became a barber first. Yeah. I think if they didn’t believe that you’ve been in the business for 53 years, when you said $9 for a pair of Converse, they would they immediately went, Oh, okay, I get it. That was

Frank Gambuzza 7:41
how to get, I wouldn’t even had to get to the 99 cents, right? Just a $9 $9 Yeah, that’s right. So, I mean, that’s amazing. So how? Okay, so you went from there shining shoes. So how, what was the transition to hair? What did you go to barber and then hair? Or the other way around? Well, actually, in New Jersey at the time, there were no there were no barber schools. Oh, so the only way to become a barber is you had an apprentice under a Master Barber for 18 months. Oh, wow. And so I talked to the fellow Joe who I worked for, and, you know, he thought I had a real interest in it, because I was always watching and asking questions, and I was fascinated by seeing some guy come in with like, shabby hair and leaving looking like a well groomed man and things. My father was a carpenter, so he built houses. So there was times where he’d take us on a Sunday for a ride to show us the house he’s working on. But the thing is, it took a year to a year and a half to see it come to fruition. So if you went once a month, you really didn’t notice change. And what I loved about the barbershop was, within 30 to 45 minutes, you saw a guy looking like he might have been jobless, to look like he was the CEO at a company he worked for. And that instant gratification and that, wow. Fact that kind of grabbed me, you know, I was like, I could see myself doing that, yeah. So I was a barber first, and like I say, I had to serve an apprenticeship.

And what the apprenticeship is in New Jersey was then, I’m not sure what it is. Now, I’ve moved out of there 40 years ago, but that just gave you the ability to take the barber test for a barber’s license. So it was that person, the mentor, if you would, who was responsible for preparing you to be able to pass that test. So, and you know, I had the full shave, and I was practicing on balloons, and I had to do scissor of a comb, and you know, you know, you can only move your thumb. And he had me practice in Cicero with comb up and down the side of a doorway just to make sure, you know, I wasn’t chomping and you know, I was able to pass my test. I passed my test at age 16. I was able to take my test at 16, and so I was doing men’s hair, but then all of a sudden I was like a junior in you.

High School, and I thought maybe it’d be better to do women’s there than men’s

my interest shifted, yes, yeah. So I did. What I did is I went to the Delta students in London, and they had, they had one in New York, and I took a weekend class in New York first. It was a two day seminar. It was on 57th Street. It actually eventually became the Paul Mitchell Academy, but this is 1971

Yeah, and I took a two day seminar in New York and just a whole nother world, yeah, with watching the way they were doing sections, because Barbara was basically scissor McCone grabbing hair, you know, like dragging it just because most of it was just perimeter cutting tapered necklines, you know, clean clean air. And then the interior part of the heck, I was just cutting off some edges because you kept it long. So when I saw this full Sassoon thing and breaking down a haircut and, and I understood it, you know, I was always fairly good with math and pretty organized and and I just saw the neat approach to being able to to get a finished result in advance, like they told us what it was going to look like, and then pick the proper techniques and tools and products to get it. And it landed there. And I was like, wow, this is, this is, like, amazing. So it took my whole thought process to that’s hair design, you know, with barbering, we were kind of trained to take hair off, right? And, you know, and then with the Sassoon, thing that I saw at first was they were talking, talking about leaving hair on. So it was, it was kind of an adverse approach to to get in a finished product. So from, from the New York system weekend, then I, I took off to London for, I think it was a 10 day seminar. Might have been two, five day weeks. And it just changed everything for me. I mean, I came home, I threw my clothes out, went shopping, just, you know, different tools, the whole thing. So, yeah, I started the women’s hair, and then, you know, the scrum guys, actually, I need to kind of give kudos to those guys, because in 2010

they were kind of on fire over in Rotterdam and getting all this pub. And I said, Wait a second, that’s my that’s my background. I did that, you know. So I said, I’m going to try that out and do it again. And everybody in the industry at the time, another major manufacturer that you and I both know, did some studies, you can’t make money doing men’s hair, they kind of told me I was crazy for doing it. And the you know, first to market sometimes cost you, because if you’re too soon, it’s hard to withstand that, right? But the timing was perfect to be first to market in 2010

we opened up French barbershop in Knoxville, and

Chris Baran 12:49
I put seven chairs in. I thought it would be plenty. And six months in, we return clients away. So we put seven chairs, seven more chairs in, and today it’s a 14 chair barber shop that cranks daily. It just stays packed. Yeah, because, you know, it’s funny, Frank, they they always talked about, and I remember that when they were talking about how, you know, well, I remember when we were doing hair in would have been in the 70s, they said that everything was like precision hair cutting and and, you know, the the high end salons kept going, the low end salons kept going. But it kind of ruled out the middle salon. And it also affected greatly the barber shops, because the people that were the men wanted to go for this precision shape. So, like you, you know, you, you went and learned precision, how to create these shapes then and then back in what would it? When was it like? And actually, you’re right, it was it kind of coasted. And then 2010 everybody’s cutting their hair off, and they’re having bald fades, etc, etc. And normally, they always say that a trend will last about about six years, two years in, two years hot, two years out, but this has lasted, you know, much longer. And I think it’s what would you put that down to? Why do you think that it wasn’t just a flash in the pan? Why was it that that we’re still at this 14 years later, and men’s hair is still as popular as ever? Yeah, I would probably think it’s a culmination of two pieces to that response, Chris, I think one, I think guys did want good haircuts, yeah, but they were coming to our salon and or their wife salon, or the mother salon or their girlfriend’s salon, and they were coming in like a deer in the headlights, like, Yeah, Whoa. What you know, so to get a good haircut, it was an uncomfortable feeling. So I think when we opened the barbershop, it was kind of like our tagline was, men belong here. So they created kind of a basement like environment with some sports, you know, some some games. We got pool tables.

And darkboards and whatnot. And I think it just gave them the comfort to be in a place that they were in their friend’s basement getting haircut, you know. So I think they were getting the result they were looking for, with a really good haircut without having gone through the pain of sitting in a, quote, unisex upscale salon doing it, yeah, yeah, that was, it’s really interesting because I and I think there’s, there’s also been a change all around in our industry, whether it’s you’ve got a basement environment or a spa like effect for men, etc, it really has changed, where it’s isolated back and a lot of men now are really going to,

they’re going to barber shops that are specific to them. To that point, I just have to remember, to the point you were talking about earlier, where you were saying that men went to and had to be a bit uncomfortable.

Had to be a bit uncomfortable in order to get the good haircut by going to a salon prior to that. And I had a good friend of mine who was a photographer and, and, and he was, he’s Asian, and so he said, Chris, I like my hair, and I like to move off the face. And that’s when we used to do off the off the off the rod perming, and we do it just to get waves in the hair. And, and I suggested, okay, we’re going to perm your hair. And he said, Okay, good, as long do that, but don’t put that, but don’t put me anywhere anybody can see me. So I put him over in the dryer area, but I had completely forgotten that on that side, that’s where his wind where windows were and people were always parking there, parking their cars. And to this day, he still ribs me about the fact that he he wanted to be private, and I put him right beside a window, and everybody could see him with perm rods in his hair at a time when it wasn’t okay to have perm rods in your hair, exactly. Yeah, I think that as stylists, what we thought was ordinary wasn’t the right thing for men.

But you know, you know what? That’s a perfect example of, though. And I talked to my staff about this, a lot we all do to management is we’re so comfortable in our environment, we forget how they feel inside our space, right? So you were dealing with the inside of your store, and it was away from the crowded dance floor, and it was over in the corner, but at the same time that that’s not where they were, that’s not their comfort zone, that’s yours, whether it be the music we’re listening to, whether it be the temperature we keep a salon at, you know, whether we’re walking through because we got we’re preoccupied, or forget to say hello to a new guest, it is really a lesson there for us to realize that we got to behave in their space. We can’t expect them to adjust to ours, right, right? And I think that goes to both ways, to men and women in whatever you’re doing, because nowadays it’s just, it’s, it is, it’s, it’s not a it’s a shopping experience where the where the the clients are shopping you out, you know, it’s what’s drawing them in, is, is Instagram, and how well you do hair and so on and and because there’s so and let’s face it, where it used to be when You and I started, there wasn’t that many people around that could cut hair systematically and really do a great shape. And you were the standout in the crowd. Burst to market, as you said, right? But let’s face it, most the work that everybody’s get is doing now. Most people can do well.

So if you don’t do it well, and you don’t make it a positive experience. As you were saying something, that there’s value in what you get, besides just having a good haircut, what’s the atmosphere, the temperature like in there? And when I say temperature, I don’t mean hot or cold, but how do you feel in the room? What’s the culture of it? So you feel like you belong. You know,

Frank Gambuzza 18:41
Chris, at the end of the day, the client that’s coming to you is probably passing anywhere between eight to 12 salons from their house to you, right? So, so why you Yeah, you know what? You know what? Why are they coming to us? Because the talent

you’ve been on that fell. I’m sorry. Am I okay? Now?

I should be back. Okay. So, I mean, you’ve been on stages all over the world. How many headdresses you train? Belinda, been on stages. I’ve been on stages. Sam’s been on you got all these people I’ve been on stages. I mean, we, we had to wait till information came from European fashion shows back in the day. Yeah, to New York, and then from New York, I had to wait, you know, to get it to Middle America. It took months to get it. Now, there’s something going on tonight and yeah, Milano tomorrow morning. Everybody’s got it on their phone, yeah, yeah. So you’re not going to beat the competition by just doing great hair anymore. You got to have all the you can’t you got to be hitting on all cylinders, right? And I think you have to have a great leader within the organization, you know? And that there’s always that old saying is, do you want to be a part of a a great salon, or do you want to be a part of a where you can be your own leader in it, but you’re, you’ve got the sim.

Chris Baran 20:00
Any conductor, you can be great at what you do, but somebody’s got to lead the band. Yeah, that’s why I think that that I remember being at

at your salon, and I did, did a couple of gigs at Salon visage, and I remember that I did a two day booking at your place, and I was struck right away that your place was different culturally than most places that I’d ever been to, and where it really stuck out to me is that I think we did on the first day. I can’t even was the first day or both days. And I said, Well, so what do you guys want to do? What do you want me to teach? And you just said, I want you to work with my staff. Just walk around, walk around with the staff. And then if they have a problem, I want them to bring it up to you, etc. And quite frankly, that scared to beat Jesus out of me, because I wasn’t just doing what I was familiar with. But the reality was, it was fun, you know, and you had this camaraderie with all the other people there that that if they had a problem, they’d call you over, and the culture that you had, the client wasn’t upset. So, yeah, very much. A cook. We have that culture. It’s, it’s definitely, I mean, I don’t want to call it a teaching salon, like, you know, hospitals call themselves teaching hospitals, but education and health from each other, and it has to be, you got to have the ability to go to somebody who might know a little bit better in certain scenarios, and because if your ego gets in the way, you’re never going to learn it, and the client’s not going to come back. So nobody wins, yeah, nobody wins. But I remember you being down here. That’s a while back, and that was, I’d say, more than two years ago. We’ll just leave it at

that. Chuck Taylor’s with maybe 1199 but yeah, yeah, I remember that.

I remember one kid in particular, and I don’t remember his name, but I remember, based on that, that you said, walk around and help people with their with the problems that they’re having. And he had a young man that was in his chair, and it the hair was medium wavy to almost curly, and, and, and he always wore it in that sort of college, college haircut look. And it was just down and forward and, and the guy said, I want to get texture in my hair, because that’s in the times when everybody had texture in the hair and and when. And I remember the stylist that I was working with, he says, I’ve tried everything on his hair, and I just can’t get it to

to get texture. And so I said, Well, have you ever tried anything where you’re just cutting into it, much like you would if you looked at a pineapple and you saw the way that the bees were cut into it, and you cut it almost to the scalp, and but you did these V’s in the shape.

And I just remember after that it scared the bee Jesus out of them. But I went in with the first few, and I just cut these V’s so it didn’t go to the scalp, but it just it gave these V shaped sections in it. So if he just ran his fingers through the hair, it would give texture, but if he put product in, he actually could get hair so that had some texture inside it. And he did the rest of the haircut. And blew me away, because he just went, Okay, I’m in there like swimwear. So it was just a awesome experience. So if you did that with him, I’m sure you did something with the person to his left, something to the person to his right, but that became their seminar, right? Yeah, a lot of times when we bring people in, they give us their seminar. And, you know, it might be great for 50% of the room, but the other 50 may have missed it, right? I think what happens with that kind of one on one thing, and when the atmosphere breeds

Frank Gambuzza 23:40
education, yeah, they’re not insecure to ask. And I think what happens is, you took that kid to the next level that day, right? And I I think that’s what Miss. That’s what people miss with online learning to an extent. I mean, yeah, I love the online learning for 66% of it, but I still think you got to get in there for that other third, and then screw up the pineapple sometimes.

Chris Baran 24:08
Yeah, and I think, and this is, this is certainly an opinion. It’s not written down anywhere, but I do feel when, because I was, I don’t see us as sooner that I work for them, but I was a soon freak, like you were, but everything was based around cutting the hair to do something, and you just weren’t afraid. You just weren’t afraid to do something because you knew the results you were gonna get and if that’s what they want, you did it, and if the technique was different. So what? You just did it. So, you know, cutting V’s in the hair at that time, to me, was normal, but to other people who have never done it before, and you’re worried about your clients and are they going to come back, it can compound it, unless you have that confidence and that strength within in order to do what’s just right when it comes to a haircut, yeah, and, you know, it don’t happen overnight, right? That’s why, I mean, you got you.

Frank Gambuzza 25:00
Gotta, you gotta constantly

Chris Baran 25:02
wear the head of a student. I mean, we look, I was in Dallas last weekend at barbacon. Yeah, I’m there with like 21 year old barbers that have been doing here for like nine days. I’m here 53 and I’m watching them like a hawk, saying, Yeah, because they were fearless. Yeah, they were fearless. So I left there energized. I left there excited. So we just all have so much to offer each other that, you know, we can’t think of it as like kind of hierarchy, as much as, you know, just freedom to learn. Yeah, and I think you hit on a good point there that I really loved, because that kid that was that Barbican was 23 years old, but that same 23 year old kid that said barbacon is in a salon a barber shop, and he’s he’s doing cool stuff, and that he could be sitting next door to a senior person who doesn’t have that energy yet, and that’s what I think is so important for right now, whether you’re in a salon or a barber shop or wherever is, remember, these Kids are out there that they can do some

cool shit there, and they’re not, and they’re fearless, you know? And I think that, you know, sometimes, as we work our way through the business, and if we’re worried about money, we’re worried about a client leaving, and then you send you tend to let your guard down, and you’re not doing what you needed to do. You know, what’s right that I need to do on this head of hair? You know, it’s their right to say no, but we have to tell them what that is. And I think that’s come just from consultations and confidence in you.

Frank Gambuzza 26:33
Yeah, you say that about the young kid. Years ago, I’ve had the great pleasure of touring Australia three times in all capital cities, teaching, and it was more business management than it was headdressing. So I can remember being in Melbourne one night, and it was an older gentleman in the back of the room. The place was packed. It was probably 1000 people, standing room only and talking business, and most of it resonated, right? Business Principles or business principles, you know? So there might be different taxation issues, whether it’s US or Canada. There might be different, uh, belief systems in whether you should have a small store or a larger store. But I saw this guy nodding at things to the point where I said, Man, he who is that guy? So by the end of it, you know, everybody’s saying hello, taking pictures, whatever. So I said, I want to meet that guy over there. So somebody brought him over come to find out he he owned a chain of hair salons, and he owned on the chain of restaurants, very successful guy. And he asked me if I had dinner plans. I said I didn’t. So he took me to dinner in one of his restaurants. So we had a conversation just like you and I have, and just off the cuff, hopefully inspiring somebody with something we say or something we’ve done. And this guy is somewhere along the night, he says, you know, you need three things to be successful. Because I was asking him as many questions he was asking me, right? Because I love to use those opportunities to learn. So he said, You need three things. He said. Number one, you need proper financing.

Number two, you need experience,

he said, but number three, you need enthusiasm, and that comes from the new hires. Wow, you know, so what you’re saying right there is that, because I think a lot of times there’s this belief that, hey, we’ve been here 30 years. We’re market leaders. We’re best in class. You’re lucky to work here? No, we’re lucky to have them. Yeah, you know, you got somebody who’s a leader in their class, you know, right now, we’re, we’re putting more time in recruiting, I think, than we are into any one thing. We’ve turned into a recruiting machine. Yeah, that’s, that’s amazing, you know, I it just sparked something in my mind about because, to me, that you’re recruiting, and you’re you’re getting gold into your salon, because that’s what making it, making work. And I’m sure you probably remember, you remember Don Matlack, Don and Lonnie, Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Well, Don was tell, Don was telling me that he was at a

Chris Baran 29:02
motivational seminar, business seminar, etc. And

come on. What was his name,

the

Peter Peter Vidmar. Peter Vidmar was, that was, I think, 1984 he was the Olympic gymnast. He won two golds and a silver.

And he was up there doing the speaking, and they went to a coffee break, and Don saddled up beside him, and

he said to him, what’s it like to win two gold and a silver? And Peter looked back at him, and he said, Don you don’t win silver, you lose gold.

And I think that that’s what relates so definitely to nowadays are sometimes that people in search for one thing that they really do want, but they they they hold back, and then they don’t get what they truly want. And I think when you have a business environment like because I understand.

You still do hair occasionally. Yes, you just said beforehand you were out doing football

coaches haircuts today. Yeah, it but the the so many people out there just they think, here’s my shingle on the door, and I know you have gambooses out there, and you have, you have salon visage out there, etc, and that’s part of branding. And that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about when you put your name about there, and then you think all it is is about that name, and you’ve got to be the best, and you’ve got to be the person, the go to guy. And I have to fall into that, because I think even 100 years ago and in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, when I came back from sassoons and then went and opened my own salon. It was called hair Baran, as in Mr. Baron in German, and

and I thought I was the shit, you know. I thought it was just, I had to be the guy to go to. It was, excuse me, my name that was up there. Everybody else that I trained was my was my people, my apprentices. And you learn out real quickly that that that kind of mentality doesn’t work, as opposed to teaching and helping and mentoring. And I, and I think that I when I when I got that in my head, I think everything kind of turned around for me. How do you feel about that, like within your business, about how you get from people, to get them from one place and moving them higher up and higher up so they make more, you know, Chris, in fairness to you, though, I think back then that was kind of the model, yeah, you know, people were putting a name on it, and I did that was kind of the star, and then everybody else was kind of the supporting cast. I think that was kind of the way it was back then.

Frank Gambuzza 31:43
For me, I never wanted my name on it,

because at the end of the day,

what it tells me is they may want you to be the one that does the era. You can’t do volume that way, right? But I think it depends on where you are in your career too. You say you learned it because you went through the learning curve to know that we learn what’s not working more than we we know what to do, right? So

when you’ve been in it long enough, you start realizing, I think the age gap has to get great enough, because when we first open, all employees are our age, yeah, yeah. So you’re not really a mentor, even if you’re the better hairdresser, you’re not really a mentor, because they’re not open to really taking advice from somebody their age. So what happens if you’re in it long enough? There’s three really stages of business that I think all of us go through, and the first one we’re talking about, when you’re first open, that you were barren and that kind of thing and you were the it’s it’s survival mode. We learn how to survive in business, but then we go into that next S, which is number two, and that’s success mode. We start doing well, and we start making money, and we start like paying our bills. But the third one is what we’re all striving for, and that’s sustainability, yeah, and in the sustainability mode, I think the the owner of the leader is to realize that the leader works for the staff, yeah.

I think prior to that, we think that they’re working for us, right? But true leadership is us working for the staff. And

if we can do that, then we become the king and queen maker, instead of being the king or queen. Yeah, when you can shift to being Hey, my responsibility daily, when I go in is to make kings and queens here. What can I do to make you better? How can I coach you? Yeah, and how can I instead of chewing you out if you’re doing something wrong, why don’t I put my arm around you and kind of coach you and and hug you the most when you deserve it the least. Wow.

You know, I think that’s what breeds that kind of environment of people wanting to play for you.

Wow, that that’s profound. Hug them the most when they when they need it, the least is not when they deserve when they deserve it, at the least when they deserve it. The least, that’s typically we, typically, we pounce on somebody when they screw up, or, you know, doing something that might be right for your culture, you know, just you put your arm around a man and say, hey, look that that doesn’t work. Here’s why and and I think when you give the why, people don’t even have to agree with it, but I think they’ll support you and respect it. Yeah, I want to just throw something out there. Could be a little controversial. We may you might say, let’s cut that out. But

Chris Baran 34:37
there’s always this stigma, I’m sure. And I’m going to throw this out this out this way. I’m sure that as many people as you’ve trained, and as many people have been in your salon, and as great as you’ve made them, you made kings and queens, some of them have left. You know, they’ve went on and they’ve went on. So I just want to talk about what, tell me what you think about that is, then, when there’s so many people out.

Frank Gambuzza 35:00
That are out there say, Well, you know, if you train them, then they leave and they start their own business. What’s your what’s your feeling on that? Well, I think there’s only one thing worse than training them and then leaving is not training them and them staying. Yeah, right, because then your product is kaput. Yeah. So, no, I would never say, Let’s not talk about it, because it’s, I think it’s always the 800 pound gorilla in the room that we should talk about. Yeah, right.

You know,

it really depends. Number one, I think it has to do with why they believe.

The first question we ask ourselves as managers and Belinda and I is the owner, and we talk to our staff, the first question we do when somebody puts it, have we done everything we can to set them up to succeed? Yeah? Or is this a personal that’s a personal question that, like you would ask yourself, is that what I heard? Yeah? Oh, yeah. We ask each other, yeah. Every Friday afternoon we do a management meeting, yeah, that’s the question. Guys say, Wait a second, why are they leaving? Right? Yeah. And, you know, sometimes it goes awry. Sometimes they’ve just been there too long. Sometimes, you know, you didn’t, you didn’t give them a day off that they wanted. I mean, is it fair to say we’re in a business that’s more emotionally based than it is anything else? Yeah. Yeah, right. So, so I tell you, there’s times we’ve probably not led people properly, where them leaving was

probably understandable, but after the fact, I look back and that’s kind of where you learn your mistakes, right? I think the one thing that has to be dealt with in today’s day and age is understanding that everything has to be treated urgently. If somebody says, Hey, can I talk to you? It’s not next week. Yeah, it’s today, something’s up, right? What’s the speed to rectification? There’s, there’s a speed to that. And so, yeah, it hurts when they leave. Man, right? But the thing is, we’re going to keep training and keep training in 1996 Vidal Sassoon was at the Waldorf Astoria at intercoir at a World Congress, and I was sitting at a table next to him, and I asked him a question. I said, Vidal, I’m a young business owner. I said, I was only in business now 11 years. We opened in 85 and a half. This was 1996

so I said, what’s the, what’s the, what should I know as a young guy? He said, always keep your stables packed with young talent,

you know? And I told this story in Mexico one time, and they translated and they thought I was talking about horses when I said, stables.

So everything will translate, but, but his point was, keep up, keep the youth in there, keep training them. And if you’re going to lose them, sometimes you better lose them off the top. Yeah, it hurts the most because they’re major revenue generators. But typically, once somebody’s a major generator for revenue for you, the way the compensation is packaged, and the way that

any any extras that you have in a compensation package, there’s not a whole lot of money left over, right? So

we gotta constantly know that we’re in the game, we’re present and we’re not going away.

So when somebody leaves, I mean, you know, you there’s times where people have to justify how to go. So you got to become a bad guy. I mean, you would have best friend for 12 years, and all of a sudden you’re the biggest jerk that ever like lived, just so they could justify doing the right thing, right? If they’re leaving for something, that makes sense. But then they try to recruit 90 people with them. Yeah, you know, so it gets sour. It gets sour. So, yeah, it’s never easy. It never hurts less. Yeah, when you don’t get used to it, yeah, I think there’s any, any business owner that hasn’t gone through a walkout, or three or four people leaving, or whatever, is either really, really,

Chris Baran 39:03
you know, should genuflect in front of them, or lying, because, you know, here’s the reality that I, you know, because it was, it’s easier for me to talk about it now, because I’m, I’m not in the salon anymore, yeah, yeah. The more that I sit back from the outside, looking in, and I go, Well, you know, I left. I left. Yeah, I left on good terms. And sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t, but the the point is, is that

everybody’s going to leave. You

know, they’re either going to start their own business, they’re going to move away, they’re they’re going to retire, or they’re going to die, but everybody’s going to leave. Everybody’s going to leave. It’s just that, like, I love what you said about is they feel they have to make you the jerk in order to get their conscience in a place where they can leave. I’m not saying that about everybody, but I’m saying sometimes that’s our brain. Just saying, yeah, yeah. And, you know, Belinda has always said it too. She says, Look, I’m not going to.

Frank Gambuzza 40:00
To I’m not going to blame you for leaving, because I left. She said the same thing you just did, yeah? But it’s how you do it, because the first thing you follow that up with, but I left properly, yeah?

Chris Baran 40:13
You know, you left the right way, yeah. I was just talking to a lady just two days ago, and I’d just been in to do a program with her for her staff. And then she she sent me this long text, and went, Oh, what’s going on? And she said, The her two of our people that I trained, she just found out that that they were leaving, and so they had that the departing conversation, and she said

she had found out about it from other people, which is, again, is the worst thing to happen. And so she, you know, based on that, she let them go immediately, and they said to her, we were just sort of biding our time, just to know how to do this properly. And we know that we’re still only, like, a week and a half away from when we’re leaving right now, but we just didn’t know how to do it. So it’d be interesting just to fess up, you know, just talk to one another like the human being if you were before, you know, just say this. I think, I think to me, that sounds like an excuse, yeah, because you know you what you’re saying is I didn’t know how to do it until, like, ducks were 100% in a row. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we’ve had it where we found out like that and asking to leave on the spot. We’ve had it where they’ve come to us and say, Listen, you know, I’m gonna do it. I not even found the place yet.

You know, I don’t know when I’m gonna do it, but I just wanted to be the one to tell you, yeah, and we learn that you can stay right up here until the day you open. Yeah. You know it’s all on how it gets handled, but you know it’s, it’s always the right time to do the right thing, just you do the right thing. Because where it hurts the most is you’ve been to their wedding, you’ve been to their kids christening, been to their parents funeral. You know, like you’ve let you you helped them buy their first car, you gave them an interest free loan, and they still owe you money. You put all that stuff together, and it’s like, Hey, man, just say, Look, I’m wanting to go try my own thing. Yeah, you know, it’s you can’t fault somebody for doing that, but you can fault them for doing it the wrong way. And that’s when it hurts, yeah, you know, because then you find out the whole, the whole staff knew it. You were the only one that didn’t, yeah, yeah, yeah, the typical mushroom thing, again, where they were, you know, left it left in the Dart and feeding BS the but that’s, I mean, that’s, I wanted to bring that up because I think in business, which is what you’re an expert on, is that is just a part of our business, and I think that usually I can only speak for myself. And is that you? What I found was most people will try to get their their chairs full, and then then they’ve got no room to put anybody. Because if you’ve got a good place, they’re not. There’s no no place for them to go, and if they see that all the chairs are full, what the heck do I do now? Excuse me, am I going to be an apprentice or an associate for the rest of my life here? There’s got to be a plan for them. And I think that what I liked about what you were saying is always have your place.

Having a lot of young talent that’s in there and a place for them to go, you just, I wanted to just go through that. How did that work? Because you started off with one barbershop, and then it was then you had to build on more. Is that what I thought I heard you say you had the barbershop. You had to put in more chairs. How did you make it so that all of a sudden you went to other you had other locations, but yet

the other location weren’t, what’s the word,

cannibalizing your clientele, and you were just doing the same volume with more spaces and more expenses.

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Frank Gambuzza 44:44
Well, that’s a great question, Chris, because I’ve seen a lot of people do it for different reasons. And you know, there’s there’s some reasons better than others, but me, personally, as a company leader, and the way we do it is.

We don’t, we don’t ever open another location or stretch hours or anything, unless we’re forced to do it. So we call it forced growth, right? So when you say not to cannibalize, we want, when you’re forced growth, you want to capitalize a certain percentage to give you a base at the new location. So not only do you want to cannibalize some clients, you also want to cannibalize some staff. Got it so this way your culture becomes a little bit more interdependent, and you’re not having, like, you know,

two completely different vibes going on within the same company. So to typically, the data lets you know to do that, all right, number one, you got to be at least 75% booked on a regular basis. And that’s down, times up, times across the board. Yes, people say I went packed. We’re 100% busy. Most shops I see are maybe 65 70% at most. So you want to and again, that that’s, that’s just an opinion too. That’s, there’s no exact formula, but you want to be busy enough to know that if you lose 10 or 15% of your people, you’re still doing well, because then you refill. That is also, yeah, yeah, right. But also, you know, zip code checks are really a big piece to that.

We gotta know that, like a perfect example, we opened our second barber shop only two miles from the first which is kind of a no no you because you can cannibalize but we were turning away 36 people a day at the first one, and we had about 33% of our clients come from a zip code that was Further west. So we knew if we went further west, but not too far, we then have clients that would either share both, or the ones that were further west would make that their new home. So it’s it’s very strategic, but the one thing that’s not negotiable is that it has to be forced growth, not just because you want to, for the very reason that you ask that question is, why would you increase overhead and possibly not increase revenue? Yeah, you know the best financial lesson I’ve ever learned that had to do it money and formulas. It was brilliant, and it’s very, very rudimentary. There’s only 100 pennies in $1

so at the end of the day, you know, do you want to make 8% you want to make 10% you want to make what? What do you as an owner feel like your return on investment should be? And then I use a formula called reverse bottom line, and how we open the new stores. The reverse bottom line might be that we’re going to take 5% of this business from day one. We’re going to have to, we’re going to have to run this business on 95 cents out of $1 because I’m not going to wait three years to make money, right? All right. So now first year comes in at 5% all right. We might go to 8% false profit. And when I say false profit, it’s the first bill we pay before labor, before taxes, before insurance, because most people wait till the end of the year to see if there’s anything left over. Yeah, and that’s letting the business run you. That’s not you running your business, right?

Chris Baran 48:18
Yeah, that’s a little bit of the profit first model, isn’t it? Yeah, absolutely. Pay yourself first. You know, you’ve got to, you know, so many people wait till there’s no money left and then say, I’ve got nothing left for me. You know, is it too much? Michael Cole has the best line ever, too much month left at the end of the money. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, that’s and you know when, when you were talking about that, and you were saying about how you move staff over, etc. I The two things that I wrote down here is that you needed, number one is database. Because you, if you said that you were in, you you take a look at where people were living. You had to have a database to do that. So there’s so many people that come in and they don’t keep records of addresses, where people are, how to get a hold of them, etc, at least we’re like 100 years ago, and I’m hoping that everybody does now. The second part that I got out of that was, if you got your staff is 100% booked at your first location, you can pick amongst there for your managerial position, for your other location, so you got could have a prime subs, a prime person that could be your manager or a leader at the other salon, yeah. And you definitely want to do that. We definitely like elevate from within. And you know, even if they don’t have all the knowledge, they have the culture, right? And the one thing I’ve learned heavily is that in the absence of culture, you have culture. It’s just not a desired one. Yeah, yeah. So the culture piece can outweigh pretty much most mistakes. You know, at the end of the day, it’s, it’s Who are we? You know, the definition of culture is really simple.

Frank Gambuzza 50:00
Us. It’s how we do things here, right? There’s no true definition, right? So there’s 19 different ways to do it, but here’s how we do things here, yeah, and it’s really akin to, I’ll go to hair shows just like last weekend. I heard people blabbering, you don’t want clients to come back with before eight weeks. And I’m hearing these things on stage, and I’m cringing, because this is like a maybe a young hipster that’s doing a good job somewhere, but it’s not a business model, and yet they’re speaking these business terms, you know. So it gets a little scary, so, but in our case, we make it really simple. Whenever we’re talking about culture, you know, a friend of mine is a vegetarian restaurant, right? Yeah. And people have told them, Hey, man, my husband would come if you put a hamburger on a menu, you know, well, wait, then we wouldn’t be a vegetarian restaurant, would we? Right? Right? So, yeah, it might sound like a novel idea to expand your business or but then all of a sudden you’re diluting down your purpose and who you are.

Chris Baran 51:04
So I think you gotta identify, you know who you are, why you do it, and who we want to be when we grow up as a company. Yeah, and I love what you said about you’ve got identified who you are. One of the ways I heard a culture was explained was that number one that you have to have the same values and belief system, or you have to save values. In other words, you and then you have to save the belief and you have to have

Speaker 1 51:28
a same, a similar language in what you teach. So in other words, we can’t all get along if you speak only French and I speak only English, you know. So yeah, everybody has to have a similar language and and then there has to be rules, you know? It has to be the different. And the rules are different than what would would happen in your policies and procedures. I think that the rules are is how you agree to get along with one another, you know? I think that’s where, one of the critical parts of what we of what most places don’t have. So, yeah, yeah. And the thing is, what, do you you know, what are you going to allow to take place? You know, it’s if you permit it, you promote it, right? Yeah, so at the end of the day, what is it going to be a consequence when something goes wrong, right? And you know, back to what we said before, you know, you hug them the most when they deserve it the least. But that don’t mean if they keep doing it, you keep hugging them, at some point, you gotta say, enough’s enough, because I think it all starts at the interview, though. Yeah, it’s expectations, because I think behavior always follows expectations and it lags behind it, yeah, so we gotta make crystal clear what our expectations are to get the behavior. So the first question we ask in an interview is really, really simple. Do you want to be like us? Right?

Frank Gambuzza 52:47
Because if not, then we don’t need to go any further here. Yeah. You know now, do you want to be a hipster that’s like wearing, you know, ripped our money jeans, versus somebody who’s wearing our money suit that that’s up to you. You can be an individual, yeah, but at the end of the day, like, these are the rules, right? And, you know, you can’t be a soccer player and say, I don’t like the rules. I like American football rules better, then go play American football. Yeah, yeah, no. And that’s and that’s dead true. That’s dead true. So,

Chris Baran 53:18
you know, the the is there along the way. I mean, we’ve been talking about it all along here, is that was there along your way in getting this and if somebody is out there listening to and they wanted to start a business, or whether it’s the first, second or third business, is there business failures, mistakes or traps that has had, that You’ve had along the way that you would talk about to say that if you it is, in other words,

Frank Gambuzza 53:48
these are things that happen, and if you can avoid these, then it’s going to be held a lot easier for you. Yeah, I think the number one rule is don’t confuse touching money with making money. Oh, give us a little more on that. Okay, so, you know, I talked about the three stages before of business, the three S’s, yep, survival, whatever you’re taking in, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re paying, you’re paying, you’re getting out. You just hope you have enough to make payroll. Blah, blah, blah, yeah, all of a sudden you start doing a little bit better. Money starts rolling in. And you think you paid your bills and there’s money left over.

It’s not yours, right? All right, I see salon owners that making their personal car payment out of it. If it’s on a company car, they’re paying their dry cleaning, they’re they’re that they’re going out to eat every night and charging it back to the business. There’s three, three people have to make money. In the business, there’s dismissal in the industry that it’s the owner and the employee that has to make money. That’s not true. Yeah, the owner has to make money, the employee has to make money, but the business has to make money. And if you miss the business piece.

Yes, I mean, you’re going to just be Hail Mary and every payroll hoping there’s enough left over, and all of a sudden your roof caves in. If you own a building, or, you know, something, something happens to your business where your your toilet bowl backed up. And you don’t want to call a plumber because you’re not sure you got the money to pay them. You got to pay the business man, you know. And that’s separate from pulling the force bottom line money out. Yeah, all right, so the you know, you got, you got to run tight. I heard a saying just just recently, your first five years of business, you don’t make money. You just learn to get good, right,

you know. So I would tell that young person, you know is, is save as much as you can. Man, don’t be fine buying four, four ply toilet paper, but buy the rough stuff. You know. Don’t use fresh flowers every Monday. You know, they they got these fragrance machines that they wanted to be like the hotel one, because it’s cool. Don’t look cool. Get in the way of going bankrupt. Yeah, yeah. You know, I heard a, I can’t remember who told me this story that I’ve related it a few times. They said that is business is like, imagine you were in the desert and you wanted to make a trip across the desert, and

Chris Baran 56:21
there was you, there was you, a person, another person, and the camel and

and that would equate to the that would be your metaphor for you doing business. You’re the you’re the owner, you have staff, and then you have the business and the money is the water that you have to get across the desert with. And in order to do that,

each person has to ride the camel. In other words, have a good time to getting some rest riding the camel. Everybody has to walk. So you’re not killing the camel by everybody taking everything, all the weight on the camel. And each of you has to be able to drink from the water, including the camel. So to me, that really represents just what you were talking about. How you know, there’s three entities there. It’s not just you and your staff. The business has got to make money too, because you’re the owner, you need to get paid for it, but you’re a shareholder, so you need to make money out of that from the shares as well that you would otherwise. You might as well just be an owner yourself. You might as well be just staff, yeah, well, you know, be a day trader. And just chance, you know, take, take the 200 grand or 300 grand it took to open the store, yeah, and you might do better off, yeah.

But I love this analogy that you talk about is that, is that written down in anywhere, Chris, or is I don’t, I don’t remember who told it to me, brilliant. Yeah, it, but that was, to me, a metaphor that that I always said to the staff when we were we had staff meetings, is that, you know, it’s it. You might think that there was another, there was all this money, but there’s really not and Rita, she is to me like Belinda is to you. And she would have people come in and write all the checks that she had to pay, and they would be astounded at the amount of checks that were out there. And I would go up to this the staff, and I would take $1 bill, and then we would have all the percentages of whatever it costs. Well, how much rent, how much rent do you need to and I’m sure you’ve heard this before, and you if it’s 50% you rip it off in half, and then you take all the chunks away till you’re left with, you know, like maybe two or three little morsels left of the dollar bill. And you would say that’s how much money we’re waking here. So don’t think that all of this is going in our pocket, because you’ve got to pay the camel. You’ve got to pay the business itself. Sure, Chris, I’ve used that metaphor, but I asked him at the end with that little morsel, when, when they’re holding the 50% piece. In the end, I say you want to trade? Yes,

yeah. You got 50 points here. I get this. You want to trade? Yeah? 2.3 Yeah. I love it. I love that. I love that. Hey, listen along the road. I know you’ve been on the on the road a long time as of I and I know that the times have sort of shifted of what you’re allowed to do on the road. And I know that when we’re on the road all the time, we used to prank and I have to say this one story, do you remember we were, we were in I don’t remember the city. And somehow during the program, they whether we were doing, I don’t remember what we’re doing, giveaways. We had something to do on stage. We were Providence, Rhode Island, oh, and and we were being friends. We were taking the piss out of one another on stage. And then it got back to us that people in the audience thought that we were pissed at one another, we didn’t like one another, and so I can’t remember if we ever did have to clear that up or what happened, but that always just, it just makes me laugh whenever I think that happens, when you can have so many people that was just a sign that we were good friends. I think I had a really good tan.

Frank Gambuzza 59:57
Called me like George Hamilton or something.

And I said I didn’t know Santa Claus did hair shows because you had a big beard.

Chris Baran 1:00:09
Yeah, that’s so much fun. But you know, the funniest thing that was, What hair shows used to be all the time. They were always they were, I mean, yeah, you did your gig, and yeah, you make sure that everybody got the learning part and so on. But the best part for me was always after go to the bar and share war stories, things that were things that work, that didn’t work, you know, like, if there was Road Warrior stories that were out there. Did is, do you remember any, I don’t know if you used to prank or anything were on your road or got pranked by somebody. Is there anything that comes to your brain about Road Warrior stories, that

Frank Gambuzza 1:00:47
that that come down for you, that unusual things that happen, pranks or whatever? You know, Chris, I was the guy that like, when everybody was going to the bar, I said, I’m going to my room.

We Belinda. And I have five children, so when we were on the road, we took as an opportunity to just kind of chill. Said, enough said, enough said,

Chris Baran 1:01:12
Yeah, wine was served in the room. I love it.

Oh, listen, my friend, this has been a pleasure. So listen, just before I we’re hitting to that rapid fire segment. But just before we do if, if somebody wanted to get a hold of you, Frank, and wanted you to come in to teach or to give business advice, etc, to hire you at some place. Where would you? Where would where would they go to get a hold of you? Chris, my email is the best way to get a hold of me, because it goes straight to my assistant, and she gets it straight to me. It’s frank@salonvisage.com

Frank Gambuzza 1:01:44
Frank at Salon visage, V, I, S, A, G, E, yeah. Got it, yeah, first name only. And you know, if something was said on this podcast that triggered somebody, or, you know, sometimes it’s it you speaking to,

you know, so you go to church on Sunday and say, Man, he’s talking straight to me, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so if something here is hitting somebody that’s maybe up at night with certain issues that we touched on, you know, just shoot me an email. Man, I’ve had so much advice and and just so much given to us. Belinda and I have in business and people just being there for us. So you know, we owe that back, so whatever we can do in return, just just know that, you know, just being your friend and being on your podcast, we owe it to the next generation, because it’s certainly been given to us. Yeah, I love it. And those great words. So time for rapid fire here. So

Chris Baran 1:02:49
making me nervous. Oh, no, listen, it just, you know, whatever the first stuff that comes to your brain, okay, things in life, things in life that you love the most,

Frank Gambuzza 1:03:00
things in life I love the most. I love my job, obviously my family right now, I’d have to say grandkids are at the top of the list. But I love the sun rising in the morning and just watching another opportunity at another day. It’s you know, sun goes down and comes back up, gives us another chance. So I never take it for granted. Yeah, I did see your your post with you and your and your grandson. I was assuming swapping glasses out, which I thought was

hilarious. That’s big fun

Chris Baran 1:03:33
in life. What is it you dislike the most?

Frank Gambuzza 1:03:37
I dislike negativity. I dislike

people like complaining would probably be my number one thing. There’s so much not to complain about. Yeah, yeah. And I think things have just went awry with, you know, it’s just okay to say whatever you want to say at people’s expense.

I just think we we need to sort of get back to the roots of, you know, treating people the way we want to be treated, instead of just thinking that there’s no guidelines or there’s no parameters, you know, so negativity and just people whining when they really, you know, I just got back from China, Korea and Japan, and, you know, I was with great people. It was absolutely amazing. It was but, you know, when you see that they don’t even have the freedom that we have, and these people are fabulous people, it’s a government issue, and you realize how much we take for granted. So what I don’t like is when somebody takes something for granted,

Chris Baran 1:04:34
either, regarding our industry, what do you love the most?

Frank Gambuzza 1:04:38
People, people, clients, staff, young, old, black, white, just people. Man, you know, when I think of the opportunities we’ve had in life, places we’ve got to go, people, we’ve got to meet, things we’ve got to see, and the relationships we have, I wouldn’t trade it for that. Man, if somebody told me, you know, we’ll make you a hot surge in your work one day we.

You gotta pay a million dollars a year instead of dressing hair. I’d say, keep it. Yeah. No, you can have that. I’m with you 100%

Chris Baran 1:05:07
people and regarding our industry, what do you dislike the most?

Frank Gambuzza 1:05:14
The lack of respects, the lack of respect that it doesn’t get we, you know. And I blame it on the fact that there’s not true standards. Is not true terminology. It’s, it’s a little bit too easy to get into and too easy to kind of just play in, yeah, you know, I think there’s, there’s three types of headdresses for the most part. And you got some that want to do it for a job, some that want to do it for a hobby, and some that want to do it for a career,

I just I feel like there’s a major separation, and we all get clumped into one group, and that that bothers me, and I try to fight that all the time, yeah, and I think what bugs me the most, too, is sometimes Hollywood’s

Chris Baran 1:05:59
impression of what the way they perceive us on film some of the time. So another story for another time. Yeah, person you admire the most,

Frank Gambuzza 1:06:09
Paul, who used to be Saul in the Old Testament. Oh,

Chris Baran 1:06:16
tell us a bit more.

Frank Gambuzza 1:06:19
You know, obviously he was Jewish, became Christian, did so much for Christianity, but had the had the gall, his funny. His name was Paul and Saul.

He had the Gulf to to

speak the good word, and wasn’t afraid of death, wasn’t afraid of torture. Wasn’t afraid of anything. Yeah, he just, he just did a good news need to be shared. And

to me, he just, he’s the one I admire the most. Love it. Love it.

Chris Baran 1:06:54
Your most prized possession.

Frank Gambuzza 1:06:57
Wow.

Most prized possession,

Chris Baran 1:07:06
things, or could it be people? Yeah, if it’s a possession, whatever you whatever you perceive that as, yeah,

Frank Gambuzza 1:07:17
my heritage, it’s not really a possession, but it’s what I it’s what I sort of, it’s probably the

biggest thing that makes me proud on a daily basis, is when my grandfather came from Sicily as a 17 year old boy alone and had to separate from his brother at the port, and his brother went to Argentina, and his parents let him come to Italy to have a better life. I mean, let from Italy to America, yeah. And, you know, he was same namesake as me, Frank. And they always tell me I was most like my grandfather. So that that’s the piece that, you know, just makes me smile to think that, that that’s in my blood. Love it. Love it. The

Chris Baran 1:08:01
person you wish you could meet,

Paul,

something that, what’s something that people don’t know about you?

What they don’t know about me? Yeah, something but they would never know that

you could do that, did it or whatever? Okay,

Frank Gambuzza 1:08:26
I remember having a we went around the room one time, and

I remember I was ice skating for about a week in New Jersey, and I woke up one Saturday morning, really early, and my father says, Where you going so early? I said, I’m going to an ice skating race competition. He says, What are you doing that for? He just been skating a week. I said, I think I could win. He said, hey, no way you can win, but go give me your best shot. I came home two hours later, won first place. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s uh, people don’t think of me as an ice skater, but I didn’t do it that long. Yeah, well, it’s like, it’s like, they say, if you if you think you can’t, you won’t. And if you think you can, you will, yeah, you’re right as I think, as way it was said, that was a problem.

If you had a month off, where would you go and what would you do? I’d go to Sicily. I took a month off last summer, spent it. Spent 44 days in Sicily.

Boy, it’s hot, but again, back to the roots and understanding the lifestyle of the Sicilian and the heritage and occupations of the island. And I really got this thing right now I’m done applying for dual citizenship. And you know, I think America is fascinating with the people and the ethnicity and the religions and the skin colors, and just at a place in life where I just want to know more about kind of like great grandfathers and who am I, where I come from, and that kind of thing I feel comfortable with, who I am now, so I want to know how it got to be that.

Chris Baran 1:10:00
Yeah, that’s amazing.

Favorite curse word

starts with an F, Ah, there you go. I know fuchsia is the word that I use a lot as well.

It’s not Frank. Yes, not Frank. What’s your favorite comfort food?

Frank Gambuzza 1:10:21
Lasagna,

Chris Baran 1:10:23
you and

Frank Gambuzza 1:10:25
that’s readers go to, is it? Yeah, it’s her go to all the time. If it’s on the menu, I don’t care if I’m in like a Chinese restaurant in like Idaho, I get it something

Chris Baran 1:10:37
expectations, but I do it, yeah, something in the industry that you haven’t done, but you want to,

Frank Gambuzza 1:10:45
that’s gonna be

a tough you. That’s a toughie man,

something I haven’t done that. I want to

Chris Baran 1:11:00
Chris, I gotta pass. Oh, that’s okay. I mean, because, believe me, I think everybody that heard your intro, they’ll get why

if you could

Frank Gambuzza 1:11:11
add one, go ahead. Go ahead.

Chris Baran 1:11:14
Yeah, if you had one do over in your life, what would it be? I’m

Frank Gambuzza 1:11:20
going to be bold on this one.

Belinda is my second marriage, who I adore from here to heaven.

My first marriage failed,

and I realized that I was just too young and didn’t know what it took to to be a good spouse. I was just too young. I thought it was supposed to be easy.

And I look back now and I say, You know what, if I were to just put the effort in to anything I felt right. But when I when I look at I would treat a business situation, I would make sure I would do everything it took not to fail, and I didn’t do that in my first marriage, so I kind of regret that. Wow, bold, very bold.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:07
Um,

Chris Baran 1:12:09
tomorrow you couldn’t have anything to do with hair. What would you do?

Frank Gambuzza 1:12:14
I would drive an Uber.

That’s a first. I’ve never got that one before. That’s awesome. I I’ve had the best conversations with Uber drivers around the country, and, you know, you got some that tell great stories, and they’re fun, and they make your experience and it’s quick hit in and out,

you know? And I have some that kind of ruin my night by not being able to do that? Yeah, you know, so, yeah, that’s what I’d want to do. I’d want to drive a new but I want to do when I when I retire, I love it. I love it. And okay, if you had one wish for industry, what would it be?

I would like to see it become more professional.

I think it used to be more professional. And I will say this, I think since covid, it’s kind of went the wrong way, as far as appearance,

as far as maybe not taking the craft as serious,

just lacking joy that, you know, talked before about pranking and all that. I think it’s just gotten, I think it’s just gotten a little mundane right now. And I say that because I’m talking to solanos all over the country, and we’re sharing similar situations, you know.

I mean, I I look at our new dress code, and the staff loves it, I think it looks like crap. Yeah? I mean, you know, but I guess you know, you got to know what that line is of you know what battles to fight, and yeah, you know, if they’re happy to I guess we’re happy, because if they’re happy, we’re happy, but yeah, at the end of the day,

I just think the whole thing has gotten too casual. Yeah, everything, even though customer service,

you know, clients texting and Facebook and directly, and I think it’s just gotten out of sorts. Yeah, yeah, interesting, isn’t it?

Chris Baran 1:14:13
Well, Frank, I can’t thank you enough. Listen, I know how busy you are and how you’re on the road all the time, and yet you took time away to be here with us. So I can’t thank you enough and for being with us here on head cases. And I just wanted to say thank you. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on board. Chris, a pleasure is mine. And by the way, I absolutely love the name head cases.

We’ve always said you have to be one in order to be in the business we’re in, right? Absolutely. Well, thanks for everything, man. Thank you much. Appreciate it and listen for the listeners that out there is we really would appreciate from you. If you like what you heard, and you want to get involved in more, and want to hear more, etc, if you want to show us some love and leave us a rating on the show so we can get more people involved.

Involved, etc, we would really appreciate that. And my name is Chris Baran, and want to thank you all for being here. And this is Head Cases.