ep134 – Steve Reiss

Show Notes

Welcome to Headcases! Today we demystify technology in our industry. We’ll look at what can genuinely support your business, and what can actually hurt it if you’re not careful.

Our guest is the Executive Director of Industry Relations and Insights at Pivot Point International, where he connects the dots between data, education, and innovation across every corner of the professional beauty world—schools, salons, educators, brands, associations, and advocacy groups. He also helped launch some of our industry’s first tech-focused events, including Data-Driven Salon and the Salon Digital Summit. He continues to support the school community through initiatives like Choose Beauty, the Excellence in Education Awards, First Chair, and the Modern Salon Career Handbook.

Please join me with my friend and this week’s Headcase: Mr Steve Reiss.

2:38 Steve Reiss’s Hair Story

8:32 Technology and Data in the Beauty Industry

15:54 Challenges and Opportunities

47:24 Consumer Trends and Industry Collaboration

1:02:00 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

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 hair stylist and educator for 40 plus years, and I’m inviting all our heroes to chat and share the secrets of their success. I i When people talk about new technology or new insights in the beauty industry, did you ever wonder who the people were that come up with that data? I mean, I did, and I have the privilege of knowing and respecting one of them in particular. Welcome to another episode of head cases, and I’m thrilled to have this guest on to demystify the technology and talk about what can help you and what can harm you. He’s the Executive Director of industry relations and insights for pivot point International, where he’s responsible for connecting data, education and innovation across all segments of the beauty industry, including schools, salons, educators, brands, associations and advocacy groups to strengthen and support the professional community at modern salon media. He launched the industry’s first technology focused events, including data driven salon and Salon digital Summit. He supported the school community through initiatives such as choose beauty, the Excellence in Education Awards, first chair and the modern salon career handbook. He is none other than my friend, Mr. Steve Reiss, Steve, I want to begin, we’ve already done the intro. They know all about you, but I just want to say from a newfound friend. I mean, I’ve known of you for the for like the last, I’m going to say 100 years only in my my side, not yours, but it’s so it’s such a pleasure to know you, because now, over the last year I’ve we’ve had, we broke bread together, we’ve had good conversations, and I certainly respect everything that you have and do for our industry. So I just want to say, on behalf of head cases, I just want to say, welcome, and it is an absolute pleasure to have you on board.

Steve Reiss 2:28
It’s my pleasure as well. I’m honored.

Chris Baran 2:31
So I mean, before we get into anything in here, and I’m really excited to hear about some of the stuff that’s going on, but that’s for just a little down the pike. I always ask everybody what their hair story is. Now, from all my I all of our conversations, I don’t think that you were a hairdresser by trade, but what is your hair story? How did you get involved with it?

Steve Reiss 2:55
So I have a hair story, and then, like a story behind the story, the story is I have been involved in communications, media technology for a long, long time, and when I got involved in the hair industry, it was because I joined a media company, and I was managing two of their divisions. One was the woodworking division, which included magazines and trade shows and things like that. And the other was the salon division, which included modern salon and salon today. So that’s how I got in the industry. When I got in the industry, it was a job. However, I quickly realized that this wasn’t like other industries, and I’ll share two quick stories, which made me recognize about six months in that this is a completely different industry than other industries I’ve been in. And the first was when I was a lot younger and single, I was dating a woman who owned a hair salon in New Jersey, and we got tickets to go see the Rolling Stones together. And you had to purchase the tickets months in advance, and we were very, very excited about it anyway. About two hours before the concert, she called and she said, I can’t go to the concert. They said, What happened? You know, are you okay? She goes, I’m fine, but one of my customers needs me. And at that point in time, being a young guy, it’s like, well, what do they need you for? I didn’t really understand it, as I found out, one of her good customer’s mother had just been admitted to the hospital, and she was going with her friend, who was very distraught, to help her through it. So from the point of view of a selfish single guy in his 20s, it made no sense to me. However, once I got in the industry, it made sense to me. The other story has to do with me. Being older and being married, and my wife and I lived in the city, and she had a stylist. She went to, and we moved out to the suburbs. And one night after we’d been in the suburbs about two years, she said, I have to go into the city tonight. And I said, What are you going in for? She goes, Well, I have to go tell my stylist, I can no longer see her. And I said, Wait a second, you you’ve been for two years, you’ve been going in the city to get your hair done. And she said, Yes. Now, as background, we had two small children. My wife had a job, very responsible job, where she traveled all the time. You know, she had no free time. She was working with something all the time, and I remember saying, Well, why don’t you just call her up? And she said, Oh, I can’t do that. I have to go tell her in person. Now, those were two things that happened after I’d been in the industry a little while, and one of the things they really drove home was the unique nature of the relationships that people in this industry enjoy. And it struck me that every other industry I had been in, which included fashion and hospitality and automotive and packaging and most recently, technology, those were not considerations. They were jobs. This was not a job. This was a calling. This was a lifestyle. It was something which was much, much higher. And that’s something I’ve really taken to heart, because the people who are in this industry are good people, and if there’s any way I can support them in the industry, then it’s really my responsibility to do that.

Chris Baran 6:43
Yeah, well, thanks, Steve, that’s I mean, just to hammer home that point on how important the hairdresser is to individuals, not not just the society as a whole. We did a podcast with a guy that was involved in the industry, started while he is a psychologist, motivational speaker, etc. And I remember being in one of his classes like this is like 100 years ago, and he tell, he tells a story about how he had, I guess, as a patient that was coming in and had been coming to him for a couple of years, and was she, he was trying to help her get through an abusive or a relationship, I don’t, can’t say it was abusive, But you’re trying to get through this, this relationship, and she had, I guess it took him all that time to coax her into whatever decision that they had made. And when she came back for the following visit, this particular gentleman said, well, so how did it go? How did it go? And she says, Well, I didn’t do what you said, what you told me to do. And he said, Why didn’t you do that? He said, Well, I went to my hairdresser and she advised me not to do it. And that’s when he realized that doesn’t matter how much that they can go for professional counseling. Is that how much people listen and respect their hairdresser when they do that. So I I get where you’re coming from that. So firstly, as I’m glad that we stole you away from woodworking and and got you into our business, and you’ve been an amazing part of our industry with gathering data, helping us to understand where either, you know, trends are leaning, etc, but your technology part is the part that I really want to dive into today. And I understand it was even just last week or the week before that you were at and helped to put together an event with beauty changes lives, and it was about gathering of the salon individuals, salon leaders, from brands, artists, people that are viewed as very high in our in our industry. And you were there gathering data about sort of was like a meeting of all the minds of this industry, and the reason why I’m interested in hearing that is twofold, number one and foremost, eventually, I want to get into the data and that you got and the takeaways that you can share with our listeners and watchers. But what I’m excited about is how years back our industry and I want to put the word competitive in the right context, because the competitiveness has changed to a degree. It used to be you just didn’t associate, weren’t didn’t want to share any information with anybody that you viewed as a competitor. And now we’ve. Thought, the meeting of the minds that are people in the industry willing to discuss technology, things they don’t know, and share where we need to go. So can you tell us a little bit about that and what that meaning was like, what your takeaways were, and how that went well.

Steve Reiss 10:18
The genesis for all this is that the world is changing more quickly than ever, accelerating. And there was a time when you got your college degree and your specialty, let’s say you were a mechanical engineer, and that would hold you through your career. That’s not the case anymore. There are too many different things you have to know, and it’s really not reasonable to think that any one person is going to know all of these things. Now with the topic of technology, technology is an amazing enabler, but technology also creates challenges and risks if you don’t understand it, and by not understanding you don’t use it or you don’t use it correctly, because you don’t have the information. So one of the things we’ve really been focusing on is, how do we demystify technology? And it’s less about something that is and more about something you’d like to get done. And earlier in my career, while I was at modern salon, we put together called the salon digital Summit, and it was an event that basically talked to people in the industry about technology, but in a very hands on, user friendly. What do I need to know to get started way? And we had a room, which we called the technology integration room, and we had point of sale system, we had a scheduling system. We had all these different technologies. And one of the really amazing things were people saying, well, I’m using this. Can I also use this type of technology? It’s like, well, of course you can, you just have to make sure they know how to talk to each other, but people really didn’t understand even the basic things. So if you move ahead and the point of sale, companies are getting a lot more involved in their industry, and that’s really helped with technology integration and technology acceptance, all of a sudden you have aI come along and and, you know, do I know what’s valuable? Do I know what questions to ask? Do I know who, who to work with? And that was a topic of the beauty changes lives roundtable that we had at the premiere show. It was all about technology, but was, how do you break it into chunks? How do you how do you decide to move ahead with technology? What questions you need to ask? How do you vet people you work with, all those different types of things? How can it help me? How can it hurt me? And there’s going to be a continuum, and there needs to be a continuing industry conversation, and the goals are really multi fold. One is to get people simple answers, to demystify it, but the other is to create a larger industry consensus and awareness that this is an important topic, and it’s not going to go away by ignoring it, you’ve made a decision. And there’s a story about two people running away from the bear, and one of the guys saying, I don’t have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than you. So you know, how do we elevate the entire industry? And that’s really what you know from my perspective, I try and think about I don’t have the answers, but perhaps the role I can play is by identifying things that might be important and people who might be influential, and bringing people and ideas together, hopefully leading to some activity and some good outcomes.

Chris Baran 14:02
You know, it was interesting. I remember listening to you speak at in Miami, and you were talking on AI, and you were talking a little bit there on how it can work for us, and also how you have to be careful about it. And I, I find that particularly people like, I’m a baby boomer and, and when it comes out, I think that I talked to a lot of baby boomers. Now I’m in business, so we do use chat, GPT and the like, and, but I remember a quote that you said, and if I’m not getting it perfect, please forgive me. But I just thought it was truly profound when you were talking to the like of helping you or harming you, is you said you’ve got to remember that AI is an intelligence that just puts sentences together and and I find that that’s really you know what I think might be. The part that is scaring so many people right now is they just don’t know what the heck it does, what it doesn’t do, and that you can’t just tell it stuff and then write it down and then put that out there. You’ve got to put your own, you know, take a look at what it does and say, Is this right? Is it wrong? Does it work? Is it not is it saying the right things? And part of it is, as I’m learning more that my team does it for me than I do, but it’s just about all the banter that you have with it to get it to the right spot. So is there, is there any realm of truth? And what I was just saying there,

Steve Reiss 15:38
so think about Yes. I mean, there’s a tremendous amount of truth, and none of us have all the answers. You know, that’s the ultimate takeaway. But think about it, not in terms of the technology, but the communication. So you and I are sitting in a room together, we’re looking at each other, we’re sharing words. We have visual cues. We have audio because we’re going to have a pretty high level of understanding, because if one of us goes off track, we can pull ourselves back in. Now let’s translate this a level down. We’re on the phone. I can’t see you. I don’t know if you’re rolling your eyes or not. It still might be very effective, but it’s a little bit less effective. Now let’s take that back a level, and let’s go to email right where we’re not doing this in real time. And it’s how well we chose our words as you said, putting one word in front of the other. And then you could take that even a step further, and you could say social media, where you’re anonymous. It’s words like it wasn’t email, but it’s you don’t know who it’s coming from. And with each level you go down, you have less understanding. And with any of the AI, they’re somewhere in the middle there. And it’s like anything, a car can be incredibly valuable and useful, or it can be incredibly deadly. A chainsaw could be incredibly useful, you know, cutting fire with it, or it can be very, very dangerous. It’s, it’s really what you do with something. And a big part of what you do with something is informed by how well you understand what it does, what it doesn’t do, what it does well, what it doesn’t do well, yeah. And the concern I always have is people who say I’m going to jump in and I’m going to turn everything over to AI. That’s just as bad as saying I’m not going to pay any attention to it at all. Yeah, I’m

Chris Baran 17:35
going to, I’m just going to let, well, they have some cars that were will drive themselves right now, but my car doesn’t, then it would be like me saying, Well, you know, I’m just going to trust the vehicle and take my hands off the wheel when I’m making this corner

Steve Reiss 17:48
Well, or people intentionally doing something bad driving into a crowd, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris Baran 17:55
Very interesting. So what, give us a little bit more about, like, what during that meeting, because I from what I’m taking it correct me if I’m wrong, but you went in as as the gatherer. You’re trying to get all the acorns from the trees, then the incredible oak trees that were there. What was in the process? Did you just lay out stuff to people? Did you just say, let’s talk about this. How did that go?

Steve Reiss 18:22
No, we this was this was very, very purposeful, and 99% of this was in the preparation. And the preparation was talking to people across the industry and saying, What data do you use? What data is important? What data is accessible, what data is not accessible? What data do you trust? What are your use stories for data for things like that, and really kind of identifying, what are the key themes? So when the people went in there, we had broken them into four basic groups, and one of the groups was focused on a data framework, which is data categories, data definitions and consistency, and then data validation considerations, which means, how do you know What’s good data, what’s bad data? What are best practices? What’s Rep The second group was data sources, and it was what data sources are accessible to us, what data sources are inaccessible or restricted, meaning the data exists but we can’t get to it because it’s behind a reg wall or because somebody owns it, or perhaps you have to pay for it. And then, what are the gaps in the data that that we have? What data would be really valuable for us as an individual and as organizations within within the beauty industry to be more successful? Then the third group we had were data use cases, and it was how could and should data be used to be valuable to us? And one group was dealing with recruitment and retention, which includes beauty schools and hiring. A second group was data and business performance. How do you measure your business? The third is, how do we use data to present ourselves to legislators and government organizations and other people who can influence our future? And then the last part of that is, what data use restrictions should there be? What data should not be available? Should not be shared, and obviously some of this, like HIPAA, would be due to regulations, and some of it might just be to protect what’s proprietary to my company, and some it just might be to be a decent human being, yeah. And then the last the last category was, what is our industry’s data story? How important is it for our industry to define ourselves instead of being defined by people outside the industry? And what data do we need to have a consistent story? And the challenge is, when you talk to people in this industry about this industry, they everyone has a different answer, yeah. The elephant in the dark room, yep. So when people are asking about people who can influence our fate, whether they’re lending us money, whether they’re letting our students borrow money, whether they’re involved with zoning regular it can be a whole host of things they want their kids go to beauty school. It’s like, what is our consistent story? So the intent was we brought people together, we put them at tables which discussed each one of those topics, and then each table had a representative present to the larger group. And through that, we had a very good sense of information that was specific to those topics, but also to key themes that emerged regardless of the table you were sitting at.

Chris Baran 22:14
Yeah, interesting. You know, I’m actually almost hesitant to say this, but because, but And what, what I love this is going. I want to take a little veer on this topic, just for a second to set it up. But the our industry has always been, I’m going to go back Wayne one step further, the what I find industry interesting about our industry is that our industry is so visual. And I’m going to talk, I’m talking about we’re generally very visual. And everything, everything that we see is around pictures, everything we see is about what we’re doing on hair, skin and nails, is very visual. And sometimes I find that there’s this data side that can scare people, unless you’re at an upper level, management, leadership level, salon owner, school owner, etc, then they know that data is king. And I’m hoping that the people that are listening and watching that also maybe, maybe you’re on your level, is that you’re dealing directly with the consumer. But what I’m excited about this is that we can nail down more data so that that helps that everybody, from that kid starting out in school to the stylist behind the chair to the salon owner, Beauty School owner, manufacturers, etc, that we can get some cohesion on what is it that they are now this is where I’m going to jump into that next step, where we can actually have data, data depending on your pronunciation, that takes our image to another level, because there’s still so much ingrained in when you said, the parent that takes their kid to school or to Beauty School, beauty industry school, a hair, skin or nails and and they’re they’re hesitant. They know their child wants to do it, but they have an image that is been painted for, unfortunately, a number of years where this is just a second class job. And what I love is that this data is going to help to help to change not the anybody in our industry knows what our industry is about, but if we can help to change the world’s view of how important that it is, and the changes that we make in people’s life

Steve Reiss 24:44
that’s that’s so critically important. And actually one of the key takeaways we did research with this group, you know, at the end of this, and one of the key action items is we have to get together and. Develop our story, yes, and our story are all those key talking points, but having the data to support them, and then once we’ve developed this, we have to be able to share it consistently, yeah, yeah. And essentially you were talking about that, because at pivot point, we recently did some research with beauty cast network, and we have been interviewing career counselors at their annual convention for three years now, and what we’ve been asking them is careers versus College, and specifically beauty industry careers versus college. And what we’ve found, and we have three years of data, so we have a trend line, is that more and more career counselors, high school career counselors are saying, I think, in terms of earning a good living, having a good quality of life, I think that beauty is something people should be interested in. And I would say that beauty is definitely trending compared to college. And we just saw some research come out, I think, from MSNBC, that less than 50% of students now feel that investing in a four year college degree makes sense compared to getting in the trades. So the world is moving towards where we are. The challenge that was identified by the career counselors is they don’t have that data driven story about us. They don’t have a lot of information about our careers. And to the extent that we can get back to them and say, here’s who we are, make it simple, make it compelling, and have the data to back it up. I think a lot more people are going to look at us very, very differently, at the long term benefit of the industry.

Chris Baran 26:50
Yeah, you know, to that point, and it’s amazing. You were just talking about that as I was writing down this thing I one of my, my business partners sent, you know, and you know, for the people that do or don’t know why we have beauty schools and we have they’re across the country, and it’s always interesting how this this weight that people go through with their Parents as college or career, college or career, and the one of my business partners sent this note around, and I don’t remember where it got. I think it was, whether it was Washington or New York Post or whatever it was sent around this, this thing where they had interviewed people, and they said that, that as a general rule, to your point, they said that. They put a little more bluntly. They said that the money that they that people come away with. Now, I’m not telling people that they shouldn’t go and get a college degree, but what they’re saying is that the random thought, not the random the thoughts that’s going along with a lot of people right now, is that they don’t see the value of spending having that massive amount of debt that they come away from college and and they’re not making really any more money than they would be if they were just had a trade or a career.

Steve Reiss 28:12
So here’s here’s something to think about related to that. Think about it before AI, and think about it since AI, every other technology that came along affected blue collar careers, not white collar career, right? AI is exactly the opposite. A lot of those careers you’re going to college for are going to be very, very different with AI. And one of the reasons there’s so much interest in the trades is because there are certain things that just can’t be replaced. You’re going to need an electrician, and you’re going to need a hair stylist. Yeah, yeah. Bingo.

Chris Baran 28:56
You know, this should be on our put that on our gravestones. You need an electrician, you need a hair stylist. But you know it is true, though it is true. I mean, God knows what the future will bring. Whether they you will have machines. I mean, they have AI. Somebody did an AI thing of of in the little video clip that they made of a computer cutting hair. But will it happen? God knows, but it sure as hell ain’t happening right now, you know. And that’s why, I think, more than anything, that is so important that we get that image out so people can see who we are in a real light, not not the way that, unfortunately, sometimes Hollywood portrays the beauty industry

Steve Reiss 29:44
Well, we’re also a very social experience. And if you think about people who are working out of their houses, don’t get out much, they’re not going into an office, one of the things that happened during the pandemic is a. Lot of social infrastructure just disappeared. Habits changed. This is still something that I’m going to go I’m going to catch up with somebody. It’s a pleasant experience. It’s all about me. You know, even if you did have the service that that went in and cut your hair, let’s say, exactly the way you want it, there gonna be a lot of people who don’t really want that.

Chris Baran 30:28
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Steve Reiss 32:30
So here are the key themes which I had written down, and like I said, they cut across different segments of the industry, different functions that people had, but there were, there was consensus on pretty much all of these. And the first is, there’s no standard data Foundation, meaning that we use different definitions for the same thing. We don’t code things the same way. Terminology is inconsistent, and the problem is, even if you did have multiple data sets covering something, they might not be compatible, because they’re measuring things a little bit differently. A second thing is that we don’t know the basic numbers, and part of it has to do with the fact that portions of this industry, or what we’d say under the radar. You know, hopefully tip tax will help with that. But we don’t even know the basic numbers. We don’t know the number of salons. We don’t know how that breaks out between independent and commission. We don’t know how many active pros are. We don’t even know what a full time Pro is. How many hours does it take, especially in a gig economy, so we don’t have basic numbers we can use across our industry, and that creates a challenge. When we’re talking to people about our industry, we have certain segments which we just have even less data on and I would say in addition to the independent contractors, it might be the nail segment, especially Vietnamese nail salons, or it might be multicultural barber shops or things like that. So there are certain segments which are easier to measure and certain segments which are harder to measure. So we can’t pull together what we have and say we understand the full scope of the industry, because there are certain segments. We have very little data, yeah, a lot of gray areas. We have a lot of fragmented data. We have data that gives different conclusions. I know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the average stylist is making $17 an hour, and we intuitively know that’s not necessarily the case, but That’s data that’s out there, and unless you can go out. And you understand how to look at the data, how to identify the source. There’s there’s data which has an agenda. There are people who want to get rid of licensure, yeah, yeah. And there are respectable, you know, research groups which are funded by some of these industry groups who are coming out with numbers and data throws a lot of shade at us, yeah, and we don’t really know what’s true and what’s not true. The fact that we have weak data really undermines what you were talking about, the advocacy. And it can be advocacy in terms of careers, and it could be advocacy in terms of defending ourselves when we’re dealing with gainful employment, things like that. We don’t control our own narrative. And these are all the key themes that there are people outside the industry who have agendas, who are controlling our narrative, because we haven’t consistently spoken with one voice. We’ve spoken with lots of little voices. And I can remember a time when some legislation came out, and this is a long time ago, and there were press releases by two different groups, one of saying, this legislation is a huge win for the beauty industry and the other group saying this legislation is a disaster for the beauty industry. Now, how are we supposed to advance an agenda in Washington or at a state level if we can’t even agree amongst ourselves? So one of the good things that’s happened is unite as one, as a group of industry associations who are now meeting regularly to address this. And they did get together, and they and they supported the tip tax, and that was probably very, very helpful, but there’s a lot more we can do. But the last key takeaway, and I throw a lot of stuff at you, is that the people in the industry, they want to work together,

Chris Baran 37:03
but, and that’s exciting. That’s really exciting.

Steve Reiss 37:06
How do we do it? And how do we create a mechanism that is based on transparency and trust, that allows everybody to be willing to share and to really support this, instead of saying, I’m giving it my support, and then turning around going, Yeah, I’m not really going to do very much.

Chris Baran 37:26
Yeah, yeah. I want to just take a little step back in there for the people that don’t know what gainful employment is and how that affects our industry. Could you just give a just a little broad scope, or just or a snippet on exactly what gainful employment is and how it affects our industry.

Steve Reiss 37:44
Well, it’s less about gainful employment, it’s about it’s about legislation and regulation in general. And if you have college age children, you know one of the key issues that you’re going to grapple with is, how do you pay for college? And the government provides some scholarships, some loans, a whole mix of things that’s not just for colleges and universities. It also applies to beauty schools, and there are regulations that beauty schools have to comply with in order to have access to those funds for their students. And the challenge is that in some cases, these regulations were politically motivated. In some cases, these regulations weren’t based on real world best practices, and on some cases, they’re based on bad data or non existent data. So until we have our own consistent data story, we’re kind of at the mercy of the people who are making the rules because they can justify things however they want, because we aren’t able to approach them to say, we as an industry collectively have this information, we’re going to share it with you, and as long as we’re fighting amongst ourselves and shooting each other in the foot, as as somebody said to me a long time ago, someone in a congressional office, they said, if you guys can’t agree among yourself, how can you expect us to go fight for you? Yeah, exactly, yeah. That’s a wild one.

Chris Baran 39:29
You know, it was interesting because I, you know, being in the school business, you know, like not to harp on that gainful employment, but when you have people that in legis, in people that are making legislation that say, here’s the rules you have to live by, and they don’t understand it themselves when they’re asking school owners that to gain gainful employment. Just means that that the school owner has to prove that the what they charge for their tuition that. And people are making enough money that justify that, that tuition. And when we owning a couple schools, we know that the school owner has to go out to the past students and ask them, what, how much money you’re making to do this. And they and that they don’t have to provide that. So it’s this, it’s this catch 22 that’s inside there that makes it hard. So I think, like what you’re saying is it really is about if we can’t prove and we can’t define everything in ourselves, and then they’re just giving us laws that we can’t live up to, because it’s not, it’s not rational, it’s not feasible. It really, it it discredits us, and it makes it hard for the schools that are out there to to make decisions, number one, and to survive number two, yeah, yeah. So the, I mean, that was, that was a that was a mouthful, that was in there, what? What do you see? What’s next steps?

Steve Reiss 41:05
The next steps are really figuring out a mechanism that allows the industry to come together and start working on these things. And as mentioned there, we need to build trust among the people in our industry that what we’re doing is for their benefit. It’s going to be done properly and appropriately, that there are no agendas, and that means we need to work with baby steps. We need to have transparency, and we need to make sure everybody understands why we’re doing this, yeah,

Chris Baran 41:42
you know. And it’s interesting. I mean, the and again, this might be something that just floated through my brain. When you were talking about this, about we can’t get any specific data, and when you were talking about how the government thinks that we make X amount of dollars per year, and that’s based on XYZ amount of hours per week that we know is not necessarily true. Probably you know how much of that would you would you say is because we have people in our industry that are dealing with everything on a cash basis, and which is very tempting not to report. I’m not saying that no one throwing anybody under the bus, saying they’re not reporting it, but it just makes it

Steve Reiss 42:28
for easy. Yeah, it’s a huge challenge in a lot of service industries. So that’s one issue. The second is technology has created this gig economy, because it means you can do multiple jobs where you couldn’t necessarily do them before. So how many people in our industry are also doing art design at night on their computers, or are working in restaurants or bars or I mean, there could be a whole host of things that people are doing in our industry in addition to this, and you’re finding, at least the research I’ve seen is that the average stylist is working less hours than they were 15 years ago. They went from like 37 hours to like 26 and it doesn’t mean they’re working less, it just means maybe they’re doing a variety of different things, and if you’re doing a variety of different things without really having that context, how are we represented?

Chris Baran 43:31
Yeah, interesting, interesting stuff. The I, you know, I just, you know, my brain, I’m going on. I was telling you before we started about how I was invited to that meeting, and now I’m just, you know, we had, I had another gig that was going on that it couldn’t be there. Now I’m kicking myself for not being there. Is there another what’s like? What had Did you get some we talked about next steps, and we all agree we have to. Everybody’s got to be their part. What can other people that are listening to this new how can they get involved, even if it’s just by supplying data or offering to help or whatever? What? What is this? Does this need to come top down? Because you went really about a lot of the industry leaders that are out there that were at this meeting, what does the average person that the average hairdresser, the average salon owner, what do they need to do?

Steve Reiss 44:28
Well, you know, they it’s kind of like this 12 step program. The first step is acknowledging this is an important issue, yeah. And if we can get people in the industry who haven’t really thought about data. And if you think about data, if you’re running a salon, you’re thinking about how much I’m charging, how often people are coming back, you know, rebooking, rate, you know, whole host of things. You’re not even thinking about gainful employment, right? And if you’re in a school. Yeah, you might not be thinking about something that’s going on in salon the same way. So there needs to be a larger consensus that data is important. And just thinking about it, it’s kind of like somebody says there are a lot of green cards today, all of a sudden you’re going to notice green cards. You would never notice green cards before. Cards. Exactly. That’s part of it. What we really need to do as an industry is we need and this is not easy. This is going to be a lot of heavy lifting and sensitivity, and hopefully it doesn’t get political. But we need to have some kind of industry group that can help manage the process in that high level, transparent, agnostic way that has no agenda and isn’t selling anything to anyone. And once that’s kind of created, it makes a whole host of other things much more accessible, because then you know who to talk to. And right now, we’re having a million different data conversations all over the place, but the dots are not being connected, so I don’t know that you know this. And one of the most amazing things that came out of this round table was people sitting at a table going, I had no idea that existed. Yeah, yeah. And we’re not talking about people who, you know, work in their salon, and they don’t get out much. We’re talking about leaders in the industry. People are out there. But the fact is, there are so many different types of data that impact us in so many different ways. Nobody’s going to have all the answers. Our answer is to recognize it’s important come together around it. And then you can go to the subject matter experts, and they can say, here’s what we have, here’s what we don’t have.

Chris Baran 46:44
Yeah, you and this is just about I’m not this is not a blame assignment. It’s what I’m trying to figure out here is who are the people that can help like as I know that there’s brands and manufacturers that have, they have a lot more money than than the average person does in their when their take home pay for their not take home pay. But what they’re generating, they need data. So there are, they are. Did you have a lot of brand awareness that was there that was willing to give data, are willing to put in to chips in was what was it like with the industry leaders that were there?

Steve Reiss 47:27
So everyone recognizes the challenge. You know, the getting into the weeds is, how do we work together in a way? So I feel I’m being rewarded, I’m being respected, I’m not being taken advantage of one of the things that came out of this was we have very little data on consumer trends. Now, you and I both know big companies have tons of data on consumer trends. What that really means is that when you get down to a certain level, people aren’t aware that there are these companies who do this, or this data exists, or how to get a hold of this. So, you know, getting tactical, it might be having information about consumer trends be more broadly available, and you’ve probably heard of the Kim report, and basically that’s a group that started a while ago, which is really doing what we’re talking about with this data group. They’ve gotten POS companies together to share information so we can talk about what’s happening in the market just yesterday. PBA and pivot point launched something called Pro beauty pulse. And what it is is sentiment analysis of people within both professional beauty industry and the school segment of the industry, and what their confidence levels are, you know. So these are all little examples of the industry starting to do things together. It’s a question of, let’s prioritize what’s needed, and let’s figure out how we get from here to there, understanding that it’s going to be a long journey and it’s going to require trust. And as you know, trust takes a long time to build, especially when you have companies who compete against each other. Compete against each other, right, right? So it’s not about fighting over a slice of the pie. It’s how do we collectively make the pie a little bit bigger? Yeah, I love it.

Chris Baran 49:34
This is, I guess, just before, I’m going to scoot you over to our rapid fire here, just in a second, because there was a lot of stuff in there, and for the people that listening there, out there, what if you had to ask for a call to action or request, or whatever that would be, is there something you would just ask of those people? It can help move this.

Steve Reiss 50:00
Forward, in the absence of any kind of mechanism, I would say, because I’m really curious about this and because I really want to help and make a difference, I would have them just reach out to me to talk about it. Got it every single time I talked to somebody, I learned something I didn’t know, and it could be any person in this industry. One of the things that pivot point really benefits from is we have our own cosmetology school and our own barber Academy, and those are our living labs. And whenever we want to get a handle on how students feel about things, how things work in a school environment, I just walk across the street or get in my car and drive five miles and sit down and talk to a bunch of people. And I’m always shocked how much I learn, because you tend to think I go to all these meetings, I talk to all these high level people. I know what’s going on. There’s always something that you never thought about that that people make available. So I would love to hear from anyone who has thoughts or wants to share links or information or just wants to talk about the topic, because it will definitely inform both of us and will come away a little bit better.

Chris Baran 51:14
Yes, Steve, how do they get how? What’s the best way for them to get a hold

Steve Reiss 51:19
of you? S, Reese, R, a, i, s, s, at, pivot, Dash point.com,

Chris Baran 51:27
we’ll have that on there as well. So wow, I think that, first of all, I’m going to write there was a lot of stuff there, and I and I just encourage everybody just to take a breath, a nice cleansing breath right now. And then we’re going to jump into the into the rapid fire. And I’m going to take one just so I can get my brain in it from from that into this. What I love, what I love most about this, and everybody loves this segment that we do on rapid fire. So cleansing breath. And I’m going to throw these out to you then. And, you know, it’s funny how we, in our industry, we always talk about the creative process, and yet, you know, while you’re not a hairdresser, per se, you’re still in our business, and you’re still creative, and you just talk. You just proved that when you said that, I go out and talk to other people, etc, right from the bottom up. But in the creative process, when you’ve got to come up with new ideas or whatever, what’s the thing that turns you on the most in the creative process?

Steve Reiss 52:30
I just love ideas. I just love seeing something in a different way, doing something through a different set of eyes and and I think especially as you get older, and you and I can agree upon this, you start appreciating things that you always took for granted. And one of the things I appreciate now is I walk outside and all the colors, yeah, yeah. And I, you know, things I saw were always kind of the background, in a way, but now the background is really what gives me tremendous joy. And I think it can be looking at numbers that way, looking at ideas, listening to music and having somebody explain, you know, what the song was about, or talking to friends about a David Lynch movie, and what was he really trying to get us to think about? It’s a whole, the whole creative process, the process itself, I think, is the joy and, you know, coming out with something that you can show people, you know, it’s important, but it’s just the process that just seems exciting.

Chris Baran 53:39
And what stifles the creative process for you

Steve Reiss 53:43
thinking you have the answers,

Chris Baran 53:46
there you go. And now in life in general, what do you love the most?

Steve Reiss 53:57
I was talking to somebody recently, and I said, you know, what? What do you value the most? And I said, you know, when I was younger, it was stuff that was about me, and now it’s about stuff that I can impact.

Chris Baran 54:16
Yeah, interesting. Love that word impact. And in life, what do you dislike the most?

Steve Reiss 54:23
My father always used to say, there are only two types of people you can’t get along with, people who are lazy and people who don’t care. He said, Anyone else you can work with?

Chris Baran 54:36
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That my father had things that was somewhat like that, maybe not as intelligent. He said there’s two, two types of people, those that divide people into two types of people and those that don’t. That you can show you my background and what do you love most about our industry?

Steve Reiss 54:58
Well. The people are just amazing. So let me put it this way, this way I think about it if I was a lawyer or an insurance adjuster or any other career, and I found myself on a Thursday afternoon in a strange town, far away from home, where I didn’t know anybody, and I walked into a law office, and I said, Hey, I’m new in town. You know? What should I do here? They’ll probably tell me they’re too busy to talk to me. Yeah, if you’re in this business and you walk into any salon, not only will they tell you what you should do, but they might say, Hey, I’m going out with some friends. Do you want to come? Or maybe you’d like come over for dinner? And seriously, Chris, I’ve been in a lot of different industries. I’m an older guy, and this is the only industry I’ve ever found which isn’t a job, it’s a lifestyle.

Chris Baran 55:53
Yeah, yep, true. And in our industry, is there anything that you dislike about our industry?

Steve Reiss 56:03
Well, I do get frustrated, and this is more about me in the industry, that things move slowly, because if I want to get something done, I want to get something done, and I realize that there are different types of thinkers. There are linear thinkers ABC, and there are relational thinkers who, and this industry is full of really creative people who I have to, I have to pull myself back and say, Steve, when the time is right, the time is right. But if you try and do things before it’s time, you’re not going to get the outcome.

Chris Baran 56:41
Yeah, yeah. Wise words. Wise words, a person you admire the most.

Steve Reiss 56:50
Wow, that’s a good question.

Steve Reiss 56:57
Maybe Picasso in that he saw the world so completely differently than other people did, and he completely reinvented himself. You know, every 1015, years, yeah, interesting. He did that at, you know, he was already successful when he got involved with his blue period, for example. He could have ridden that, but he didn’t. He just kept pushing and challenging himself. And, you know, talking about impact, you know, that’s somebody who would impact, Wow,

Chris Baran 57:33
your most prized possession.

Steve Reiss 57:39
I don’t really care very much about stuff. I really don’t I, you know, this story will explain it all. I had a bicycle, and I bought it myself. When I was 12 years old, I told my dad I wanted a bicycle. He said, Go get a bicycle. He said, Okay, can you give me the money goes? He said, No, no, you have to figure out how to get the money. I just said, you can get a bicycle if you want. So anyway, I took care of this bicycle and went off to college. And I really, really want to get new bicycle, but this one still worked, so I left it out in front of my fraternity house, unlocked when I went on summer break, I came back, the bicycle was gone, and on a certain level, I was very happy, because now I can justify getting a new bicycle anyway. About two days later, this guy shows up the fraternity house with the bicycle. He goes, I just saw it sitting here, and I really needed a bicycle over the summer, so I borrowed it. But I want you to know that I put on new brake pads, and I fixed the tires, and I did all this other stuff. So I ended up being stuck with that bicycle all through college. So I grew up in a house where the household with the worst sin was wasting food. My parents were from the depression, and I just hate wasting stuff.

Chris Baran 59:05
Good for you. Person you wish you could meet.

Steve Reiss 59:16
Maybe Picasso, something that people talk to me. We don’t know if he

Steve Reiss 59:23
talked to me someone more immediately who I would love to talk to. It would be Bob Dylan,

Chris Baran 59:28
oh, yeah, something that people don’t know about you. I

Steve Reiss 59:39
have a black belt in Taekwondo,

Chris Baran 59:42
I did not know that, and remind me never to get a fight with you.

Steve Reiss 59:47
That was a long time ago,

Chris Baran 59:50
a month off. You got somebody give you a month off. Where would you go? What would you do? I.

Steve Reiss 1:00:00
Probably want to go someplace in Asia. Not sure where

Chris Baran 1:00:05
is there anything that terrifies you?

Steve Reiss 1:00:10
Yeah, confined spaces.

Chris Baran 1:00:11
Oh, you and Sam BIA would get along really well. He’s claustrophobic. Your favorite comfort food, pizza, I have some waiting in my fridge tonight that are for leftovers. Okay, this is a new one, thin or thick. What style pizza?

Steve Reiss 1:00:32
New York style? Ah, New York style is not thick, Chicago style, and it’s not tavern Chicago style. It’s New York. Or actually, the best pizza I’ve had is in New Haven, Connecticut.

Chris Baran 1:00:45
Wow, wow. Name of the place

Steve Reiss 1:00:49
ranked, Pepes. Rank. Pepes. Now I’m gonna

Chris Baran 1:00:51
have to go there when I’m there, something in the industry that you haven’t done, but you still want to do.

Steve Reiss 1:00:59
I’m permitting. I’d love to go to Beauty School. I I understand so many segments of it, but I’m kind of a pretender because I never went to beauty school, I never worked in a salon. So I’m kind of one of these people who’s talking about the industry without really being in the industry. And I if I could correct that, you know, it’s something I would think about interesting.

Chris Baran 1:01:28
If you had one do over, and I won’t take I wouldn’t be who I am if I didn’t have something. What if you had one do over, something you could do different change from the past. What would that be?

Steve Reiss 1:01:40
There are certain people in my life who I didn’t take them seriously enough at the time. I didn’t give them undivided attention. I didn’t, I didn’t, I don’t want to use the word respect, because that’s not really that what I mean. But I just, I just didn’t focus on them enough. And now I think about it, and I feel very, bad.

Chris Baran 1:02:01
Interesting tomorrow, you couldn’t have anything to do with the industry. You couldn’t have anything to do with communications, data, research, et cetera, et cetera. What would you do? Read and last question. Well, just before anything, because we and we gave you

Steve Reiss 1:02:25
an address here, what’s what’s that? Yeah, you’re asking a lot of questions. I’m gonna have to share this with my wife so she understands me better after decades of marriage.

Chris Baran 1:02:36
We’ll get her to watch the end part of this, and she’ll get it and I just, I want to ask you one last question, but just before we go, I know you gave out that how people can contact you. But if, if there’s other people, because I know you, you gave remarkable speeches, etc, and I got great knowledge from the stuff that you do. But if, is there a place, if somebody wanted to hear you speak or do whatever, or hire you to speak at something. Was there? Is there someplace that they can go? Do you do that?

Steve Reiss 1:03:07
I work for pivot point, but pivot point is incredibly accommodating in regards to my time. So they should reach out to pivot point and say, we can work out. Love it.

Chris Baran 1:03:21
Last question, if you had one wish for our industry, what would that be

Steve Reiss 1:03:28
to be understood?

Chris Baran 1:03:30
Well said, Steve, I just You’re a busy guy, and I just want to thank you so much for giving up your time, your energy, your thoughts. And you know what I also loved is that, look at you, and you and I talked, we just said, Look at I’ve got all this new information. It’s all there, and I’m just willing to share. So for you, for what you do, our for our industry, and your willingness to share, I just want to say thank you, and was a pleasure and honor to have you on

Steve Reiss 1:03:55
head cases. Well, information shared has minimal value. Yeah, its value comes with its velocity.

Chris Baran 1:04:03
Yeah, bingo, bingo. And thank you so much. You’re welcome. So thank you once again, and

Steve Reiss 1:04:10
we’ll be talking soon. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Chris Baran 1:04:15
Thanks again for watching this episode, and if you liked what you heard, remember to smash that like or follow button, depending on your preferred platform, and make sure to share it with anyone you know that might be a fellow head case. Head cases is produced by cut action media with Marjorie Phillips doing the planning parts, Lee Baran on the video bits, and Adrian Taverner mixing the audio jazz you.