ep146 – Anthony Civitano

Show Notes

Today’s guest is one of the most diversely talented leaders I know in the beauty industry. Over his more than 30-year career, he’s owned salons and beauty schools, led national education organizations, and worked with industry leaders, regulators, and policymakers to strengthen beauty education and expand career opportunities. He’s the president and COO of the Salon Professional Education Company, and the franchisor behind The Salon Professional Academy and Elevate Salon Institute. He is actively involved in state and federal advocacy for our industry, and that’s exactly why I wanted him here. With major changes to federal education policy and funding that will certainly impact beauty schools, future stylists, and ultimately salon owners, we need to understand what’s happening and what it means for all of us. Full disclosure, I’m a beauty school owner and part of this franchise, and today I’m not shying away from the hard questions about what our industry may be facing and what we can do about it. Let’s get into it with this week’s Headcase, Mr Anthony Civitano.

2:30 Anthony’s Career Background

32:38 Impact of Department of Education Policies

32:53 Role of Student Accountability

33:57 Industry Economic Ripple Effects

41:03 Opportunities for Industry Unity

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. Well, my friends, welcome to another session of head cases. And today’s today’s guest, in my mind, is probably one of the most diverse beauty industry individuals that I know. Why? Well, over his 30-plus years in the industry, he’s owned salons and beauty schools. He’s led national education organization. He’s served as a recognized advocate for workforce development and career education. He’s also worked with industry leaders, regulators, and policymakers to advance initiatives that strengthen beauty education, improve student outcomes, and expand career opportunities. He is the president and chief operating officer of Salon Professional Education Company (SPEC) which is a franchisor of the Salon Professional Academies and Elevate Salon Institute, he currently serves as vice chair of Spec Board of Directors and is actively involved in state and federal advocacy on behalf of all of us in the professional beauty industry. And all of that is why I felt it was crucial to have him on, based on the government’s decision to defund schools and higher education. Now I want to set the scene here, and to be very clear, this podcast is about how the DOE’s Department of Education decision on school funding will affect you as salon owner and or a stylist, and I want to also lay it on the table that I am a beauty school owner and a member of a beauty school franchise, and I handpicked today’s guest based on a very serious topic that can affect our beauty industry if we don’t stand our ground. My guest is also the president and COO of the franchise we own. I want to ask my guest some hard questions that we all have to think about for our industry to survive, based on the current government regulations. So let’s get into this week’s head case, mr. Anthony. Civitano. mr. Anthony Civitano, or as for those people like to know, people in that know him like as ourselves, we like to call him Anthony. So, Anthony, it’s it’s always a pleasure to talk with you, and welcome to Head Cases. I appreciate you, brother.

Anthony Civitano 3:03
Thank you, Chris. It’s my pleasure and honor to be here.

Chris Baran 3:07
Well, so Anthony, I mean, firstly, is I mean, you and I, we don’t talk on a daily basis, but we certainly talk a lot. And but before we get into that and talk and you know talking about the DOE, etc. how what the implications have for our industry. Just, I think if you can just let everybody know a little bit about, okay, what’s your hair story? How’d you get involved? Why hair, etc.

Anthony Civitano 3:33
Yeah, sure, Chris. I’ll give you the short version because there’s definitely a long version, but I’ve heard the

Chris Baran 3:38
long versions.

Anthony Civitano 3:40
Heard the long versions yet. So, second generation. My dad was a licensed addresser. My mom, my brother, my sister went to beauty school. So, I wound up going to school. Worked for a while out in the industry. Owned three salons. Got back into the school business. Bought eight or nine schools. Just been around it forever, and just really fell in love with every single aspect of it. So it’s been amazing.

Chris Baran 4:07
Yeah, and and your your dad was, you know, I mean, I know you kind of skipped over that, but I want to make sure credits where credit you do. Your dad was, you know, fairly big on the education scene and the competition scene as well, wasn’t he?

Anthony Civitano 4:21
He was, yeah. He won best hairdresser in the world at the International Beauty Show three years in a row.

Chris Baran 4:27
Wow!

Anthony Civitano 4:27
And so, yeah, he graduated beauty school in 1960. By 1970, he had started winning those awards. He was a platform artist for Macy’s and a lot of other, you know, where the the old department stores had a lot of salons in them, and he had a salon. And then you know by 1980, he was part of the largest chain of schools in the Northeast. So yeah,

Chris Baran 4:54
that’s amazing. That’s amazing. So we got that in there now. Now to the nitty gritty. Stuff and and in the intro I said that there was some hard questions. I think that well I think you and I want to talk about firstly, but I think there’s that side of it where you know this has huge ramifications. I’ve always wanted to use that word in a sentence, ramifications, but there’s huge ramifications that there is on the beauty industry based on the DEO’s decision about schools, so can you just you know briefly give us like a 35,000 foot level of of what it is? I know that people know about it, but I don’t know if they know all of it. So let’s just start off with that, so people have a good understanding, just to start with.

Anthony Civitano 5:40
Yeah, sure, Chris. You know, there’s a lot of information, a lot of misinformation, a lot of just one of you things that you’ve drilled into me is like sometimes your perception is the reality that you tell yourself, right? Or

Chris Baran 5:54
yeah, yeah,

Anthony Civitano 5:55
kind of like that. So you know, you and I have talked about this. Just like any industry, there’s good actors, there’s bad actors, and somewhere in between is the majority, right? So the Department of Education is, despite what people think, not singling out beauty schools. It’s a reform of higher education, to be honest with you.

Chris Baran 6:18
Yeah,

Anthony Civitano 6:19
and when government paints in broad brushstrokes. Sorry, I can never get that out in one shot. You know, there’s collateral damage, right? They have to go by their numbers and the numbers that they have provable. And unfortunately, you know, we’re probably going to get a little ahead of ourselves here. But the cash economy, the gig economy, a lot of those things doesn’t really flow to the bottom line of trackable money. So the return on investment is really what the problem is. It’s not that the government thinks we’re bad and we’re all evil. It’s that the professional doesn’t always get the you know on the books, cash flow that they really are making. They don’t show that.

Chris Baran 7:06
Yeah, and and I just want to jump ahead a little bit on something that we, you and I, have talked about, but I think it fits real and well right here. Is you you asked me an interesting question the other day, and you said, Chris, and I think that’s not the usual name you call me, but that’s the one we can use on air here today. But you said, Chris, when you sign your tax return, what do you put on it? And I said, Well, you know, I put on business owner, or, or you know, that I’m blah blah blah. You know, whatever my title is, you know makes me sound really good, but you said something that was really interesting, and I want you to tell first of all, you know I did not put hairdresser on it, and then you told me why, and from this day forward I will be writing hairdresser on my tax return. So tell us a little bit about why we should do that.

Anthony Civitano 7:58
Yeah, so you know Chris, that’s great, and it’s funny that that came out of born out of nowhere, right? We just we’re just riffing with each other talking about stuff, and that is the reality that government has to follow its own rules. They have to follow their own studies. So there’s something called a CIP or a cip code, and that’s how industries get carved out, and then that’s how statistics and the Bureau of Labor Statistics gets their information. And most people, after they leave, maybe doing hair full time, right? Because you still do hair. You might not do hair every day. I stopped doing hair, but I did do hair for a long time. The reality is, I’m the president of a franchise of beauty schools, but I got that because I went to beauty school. So there’s a direct correlation in line to my income that you know when I put president of a franchise, that doesn’t the CIP code doesn’t go back to where it all began, and that’s that’s part and parcel to the problem.

Chris Baran 9:04
Yeah. Well, and you know what? What I loved about it is is that when you when you’re a hairdresser, and whatever you’ve moved on to, if you’re here, and I want you, I’m going to point this at whether you’re an educator and you’re traveling the country and you’re making six figures behind a chair, or you’re making six figures in your business, and and and if you or whatever the figure, I mean, let’s let’s just be ridiculous and say I’m a hairdresser, but now I have I own a chain of beauty school or beauty salons, and I’m a hairdresser, but I write business owner, and I don’t write hairdresser, and if I make a million dollars, or six figures of whatever that would be, that doesn’t get aggregated into the numbers when they do the total count of what hairdressers make. So when the government comes back and says that we’re only get you know average hairdresser in a year only earns 27 eight. Then that get that number skewed, and so we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. And then we can’t. We wonder why they won’t give us loans, or when they’re giving out funding for schools or for training or whatever. And they say, “Well, you’re only going to make 27, eight in a year. So why why would we fund something when you have to pay for the training? So you know, I just think that when you told that, when you said that to me, it was like the biggest love punch that I’ve ever gotten a forehead. So, I just want to make sure that everybody else out hears that. And damn it, write hairdresser on your tax return. Be proud of it.

Anthony Civitano 10:36
Yeah, absolutely.

Chris Baran 10:40
So now to sort of veer this back on topic here, because this really is about the crisis that we have with the what it’s going to happen to our our industry, and and I want to hit you with something here that we we hear all the time, and I you know you you don’t have to go far. You can you can go to Facebook, any of your social media things, and some people on there, and I’ve read one the other day that said something to the effect of, “Well, it doesn’t matter if the DOE gets rid of the funding for schools anyway, because the the students that are coming out there aren’t qualified anyway. They don’t get enough training anyway. So what difference is it going to make if if they lose their funding? If they’re saying that, what would you say to those people?

Anthony Civitano 11:24
Well, I would say I would say that they’re probably completely uninformed or ill-informed. You know, it’s like we started out here saying that there are good schools, there’s bad schools, there’s somewhere in the middle. The biggest thing that I always have a hard time with that is how about the personal accountability of the student? You know, students come to us and they want to learn a craft, they want to learn an art, they want to learn an industry, and you know the good schools out there, and there’s plenty of them. There’s a lot of them. I would say the majority are good schools, you know. We’re this is adult education. This isn’t. You’re not in high school. You’re not learning a trade. I mean, you can learn it while you’re in high school, but we’re talking about post-secondary education, meaning after after high school. This is higher education, just like if you went to a college.

Chris Baran 12:20
Yeah,

Anthony Civitano 12:21
there has to be a certain amount of personal accountability to that student. You have to show up. You have to be on time every day. You have to be dressed for the part. Your mindset has to be part of you know that that readiness and that willingness. You know, I watch. You’re going to say, Anthony, you should get a life, and I should. But you know, I watch a lot of these Facebook communities, TikTok communities, and I can always tell when the student that is complaining about their school. If you listen to the message of what they’re saying, like I had one, I won’t say the name of the school, but I know the school on art. I know it’s a good school, and it was a student, and she said, “Hey, y’all, I’m hiding in the bathroom because can you believe it? My instructor just gave me my fifth haircut of the day, and that was her TikTok. You know, it’s like your fifth haircut of the day if you’re doing five haircuts in a day in a salon, you haven’t even broke even yet. Like you got to make money. You know, like you should be saying to your teacher, “Bring me more clients. Bring me more clients, and you should be bringing more clients. So I think that’s a lot of it. To be honest with you, when they say it, and the students, you know, they they it goes back to the personal accountability, Chris. That’s that’s really it.

Chris Baran 13:45
Yeah, and you know what? I I think you’re you’re right, and and I I think to be fair, I think there’s because you hit the nail on the head when you said this is and the words are adult education, and when people understand that there’s a difference between mandatory education that you get in school and adult education. Mandatory means I have to take these subjects, or my parents go to jail. I I have no choice of what time it is. I I must do these things. I don’t have a choice on which subjects. I have you give me the subjects. I have to take them, and I think now on the flip side of that, if we want to flip it in his head, the responsibility of schools and educators are to make it engaging, so that people want to be engaged. I mean, yes, you’re there. Yes, your responsibility is if I want to learn my craft, it’s going to be uncomfortable because I’m learning new things. But I think that what I love about the educators that we have now is, you know, they’re they’re ingrained enough to know that you’ve got to you have to enroll a student, and get them getting them engaged, and hopefully, when that student had said you gave me five haircuts today, that they they’ll get they’ll get it that this is your. Training ground. This is your polishing ground before you get out there. And if you’re not doing that and you’re not getting enough work on you, that’s when that owner of the school of the salon that’s you’re you’re going to be your boss. You’re going to hire you. The more that you can do in that polishing period when you’re learning your craft, learning your skill, that they can, they can actually that that’s where you’re going to hone your skills. So you’re ready when you go, and and nobody’s saying you have to do the the same job as the owner did, but you’ve got to get somewhere, you know, 50 to 60% closer to it. So,

Anthony Civitano 15:45
yeah, that’s

Chris Baran 15:46
it. No, go ahead,

Anthony Civitano 15:48
Chris. To that point, it’s. I mean, you’re hitting the nail on the head, right? It’s the student needs to understand that this is their only time in their entire career is while they’re in beauty school, they can stop and say, “mr. Chris, I’m lost in this haircut. mr. Chris, I kind of don’t know where I started on color, and I’m back in it. So embrace that while you’re in the school, right? It’s part of that. Here’s the other thing, Chris, is that you know beauty school is mandated in hours, whether it’s 1000 hours in New York or 1500 hours in Indiana. You know the the bulk of the hours in the theoretical portion and when you’re in the classroom, they’re almost identical. I mean, they you know they they waver here and there a little bit, and the reality is that the longer you’re in school, the longer time you get to practice in that safe zone. But here’s the thing, Chris: that you know I own eight schools. I told all my students I’m going to date myself by saying this name because not everybody remembers him, but I think everybody does because he’s a legend. When a student enrolled in my school, I would say, “Listen, I’m not going to graduate you and make you VLSA soon. I am going to give you a basic entry level education. You’re going to know how to pass the state board test. You’re going to have an entry level set of skills that you’re not going to hurt anybody, and your customers can come to you with a reasonable understanding that you’re not going to hurt them or do damage to them, but your education should not stop the minute you graduate my school. In fact, the salon that I’m going to pair you with or try to work with you to place you in, I’m going to demand that you demand that they’re going to give you continuing education. And Chris, you and I talk about this all the time. Do you stop learning?

Chris Baran 17:44
No, never have. How long have

Anthony Civitano 17:46
you been in this industry, Chris?

Chris Baran 17:47
Yeah. Well, that’s. I’m just coming on 60 years.

Anthony Civitano 17:51
Yeah, I said

Chris Baran 17:53
60

Anthony Civitano 17:54
years.

Chris Baran 17:56
That was 6060 proud years. I’m coming on.

Anthony Civitano 17:58
And but you still learn. You know whether it, you know. I mean, when Baliage came out, you didn’t know what Bali was Baliage came out before it came out. It came out, and then you learned it, and you were like, “Wow, this is really cool! And then you expanded upon it for your own skill set and your own flavor. But somebody else invented that first. It was a new technology, you know. When smoothing came out, not everybody that went to beauty school 20 years ago knows what smoothing is.

Chris Baran 18:30
Yeah, yeah, and and you know what I what I love about what we’re talking about here is just there’s a responsibility that goes along with it, both from the educator end, from the school owners end, and from the students’ end, and you know, I I was talking to somebody the other day because that was one of the people that said, yeah, but you know, schools are just, you know, they just get out of school. We got to train them anyway. Well, you know, and the analogy I like to give them is is that yes, you’re right, but in 1000 hours or those few hours, think about it. You never knew. You know, I didn’t. I sure as hell didn’t know what to do, and quite frankly, I was terrified when I got out of school of going into the my first thing because it was is new and it was uncomfortable. But the analogy that I that I say is, if if more of our industry understood understood that whether it’s hairdressing, whether you’re an electrician or whatever, you get foundational information, and you can’t. You can go through it in school, and you’re going to work on live people if you’re a hairdresser, and if you’re an electrician, you’re going to work on some kind of an electrical outlets and have to do them live with electricity flowing through them, so that you can learn what to do and what not to do. But what I’d like to think about if if our industry would take on the aspect of, you know, if you think of those lovely hardstone diamonds that Laurel or ladies love to have on the rings, which is the diamond, somebody had to mine it, then it had to go. Somebody had to cut it, and then somebody had to polish it. So if we thought about more that the schools were mining and cutting and doing the rough cut on the diamond, but it’s still it’s still important that the salons, the rest of the industry provides the vehicles, the polishing tools that we have to get their skills up to speed, and the number of times, the number of hours that they can put in, so it becomes ingrained in you, so you can do it without thinking. And I think that that that it for anybody that’s going to say things about schools not being valid, I think that sometimes we just, like you said, we’re just misinformed. We need more information. Talk about it. Go into a school. If you’re salon owner, you know, and you and you and you value it, get you or some of your people just to go down and do a haircut, do a do a color technique. Hey, do a perm. Really throw something at them, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I think there’s so much more that we can do. But so let’s just talk a little bit about this. Why? I don’t know. Am I being too harsh if I say it’s we’re at a kind of a crisis moment with funding for schools?

Anthony Civitano 21:15
Oh, we’re Chris. I’ve been in this business for 34 years. This is the worst I’ve ever seen it. I mean, we’re we’re always being attacked and we’re always being questioned. Which I’ll be honest with you, I don’t take that as a bad thing because that keeps you sharp. That keeps you wanting to better your best. That keeps you, you know, you need to stay ahead of the curve and you need to be part of the professional industry to hear what they want.

Chris Baran 21:44
Yeah, the

Anthony Civitano 21:44
problem again goes back to this. This crisis was not born out of somebody saying all the beauty schools in America are terrible. It’s higher education in general has a problem.

Chris Baran 21:59
Yeah, and

Anthony Civitano 21:59
then that broad brush stroke narrowed down to again defining what the ROI is and what it should and shouldn’t be, and that’s the problem. Is that we know, and this is what I love about our industry: we have chain salons that will you could graduate and get a chair the day you graduate from beauty school, and most of them have their own hairstyling academy, and they’ll teach you their three or four or five haircuts. And the reality is that every haircut is based on angles, right? It’s a zero, 45, a 90, or something in between them. So if you’re going to any, you know, I’m not going to name a chain salon, but you name any of them, you could go in and you you can start earning money right away, and you can hone your skills and you can move there. Or maybe you could take a management position, or maybe you can buy a franchise. Any of those things. If you go, if you’ve built up a good book of business while you’re in beauty school, and you graduate and you want to go rent the suite? Go rent the suite. You know, you want to go work in rent a booth in a salon? Go do that. Or if you want to see what I see a lot coming back to is the commission salons. I’m seeing more and more commission salons come back, and those commission salons were always the backbone of education post graduation, because I am investing in you as the new hairdresser coming to work in my salon, I’m going to invest in you. I’m going to continue your education. I’m going to market you. I’m going to do all those things.

Chris Baran 23:34
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Anthony Civitano 27:08
Yeah, Chris. I mean, that’s a great question, and this is one that I’ve been talking about all over the country. I want you to go back to if you remember, like 2008, 2011. There was the schools were packed with students. The graduates were going out, and they were working everywhere. The only people that didn’t work were people that didn’t want to work. But even at the height, you’ve been in this industry for 60 years. At the height of every decade that you could think of, I guarantee you that you could walk into any salon and there would be empty chairs.

Chris Baran 27:44
Yeah, yeah. Right.

Anthony Civitano 27:45
So is that is that a fair statement to say?

Chris Baran 27:47
Very fair statement.

Anthony Civitano 27:48
Okay. So now we already know that there was other mentalities or a push out there of that hairdressing is not a noble industry. It is not a something to be proud of. Most parents don’t sit there and say, “Oh yeah, Janie’s graduating high school, and you know their friends are like, “Oh, where’s she going to go away to school? You know, she’s going to go to Courtland? She going to go to Ole Miss? No, she’s going to go to beauty school. It’s like, “Oh, you know, oh well, you know, I was raised by a hairdresser, and I had more than most. But that’s not the point. The point being is that we’ve we’re still fighting the old Greece, you know, beauty school dropout song, right? So the point of what I’m trying to get is that the more schools have lose their funding and lose that opportunity. That means there’s less people that are going to go there. Because by the way, beauty school is still a pretty good ROI on your money. You know, there’s there’s misnomers out there that beauty school costs 30 and $40,000. It doesn’t cost that much. The most expensive school I’ve ever seen is about 25,000, and you know if you are that boutique beauty school and you think that’s what your education’s worth, you know again this is free will and free choice. You don’t have to go there as the student. You’ve done your research. You’ve said this is where I want to go, you go, you graduate, and hopefully you paid attention while you’re in school. So the point, though, Chris, going back to what you were saying, is that there will be more and more of a shortage. Right now, there’s probably 60,000 jobs that could be filled right now in salons across America, and it’s probably even more than that, and then in three months you could probably fill another 30,000 again. You won’t see that. You won’t see those jobs getting filled, and then people will say, “You know, which I ask me the question. There’s a follow up question that I know you’re going to ask me about that. Well, if schools go away. Will take the place, right?

Chris Baran 30:02
Yeah, yeah. And what’s the natural?

Anthony Civitano 30:04
What’s the natural answer, Chris?

Chris Baran 30:06
Yeah. Well, I mean, people are going to think that they’ve got to go to apprenticeship programs. Then correct?

Anthony Civitano 30:11
Right. Exactly. And apprenticeships. Listen, I have no problems with apprenticeships. I think apprenticeships, you know, hold value in a lot of industries. What scares me, and you alluded to this before talking about this, is that a standard apprenticeship-if you’re a plumber or an electrician or anything like that-if I’m-if you’re the licensee, you’re the master plumber or electrician, and you say to me, “Hey, Anthony, go rough out that bathroom. Well, that’s just what it is. I’m roughing it out, right? I’m I’m I’m laying inanimate objects out before any electricity, before any fluid, before any pressure goes through that. You, the master licensee, is going to come and check my work. Well, if I’m an apprentice of yours and you’re doing a hair color and I’m doing a hair color, and that’s the extreme, by the way. Chemical services are the extreme. It could just be a haircut, right? Let’s say you’re doing a haircut and I’m doing a haircut, and I get lost in my haircut, and I say, “mr. Chris, mr. Chris, yes, Anthony, I’m lost in my haircut. Number one, you’re hurting your own salon, right? Like you know, unless you’ve made sure that that that client knows that they’re getting their hair done by an apprentice that may be picking up shears for the first time ever just a week ago. You know, are you making sure that your client knows that? Are you insuring them? But here’s the bigger thing. Let’s go back to chemicals for a second. Let’s say you’re in the middle of a single or a double process, and so am I. And now I’m lost. Where is your care of duty as the license, the master license? Is it to your client? Is it to my client? Is it to my education, or is it to all three? And how do you split yourself in three, Chris, to cover all three of them? Yeah,

Chris Baran 32:07
yeah. And and that was a rhetorical question, and I think that’s that’s the way that that remains because I think it’s the most impactful. You because you don’t have the time. Somebody’s got to do the training, and and I know because in Canada, you know, I I’m I’m a journeyman hairdresser, and and I and that meant that in in order to have get that journeyman status, you could only have for every journeyman journeyman that for every apprentice that you had in the salon, you could own. You had to have had to have one journeyman for every so many numbers of those people, and that’s going to really limit the people that you can have within here. Now, you know, I haven’t been involved in any apprenticeship programs here in the United States, so I don’t know if it’s the same or whatever. But to that point, and and and I I was shocked when I learned this the other day because I’m considered a journeyman in a trade, and I was shocked to find out the term. What’s the term for like what industry are we involved in? In in the event,

Anthony Civitano 33:14
we’re in a service industry. We’re not a trade, and I’ve been actually saying this from the Mountaintops, you know, when President Trump came in and started talking about the trades, everybody got excited. Oh, he’s talking about us. He’s talking about us. We’re considered a service industry. We’re not really considered a trade. We are a trade. The trade we perform, though, is in the vehicle of a service. So we don’t get the same respect as an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter-they don’t think of us. Mike Rowe even said it when he interviewed Wint. He said, “I never realized. I always considered you guys as a as a trade, as a service, rather, not as a trade. But we are a skilled trade for sure.

Chris Baran 33:57
Yeah, yeah. Was it’s interesting. So, I mean, and not that’s neither here nor there. It’s always about the experience and how you apply the experience and so on. But the and I want to just jump back a step because if you really look at we were talking about how this affects what’s what’s the knock on effect on schools, on on on the industry as a whole. But what do you think? Because the the demographic that that consists mostly of, who is it going to affect mostly?

Anthony Civitano 34:28
Well, Chris, by and large, students that come to schools across the country are female. A large percent of minorities, a lot of them are single moms, and they’re coming into this industry for very succinct reasons. They can earn the living that they need to learn to to live in a part-time fashion, and that’s something that is another misnomer about how our industry makes it. You know, CUNY’s done studies. If I have talked about it, the average hairdresser works somewhere between 23 to 26 hours a week.

Chris Baran 35:07
Yeah.

Anthony Civitano 35:08
So you know, it’s it’s less about what they make in a week and what they make in an hour in the aggregate hour that they’ve worked, and that’s something that we’re trying to fix. We’re trying to show that.

Chris Baran 35:20
Yeah, and and the fact that it’s being compared against electricians, etc. that are working eight hours or and or overtime, and that’s what’s showing on their on their tax reforms. But I think we beat that one to death already. So, but you’ve you’ve done a lot on what’s called the hill, and you know, and I take my hat off to you because you’ve not only work on this, and I want to get you to explain what that the hill and all of that is. But there’s sometimes when things, you know, when the tough get going. How is that? What’s that saying? When when this when the going gets tough. The tough get going, and oftentimes when we see that we’re having these situations where they’re trying to take away from our industry, and I’m and I’m going to be selfish and not talk about all the trades. I’m concerned about our trade and the beauty industry, but when I see people that aren’t writing to their congressmen, they’re not-they’re not getting actively involved. They’re-you know-tell me what happens when you organized a whole bunch of people to go to the Hill. So first of all, tell us what the Hill is about, and then tell us about what the hell was going on when you were at the Hill, just so that people understand that we’ve got to fight, and the tough has to have to have to fight a little bit a little bit harder.

Anthony Civitano 36:47
So The Hill is referred to Washington D.C. That’s what we call The Hill, right?

Chris Baran 36:52
So

Anthony Civitano 36:52
it’s going up to Capitol Hill and getting to meet with your congressman, your senator, you know, and getting them to understand your plight, your dilemma, your issue, or and how it will affect not just you, but affect everybody that is part of our industry. Which I would do want to go back and give a broader answer to what’s the full effect in a minute. But yeah, that’s what it is. It’s in the mentality of so many industries, not just ours, is that the high tide will rise all ships. So it’s like, well, I don’t got to write a check because Chris is going to write a check, and I don’t need to go to the hill because Chris said he’s showing up. So why do I got to go? Well, you know that’s not how America works. America works on representation. America works on people showing up and saying, “Hey, I need to make enough noise so that you can see this doesn’t affect the small minority of people. This affects a large swath of the American public. And if you’ll indulge me and let me continue to go a second here, I do want to elaborate on this because this is conversations I’ve had at the PBA. I’ve had with L’Oreal. I’ve had with Rudkin. I’ve had with Paul Mitchell. With everybody, you know, the cause and effect of all this is very simple. If hairdressers are not being created every day or being born every day and going out into the wild to hunt, learn, live, and kill, that means that there’s less salons that will earn money. Less salons means there’s less shampoo, there’s less conditioners, there’s less styling products, there’s less hair color, there’s less relaxers, the less hair extensions. So the manufacturers and the distributors will start feeling it, and they all know that. And I got to be honest with you. More than ever, I’m seeing all of those other parts of the industry engaged more than ever before. They see that this is not an existential problem just for the schools. It is a long term problem for the entire industry as a whole. And I’m so happy that they’re hearing that. That I’m hearing that, and I’m I’m not just hearing it. I’m seeing action in it, whether it’s writing a letter from a manufacturer or a distributor, or getting salons involved or associations, because that will be you know. If I could say one more thing,

Chris Baran 39:17
I

Anthony Civitano 39:17
want you to think about this statistic here, and it’s not really a statistic. It’s more of an anecdotal, but it’s real. If hair color in America, the hair color service is-I’m just going to use a number that I-it’s more than this-is $100 million a year. It’s actually somewhere in the billions. I forget what the actual number is, and we know there’s just over a million licensed hairdressers in this in or cosmetologists in the in the United States that are actively working. Now, not every hairdresser you’ve ever met does color, do they?

Chris Baran 39:57
No.

Anthony Civitano 39:58
So, but let’s let’s. Go on the assumption that every one of them does hair color. Well, that you know, $1 billion divided by 1 million hairdressers means whatever the math means. That means that we’re making more money because how could we ever support the manufacturing of hair color if it’s not being used in a professional service.

Chris Baran 40:22
Yeah,

Anthony Civitano 40:23
you know the the L’Oreal wouldn’t exist. You know Redkin wouldn’t exist. Goldwell wouldn’t exist. There wouldn’t be this fierce competition out there for those people to use those services or the the those products. You know.

Chris Baran 40:40
Yeah, yeah, and I think you know it’s. I mean, what I’m taking away from this is the knock-on effect is you know everything goes if you think read from a student, students, the students support, they get and they become stylists, and then they become either just permanent stylists, they’re long-term senior stylists, the owners. Then you’ve got the manufacturers and the distributors. There’s a knock-on effect here, and there’s over all of our industry that is going to be affected by if if if we don’t come to terms with this. And you know, I but I also like that I think there’s great opportunity, and there’s there’s a maxim that’s out there. That said, adversity is the is opportunity in disguise. Anthony, what do you what do you what do you see as the opportunity in all of this,

Anthony Civitano 41:35
Chris? That is such a great question because I’m always of the that you know, if we’re if we’re using you know cliches and maxims here, you know, I always like to make lemonade out of lemons, right? So, I think the opportunity we have before us is to really once and for all bring this industry together. When I say this industry, I mean the education, the salons, the booths, the manufacturers, the distributors, everybody, because we’re not we’re we’re our we are our own worst enemy in how fractured we are. And what I don’t want to see is this crisis be averted and we go back to being fractured. I think we have an opportunity to have a set of standards across the country. I’m all for state rights, but let’s face it: if you’re a if you’re Congressman Baran and I come to you, come to me and you say, Anthony, why is who’s getting hurt here? The kid that goes to school in 1000-hour state, or the kid that goes to school in an 18-100-hour state-who’s who’s getting screwed here? Excuse my language, but that’s the reality of it. And you know what? That congressman-the only thing that they could really come out of it, because they’re not an expert in anything. Remember, Congress is not an expert in anything except for running things around. They’re going to say, “Well, the taxpayers get in the shaft because they’re funding one model one way, another model another way, and the reality is that there is no empirical data, Chris, that a student graduating from 1000 or 1800 hours earns faster or slower, earns more or less, any of those things. They don’t stay in the industry longer. I’ve been in in and around the industry forever. So if somebody watching this podcast wants to challenge me on it, show me the data because I’ve never seen it, and I’ve been in the professional side, the manufacturing side, the education side. So if I could see one opportunity here, is that we all get together, we standardize hours across the country, we cap student loans because that’s what the that’s what the crux of this all is. It has nothing to do with bad schools. It has everything to do with that we have a student loan crisis in this country, and because we are so fragmented and fractured, we become the low-hanging fruit. Or when we’re not a an industry that’s thought of as noble or or amazing or as you know a return on investment that is mind blowing compared to you know going to become a doctor or a lawyer or anything else. I think that that’s the reason that we get picked on so much. So if we’re able to really once and for all kind of set the record straight that this industry is an amazing industry. Yeah, we make people look good. We make people feel good. We get to feel good. We get to look good. And at the end of the day, we get paid for all of that. Show me a better industry, Chris.

Chris Baran 44:49
Yeah. You know, I first of all, I agree. I’ve been, you know, I’ve loved this industry right from the. I was going to say from the the second year, maybe I was into it because I was too busy. Starting my brains out the first two years to even notice it. However, I just want to jump back just for a second on something you said there because I think it is so profound, and and that’s the whole point of getting some degree of reciprocity in our state. And I’m just you know I’m newly I’m now dual citizen. I’m now an American. I have my citizenship, you know. But what also, when you when I went through that, it’s it is you do learn that it’s different here than say in Canada where I’m from, where it’s it’s the there is you have provinces, but you have the country, and the country regulates. You have more federal regulations than you have. Yes, there is provincial stuff, but it generally is. There’s an overarching theme that is regulated from across the from the federal. Whereas in America, we have states, and the states are really do the regulation. But if they could, if we could find a way to get that together and to get reciprocity for so that if if you work in in in Indiana and then you want to go and work in New York or you want to go and work somewhere else, that there is a few states that are out there, and I don’t I think there’s only about 11 states right now that have reciprocity from one state to the next, but if there was something we could do to get to get reciprocity where your license is actually recognized in all the states. I just think that that would make such a huge difference, especially now when we’ve got such a mobile a mobile society that would make it so much easier for people to stay in our industry, you know that if you decide that you’re going to move for whatever reason.

Anthony Civitano 46:46
Yeah, Chris, it’s so there’s a there’s a lot of movements for that. There’s the compact, the cosmetology compact that’s was originally funded by the Department of Defense for if you think about how spouses of the military get moved around from base to base. Well, you might get deployed in two different or three different states within two years. So you got to go apply for a license, or if you went to 1000-hour state to start, now you’re in 1500 hours. You got to go back to school for 1500 hours. You shouldn’t have that. You know the thing that we we all have a compact that have a driver’s license. All 50 states follow that compact. That means I pass that state that I resided in’s course competencies, and that should be good enough for everybody else that goes through.

Chris Baran 47:33
Yeah, yeah,

Anthony Civitano 47:34
pretty simple when you think about

Chris Baran 47:36
it. Yeah, and wouldn’t it be nice if that’s if if the world was that much simpler? So, Anthony, this has been like a great conversation, and I’m I’m just hoping that I’ve just got one more question that I’m just going to ask you again. But I want you to think about that. What if you had a wish for our industry, what would it be? But I just want to say thank you for doing what you do. I mean, you’ve you’ve been a great leader in our in our industry. You’ve helped everything from some of the organizations that we have to the students that you’ve had, the clients you’ve had in the in the salons. I just want to say thank you for all the time that you have. But so, just before we, if anybody has any questions, if they had more information or questions, can they reach out to you and find out more, or would you be willing to help them with that? Or are you just saying my 24 hour day week that I have them? I just piled a bunch more stuff on you.

Anthony Civitano 48:33
Well, Chris, you know me. I’m an open book buddy. I I would love to talk with anybody. I would love to have conversations, debate, you know everything. So I don’t know if you’ll put up my contact at the end. Yeah, well, if

Chris Baran 48:48
you just if you want to give it out there, then we’ll just make sure it gets in there.

Anthony Civitano 48:52
So my email is a c i v i t a n o at spec s p e c franchise.com, but yeah, I love Chris. I love this industry more than anything besides my family, you know, and my faith because it’s just been amazing. It’s just been you know, I’ve I’ve traveled the world literally, you know. I’ve been to Korea, I’ve been to Vietnam, I’ve been all over this country, and thank you, by the way, for recognizing the work that I’ve done because it to be thanked by somebody of your caliber and your stature, and you know you’re a mentor of mine, it means a lot to me, and we need to all encourage each other and give support where we can do that, and then I’ll end with this. If I really could have one wish, it is that that we do finally get together. We do finally kind of just put down the sticks and the stones, and we figure out that you know we dumb ourselves. Down because something that just came to my mind is I was going to say this isn’t rocket science, but you know what? It is rocket science because we’re getting down to the molecular structure of hair. We’re breaking down proteins. You know we’re restructuring proteins in hair so that it can create a curl or lose a curl, or strip pigment and redeposit pigment, you know. Or we’re using harsh chemicals and not hurting people, you know. So it is rocket science, and we should find some semblance of continuity for that across the states. It shouldn’t matter that you’re from Kentucky or from Alberta, or from Mexico, or from London, hair is hair. We’ve learned that in the texture movement that you know ethnic hair is it’s hair. It’s not you know it’s the proteins that bind us all, and we need to get through to that. And it should be more about that kind of conversation, than this crap about there’s bad schools and good schools because that’s everywhere. That’s everywhere we go. There’s good restaurants, there’s bad restaurants, there’s great gas stations, and there’s bad gas stations. So you know that’s that’s my hope and my dream and my wish, Chris.

Chris Baran 51:19
Yeah, thank you. And well, first of all, buddy, it’s always a pleasure. Number one, and what I love, if there’s a takeaway that I kind of heard from just what you said there just a minute ago, that there’s enough for everybody, you know. And if we just got learned to live our lives and with abundance, that there’s enough for everybody rather than scarcity, because if I give it to somebody else, it takes it away from me. So, Anthony, it’s always a pleasure. You’re a valuable part of our industry, and you’re valuable part of our our schools, and you’re definitely a valuable part of my life as well too. So I just want to say thank you for being here and giving up your time.

Anthony Civitano 51:57
Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me.

Chris Baran 52:00
Pleasure. 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 headcase. Headcases 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.