I’m delighted to bring back such an inspiring guest with so many wonderful insights about the state of the hairdressing industry today. Welcome back to Headcases, Gordon Miller!
- 4:39 – Industry passion and data analysis
- 9:36 – Industry challenges, including economic inflation and unemployment
- 19:43 – Work-life balance in the beauty industry
- 37:32 – Pricing strategies in the beauty industry
- 48:16 – Improving client retention in the beauty industry
- 1:05:45 – Industry trends, opportunities, and challenges
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, welcome to another week’s had cases. And this one’s a little bit different because today’s podcast is about the state of our industry. Why? Well, we’ve heard Take two. But welcome to head cases. And today’s podcast is a little bit different than usual, because this one is really about the state of our industry. Why? Well, here’s some comments that I’ve heard numerous times from owners stylists and industry leaders, things like salons are in crisis mode, hard to find staff. Staff doesn’t want to work on Saturdays, there is a higher turnover of staff 40 to 50% of the industry is going independent. They don’t want to work 40 hours per week. educational events and education is changing. Clients complaining about increased prices, they’re not coming in as frequently. Well, what does that mean? Well, to be real, you may have heard of all of them, or you may have just heard one or one or two, but five will get you 10 that you’ve probably experienced one or more of those things that have happened to you. So the question to ask is, are these new trends? Are they reoccurring ones? Or fake news? Do we conclude that our industry is in the worst shape it’s ever been in? Or are we prime for a pivotal shift? Or are these kind of blips in our radar searching for a course correct? Do we throw our hands up in the air and they say the sky is falling? To quote an old children’s tale? Or do we have a realistic look at where we’re at and ask why. That’s why I’ve asked and invited the person back who is qualified to talk about this. He labels himself as a dispassionate observer. And he has the background to understand our industry. He studies it and he calls BS to fake news. This is about having an intelligent conversation about the state of our industry. So let’s get into this week’s headcase. The Forever observant and passionately dispassionate, Mr. Gordon Miller. Well, Gordon, it is a pleasure to have you back on it’s been it’s your second visit. So welcome back to headcase is pleasure to have you on board,
Gordon Miller 2:57
I’m honored, honored your guests list just, I feel I’m not worthy.
Chris Baran 3:01
Oh, please, please, you’re one of the very few actually, there’s only two people that I’ve had on twice, and you’re in that list. So you must rank really high with that. And I just, I just want to say thank you for being here. And you and I have had some private conversations. And that’s what kind of stemmed for the people that are watching and listening. Now. That’s what kind of stemmed this conversation. And if I, in the intro, if I kind of poked at your pain, and you went, ooh, I had a little but pucker on this one. That’s really what that was intended about. Because really what I wanted Gordon to talk about today, and because he’s much more in tune with this than I am, but I’ve, I’ve heard all of those things that I put into that intro, and they are things that are out there. And I thought that the way that we deal with that are in our industry is just by having a conversation about it. And you know, it’s not that golden, I’d say we’re probably not going to, we’re not going to give anybody magical insights into what they need to do should do. But I think these conversations are really important that what we look at the state of our industry, and what kind of a state is it in? So what would if you and I want to do this just before I asked, I want to find out get from a 35,000 foot level, kind of where you’re feeling this is at and that might not be a fair question. But I want to I did talk in there and I labeled you and as forever observant and passionately, dispassionate. And when you and I talked about it, you talked about being a dispassionate observer, and so people get the right. connotation from that. What does that tell us? What you mean by that?
Gordon Miller 4:43
Not letting my emotions and feelings
you know, impact but hopefully is kind of my never ending journey to find out the facts. Yeah, because you know, a lot of times you see things and they don’t necessarily reflect your own reality, my own reality. You and I were talking just before we hit record. And we are fortunate having done what we do for such a long time that we get to hang with a lot of really successful people. And if I just would put my blinders on and thought about the industry from the perspective of who I know, I was thinking, oh my gosh, like this is this industry, everybody is crazy successful making great livings and travels the world. And, and again, we’re so fortunate to know, these people, and I’m so happy they exist within our industry. But like any industry, they don’t represent everybody. And so to me, it’s just important in what I’ve always done in the industry, especially in the last 10 years or so. Is it Yeah, it can be dispassionate, and I can just do my best to wander around the nooks and crannies of the industry to find information, and then piece it all together. You know, my my main love when I was younger in college was economics, which is really about understanding how the parts and pieces of the economy fit together and the story that they tell, and it’s never as simple or, or it’s never as simple as we think it is. And so I find that logic to what I do in beauty. And I think I’ve I being dispassionate is a very important part of doing well.
Chris Baran 6:14
Yeah, especially in our industry, because I can, I’m not speaking for everybody else. But I can speak for myself, that somebody can poke at a nerve on me that maybe sits on a sensitive area that I might be either not doing well in or things that I worry about, or things that keep me up at night. And that can really throw me off. And I don’t get to think about it in a rational way. I loved what you said. And when we were having our conversation before this, you said Knowledge is power. You know, and but it really, it’s only power if you’re doing something with it. Right. Right. So I want people to know, because we you’ve been on with us before and and you know, I you know, I trust you with anything in our business. But for the people that might not have listened before, I think it’s really important that they understand a little bit about that you’re not just a statistician that went to college and, and university and came out to this. You’ve been involved in the beauty industry for X number of years. So could you just give us sort of that Reader’s Digest version of where you got all of this passion for our industry about?
Gordon Miller 7:18
Well, first off, x, the x equals 45 years. And only people who’ve done what we you and I have done for 45 or so years would even know what Reader’s Digest is.
Chris Baran 7:29
Well, there you go. Yeah.
Gordon Miller 7:34
Yeah, but but the short version of everything was the Reader’s Digest way. Not a hairdresser. Never been a salon owner. I’ve always been on the business side of beauty. I went to regular college, you know, I got a degree in Investment Finance, and I got a minor in economics and, and I just knew when I got out of college, that’s not what I wanted to do. And then really short version of the story is I fell into beauty at age 22, I went to work for ecology schools, that led to some more things in Colorado and Utah, in down in the weeds in the cosmetology school business, which I really learned to love very quickly. And then we’ll massage a pivot point found me I spent 10 years with Leo left, I was vice president or one of several vice presidents there, then I was president of Milady publishing. So I spent 20, some years in the school side of everything, education, really fell in love with it because of we all fell in love with hairdressers along the way. I mean, just so opposite of kind of who I am. And I think opposites are drawn to each other. And it’s part of my interest, I think, and love for this industry. And then I ran the hairdressers Association NCAA for 10 years, national cosmetology Association. Other stuff happened, and I fell into digital and media and I was obsessed with social media, which kind of created a whole new chapter for me, became publisher of American salon and America salon.com and CEO of hairbrained for five years. And now I run a little company called Beauty cast network, which is really focused on helping young people to end up in the first right job because we feel that so important. And yeah, and along the way, I just became a kind of a data geek and someone who has been fortunate enough to serve on committees and boards and all kinds of things throughout the industry and and never lost my interest in kind of the economics thing that putting the puzzle together. And there aren’t too many people in the industry who do it and not too many people who care enough to do it. So it gets me in trouble from time to time I I’d say some things that upset people. But again, I tried to be very, you know, factor event and do my best to put the parts and pieces of the puzzle together in a way that makes sense.
Chris Baran 9:36
Yeah, thank you. Because I think that you hit the nail right on the head there and one thing I will say because I listen to your stuff too, and I know that you have talked about some some things about a night and I will tell you that I I always appreciate that when people will call in pull the BS card out on some of the stuff going on or industry because I think it happens too much in our industry, but I think that you Now that there’s a key word that we might want to touch on just before we start this, and that’s the worried it’s might be sensitive to some people like some of the things we’re going to talk about here. I think it’s it’s really important that people kind of listen in the same way that we’re going to give it out what this is not a conspiracy theory that we’re going to talk about. It’s just facts that we’re going to talk about. So when people listen to it, just kind of listen to it openly, you can draw your opinions later, don’t draw your opinions while the information is coming out. So with that in mind, is just from you know, you and I’ve had a couple conversations on this already, because obviously, you you don’t just jump into this kind of conversation for the for all you wonderful people that are out there. But just as an overall, if you had to say, when you when I just loved when you said, and if I hope I’m not stealing a line from you and said, but that I think your words were that our our industry, it could be viewed as seeing in the worst shape that it’s been in for a while. And just from a from an overarching look on that. Tell me where that came from? What What makes you say that?
Gordon Miller 11:09
Okay, so a couple a couple of quick thoughts. So very important to preface I think everything was, you know, we are a big, sophisticated industry. And we’re not a one size fits all industry, you know, we have now more categories of salons and businesses than we’ve ever had. And so I think it’s important that as an industry evolves, that we evolve with it, and how we think about how we talk about it. And so I think it’s easy, and I think this is why people sometimes get offended by when you’re trying to explain what’s happening in the industry, because we’ve talked about salons. And so when someone says there’s something not quite right about salons or a category, then people take offense to it. But that’s not my experience. But again, we’re big or complicated. It’s not one size fits all. So So and I think it’s we’re a mirror image of the larger world. And I think if we think about the larger world, we hopefully don’t think of it as one size fits all we know they’re economically, you know, people have different strengths and weaknesses, you know, we’re in better positions, and not so, so much better positions. We know in the current world, we have concerns about inflation, that ripples over to what does that mean for our business for our salons? You know, how are we adjusting? How are we not adjusting What does all these things mean? So there are things happening in our larger world that absolutely impact us a difficult economy, that results down the line a little bit, sometimes in a difficult economy for salons. And we are experiencing that right now in different parts of the industry in different ways. So economic as an example. If the salon economy is difficult, then you could kind of make the assumption based on how people behave in the larger world, that some are going to tighten their belts and go downstream. So you may have someone who’s in that middle of the salon market, getting services done, things get tight for them, their family, so they still want to go to the salon, perhaps they go to a lower price point, perhaps they spread out appointments, perhaps they start doing things at home, perhaps they always get cut in color, and they cut out to color. I mean, this is just the reality of some people’s lives. And multiply that times a whole lot of people when we talk about the economic trends of the country, and it’s gonna have an impact on us. And it’s important to consider that and everything else is happening in the larger world to what’s happening to us right now. So that’s number one. So I’ll just I was using as an example, but we’ll say inflation is a category that has rippled through the entire industry. And depending on where you live in the industry, it may be having different effects on you. I’ll add one thing to that. Because when you talk about any of these challenges to a listener, I would say when you hear these big challenges, they may or may not have an impact on you. But at the same time they might, and you might not even know it. And then the question becomes inflation. How are you internalizing what’s happening in the world around us? How are you considering your price points? How are you considering your spending? How are you considering the clients who you’ve traditionally served, and the economic challenges that they might be facing? And do you have some understanding of that and MPs empathy for that? I’m number one. And then number two, do you have a business plan to address those challenges? Like what do you do? And so, you know, a lot of different ways to look at this. So the economy and inflation number one. Number two is that, you know, unemployment is actually at almost the lowest it’s ever been it’s very, very low. And which means that employers outside the industry are chasing people. So especially for young people, and because big companies use Amazon as a Classic example, are aggressively seeking people to come work for them and paying more than they’ve ever paid. Our industry, the people who work in it have opportunities to go elsewhere. And so we’re constantly trying to bring in new talent we have to every industry does. And arguably, that talent pool is as small as it perhaps has ever been. Because there’s just other things, distracting young people who may be perfectly suited and even interested in our industry. But they’re, the money’s being waved over from someplace else. And that has, that has an impact on the talent pool itself. Another thing that’s happening again, trying to pick little categories here is how all of us, you know, are impacted by the information that’s flowing through the world, we’ve never had so much information coming towards all of us. And whether it’s inside the industry or out, social media has allowed a lot of information to flow in ways it’s never has before, including this information. And then beyond misinformation, there’s kind of like what I consider aspirational information. Those are the conversations we often have in the industry about all the great opportunities there are and how people can make just amazing livings and do great work. But often, as that gets talked about, it doesn’t have necessarily kind of guardrails around it so a young person might experience a lot of conversations about six figure hairdressers, that may set them up for the expectation because they don’t have enough information to think, well, I should be there really quickly. And then sometimes certain, certain people, certain types of people who, who hearing things, maybe just the way that they process information, the way they understand things, their expectation is I gotta get there fast. And they feel like they’re failures, if they don’t get there fast enough, and they leave unexpectedly. And often people leave the industry for reasons we don’t even understand. They just don’t show up to work on day. And so you’ve got perhaps, potentially more turnover than we’ve ever seen, and more kind of listening to all that information that’s out and around us and grabbing on to bits and bytes of that, that feel like they may suit their needs or, or reinforce or insecurities, or, or or you know, and so I think that’s another giant category of concern is all the information that too often young people without context or hearing, and potentially can set them up for failure. Another thing I think another category would be, and this one kind of connects to what I just said, That’s mentorship. And we made about this last time, Chris, I don’t remember. But I think that we have a shortage of mentors. And it’s significant. You and I grew up in an industry that I think always believed in the power of mentors. And it just was such a big fundamental part of building a career, that you had connections with people that you had people who were around you sometimes who kind of helped me get to the next step that was imperfect, it was very casual, in many ways. But it was just kind of part of the industry and how things operated. As we’ve had a giant shift towards independence. The mentorship kind of falls by the wayside in some ways, because you’re no longer in the physical facility, where a mentor could be two chairs over. Right for an owner who took mentorship seriously. work to make sure you were in an environment where mentors existed. So when you kind of just think about that and think about the move towards independence, it kind of makes perfect sense that we would have fewer being mentored, because we just don’t have the infrastructure for it. And if mentorship for decades has been part of the secret sauce that gets you to success, well, what does that mean for everybody. And I believe what it means is the potential for shorter careers and greater greater failures. Because I know for me in my life, and I can go through decades, and it’s not one mentor, it’s a series of mentors, including today. Mentorship is actually is key to having the good career that I’ve had, and always being open to continue to have new mentors as my wife has evolved. And I see a serious shortage that concerns me, because mentors important to anybody listening are not role models are not the people out there on social media that are watching, those are all great. But Mentors are people we can talk to mentors or people who who we have a relationship with of some sort. It can be digital can be white, you can have a mentor by way of a zoom. You know, it doesn’t have to be him when you work with. But I think we have fewer and fewer of those kinds of relationships and we’ve ever had, and that concerns me. Let me keep going. I’ve got more.
Chris Baran 19:42
Hold no go. Well, I’ve still got I have some questions along the way. But I’m taking notes here.
Gordon Miller 19:47
You want to start over.
Chris Baran 19:50
Maybe just while we’re on that mentorship thing. I just want to you know, I want to preface this by saying I’m longer in the tooth and probably long all the people watching and listening right now. Probably some of you combined. And I don’t want to be that baby boomer that is going to go all the way that we did it when it was way back man in the dark ages, all but what I want to do is just a simple observation. With that, I think is it it says exactly what you’re talking about there is when, when we had when we had mentors that came in when we had assistants associates, whatever the name that you wanted to call them. And as like I’ve always said you don’t you pick your mentor, you can have a coach, but you pick your the you pick your mentor, the mentor isn’t assigned another compass conversation. But what you did is you would do the things that you can’t do now or that most people won’t do now, you had evening evening sessions. You didn’t You didn’t pay the educator, you the people that were part of it came to do it just because they wanted to learn. And they didn’t have other things going on where they had, if they had other things going on, in the end, they would put them off. So there was a lot of education that came out of it. And that mentorship thrived from there and people grew because of that. And this is one thing I’d throw out to you because I think you’re way more knowledgeable on this than I am. But I don’t know if it was COVID that hit it. That was it before did it start before. But COVID really manage or exacerbated that. I don’t want to do any more than I have to do I want work life balance all of that. Can you kind of what, what’s your take on that?
Gordon Miller 21:30
Oh, that’s a loaded question. For a fellow guy.
Chris Baran 21:34
Yeah.
Gordon Miller 21:35
The
I think that big picture. So let me start by let’s talk about generations for a moment. I think that’s a fascinating conversation. As a couple of guys who’ve been around for a bit, we have, we have lived through the evolution of multiple generations. And I can say that when I was a kid, you know, 18, my parents thought my generation was completely crazy. What’s up, and we thought Democrats in the things that they were telling us how they were doing, we’re not the ways that we wanted to live our lives. Now we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have digital media, the world moves at a slower pace, you know, so but the reason I say that is to say to anybody, you know, who’s who’s looking at this generational issue, and the way that we’re working our way through it, is it’s not anything new. It’s just everything’s moving at a faster pace and informations flowing faster. But I think some of the ideas about creating success, probably, if we, if we were able to bring, you know, the Dow back and talk to what it took to be successful in the 50s and 60s, the pillars would probably be very similar. How we go about doing them is different because we live in a different time. We have different tools, we have different technology, information flows a different way. But I really truly believe that today, how you build success in this industry is not very different than anything I’ve observed. Because again, I’m an observer, I’m not the hairdresser. It’s basically all the same stuff. And so I think the question becomes for all of us, as we kind of take maybe the one good thing that came out of COVID, you know, which is I think so many of us taking the time to step back and look at our lives and say, do we have balance, whatever that means for each of us. And I think that’s important to say, people, I think balance is a very individual thing. And I think we have to sort it out based on the lives we have, do we have children? Do we not have children, you know, what else is important to us in our lives? You know, it’s a complicated conversation with ourselves and those that we love. But I think that, again, the the pillars of success haven’t really changed. So if you feel that, you know, three days work, is it for you, because of the rest of your life? And that’s just gonna make you happy, then the question becomes, well, what does success look like, potentially for you within three days? And yeah, that’s okay. I think for a lot of younger people, I would say that mathematically, that’s back to the dispassionate part, right, mathematically, when we talk about the current way the industry is there’s there’s a big movement towards less time, and more money. Yeah. And that’s a challenging formula. And I think some people can get there. And the people I see getting there easiest, they’re just kind of unicorns, they’re going to be successful, no matter what they were born to be successful. They’re a rare breed, the rest of us have to work a little harder. And so I would just say to everybody, that as we as society changes and what we care about changes that we just have really awareness of what it takes and find again, those role models as mentors that can get us there because I think one of the biggest drivers in In the boundaries around time today, and I give young people credit for this is saying, hey, if I’m going to salon 40 hours, but I’m only working 24. But what am I here for, I don’t want to, I should be able to work fewer hours, because I’m actually not busy enough to convince myself that showing up 40 hours is the life I want to live. And maybe I don’t see how we’ll ever get there. Again, maybe lack of mentorship, maybe the lack of that person around me that coach who could say, you’re on your way you will get there. So and I think that is a huge driver for what’s happened. Big, big picture the industry. I believe, from all the math over the years before pandemic, that we were operating at about 60% of our potential to do services, meaning if you take the whole industry and put us all together, and then take all the clients that we take care of and look at our capacity to do work, which is you know, if I, if I have six openings today, that’s my capacity, if I have three clients, that’s my productivity, I’m at 50%. I believe the industry has been 50 60% for for very long time. Which means that before the conversations about boundaries, we were just kind of going along, doing what we’ve always done, which is having a lot of folks in salons working, who didn’t have clients to keep them busy. And I think as we came out of pandemic and washed education, other things change. And against all this lack of mentorship, I think, I think a certain type of logic kicked in for a lot of people, which is just that I don’t know why I’m here, not busy and missing out on the rest of my life. And I think that’s a big driver as to what we’re in the midst of, which concerns me because we are an industry that in 2019, the PBA did a study and we were 61% Part time. Today, I would argue that it seems like we must be at at least 70% Part time. And the question there is, are we part time because we want to be part time? And are we part time for other reasons, we’re not busy enough to be full time. And we can be confused about the answer to that, by the way, you know, because again, for a lot of people, it’s not so much a thought process. It’s just like, we’re hearing all the talk of of. But getting of how we can potentially get as much out of less, and I just don’t see many proof points around it, which is why I have concerns about this particular category.
Chris Baran 27:42
Yeah, and as like you said, it’s, it’s not that we can have people listening, they’re going to blind to it, I’ve been there. But not everybody can do that. If you’re if you’re an outgoing personality, you know, and you you do the things that like what they used to tell you in and even like 3040 years ago will go out and hustle, you know, they would say handled business cards. But today that means get on your social media and advertise. But it’s like if you’re a shy person, or maybe you’re suffering from impostor syndrome that’s out there for right now, then you might not you might not be feeling good about that. And I think that’s where the mentorship comes in. That’s where the owner comes in. And that’s sometimes and I know that listeners owners out there, probably 95% of the owners are out there working behind the chair. And they have to, you know, because it’s obviously it’s a generation or money generator. But the reality is, is that when we own the business that it’s we don’t often have time for that mentorship or the mentorship would have to take pass after hours when everybody is tired. And that’s part of the reason why I think that there’s so much of this talk, and I’d love to hear you, your take on it. And I apologize if I’m constantly throwing curves at you here. But it is when we talk to people about that they’re if you’re behind the chair, and you’re the visionary, and you’re the owner, whether that is for 310 200 people are you making time to share your vision to help to grow to help coach to you know, pass out accountability when it’s needed to you know, so I’d love to hear your take on that.
Gordon Miller 29:22
Okay, so the independence movement, I’m going to kind of connect the dots here, there’s something else that we’ve talked about. The barrier to entry to ownership has never been lower. So you only an owner, you can be an owner today, easier than ever. And some of the interestingly you know, it’s not just the independent side, coming out of COVID You know, real estate changed dramatically. There was a lot of empty space. I know quite a few hairdressers who left establish salons went and opened not as sweet but got a couple people together, went and opened a little salon and ended up paying less rent than they would pay in the suite. Pre pandemic that was You’re going to happen. And so there was a lot of just excess real estate, a lot of new opportunities for people. And I would argue that there was somewhat of a natural path in the past that, you know, you worked for a while you got a certain level of experience, it doesn’t make it right, you know that it took more time. But the longer you kind of do the craft, the longer you work, you know, in a salon, the more opportunity you have to figure out where do you want to take yourself? You know, it’s just listening to all the voices on social media, it’s like, Well, I think we have so many young people I knew when I was working in Beauty Schools for years, pretty much everybody wanted to own a salon someday. And then people would get into the salon, and they’d have a little bit of a reality check, you know, do I want to do this, do I not want to do this and time would would help you, I think, find, hopefully, you know, a path to your passions. I think we have more people in salons and ever, that don’t necessarily have yet the experience to know how to be a mentor. They don’t have perhaps the training to be a coach. And I believe you have to be trained to be a coach, you have to go out and learn how to be a coach different than a mentor, just like you have to learn how to be an educator. And but the barriers to entry of everything have come down. So you have the opportunity to fill different roles without necessarily the skill. And again, the concern there is, you know, what is the failure rate, you know, across some of these categories? And also, what does it mean, you know, for any business entity, you know, you open a salon, you’re younger, perhaps you don’t quite have all the skills yet. And so there’s also there’s a chance you’ll be very successful, there’s a chance that you won’t, there’s a chance you’ll bring people into your organization, you’ll grow them, there’s a chance you won’t, you know, and so, again, things get a little messy. So I think, as we see more and more salons are owned by less experienced people, just because the nature of the world we live in today, that brings more risks to the larger industry. Yeah, yeah.
Chris Baran 31:59
Yeah, yeah. And I think it’ll just, it came to my mind, because you and I had this conversation beforehand about the state of our industry. And you know, I thought I heard you say that the other day that was 70%. Was, was independent. But could you give us the facts again, on that, because I, I want to talk to just about a, you know, something that my, one of my teachers talked to me about the four quadrants of business, and I, but I’d first like to get your take on the numbers, because I think you have that background where you actually know the stats on that or get them are close to that. So could you give us the WIN News when that misinformation that I had on 70% was independent? Yeah, it’s
Gordon Miller 32:42
not 70% independent, you know, it’s, you know, big picture, when you look at everybody, you know, who’s licensed who works in salons, or everybody who’s working in salons, about 20%. And let me let me say this first about numbers. We’re an industry that not good at numbers. What I’ve been fortunate in what I’ve done that because I’ve done it for such a long time and have so many connections in the industry of my power networker. I talked to the biggest brands, I talked to the smallest brands, I talked to the new brands, I talked to the legacy brands, I talked to distributors, and I’m forever piecing together the puzzle of beauty. Because there’s so much of the information that we should have would hope that we would have readily available to all of us, it just isn’t there. And so you’re constantly piecing it together. Many of the big corporations know it all. But because they’re privately held, they don’t want to release that information that might help their competitor. So I’m always you know, cobbling things together. And in terms of the cobbling together of the workforce, about 20% have historically we know this is a fact about 20% has been owners of Salon. So these are self employed people, most of them licensed hairdressers themselves, not all but most of them, and they also want adding to the self employed category are the renters, renters have always been self employed people. Historically, most of them rented a chair in a salon, the person who own that salon is self employed. Everybody who rents a chair in that same salon are self employed. So you could have 10 self employed people in one salon. So again, 20% or so are self employed salon owners. And then the other category of self employment are renters, of chairs, renters, of booths, and renters of suites. And that number of everybody is approaching 50%. So the 50 plus the 20. That’s all self employed people would be 70%, approximately, and then approximately 30% was leftover. Those will be commissioned predominantly of a very tiny percentage that nobody’s ever been able to even say what it is of people who are what are called Team base pay so they’re getting like a salary. But that 30% is more than likely commissioned stylists working for self employed owners. Right.
Chris Baran 34:52
Yeah. And to that point, and I want to make this a very, this was I just found this fascinating information. And, and I, I am a bit of a chihuahua data freak. When it comes to that, too, I often don’t retain all of it, but I love data. But one of my teachers talked about the four quadrants of business. And if you go, obviously the upper and the lower the left and the right quadrants, and on the left hand side, at the top left, you’ve got employee base, that would have been me, when I worked in a salon, I was in a commission based salon. And then I then after that, I said, Well, look, look at the business, I want to own my own business. So I dropped down into the bottom left, where I started my own business. And but the reality was on that left hand side, everything you’re doing is based on how much money you can earn in a given amount of time, in other words, dollars for hours. And even when, at the very beginning, when we started our business, when I didn’t have a lot of business sense. It was still, how much money could our salon make per hour. And if it didn’t make that nut, then I had to take out of what I put in or what I can’t in my draw, and I had to put it into the business. So in essence, what that my teacher always taught me is that you’ve got the people that are employees, or sometimes you have you bought a business, but you really just bought yourself a job. And it’s not till you move over to the other side, where on the upper right hand quadrant, you have business and on the bottom right, you have investor where you can actually own a business, you other people are working for you, you’re not necessarily you know, they’re working for you, you’re supplying the vision, you’re supplying the direction, the motivation, the mentorship, and they and they and to be clear, I’m going to add this in, I don’t want to go off on a tangent on it. But people will come and go, but they’re all working for you. And they’re all making money for you and the business and
Gordon Miller 36:43
making that we good wise, go ahead and making good while yes,
Chris Baran 36:46
yes. And then they can take that money that they’ve got the profit margins, they can invest that and make. And that’s where making money where your sleep where it’s when you’re sleeping comes from. But I think that’s the part that I’m hearing you talk about so much of our businesses on that left hand side of that quadrant, where you’re either regardless of where you’re at, with the owner, the booth rent, the independent salon and suites where they’re still just money per hour, and how can they do that? And I think there’s a there’s a shift in there, where how do we get some of those people over to becoming more of that mentorship side helping other people grow, so that are actually making money for you? Now, I don’t know if that was just a whole lot of talk that I threw in there. But that was insightful for me when I understood it. And and then how to move from one to the other. This episode is sponsored by the salon associate accelerator from trainers playbook.com. Are you struggling with the time and cost of associate training? Do you feel like your salon is running you will get your associates on the floor, all with 90% Less time from you. So you can get back to building your business. Get them world class design, finishing color and client care skills they’ll use every day for the rest of their career. While you focus on realizing your vision. Go to trainers playbook.com and get the salon associate accelerator. And now, back to the show. You said that you had you’d caught your talked about the economy, inflation, unemployment, the info overload and social media and mentorship and you said there was a couple of other points on there.
Gordon Miller 38:33
Oh, what were those other points? They’ll come back to you in a moment as we another
Chris Baran 38:39
Yeah. Well, well, let’s just do it. Let’s just jump on one of those right now is because, you know, we’ve been talking about you’re talking about pricing. And you said something to me that the other day that I found really interesting that were you had never noticed it before. But you said people were were having hissy fits over the pricing that was happening in in businesses right now consumers,
Gordon Miller 39:03
you know, and so it just came back to me, thankfully. So yeah, we can go there at the moment. So yeah, I mean, I think it’s always important for any business that engages with the public to be a business, right? So that’s what we do without the public. There’s nothing for us to do. So consumer sentiment how consumers feel about life, about services, if you’re in the service business, which we are one category of many, how they feel about the money in their pockets and how they’re going to spend that money. We know coming out of pandemic that a lot of people kind of came to some new conclusions about how to spend their money and what to do with it. So I think coming out of pandemic, it’s really interesting. So the industry it feels like we gave our self permission, which is a good thing to raise prices in ways which we’ve never done. before, and I think both of us would, would believe that we’ve never been good as an industry of of charging our worth, it’s been a forever conversation. And it feels like coming out of pandemic, you know, after, you know, a few years of all that pain, we said, You know what, it’s time for us to charge more. What does that mean? You know that and that’s where I think, you know, the industry, a lot of confusion happened. And so we saw all kinds of things happening, a lot of people didn’t adjust their prices, same fear that maybe held them back in the past, some got overly confident, we saw a 2030 40% price increases happening, especially in this category, which there is no data on that even I can find, which is moving from a traditional pricing menu to hourly pricing. And there, you saw a lot of stylists who went over there kind of did what they did. Some of them didn’t even realize I experienced this in a few conversations, where they did it, they struggled with it. They were thinking about going back and they talked to people like me, and they’re going I don’t understand, like I didn’t change that much. But I’m losing clients like crazy, but I went to hourly pricing. And so let’s let’s figure out that math, and it might well you increase your prices over 35%. No, I didn’t. And so sometimes we make these big changes. There’s a ripple effect. The ripple effect of hourly pricing is one that has reached the press, Washington posted a big article on it, of kind of pushback from clients. And if you pay attention to tick tock, and all the conversations are happening on tick tock about hairdressers and salons from consumers who are frustrated with what they see as pricing, gouging. It doesn’t mean that’s what we’re doing as an industry. These are again, solo conversations again, got to think but but there’s a lot of negative buzz in the consumer space about salons today. And it has to do with what are perceived as challenges with pricing. from a consumer point of view, you know, just a rapid increase in their own personal circumstances, which they then take their social media megaphone and blow up, you know, so it’s interesting, but I think we should never lose sight of who we serve, which are.
Chris Baran 42:15
Yeah, especially when you when you tie that back into. So the socio economic conditions that are happening with, you know, unemployment or the economy the way it is right now. And they perceive, you know, they, they’re just gonna look at bottom line, what did that cost cost me $10. Last time cost me $15. Now, so, you know, that’s at the end of the game. So they’re still going to look at that some people, you know, well, I love Gordon and Gordon does a great job on my hair. And so it’s $5 More What the hell just gonna keep going. But if it means a difference between putting some food on the plate for my kids, then Gordon is going to have to I can’t afford garden anymore exact so it’s like the other thing that I heard that’s out there right now and for a while, you know, when I because I’m traveler, and pardon my language, but I was getting pissed off when, when I go and they’ll say, Well, it’s weekend. So airfare costs more, or I’ve got to spend twice as much on a on the same room at a hotel room and so on. And I heard people talking about okay, we should have on pick your day. Now, when I was in hot ins in the salon Saturdays were the always there. Now I understand. It’s like Mondays or Tuesdays, that are really busy in the salon. But they said that if you have people that want to work, and that’s it, maybe the next act where I’d like to go because we talked about how that people sometimes don’t want to work five days a week? Well, it can you accommodate them in different areas. But if you’ve got Monday and Tuesday are busy days might just might for this example. And there’s people that are saying, well, you should have like a 50% bump on your charges on that day, because that’s your busy days. And therefore that’s excuse me, the supply and demand. And and so those people if you don’t want to if you don’t want to work on, on sat on Sunday, or I’m sorry, if you don’t want to work on Monday or Tuesday, then you got to work on another day when you’re going to be making less money. What thoughts on that? Because I think there’s a lot of stuff out there that either is right or wrong, and some of us just don’t know. Yeah.
Gordon Miller 44:20
Well, back to where we just left off. No consumer sentiment is really important in this one because if you decide you want to implement a pricing structure where certain days for the same service or higher or perhaps because of demand, you have to be thinking about when you implement the clients that I currently see, how are they going to react to it? That’s number one. Number two, I think we always have to consider the larger behavior of humans, you know, and so like what you just described, is very real, but it’s interesting because it’s changed over time. You and I’ve been traveling for a very long time. And it was pretty much a conversation that you know, traveling On certain days, you knew it was going to be a lot more, that’s changed radically, it’s not that way anymore. And in the airlines and the hotels never really made a big marketing deal of stay on these days and pay more pay less is kind of implicit in there. And, and then what most people I don’t think realize about those two industries is they are very big and very sophisticated. The airlines computer systems that when you look at pricing, they’re they they’re looking at inventory and the prospects of selling it and adjusting prices to fill up every plane they can fill up. And they have the computers have algorithms that help them determine that price. And if you’ve ever tried to plan a trip, and you just kind of start early, and you, you look at all the prices today, and you’d go back and you look again, two days from now, they’re different. And it’s because the inventory is forever moving. So it’s almost like an auction kind of process. And the sophistication of the modeling that they use is what allows it to succeed. And so we’re talking about something that’s very kind of fundamental and basic in your business. So I would question whether your clients, which only, you know, are going to react positively or negatively to. So I think it’s a interesting conversation. doesn’t excite me, you know, to be honest, but I think if you’re that really busy, busy salon, maybe there’s a way that that would make sense for you, that you kind of have to look, I mean, I really think it’s about, again, back to that whole capacity versus productivity, how much of your book is open? And yeah, and how do you fill it? And do you feel it by changing pricing by day? Do you feel it by having a better conversation with every client? Do you feel it by way of your marketing, and by the way, you know, you mentioned you know, the, the old school business card versus like social media today, the one thing that was shockingly kind of positive for me coming through pandemic, was talking to so many people in the industry coming out of COVID, who said, Oh, my gosh, I’m my business is being driven first and foremost, by actual human interaction. I have doubled down on word of mouth, I’m talking to more people, I am handing out business cards, I am saying to my clientele, refer refer somebody to me, I’d love to have you know, this, that or the other old school word of mouth, I think is as powerful as it’s ever been. Because social has become so big. I’m completely pro social marketing. I’ve been a proponent for a really long time. But I think we’re living in interesting times. And I think you need to double down on both. And I think I’ve been pleasantly surprised to have so many conversations ongoing, because I’m always asking the question, Where are you getting new clients from? And I’m just hearing from so many, it really is that human interaction that’s driving our business forward, more than anything. And I also am hearing more than any more than perhaps ever, just how important the quality of service is. Not not the quality of the hair service, but the quality of everything else. Because there’s a lot of great hair happening out there. And for a consumer, somebody like me, I don’t understand this. But I do understand how you make me feel. Yeah,
Chris Baran 48:15
and I can’t remember if I’ve talked to so many people lately that I thought it was you and I that we’re having a bit of this conversation, but correct me if I’m wrong, and if not, it’s valid. I was talking to someone and they just said you know that that of all the times that they’ve had their hair cut, and talk to people about having their hair cut, not one person in this from the salon called them back and said, you know, it was your service good? Isn’t Are you getting the service you want? Are you are you happy with what’s being done? And that might contribute to So two questions number one, was it you? Number two? Well in that regard, but if you think about it, no, I don’t got it and opportunity that if somebody that wants the slightest thing, you know, well, the mice the massage that I had in the shampoo wasn’t quite what I’m used to, so that we can rectify it I just think that that when you’re you sparked that when you said about this human interaction that’s happening again and and just connecting with that with that customer to make them a loyal, trusting and valuable customer that sees the value in you.
Gordon Miller 49:25
And what we know is that 70% of clients don’t get past the third appointment. That’s a data point that all the software companies that track appointments, they all pretty much ended up in the same place usually here like 67 68% is the number who don’t come back after the third appointment. And I think that’s a hard thing sometimes for us even to relate to because we don’t typically in a salon realize that somebody hasn’t come back until a long time later. You know, it’s like okay, what happened to someone so I haven’t seen so so are we don’t even think about it. And so It’s hard to get clients to come for that first time. And to think that that number which has been constant for for a very long time now, that’s a huge mess. And I think it’s the number almost anybody could improve by doing something as simple as what you just suggested, Chris?
Chris Baran 50:14
Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s interesting, you know, the more of that you and I talk about this, and whether it’s, you know, like, even when I introduced you I talked about his is just stuff that is, is new, and we’re just hearing about it for the first time, because it’s been around forever. And we’re just recycling, that same problems that still come up.
Gordon Miller 50:33
But what’s interesting there is because the world is always changing is that the solutions today might be different than before, and then potentially more effective, you know, there’s more opportunity to reach out to people in unique ways. So I think yeah, yes, a really interesting question. Yeah.
Chris Baran 50:49
And, you know, do you think that that, is that? Are we as an industry, and I think it’s always a trickle down? You know, like, when I first started off in the business, it wasn’t like, I was going out to all the business gurus and saying, What are you doing in your business? And how does that apply to me, but that was then when I was at that stage. But now we get to talk to a lot of people outside our business. And, you know, Damn, that’s really, really good advice for in our business. Do you find? Is that trickle down effect all the way across our board? Or do you find that there’s more of outside information outside of our beauty information that’s coming in and utilized in our, you know, in our business?
Gordon Miller 51:30
I, you know, that’s, that’s a really interesting question. I mean, there’s always been those people in the industry, a lot of them very well known people, you know, have focused on the outside. You know, I’m trying to think of the McCormick’s from Houston, you know, so on massage, I believe, yeah, yep. You know, famous for, you know, looking outside the industry, always to find great ideas to bring into the industry, what is fit, who’s really big in the skincare world? You know, she loves she talks about the four seasons, and, you know, just these amazing experiences, and how do you kind of find, metaphorically a way to bring that into beauty? So, I think, you know, it’s always been there. And I think there’s those who have done it today, you know, it’s interesting, I’m not sure. I don’t feel like I hear enough of that talk anymore. You know, and I think, again, we’re inundated with so much information. I think sometimes it’s hard to eat. It’s like a fire, firehose of stuff coming our way. So it’s, we had an era of what I refer to as a TSA year is the salon Association. And that is a an organization that was part of PBA started maybe 15 years or so ago. And they’re not around anymore. But out of that era, which was a group of really progressive salon owners who brought all kinds of talent, some of the greatest authors on the planet, with nothing to do with our industry, but they brought them to us. And we hear that Malcolm Gladwell, who runs tipping point was what I remember. Yeah. And, you know, that was kind of an era that I wonder where that went to, you know, so I think you bring up something really powerful and important. I don’t know the answer. But I think we we will only be, we only benefit if we do more of that. And yeah, we live in a world where we can all do that YouTube. Every single day of my life, I try to watch at least one new YouTube video that has nothing to do with the industry. But it has to do with other passions. In my life, which as a workaholic, it usually connects back to beauty somehow TED Talks and it’s great stuff that’s out there. We have so much for all of us, you know, to ourselves doesn’t cost us anything but a little bit of time. And so I I think we’re probably doing less than what you suggested. And I think I’ll just say the opportunities is there for us to do more right now.
Chris Baran 53:48
Yeah, like I just I think as a correction and maybe you can correct me or I can I just want to make sure the names get out there. Because I think someone besides that was the gamble losers, right. So
Gordon Miller 53:58
that’s two were just as interesting. That gap. Yes. So yeah, so I’m excited. That’s again, it was in Kentucky
Chris Baran 54:06
and McCormick’s McCormick’s we’re
Gordon Miller 54:08
in Houston.
Chris Baran 54:09
Yeah.
Gordon Miller 54:10
Big organization. Oh my gosh, I’m embarrassed.
Chris Baran 54:14
We’re gonna have to we’re gonna have to look that up and if they if they if they do listen to this we apologize that we can’t remember this small name. Yeah, but you know, we like to your point I think the thing that I’ve tried to pass on to some of the people is is when it comes to profitability that the the book Profit First and by Mike McCalla wits you know, as, and I think that if the average salon owner would just listen to that, and then instead of just doing the forensic accounting, where, where your expenses are, your income minus expenses equals profit and you do income minus profit equals expenses, and just then lay out what you can afford me to have as an expense makes a big difference in what you can take home But so that’s were kind of my, my feeling on this, we can take some stuff that’s working on businesses as a whole, outside and bring that into our businesses so that I can speak, I understand where everybody’s at out there. Because being that creative entity, I, I got my juice from doing hair, I got my juice from the client, I, you know, all of that was really, really important to me. And sometimes I did that at the expense of not understanding my business really well. That’s
Gordon Miller 55:28
interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it’s.
Chris Baran 55:30
So I’m interested, because the you said you had a couple more points that were in their categories
Gordon Miller 55:37
of changing, you know, I’ll just say them, and you can pick whichever ones are interest, Asian as a category has radically evolved. So that’s a big one, events, which have some connection to education, but not all of its education events have evolved. I think that’s an important point, the media space has radically evolved as a big part of the media space for a very long time, it seems. So there’s three that look very, very differently, or look very different today than they did five years ago. Yeah,
Chris Baran 56:06
yeah. And what if you had to say top line? How do you think that’s affected us, like, what did like the overall, like, okay, cause effect, what happened, and what’s the cost was,
Gordon Miller 56:18
there’s less of all of that. So, so that’s of all of it means, you know, less opportunity, perhaps for as many people as I would hope to come in contact with good stuff, by way of each of those categories. You know, so on the event side, coming into pandemic, you know, we have the big big shows, they’ve had some evolution, in terms of the vendors who show up at the shows some, some evolution, you know, the attendees themselves, we saw some kind of shrinking of some of the smaller events and regional stuff. So I would say, you know, events are very important. I feel like we kind of saw a shrinking of the conference space, which is kind of the deep events, you know, where you can go not just to buy things, but can go to take some really deep education. And I feel like, you know, we’ve kind of that era has kind of somewhat slipped away, we saw some of it, but not as much as we used to, and the bigger events, and I love all I love anytime I can get together with hairdressers, whether it’s five people or you know, 500, or, you know, 5000, or, or many, many more, the big events, I feel like are evolving more into kind of cash and carry events, where you go by your tools, first and foremost, they become really great places to go by tools. And they’re really necessary. So it’s, it’s great. But I feel like not as many people are going to them. And I think that’s a loss in whatever that might look like, going to less opportunities to engage with your fellow hairdressers is a loss. And if collectively, fewer people are going to all the big shows, then there’s some loss education, which kind of throws a dotted line to that. But there’s so much more in the education space, and the education happens at the big beauty shows. We’ve seen the brands kind of pull back on education in many ways. And maybe pullbacks not a fair way of saying it, it’s different. It’s and so some of the big brand events are gone, they’ve been placed with smaller regional events, not necessarily a bad thing, you know, but but different. And I think that there’s been a huge belief by many, myself included, the digital education would step in and, and allow more people to learn. I don’t think that’s panned out the way I hoped it would have. I think we have a ways to go before we get there. And so I think that’s the chance that we saw a shrinking of real time education, I think we did see an expansion of digital education, but the digital education wasn’t what people were looking for. And I don’t think that’s a commentary on digital is a commentary on us understanding it yet, and I still think it will become a really meaningful solution. Maybe when the hardware catches up, and we can do augmented reality and VR. And so I think the jury is out. So the education space, and then media, we just have less of it than we’ve ever had. It’s very different. A lot of it’s been replaced by social media, you were talking about earlier in your career, you know, kind of how how things worked. Media was a really big and important part of our world, you know, 20 years ago, it’s where we had all of our information. Social media has forever changed that. But I think what it also did was kind of move us away from kind of the deeper content, you know, the, and things just became a little bit more surfacey. And it’s great, you can be inspired by it. But we’ve lost a lot of kind of deeper dives into information that the media was really good at, during a certain era. Things in the media began to kind of shift 2008 2009 Following the big recession. And so most of the media, which was print back then was reduced 25 to 30%. The pages just went away because economics changed. That was the beginning of To the end of magazines, as we have known them, and then move into digital has just been a lot of values have been lost a lot of information. And so, and that’s not to say it needs to be the way it was. But it feels like the interest in going deep into content has been greatly diminished. And we need deep content.
Chris Baran 1:00:27
Yeah, it’s, I love what you’re saying there. Because I’ll give you my just my experience, and I’m gonna take it this is the time when I’m going to the long in the tooth gray haired dude. I mean, really, I’m actually really handsome. But I’m trying to draw this picture of you with your, you know, I’m six foot five have dark hair, gray hair, very suave, and a boner, but I’m, you know, the reality is gray hair, you know, lots of wrinkles, but from that era, where when we would go to a show, you would buy the DVDs or VHS tapes, and they were they were long. And you would, there was a one hour of how to do a hair cut and a blow dry and possibly a color at the same time. And the interesting part is, is I find that that was me then. But even now I’m on that swipe left society if I’m not getting what I want right now. I’m swiping left out of it. And I’m wondering where that leads us to where we’ve we’ve had what we had where it was like good hardcore content, you where you got a lot of information, and sometimes the bones of what really made it happen. And we’re now I need I know even with our company, we’re big into providing content for for training programs, etc. But I have to go back in and say look at where’s the fine line between where I give you meat? And that swipe left? Yeah. So and it’s it’s a tough journey to be on for a producer developer product right now. So what do you think is going to happen to this because I think there’s got to be a hybrid that comes out somewhere somewhere along the line where people are going to go, because we all know you can go on Tik Tok as much as you want, you can go on Facebook, you can go on all of those. And there’s wonderful stuff that’s on there. But you can’t get your questions answered. So how do we get to that point, where we’ve got education that you can get it is online, it is whatever it is, I mean, a lot of the events are even go to more of a tick tock format. You know, instead of having a two hour, they went to one hour 45. And now they’re down sometimes down to 30 minutes. How do you get how do you get so you can get meat? And not just one two tidbits out of it? I’m not sure what that is? Well.
Gordon Miller 1:02:43
I mean, first and foremost, you’ve got to have leadership in this space. Because it I think we said this before, but but but education has long been seen as the biggest driver of success in the industry. Yes, you see education being diminished, we all should be concerned. And then yeah, how do we deal with that? Well, some of it’s the times we’re living in, you know, so, you know, we don’t have the attention spans, perhaps that we’ve had tied to everything else we’ve talked about, you know, more people working part time, more people without mentors, and many of those mentors are the ones who said, go, go see that class, go sit in that classroom, save up your money, go, go go take a trip to LA, you know, and sit with Chris Barron and, and learn. And, you know, that’s, that’s another form of boss, because demand for the good stuff, I think is probably the lowest ever. I also think we’re we’ve become kind of an industry where not everybody even has the context to understand what the good stuff looks like. And so I think it is one of the greater challenges the industry faces today is that I think like much of the world, we in many ways are less educated than we’ve been in the past, you know, and it’s just kind of the way it is. And so things are going to have to change in the larger world, I think to make education more attractive to all of us to want to spend our time and money to go get it. And yeah, and I think, you know, there’s a dumbing down of the industry, that’s kind of happened. And that’s not good. And it doesn’t mean again, individually to the listener, you know, that you’ve been dumbed down. But I think we should all be concerned, you know, with the state of the industry, education and do enough people find their way to the good stuff. I can’t believe that it’s happening the way we would hope it would. And I think there’s a ripple effect down the road that’s negative for all of us, you know, a pick a, an example that you’ll you’ll relate to, you know, really well, you know, and I think that is the current trend time that we’re living in, which is long layers, and the fear that we hear in conversations about getting the short hair That’s very now thing. That’s, that’s a, that’s a thing that’s it’s happened over the last 10 years, you know, but But in the midst of it, we’ve created perhaps a huge percentage of our industry, who don’t have comfort for what might be the next trend. And we keep us from getting to the next round, because we don’t have the capabilities to get there, we might block the next tread, because you know, we’re not ready to take it there. So it’s interesting when you think it from that perspective, and then I’ll tie it back to economics, because this the swinging of the pendulum of trend is critical to the health of the industry, we need trends to change, we need clients to want to change, you know, and kind of see themselves in new ways. And when we can’t do that we become a commodity. Yeah,
Chris Baran 1:05:49
yeah, I think a good friend of yours and mine, Steven moody, we’re having a conversation with him. And he said, you know, that the industry has shot itself in the foot, because we got everybody to grow their hair, we gave them root extensions, and we give them colors that they don’t have to come back in for. And now we wonder why we can’t get people back into our business, you know, and having new color every, you know, six weeks, and having regular haircuts, etc. And that’s, you know, again, is a big part of and to your point, I as well as a cutter can see that pendulum swinging, and it’s going to come back and people are going to get caught out there with not understanding and not knowing how to how to do that kind of work.
Gordon Miller 1:06:30
Yeah, when you dig into the money, you know, again, there’s all this conversation on social about, you know, these $500 car services, what doesn’t get talked about, I think it’s important for the mainstream to understand that because, again, economics are complicated. But are those $500 services two times a year, I think we need more clients today than we’ve needed in a long time to be successful, because appointment spreading is real. And so you know, if you’ve got a client that comes in every 12 weeks, versus another client who comes in twice a year, and you start to do the math of that $500 client twice is $1,000 for the year, but that every 10 to 12 week client at a lower price could get you to actually to a higher lifetime value. That becomes complicated, meaning that big ticket can confuse us, you know that? Well, I want to hold on to those big tickets, which which one we should really want. But if they only come once or twice a year, or they come once and never come back. How is that building a business? Yeah,
Chris Baran 1:07:32
yeah, that’s why that’s Gordon. I mean, we I mean, we, I feel that we only even cover just the tip of the iceberg here. But for what we’ve covered in here, but you know, what, what does this mean? I’m just gonna wrap this up, because we talked about a lot of things. Some of it negative, some of it positive. And like I talked to there’s a there’s a bit of a but pucker part of the all of this with people that are listening and watching to us what’s going on? But what what if we had to wrap that up? What would we advice or learning that we would say things we need to listen and look for? What would you say to the people right now?
Gordon Miller 1:08:12
Well, let’s start by recognizing that yes, it’s kind of a messy time, in many ways, the world is messy, right. And when the world is messy, we’re probably going to find our own version of messy within the industry. chaotic. There’s a great quote, I can’t remember who said it, you know, but, you know, out of chaos comes opportunity. I really do believe that we live in a time of as much opportunity if not more than we’ve ever had throughout my entire career. I mean, people do have the opportunity. As I mentioned, you know, the, the barrier to entry to ownership is as low as I think it’s ever been for the masses, that’s not necessarily a good thing. I think some people jump too soon, individually. Because there’s so many options. When you’re being smart about your career, when you’re being thoughtful when you are going out and doing your homework and finding all the information. Again, I think there’s we’ve never seen the opportunities that are in front of us. It’s just that you got to kind of figure out how to get yourself there and get all the information. So So I think that’s important to say, because I don’t want this to come off as all negative because it’s not either so many opportunities. I’m seeing so many young people who are killing it, or the the majority, no, that will never be the case. That’s it would not be the case of any industry. So I think going back to where we started, knowledge is power. I think I think we should today more than ever we need to question the people that we’re listening to and ask where they’re finding what they find and and thinking about who are they and context you know, is is kind of king. I think when we just kind of live our own little space and we don’t consider how we fit into the larger space. Then potentially we miss out on opportunities. So but boil it all down. I think we live in a time of a me seizing opportunity might be a little more difficult to find your way there than the past because because there is so much going on. But But yeah, I think there’s there’s a lot of opportunity and hope for everybody out there. Yeah.
Chris Baran 1:10:12
And Gordon, so first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for being on here. And, and just to go back and at the very beginning, we talked about how if we really want to understand the you have to understand why. And that I always think that this way is having you on here has been the wise, W hy S has made us wise, wi S II. And I think that’s the whole key to this, if you understand why you can take a look at it, and how does it affect you and make a shift to you get wise before anybody else. And that was that wisdom that you get from it helps propel you forward and keeps you successful. So I just want to say thank you, Gordon, you always are so generous with your time and your knowledge and you always help us so much. So I just want to say thank you so much for being on here. It’s absolutely pleasure.
Gordon Miller 1:11:01
And let me say thank you because headcase is is on my must listen to list now you have evolved this podcast in such a cool way. I love what you’re bringing to the industry. So kudos to you for that. And you say?
Chris Baran 1:11:17
Yes, there you go. Absolutely. I love podcasts. I love it always only on a podcast. And so thank you and I really appreciate that plug on there. And by the way, make sure that you’re on on Gordon’s Gordon’s has amazing podcasts that he does with beauty cast, etc, in his own personal. So make sure that you’re on there. If anybody wants to listen to you more and get more information, where would they go? The
Gordon Miller 1:11:40
easiest place for me is Instagram, follow me on Instagram, I go by Gordon M but I spell it GORDN M, that sort of, and Instagram and then social media makers is my podcasts and me talking solo. And then mastering beauty is my podcast for BT cats network. And those are all great places to find me and I have all my DMs. So and
Chris Baran 1:12:03
I would highly encourage that everybody goes to that and listen to that. So listen at all the listeners and you know, if you’re on there, whatever platform you’re on out there is if you like what you heard today, and you want to hear more if you can, you know, just show us some love. Give us a review. You know, number five is really good for us to get the algorithms going, etcetera. And then we can get more people on our site as well. So, thank you for that. Thank you, Gordon. And I’m Chris Barron. And I just want to say this has been head cases
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