– Episode 028Maria Unali

Episode 028: Transcript

Welcome to the grow my salon business podcast where we focus on the business side of hairdressing. I’m your host Antony Whitaker and I’ll be talking to thought leaders in the hairdressing industry discussing insightful, provocative, and inspiring ideas that matter. So get ready to learn, get ready to be challenged, get ready to be inspired and most importantly, get ready to grow your salon business.

I consciously go out my way to interview a diverse range of people for the podcast, but the thing I know they all have in common is that they are building successful, profitable businesses regardless of where in the world they are. My goal is to interview a range of people at all stages of their career and various areas of the salon industry to bring to you a mixture of inspiration, entertainment, and practical ideas and advice to help you grow your salon business. Today’s guest is Maria Unali a young salon owner from Sydney, Australia who opened salon Kiin four years ago. In today’s podcast, we will discuss the challenges of juggling multiple roles in life from being a wife and a mother, also being a stylist and a business owner with all the demands that come with it. We’ll also talk about how to attract, nurture and build a salon team and setting guides around salon social media. And that’s just to start with. So without further ado, let’s jump straight in and talk to our guest today. Welcome to the show Maria Unali from salon kin in Sydney.

Thank you, Antony. It’s really good to be here.

Well it’s really great to have you here, Maria. Now I, I know a little bit about your background over the last, you know, few years. But I’d like you to start off by, let’s take a couple of minutes and just tell our audience who you are, what your background is, how long you’ve been in the industry, and you know, just the sort of two minute backstory of who is Maria Unali.

Sure. So I’m a, I’m a wife, a mom, first and foremost. I’m a wife, a salon owner and team leader I had Salon Kiin It was born four years ago. But before that I had a salon, called S81 for about seven years, just after I got married. And, but before that, my dad had the salon about for about 30 years. So I’m, I’m second generation hairdresser and salon owner I Absolutely love my team and it’s been a pleasure and, and challenging to run it. And yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s been a journey. I went to uni first and decided that that wasn’t for me. And when I spoke to my dad about doing hairdressing and I was just helping on weekends I said to him, you know Papa I want to do this properly, like I want to maybe enter competitions and, you know, do some fashion week and all that sort of stuff. And he was like okay. And I remember seeing you remember Anthony Nader’s work in a magazine in the AHJ at the time. And I was like, Oh, I want to do that. And I did do it a little bit. I did some photo shoot work and fashion week and all that sort of stuff. And now I’m sort of, I feel like I’m planting my feet on the ground at the salon in Penrith and we’re about 55 kilometers out from Sydney city.

Okay. So you’re not bang in the, you know, the center of, you know, big metropolis, you’re out more in the sort of suburban area. But you know, I first became aware of your salon through pictures that I saw of it and I think it was not long after you opened and I thought, wow, what a beautiful salon. And it is a stunning space. It is a great space. So, the business that you had before, was that your dad’s Salon that you were working in?

No, it was actually the, before that I had it for about seven years, but before that, my dad had a space in same shopping center. So we moved from a shopping center to high street In Penrith. Yeah. Massive differences. And a big part of that decision was obviously opening up the market to something bigger and natural light Nothing beats natural light in a hairdressing salon I think,

Yeah, of course. Okay. So how many staff have you now got you’ve been open four years?

Yeah, so when we started I had it was probably about five or six of us. I remember going on our first retreat and we had like there was eight people and now we just come back from our last retreat a couple of weeks ago and there was 15 of us.

Wow, fantastic. I know a lot of the hairdressers who, you know, they feel that to open up in more suburban areas or not in the middle of the capital city. They feel that they’re at a disadvantage, but in a lot of cases it’s actually quite the opposite, isn’t it? Because you know, I know that you’ve got this beautiful salon and, and no, it’s not right in the middle of Sydney, but talk about some of the advantages that you think there are of not opening up in the middle of the city and being out you know, in a slightly more suburban area? Not that that’s a negative at all, cause I don’t believe it is. So some of the advantages of why you decided to do that?

I think there’s actually more pros than cons and it’s just talking to other salon owners that are in the middle of the city. I have low overheads. My staff, I actually I don’t have a problem with staff in terms of like obtaining staff. I get at least, you know, two resumes a week just to, and it’s just a mix from apprentices or assistants to fully qualified. I think it’s got a lot to do with you know, whether it’s a bad a good thing, but it’s just a low socioeconomic area. So their parents are more than happy to say yes to leaving in year 10 and you know, or you know, leaving year 10 and then jumping in a trade or going into college, you know beauty college or as opposed to you know, I’m going to 12 and then going to uni and maybe becoming a lawyer or a doctor. Yeah. So it’s a very different, it’s just a very different market in terms of you know, upbringing and background. Yeah. So

You, said before that you started off going to university, what was it you were studying?

Well, it was sort of, I just did a bachelor of arts cause I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I feel like at the time I was just almost, you know, going against what my mother wanted me to do, which is become a hairdresser. I got the marks to go to uni and I was like, you know what, I’m going to go. So I just said a bachelor of arts and like a little bit of philosophy and economics and and then I wanted to do marketing and I was like another five years, I don’t want to do marketing, another five years at uni. I feel like I was doing my HSC all over again every semester. And then I just went, you know what, no, I’m going to start working for my dad. And and that’s, yeah. And then the manager left and then my dad’s like, okay, here you go…

So you took over?

Yeah, There was a manager in and I was just like, you know, my dad’s like going, no, you can just, you can just do it. It’s fine. Like it was almost like, you know, cutting a solid line. And I was just like, I’m not sure if I’m right for this, but I really enjoyed… I didn’t get numbers straight away. It was very long time before I understood numbers and how to read a PNL. And it was a really bad time for me at one point in S81my last salon. I was almost bankrupt. Like I was in the red a lot and but I was having a lot of fun, I was doing lots of fashion weeks and assisting for free and on a lot of photo shoots and I would cancel full books.

Cause the way the editorial world works in Sydney and probably all over the world is that it’s just, it’s quiet. It’s quite volatile. Like you can’t, you know, you don’t get two weeks notice, you just, it’s either five, 5:00 PM the day before and you’re like, can you assist on this shoot? And there’d be big names in there and I’m, I’ll put my hand up and I’m like, yeah, I’ll do it and I’ll travel two hours to do it too. So I, you know, would cancel full books, full column of clients to get there. And there was massive repercussions and you had to work probably seven days for a whole year to get that back.

Okay. Well, we’ll talk more about that later cause I think that there’s some great lessons, you know, in there. So, so, you know, just so that people get a good broad understanding of what your business is like you’ve had it for four years, there’s now 15 odd staff. And being in Australia, they’d be apprentices as opposed to people going through beauty school. So, so how many apprentices would you have on at any one time?

So at the moment at the moment we’ve got five and I’m looking to put another one on at the moment so she’ll trial in a couple of days.

Right. Okay. And are they again being Australia they’d be paid like an award wage and then some sort of commission system on top of that? Yeah. The ones who are doing more clients than others are definitely on commission. But the other ones that don’t know that they’re not on commission. Right. Okay. And, and what do you specialize in? Are you known for anything in particular? I mean, I’ve been on your website and I’ve been looking at your collections and stuff and you know, it’s another great example of what we were touching on before that, you know, a lot of times people feel that to be noticed so they have to be in the middle of a capital city and you’re not in the middle of the capital city. And yet you do beautiful work.

You’ve done a lot of editorial, a lot of magazine work, you’ve won lots of awards, et cetera, you know, so there are lots of upsides to being in more suburban areas, the least of which is a, well, one of the important ones is the overheads lower. And I did touch on this again recently with someone else on the podcast and you know, we were talking about how you know, sometimes when you’re in the middle of a capital city you tend to have more transient staff and you tend to have more transient clients, you know, whereas when you’re somewhere more like you are, the staffing situation is often a lot more stable. There’s a lot more loyalty there. And likewise with the clients as well. And another thing that, you know I know we touched on this before we got on the air, is that there’s always the option, the possibility to one day, you know, to buy your own real estate.

Whereas if you’re in the middle, you know, of downtown Sydney or downtown London ally, whatever, you know, you’re never going to own the real estate. So, you know, there’s lots of pluses aren’t there. It’s not all negative to be in a more suburban situation. Yeah. Okay. All right. One of the things I noticed on your website when I was having a look at it before was your sustainable salon philosophy. And I know I didn’t get a chance to sort of preempt you that I was going to talk about that, but you know, it’s a really important thing about business today. How can you be more sustainable? So, I know in the U S they have a very big program over there called the green circle. Which is a sustainable thing that a lot of salons are involved in. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that, but it is your sustainability program. Just tell us a little bit about that.

So it’s, it’s run by sustainable salons and we, I hope to I suppose recycle at least, you know, I mean 100% is beautiful, but I think it’s about 95% of salon waste. We recycle from hair to our foil paper, plastic, glass and interesting. There’s something interesting about is that we, when we recycled the hair, it gets made into hair boons and it sucks up the oil in ports like in Newcastle, northern NSW Southwest central coast. So it’s, it’s, it’s well and good to, you know, to be in a business and all that. But I’m really mindful of my waste Just because of specialy lots of climate talk, you know, climate change talk happening at the moment. It’s we need to do something and if it’s something as small as just putting, you know, the right thing in the right bin that’s, that’s what we can do and so on. So it’s all product waste as well as packaging all of that the sustainable salons come pick it up. How do you pay for that? Do you, do you put a surcharge on for services or what? Yeah, we do. I know a lot of salons they work it into their costs, but we actually started when we jumped on board with sustainable salons, we spoke to paul the owner and Evelina and they just said it’s just better to put it as a surcharge. So it’s a $2 green fee. We charge all our clients.

Yeah. It doesn’t discriminate. It just goes on everything. Right. And what I’m, yeah, so all your clients, not just color clients. Everyone. Okay. Everyone. So you just get a haircut you pay a $2, whatever it is fee for sustained. Okay. And how do clients react to that? Would they rather it was just built in or no? Well I dunno, we didn’t really have a, I thought just coming from you know, outside of the city, Western Sydney, I was just like, had this conditioning that I was just like, Oh, it’s too expensive. People are gonna say something. But I think once you tell them the story about it, Oh yeah. Cool. No worries. Because a lot of that money that even that goes to recycling the foil will funds a charity that feeds the homeless. When you tell that story, people like, yeah, it’s $2, it’s fine.

And it is like, it’s not, and that then that money obviously pays for everything else. Like the service of you know, getting our bins picked up fortnightly And you know, the recycling center and all that sort of stuff. Yeah.

Okay. Good. So one of the things I wanted to talk about with you is your people and your team. I sort of touched on this in the intro. I was saying how, you know that I like to talk to a diverse range of people and you know, I’ve had some people on the podcast that have had like phenomenal figures, for example. And and I know that there’s a lot of people out there that listen to this, that they go, Oh my God, that is so unrelatable. I can’t do that. And I’m a mum and I’m a, I’m a wife and I’ve got a team and I’m doing staff training and I’m doing recruitment and all that sort of stuff. And so, you know, I know that there’d be a lot of people in our audience that are basically you, you know, whether they are in the U S or the UK or whatever, they’re young, 34. You told me you were 34 hope you don’t mind me saying that. Not at all. By the way. She doesn’t look 34. She looks 24 but that’s another story. So how do you, You know, I want you to talk about people, I want you to talk about your team and how you build that culture Because I know that you’ve got a very good team culture and your people are really important to you. So, you know, talk about How does that happen? How do you create a team culture?

That’s such a big question, isn’t it? And it’s funny cause when I hear a question like that, I’m like, there’s no formula. It doesn’t happen overnight. Like, I’ve been building this for a long time. And one of the things that I always go back to is what I heard it was either Simon Sinek or something like that. I’ve read a couple of his books and I’ve also heavily into Brene Brown and her research. And they said something like, to build a high performing team, you need psychological safety and psychological safety is built by having trust, almost like a circle of trust and You know, this has been happening over a long time. It’s obviously changing and it’s a lot of self awareness from my end, you know, it’s a checking in with myself as opposed to pointing the finger and we work, I’ve shared this a lot with my team and it’s just an acronym for the seven elements of trust and it’s called BRAVING.

So B for boundaries, so knowing what’s okay and what’s not okay R for reliability. So it’s, you know, doing what you say you’re going to do at the time you going to do it A for accountability, owning your impact. V for vault So not sharing a story that’s not yours to share. I for integrity. Self explanatory and N for non judgment so you can tell me anything and I won’t judge you for it and G for generosity. So being generous with the assumption that everyone is doing their best. And when I explained this to my team, I say, you know, this is what I want to build here This is not about being high performance financially this is about being high performance. You want to be efficient, you want to be, you know working really well together. Mmm. You know, no one wants a manic Saturday, everyone wants to be super smooth and you know, just going through

You know, the day with, you know, we can’t make it perfect but as least amount of hiccups as possible. And when I share this with my team, we have, we have the same issues as any other salon. But what I was saying to my manager the other day is that we, the gap between something happening and then something being rectified is I think a little bit shorter then maybe other salons because I try to knock it on the head quite quickly. And we do things like, you know, I have these listening sessions. I used to call them one-on-ones where I would take the team out one by one on a Friday, first Friday of the month, and I would spend half an hour just in a coffee shop chat to them. It’s not anything new, but what I found was if I did it consistently once a month, that they would be more inclined to share things with me that they wouldn’t normally share as if I was taking them out once a year.

Yeah. Because it’s trust is consistency as well. We do a retreat once a year, so I take all the team out. We just came back from Byron Bay a couple weeks ago. That was super fun and it was not hairdressing at all. It was just fun surf lessons. A little lots of dinners and drinks and all that. That was really good. And then, you know, there’s, I just check in with them. You know, I had this really beautiful thing the other day and it was about counting hearts and not counting heads and knowing that they’re real people and saying, how’s your mom or you know, how’s your boyfriend or how, you know, and checking in with them. I, it’s, it’s, I think sometimes like you’re like, really? Do you have to? It’s like, yeah, people want to be cared about, they want to be appreciated.

And I think my team, because there’s no, you know, I speak about not being able to fill the void with money. Like you have to feel them somehow. And I think people want to talk about themselves ala me. But I think it’s you know, also important to know who they are and what they want. And I know that my team yeh money helps, but I’ve done lots of feedback forms for myself anonymously with the team. And a lot of these, a lot of them say that they want They want time off, they want holidays, they want recognition and acknowledgement. They want to be a part of something bigger. I’m not sure if I’m digressing too much, but I think, yeah, I think building a culture doesn’t happen over night and it’s something that just, it’s consistency and it changes all the time.

I don’t think people understand that. Like it’s not something that’s sort of inbuilt and like it stays like that for such a long time. It’s, it shifts and it moves when people leave and people come in and you are like, you are the culture. You, I mean, you’ve said it a lot. If you don’t determine the culture, that culture gets set for you. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

So that, that thing you opened up on me, you said, I think you said it was good. Braving is that right? Yeah. And it’s just like, yeah, it’s trust acronym seven elements. So is that something from Brene Brown, did you say? Yeah, it is. Yeah. I’ve read her book dare to lead and it changed my life. Wow. Okay. Oh, that sounds really interesting. I hadn’t heard that before. So, so that sort of acronym that is sort of I mean, it’s interesting. I often find that in salons, if you, if you can have one thing which is like, okay, this is our point of reference. Yes. BRAVING is a really good example and this is what each of those letters stand for. And I thought there was some really good attributes as you were going through describing what each of those letters stood for in terms of building a culture and giving people a point of reference as to this is who we are and this is what we’re all about. And this is a, this is a good acronym to check your behaviors, your attitude to check in against, to see if you are measuring up with you know, what our culture is all about what what you’ve defined it as.

And I love that idea of you, you know, I mean, I use that term one-on-one. And you know, words are important and the reason why you can’t change words, you know, and you said you call them listening sessions, well what a great idea. Yeah, why not? I mean, that’s a great idea. And just sort of repositions things you know, in people’s minds that Hey, this is time for you to talk and for me to listen and take it on board. And yeah. That’s fantastic. And so your retreat, you said you do that once a year where you take everyone away, you pay for everyone to go away. Do you and you pay for the accommodation and the food and entertainment? Yeah.

Yup.I mean a couple of them pull out their wallets sometimes, but you know, whether it’s to get food or to go shopping or whatever, but you could essentially go there and not have to pay for anything and be fed and looked after and, okay. Yeah. It’s such a fun thing. And it’s funny cause I was just like, you know what? I think this is, you know, the last year we’re going to do it well, I think I might just take a break next year at the Spike in morale when we come back has made addicted to definitely do it again the following year.

Oh, of course. Yeah. No, I think those sort of things are really important. And you know, the other thing it does, I think is it, you know, I often say to people that, you know, we employ these young people in our industry and you know, you’ve got a, you’ve got a great Salon you, you described it as being a slightly lower socioeconomic area. But you’ve got a great salon, I’m imagining it’s an expensive salon in the area that it’s in. It’s probably the, you know, the premium salon. Yeah. And so you employ these young people, and this is all over the world that this happens and you know, we employ them. They’re 16, 17, 18, whatever they are. And we expect them to be able to treat our clients with the standards that we have, you know, about service cetera. And the thing is that, you know you’ve traveled, you’ve, you know, stayed in nice hotels, you’ve been to nice restaurants, you’ve been, you know, called ma’am or whatever, you know you’ve experienced five star service. So it becomes sort of innately easy for you to deliver people five stars. So five star service, you know, your clients. But then the problem is we employ these young people as trainees, as apprentices, assistants, whatever, and they’d never experienced it. So they’d never, a lot of them, the only restaurant I’ve been to is McDonald’s. They’ve never been on an airplane, let alone be business class. they’ve never been out of the country. They’ve never stayed in a five star hotel. So I always think that when you take people away and you take them to somewhere, like you said, Byron Bay, you know, a lot of our audience would have heard of Byron Bay.

Byron Bay is a beautiful spot and you know, in Australia it’s a great tourist spot. It’s a beautiful part of the world to go to. And so what I’m, what I’m saying is that as much as rewarding them and having fun, you’re actually sort of training them at the same time because they’re getting to experience, you know, staying somewhere nice, eating in nice places, you know, and, and it’s an education in itself of what you’re trying to do. So I, I think that’s really commendable. So yeah, I think, I think every salon should do that. So I’ve got off track there a little bit. Other than that, so you know, things like listening sessions and taking people on retreat and stuff, those things are motivational in themselves. But what are some of the things that you do to motivate your staff? What are some practical, everyday things that you might do to motivate people?

We do lots of education, so we do our block out three hours every fortnight. And we do training and education. Obviously half of it’s hairdressing. So we do this year I’m focusing on using my own team to train my younger, team, my emerging. And, but in the past, we have just brought people from the industry into my space. Cause the one thing that I said about kiin that because we’re so far out of the city that I’ll wanted to build a space that we could also educate in and have the space to be able to bring someone in as opposed to, it’s just a big day when we have to go into the city for big trainings. So to bring someone out and house them and host them is, is one of the things I wanted to do. So whoever they think is going to be inspiring to them. I’ll all take it on board and then I’ll bring them out. But we also obviously utilize in salon training and the other part of training that I do is building them as humans as opposed to well, you know, I can always teach them technique when they go to, can go to a course. But I this year where I’m blocking out some time to do like in March. We’ve got a financial advisor coming to the salon and he’s going to talk about, you know, building them financially and making sure that they’ve, well they’re got all their buckets set up in a saving and all that We’re having a strategy day in a, in a couple of weeks. So we’ll be sort of preped for that just to get them on board for 2020. We’re going to bring a nutritionist in, a physio’s coming to show them some exercises about, you know, being on their feet all day.

I’m also going to engage with one of my friends who actually came on retreat with us to do a session with my guys. His name’s Jack Morton and he has a program called project view and he focuses on self awareness and empathy, vulnerability. So building yourself so you can, you’re able to give to the client. And the session that we did on retreat was incredible and he just asked the right questions to be able to then get the right answers for them. You too. I suppose to be aware of who you are and what you’re doing and your impact. And all the guys love that. So like, you know, that sort of training is really important to me because all I want to be able to make sure that if they do leave that they’re better humans then, you know When they started, whether it’s through financial literacy or nutritionally what knowing to eat better. And I feel like I’ve got a duty of care to look after them as,people not Just hairdressers.

That’s great Yeah and how does that impact on, say for example, staff retention? You know, what’s your retention? I mean, I know you’ve only been open for four years, but you know, what sort of staff retention do you have?

It’s great. It’s well I’ve, I’ve had one of my guys has been there for over 10 years in nine years, seven years, six years they’re all, most of them are, well not most of them. A couple of them are pre Kiin And then you know, jumping on board I’ll hire Slowly. So it’s really important that obviously that person aligns with the values and the brand. And not just getting another person on board. That’s really important to me. So yeah, I mean we’ve grown like, you know, from five to 15 in four years and that’s, I suppose that’s been pretty good. I, I suppose I just, I, listen to them. I what, what do they want? I know that’s really vague, but You know, there’s some things I can’t give them what they want. I hate saying no and all the guys know it. So when they ask for a Saturday off, I’m like, don’t ask me. Cause I’m probably gonna say yes so it’s you know, I try and make it as comfortable as possible for them to work cause I do work so hard.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, what do you, I mean, you’re a millennial. I’m imagining what you are a millennial the, the generation underneath you, which is where a lot of your team are going to be you know, so gen Z what, what do they want today? You know, I always find it difficult to sort of pigeon hole any generation does that. This is what this generation wants and this how you’ve got to treat them. I always rather talk about it as in saying, this is what people want today, you know, rather than pigeonholing a particular generation. But that’s just me. So I suppose what I’m asking you is, you know, what do you find young people want today, young, 20 something employees. What are the things you know, that they need? What are the things that they expect from a job today?

I think they want to be big. They want to be part of something bigger than just, you know than just them. I know there was lots of freelancing, you know going on beforehand, I think that’s going to sort of phase out and everyone wants to be part of a team again. They want flexibility That’s one of the things that I think that is nonnegotiable. They want to be able to take holidays when they want and how they want. They, they, you know, maybe you want to start later if they’ve got an appointment in the morning or If they need to pick up their kids from daycare, they want to be able to know that you’ll understand and to, to let them go a little bit earlier. Things like that. Like, I know one of my guys it was just like nights that were really killing her and I know that’s across the board people dont want to work late nights But because we went from trading a salon for seven days to five days, I said, We have to do two late nights. She’s adjusted her book. Cause it was, it was just something that she really believed in. And she’d been with me for such a long time that I was just like let’s just make this work. And we trialed it and it was okay. And you know, I always have this fear of one person doing something and then everyone else, going well she’s doing it. Why can’t I do it? And I think I’ve digressed a little bit, but you know, I, I’m always mindful of making thing is comfortable for them. So I love working. Yeah. But they love working.

Whenever I ask people that question and I often ask people, the one word that comes up every single time is flexibility. Yeah that people want flexibility. And I remember when I had my salons, I weren’y particularly flexible. But if I still had salons today, I recognize that you have to be a lot more flexible with your approach to people if you want to keep them, if you want to attract them, if you want to motivate them, that’s not without challenges in terms of running a business, you know, one thing that you touched on a minute ago, you said no one wants to work late nights see I was quite the opposite I would much rather have started work every day at at one o’clock and and worked till nine at night. I would much rather have that and then have been able to sleep in, get up, go to the gym, you know, whatever it is, you know. So I think there are people that want either end of the spectrum. It’s about employing want you want. One of the things that you touched on, and I said I would come back to it and that was, where you said that you nearly went bust at one point. You said you were a young hairdresser, you were doing lots of editorial work, you were doing lots of shows and you know, session work, et cetera. And you know, you reached a point where you had to pull back from that. And I think you said you had to then work seven days a week for a year to sort of turn the ship, so to speak. Talk to us a little bit about that time of salon ownership and you know, just, just tell us about that process. What was the journey that you went through during that time?

Because I’d seen my dad run the salon quite effortlessly for such a long time.I, he just looked easy to me. So I was like, you know what, I can do this, it’s fine. And I had a couple of guys working in the salon and I was like, okay, cool. I just, I just thought it was as easy as money coming in, money going out. I didn’t know how to read a PNL. And so as much fun as I was having, I was constantly going into my overdraft, which is the red. And I thought it was my rent. I was, cause every time right came around, it was so high because you’re in a shopping center that I was like, Oh, it’s the rent. I was blaming the rent and I had a coach that was non-industry wasn’t a coach, but he was an accountant that was working for someone, another tenant in the shopping center he was like, let me have a look at your PNL And he’s like, it’s actually not your Rent. You need more bums on seats, like you need to do more. And then I realized if I don’t stop, it’s going to get really, It’s going to get really bad way and I didn’t it have any kids at the time? So I, I did have the flex, like I did have, you know, the will to be able to go, you know what, I can’t do this anymore and work seven days.You know, I remember my mom coming to me and saying, you know, do you want some money? And I was like that’s so embarrassing cause I’m married and yeah. You know, say three or four years into marriage. And I was just like, I can’t take money from my mom. Like, and so the only option for me was to just head down, bum up and just work.

Yeah. And I couldn’t blame anyone else by myself for what happened? I mean, I’ve walked away with some really good contacts in the industry and I done fashion weeks and had got so much experience then be able to maybe do my own photo shoots and and all that. And I wouldn’t, there’s no way I take it back. Like, no regrets. I wasn’t something I go, Oh wish I didn’t do that. Everything worked out the way it was supposed to work out.

Yeah. I mean I think that there’s a lot of people that side of the industry is very seductive. You know, working on shows, you know, working, doing magazine shoots, you know, being backstage at fashion week, it’s very seductive, but very few people were making any money out of it. Most of them are doing it for nothing and in fact most of them are spending money to be there and it can be a smart thing to do if you end up being someone at the top of the pile who is then getting paid a lot of money and have a lot of unpaid assistants with you. But I think that for a lot of other hairdressers that you know, I encourage people to do it. I do it. You’ve done it. Everyone’s done it. There’s a time and a place for it if that’s what you want to do. But I think you very much like what happened to you is what happens to a lot of people. You have to make a decision, you know, you’re either going to be in your salon, building a business, building a team, running a salon, or you’re going to be about out there educating or out there doing shows or out there doing photographs or whatever. And, and you have to make a decision because salons don’t run themselves, you know, and you’ve, you’ve got to be there and have a hand on the tiller, so to speak, if you, if you want to build it. So yeah, interesting time. So, well, glad to hear you turned it all around, et cetera anyway. Yeah. And you now have a very profitable salon. I know we talked a little bit before we got on air today and do you mind sharing with the audience what sort of profit margin you’re currently running at?

Yeah, no, not at all. So it’s currently around 15 to 17%. And we’re sort of up at December and then down in January, cause I was we closed, you know over December, January. And that was probably, it wasn’t a great decision, but and it’s funny when we were talking, I was surprised at that I, you know, I want to, not that I want to get more, it’s not about, you know, being more in increasing that profit margin. It’s always about like, yes, increasing the profit margin and seeing what I can invest back into my team and back into my business. You can only take so much at the end of the day, you know, taxes, tax is one of the things that you can’t escape So if there’s things that I can, you know, and I talk to my team, I’m quite transparent with my team about it, that if we’re profitable and we’re making money, then that’s more money to bring in an educator and spend the day, know a lot of them are charging $2,000 $3,000 for the day for a workshop if I host them. So you know, it’s, so I translate it into what their journey as well because it’s all of us. We’re all in it.

Yeah, exactly. Well, if salons aren’t profitable, they don’t survive. And if they don’t survive, then no one has a, has a has a job, so they need to be profitable. What are some of, well you sort of really just answered that. I was going to ask you, what are some of the hurdles that you’ve had to overcome? but I suppose that’s, that’s a big hurdle really, is that is fInding the, you know, the direction that you want to take and being committed and prepared to roll your sleeves up and get on with it. One of the things that I noticed with your salon I first saw in the photographs that I saw of it. And I’ve never spoken to you about it and that’s the color table that you have. Yeah. I do a seminar called grow your color business to a lot of people. And I often talk about salons that have a color tables and you know, some people are quite familiar with them as a concept for other people. It’s something totally new. So, you know, as a salon owner who has a color table do, do you want to describe, you know, what it is and how that works for you as a business?

So I mean it definitely wasn’t the first one to put it in. It was I noticed that if I wanted to maximize the space I had to obviously increase how many chairs I had in salon. So I’ve got seven, seven styling chairs on either side of the salon and then it goes into a six-seater color table. And it’s just communal. It’s just a way of clients to sit down and have, they have, they color done. I mean, not many people want to look at themselves with a whole full head of foils and the hair in the mirror. And they end up having a chat around the table as well. And it just means that there’s more chairs I suppose for styling and it has a skylight right above it. So it’s I suppose the ambiance surrounds it is quite serene like theres a couple of plants and everything. Magazines and people just feel like they’re around the dinner table and when I have a coffee and we tend to find that the conversations there’s lots of mingling going on, which is really cool to see most of the time Yeah. So it’s definitely increases, but it does increase it.

Right. Okay. Do they have their Color done while they’re sat at that table or is it just a processing area?

No, they had, they have their colour done, so the guys will, so the team will, bring them through, sit them at the color table straight away if the colour tables full there’s no choice but to spread them out to the styling stations. Yeah. They’ll sit down and have the consult there. you know, have a chat as if they were, you know, mates. And then go ahead with the service, cape them up and then, yeah, just whether, whether they’re having a full head of foils or a tint re growth. I think it’s always nice just to be able to, you know, relax and not have to worry about what’s happening in the mirror and just, you know, a lot of them Will go up to the Wifi and they’ll do some work there if they like and headphones on. But and a lot of the time my marketing manager will also be around the table cause that’s really important for her to be amongst the team and the clients to be able to get a sense of what’s happening in the salon. So she’ll be working, should be doing some work on the laptop there as well. So it’s just a really nice communal space. Everyone can. We also have our team meetings around there as well. Like it’s quite versatile.

Okay, cool. What, what’s the, I will put the website address in the show notes because I want people to be able to go to the website so they can check out the visual of your salon Cause it’s a beautiful clean salon, but it’s salon kiin K double I. N. yeah. What, what does kin mean? Where does that come from?

Kin from next of kin. Kindred kinship. So the idea of friends and family, but we put double line there cause it was like the sequel, you know, it was two for me.

So let’s talk some more about your team. How do you, you know, it’s inevitable that people leave one day. How do you, how do you react when people leave?

Depending on like why they’re leaving or how they’re leaving I think is, is definitely. Determines my reaction. But a lot of the time I’m supportive and happy for them. Like I don’t want anyone in my business that doesn’t want to be there the other day. So I know a couple of years ago, the first senior I hired actually, cause I always hire apprentices and assistants. The first senior I hired she, she said this just wasn’t for her anymore and she was feeling like that she needed to move on and then she went on to something else. She didn’t even do hairdressing. So and I was like, yeah, let me know what I can do. I can write a reference for you, if I can find you another job or whatever it is, you know, if I can do something for them to make the exit a little bit. You know, smoother. I will, it’s, there’s no point. It’s like what’s the point then you’re putting an energy into someone that has left as opposed to putting your energy into the team that’s already there already. Right?

Yeah. So you obviously put a lot of thought into the energy you create. Definitely.

I know what you’re salon looks like. So all these pieces are coming together in my head. Very nurturing. You’re very, I know you’ve got Italian Origins, you’re very family orientated, you’re very a very mothering and nurturing and look after people. And I think all that’s really good. Let’s just leave that right where it is.

Well it’s Interesting you Say about the nurturing thing. Cause like just after having kids, I started obviously reading all these parenting books and I started to notice the correlation between parenting books and leadership books Yeah. So it was really funny. I just finished reading this book called how to raise girls. And obviously, I mean, we’ve got one boy in the salon, one man I should say. And he’s, I mean you, you’re hiring you know, girls, I say girls cause they’re 15 when they come on board and, and I start to notice how how much of that information I’m adapting even just to be to, to lead them as well and to make sure they’re on the right track.

Okay. Is that book what did you, what was it called? it’s how to raise girls, but there’s also another one and it’s called how to speak so that kids will listen and how to listen so kids will speak or spmething along those lines. Yeah. And that’s a really good one I think for leadership as well. Cause you’re like Oh, let’s see, you know, and say it’s really, well they also talk about how to raise girls they also talk about the stages of girlhood and all that and, and what’s impactful and what’s really good for I suppose that that time in their life. So I know this is a lot to think about when you have a team of 15, but it’s almost like just one of those things that, You know, it’s another thing to think about when, you know, you’re obviously growing culture and you’re team building.

All of these things are connected. It is, you know, you touched on it before when you said about I want to build better humans, you know, not just this is how you do a graduated bob, or this is how you do that. You know, that you have a responsibility, don’t you? And it’s building that relationship and all the trust and stuff that goes with it. It pays dividends without a doubt. One of the things that we touched on before, I just want to sort of wrap them all together and ask you about it, is you, you did, you know, some competition work and shows some editorial work. How important are those things in terms of building your business now, you know, for other people, for young people working for you. And it sort of ties into what I said. What do you feel when people leave, you know do you create opportunities within your team, within your salon for them to do that sort of stuff? Are they important to your business model or not?

Yeah, I think it’s funny cause when I was going through that what I was doing, the photo shoots and the fashion weeks editorial, I was almost like angry at my team because they didn’t want to do it. I’m like don’t you want to do it? Like get involved and they were like no we just want to like do clients and leave and you know, and I was like oh that’s so sad. Like, cause I felt like I was getting so out of it. But there’s a place for I suppose every type of stylist in a salon i’m very lucky to have had that in, you know, in the past because it has, I have been able to make contacts to then for the guys who, for the team members who want to, you know get in to that realm. I have that contact and I can always, I’m able to introduce them. It’s not something I really want to pursue any more, but if I can help someone else out, I know the color company that we are with O and M at the moment, they there’s the opportunity to take a couple of the team to New York, so that’s really exciting to be part of the fashion week. So You know, and I know one of my, one of my team her name’s Scarlet and she’s super young and super green. She’s a country girl and she’s just like, wants to you know, do all the things, you know, and I’m like, do it, you know, and she knows she has to be accountable for her column as well. I’m quite mindful of not canceling a full column of clients to then, you know to be able to go, you know, brush a bit of hair on set. I said to her, if you can reorganize your book that way, you do it on your day off, then you do it. And she does. She comes in she reorganizes all her clients that day to another day that she can work. And then she’s able to then take the train to the city cause she doesn’t drive, takes train to city, leaves two hours beforehand and then and then she makes it work for herself So, yeah. So it’s important is it, you know, I don’t, like I said last time, like no regrets. Like everything has a way of working out and has a way of being is important in your life.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Okay. Let’s, let’s move on. I want to talk to you a little bit about social media. You know, social media has had a huge impact on hairdressing everywhere. So talk about some of the impact that’s had on your business. Like what, what’s your weapon of choice and you know, how do you use social media in terms of building the business, et cetera.

Yeah. Mmm. So I like to think of my my marketing manager, Katie as my weapon. She’s almost like you know she’s the person behind all our marketing and a lot of people think I’m doing it and I’m not, I can’t take the credit for that. She’s incredibly good at what she does and I feel like every salon needs a Katie in there on their books. But she I suppose, you know, Instagram is a big thing for us, but she makes sure that we are across all platforms and obviously our website is updated. I think the biggest thing for us is focusing on retention and not just growing a following growing a following number. I think we want to make sure that people are coming back and people are liking and commenting or staying engaged and building a community outside of Instagram. If it’s one thing she told me, like, it’s, you have to I suppose grow it then.You know like building the community and then having them stick around. Like that’s, I think, Mmm. As much as there’s this analogy of the leaking bucket, you know, there’s always going to be new clients coming in and new clients and old clients leaving. I think it’s really important to also know there’s going to be people that are hanging around and you know, we have to look after them while we’re here.

Sorry are the staff responsible for posting as well? Or is it all done by Katie, your marketing manager?

Yeah, she no, they’ve all got their separate accounts and they’re responsible for their own accounts. I don’t hold passwords. I’m quite lenient. I know lots of salon owners area lot more stricter I’m quite loose with my guidelines. They’ve got all, like I said, we’ve got set of guidelines and it’s just a matter of following them. I trust them to follow them. But you know, we sort of focus on the clients all, I suppose. You know, the community getting to know them as people as opposed to, you know, the incredible hair they do. Because I think a lot of people do great hair right. Like, you know, if you can connect a stylist with a client and you know, and if they’re aligned, then they’ll stick around for a long time.

So what, what, what sort of protections do you put on social media guidelines from a business point of view. How do you, like if someone leaves or, or do you not because some people do, some people don’t.

Yeah, of course. So I originally had that, well it would be nice if they deleted the whole account, but, you know, Mmm. I suppose, you know, I don’t hold passwords, so like it’s not something that I can do or so in the past, like we have as you know, someone recently leave and you know, she just changed the name of it, but she’s not doing hairdressing anymore. So like, it’s quite irrelevant. Like she’s taken all the posts down and all that sort of stuff. So I like for them to remove all the posts. Just because if they are starting at a new salon, it’s, we only had one person leave and they’ve started at another salon. And I just said to her, do you mind just taking out you know, the, the posts from, cause we’ve got such a like we’ve got a gray wall that we take photos on and you know, I just said to her, if you take them off, I feel like it will just be more consistent in your marketing as well. It’d be, yeah. Create better trust with your clients. Like no one likes to see all these different backgrounds from all these different salons, you know, that doesn’t create anything for her. So, you know, and it’s also protecting my brand right? Like she’s not working for me anymore, but I haven’t had very many run ins like that.

Yeah. So it’s not a Salon social account, it’s their own independent social media account.

So yeah. So we’ll have our social media account, which is salon kiin, like @salonkiin, and then they’ll have their name dot salon kiin at the end of it. So they’ve got all their personal, you know, salon kiin accounts that they share hair off or whatever they want to share You know, obviously it’s mostly hair and then obviously them as people or if they’re doing fashion weeks or whatever it is. Yeah. In terms of like we’ve just got guidelines that when they leave, they remove all the posts. And then yeah, and if they want approval or help with captioning or anything like that, Katie’s always there to give them a hand.

Right. Okay. What other technology, you know, do you find that you use today to run the business?

Probably my, which is really nerdy but like, well, I mean like salon softwares a massive thing, right? So I think having the guys log in to see their targets and where they’re actually sitting during that week is crucial because you want them to be on track. You want them to create really good habits for them to you know, push forward and grow and keep the goals for me, like I just jumped onto a bookkeeping software not long ago Xero. And that’s been really good for me cause I’ve been able to do all my own bookkeeping. I’m still one of those salon owners that does all my own bookkeeping sends all my own Wages and and all that. And I really liked that cause then I can check in with things. I know how much my team are getting paid and all that. I use Dropbox a lot. We have spreadsheets for the guys and to just track all their You know, like the KPIs every week and so they know what they’re doing. But also our WhatsApp group is always fun because everyone’s, you know, on it and sometimes we send memes and it’s totally not relevant. But you know, we have fun and I am able to obviously track them and let them know about future training sessions and all that sort of stuff as well.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. All right. What else did I want to ask you about? I, I wanted to sort of, you know, before we wrap up, I want to talk a little bit about, you know, your personal skills of success. I mean, in the introduction I said, you know, you’re a mom, you’re a wife, you’re running a business, you’re a hairdresser, you’ve got a lot going on. You’ve alluded to your marketing manager, Katie, et cetera. You alluded to someone else that you refer to as your manager. Was that Katie or is there someone else?

Yeah, there is. Well, there is someone else her names Sarah, she’s just come off maternity leave from having babies for about about five, six months, but she, she can’t, she, she just has to get back in there. She’s one of those rare people that you meet in your life. She’s a natural born leader and she has massive respect for the team same and vice versa. So it’s yeah, she’s definitely someone that I hold in high regard for my business.

So you, you consciously have delegated out different areas to free you up a little bit to make you, to make the business less dependent on you. You’ve got different people with different areas of management responsibility.

Yeah. So, just recently I moved an hour and a half South of Sydney, so I’m on the South coast at the moment and I go into the salon Wednesday, Thursday just to go in, probably annoy too many people and then on Saturdays I do clients. So I’m only in there three times a week. So I just, I need good people, obviously on the desk as coordinators. And you know, I, I found that when I was away on maternity leave when I had my daughter two years ago that my team actually did better when I was away then when I was there so…which is interesting. I think that they knew what to do and you know, maybe it was hopefully in the prep and, and all that. But since moving away, I’ve found that I needed Just like another person for the guys to lean on or another person to be there to be able to send messages back and forth or You know guide me in the business as well, you know, where it’s going, what the guys want and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah. How do you get that balance between, you know, mum, wife, salon owner, you know, stylist behind the chair. What are some of the things that that you’ve done or delegated out to make that, to make that work?

I don’t, I’m not sure if there’s any balance I’ve quite accepted the fact that I live and breathe my salon and my kids all at once. So you know, I have a really supportive husband. I think it’s getting, I think it’s what we said earlier. It’s getting the right people on board to be able to delegate. Definitely. my husband is super supportive. I think it was only a couple of years ago he was in an accountants meeting and he was like oh this business is going alright? Like all that networking she’s doing is actually working you know, so I think he’s, he’s been really supportive the last couple of years. And Yeah. I think it’s the people. I think it’s about the people. I’m not sure if I have many systems in place. I make sure I have the tough conversations. I feel like that’s been a big thing for me. As a salon, owner it’s having the tough conversations with people knowing that you’re doing your best. They are doing their best and it’s just the most generous assumption that you can have of someone. But yeah, I think my whole life sort of meshes and because we live by the beach now, I feel like it’s balanced out a lot. The end of my week is, you know salon and the start of my week is kids and family and living, you know. So that was a big decision for us, but it’s definitely paid off and I really love it.

So how do you you know, from being this you know, a single editorial session, hairdresser, you know, doing lots of magazine work or helping out on fashion week, all this sort of stuff to then being busy behind the chair, stylist and now being, you know, mum, wife, et cetera, how do you what’s the word how do you reinvent yourself? How do you, how do you stay relevant, creatively as a hairdresser/

Adapting to the market like you know, I mean, I wish I was as you know not I wish I was back there, but like I do really, I did really enjoy that part of my life, but it’s also accepting, and I don’t know if this is, this is probably like a bit of that, that noise you might earlier, but it’s, you always go through like a bit of a grieving process, you know, that you go, okay, cool. Like that’s not my life anymore. And you know, I was, I think I was in denial after my, I had my son, I was like five weeks after giving birth, I was on the floor and I was just like working really hard. So like, and I didn’t do that with my daughter. I, so there’s been lots of differences and lots of adjusting and you know. Now even with Whether it’s socials or people I connect with I have a lot more compassion for the mom and the working mom. Definitely. moms in general are just superheroes. So I just think that if I can bring someone on board that does have kids and allow her to have flexibility and identity and, you know, make that work, then, then I can do that. I dunno, I, I, in terms of reinventing myself, I feel like the same person. That’s interesting that you say that. You know, but you just feel like you’re different versions of yourself. But I think even with my kids, I feel like I’m the same. I feel like I’m tough on my kids and I am my team. That’s interesting. That but you know, I think adapting to the circle around you and what your life represents now.

Sure, sure. Okay. Last thing then. What what advice would you give to someone in your position, not where you are now sort of four years ago, opening up a new salon? you know babies, trying to build a team. What is the advice that you’d give people? I think you’ve been giving them that advice all the way through, but I’m just wondering if there’s a sentence that you’d use to sum it up.

I think that it’s all about time it’s a moment in time. I think we get so caught up in what’s going to happen in the future. Okay. If you can, I think, think about what it will be like if you’re having a challenge and you’ll, if you think about what’s going to happen in two weeks, so two months or five years. I’d say this to my team a lot because sometimes I run into challenges with clients, but if you’re thinking about the future too much, I think that it could lose you know, you could lose focus on the present and I don’t think that’s healthy for anyone. I think it breeds a lot of anxiety if you’re constantly going, Oh, what’s going to happen in this time? You know? Mmm. And aye. I think brand is really important as well, just to bring it back to business. I think brand is really important. I think it’s speaking a truth, being authentic. I know that’s really a bit who ha some times, but like, just knowing if you do something, It’s, speaking from you and it’s being authentic and you know that’s what’s been really, I think, important to me through. I just want to know that anything I do, anything I stand for, anything I speak about is what I will do or what I believe it’s from building a team is to having kids. It’s to leading socials, anything like that. It’s because if you don’t, if you pretend to be someone else then, and it does fall flat or it doesn’t go well then you know, I think it’s then it’s, then it’s you’re worse off at least if you would get yourself in a false spot, you’re like, Whoa. It was myself. It was like, all right.

Okay. Well we need to wrap up now. Maria, whereabouts can people hook up with you on social media? So it’s what, what is your, your Instagram handle?

So my personal one is @maria_unali for Instagram. Facebook as well. Yep. Yeah, just my name on Facebook. And you said that’s your personal one? The salon one is just @salonkiin and that same website salon kiin.com Yup. Okay, fantastic. Well, if you have enjoyed listening to this podcast with Maria Unali and you’ve enjoyed it, then please do me a favor and take a screenshot on your phone and share it with your Instagram stories and tag us in it. So to wrap up, Maria, thank you very much for being on the grow my salon business podcast. You’ve been a breath of fresh air and a wealth of information and it’s been really nice having this chance to talk to you about your successful business and, and the way you built it. So Maria Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Anthony. It’s been a pleasure.

Thank you for listening to today’s podcast. If you’d like to connect with us, you’ll find us@growmysalonbusiness.com or on Facebook and Instagram at grow my salon business. And if you enjoyed tuning into our podcast, make sure that you subscribe, like, and share it with your friends. Until next time. This is Anthony Whitaker wishing you continued success.