– Episode 190Stefanie Fox

Episode 190: Transcript

[00:00:00] Antony W: 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.

[00:00:29] Antony W.: Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast. I’m your host, Antony Whitaker, and as always, it’s great to have you here with us today. I just want to start off by saying thank you for the reviews about the podcast. I do really appreciate them. And if you haven’t already done so, I would be really grateful if you left us a review over on the Apple Podcast app. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and they really are greatly appreciated and they do matter in the rankings of the show and they certainly help other people to find us. And besides all that, I genuinely love to hear what’s been most helpful. So all you need to do to leave us the review is go to the Apple Podcast app, which is where most of you are already listening to this episode.

[00:01:12] Antony W.: And then scroll to the bottom of the page and leave a review as your way of saying thank you to my guests for giving up their time and sharing their wisdom and insights with you. Okay. So with that said, my guest on today’s episode is Stefanie Fox. And Stefanie is a returning guest. Stef was last on the, podcast in November, 2021, which, was episode 113. And it is well worth the listen. It was actually one of our most downloaded episodes of all times because it deals with a subject that no matter where you are in the world, this is a hot potato. So in today’s podcast, we’re going to discuss what’s been happening in the world of recruitment in the post pandemic world, and what salons everywhere need to know about attracting, inspiring, and motivating today’s workforce and a whole lot more. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Stefanie.

[00:02:15] Stefanie F.: Thank you. It’s great to be back.

[00:02:18] Antony W.: No, I really appreciate you taking the time to come back on.I know that you are, very busy, but as I said in the intro, it’s been one of our most downloaded episodes. So, it’s certainly a topic that a lot of people are interested in. Stefanie, can we, for those people that haven’t heard, our first interview, and as I said to people, I do encourage you to check out episode 113. but for those that haven’t heard of you, could you just give a sort of a brief overview of who you are and your background? Who is Stefanie Fox? Just give us your sort of two minute backstory and then we’ll jump in the deep end.

[00:02:52] Stefanie F.: Absolutely. So I guess to start with, Stefanie Fox is a hair colorist, so I started the industry, technically and moved through into multiple roles, consulting and educating, eventually owning my own salon for 10 years that I then sold in the fall of 2020. and over the last five years I’ve been building this brand called Talent Match, which is a team building agency that focuses in the beauty industry specifically. And I think what drives me personally that through my entire career, is learning and it’s data, it’s facts. aside from a cosmetology license, I did go back to school and do an undergraduate in marketing and then I did a master’s in business. And that kind of landed me in this space of talent match where I collect a lot of data and then I use that data to help salons recruit and retain talent. So I’m just kind of always a sponge, always learning, moving my way through beauty, just to serve the people in beauty. I absolutely love the beauty industry and feel like I landed here, without really understanding why I landed here. Honestly, I, I dropped out of college at the time and said I’m going to be a hairdresser. and then went back years later. But it’s all worked out so beautifully that I just have this amazing career that I’m so grateful for.

[00:03:58] Antony W.: Good. Good. Okay. so have I done a, a disservice, saying that it’s about recruitment? I mean, you very consciously say that, I mean, you don’t, not say that it’s about recruitment, but you very consciously said it’s a team building. So is it, is it, where’s the focus mainly? Is it team building recruitment or are they really part of the same thing?

[00:04:17] Stefanie F.: They’re, they’re really part of the same thing. So I think about talent match kind of in this circle where the first part of building a team is recruiting and we absolutely spend a lot of time there because it’s the biggest pain point right now. And it’s the place that most salons have no business operation. So that’s where we help support and build processes. So that’s kind of part one. And then we also work with teams on, leadership. And again, that’s coming from the data, what are they looking for? And then we move into, engagement strategies for retention. So we kind of think of it as this full circle. You have to find them, you have to lead and engage them, and then ultimately want to keep them.

[00:04:53] Antony W.: Right. Okay. now I love the fact that you have a degree, a marketing degree started as a hairdresser, a marketing degree. I think when hairdressers take their education academically, not instead of hairdressing, but as well as hairdressing, it makes them even stronger because in, in both ways, they, they come at the industry. With a, with a wider perspective and a wider understanding of, I don’t know, business, finance, marketing, how the world works. And, and that can only be a good thing. I love the fact that what you talk about is based on research and, and real data. And sometimes in our industry there is a shortage of, of real data. There’s a lot of opinion, there’s a lot of emotion, there’s a lot of hysteria, heaven forbid. who would’ve thought that, that in the hairdressing industry, there’d be, there’d be any drama. But what I wanted to ask you about is that now I know that you, you do this report, this workforce survey, and I know that you’ve just, you are in the process of, of finalizing your most recent, I think it’s the fifth, workforce survey since we spoke to you in, 18 months ago. And the world’s always changing, but the last 18 months, It’s just a cyclone of change, isn’t it? like coming out the tail end of covid and employees not wanting to turn to work and people wanting a different work life balance and inflation and the high cost of living and on and on it goes. So I’m thinking to myself, I can’t wait to talk to Stefanie because she’s got the data on what the changes are that that’s, brought about in the salon industry. So, so can you talk to that, based on this survey, compared to the one that you’d done, almost two years ago, I suppose there must be a shift. So can you, can you enlighten this as to, what are the changes, what are the trends that you’re seeing at the moment?

[00:06:44] Stefanie F.: Of course. So first, let me just say one of the things I love about data is that it actually for me is showing us what’s happening before we even take action on it. And what I mean by that is if I go back to 2018 and one of the first big surveys I did, it said then that recruiting was the number one problem. Like salon owners responded when asked, what’s your biggest challenge? It was recruiting, but you didn’t even hear the word recruiting attached to the salon industry until post pandemic reopening. Then it was like this buzzword that exploded, but actually it had been two plus years of pain. It was just kind of this under surface and, and really it’s that reality that slowness to change and, and work on a problem. That started my research because I would be at all these events and I would be talking to owners and everybody would kind of just. Complain and dramatize what wasn’t working and nobody was really understanding. The root of wasn’t what wasn’t working, they were just kind of forming opinions around it. And so I’m like, we need to really know. So I started the research and so this is our fifth year, which I’m excited when we put out the report this year, we’ll have a trend report. So we’ll kind of show what’s happened, across the beauty professionals that are licensed as well as the beauty student who, hasn’t been through school and or hasn’t started a career yet and is just in school.

[00:08:03] Stefanie F.: So it’s going to be really interesting. And this year there have been some changes and when I think about those changes, they’re not brand new, but they feel new to us because we haven’t evolved yet to meet them. And so example would be, growth is now recognized as the number one reason I pick a salon to work in how are they going to help me grow? So if I look back over the last three years of data growth was quick or was kind of inching, I would say three years ago it was inching towards team. Team sat in the number one spot, the people I work with, that’s what’s going to make me pick you. And so you had, team and number one growth and number two, but there was a pretty big gap. Then two years ago that gap was closing. Last year they were almost neck and neck. This year there was a substantial increase and growth took number one by quite a bit. Team sits in the number two spot. So I think that’s fascinating to say that over the last three years we knew it was inching closer as a top priority. But what have we done to make sure that we’re telling a story of how people grow in our businesses so that they want to work for us? Because really the gap that I work on with salons and, and that exists in our industry is all this amazingness inside of our businesses. I call it your magic. Nobody knows about it because we don’t talk about it. We, we don’t put out there all the ways we help people grow. We just say things that are quite generic, like, Oh, we have an amazing education program. You’ll have a 401k and benefits, and here’s your compensation, your percentage of commission. But we don’t actually story tell the journey of growth inside of our business, whether that’s their technical growth, their personal, their professional, them buying a home or a new car, or, hitting a hundred thousand dollars. Like we don’t showcase that. So, so nobody knows it’s happening.

[00:09:49] Antony W.: Yeah. That’s interesting. I, I don’t know who said this, it may have been you. I listened to lots of different podcasts and read lots of things going on in the industry. And someone said this sentence, and I’ve said it before on the podcast, but at the time it was just one of those things that’s simple but it made me go, oh, wow, that’s, that’s important. And it was this, they said, and I wish I could remember who, who I could credit for this, but they said, in the old days, meaning 20 years ago, you used to advertise for staff and now you have to recruit. And it was, I mean, they’re just words. But I, I just, when I heard that said the first time I thought, oh my God, that is, There’s so much in that because yeah, you used to put an ad in the, in the paper, pre, internet. when I had my salons in the, in the, in the nineties and stuff. I mean, you, you advertised for staff in printed media and then really it was the nineties and naughties that people started, it just sort of left printed media and pretty much went, towards digital media and, and social media to advertise for stuff.

[00:10:53] Antony W.: But now, as you’ve just said, it is, it’s not, it’s not, you’re just not going to survive. If that’s your approach, you have to go about recruiting. It’s not just advertising, it’s recruiting. And part of that is, I love the way you worded that. It’s about telling the story of who you are and what you do. So, yeah. okay, so that wasn’t a question. That was just me having a rant. but how are you seeing salon’s adapting to that? What are they doing things different.

[00:11:22] Stefanie F.: Well, the biggest stroke, yeah. The salons that are successful at recruiting, I. Are getting really savvy at telling their story about their team, their growth, their leaders, their education, their flexibility. They tell that story in the schools and online, and they, they put it out there. They’re not, telling generic, or they’re not posting generic job postings anymore. The, the posting reads like a story. It reads like this idea that you want, like your oxytocin level to kick up. You want that love hormone to like ignite in you so that you’re physically leaning into the content and thinking, I want to work there, or I want to interview there. And so, my marketing background, which I never realized would land me where I’m at today, but it’s serving me so well because it’s recruiting is storytelling. Recruiting is marketing. So I often, when I work with salons, we talk about you are telling your team story. And what’s awesome is you already know how to tell a client story. It’s how you build a business. You marketed for clients, you showcased great hair, you showcased your great consultation, you showcased great customer service.

[00:12:26] Stefanie F.: Well now you have to put on your, what’s great about my team? So like in my bootcamp that I run, one of the activities I do is I have the leadership create a brag statement. And that brag statement is there off the cuff elevator pitch. If I met you in a coffee shop and you told me you owned a salon, and I said, why should I work for you? You would have a very compelling reply. Something that would make me think, oh, I, I might want to work for you. Like, can I talk to you? Could I come in and see your business? And we have to move out of this place of, I, I’ll use the word again, just generic. If you get on and you look at job ads, so what you were saying about the advertising versus the recruiting, my version of that, and we may have had this conversation, is we used to just hire and now we have to recruit.

[00:13:11] Stefanie F.: And I, we used to post and pray, put up a job ad hope someone sees it, hope they reach out. We had no power and no control. But now if we source our story internally and we talk about it, people are attracted to what we have to offer, which means that our candidate pool is better for our brand, right? They’re our people. We do less filtering on the backside of the application because they’ve already filtered, they don’t want to work somewhere that they’re not interested in working. So if we make it easier for them to self-filter, we get the right people.

[00:13:42] Antony W.: Yeah. You said something in our last podcast, which I have repeated many times to anyone who will listen and it, it’s a different version of what you just said then, and it was that one of the results that came out of the survey, the last survey that you did, two years ago was that, potential employees said that you don’t find us. We will find you. I’ve talked about that a lot to salon owners who, I just can’t find staff. And I’m like, this whole conversation that we’re having, it’s all sort of circular and that it’s all linked. And it’s like, well, it’s, it’s not a matter of you finding them, it’s a matter of them finding you. So what are you doing about it? What have you got on your website? What’s your social media like? because young people, potential employees are checking you out as to whether there you are somewhere they want to work before you even know about them. And a lot of them you never get to know about because they look at your social media, they look at your website, and they don’t even apply to an ad. They don’t come knocking on your door. They don’t even walk past, they don’t come for an interview. You don’t even have a chance to impress them because digitally you haven’t impress them. So the, that’s why you can’t find them because they will find you if you’re doing a good job. And I love that.

[00:15:02] Stefanie F.: Well, and the data shows us this year the pathway. if I find out about your brand and I’m interested in knowing more, my journey looks like this. First I go to your Instagram, then I go to your website, then I go to your team’s Instagram pages, and then I read your client reviews. So what we know about social presence is that you have one 13th of a, or I’m sorry, one, 1000th of a second, which is 13 milliseconds on social. So wherein like real life, you have, seven seconds to make a first impression. On social, you have 13 milliseconds, which means that if you’re just posting up a picture that says hiring. Now when you’re hiring, let’s say it’s a month later or two weeks later, that person’s on your Instagram, they’re not going to find it because you have 13 milliseconds. So like when they scroll, They’re not even going to get to that picture that says, now hiring. And by the way, if they do, it’s not compelling enough for them to want to keep looking and to hit your website. And so, that user pathway, we put so many barriers in front of it, which makes it hard to recruit, or let’s talk about the team Instagram.

[00:16:06] Stefanie F.: I think that’s fascinating. It showed up in the data for many years now, which makes sense cause they say Team matters. Where else would they discover about your team? Let’s go online and they’ll look them up. But so many websites still do not link the team’s Instagram with their team photo. So if you know the journey is they hit your Instagram, which hopefully links to your website, which hopefully then links to a team page. Now I can click on Antony’s picture and Antony’s Instagram and immediately look at it. No barrier there, quick, easy access. If we don’t have that, you don’t have their attention.

[00:16:41] Antony W.: Yeah, and that’s good that you brought that up cause I wanted to talk to you about that because I went onto your website and I know you have a, it’s like a question now, I forget what it’s called now. about, I. Yeah, the audit, how, how, how ready are you for recruitment? And anyway, I went through the process. Okay. so I didn’t complete it. I didn’t, I didn’t, I, well, I went through and answered all the questions, but I didn’t then ask for the results because I just wanted to see how it worked and, and what the questions were you were asking. And, and one of the questions was exactly what you just said. It was something about on the, on, on your salon’s website, in the, under, our team, do you link out to all their Instagram? And as soon as I read it, I thought, that’s a great idea. I wonder how many salons actually do that, because I know a lot of salon owners would be terrified of doing that because their instant, instant, reaction is, why am I. Like, because at the very beginning of this whole conversation, you said that the number one thing people want is growth.

[00:17:40] Antony W.: So I’m, I’m bringing people on with nothing. I’m growing them and then I’m giving them direct access to the clients through our website on their, with their unique Instagram handle. Why would I, why would I do that? So talk to us about social media, salon owner, not living in fear of clients, leaving staff leaving. Talk to us about that because I know that salon owners will often ask for my, my take on all that. And, what sort of security should you have in place, if any.

[00:18:15] Stefanie F.: Well, logically it makes a lot of sense to think, why would I do that? Because we do own businesses where the client is attached to our employee, which means that if an employee leaves, the client’s likely to go with them regardless of contract, right? So when we lose an employee, we lose revenue, which is hard. That makes our businesses hard, harder than every other business because we spend all the money to train them, to put the marketing out, to attract the client. And if the employee decides not to stay, we lose revenue. So yes, logically you’d think, why would I do that? But when you step out of that, like just kind of linear, black and white facts, you have to also think about if you don’t focus  on telling a great story, the way that the team coming in once, you will never add new staff because they won’t want to join your business, which means you won’t even have the possibility to grow your revenue. And adding staff is the number one way you drive revenue. Number one, on average, a stylist in a business for one year gets to between 50 and $70,000 in service revenue.

[00:19:25] Stefanie F.: You will never get that kind of increase on an existing team member by get getting them to add on treatments or pre-book more, right? You have to do those things. You need their growth too, but you will never get that sort of marginal increase that way. You have to add staff. So that’s one thing. The other thing is, I call this playing in our businesses on defense or offense. We have spent too long on defense and defense means you come up with all the reasons why you shouldn’t do something. It means your mindset is stuck. You’re hurt. You probably have had walkouts, you’ve probably lost revenue. You probably struggle to grow your revenue year over year, right? You’re probably sitting at the same rate that you were at in 2019. You’ve pro if you’re even back there, you’re just kind of barely inching above and you’re bitter and you’re mad and you’re hurt.

[00:20:12] Stefanie F.: And the fact of the matter is, because of the reality of beauty, being consumer is attached to the employee. Your number one job is love and lead and grow your employees. Make them want to stay. Don’t worry about if they want to leave, make them want to stay. And that’s playing the offensive. That’s building the best culture, that’s building the best growth, that’s making it so appealing that the likelihood that when they join you of them wanting to leave is slim. And instead, we put all of our attention on like, well, I’m not going to do this because they’re just going to leave. I say, what if you put all that energy on building such an amazing place to work? They don’t want to leave. And when you lose, the few that do it’s okay. Love them, help them on their way. Done. Like, don’t let it burden you because every time it burdens you, you hurt the rest of your business and you won’t grow. You won’t grow personally, you won’t grow your revenue. And more people will leave. Cause they’ll be like, I have a, a bitter owner.

[00:21:07] Antony W.: Yeah, exactly. I, I’ve been there, done it. I understand how people feel like that, but it’s living in fear. So, I love your take on that. while, while we’re talking about social media, I don’t know if this has just me, and that it’s eventually started to wear off a little bit, but do you, do you sense that there’s a change in, in social media, do you think, I mean, I don’t even know if I should say this. Do you think it’s becoming less relevant or is it now just becoming more, it’s just become so totally entrenched that it’s less exciting, it’s less new because, it was new for a long time now it’s not new. We’re just sort of getting on with it, so to speak. talk to us about that. What are your thoughts about that?

[00:21:55] Stefanie F.: So I think it’s still very relevant. the data this year would tell us  that where schools where the number one reason that, or number one way that they found a job. now it’s Instagram. So the last time that we saw Instagram take the number one spot for how I find a job was during the Covid closures, and then it flipped back over to schools, which makes sense. We have this captive audience, we get to go greet them, they pick us there. It’s in 2023. Instagram is the number one way a stylist says that they find a job that’s collective across licensed or, experienced professionals or students. So I think it’s still very relevant and in fact, in beauty, I think it’s still very new because when I audit salon brands for their presence, It’s minimal. It’s minimal. And it’s why they’re struggling to recruit. So where some salons, let’s, I’m going to call it 50 50, have gotten good at the client, they, you see the, the hands in the hair and like the back of the head and it’s like, oh, we, we picked this way to showcase our clients. We’re still doing nothing showcasing our team. It’s so minimal. Like, so in that sense, I still think of this very infant business tool that we haven’t used well, that is sitting in front of us as our number one tool for recruiting.

[00:23:14] Antony W.: Yeah. Interesting. Because on the flip side of all that, you do hear a lot about, I mean there’s a lot of talk about, well, TikTok more than anything, and the fact that it’s Chinese owned and, different governments are looking at different ways of restricting, the use of it. I was just reading the other day about a new, it’s also owned by bike dance. It’s called Lemon eight. Have you heard of that?

[00:23:37] Stefanie F.: I haven’t.

[00:23:39] Antony W.: Okay. It’s a new social media app called Lemon eight eight, as in the digit, the, the numeral eight. and apparently it’s got a lot of traction, already very quickly, and it’s described as Instagram meets Pinterest. and in this, this world of social media that changes so quickly, it’ll be interesting to see what sort of traction, that that does have because, with a little bit that I’ve already, been reading about it and seen about it, it, it seems to be maybe it’s going to be their next big thing. Who knows? There’s, a, a constant next big thing always going to happen. so, okay. one of the things I wanted to ask you about, which has changed since we last spoke was how, post covid. There was a big shift for people not wanting to work full-time. I’m not talking clients, I’m not talking hairdressers here. I’m talking about our clients, wanting to work more from home and by and large, in varying degrees.

[00:24:34] Antony W.: The, the workforce all over the world has catered for that, and you see lots of people that now do a, a three or four day week, in the office and then, one or two days from home. and it’s interesting seeing that settle down. The question I wanted to ask you about is, is that having any impact? I mean, it’s not directly talking about recruitment here or team building, but, but do you see that having any impact on salons with any of the, the data and discussions that you have with people?

[00:25:04] Stefanie F.: I do see it having impact because we see a lot of stylists who also want that sort of flexibility. So we’ve had a lot of conversation in the last two years about. wanting to not work weekends, wanting to not work evenings, wanting to have their own kind of structure that feels more like, Monday through Friday or Tuesday through Thursday, whatever it is. But they want to end early in the day, or early evening and not be there over the evenings. And so what’s happened with recruiting is a lot of our staffing challenges are these gaps in hours that senior stylists no longer want, and they feel, salon owners feel they can’t recruit into those hours. and I think the opportunity there that I see, because when I ask, in the data, do you think working weekend should be optional? 50% of them say no. They say no. So if we’re talking about the student and we’re saying, Hey, the, the student says 50% of them think working weekends should not be optional in their first year.

[00:26:04] Stefanie F.: So that’s half of the beauty population, right? Who says, I think I should have to work weekends. Straight out. And then there’s more of that that say after a year, I think it should be optional. Right? Or after I have a full clientele, which by the way, they think a full clientele will be the, in their chair in about, one year. So again, we’re kind of in that after a year mark, the students are thinking that they should have flexibility in their schedules, which until then allows an owner to fill evenings and weekends, especially with the right conversation. I I, one of the data points that I think is interesting when asked, why do you pick a salon? Number one is growth. Number two is team, number three is flexibility. Number four is education. Number five is leadership. So if I have a candidate come to me and say, I want to work for you, but I don’t want to work evenings and weekends, I as the leader, have to think about two of those data points. Number one, they want to grow.

[00:27:03] Stefanie F.: Number two, they care about team and number five, they care about leadership. These two points. I have to show up as a leader that can have the conversation that says, let’s talk about your goals. If you want to work here and earn X or achieve X, here’s how we do that. Here’s how our leaders and mentors guide you. Here’s what your schedule should look like. Where we know you’re going to be the busiest. Here’s where clients are, the heaviest influx. I have to be able to have that conversation, not just cater to, oh, I don’t want to work evenings and weekends. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have flexibility, cause that’s point number three. They care about, maybe it’s not every evening or every weekend, but if you don’t step up as the leader when they’re telling us, clearly leadership sits in the top five reasons they pick you. Growth sits in the top five reasons you might attract and recruit people in and they’ll never stay with you. And it’s like that self-fulfilling prophecy that they’re all afraid of, which is they’re going to attract them and build them and they’re going to leave. It’s like you, it’s this full package. You, you’ve got to show up with the full package.

[00:28:01] Antony W.: Yeah, it’s interesting talking about leadership because I’ll often say that, most salon owners, I mean, I deal a lot with salon owners and I include myself in this, that most salon owners, when they open a salon, they’re completely unprepared for, the reality of what it really takes to run a business, in the context of, financial systems and, all that sort of stuff that you put in place. But I think another thing that, that people give no thought to is that if you open a salon and you’re going to employ people, you have to become a leader. And I think very few people give any thought to that. They just think, I’m going to open a salon, I’m going to make it look pretty and I’m going to make lots of money because it’s going to be my salon and I’m going to be the boss and it’s going to be really cool and a great place to work. But what they never give any thought to as you were just talking about then, is that role that you have to develop as on the skills that you have to develop to be a leader of people. Because if you’re not a leader of other people, you are not going to build that business and you’re going to fail miserably. Talk to us a little bit more about that, cause I, I love your take on that.

[00:29:11] Stefanie F.: I think the number one skill that a salon owner needs to cultivate and, and strengthen is resiliency, because leading is painful. Leading is emotional, leading hurts, and if you get drugged down into all of the harder sides of leading your feelings will rule you. So you have to understand how to move beyond the way you feel about a situation and see things bigger, which means you have to be resilient. And, I have a master’s in business and I say all the time, I went and opened my salon thinking I have a master’s in business. I’m gonna be great at this. I’ve been in thousands of salons for years all around the, north America. Oh my gosh. I, I basically, spent a bunch of money on a piece of paper because I got my education in business, owning a business.

[00:29:56] Stefanie F.: I, I learned nothing in the grand scheme of things when I took my MBA compared to what business ownership taught me. And leading is the same, but I, I think I see a lot in beauty. We don’t develop that resiliency to not be defeated when things don’t go the way we thought they would. It’s hard to look in the mirror once, I had two people leave my business in 2017. It was IME $200,000 in revenue overnight. It was heartbreaking. They had worked for me for seven years. I mean, it took me nine months to rebuild. It was, I was terrified, was so hard, but what, what got me through it? Was working on my emotions so that I didn’t let the way that I felt about that one situation be that poison snake in my whole business. like that leadership development is so critical to ongoing success because it will steal your joy and then you can’t lead well.

[00:30:54] Antony W.: Yeah, I agree. I mean, the world needs leadership now more than ever. This industry needs leadership more than ever. [00:31:00] I think everywhere does, doesn’t it? Leadership is so important and underrated.

[00:31:02] Stefanie F.: Everywhere it does everywhere.

[00:31:05] Antony W.: in, in so many ways. one of the things that we spoke about last time was, the suite, the Salon suite phenomena. And I mean, it’s been around a while now, like 20 odd years, in the US. and it is, Growing elsewhere as well. There’s a big independent movement, full stop. I mean, in the UK there is 63% I think was the figure I last read. 63% of hairdressers are self-employed. so there there’s not that many in suites. It’s, it is the, and we don’t use the term in the UK booth rental so much. It’s, we usually call it, rent a chair or just self-employed. But there’s a huge movement in that direction. And in many countries now you’ve got, more self-employed people. and you’ve got more salon suites. the salon suite model is, is growing, outside of the US as well, so, One of the things that I’ve been hearing, and it depends on who you talk to, and I know because you are, data driven, you might have come across some data on this, is that there’s a lot of people post covid who decided I want to, get my own suite, it’s time for a change. And I think some of what was driving that was the safety aspect. That the perception that if I’m working in a, in a small room with, four walls and a door and just me and one client, the client’s going to be feeling safer. I’m going to be feeling safer. and, and so I think that that was an influencing factor.

[00:32:25] Antony W.: I also think that an influencing factor was just a fact that Covid gave people a chance to step back and reassess their life and what they want out of it. And so, and a lot of people decided, you know what? I want freedom of flexibility because I’m quite enjoying, having that while I’m at home during covid and, and so I get it, but what I’ve, and so I know there’s a big influx in that direction, but, but what I’ve been hearing, depending on who you talk to, and some people have a vested interest in, in upping suites, but other people will say that the failure rate is really high. And I constantly hear a figure of around 40% failure rate in the first year, which is huge. would you have, would you come across any data or do you come across anything that makes you think that that’s sort of in the realms of reality or too high or too low, or what are your thoughts?

[00:33:17] Stefanie F.: Yeah, so. I don’t have data, but I on that particularly. But I have, other data that I could put some correlations around. if you read about business ownership, they say that half of all businesses fail in the first five years, right? So we know owning a business is really, really hard. Now, in my community, I live in Columbus, Ohio. One of the larger privately held suite franchise, or not franchises, privately held suite, businesses is here. It’s called Salon Lofts. I had an employee who worked for me when I sold the business, who left about six months after and went to rent a Loft. Salon Lofts has over 30 locations and every location has, 20 to 30 or more suites in it. Sarah, the stylist, was put on a waiting list to find a suite because they’re so booked.

[00:34:13] Antony W.: Wow.

[00:34:14] Stefanie F.: So, I look at it and I think, me personally, I’m an entrepreneur and I, I love entrepreneurship. I love the ability to have freedom and flexibility and all the things that entrepreneurs want. I also always feel challenged by the solitude of entrepreneurship and, seek out collaboration because I need that connection. When we look at beauty, the ease of doing your own thing, it’s right there. As these suites open all over the place, it’s easy entry to market. Easy, easy. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to stay, doesn’t mean it’s easy to be successful. So again, I would say our teambased side of the industry is putting too much time and attention, worrying about the success or failures of the sweet side, instead of saying, how do we make our side more successful? How do we elevate. What people can charge so they can earn more. How do we elevate our leadership so we can grow them more? How do we elevate this side of the industry instead of spending so much energy talking about why the other side isn’t going to work because it is working or wouldn’t keep growing?

[00:35:22] Stefanie F.: it may not work for all. And that’s really sad. It’s really sad. The ones that go in, if they leave the industry, especially if they didn’t make it, gosh, it makes me sad. I, I personally am pro do the work you love. Like, that’s my, that’s my personal mantra. Do the work you love. So if the work I love is going to take me independent because I can’t find it in, in a team-based space, then I should go independent. If I can find it in a team-based space, I should go work on a team. And that, that kind of comes back to the recruiting aspect is the suites are incredible marketers and they have been for the decades they’ve been in  business, the big ones. We collectively, the team based side of the industry, we’re awful at marketing. What’s so awesome about us? So I personally believe, and when I look at my data, I have a lot of data sets that correlate to this. The reason they think they should go rent and the reason they think it’s better over there, there’s two reasons. If they’re new to the industry, they think they can’t have all that in a team.

[00:36:24] Stefanie F.: And that’s a lie. You can have flexibility. You can gr earn great money, you can work with amazing people, you can have it all and then some, but they don’t know it cause we don’t talk about it. Then if I’m an experienced stylist, they think they can’t have it because there’s too many owners who have put stakes in the ground and said these things aren’t possible. I can’t let you not work weekends. I can’t until you’re eight years in, 10 years in, I can’t give you this kind of flexibility. I can’t pay you more, I can’t let, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. So like we have handcuffed ourselves for and made it failure like inevitable if we do not decide to grow. Personally, as business  owners and and salon leaders and managers, we have to stop saying what isn’t possible and, and listen to what they’re telling us and make it possible. Or they will pick easy access, which is rental and who knows what that means for the industry because not everybody’s cut out to be a business owner. So are we going to lose a lot of our industry if they go that route? I would say yes. Cause it is hard to run and own your own business.

[00:37:21] Antony W.: Yeah. And that’s a shame because people just wash through the industry, does the data say, What does, what does the data say as to how long the average person is in the industry? In the US?

[00:37:33] Stefanie F.: So the average person is in a salon, first job, 2.8 years. So that is when they leave their first job. I don’t have data that says how long they stay, like long term, but I can tell you that I have a data set from the, population that takes the survey and I ask them like, how long have you been in the industry? And about 20% of that grouping is in the 10 years plus. And then everything else is kind of earlier than that. So a lot of young people in the industry.

[00:38:07] Antony W.: Yeah. One of the things, that you, when we spoke last time and you gave me a list of like the top five things, and you’ve given me a list of the top five, five things this time. But there’s one word you’ll, you’ve left out, and I’m not sure if it’s an oversight or whether it’s no longer made the top five. Do you, do you know what the word is? I’m alluding to? Autonomy because last time autonomy was really important that they wanted autonomy. And I remember, talking about, well, what do you mean by autonomy? And, and it was that, that ability to make their own decisions. and, it’s, it’s sort of close to freedom and flexibility, but is, is it, is it not, has autonomy not made the top five anymore or have you sort of merged it with freedom and flexibility?

[00:38:57] Stefanie F.: it didn’t make the top five this year. My assumption, this is not data based, but my assumption from looking at other things is that they really meant by autonomy. The number one driver there was schedule flexibility. I think that that was, for them the biggest amount of freedom. It, it definitely connected to the way I dress, my ability to have input in salon, experiences and services that mattered too. But I think flexibility was the number one element of autonomy. And I, I believe that’s why we’ve seen flexibility stay in the top five. But the words autonomy or freedom are sitting below that because they perceive if they have flexibility, that’s the level of autonomy they really need.

[00:39:41] Antony W.: Right. Okay. Because for some people, autonomy was about, I want to choose whether I wear a uniform or not. I want to, I want to choose whether I, what I charge for my, my services. and like when people want to choose what they’re going to price themselves at, et cetera. For a lot of salon owners that sort of is turning into the tail wagging the dog. So to speak. and so that’s what I think of when I think of autonomy. That, that it’s like, hang on, I’m, I’m building a business here. It’s a brand and there’s certain elements of it that as the owner of the business that I need to control. And, so I, I will determine your prices and I will put the prices up when you have reached, certain levels. And I work out the pricing based on what it costs me to run this business and pay all the overhead, including your wages, et cetera, et cetera. So I sort of grapple a little bit with autonomy and how far it goes. Do, do, do you know what I’m saying?

[00:40:40] Stefanie F.: Yeah, absolutely. I think that as business owners, our desire is to have some element of control so we can identify the outcomes we’re trying to achieve. if we have goals and we don’t know the steps to reach them or have some sense of control over those steps, it feels like, how would we ever reach them? how will we get there? And for me, when I look at the other things, talent says matter. they want to grow. It’s the number one thing. So you have to use your skill as a leader in your knowledge to help mentor and grow them, right? And show them the way, regardless of what they, you need to know their outcome. They’re coming to you because they don’t know the path, they know the outcome. So you know the path, they know the outcome. You have to lead them down it, And if pricing is a in question, as an example, then you have to help them understand when raising prices makes sense. And that, that for me comes back to our level of relationship as a leader.

[00:41:28] Stefanie F.: They tell us three things. They want trust, they want respect, and they want communication. That’s what they qualify as. Like a great leader that feels like a friend, cause that’s the other word they put in there with leadership is I want my leader to feel like a friend. So it means I trust you. There’s respect and we can communicate when those things exist. I have earned the right as your leader to tell you, I know you want to charge $200 for a haircut, but if you do it right now, let’s talk basic business supply and demand. It’s not going to work. Here’s how we’re going to get you there. I have to be able to have that conversation, but I have to have the connection and the respect. And if I don’t, they’re going to look at me and say, I think I can do that and I’m going to go over here and do it. so we, we oftentimes like cart before the horse, it, it comes back to that leadership piece so much and our skill to help them see. We have their back. We want the best for them. We’re here to help them grow. Also, we’re not trying to control them or their earning potential, or their schedule or what they wear. None of that really matters. It’s the outcome that they want and that we have the skill and the knowledge to help them on the journey.

[00:42:34] Antony W.: yeah. Good. Okay. With, with all the data that you, come across, what, what does the data say about the earning difference between an employed stylist versus a booth renter or suite operator? Is there any. clear data about that?

[00:42:53] Stefanie F.: Yes, so the only data that exists for what Suite renters earn lives inside of the POS systems of those large companies. So Sola, as an example, uses Gloss Genius. So the only access to the average actual earnings of an independent lives in those places, which. Is not publicly shared. So all we can do is guess, right? What are people earning? we obviously can look at what teams are earning if you’re, if you’re employee based, but there’s a lot of speculation around are they successful, do they earn as much? I can speak to, Sarah, who I was speaking about earlier, who left my salon earning about $120,000 a year. She was five years into her career, and she took an immediate hit when she went independent, which dropped her down into like the $50,000 range of earnings in her first year. So she took a substantial decrease and it’s taken her, almost three years to get back to a hundred. She’s getting there, and she also is very focused and driven, but it’s, it’s taken a while, so it’s possible, but she took the hit to do it.

[00:44:03] Antony W.: yeah. Okay. So I mean, I hope Sarah doesn’t mind me talking about her. I don’t, I don’t know. Her obviously, I’m just going to use her as an example.

[00:44:12] Stefanie F.: Yeah.

[00:44:13] Antony W.: Obviously if she was working for you and she was, earning 120 grand a year, is that what you said?

[00:44:19] Stefanie F.: Yes.

[00:44:21] Antony W.: Yeah. She was earning 120 grand a year. Obviously, that then means we, she must have been producing at least 200 grand a year. I’m going to suggest, so the, the next question I wanted to ask you, which is closely related cause you can never separate the two, is, salon someone working in a suite more productive? Are they generating more revenue than someone who’s working in an employee driven salon? Or is there no data about that?

[00:44:47] Stefanie F.: I, I would tell you if I’m, again speaking about Sarah, is she more productive? Absolutely not. she is struggling to acquire the number of guests that she used to service, and her way of offsetting that is to elevate her prices. So her and I have had many conversations around what can she actually charge when she’s not in high enough demand, because, she’s young. Her, her natural thought was, well, I’m not making as much. I could charge more and do less. the smarter, not harder, all the things she’s hearing on Instagram and people talking about how to be successful in business. And so we’ve had a lot of those conversations where she tried that. She wanted to specialize in blinding. So I can charge a lot of money if I specialize in blinding and extensions. And I said, well, you can try, but you have to attract blonde and extension clients who want to pay what you want to charge. And she’s had a lot of a learning curve there because she tried to come out of the gate pretty strong with her pricing.

[00:45:42] Stefanie F.: she struggled with retention. So we had to have a look at like, well, how is your pricing impacting your retention? Or is it your service experience? Or, what is it? And so she’s in the same, and I think this is true of every suite renter. She’s learning how to develop and grow a business on her own. She’s, and that is a

learning curve. That was she not everybody’s cut out for, which is why not everybody makes it there. But she’s, she in particular, she left my business after I sold it because she was missing the coaching and the development. So she thought, if I’m not going to get it, I’m just going to go do it on my own. She’s a bit of an outlier, and she still has had quite a journey to get back to success. So I personally, again, I, I think, for her it’s the right choice right now, I’ve asked her would she ever go back to a team-based business, and she’s on the fence. She’s like, if I had the right mentor, I would, if I knew they could help me be more successful, I would. But otherwise, why would I?

[00:46:31] Antony W.: Yeah, exactly. I know some people, I mean, look, I’m, I’m like you. I think there’s a place for every business model and, I’m just curious as a, as an observer of the industry, what’s working, what’s not working? Who’s it working for, and what are they doing that’s making it work for them, et cetera? and just looking at the sort of ebb and flow of the industry and seeing what direction it, it sort of moves in. and I know someone that you know that, I had on the podcast, David Wagner, from Jute Salons, and he was talking about this and I asked him, I’m not sure if I asked him on the podcast or if it was after the podcast, and we were just having a chat after the recording and I’d asked him something about, do you have people leave that go into the suite side of things?

[00:47:13] Antony W.: And he said, yeah, of course I do. Every business does. And, but he then finished up by saying, but I’ve had also had a lot that come back. and people go out and they try something different and then they do come back. And I, they, he even had a name for them. He called them boomerangs. and he was very happy for them to come back because they’d gone out and they’d seen what, what the alternative is. And there’s an upside to it. Freedom, flexibility, autonomy. You’re your own boss. Charge what you want, use whatever products you want, yada, yada, yada. And some people will make a lot more money in the process and absolutely love working independently. Other people will realize that actually this isn’t a fit for me, and I’d rather go back to a, a team environment.

[00:47:52] Antony W.: So, you, you’ve got to, you, you’ve got to try it, I think, to know, don’t you, as to what sort of person you are. I know for me, I wouldn’t want to work by myself. I would very much want to be part of a team, and as a client also. So when you were talking about Sarah’s retention rate, As a client, I love going into a salon where there’s an atmosphere and there’s other people and there’s a whole vibe going on, and, and I can’t see that. I would like that in as a consumer in a suite. That’s just me. I know other people would go, no, that’s what I love about it, but you know, that’s just me. So, yeah. Interesting. Do you see, I, I actually had another guy on the podcast, I think it was episode 156. His name is Blake Evans and we were talking about his business model and he has a partnership business model, or he is a partner in a business of, there are 14 partners in it. And, they have two salons. I forget exactly where they are. I think they’ve, they’re not that far from where you are. Columbus, Ohio. People will probably kill me for saying that when they know how far apart it is because America’s a big place. are you familiar with who I’m talking about?

[00:49:04] Stefanie F.: I’m not, no. I’ll have to look him up.

[00:49:06] Antony W.: Okay. Alright. Well, he has a, he is one of the partners in this salon group, and I really love the idea of it, and I’ve always loved the idea of it. And it’s a little bit like, the model that exists in a legal firm or an accountancy firm or, or a, architectural firm where people become partners. And so you don’t have to go out on your own to have freedom, flexibility, and autonomy and, and make more money. You can become part of something bigger and everyone becomes a part owner, of it. And, and I love that model for the hairdressing industry. I can’t understand why more people don’t do it, but I do see more people doing it. are you seeing any of that on the ground?

[00:49:48] Stefanie F.: I see a lot of salons exploring that. in fact, one of my good friends, recently did that this last year. She has a business in Slyde, Louisiana called, Bella Style Salon, and she brought in a senior stylist is a 10% partner, as a way for that person to grow and be retained. And I think it’s very smart. I think the reason most people don’t do more of it is not enough salons have the profitability to make it worth it. So again, back to like our leadership, how we add staff so we can grow how we keep staff so we continue to sustainably grow, we have to get better at those two things. Or we don’t have the profit margins in our businesses to make investment and partnership lucrative. Like for what, why would I put money in to be a partner if your profit margin is 1%, 2%, 3%? Right? We’ve got to help salons understand how to elevate that, which means you have to be adding staff and you have to be keeping them or it’s not worth it. And to David, let me, let me comment. David Wagner. I love David.

[00:50:47] Stefanie F.: I’ve done some work with recruiting in talent match in the jute team and what you described that he does his boomerang, that’s a great example of offensive leadership. So the reason his boomerang works is because the way people leave is positive. he’s not going after people. He’s not, making it hard on people to leave. He’s sitting them down and understanding what wasn’t working and wishing them well. Right. He’s, he’s leading well so that then at the six month mark, his team intentionally calls and checks in, ask them if they want to come grab coffee, how are things going? At the one year Mark’s doing the same thing at the two year mark’s doing the same thing, and he’s left that relationship intact and he’s built a place of trust that says it’s okay that you wanted to go try something new. We’re here if you need us. When we lead out of bitterness and anger and frustration, when people leave that not open, they’ll never come back.

[00:51:45] Antony W.: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That, that, that is real leadership and that’s why he’s a success and he is. So. Okay. one thing I wanted to ask you about is other industries. How do you see other industries outside of here in beauty responding to change and creating more flexibility and more autonomy, for the people who, who work there? What, what do you see that other industries are doing that maybe the hairdressing industry could learn from?

[00:52:14] Stefanie F.: Well, I think two things happen in other industries that can be challenging for our industry. One is other industries don’t often work on appointments the way that we do, right? Some do, but a lot of industries don’t have the same level of appointments that have to be live. So they’ve been able to embrace flexibility in a completely different way than we really ever can because we have to be in a space with a human working on their hair at a certain time, and many people prefer to have that scheduled so that Then second element is that on demand work that is big in so many industries where I can kind of turn my work on and off as I, as I wish. That doesn’t work well in beauty for the upper end salon because the people that we’re serving. Have schedules, they need to make an appointment. So I think what we face that’s a bit of a barrier are those two realities where we have to be live. And it’s hard to work on demand in beauty. And so we have to then think about as business leaders, how do we offset the appeal of those two things?

[00:53:17] Stefanie F.: and embrace and lead, offensively with the power of the community and the team and the connection being with people. Like we have to really drive that well, to offset the fact that other industries, they can beat us in flexibility. They can beat us in comp. I’m all the time thinking about how when we tell a story at a school to recruit, do we entice somebody to feel so excited about coming to work in our salon that they don’t feel like they’ve made a second rate career choice? Right? How do we make their parents think? Oh, it’s no problem. It’s amazing that you want to be a hairdresser and you didn’t want to be an engineer at Apple. Like how do we elevate the thinking? We have to do that by elevating the experience for the employee, their ability to earn more, like every, I’m kind of a proponent that, in beauty, I, I wish I could like close my eyes and snap my fingers and all of our pricing could elevate.

[00:54:09] Stefanie F.: Like, we could all just say we are artisans and we should charge more. And that probably sounds very millennially love me and like, oh, you just charge more for, doing the same thing. I don’t believe that at all, but I think that we’ve undercharged forever and we’ve been seen as second rate and we know that’s not true. And the pandemic proved consumers don’t think that’s true. And so if we want to build career opportunity for people, if we want to be able to afford the benefits packages, the compensation packages, the, the appeal to come work in our teambased, employee-based businesses. We have to be able to charge more because there’s just not more money there to do those things.

[00:54:48] Stefanie F.: And that means that people will still be graduating from high school and their parents will still think they should go get a degree so they can go work at some big organization that can give them all of those things. And I truly believe it’s not for lack of desire. we love people, salon owners love people, or they what known salons. We can’t give them all the things they want because the money’s not in the industry to give them all the things they want for the majority of the industry. So we have to solve that. We have to solve that so that we can make it a more lucrative place to be and, and it is lucrative, like, don’t get me wrong, it is a lucrative industry, but there’s big discrepancy between what you can do here and what you can do in other industries when you put the full comp package on the table and there’s no reason for that. We’ve got to fix that.

[00:55:33] Antony W.: yeah, and I, and I think that you, you mentioned Sarah and the sort of money that she was able to earn, and that’s fantastic. to earn 120 grand a year, I mean, that is just, that’s phenomenal. I mean, that’s double, that’s triple the Amer the average American wage. and I think people need to remember that that is, that is a hairdresser earning that sort of money. And why the hell shouldn’t they, they should, they should be able to. But she worked hard for it and it didn’t take five minutes. I think you said five years. it, it takes time to build up a solid client base and to be really productive and to build up that loyalty and to, to sort of know who you are and know where your strengths are and know how to, to really build up a book like that.

[00:56:20] Antony W.: And when you do, you get rewarded accordingly. But it took her x amount of years. And I think one of the challenges is that maybe, and I think social media I is, is partly responsible for this, is it makes people think that they can do that and they can do it really easily. It’s not easy. Sarah is, I’m not going to say Sarah is, the exception because other people do that as well, but, What percentage of people can do that? Do you know what I mean? Can, can 20% of people in our industry do that? Can 30% can 50%? I don’t know what the number is. you don’t need to know what the number is, but the reality is, is that not everyone is able to do that. But that you can do that if you, if you put the work in and if you develop the skills and you, respect the fact that it takes time.

[00:57:06] Antony W.: And it takes discipline and it takes loyalty. I mean, we mentioned David before, I don’t know if I, I interviewed, one of his staff on the podcast, two or three weeks ago. Denise Deering and I loved talking to her. So if you haven’t checked it out, then, and you listen to this now you got to listen to it. But one of the things that, the reason I was interviewing her is that she’s one person I’m interviewing who does who. And I’m going to interview another couple who, generate ballpark half a million dollars a year behind the chair. Now that is a boatload of money. Do you know what I mean? One and a half, a million, sorry, half a million dollars a year she’s producing in services. And no matter how you look at it, that is fantastic. But part of the conversation was also, and I’ve been in the same salon for 28 years, do you know what I mean? It’s like loyalty, it’s like graft, it’s commitment. It’s, there’s so many other components to being that successful.

[00:58:03] Antony W.: And it, it was very refreshing to talk to her to find that, she wasn’t a backstage celebrity hairdresser. She wasn’t doing the models on the cover of Vogue. She was a grafter. She worked and she worked hard and she was good at she, what she did. She was always learning. She was always looking for opportunities to get better, incredibly loyal. And my favorite bit was, that in 28 years, she’d never had a sick day. I mean, can you imagine? I just laugh at that. Having someone who’s never had a never called in sick for 28 days, I mean, 28 years. That’s just amazing. look, we, we do have to wrap up there. There’s, a couple of things I wanted to ask you about. so first one, just a short answer if you can. what would you do differently if you were someone opening a salon today? What would be two or three things you’d go, well, I do this, this, and this.

[00:58:55] Stefanie F.: Yeah. Number one is I’d have double the money I thought I needed cause you’re going to need that money. So I would have more cash up front to do it. I would invest in a mentor and coach through the process of building your business so that you don’t get defeated, you don’t get run down. And I would make sure that you’re doing it because you love growing people, because if you’re in it for any other reason, you’re wasting your time and your money.

[00:59:25] Antony W.: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you obviously love growing people. That’s obviously your, your reason you are here, so to speak. You’ve got so much to give to that side of the industry. And, and that leads into the next question, which is, we are talking about, millennials and now we talk more and more about Gen Z. And, gen Z now make up a big percentage of this industry. I think the oldest one, gen Z is 26. So we’ve got a lot of people in this industry all over the world, all over the world, sorry, between the ages of 18 and 26. So, gen Z are the people that dominate maybe this industry at this point in time already. And it happens quickly. And, I was reading recently about the next generation. The next generation after Gen Z is called the alpha generation, and they were anyone born depending on what you read after the year 2010. So, here we are in 2023, so the oldest person, alpha Gen is 13. So they’re not that far off being in the workforce. Another 3, 4, 5 years definitely they will start coming into the workforce. And it, it, I’m curious as to what they will be like because you think of what they’ve just gone through and going through, economically, politically, covid. There’s been so much upheaval in the world. any predictions? and I know I don’t give people any warning about the questions I’m going to ask them, but, any predictions about what you think Alphagen will be like?

[01:00:57] Stefanie F.: Well, I’ll, I’ll give you my prediction that’s bucketed in lots of hope, which is that this generation experienced isolation in a way no prior, like workforce generation has that’s living today, right? Like they experience this and I hope that means that they crave more than ever relationships and working with people that put in them the awareness of how important. those connections are, and that live time with people. So for beauty, I hope that means that we see a lot of people really lean in to be part of teams and, and grow. when you were speaking about, David’s team member and I was thinking, wow, 28 years and all the success, but also she had great leadership and that leadership helped her stay the course through all of that time and the hardships and the hard work.

[01:01:46] Stefanie F.: And even Sarah in my example, she worked for me. She left, she still calls me, she still messages me, she still meets me for coffee and asks for help, and as she’s rebuilding herself, just last week I got a text message from her. She was at dinner with her husband and it said, I have to send you these numbers on my retention. And she said, sorry if I’m going to swear. She said, so that you can kick my ass here because I’m, I’m really not doing well with this. and so the people that hang in and put in the time and they seek out the mentorship, they’re the success stories. going out on your own and just thinking you’re going to live in a silo and, and get there. Like, wow, you’re not, nobody gets anywhere alone. That’s great. So I hope that generation that’s coming up, because they’ve experienced it firsthand, they really thrive in that community space.

[01:02:35] Antony W.: Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see. We won’t have to wait long for it, for sure.

[01:02:39] Stefanie F.: No, we won’t.

[01:02:40] Antony W.: That combined with. Exactly.

[01:02:43] Antony W.: yeah. Exactly. Okay. Alright, well on that note, we do have to start wrapping up. Where can people connect with you on Instagram or other social media channels?

[01:02:53] Stefanie F.: Yeah, so Instagram, you can find me in two places so you can find my, kind of personal leadership space at Stef with an F underscore fox. So that’s all things kind of beauty leadership. I share a lot of data there. And then, also I have talent matches Instagram, which is at salon recruiting. So there we, again, share the data and all the resources to help you build teams.

[01:03:16] Antony W.: Yeah. Good. Okay. I will put those links, on our website, grow my salon business.com, and in the show notes for today’s podcast. And I highly recommend that you check out what Stef is doing on the talent match. Is it talent match.biz? Yeah.

[01:03:33] Stefanie F.: It is, yeah, talent matched up yes

[01:03:35] Antony W.: It is, right? Yeah. I highly recommend that people check out, her website. There’s some great resources on there, because recruitment is a big issue. No matter, you know who you’re talking to and no matter what country. So, we need to wrap up. If you’re listening to this podcast with Stephanie and have enjoyed it, do me a favor. Take a screenshot on your phone, share it to your Instagram stories, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a rating on review on the Apple Podcast app. So, to wrap up, Stephanie Fox, once again, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having this opportunity to talk with you. You are, a real fountain of wisdom and knowledge for, the people components amongst many other things of the hairdressing industry. And you bring, so many great insights into it. So thanks for giving us your time again today.

[01:04:20] Stefanie F.: Of course. Thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure.

[01:04:23] Antony W.: Cheers. Cheers. Thanks Stefanie.

[01:04:25] Antony W.: Thank you for listening to today’s podcast. If you’d like to connect with us, you’ll find us at grow my salon business.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 Antony Whitaker wishing you continued success.