– Episode 225Gianni Scumaci

Episode 225: Transcript

[00:00:00] Antony Whitaker: 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.

[00:00:28] Antony Whitaker: 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. Now, obviously I’m not sure when you are actually listening to this podcast, but I am sure that in the middle of January, 2024, we are relaunching our online money course.

[00:00:48] Antony Whitaker: And so. If you’re a salon owner and you recognize that mastery of your understanding of the numbers in your business is an essential piece of the success puzzle, then head on over to growmysalonbusiness.com and find out all about money, the online course. With that said on with today’s show where I’m talking with my friend and returning guest, Gianni Scumaci, who was last on the podcast in episode 121, which went out on the 28th of December in 2021, so about two years ago to the date. And in that time, I think it’s fair to say that a lot has changed for everyone.

[00:01:28] Antony Whitaker: Now, in today’s podcast, we will discuss Gianni’s new academy space, digital education, and most importantly, his soon to be launched ME.MO app, and lots more. So, without further ado, welcome back to the show, Gianni.

[00:01:45] Gianni Scumaci: Thanks, Antony. It’s great to be back with you. Thanks for having me back on.

[00:01:49] Antony Whitaker: No, it’s, uh, it’s really good to have this opportunity to chat. As I said in the intro, you were last on the podcast two years ago. It doesn’t seem that long, but, uh, yeah, it’s two years ago. And I wanted to get you back as part of a series that I’ve been doing about digital education. So let’s touch on that first and then we’ll get to the other stuff.

[00:02:09] Antony Whitaker: So let’s just begin by asking what’s been happening with your online education, uh, side of your business.

[00:02:18] Gianni Scumaci: Well, I say thank you for having me. It is amazing. It’s been two years. And when I reflect back of where we were in terms of education, online education businesses, a lot has happened since then. Um, since then, just in short, um, we’re now in over 90 countries globally. and. Um, my wife, who’s the, who’s the more intelligent one, who’s fluent in, in three or four languages has trans transcribed and translated and narrated actually, into, uh, we’re now in three languages.

[00:02:45] Gianni Scumaci: Um, so we, we narrated, we’re not sort of subtitled. Um, we really wanted people to be able to enjoy the experience of learning without having to read and watch at the same time. And so it’s part of our part of the philosophy as well. Um, but yeah, so we’re now in, we’re in English, of course, which is me, but we’re also in the Spanish speaking world and also the Italian speaking world.

[00:03:06] Gianni Scumaci: So, uh, we’re, we’ve grown and I’m really proud and excited to be able to share that with you. Um, since we last spoke.

[00:03:13] Antony Whitaker: Good. So, uh, Sylvia is not just your head of IT and mother of your, your daughter, et cetera, and wife, uh, but she’s also fluent in English, Italian, and Spanish. Yeah.

[00:03:28] Gianni Scumaci: Yes, and she’s, she is, I’m, I’m very lucky, I’m definitely punching above my weight there, Antony,

[00:03:32] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, definitely. I’ll say, I’ll say,

[00:03:35] Gianni Scumaci: as you once told me over dinner, when I went out,

[00:03:45] Antony Whitaker: that was, that was a long time ago. That’s probably five years ago or something now. Um, so, okay. So, so the online education thing is still, I know like a lot of people in the online space, me included, you know, COVID really lit a fire underneath everything

[00:04:01] Antony Whitaker: to do with online. Um, and you were already in that space anyway, and it really has just taken off and you continue to, uh, uh, to build on that offering. So, uh, that’s fantastic.

[00:04:13] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah, we, we basically, um, expanded the library. Um, so we have, uh, three different courses. Now we have the discover, which is foundational, uh, which shows the kind of foundational aspects of cutting hair into the Create course, which is the Create course. Incidentally, um, we now, I’ve just, I’m just finished recording the next chapter.

[00:04:31] Gianni Scumaci: So we’ll, we’ll, we ended up with, um, nearly 45 videos in total, uh, from cutting point of view, but the Create course was always about transferring, uh, those foundational. Uh, techniques into a salon environment and all but one of the, uh, currently 34 create videos are all, all my clients. So actually I create them on the salon floor with my clients.

[00:04:55] Gianni Scumaci: And I’ll talk more about that during our chat. And then I bring them into the studio and repeat them. So actually each technique, I say, I’m being really transparent. One was done for a show and I took that back into the studio, but everything else apart from the one, uh, has all been done in the salon. And it was important for me, I think, very humbled by, you know, by the response that we’ve had to, to the online.

[00:05:19] Gianni Scumaci: And I think it, I think it’s because ultimately. I’m sort of showing, uh, showcasing what I do in the salon on the clients. And I think that translates to other stylists, uh, from the feedback we’ve been given. I mean, I just do it because I love doing it. Um, but I also do it very much from the heart. Um, and for me, there’s a story behind every technique, a personal story.

[00:05:41] Gianni Scumaci: A client story and I’ll, I’ll share more about that philosophy and the integration, but yeah, we’re, we’re now we’ve expanded it and, um, really, really, really happy, uh, to be able to report that back to you because, you know, the world is not an easy place for everybody. And, um, at the moment, specifically, it’s got, obviously, in many respects, it’s got a lot more difficult, um, and businesses are up and down and everything in between.

[00:06:04] Gianni Scumaci: So I’m just continuing doing what I believe in and, um, hopefully helping develop people, you know, globally in, in the different fields now we’ve got the different languages.

[00:06:13] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Now, I know, um, for our listeners, um, you know, as I mentioned, episode 121, I think I said it was, um, which is two years ago, uh, but I would highly recommend you go back to that and have a listen to that if you haven’t already listened to it, because we talk in a lot more detail, uh, about Gianni’s, background, um, uh, and a lot more about the online education, you know, and education philosophies that he has

[00:06:40] Antony Whitaker: in that episode. So, um, you know, I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing you uh, for a little while, actually face to face.

[00:06:49] Antony Whitaker: It’s just been over, you know, the screen, et cetera and on social media. And one of the things I wanted to say was on social media I’m for our audience who don’t know. You actually don’t live in England anymore. You live when you frequently visit England because you have clients here, but you actually live just outside of Rome, don’t you?

[00:07:08] Gianni Scumaci: She’s

[00:07:09] Antony Whitaker: I’ve seen is that you have a studio now, um, which is called GS Academy, if I’m right, and I see it on social media. And every time I look at it, I go, hang on, what am I, what am I doing when you could have that lifestyle? Because I see this, you know, this great vista. Um, of looking over the, the Italian countryside.

[00:07:30] Antony Whitaker: Um, and, and that appears to be your academy space. So do you wanna just tell us a little bit about, uh, your new academy space, which is, uh, as I say, a couple of out outside of Rome? Mm-Hmm

[00:07:41] Gianni Scumaci: Oh, thank you for saying that, Antony. I take that from great weight coming from you. I’m very lucky. Um, we, um, when we moved to Italy during the pandemic, um, uh, we live in, say, about an hour, an hour from Rome, hour and a half from Rome. And we’re in between, set between the mountains. And one of the things I wanted to do, I’m very family orientated.

[00:08:01] Gianni Scumaci: And so, although I’ve been lucky enough to. Have the experiences that I’ve had so far in my career. I really wanted to stay closer to My wife, my daughter, we have a, she’s nearly four now, three and a half, four. And so I really wanted to spend more time with them. And I thought, how can I do that? And of course the online you referenced earlier was one way of doing it.

[00:08:19] Gianni Scumaci: Um, but I thought, how can I do this? Because online doesn’t replace live education. It’s there to protect the investment of it. Um, and help people prepare for that experience. So I thought, well, how can I give them that experience without having to jump on a plane all the time? Because my life was very much that like it is for a lot of my contemporaries and people in the industry.

[00:08:37] Gianni Scumaci: And so I decided, I thought, um, Maybe it would be an idea for people to come to me. Um, and although I’ve never had, um, my own academy space in the past, um, I thought maybe we could create one. And, um, I’ve got a good friend here who owns this beautiful tenuta, which is like a villa, uh, essentially. And, um, the villa is, is, uh, is a building and it’s surrounding grounds, but a tenuta is, is everything you see beyond it.

[00:09:03] Gianni Scumaci: And this, uh, a friend of my collaborator, Maranella, she, um, she has this beautiful place and, um, I’m familiar with it. Um, it’s actually where I stayed the night before I got married, actually. That’s originally how I came across this. And, um, but she’s an artisan and she’s an amazing chef and cook. Uh, she’s a master in certain areas and all the food there is organic and it’s the way she is as a person.

[00:09:25] Gianni Scumaci: We have a very similar way and, uh, I could feel a collaboration was possible and she loved it. And so. What we do is we invite people, we’ve had people from Australia, um, numerous people from Australia, from Mexico, from Canada, from North America, the States, of course, um, throughout Europe as well. People have come and they come for an experience.

[00:09:44] Gianni Scumaci: And so the idea is they come to, there’s no, I mean, there’s no Ubers, there’s no taxis, there’s no trains, you really are in the middle of, of the middle of nowhere, as you mentioned, and you have the vista of, um, the Lazio crossing over to the Umbrian border. Countryside between mountains, and I think what it does for the people that have come, um, they stay in the villa, which is 20 yards from where we, we, we, the academy spaces itself, um, and it’s very tranquil.

[00:10:10] Gianni Scumaci: And I think what it does, it gives people a chance to step out of their busy environment and a busy urban environment, which you may find in the city of London or New York or wherever else. Um, and this gives them a completely different, uh. Perspective, I think on on their learning process. Um, and because of the philosophy that I have is heart to hand.

[00:10:30] Gianni Scumaci: but it really gets them in touch with who they are. The emphasis is on them. You know, they don’t for them. The emphasis is the client when the client is paying, but this in this scenario, it’s really about them and really about them. Um, when I’m teaching a lot of people come for technique, but they don’t end up, they leave with technique, but they leave with something else.

[00:10:49] Gianni Scumaci: Because I prefer to go a bit deeper. Um, for me, technique is just the entry level of really what I do. Um, it’s about them sort of going deeper into themselves and understanding some of the more difficult areas that they may have to confront to, to develop as a person and a header. And, and we don’t push people, but people tend to find more, uh, safer in and less vulnerable in, in that type of environment.

[00:11:12] Gianni Scumaci: And that’s where I, I really feel, um, that we can bring value to, to the people that come.

[00:11:18] Antony Whitaker: Okay, well, we will talk more about your philosophy in a minute because I know that, um, uh, heart to hand or hand to heart, um, is a really fundamental, you know, part of everything that you do. It runs through absolutely everything,

[00:11:32] Antony Whitaker: I saw you had, I think they were Canadian guys. You had two Canadian guys there that you were teaching. And on the little post you did on Instagram, you had. Was it maranello? Did you call it maranello? And she’s cooking up a storm like Italian mama. And I’m thinking, Oh my God, that looks absolutely fantastic to go on a hairdressing course with, you know, the epitome of the, you know, my idea of the, Italian, mama cooking up and

[00:12:00] Antony Whitaker: A beautiful male and, uh, and doing haircuts with this great Italian vista in the background. So, uh, yeah.

[00:12:07] Gianni Scumaci: Well, very quickly on that, we decided what was happening was that two wonderful hairdressers from Canada actually, Jason and Antonio, and also Daniel came, but they essentially, um, what we found was that the food became an integral part of the experience, of course, being in Italy. And we decided to hold a mini course within the course.

[00:12:29] Gianni Scumaci: So at lunchtime. There would be a mini demonstration and workshop on how you cook the Amatriciana, which is the pasta of the local area here. And, uh, Marinella does that better than anybody you could ever meet. So, uh, we, we sort of doing courses within courses. Yes, it was good fun to do that. Not for everyone, but if you, if people are interested, it’s, it’s really, you know, you know what, Antony, I’ve always felt this is that I think that, um, information given without emotion is very rarely remembered.

[00:12:55] Gianni Scumaci: And for me, it’s about attaching and associating emotion to an experience that then reinforces the information that’s gone in. And that, for me, was a clear one because, you know, Marinella cooks from the heart. She has a heart to hand philosophy with the food. And we thought we could, we could do that. And, and so really it’s about creating that, that, uh, you know, emotional interaction, not just with the hair, but with the food as well.

[00:13:21] Gianni Scumaci: So that was the, that was the kind of psychology behind it.

[00:13:24] Antony Whitaker: Okay. And are they very small groups that you have there?

[00:13:27] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah, we, at the moment, um, due to the demand and we have limited spaces, um, we bring in, it’s usually private groups rather than open dates. Um, so yeah, it’s either we’ve had groups of six. Um, and we’ve had groups of, uh, three, two, and also one to ones. Um, we are actually about to take on a big group of ten, uh, this, uh, next year, 2024, and we’re, we’re attracting large groups.

[00:13:51] Gianni Scumaci: But at the moment, that’s, that’s where it’s been. The space itself can hold up to 30. It’s quite large. Um, with an adjacent villa nearby that can house for the accommodation. So we’re, we’ve got the setup there,

[00:14:03] Gianni Scumaci: I’ve realized being in industry for the time I’ve been, um, That I’ve probably got less time ahead of me than I’ve had behind behind me now, and, um, for that reason, I’m really keen to make the best difference. I can, you know, for people that come. Um, so we’re really particular about wanting to really give the best value, um, not just to the person themselves, which is really the, the focus, but also the business that they’re working in, because a lot of people come and they may want to take that back to their team because it’s an investment, of course, or they may need help.

[00:14:35] Gianni Scumaci: And so we, we offer lots of different things within the time levels.

[00:14:39] Antony Whitaker: yeah. So, so you come, you learn a couple of haircuts and you leave 10 pound heavier. What’s what’s not to like,

[00:14:47] Gianni Scumaci: Don’t say that. Exactly. No, no,

[00:14:49] Antony Whitaker: right. Okay. So, so let’s move on. Cause I’m desperate to talk about this new, uh, the ME.MO app, but I think before we do that, and you, you’ve already touched on this and I know it’s something that you’re very passionate about and that is your

[00:15:04] Antony Whitaker: philosophy that sort of underpins everything. So whether you’re talking about your online education or as you’ve just been talking about, you know, the, uh, the GS Academy, um, talk to us a little bit more about what do you mean when you use this phrase, you’ve said it a couple of times already heart to hand.

[00:15:21] Antony Whitaker: Uh, what is that philosophy and how does it underpin what you do? And then we’ll, we can segue straight into talking about the ME.MO app.

[00:15:31] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah, sure. Well, thank you for asking me. Um, because it is something, uh, I may have mentioned it. I’m really passionate because it is, it doesn’t depend everything I do. So I’ve, I’ve been looking to work and I still do in, in different genres of hairdressing. So we’ve mentioned education in two forms, the online and the live.

[00:15:47] Gianni Scumaci: Um, I also travel, as you mentioned earlier, back to London every two months. And I do 10 days back to back 12 hour days behind the chair. We fully booked with clients, um, as well. And I also work less so, but I still do, uh, on shoots with its editorial advertising or celebrity. So across that genre of, of, of hairdressing, the heart to hand philosophy that I, I’ve had, and it started with me when I was really young was really, I apply that in all the different contexts of those environments.

[00:16:14] Gianni Scumaci: And so maybe we could speak about the salon because it’s more relevant maybe to, to what we’re doing, but the heart to hand is how I work with a person and a client. Um, so the first thing I do, it’s four steps heart to hand, it’s the heart. It’s the mind, it’s the eye, and it ends up in the hands. It’s very simple.

[00:16:31] Gianni Scumaci: Um, and the heart is when a client comes to me, uh, in the salon, the first thing I want to do is engage with them emotionally. I want to emotionally connect with them. What does that mean? Well, it’s really important for me to understand who they are as a person and how they’re feeling at that time. That’s the first step.

[00:16:48] Gianni Scumaci: It’s critical for me to pick that frequency up. Um, I don’t, I don’t always get it correct. I’m always right. I don’t always get it right, but I attempt to get to that point quickly. Um, then it transfers that journey from the heart to the mind, which is really about then translating that emotional, um, interpretation into hair.

[00:17:06] Gianni Scumaci: You know, what am I going to do? Uh, what technique or what am I going to choose to do shape wise to interpret that emotion the client is feeling at the moment. The third thing is then the eye. So that’s the mind’s eye and the physical eye. The eye is like a muscle. So then you sort of visualize how that’s going to look on the person.

[00:17:24] Gianni Scumaci: And then when that’s all done, it ends up in the hand where you purely create the hair. So that’s the journey. And for me, it’s very important to be able to, people come to me often on courses and they say, they’re always looking at my hands. They’re looking at this. They want to know how, how does that work?

[00:17:41] Gianni Scumaci: How are you doing that? That technique for me, doing good technique and understanding technique is just purely entry level. You know, I’ve worked with some most amazing technical geniuses, uh, that you could possibly meet in, in cutting hair. And they’re not necessarily successful in the salon. Um, that, you know, that’s come at a great price to them because they’re, uh, you know, you asked me something on the last podcast, right at the end, uh, you, you slightly threw me and he said, give me

[00:18:07] Gianni Scumaci: in one word, how you define success, what a successful stylist is, you know, what is the one word you’d use? And I use the word awareness, but we didn’t get a chance to expand on it. You know, it’s having this awareness and it’s an emotional awareness, not just a technical awareness. And I think this word emotion gets used a lot at the moment in this industry.

[00:18:24] Gianni Scumaci: Um, but I’d like to really pin it down to specifics so we can understand what I actually mean. Um, so. I think I work with, with stylists going back to what I was saying, which is really technically great, but not necessarily busy. And I’ve worked with stylists that don’t necessarily do brilliant hair, technically, but they’re packed out and they’re really successful.

[00:18:42] Gianni Scumaci: And the reason for that, there is a formula to being successful in a salon, which, I’m sure. A lot of people are aware of, but with, with the 30 years I’ve been working in salons and I’m a third-generation hairdresser and I’ve been starting, I started cutting hair when I was 10, 12 in a salon. Um, I’ve worked with a lot of different people across the world and I’ve noticed the same pattern and you know, that we’ll get into when it comes to the app.

[00:19:06] Gianni Scumaci: But for me, it’s about transferring that emotional connection with a client into. Let’s say what you do with the technique into visualizing it and then finally creating it. For me, what’s really important is the art of listening. Um, and I’d like to share that with you a little bit. I mean, I often teach, um, when I’m teaching people listen to what’s not being said, you know, um, and when, if I can, I usually have visuals to talk through this and it simplifies it, but I’ll just try to simplify it very quickly in verbal for you.

[00:19:35] Gianni Scumaci: It’s about framing. So if I can do that, that’s a frame, right? Let’s just say you’re my client, Antony, just for the sake of this little analogy. When you come in as my client. you’re giving me signals. Um, those signals can be what you’re wearing, how you smell, perfume wise, or any otherwise. So maybe are you married with a wedding ring to maybe tattoos to anything?

[00:19:55] Gianni Scumaci: There’s a lot of information that you’ll give without speaking to me. And when I come to meet you, my job is as a hairdresser is to frame you, understand how you see yourself. So my job is to say, right, this is Antony. How is he seeing himself? And my job is to repeat that back to you so you feel safe, because then when you’re sat in the chair as my client go, this guy gets me, you know, he understands my job is to paint the picture within the frame.

[00:20:18] Gianni Scumaci: Now if I was going to go outside the frame and give you something really radical that you weren’t ready for you’d feel uncomfortable and he doesn’t understand me I’m losing trust, I’m losing connections. But the thing is that a lot of headers to stop at that frame. Every hairdresser worth any, if their salt can frame somebody and allow the client to understand that they are on the same level, but where the real value is where most hairdressers stop and they don’t go beyond that is then reframing the client and how they see them.

[00:20:45] Gianni Scumaci: So there’s the frame of a client and then the hairdresser might overlap and take them somewhere slightly different. And that to me is critical because that’s where it’s when you make someone feel good. That’s where the value is. It’s far more valuable, I think, than what and how they think. And that’s when you give them an emotional energy.

[00:21:02] Gianni Scumaci: And people say in this industry that the most powerful form of advertising is word of mouth. Well, I completely disagree. I think it’s word of eye. And this is the difference is that if you’re leaving the salon, I’ve cut your hair and you’re going to meet a friend for lunch. You may recommend me to your friend.

[00:21:19] Gianni Scumaci: My details and say, you could do with a good haircut, go and see my friend, John, Jannie, whoever, um, that’s word of mouth, but word of eyes when you’ve left the salon and I’ve made you feel so good with the decision of the hair I’ve given you, not just the hair itself, but the decision of the hair that it’s, it’s emotionally suiting you, then you’re going to have an energy about you.

[00:21:39] Gianni Scumaci: And when you’re outside of the salon, someone will come up to you in the street and say, excuse me, you look great. Where did you get your hair done? Now, 33 percent of my clients are built that way. And that’s word of eye. That’s someone coming up to you. And now they don’t necessarily know you’ve got a good haircut.

[00:21:54] Gianni Scumaci: They just see that you, you are, you have an energy about you. And it’s about emotional suitability. So aesthetics suitability for me is not so much. I think I mentioned it before. It’s not so much of an interest to me. It’s much more about understanding how I can make you feel so good that when you walk out

[00:22:10] Gianni Scumaci: you project yourself in a certain way, and that, to me, is where the magic happens. That’s not necessarily me giving you who you think you are. It’s about me giving you who I think you are, mixed with who you think you are, if that makes sense.

[00:22:21] Antony Whitaker: No, that does make sense. And, and, uh, we could talk about that for the entire podcast. and you have some great thoughts about that.

[00:22:30] Antony Whitaker: you’ve sort of done this already, but I really want to directly ask the question purely because I’ve asked every other educator that I’ve had on where I’ve talked about digital education, and that is, what is your definition of suitability?

[00:22:42] Antony Whitaker: And I’d be intrigued how you, how you package that really quickly. And I know you’ve already sort of answered it with what you just said, but just, just give us a concise definition of what is suitability.

[00:22:54] Gianni Scumaci: suitability, I believe is understanding someone on an emotional level, understanding that, having empathy with it and then having the intelligence, the hidden intelligence to be able to translate that into hair. That to me is suitability.

[00:23:09] Antony Whitaker: yeah, that’s good. That’s, that’s perfect. Um, I, I keep going back to, for my definition of it is it’s, it’s making someone look on the outside the way they feel on the inside. And that’s really the same thing you’ve just said in another way.

[00:23:22] Gianni Scumaci: Great way of saying it.

[00:23:23] Antony Whitaker: so it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. Okay.

[00:23:26] Antony Whitaker: So tell us about ME.MO, the app. What exactly is it? Because, um, I think it’s, it’s revolutionary. I think it’s gonna be, uh, really exciting, not just for you, but for, you know, the hairdressing industry at large.

[00:23:39] Antony Whitaker: So tell us what, what exactly ME.MO is, and then we can dig into some of the detail on it.

[00:23:44] Gianni Scumaci: Thank you. So, well, thank you for saying that. I am beyond excited to get to this point. It’s been a while, but in short, ME.MO is a sophisticated, simple digital black book. for all hairdressers. So it’s a little black book that allows hairdressers to, empowers them to be able to give a six star service, but also, um, remember the details.

[00:24:09] Gianni Scumaci: We’ve called it ME.MO. It’s M E dot M O, if you were to look at it written down. Um, and it has a sys app called me moments and the, the name comes from memory. That’s where it comes from, because one of the things that I’ve noticed again in my years of experience is that I’m sure there are some wonderful hairdressers listening that will pride themselves on their memory and they do have a great memory.

[00:24:30] Gianni Scumaci: But what I’ve realized is that in general, hairdressers pride themselves on having a great memory, but the truth is actually. It’s not quite as sharp as they would like to think, and there are certain details that they may forget that would really serve them when clients come back in and serve the clients as well.

[00:24:48] Gianni Scumaci: And so this is about empowering that that process, not just about the verbal details, but also the visual ones as well.

[00:24:57] Antony Whitaker: Okay, so, uh, when you say we, um, who is it who’s behind it?

[00:25:03] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah, so it’s, um, so this, although it’s something that I’m the face of essentially, and I’m, talking about it. I’m a founding member, there’s four of us. Um, and there’s myself, there’s another hairdresser called David w. Incredible successful hairdresser, um, in his own rights.

[00:25:17] Gianni Scumaci: Um. And he’s multi award winning, uh, hairdresser from, uh, he’s based in Scandinavia now. And, um, we have two other members as well, or, um, very successful business, uh, technical entrepreneurs and investors as well. So we, we’re a group of four. It’s not a GS product. It’s a separate. Um, but it, it’s hand in hand with my philosophy, which is one of the main reasons that I wanted to create this.

[00:25:41] Gianni Scumaci: And essentially all the philosophy we’ve just spoke about, I, you know, it’s one thing talking about it and teaching people, but I really wanted to give them the tools to be able to empower them to actually be able to carry that out on a daily basis. And this is what that, that is basically,

[00:25:54] Antony Whitaker: Okay. Now, you know, we’re living in an age with AI and every five minutes is another app on the market. What is it that makes ME.MO different to everything else out there? And I suppose. I mean, I’m lucky enough and that I’ve, I’ve sort of seen, you know, what ME.MO is all about, but I’m also very aware that most people who listen to this podcast have got no idea what it’s all about and they haven’t seen anything.

[00:26:21] Antony Whitaker: Uh, so it’s important to, you know, describe, well, what is it that makes it different? Because they can’t see what makes it different at this point in time. So how would you answer that question?

[00:26:33] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah. Um, so basically it’s an app that goes on your phone and that’s important to mention. It goes on your phone. Um, most, um, most apps that are used in a salon. And by the way, just to point at the top of this, this is aimed at a salon owner. It’s also aimed at the. Freelance hairdresser, um, they’re the two main areas that this is focused at.

[00:26:54] Gianni Scumaci: And there are slightly different versions. One’s for the salon and one’s for the freelance hairdresser. But, um, it’s built, uh, to be an individual phones, um, to save the congestion around a focused center point at the reception or an iPad in the salon. And the idea, it’s an app that you open on your phone like any other app.

[00:27:12] Gianni Scumaci: Um, but it allows you to, in short, take, uh, imagery. of your clients before and after the service with video. Um, it also has a Dictaphone, uh, tool where you can just press a button, talk into it, and it will transcribe your verbal notes with it literally in seconds. It’s 97 percent accurate. And you can make notes on the conversations that you’ve had, the product profile, the color formula.

[00:27:38] Gianni Scumaci: Um, Areas of the hair that maybe you were unsure about. This is, just to point out, this is not about Instagram pictures. These are not, these are private. You can share them, of course, on Instagram if you want to, but the idea is that these are pictures that you take, not necessarily of the finished result, but also the process.

[00:27:54] Gianni Scumaci: So I, I use it to take pictures of my sectioning patterns to teach. Um, I take set, I’ve got clients with little, uh, bald areas in their hairline that I often forget about. And then once I’ve cut the hair in, sometimes it’s too late, you know, there’s areas, you know, there’s lots of things that I forget that, uh, this saves the day.

[00:28:10] Gianni Scumaci: And so that’s essentially what this does. Um, it allows you to visually as a, as a stylist, you take responsibility for your own business within the business. So you’re aware of all your clients. You’ve got the pictures of them visually. Um, and you’re aware of how many you have, cause that’s quite an interesting one.

[00:28:26] Gianni Scumaci: I don’t know many stylists that are very much aware of how many clients they actually have themselves, even under a salon umbrella. And so it, you know, a lot of, uh, talking to salon owners for a moment, you know, cause I can imagine a lot of salon owners would be slightly concerned. Oh, hold on a second.

[00:28:39] Gianni Scumaci: All this data is going on my stylist’s phones. So we’ll just handle the salon owner side first. Maybe that’d be the easiest way to

[00:28:45] Antony Whitaker: Well, yeah. Okay. I was gonna say, I, I can’t get past something you said before that you said it’s a Dictaphone that transcribes the voice message into text message. So that sounds very cool

[00:29:01] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah.

[00:29:01] Antony Whitaker: that, uh, with, I think you just said 97% accuracy.

[00:29:03] Antony Whitaker: So, so I’ve cut your hair. And I’m talking into my phone, I’ve opened the app, I’m talking into it, and I’m saying, Gianni’s, you know, haircut is such and such, so and so, and remember to ask him about, you know, where him and Sylvia went on their last holiday.

[00:29:18] Antony Whitaker: Um, and it’s going to put that in, into your notes section.

[00:29:22] Antony Whitaker: So in six weeks time, and I know you’re coming in, I just open it up and, and those notes will be there. Cool. That is very good. That’s very good. Okay.

[00:29:31] Antony Whitaker: Now, sorry, what were you going

[00:29:33] Gianni Scumaci: No, I was going to say that comes from the fact that, um, it’s no secret I’m not the fastest haircutter in the world.

[00:29:37] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, yeah,

[00:29:38] Gianni Scumaci: so, for those who don’t know me, trust me, and the ones who do, I’m sure they’ll tell you. And so, you know, I’m fully booked with… You know, eight, nine clients through a 12 hour a day.

[00:29:48] Gianni Scumaci: Uh, and so I realized that if I was going to use this and talk about it, it had to work for me. And so what I, I’ve, I don’t have a lot of spare time in the day. Like most headrests is regardless if you fast or slow. Um, [00:30:00] and so what this does essentially is, yeah, you make notes very quickly, you talk into it and it all comes out very fast and with different fields.

[00:30:05] Gianni Scumaci: So you can really, you can talk about personal details through to, to, to different areas of service. Yeah.

[00:30:12] Antony Whitaker: Okay, so I can record video, I can take still images, I can record audio and that will collate the notes on that client. Now, you were just starting to touch on who it is that uses it.

[00:30:27] Antony Whitaker: So just talk to us about where does that start? does it emanate from the owner’s version who then gives it to the stylist who then gives a link to the client?

[00:30:36] Antony Whitaker: How does that all work?

[00:30:38] Gianni Scumaci: So yeah, um, thank you for asking. I’ll just let me clarify it for you. So there are actually just two versions of the

[00:30:43] Antony Whitaker: Okay.

[00:30:44] Gianni Scumaci: Um, there are two versions of ME.MO. So ME.MO is the hairdresser app and there’s two versions.

[00:30:49] Gianni Scumaci: One is for the salon owner and one is for the freelance. And then there is a separate app called ME.MOments, which is for clients. So just to separate it in that way for you. So we’ll start from ME.MO and we’ll go through those two versions very briefly for you. So the salon owner’s version is aimed at the salon owner will download the app really simply from App Store or Google Play.

[00:31:10] Gianni Scumaci: They will then invite their stylist. So let’s just say they’ve got five stylists in the salon. They’ll invite their stylist, which takes 30 seconds. And the stylist will download the app on their phone and join the salon owner’s invitation. And what

[00:31:24] Antony Whitaker: they see the same thing that the salon owner sees.

[00:31:28] Gianni Scumaci: not quite so the salon owner has the umbrella of the accounts and the stylists under the salon owner will have a mini version of they’ll only be limited to what they can see, but they’re under the salon owners umbrella.

[00:31:40] Gianni Scumaci: So this has been done just incidentally with 360 degree data protection, completely with the salon owners in mind. David who works with me he’s a salon owner. Has been for 30 years, very successful ones. So we have come together on this to really make sure this is nuts and bolts, bolts, and braces totally tied down to protect the salon owner.

[00:32:00] Gianni Scumaci: So what the salon owner will do as is invite the stylist. As I said, stylists will then have the app and so will the salon owner. That’s done. The salon, that step, that’s step one and two. And the third step, the final step is then the salon will. Invite their clients for free, um, with an extra service, uh, with the app, MeMoments.

[00:32:20] Gianni Scumaci: Send them the link and the, and the salon clients can download that app called MeMoments, if they wish. They don’t have to, by the way, but if they, let’s just go through this, this process. And they do, when the, the client downloads the app, um, she will look at it, uh, put her name and detail, uh, name and, uh, email and password in very simple, it’s 30 seconds.

[00:32:39] Gianni Scumaci: Then I’m going to look. For their stylist, which might be Antony in London, for example, at Antony’s salon, for example, it’ll come up and she’ll click on that and all of a sudden… There’s a stylist and the salon owner, the client pops up. So she’s on boarded herself. So there’s no work really for any of the hairdressers side to do that.

[00:32:58] Gianni Scumaci: The clients will onboard themselves and have this new moments app. So it’s a sister app basically. So that’s how the sets it’s that’s the three step setup. If the, if the client doesn’t want to. Uh, do that, because they might not want to when they come into the salon or they don’t see their email or message, the stylist can just show them a QR code on their phone, which is inbuilt in the app, and the client can just quickly scan it and do that same onboarding process there and then in the salon, it takes them 30 seconds.

[00:33:23] Gianni Scumaci: So that’s another way of doing it. So there’s, there’s various ways of, of onboarding.

[00:33:28] Antony Whitaker: So, so the stylist. The salon owner’s got it, the umbrella version, and they invite each of their stylists to join, and each stylist can only see their clients. They can’t see other people in the salon’s clients. Right, okay, and the stylist can make notes within the app. And then the stylist can invite their client through me moments.

[00:33:53] Antony Whitaker: Can the client see all of the notes that the stylist has made? They can’t.

[00:33:57] Antony Whitaker: Right.

[00:33:58] Gianni Scumaci: So, so just to help you

[00:33:59] Antony Whitaker: put anything. You

[00:34:00] Gianni Scumaci: can put anything. Yeah, don’t worry. I know. Absolutely not.

[00:34:02] Antony Whitaker: be careful.

[00:34:03] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah. Yeah. So no, we, oh, trust me. I’ve been working with it for five years now, four and a half years through the pandemic. So no, what you do just to give you that, uh, that process to answer your question is the stylist will take a picture of the client and make notes and the only option that they get is to share certain pictures with their clients.

[00:34:19] Gianni Scumaci: They don’t have to share all the pictures. They’ll just pick the ones that they want to and the client’s app all they see It’s just a visual diary of each visit photographically. That’s all they get, which is unbelievably powerful. Like clients who didn’t want to do this when they see another client doing it and they suddenly get to see that visual.

[00:34:38] Gianni Scumaci: Can you imagine having five years of imagery of your own, of your, of your life? Clients, they revalue the relationship with a stylist like you would never believe. It’s unbelievable. It’s really

[00:34:49] Antony Whitaker: all they, all they can see is images of their haircuts.

[00:34:52] Antony Whitaker: They

[00:34:53] Gianni Scumaci: a date.

[00:34:54] Antony Whitaker: the color formula and the date, right? So, so they can’t see color formulations. I can’t see

[00:34:58] Gianni Scumaci: They only see photographs,

[00:35:00] Gianni Scumaci: nothing else.

[00:35:00] Gianni Scumaci: and it’s completely geared around supporting the headrest behind the chair, and giving the client, the best services she can, or he can have, or they can have

[00:35:09] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, okay. All right, that’s interesting. And at the beginning, when you started talking about it, you said there were two versions of it. You said there’s one for the independent stylist and one for the salon owner. When you, when you were saying the independent stylist, because I know a lot of salon owners that are listening to this will be thinking, well, who owns the data?

[00:35:27] Antony Whitaker: If Gianni’s working for me as a stylist and he decides to leave, Okay. Does he take all that data with him? Uh, because if you’re an employed stylist, a salon owner might have a problem with that. Whereas if you were an independent stylist, um, self employed, then of course you can do that. So just talk to me about the, the, how, how that works.

[00:35:49] Gianni Scumaci: a great question. Thank you for asking me. So let’s go back to the salon owner and the employed staff. So, of course. Anyone who’s employed would have to ask the salon owner if they were happy to have this in the salon. It’s always the salon owner’s decision because it’s a cultural decision, of course, for the business.

[00:36:04] Gianni Scumaci: But assuming that the salon owner wants to go with it and we’re doing this as a salon owner perspective, the salon owner will have. Uh, a list of all the clients, of course, that are coming in the salon. And let’s just say Antony’s one of the, one of the stylists. And Antony’s got a full roster of clients over many months and years.

[00:36:20] Gianni Scumaci: And Antony decides that he wants to leave the salon and go somewhere else. The, first and foremost, just to point out that no data in the app. That’s emails or anything else Antony can see, he can only see the first letter and the last letter and a load of asterisks in between he gets no data. The salon owner on the other hand, gets to see all the data, but the stylist gets to see no data whatsoever.

[00:36:44] Gianni Scumaci: When Antony decides to leave. The salon owner can then suspend his account. So he then, Antony has nothing left. He can’t access any of the information that he has in the app. And the salon owner has, there’s a thing called a waiting room. This is the salon owner’s admin, their back end, and can put all of Antony’s clients into the waiting room.

[00:37:02] Gianni Scumaci: And then the salon owner can then decide where to distribute those clients to other stylists once Antony has left. So Antony might have a various amount of clients that. Johnny or Lucy might be able to take on, but what’s really great about that is it keeps the business as the client of the salon client, not the stylist client.

[00:37:20] Gianni Scumaci: Because when Antony leaves and those clients decide, uh, get distributed to other stylists, those stylists have the notes. And pictures of how Antony did the hair so the client can have a repeated version of what she got with Antony, but with the other stylists. So there’s a consistency and continuity there, if that makes sense.

[00:37:38] Gianni Scumaci: The same as if, just to say, same as Antony went off sick and couldn’t do his client for the day, the client’s covered because there’s a record there for her.

[00:37:46] Antony Whitaker: Okay. Um, so I’m trying to wear lots of different hats in this conversation. So if I’m the, if I’m the salon owner hat, who is, is, you know, paranoid about people, uh, taking clients and going elsewhere, then I’m going, Oh, this sounds very interesting. Uh, but now I’m going to put another hat on and that’s the hat of the client. If I’m the client, um, let’s be real here. The majority of clients, they have more loyalty to their stylist than they do to the business. So. You know, Gianni is my hairdresser, and Gianni’s left Antony’s salon, and I’m the client, Gianni usually cuts my hair, and I want to go with him, and I’m going to go, I’m going to move heaven or earth to go with him.

[00:38:25] Antony Whitaker: But now I’m really annoyed that all those pictures have gone. Does that happen for the client as well?

[00:38:30] Gianni Scumaci: Yep. The client, the client loses, the client loses it as well. So, so, so this is about the headresser. So it’s, you know, helping the client, but it’s in the, in the case of the salon owner, it’s protecting the salon owner’s business. That’s the emphasis on that. Now, if you were freelance, The freelance situation is a completely different scenario because of course it’s, it’s a simplified version of basically they’re your clients and they’ll go wherever you want to go.

[00:38:54] Gianni Scumaci: Um, and you know, quite frankly, we, one of the things that we’ve noticed, uh, when we soft launched earlier in the year is, you know, that the fact is, is that a stylist wants to steal their clients from the salon through social media in two clicks. They’ve got the

[00:39:08] Antony Whitaker: yeah, of course

[00:39:08] Gianni Scumaci: do it. We all know that.

[00:39:10] Gianni Scumaci: And so we really, we see the future of this as being on mobile phones. We don’t see this as a centralized iPad in the salon that everybody shares or behind the reception where they’re busy and it’s congested. It’s about empowering people and having it to hand at the time. And that’s. It’s really important to point out in this discussion that this is aimed at the mobile phone.

[00:39:28] Gianni Scumaci: You can run it off an iPad and you can run it off a different device, but really this works successfully. And we’ve had a wonderful hairdresser uh, Wendy Young in Australia, who’s been working with this for the last year and a half. And she’s been there for 36 years. Really successful. And this has been a game changer for her salon.

[00:39:46] Gianni Scumaci: what’s amazing, Antony, is that if, as you know, cause you’ve been a salon owner and you’re an expert in the field, of course, if you’re a salon owner and you’re on holiday. And you’re on the beach in Spain or Barbados or wherever you are, and you want to know how your salon is doing.

[00:39:59] Gianni Scumaci: What are you going to do? The only way to see how your salon is doing at that point, once you put your pina colada down, right? Is, you know, you look at the figures, don’t you? The only way you can see your business from a beach is figures. You’ve got no other, no one’s got any other way of seeing how the business is doing that day.

[00:40:16] Gianni Scumaci: Really. However, with this, with MeMo, they can visually see every client that walks out of the salon. And we’ve had it, where a salon owner has been away on holiday, had a look, seen the imagery, and then on the WhatsApp group said, Hey Tim, one of the guys was called Tim, great set of highlights you did on Mrs Jones at 10 o’clock.

[00:40:36] Gianni Scumaci: She looked fantastic. My favorite color of the day has been. It’s a motivational tool because it’s a visual overview of the business. It’s not just about, yes, of course, business is about money and figures, but there’s another side to this. There’s a cultural side about seeing the quality of the work. And also when stylists take pictures of their own work, they have to be accountable for it.

[00:40:56] Gianni Scumaci: And so that raises, uh, Wendy said it raised the, the, or you can’t quantify it in figures. She’s noticed the quality of the workers walked out of the salons is about, she thinks is about 25 to 30 percent higher than it has been before. And she said that the pride and the level of clients that get to see themselves before and after, she said, it’s like a gasping scenario.

[00:41:15] Gianni Scumaci: And so I’ve had it myself, you know, um, and I can tell you some stories, but that’s essentially how powerful the app can be. Yeah.

[00:41:26] Antony Whitaker: point of view, who has got, you know, a state of the art point of sale system. And they have always said to the stylist, you know, when you’re talking to, when you’re busy as a busy hairdresser, you need to take notes about people so that you can give them a great experience.

[00:41:44] Antony Whitaker: And I know a lot of stylists do this where they will. Uh, and so this is done within the point-of-sale system. So, you know, Mary is the client and they will go to Mary’s file in the point-of-sale system and they’ll go. You know, um, Mary came in, she’s going a lot about a lot of our people going on holiday. she’s going on holiday in a couple of weeks, you know, don’t forget to ask her how her holiday was or whatever it is. I mean, I’m sure people get the idea of what I’m doing. The point-of-sale system currently serves that purpose in terms of taking those notes. It currently serves that purpose in terms of Depending on the point-of-sale system, you’ve got in terms of updating color records.

[00:42:25] Antony Whitaker: Um, and perhaps as a salon owner, you also have a color management, uh, software system. Um, so I’m asking myself as a salon owner, how does this replace? Or replicate things I’ve already got. Do I really need it? Because I can definitely see there’s some differences here.

[00:42:47] Antony Whitaker: So, so talk to me about that. What, what does it replace?

[00:42:51] Gianni Scumaci: what we found is, um, what we found is that these, the booking platforms that are out there, the ones that you’ve mentioned are the point of sale or the software. First of all, they’re often centralized in the reception or one device in the computer because of control or the illusion of control, should I say.

[00:43:08] Gianni Scumaci: Um. And they’re not hairdresser friendly, those systems are based, their priority is based around the booking of the, the booking of the appointments and they’re not friendly in terms of easy to access, looking at it visually, Making those notes straight away, you have to scroll down that they’re not as, um, friendly and accessible, whereas this is dedicated specifically to give those notes and prompts to the hairdresser instantly in one place.

[00:43:35] Gianni Scumaci: And it’s not, and also those systems aren’t that easy to separate individuals from the team. And so this really gives that individual hairdresser, whether it’s a self-employed or an employed. That, that power in their hands straight away. It’s, it’s, um, I really wanted this to be very visual and easy for hairdresser to use.

[00:43:55] Gianni Scumaci: And I tend to find those systems are a little bit clogged up and clunky, uh, you know, most of the time, and this is aimed around imagery as well, um, where you see those imagery and you can flick through them. it’s the priority of this is separated from the booking platform. It’s purely about the little black book and it’s six-star service.

[00:44:13] Antony Whitaker: yeah, I’m, I’m really liking that distinction again, as you talk about that with the Dictaphone component.

[00:44:21] Gianni Scumaci: Yes, I mean

[00:44:22] Antony Whitaker: know, the visual element and talk to it. So there’s the visual and I’m going to talk to it. Cause that’s what hairdressers do,

[00:44:28] Gianni Scumaci: Let me, let me, let me just be really transparent. Let’s just go into real time for a second. Right. I’m fully booked in the salon. This is me. I go, I’m going to talk for myself because this is the truth. Um, the, the demonstration of the app is actually my memo. We’ve had to blur out the clients for data protection, but one client agreed to have it done.

[00:44:48] Gianni Scumaci: So the actual demo that you’ll see in the link that we’ll maybe leave below is actually my memo. And what I, what I find is, and this is what’s happened to me is that the client comes in. And if I don’t, having used it, if I don’t use it, I’m really, I feel quite insecure because even after two months, I go back to London every two months.

[00:45:05] Gianni Scumaci: I cannot remember the exact length that I’ve chosen because in two months, I can’t remember the detail of exactly where I place the hair. And so what what I tend to do is when the client comes in, I get the picture. I’ve already on the way to work. I’m already looking at my days. I’m already pre visualizing, you know, um, the most successful hairdressers.

[00:45:23] Gianni Scumaci: That we’ve all met pre visualized like a racing driver the day, the day before, but even before technology, this is not a new concept in terms of the way that you approach it. But the way that the technology now that we have, I actually, the client looks at the picture. I showed them what we did before. We decide to change or stay with, or however we go through the consultation.

[00:45:43] Gianni Scumaci: But once we finished, my hands are usually full of some form of product. I’m usually running late. My next client’s waiting. They’re waiting to leave. And so as they get up out of the chair, and I’ve taken my, I’ve snapped the pictures really quickly before and after, um, as they leave, I then go quickly into my phone.

[00:45:59] Gianni Scumaci: I click on and just say, and reel off the information from the, from the appointment. I had a client she was a brand-new client. And she came in and she was losing weight. And she said, I’ve decided I’ve given up sugar. I’m not eating chocolate. She said it very briefly in the intro, but emotionally, I could pick it up.

[00:46:18] Gianni Scumaci: That’s where she was at. And I made a note in ME.MO about the, the, the sweetener she was using. She came back the second time. I always find the second visit of a client the most difficult. Um, and when she came in, I said to my assistant at the time when I had one, I said, don’t bring her through to me until I’ve, until I’ve spoken to her at the waiting area and we delivered a cup of tea and I went out for 99 pence and bought the sweeteners and delivered to her.

[00:46:46] Gianni Scumaci: without seeing her first assistant took it to her. And it’s those details that she’s not going anywhere else because she remembered. How I could never have done that. And, you know, I don’t care how many, if the busier the stylist is, the less they’re going to remember. And, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s really the power of it behind it.

[00:47:06] Gianni Scumaci: And so it’s, the Dictaphone is really quick because you just quickly say

[00:47:09] Gianni Scumaci: it

[00:47:09] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I

[00:47:10] Gianni Scumaci: it, you know, it’s brilliant. Even, even, even, even with greasy hands.

[00:47:15] Antony Whitaker: You will know that I’m sold on a Dictaphone because of our WhatsApp messages. They’re all Dictaphone.

[00:47:20] Gianni Scumaci: Love it. I love it. It’s just like star skinned hood.

[00:47:23] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, exactly. Um, I was thinking about something while you were talking, uh, that what the client has is still images or video or potentially both,

[00:47:35] Gianni Scumaci: Both, they can have still, still images, um, or the videos that you take, you can, so what difficult, I know listeners listening to this, uh, obviously haven’t got it in front of them, but bottom line is when you, when I’ve taken six pictures or eight, six pictures in a video view, for example, of, of you, I then, they pop up my screen in the app and I can tick which ones I share and just press share.

[00:47:56] Gianni Scumaci: If I don’t want to take any, I don’t, and they don’t get them. It’s really easy. Simple. And then within seconds, the client, the client’s in the chair and they, now my clients wait for them to come through. By the time I’ve got the gown off, you know, it takes about 30 seconds and they’ve got them before they leave the salon.

[00:48:10] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Interesting. There’s a, uh, I don’t know who started doing this, but I, I think it was a gentleman by the name of Sam via. I don’t know if you know, Sam, but he. Often talks about one of the things that he does, uh, with, uh, salon clients is he will say to them, um, you know, give me your phone and he’ll put it on a tripod and he’ll blow dry their hair and he’ll show them and give them a, a lesson on blow drying your hair, uh, in real time as he’s finishing their hair in the saddle.

[00:48:41] Antony Whitaker: This is a product to use. This is how much of it. This is how you apply it. You comb it through, yada, yada. And. I think that’s a great idea, uh, in terms of educating the client and obviously the opportunities at the same time as you’re subliminally recommending retail products. And so that’s why I was asking you, is it for still images only or is it for video?

[00:49:00] Antony Whitaker: Because there’s a big difference between. Big difference. What Sam is doing is he is saying, give me your phone, the client’s phone, and he puts it on the tripod and let’s record this. Um, and that’s great. So now that’s saved in their photos library. But what you are saying is, is that you’ve actually created a bucket for it as part of your Salon journey app, that this is the haircut, this is what the end result looks like.

[00:49:25] Antony Whitaker: This is how you dry it, this is how you use styling products. It’s great. I love it. It’s,

[00:49:29] Antony Whitaker: it’s really

[00:49:30] Gianni Scumaci: um, yeah, Sam, obviously an amazing, fantastic force in the industry. What a great guy. Um, I don’t know him personally, but, um, that’s a great thing. And what we wanted to do, what we’ve noticed though, we found is that how many clients come in and they say, Oh, I’ve seen this picture that I love. And then they get the phone out and you’ve lost, you’re losing five minutes for them to find in their phone, their imagery, because it’s lost in there.

[00:49:53] Gianni Scumaci: We wanted to centralize it so it’s all in the same place so you can turn to it quickly and get it. And one of the other things that [00:50:00] we do, and what I’ve done is we take a video. I video the sectioning patterns that I do. And then I can fade it to finish as well. I’ve got a client, one comes to mind where I put a little wave in the front and she always says, I can never do that like you do it.

[00:50:12] Gianni Scumaci: So I. Obviously recommended the right product, the right flat, uh, clips to put in and what to do. And I, I’ve videoed it and shared it on her me moments, but then I’ve got it to share to my assistant who can see it as well. So it’s a really good training tool, you know, for, for, for that in that sense, but keeping it all in the same place is, is really critical.

[00:50:33] Gianni Scumaci: Um, and that to me is, uh, you know, if you look through some of the ones that I have, you will see me pointing at bits in pictures because I had a client who had been doing for 25 years and her hair went gray during the pandemic, like most of our clients did, and when she came back, Antony, I struggled. Uh, she, I did her hair the first time, and she liked it when she left the salon.

[00:50:52] Gianni Scumaci: When she came back, she said, I didn’t like it, it didn’t work. And it was out here. And I was, I was, I was quite taken aback because I wasn’t expecting that. So I apologize, you know, and I was really, I thought, Whoa, I haven’t had that feeling, you know, for a little while. So I got down to the second haircut, she came back in the same problem.

[00:51:07] Gianni Scumaci: And now I’m, now I’m on the ropes. Now I’m really struggling. And it turned out that the hair, cause of the coarseness of her hair had expanded and the layers were too short for that, that texture. So I had to leave the layers longer. I won’t get too technical on the podcast,

[00:51:19] Antony Whitaker: mm

[00:51:19] Gianni Scumaci: what I then did on the third haircut.

[00:51:22] Gianni Scumaci: When I, when I worked it out was I photographed my fingers where the layer is the top of her ear. And so the next time she comes in I know where I’m going and that gives me great. It saves me time and gives me great confidence but gives her confidence as well so that’s just an

[00:51:34] Antony Whitaker: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good. Okay. Listen, we need to, we need to wrap up, but, uh, obvious question is, well, what does this cost if I’m a, if I’m a hairdresser or salon owner? Uh, what, what does, the cost component.

[00:51:45] Antony Whitaker: How does that look?

[00:51:46] Gianni Scumaci: Well we’ve wanted to make this as accessible as we possibly could. So essentially, it’s very simple for for a salon owner for one salon, regardless of the amount of staff that they have whether it’s one or. 20 stylist plus, whatever. Uh, it’s 14. 99. And that 14. 99 is in pounds if you’re in the UK, it’s in euros if you’re in Europe, it’s in dollars if you’re in, uh, North America, for example, or in Canada, it’s Canadian.

[00:52:15] Gianni Scumaci: So it’s, it’s 14. 99 per month. for freelancers, it’s 9. 99 a month. Um, again, respective currencies, all the same.

[00:52:24] Antony Whitaker: So, so it’s 14. 99 for a salon, whether you’ve got two staff or 22 staff.

[00:52:31] Gianni Scumaci: Correct.

[00:52:32] Antony Whitaker: Really? Okay.

[00:52:33] Gianni Scumaci: Yeah, I mean, I mean, it’s obviously it’s a no brainer. We’re not, we, I’ll be honest with you.

[00:52:38] Gianni Scumaci: We, we give a two-month free trial as well. And the reason for that is that the only hurdle that we find that people need to step through is just to make sure that they begin the discipline of taking the data in at the very beginning of each client. So they just get used to doing that first visit, that first visit, taking notes and taking a picture.

[00:52:56] Gianni Scumaci: That’s it. Just the ones, because it’s not something they’re used to doing. But the minute that the client returns, Boom. The magic happens. Most apps in the world, whether it’s a fitness app, a diet app, you get instance, uh, gratification the minute you use the app, this is when the client walks back through the door.

[00:53:13] Gianni Scumaci: It’s a game changer, an absolute game changer. So it’s a two month free trial to allow stylists a chance to. To put the data in and take the picture and use the notes. So when that client comes back, as we use two months as a general, you know, come back time varies, obviously,

[00:53:27] Gianni Scumaci: And, and we, we really wanted to make this easy for people to use and affordable.

[00:53:33] Antony Whitaker: Okay. And when will it be in the App Store or, you know, Google? When will people be able to access it?

[00:53:40] Gianni Scumaci: It’s currently in the App Store and Google Play as we speak. So although we are actually, uh, we’re doing some final tweaking, um, but people are still using the app when we soft launched it, we’re officially launching it in January,

[00:53:51] Gianni Scumaci: And by January, we’ll be ready to go. Uh, publicly, so, um, I’m really excited to, to do that, but it’s, it’s available, um, the best way you, it’d be difficult to find, as you pointed out on those app stores at the moment, because it’s just brand new, and we haven’t raised up the rankings, but if we have QR codes and links, and that’s the best way, but it also has its own Instagram page as well, so you’ll be able to, either way, be able to click on links or QR codes for now.

[00:54:15] Gianni Scumaci: And then in the new year, hopefully we’ll be having a bit more of a presence.

[00:54:19] Antony Whitaker: All right. So, uh, where can people connect with you on Instagram or other social media channels, uh, for, for Gianni or for ME.MO, where do we want to send people?

[00:54:31] Gianni Scumaci: Well, my Instagram is Gianni Scumaci, um, and on, in my bio, there’ll be two links. One is to my online business and one is to ME.MO. So that’ll be on there. Um, so that you can click on there and ME.MO has its own Instagram handle as well. And so you can, you can check both out and access it that way. There’s also a website to it as well.

[00:54:51] Gianni Scumaci: Uh, that would be the easiest and quickest way to find them. No,

[00:55:06] Antony Whitaker: and leave us a rating and review on the Apple podcast app. I will put, uh, all those links that, uh, Gianni just said, I, they will be in the show notes for today’s podcast.

[00:55:16] Antony Whitaker: And, uh, if. There’s a QR code, Then I’ll also put that there so that you can, uh, find out exactly what this is all about and, get that, that free trial to see how it fits in with your salon and your culture. But it sounds like an absolute, game changer to me.

[00:55:31] Antony Whitaker: I wish you all the very best with it. I’ve sort of seen, uh, some of it and the bits that I’ve seen, uh, just look fantastic. It’s beautifully designed. And I think it does open up an area that wasn’t being addressed before. So, uh, it’s not necessarily replacing something it’s a niche in its own right.

[00:55:50] Antony Whitaker: So, Gianni, thank you so much for being on the Grow My Salon business podcast. It’s been great, um, having this chat to you again and, and getting the, the sort of scoop on the ME.MO app. Um, any final words before we wrap up?

[00:56:05] Gianni Scumaci: I, I, I’m humbled that you’ve invited me back on. Thank you so much for having me. Um, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you and, um, I hope, uh, my passionate ramblings haven’t bored the listeners.

[00:56:17] Antony Whitaker: No, not at all. It’s been very interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed it myself. So thanks again.

[00:56:21] Gianni Scumaci: Thank you.

[00:56:22] Antony Whitaker: 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 enjoy 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