– Episode 239Richard Ashforth

Episode 239: Transcript

GMSB 239

[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: Hey, it’s Antony Whitaker here and welcome to today’s episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast. As always, it’s great to have you here with us today. Now, in case you don’t already know, video versions of our podcast are now available on our YouTube channel. So if you want to put faces to the names, then head on over to Grow My Salon Business on YouTube and like and subscribe to the channel.

[00:00:53] Antony Whitaker: Now, my guest today is hairdresser, Richard Ashforth, co-owner of the 10 SACO Salons and Academies in several different countries. In today’s podcast, we’re going to discuss what some of the cultural differences are around how salons operate in different countries and how that can inspire us as our businesses continually evolve.

[00:01:14] Antony Whitaker: We’re also going to talk about NOISE, the guerrilla event that Richard hosts in various global locations, and the challenges in training today, and lots more.

[00:01:27] Antony Whitaker: So, without further ado, welcome to the show, Richard.

[00:01:30] Richard Ashforth: Hi, Antony. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

[00:01:33] Antony Whitaker: Oh, it’s a pleasure. as we were saying before I push the record button, um, this has been a long time coming. We, we sort of talked about you coming on my podcast in 2017.

[00:01:43] Richard Ashforth: Yes.

[00:01:43] Antony Whitaker: So it’s, you know, seven years since we finally made it happen. So it’s really

[00:01:48] Richard Ashforth: A lot, a lot’s happened in those seven years as well,

[00:01:50] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, it has, hasn’t it? Imagine if you could possibly have known what was going to go on in the world in the last seven years.

[00:01:56] Antony Whitaker: So who knows what the next seven years holds? Anyway, let’s, uh, let’s jump in now. I’m always interested in the ever-changing business models and different ways of working in the industry. And I’m intrigued by SACO because you have partnerships and salons in multiple different countries. So, let me ask you this.

[00:02:18] Antony Whitaker: What do you see in one country? So, you know, I know you’re in Canada, you’re in France, you’re in the UK, you’re in Hong Kong, et cetera. So, so what do you see in one country, whether it’s about training or pay or apprenticeships or environmental stuff or technology or products or pricing, anything, what do you see that you look at and you go, wow, we should be doing that in fill in the blank

[00:02:42] Richard Ashforth: Hmm. I mean, it’s a great question to, to kick off with. I would probably say just off the bat, obviously it’s not as a, as a business owner, it’s not a natural or probably not a very sensible business strategy to start opening, in different countries.

[00:03:01] Richard Ashforth: and you know, the, the usual route is you would grow in one, one area, wouldn’t you?

[00:03:06] Richard Ashforth: Maybe open a few salons and then maybe branch out to another city close by. ’cause that makes, perfect sense that you can support that business. easily and, yeah, and, you know, pull your

[00:03:18] Antony Whitaker: move team members about

[00:03:20] Richard Ashforth: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But really the way our business has grown has just been a sort of a very organic, um, way of sort of developing the business.

[00:03:29] Richard Ashforth: And it’s really people that have come to me, and said, Oh, we love what you’re doing. We like your story and we’d like to be a part of it. and that person might be from Scandinavia or they might be from Asia or they might be from North America. And that’s really how the business has grown. And it’s, you know, it’s never really been strategized.

[00:03:49] Richard Ashforth: We’ve never really thought about, Oh, we really want to be in that market. I mean, of course we look at markets when they kind of pop up and it’s proposed to us and we’ve not always said yes, um, But the ones that I think are interesting, that are fun, and they’re with people I want to work with, really, because it’s, you know, however way you chop this up, it’s a people business, you know,

[00:04:12] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:13] Richard Ashforth: me, that’s really important who I’m working with.

[00:04:15] Antony Whitaker: okay. Well, I’m going to ask you more about the business model side of it later, but I just, I was just curious when I saw, you know, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, UK, France, I thought, wow, because I travel a lot, you travel a lot, or I certainly did travel a lot pre COVID days.

[00:04:33] Antony Whitaker: And I would often go to different countries and I’d reflect on the way that hairdressing was perceived in those countries, that it was different. And the way they did their training was different. And, the way they operated the opening hours, uh, pretty much everything. So I, I thought when I was, doing a bit of research about SACO, I thought, well, that would be a really interesting question to ask you

[00:04:54] Antony Whitaker: Do those salons learn from each other? Not about cutting and coloring hair, but do they learn from each other different business practices? What do you learn different business practices and and sort of see something they do in Korea and go, wow, that would be an amazing thing to do in a London salon.

[00:05:13] Antony Whitaker: I mean, I’m really thinking on my feet here, but I’m thinking about are often the Asian countries. are really good at massage, for example. They’re really good at doing little customer service touches to create a different client experience. Is there anything in those areas that sort of stand out

[00:05:31] Richard Ashforth: I think lots of things, and typically they’re, they’re, they tend to be small things because

[00:05:35] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:36] Richard Ashforth: culturally things are quite fixed, aren’t they, I guess, but those small things, like you mentioned, things like head massages, something absolutely that we implement here that, we didn’t have, um, before we had a sort of an Asian connection, if you like, and I think lots of ways of structuring training, I think that’s, that’s interchangeable.

[00:05:57] Richard Ashforth: I think just different little things we might do for clients in one country that, you know, we, we’d not thought of in another country, they’re easily sort of interchangeable ideas and, and, you know, they’re very easy to, um, to integrate into your business, aren’t they as well. So, so definitely on that front, I think yes.

[00:06:20] Richard Ashforth: Um, but in terms of, what’s demanded, you know, culturally, locally, I think that’s, they’re very unique to particular countries, which makes them fantastic the fact that, you know, Hong Kong’s open till nearly midnight, two nights a week and,

[00:06:36] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:06:38] Richard Ashforth: and, um, and, in, in the United States, there’s, far less holiday taking, for example, which is a big difference.

[00:06:47] Richard Ashforth: Um, and sometimes quite hard for certainly Europeans to understand, you know, particularly if you’re French and you’re used to lots of holidays and, you know. not such crazy working hours and, things, things like that seem quite strange, but I think that it’s quite interesting that we all get a little flavor of what makes another business tick and how another country operates, or, we’re all sharing the same profession.

[00:07:17] Richard Ashforth: So,

[00:07:18] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:19] Richard Ashforth: getting an insight into the North American business and. how the, the amazing things that, um, North America does in terms of the appetite for education and things like that, as you were mentioning earlier, it’s something that, maybe, um, it’s, it’s hugely interesting to an Asian community, where things are run very differently, you know, there’s a, there’s a lot of, self-employment over there, you know, less sort of team orientated activities and things like that.

[00:07:49] Richard Ashforth: So.

[00:07:49] Antony Whitaker: Okay. So one of the things, uh, you just mentioned North America, for example, and so, you know, in the UK, for example, most trainees do an apprenticeship, whereas in the United States, most of them don’t do an apprenticeship they go to beauty school. So for you having salons and, in Canada and the UK and Hong Kong and Denmark, et cetera, uh, you obviously sort of grapple with different systems that are imposed on you to whatever degree, uh, just by culturally and legally what they do in those countries.

[00:08:21] Antony Whitaker: So, so what do you find works best? You know, do you look at the apprenticeship and think that’s what they should have everywhere? Or do you look at like a beauty school model and go, this is what they should have everywhere because there’s nothing like someone who’s got a foot in both camps to be able to make those, you know, judgment calls.

[00:08:39] Richard Ashforth: Yeah I’m I think that there are definite pros and cons to, to all methods, if I’m really honest with you, and especially now I’ll find that more relevant now. I think if you’d have asked me that 10 years ago, I would have definitely said, Oh, doing this salon apprenticeship, being immersed in a team and, learning from the ground up,

[00:08:58] Richard Ashforth: um, is by far and away the best way to embrace a mindset and a culture. I think now looking at that 10 years later, I think there’s huge benefits to, going through a sort of a cosmetology schooling, and developing a culture for learning, which I think perhaps has dropped off in the other system, the more familiar system to me anyway, as a salon apprentice, a salon assistant.

[00:09:27] Richard Ashforth: And I think as I’ve got older, I think I’ve, I really do appreciate, the commitment to learning, you know, as our apprentices have got older, uh, in the business. I’m not sure what it’s like generally across the world. Um, but certainly in our business, we found. without too much exception that apprentices are getting older.

[00:09:50] Richard Ashforth: We’re not looking to recruit 16-year-olds anymore. Great if we can, but there are few and far between. Um, so just somebody who’s coming at it with the right attitude.

[00:10:01] Richard Ashforth: Um, but I think the thing that will ultimately give you, you know, if you’re committed to the longer, journey, then that appetite for learning is, uh, is central to it.

[00:10:12] Richard Ashforth: So, you know, and I, I think that’s well developed in, in beauty school environments. I think that’s, um, there’s a, there’s, you certainly learn the joy of learning, you know,

[00:10:21] Antony Whitaker: so, you don’t sort of see that there’s one way of doing things, that, oh my god, this is how it should be done everywhere, you’re sort of saying there’s for’s and against everywhere, no matter, no matter where you are, there’s little, little distinctions, um, in every salon and every sort of cultural thing, but there’s nothing that sort of stands out as being, um, this is the way it should be done.

[00:10:44] Richard Ashforth: No, I, I, for me exactly that. I think it’s just, it’s about a culture. It’s about developing a culture and instilling, um, an attitude in people. And I think if, if that’s done the right way. uh, an early stage, then I think it’s great and it works in, in every sort of format, if you like, in every location.

[00:11:04] Antony Whitaker: yeah. So in, in your career path in the UK over the last, you know, 10 years or whatever, been a big shift towards more self-employed, um, and likewise, big shift in the, in the U S as well. Uh, and Australia is sort of starting

[00:11:21] Antony Whitaker: everywhere. There seems to be a move towards, uh, more independence, more self-employed.

[00:11:26] Antony Whitaker: Uh, are you seeing that and cross all the countries that you’re in?

[00:11:30] Richard Ashforth: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, whether that’s, you know, Europe or, or Asia or

[00:11:37] Antony Whitaker: Asia or North America.

[00:11:38] Richard Ashforth: I think for me in North America, it’s always been a thing, um, to, to a greater or lesser degree, I think we were a little bit behind in that, that sort of attitude and that approach certainly in Europe.

[00:11:48] Richard Ashforth: Um, but yes, that’s changed and it brings with it all sorts of challenges, doesn’t it? As we,

[00:11:54] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:55] Richard Ashforth: know, I guess we’ve got a lot of salon owners out there who, we’re experiencing the very same thing, you know, how to, how to navigate that, you know?

[00:12:04] Antony Whitaker: Well, the interesting thing, it’s different things that are driving it. in the UK, it’s very largely being driven by the impact of the, uh, the tax. You know, the tax threshold, the VAT threshold. That’s what’s driving it in this country. Uh, it’s not, it’s obviously not being driven by that in the United States.

[00:12:23] Antony Whitaker: It’s more of that sort of entrepreneurial thing. Um, uh, more of that sort of Gen Z, I want freedom and flexibility. So the, the end result is the same is that there is a huge increase in self-employed, uh, in the 64 percent is something I’ve read recently. Uh, in the U S it’s probably higher than that again.

[00:12:44] Antony Whitaker: Um, and, but yeah, I’m curious as to, you know, what drives it in different places. A lot of it is a generational thing. It’s a Gen Z thing, uh, without a doubt. Obviously, you’ve got Gen Z all over the world. Um, let’s just go back a little bit and give some sort of overview of SACO. So there’s, you know, about 10 salons, academies, uh, they’re in 10 different countries.

[00:13:06] Antony Whitaker: Uh, you’re the co-founder, uh, with, uh, Aldo. He’s your business partner and your head office is based in Canada, in Montreal. Is that correct?

[00:13:16] Richard Ashforth: Yeah, that’s right. So we, yeah, we started in London, um, and Montreal, almost simultaneously with a sort of a salon, academy in each location. Um, and yeah, and then we’ve grown out from there. So, Aldo takes care of the, um, business side of things and I take care of the, sort of, the creative, the hair part, if you like.

[00:13:37] Richard Ashforth: Aldo is a hairdresser though, um, and he’s, you know, arguably, arguably more passionate about hair than I am. I think, he’s, he loves

[00:13:47] Antony Whitaker: that takes some.

[00:13:48] Richard Ashforth: yeah, yeah,

[00:13:49] Richard Ashforth: you know, for, I know, certainly for him, he’s, he’s very immersed in, in hair and hairdressing and the business side of things. So, yeah, he loves it.

[00:13:57] Antony Whitaker: Well, that’s good. That’s a good combination.

[00:13:59] Antony Whitaker: Um,

[00:13:59] Antony Whitaker: yeah, okay. Um, when we talk about education, obviously the last four years have been, you know, there’s been a bit of upheaval around that,

[00:14:09] Antony Whitaker: uh,

[00:14:09] Antony Whitaker: pre-2020. Well, 2019, you were hopping on an airplane every five minutes and, and, you know, flitting about to different countries. Obviously, there was a couple of years there where that couldn’t happen.

[00:14:20] Antony Whitaker: Um, has that resumed or has the uptake in online education, enabled you to do a lot more of that online? Because as you said a minute ago, It’s been rather an unusual way to grow a business because when you’re spread around different continents like that, if you’re trying to standardize training, and it means you flying everywhere and staying in hotels, et cetera, you can burn through a lot of cash that way.

[00:14:44] Antony Whitaker: Uh, whereas if you had, you know, 10 salons in one city, you can get everyone together to a central location for education. Um, so. You, like me, were sort of forced into online education, um, the last two or three years. Um, to what degree have you continued that for your own brand?

[00:15:05] Richard Ashforth: I think it’s a good, it’s a great question. It’s something that is pretty significant as a, you know, as an educational brand, um, for us. And yes, pre COVID I did spend at minimum six months traveling, um, which, which was tough to be fair. That’s probably down to three, four months now, um, which is much more manageable.

[00:15:28] Richard Ashforth: So it’s, it’s a big tick on that front. Um, we do manage to do more online training. Um, I think it’s still, the in-person training is still vital though. I think to go fully online for me, for our business is not, um, it’s not viable, um, but to do some aspects of the training, maybe even 50 percent of it via online classes, whether that’s sort of global classes that everybody can join in, in together, uh, or whether it’s specific to a, a team and, and their particular journey that they’re on.

[00:16:07] Richard Ashforth: We do a little bit of both. So, um, for me, that’s, it’s worked out very nicely in that sense. I think trying to monetize online education is a little bit different and quite difficult these days. I think just in the global sort of marketplace of education, COVID changed things quite a lot, um, in terms of, um, people just giving education away rather than charging for education.

[00:16:37] Richard Ashforth: So people who made a living from education, such as myself, um, and now coming up against, not coming up against, that’s the wrong, that’s the wrong sort of phrase, but now, um, working alongside people that can dip in and out of education, um, who can present things when they feel they’ve got something to offer.

[00:16:58] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:00] Richard Ashforth: They can just, they can drop that online. I think the biggest challenge for me is to be honest with you. It’s about the detail and the quality and the education and what I don’t particularly like is a one-minute tutorial on how to do a color or how to do a haircut that

[00:17:17] Richard Ashforth:  that people have become very accustomed to consuming and thinking that’s where, how they’re getting their educational fix.

[00:17:24] Richard Ashforth: Um, and that includes my teams included, you know. That they might look at things online and go, okay, that’s the sectioning pattern. That’s where she pulled the hair to that’s, you

[00:17:36] Antony Whitaker: Done and dusted

[00:17:37] Richard Ashforth: Done and dusted

[00:17:37] Richard Ashforth:  I’ve got a new technique for me. Yes. Maybe, maybe in the very broadest sense, that is a new technique, but the, all the nuances that go along with a haircut and the chore and how you make the choices about where the section it goes and where, how you made the choice about the length and the texture, uh, are all very, all that minutia.

[00:18:00] Richard Ashforth: It’s for me, that’s where the value in education lies, you know,

[00:18:04] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. with your team, you know, like any team of people, salon team, you’re going to have a big, diverse age range. So, I’m thinking about the online education bit here. And I’m thinking to myself, well, I wonder if those young 20 somethings, you know, uh, because they’ve been born into, Gen Z, they’ve been born with an iPhone in their hand.

[00:18:30] Antony Whitaker: They’re very used to an online world. Have they adapted better to online learning? Whether we’re talking about your team or people that you train for, have they adapted better to it and continue with it more than, say, someone who might be in their, you know, mid late 30s or whatever? Is that, do you notice any difference there?

[00:18:49] Richard Ashforth: Yeah, absolutely. I was, I was gonna, I was actually just about to lead on to that and just say that with our team, I noticed that the younger people within our teams respond very well to that shorter educational kind of messages, but obviously not, not within a minute. try and do them within 10, 15 minutes, rather than stretching it out to a two-hour class,

[00:19:12] Richard Ashforth: I think is, is, is great for them and that the feedback I get constantly is that’s, that’s great.

[00:19:19] Richard Ashforth: Then they really enjoy those sorts of short bursts of education and doing that more frequently rather than a monthly class that lasts two hours.

[00:19:28] Richard Ashforth: Let’s do. fortnightly classes that last, you know, 30 minutes or whatever it may be, you know,

[00:19:34] Antony Whitaker: yeah, yeah, got it.

[00:19:35] Richard Ashforth: so, but yeah, I think that, certainly the older, the older generation appreciate conversation.

[00:19:42] Richard Ashforth: They appreciate discussing the, you know, the details, um, a little bit more and, and getting into the ins and outs of a particular technique and a haircut and the choices you make in along the way, whereas I think, you know, the younger audience will, uh, much more. sort of adept to taking it on face value.

[00:20:04] Richard Ashforth: And therefore, it’s my responsibility to make sure I include those details. I’m not waiting for the questions to pop up.

[00:20:10] Richard Ashforth: I’m having to bullet point everything to make sure that we’re, we’re all the touch points are there. Um, so they’re walking away, you know, in that, after that 30-minute class with the technique, the information, a fact sheet, you know, things like that, that they can then.

[00:20:26] Richard Ashforth: You know, have a look over, come back to me if you’ve got any questions. So just, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s a different animal, isn’t it?

[00:20:32] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, it is. And it’s a different type of work today than what it was 10 or 20 years ago, but I’m going to come to that at the end. I wanted to ask you about NOISE. A lot of people won’t know what NOISE is. A lot of people will know what NOISE is. Perhaps they know what it is, but they don’t know that you were the person that was or is behind that NOISE events.

[00:20:54] Antony Whitaker: So, do you want to just tell us about NOISE and what’s happened to it and, you know, where it’s going? Because as you’ve alluded to, COVID sort of had a big impact on a lot of things and live events was one of those things that

[00:21:06] Richard Ashforth: yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:21:07] Antony Whitaker: a kick back. So, yeah, tell us about NOISE and where it’s come from and where it’s going.

[00:21:12] Richard Ashforth: Yeah. Okay. Well, so, um, 2012 and we’re in London and we are getting set to do, um, the big trade show in London at the, uh, Excel center in the east end of London. It’s called Salon International. So I’m sure many people are aware of that really amazing event. Um, and it’s something that I grew up with, you know, as a, as a kid.

[00:21:35] Richard Ashforth: British hairdresser, big focal point in the calendar. Um, and SACO are doing some seminars there. We have a seminar room. We’re running four or five seminars over the weekend. Uh, we’ve got a stand on the show floor. We’re doing the, um, alternative hair show, which is a big charity event that happens on the Sunday evening of that weekend every year.

[00:21:59] Richard Ashforth: And I looked at that and we’re super involved in it, but I was a bit deflated and a little bit, um, looking at it with a bit of trepidation. I wasn’t feeling very excited by You know, the, the amount of models we’ve got to find and da, da, da, da, and all the work that was, all the work was ahead. And I sort of felt like I was missing something central to work for me, which is the sort of the excitement of being creative and change, you know, I think that’s the fundamental thing.

[00:22:25] Richard Ashforth: I think I was looking at it and going, Oh, here we go again. It’s great. And, you know, I will, you know, give it my all, but it would be nice if there was something different. And I think at the time I was moaning to my wife about, Oh, here we go. it’s all about to start. And, um, you know, I wish it was different or I can’t remember.

[00:22:46] Richard Ashforth: It was a long time ago now. But she basically just said to me, you know, if, why don’t you just do something, don’t moan about it. Just go and do something, you know enough people go and do something fun then, you know, and at that time, that year we’d done a, uh, a collaborative collection.

[00:23:04] Richard Ashforth: SACO had done a collaborative collection with some friends of mine called Expression from Spain.

[00:23:08] Richard Ashforth: So, who had no, they not had any platform in the UK at all. And so, uh, we invited them over to our stage that we had at Sarno International, our seminar room, and we gave them a slot on that we had a two hour seminar or whatever it was, and I gave them half an hour on that.

[00:23:24] Richard Ashforth: We did half an hour of the collaborative bit, SACO did an hour, and we gave them half an hour just to, because they’re great guys, they do amazing work, and I thought people should see what they did. Um, so they were already in town. My sort of great friend and mentor, um, yours probably too, Tim Hartley, is somebody I’m constantly in contact with.

[00:23:44] Richard Ashforth: And, um, my friend, good friend, Peter Gray, who I sort of did my training with at Sassoon many years ago. I knew he was going to be in town, so I just called them up. I knew I’ve got expression here. I called Tim up and said, I’m thinking of doing this like a sort of a guerrilla show. Are you in? And he went, absolutely.

[00:24:02] Richard Ashforth: And, um, phone Peter up. He’s, he, I got the same feedback. And so I decided to do it all by social media, set up a page, didn’t tell anybody where the location was until two hours before the show. Um, let everything drip feed some clues about the general area, et cetera. and that’s how we did it. And, um, the, you know, the first year was, uh, I didn’t charge any entry, just funded it myself.

[00:24:30] Richard Ashforth: Um, we, we’d actually hired a derelict, photo studio to do it in. And I, we bought loads of booze. We were going to try and sort of break-even selling booze, you know, like in that sort of the old school rave things where you have to sell a raffle ticket and, you know, for your raffle ticket, every raffle ticket wins a beer or whatever, you know, so I can’t, I couldn’t get caught out for selling alcohol illegally, um, anyway.

[00:24:54] Richard Ashforth: An hour before the show, the actual owner of the studio came down and we realised it had been let by a third party and he basically is quite a big East End gangster. And he told us we’ve got 10 minutes to clear everything out of the loading doors. And then he was closing the doors and whatever was inside we were never going to see again.

[00:25:12] Richard Ashforth: And then we had to get off his land, you know, off his property. So this is like literally, I mean, maybe I’m exaggerating, maybe two hours before the show, but not long.

[00:25:20] Antony Whitaker: yeah, yeah,

[00:25:21] Richard Ashforth: So we had to frantically find somewhere and we found an outdoor gallery, just not too far away, you know, 400 meters down the road. And we went in there, but they said, yes, you can have the space, you know, but you can’t sell any alcohol, you know, we’ve not licensed for it.

[00:25:35] Richard Ashforth: So I, we, it was a free to get in and you got free drinks. So it was, it was a great night for everybody and amazing work. The atmosphere was incredible outdoors, a little bit rainy, everybody sat on the floor. We’ve got two lights and a, you know, a very mediocre PA. Power cuts every 10 minutes because we were overloading everything.

[00:25:56] Richard Ashforth: But it was a really amazing experience, you know.

[00:25:59] Antony Whitaker: yeah.

[00:26:00] Antony Whitaker: And so that was the beginning of it.

[00:26:01] Richard Ashforth: Yeah. And that was it. And yeah, I thought, Oh, maybe I’ll do it again. Maybe I won’t, you know, that

[00:26:07] Antony Whitaker: Yeah.

[00:26:08] Richard Ashforth: And then, yeah, as, as it went on, yeah, we did another one the next year. Cause why not? Because everybody was asking, are we going to do it? And somebody else, you know, a sort of an educational partner of mine in Russia said, I’d really like to do it in Moscow, can we do it in Moscow?

[00:26:23] Richard Ashforth: And then we did in Tokyo and then we did it in Taiwan and then we did it in China. And, and that’s how it started, you know? So, we still

[00:26:31] Antony Whitaker: sort of vibe with all of them.

[00:26:33] Richard Ashforth: It’s the same model we still do in, in London every year. We can’t tell anybody the location. It’s still a pop up in London. We, it’s not really viable to do it in, in other countries.

[00:26:44] Richard Ashforth: They, they just don’t work like that. They won’t stand for not knowing where they’re going, you know,

[00:26:48] Richard Ashforth: but for me, I guess the main thing is it’s, it’s very much like going to a gig rather than going to a hair show. There’s no seats. It’s quite low production values. You’re very close to whoever’s doing the hair. It’s not dressed up in that sort of corporate sense. You know, there’s no branding. So, we can have people that work for all different manufacturers, whether they’re ambassadors or, direct employees or whatever it is, there’s no conflict of interest.

[00:27:14] Richard Ashforth: Um, and it’s just raw creativity. It’s, you know, there’s, there’s no rules

[00:27:22] Antony Whitaker: how many, people on average are you getting at these events?

[00:27:26] Richard Ashforth: say in London, we normally get about 350, 400,

[00:27:30] Richard Ashforth: um, because it’s, it’s a last-minute thing, but in Asia, 1, 200, 1, 500 people. Cool.

[00:27:38] Antony Whitaker: Right.

[00:27:38] Richard Ashforth: So, so bigger, you know,

[00:27:40] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah. So, moneymaking.

[00:27:42] Richard Ashforth: I wouldn’t, I don’t know as it’s money making when it gets to that side for me

[00:27:46] Richard Ashforth: I actually prefer it when it’s a little bit smaller from being really honest.

[00:27:50] Antony Whitaker: Okay. When you’re paying it, when you’re paying for everyone’s, I don’t know any, but I don’t know any event that’s ever made any money to be honest with you. But, um, but yeah, certainly the, the goal is always to break even, you know,

[00:28:00] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah. Good. Oh, good on you. Now it’s good to have, uh, you know, as you just said, not corporate guerrilla marketing, you know, something very raw and sort of, you know, I, I think there’s a

[00:28:12] Richard Ashforth: Yeah. And we, that respond to that and that want that. Yeah, importantly for me, I try and always include, like, a new name, so somebody who you would have never known, you’d never, you’d never heard of them, but they do amazing work and you should know about them. And also, from a younger person’s perspective, perhaps somebody who’s a bit of a, an icon, a bit of a legend, mmh, you know, has passed you by, it wasn’t your generation particularly.

[00:28:40] Richard Ashforth: But it’s important, I feel it’s important you should see those people because they’re, you know,

[00:28:44] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, definitely. that’s, a that’s a, you

[00:28:47] Antony Whitaker: yeah. OK, you know, and, um, yeah, so that’s what we’re trying to do with it. But most of all, it’s about having some fun. It’s about throwing the rule book out the window and, really, everybody, I think the great thing is for me, everybody feels like it’s a challenge every time they do a show.

[00:29:03] Antony Whitaker: yeah. Yeah,

[00:29:04] Richard Ashforth: to do something special

[00:29:06] Richard Ashforth: and do something memorable and, you know, to really bring their, sort of their A game to it. So,

[00:29:11] Antony Whitaker: mm, yeah, mm. Well, they’ve got a good reputation. I haven’t been to one, but they’ve got a great reputation as being exactly how you described it. I reached out to you this time, remember? Um, you know, a couple of months ago when I said, listen, we’ve got to do a podcast together because I saw your latest collection and I only saw it on social media.

[00:29:31] Richard Ashforth: Uh huh.

[00:29:33] Antony Whitaker: And I know you said to me before we pushed the record button that it was very much a collaboration, that it wasn’t just you. Uh, but I, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And I know that you, you have a background that is, and you’ve sort of touched on this already, that you said you like have creative expression in other areas.

[00:29:52] Antony Whitaker: I know that you started off in a band. Uh, I think I’m correct in saying that you went to art school. Am I right in saying that?

[00:30:00] Richard Ashforth: Yeah.

[00:30:01] Antony Whitaker: So, so you, you haven’t just come, you know, from secondary school into hairdressing or whatever. You have come to it from a, I don’t know, an entertainment, a creative sort of background.

[00:30:12] Antony Whitaker: So, you’re, you know, you’re very diverse in terms of what your input is. When I looked at not just your latest collection, but another collections you’ve done over the years, I’ve always loved them. And there’s usually a little twist to them. And this collection that you’ve done, I mean, I was, I was blown away by it.

[00:30:33] Antony Whitaker: I thought it was, I thought there was a very strong art element to it, and I’m, I often will say that I don’t call hairdressers artists, um, you know, personally, but then I’ll usually back that up by saying, there’s a small amount of people that I’m going to call artists, but as an industry, I’m not going to call every hairdresser an artist because they’re just not, but there are some people in this industry who are incredible artists with what they do, um, and what they capture in terms of the images and the hair and stuff they do.

[00:31:07] Antony Whitaker: And I thought that this collection of yours, really did that again. I know it’s difficult for people to get what I’m talking about without having seen it, so we will send them towards your Instagram. but talk to us a little bit about that, collection before we start to wrap up.

[00:31:23] Richard Ashforth: Um, that is, that collection is called Shape. And really the idea was I, I work with, uh, an academy in Shanghai and help sort of them creatively. They’re called Pro V and they have a, uh, it’s a very unique remit they’ve got and the, and the guy that sort of organizes it, a guy called, Robbie Um, he, his.

[00:31:48] Richard Ashforth: Passion there is to try and educate, uh, Chinese hairdressers into the history of art, of fashion, of music, to give, some basis to like a sort of more modern hair. obviously, China’s got a very different history to, to the West and, missed out on a lot over the last sort of hundred years, I think, so in, in terms of touch points and references, perhaps they’re not there and that’s what he’s trying to introduce.

[00:32:16] Richard Ashforth: So it’s not just about doing hair. It’s about giving things a little bit more context, I guess, or give fashion a bit more context. So I, I help him on the hair front. He also has a stylist who helps him on the fashion front. A guy called Victor Goh, who’s based in Malaysia, who’s a genius. Um, a really incredible makeup artist from Japan, called Ryu and, um, Luke Miyazaki, and, um, and then along with, with Robbie.

[00:32:46] Richard Ashforth: So he brought us together to do that collection for Provi. And so my bit was the hair, Victor did the clothes, uh, Luke, Ryu did the, the makeup. The, the makeup, obviously,

[00:32:57] Richard Ashforth: and we, we picked a topic and we also delivered a lecture on behind it and et cetera, et cetera. And then at the end of, it was like a three-day journey.

[00:33:06] Richard Ashforth: We, we did the shoots and, yeah, that was for me. we were trying to sort of, obviously their hair academy said the hair story is central to it, I guess. Um, but really just trying to sort of ground. hair into its, um, it’s for me what, what its origins are, you know, in a, in a modern sense, so Bauhaus related stuff, you know, so I just, I was, it’s called shape because we picked hair shapes, triangular shapes, round shapes, square shapes, uh, and just try to push them into it.

[00:33:38] Richard Ashforth: For me, I was just trying to push them into a different sphere, so you know, whether they were very small and square or very big and, you know, You know, round or whatever, whatever they were, you know, with lots of different shapes and, um, it was a real pleasure to do, with ultimate creative freedom, but also with some incredible people who I know and I’ve worked with in many years on many different projects as well.

[00:34:02] Richard Ashforth: Um, so, I think, yeah, it came out well. And,

[00:34:06] Antony Whitaker: Oh, Mate, I thought it was. brilliant. I mean,

[00:34:08] Antony Whitaker: I’m glad to see you just mentioned Bauhaus. There was a very strong, to me, Bauhaus, look about it. The other thing I just wrote down was Grace Jones.

[00:34:17] Antony Whitaker: those album covers in the 80s. What was her, her partner in crime, uh, creatively? Jean Paul Goude.

[00:34:26] Antony Whitaker: Yes, of course, um, there, there seemed elements of that as well. It was brilliant. It was, uh, you know, your collection I just thought was lovely. So, um, I’ll make sure that we, we put the Instagram

[00:34:37] Richard Ashforth: Thank you very

[00:34:38] Antony Whitaker: up, up with this. In fact, tell us what they are now, but I’ll also put them in the show notes. Where can people, uh, find that on your Instagram?

[00:34:45] Richard Ashforth: My Instagram is just, it’s my name. So, at Richard Ashforth,

[00:34:48] Antony Whitaker: Right. Richard Ashforth.

[00:34:50] Richard Ashforth: Yeah. Or

[00:34:52] Richard Ashforth: at SACO Education.

[00:34:54] Antony Whitaker: SACO education. Right. I’ll make sure I put that in the show notes. Um, one of the things that we, we, I haven’t really touched on is salon hair work today.

[00:35:05] Antony Whitaker: Uh, and again, you know, um, I’m a bit older than you, but we have gone through that generation where it’s been very much about the haircut and or we trained in that generation where it’s very much about the haircut and for young people today. Generalization, but I think pretty true, is it’s not so much about the haircut. It’s a lot more about the hair color and stuff. Um, talk to us. About that in your business, in your view of the world, creatively, et cetera. Talk to us about salon hair work and where you see it going, because yes, we’ve been in this period of time, arguably for the last 20 odd years, where it’s been all about long hair predominantly, but a lot more great color work being done and a lot more dressed hair.

[00:35:53] Antony Whitaker: Where do you, where are your salons sitting in that? And where do you see the future for that sort of stuff?

[00:36:00] Richard Ashforth: I think, I mean, it’s quite a big question, isn’t it? It’s a great question, but a big one. I think, um, in a nutshell, I, I feel quite somewhat concerned for how we are going to move the industry forwards. Because I feel we’ve got a, there’s just a basic lack of understanding of how to cut hair because there’s been

[00:36:23] Antony Whitaker: Hmm.

[00:36:24] Richard Ashforth: so little of it.

[00:36:25] Richard Ashforth: Um, so I feel we’re becoming, we’re at the risk of becoming a little bit one dimensional. in terms of it being long hair with color, amazing color. As you said, you know, that’s fantastic what’s happened with color over the last 10 years. But it concerns me a little bit if we don’t, um, develop, an interest first and foremost in the other side of things, in understanding how to cut hair.

[00:36:53] Richard Ashforth: Well, we’re going to sell ourselves short and we’re going to become a little bit, uh, we’re going to paint ourselves into a corner a little bit, uh, with that. So certainly, for me, um, and I mean, in, in, in my world, in my business, then it’s, haircutting is still very central to everything. Um, and I think my mission outside of when I’m educating people outside of SACO is to try and push that message, to push the foundations Of, of haircutting and, and the understanding of how to kind of create shape in hair, not just texture, and color, so, you know, I know there are others that, that, are trying to tread that path as well, and I know I’m not alone, but the overwhelming, rise in social media, and the platform it gives to really exciting, visually exciting things like color. I’m not going to say they’re easier to do, but they’re perhaps more accessible things to execute on people. Um,

[00:37:56] Antony Whitaker: yeah, I was talking about this. I’m not sure if it was on the podcast or to somebody else, but we were talking about this very thing. And I was saying how there’s always a trigger for it to change. Sometimes that trigger is a. Someone in the music business

[00:38:13] Richard Ashforth: yeah,

[00:38:14] Antony Whitaker: and I reference people like, you know, Debbie Harry or Madonna, you know, and their huge influence that they had

[00:38:21] Richard Ashforth: yeah,

[00:38:21] Antony Whitaker: You know on hair and fashion or sometimes it’s a model, you know And I can remember in the in the 90s with Linda Evangelista

[00:38:30] Antony Whitaker: and the you know the rise of the supermodel but particularly Linda Evangelista.

[00:38:34] Antony Whitaker: She had a huge impact on Hair, and short hair looking good, and every time you saw her on the cover of a magazine, different haircut, different color. I mean, she was amazing for the hairdressing industry. So, and then other times it’s someone in the movies,

[00:38:48] Antony Whitaker: And, uh, I was discussing this with someone because they were a salon owner and they said to me that a client came into their salon with a picture of Emma Watson with, uh, from the Prada campaign. It’s the current Prada campaign at the moment. It’s all around the world. Um, and she’s got a little crop like this nice, soft, little, croppy haircut.

[00:39:08] Antony Whitaker: Looks beautiful. And this salon owner was saying to me, we had a girl come into the salon with that picture and no one wanted to cut her hair because they didn’t know how to. young hairdressers. And isn’t that criminal that that’s happening, you know? Um, and, and, and so that’s what I mean. Sometimes it’s someone in the movies, sometimes it’s someone in, in music, sometimes it’s someone, you know, a model that all of a sudden, their profile is huge and it creates this catalyst for change.

[00:39:39] Antony Whitaker: And that will happen. Uh, it’s just a matter of how much longer it can go on for that. There’s an inevitability about it. So keeping those, Those skills, um, alive and kicking will become, uh, more important than ever before. Just like everything else has within your career and my career, where you see stuff come and go and get reinvented and, you know, revisited in different ways.

[00:40:01] Antony Whitaker: But, um,

[00:40:02] Richard Ashforth: I’d agree to a certain extent, but I guess what, what concerns me, what worries me is when Emma Watson, her picture comes into the salon and nobody can do it and the client has to leave and the client leaves with long layered hair.

[00:40:18] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, yeah,

[00:40:18] Richard Ashforth: How does, how does that explode as a trend? If nobody’s able to, you know, to do it.

[00:40:23] Richard Ashforth: It’ll just get suppressed. And, um, do you know what I mean?

[00:40:28] Antony Whitaker: yeah, I do, but

[00:40:28] Antony Whitaker: I think

[00:40:29] Richard Ashforth: you’ve got the skills there to, to, to execute it and celebrate it and put it on, give it a platform.

[00:40:35] Richard Ashforth: Then, you know, look at my client, look what I did, oh, that’s great. that, that’s got to be the journey, hasn’t it? You know, and we need younger people to do that.

[00:40:43] Richard Ashforth: to be on that journey as a, as a background to that. I think it’s, it’s a lot of people’s responsibility, whether that’s you as a manufacturer, manufacturers that really take care of a lot of education for people now, because education is becoming almost prohibitively expensive for, for some people because they’re self-employed.

[00:41:04] Richard Ashforth: It’s not, Accessible. They haven’t got a selling on a pain for their education.

[00:41:09] Antony Whitaker: yeah, yeah,

[00:41:10] Richard Ashforth: As we said before, they’re getting snippets of education online. Um, and then so they’re, they’re going for quick fixes, trend-based stuff that they can sell. They can knock it along. They can get their clients instantly excited by small changes, you know, uh, absolutely legitimately, the right approach, but underneath that, if we’re not investing.

[00:41:35] Richard Ashforth: And if I’m saying we, or the, the senior people in the industry and primarily the manufacturers, if we’re not investing in teaching people how to cut hair at a, at a very sort of fundamental level

[00:41:49] Antony Whitaker: yeah,

[00:41:49] Richard Ashforth: to get them excited about that and, or even giving them choices about that,

[00:41:54] Antony Whitaker: yeah, yeah, yeah,

[00:41:55] Richard Ashforth: of people just feel that as long as they know how to do a, you know, some long layering and a great, an amazing blow dry and you know, color’s the thing for them, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s what they need to make a

[00:42:06] Antony Whitaker: well, what you’ve just said, I think is a podcast in itself because I, I don’t necessarily agree with you about that’s the responsibility of the manufacturer. I, I think that, uh, that young hairdressers that all want to be self-employed and go out on their own, they have to recognize that, hey, you’ve got, you know, you’re, you wanted to be in business because you’re going to keep all the money for yourself.

[00:42:30] Antony Whitaker: Well, how naive can you possibly be running a business, building a salon, training a team, uh, requires a lot of money being constantly invested into making people the best version of themselves that they can be. Um, I know before we started. recording, we talked about the role of the manufacturer and, and how that is changing, just like salons are changing the role of the manufacturer and the industry is changing.

[00:42:56] Antony Whitaker: So I think we will keep that one for another discussion,

[00:43:01] Antony Whitaker: I think it’s a very big topic that is, uh, that will open up a huge can of worms. But, um, I’ve, I’ve mentioned a few times I was going to point to people towards your website, towards Instagram, et cetera.

[00:43:13] Antony Whitaker: I’ll put those links, uh, on our website, growmysalonbusiness.com. They’ll be in the show notes for today’s podcast. And, remember sharing is caring. So, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing it with a few friends who might also find it useful. And don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a rating and review on the Apple podcast app.

[00:43:32] Antony Whitaker: So, to wrap up Richard, thank you for being on this week’s episode of The Grow My Salon Business Podcast.

[00:43:38] Richard Ashforth: Antony, thank you very much. Been an absolute pleasure. Thank you.

[00:43:41] 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