Well, hey there, friend, and welcome back for another episode of the Your Hair Mentor podcast, where I'm your host and your hair mentor, Crystal Green. And I'm not just a host and a hair mentor. I'm also a human with a cold. So you'll have to excuse my, uh, little nasally voice here. It's been kind of a doozy, took me out, but I'm here and I'm not going to let it stop me. And. Good thing. I didn't have a cold during the interview here that I'm about to share with you because it is pure gold.
Um, you're going to love coach. Chris. He's really fantastic. Has a lot to offer. I mean, it's obvious. This guy has been in the industry for a very long time. Um, but he's also kind of at like the forefront of what's happening too. So he's not just like old and crusty at all. Don't get me wrong. Um, coach Chris Barron.
Was really really fun to chat with and I actually ended up trimming out a lot of our Conversation that happened before and after the podcast and sometimes I include that in the chat because it's just good stuff But oh my god, we just had so much I need to bring them on for another show. Honestly But not only does he have great things to say, but his actual voice is like buttery and smooth and very easy to listen to. So, I know you're just going to really enjoy this interview.
So, I am going to go ahead and introduce you to Coach Chris M. Barron, whoo! Ready freddy. Hey there chris. Hey Thank you so much for coming on the your hair mentor podcast I'm, super happy to have you here today and share this awesome stuff that you're working on Um, and also I just kind of want to know a little bit about your story and how you got to be where you are So would you do me a favor and just kind of give me a quick introduction of like where you're at?
And then I kind of want to hear how you got into this industry in the first place
Well, first of all, uh, Crystal, thanks for having me on. Uh, it's a real honor and pleasure. Um, now you said one thing that really might throw this a little thing off, you said quick, and I've often been introduced as, here's a gentleman, uh, that can say in 10 words what other people can say in one. So um, so let's, uh, first of all, uh, where did I come from? Um, well, um, Um, I came from my background was my mother was a hairdresser. She anointed me as a hairdresser.
I didn't necessarily want to be one, but knew I couldn't get fired. So I started there. And then I had a life changing thing that happened to me where somebody come in and said, don't cut my hair today. Cause I'm going to Montreal to get a good haircut. I'm Canadian. If you haven't figured that out and that changed my life. And so actually the first two years of my career. Uh, was more the thing that, um, uh, as an owner, you wouldn't have wanted to hire me because I was interested in partying.
Uh, it was partying and, uh, staying out till two to three in the morning and then coming in probably with a little bit of a headache, uh, must've been too much Coca Cola. And, um, and, um, my point was, is that I, I wasted pretty much the first two years. Uh, then I got, then I got hooked on, I went to Sassoon's and I got hooked on haircutting and that became my passion.
Then, um, and this is the Reader's Digest version of the timeline, um, opened a couple salons, um, had, uh, then there was a gentleman that came to speak, uh, at a training we were having. His name was Blair Singer. Uh, he's one of the Rich Dad Poor Dad advisors, speaks on, uh, wealth. He also speaks on, um, on, uh, facilitation skills. And that changed my life because I can remember him saying, let me back it up a second, because before when I would, I would teach on stage.
I never really taught on stage. All I did was I would write my comedy routine and I did more of a comedy routine than anything, um, to the point when I asked one person after they sat in my class for, you know, A six classes in a row and said to me after every time that, you know, Chris, I'd loved your show. I laughed and laughed. And I said, what did you learn? And she said nothing, but I laughed and laughed.
So I, I had to figure out what this training thing was so that I could actually teach the things that I was passionate, passionate about. And that's where Blair, um, and since then other people have really helped me along people like Jason Everett, who have helped me become more focused on what it takes to help to connect to people. Because I remember standing up in Blair's class. After he talked to us how a good, uh, educator, facilitator, trainer connects with the audience.
And he said, I remember saying back to him and stand up because he asked, what did, what did you take away? And I said, Blair, from what I heard is it's not what you say, it's not the content. It's how you say it. And that stuck with me forever. And that changed my Changed my life and it turned me in probably to who I am today where, um, my point now is I just want to give back to people. That's
awesome. You know, and isn't that a lesson that could be learned for hairstylists talking to their clients too, right? Where it's, it's not necessarily just your hair skills. It's how you present
them. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's, I'm going to use an old, I didn't, I didn't come up with it. We hear it all the time. Part of it's true. Part of it's not. Yeah. But when they, they say that there's all these people out there that, uh, that don't do hair particularly well, but they're fully booked, et cetera. So my, and the reason why I say that I don't believe that's partially true, I think that it is true because those people are authentic, they're caring, they love their clients.
Uh, and I know this is something you and I talked about before and I don't want to steal your lines. It was your line that I want to use as references where you make them the hero. And, and, um, and I think that's the part that I would like those people to think about that. What if, what if you did all of that and you really knew how to do hair, if you were really skilled at it, how exponential could your growth be? Mm hmm. And, and I think that's, that's where.
Um, what's always stood for me is because, you know, uh, with a bit of my Sassoon background, no, I would, I never worked for them. I was a Sassoon freak and traveled to every show, everything. And people like Tony Beckerman and the like of those people really helped me to ingrain in what discipline really meant. And, and I think that. Um, that for all the young listeners and watchers that are out there that are saying right now, and we're, we've all went through, we went through COVID.
We went through all that crap. We reevaluated our lives. We take a look at what we were doing. We said, I want more out of my life and more quality just to remember that quality. And time is, are not a parallel that exchange for one another. In other words, when people say, I want, I want, um, to have balance. Balance just means that you're present wherever you are. It doesn't mean you give up and you do less of one thing or more of the other. So, uh, I always think that for me that that's okay.
I'm going to give a really controversial statement right now. If that's okay with you, bring it on, bring it on, bring it on, baby. Um, uh, and I'm, I'm stealing a line from my good friend, um, Stephen Moody and, um, and he said, our industry has shot ourselves in the foot. Um, and, and don't get me wrong, what we're doing right now makes us a ton of money and it's good. Um, but we've spent the last seven, eight, nine years, balayaging long hair, balayaging is wonderful. I love it.
It makes us money. I'm not saying bad things about that. I'm not saying bad things about our hair. Here's where we shot ourself in the foot. Cyclically, it goes long and it goes short. It goes long and it goes short. We spent so many years on long hair, uh, with retouching, without retouching, without the certifiant coming in, needing us every six weeks, they've transferred to every three to four, sometimes six months or more. And that's where we've shot ourself in the foot.
Now, here's the reason why you watch in the next two to three years, it's already happening. Short hair is starting to come back. And I remember not everybody's going to have short hair, but the people that want short hair are going to come out and they're going to be looking for people that can do it. Our industry. I mean, I'm a part of a group that owns 30 beauty schools.
And what, what happens is the Students are terrified of short hair and I go to, I go to teach in salons where they don't want trend right now, they want me to teach them how to analyze a picture so they can duplicate the picture and use a principles of haircutting to get what they want. And that switch is happening and it's, you know, I beat every cup steep and keeps talking about Armageddon and all this stuff that's happening.
I think the Armageddon that's happening in our industry is it's going to hit us with this, this everybody wants short hair, just like in the 70s when Linda Evangelista cut off her long hair. Everybody wanted short hair. Everybody wanted above the shoulders. And there was this people flocking into salons.
And if you knew how to do it, your salon grew and that was the kind of the, uh, the separation that happened at that time when it first happened, there was three kinds of salons that were out there. There was the high end salon, there was a mid salon, and there was a low end salon. At that time, it blew away the mid salon. Because everybody wanted, they wanted, uh, cost and they didn't want to have to pay a lot, or they wanted to pay more and they wanted all the things that went along with that.
And, and I think that's, that's what's going to happen in the next few years with us. So, I, I would say to, that I don't want to, uh, discourage people by that, but what I want to say to them is that's where your education come in, that's where your discipline comes in, that's where it's really important that you know. All of the skills, not just one or two. Mm hmm.
Absolutely. You know, I experienced even myself the other day going and getting my hair done in a salon here in Reno, Nevada. And I was, uh, my blowout was done by the Junior stylist. She's not an assistant. She's like a couple years in licensed stylist and she asked me How do you want your hair styled today? And I said, oh, you know, I would love just kind of like a bouncy round brush Blow dry just something simple.
It doesn't have to be perfect, but just something with a little oomph to it and she goes You know, i'm really sorry, but I have to tell you I don't know how to use a round brush I was like, oh and I could tell by the way She was blow drying me like she's like i'll try and i'm like cool I can help coach you through it if you want like no pressure, but like you should know how to do this girlfriend Um, she's like well, I mostly just do iron work and I said, okay
Well, like what kind of iron do you use? She's like my wand I was like, okay So you fall into that category of like you've got that that beachy wave dialed in and that's all you've got That's all that has been asked of you In the last couple of years, but I'm like, yeah, things are changing. I was like, I got these like little flippy bangs and like, I want some oomph. And she did not know how to do it. And so I walked away going, Oh my gosh, I don't think she's alone.
Yeah. No, I agree with you a hundred percent on that crystal. And I, you know, I, there's what I love in your title that you have is your hair mentor. And I, and I think that's where. A lot of this is gonna come from right now. The mentors that we had right out there have been YouTube. So, and that's all wa, that's all watch. And again, nothing wrong with that. I watch YouTube too. I pick up great ideas from them.
There's some, you know, spectacular people out there, but you can't get your foot stuck in one area, you know, because you'll do great when that's there. But when a trend, a shift happens, you're gonna get, you're on the outside and it's gonna be harder if you get in the inside. So the time to train, the time to learn. Is when that others is hot. It's just one thing that I always mind, and I think the numbers are a little skewed from right now to when, uh, when we talked about it in the past.
But what happened is trends generally happen about, they take about six years and we call it two years in two years, hot two years out. So they kind of overlap. So two years in, it's hot. People think it's ugly. Well, let me phrase that. The, the young kids that are out there, the ones that are cool, the ones that are looking at, they go, Oh, that's cool. Nobody's doing that. I want to do that. The mainstreamers are going, Oh, that's ugly.
You know, just the same thing as when skulls came in, you know, skulls came in. Uh, uh, I believe it was Alexander McQueen did, uh, clothing wedding dresses with skulls on it. And they, they really went, Oh my God, what are you doing? What's going on? That's that's, uh, that's for Bolton. And, and then so, but every, all the young kids went, that's cool, that's new, I I, they jumped on that bag when everybody else thought it was ugly.
Two years in, everybody was wearing it and the mainstream is now going, Oh, Oh, I thought that was ugly. It's pretty cool. Now, as soon as that hits now, those young kids are going, I don't know, mom and dad are wearing that. I don't know if I want to do that anymore, you know? And then, and particularly when grandma has her knickers with skulls on it, they know it's really out. Oh my gosh.
But the reality is, it gets, there's, uh, it's two years in, two years out, or two years in, two years hot, and two years out. When it's out, the people that have just been holding back for four years are finally getting into it, and that's when you go to your hairdresser and they go, oh my god, if I had to do one more. friend's haircut. I'm going to blow my brains out. That was, we could cut that last part out.
You know, is that if they, they see that one more friend's haircut and they say, well, I don't want to have that anymore because it's just, it's gone. It's, it's, uh, It's passe. That's the, see, that's the thing that's happening right now. The times may be off. I think that what we've had with long hair and balayage has gone on for way more than six years.
It shows how amazing it was and um, but I think that we, we need to really understand that haircutting is going to start to make its way back. I
think so too. I honestly hope so because I love all the different shapes and styles that come with haircutting being a trend. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's, I find it really interesting going to a hair show. You know, where it's hair shows. And then I was, I can't remember which premiere last year, I think we were at, and I was walking down the aisle way. And I was trying to count the number of really cool short heads of hair, uh, that I saw. And I counted about eight.
Oh my gosh. Out
of how many people? Out of all those people. But not, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that those people weren't cool. I'm just saying that they're caught in that cycle of. Two years in two years hot two years out and and you can tell it with their colors. You can tell it with their shapes with what era they get stuck in. And I think it's sometimes that because of the psychology behind it, they do something they made a change.
They might have went from, um, one color to Uh, uh, putting some rainbow color in their hair and somebody said to him, that looks amazing on you. And that anchors in their head. And they want to carry that through forever, you know, because that was what somebody told me. I look good on. Therefore, as I change and I grow and I change, my look stays the same. And now is it the same response you're getting? And if you're not getting that response of, wow, you look great.
That's one thing I always used to say to my clients is that when they'd say, uh, they'd say, well, that I want the same thing. And I'd ask them why. And he said, because my husband loves it. And he said, I said, okay, well, first of all, um, I never say go to the person who can't match their socks to, for fashion advice, but I do understand that you want your spouse happy and so on, but. You know, are your friends complimenting your hair?
And, and if that's the case, then you're probably still in and looking good. But if nobody is saying the thing that they said to you five years ago, maybe it's time to have a bit of a change and a refresh. Um, oh, sorry, go
ahead. I was gonna say, I love this so much because, um, so much of what I preach is, right, the, the client. Is the hero of the story like you mentioned briefly earlier and what that means is you are a contributor to their happiness You're like their guide and their mentor And helping them in the story of their life And so it's so important to ask those kind of questions, right? Like because what are we here to do? We're here to make them feel good We're here to make them look good, right?
If they're not getting the input and the feedback that they need from the people in their lives Where they're feeling good about their looks then we need to help them Right. And I love that you bring that up because that's such an important question that I've always asked all of my clients too. Yeah. How are you feeling in this style? Are you still getting what you need out of it? And if not, let me try to make some suggestions and like how out of your comfort zone can we step today? Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, the, um, when you become an expert, people don't pay you for your knowledge, they pay for your opinion. So when you're going to a hairdresser that's your expert, that helps you, that's been growing you, grooming you, helping you evolve, that person is paying you for your opinion. And your opinion should not be, what do you want today? Your opinion should be, your opinion should be, can we have a talk?
And, and I'm going to give credit where credit is due, uh, a chapel salon out of the UK has a really interesting concept that I absolutely love. You see, they, first of all, every time somebody comes in, they give a consultation. So everybody gets a consultation, everybody. It's not just a continuation on and I'm not going to belabor the whole consultation things and people say that 97 percent of the people that are out there that are consumers say they didn't get a consultation.
And it's the same thing for hairdressers say that they give it, but or I'm saying that hairdresser says they give it, but only 7 percent of the people that are out there say they get it. So it's the quality of the conversation. So I'm going to get back to Chapel Salon. What they do is they spend. Every time they come in portion of their because they pay by the hour, the customer pays by time, not by the service. And so they spend that time giving a quality recommendation.
And then here's what I love. So they book out sick. No, and I don't say book out. If you're going to be my customer, we're going to set up six months of, uh, six months of appointments. And in the spring and in the fall, we're going to book out a separate hour that we're going to have a complete consultation.
And, and in that frame, We're going to talk about the new colors that are coming out for fall, the new looks that are coming out for fall, where you want to go and how we're going to, now catch this, how we're going to evolve your shape over the next six months until we hit spring. And then we're going to evolve it again. Now you think about the dynamic there. Not only that, how you're grooming them, you're evolving them and you're building trust with them, but they're not going to anybody else.
You know, there's, if, if Chris comes along and says, Hey, I can do your hair. No, Crystal's been doing my hair and she's got a whole plan for my next six months. I'm sorry. I just can't go there.
I've committed myself to a membership with this person that I'm going to see.
Yes. Bingo. Bingo. I've just bought a subscription. Yes.
I love that. So much that is incredible and I bet you Like when if something happens apocalyptic recession wise, whatever those sort of businesses are going to survive They are going to thrive they're going to make those people feel so special and they're going to their clients and their customers and their Consumers are going to be willing to cut budgets elsewhere so that they can still be taken care of there because there's
loyalty And that's what did happen in in the great recession that happened. I mean, I wasn't alive for it. But in the 30s, when they had that people were still making themselves good. They were making themselves look good. That was the whole part about it. That's the only thing that they had that they could. Feel good about at the time. Yes. Yes. So my
mom tells me. Yeah. Right. But you know, you see it in other countries too. Like, you know, you don't need money to have like a pride of ownership necessarily. You just, you focus on certain things and a lot of people want to have their home look clean and tidy and they want to look good themselves because that boosts their spirits and makes them feel like, you know, nice contributing members to
society. Yeah, no, I agree. A hundred percent. I love
that. Um, okay, Chris, I want to ask you about your, um, Salon Associate Accelerator program, because we chatted about that beforehand, and I feel like we could tie this in really well here. So can you tell us kind of what that is a little bit?
Well, yeah, I would love to, but let me give you kind of a, a forerunner, a precursor on this. Okay. Is, um, the need that, that, uh, our team saw was, um, there's two kind of things that I hear from, from salon owners. Everywhere is two things. Number one is, um, my, I'm training my people and they leave, excuse me. I train my people and they leave. And the other one was this new generation of people. I just can't relate to them. They don't want to work. They don't want to do anything.
Um, both are true. Um, I want to deal with the first one first is, and just with a little story that, um, I remember hearing this story of, This, uh, there was a corporate meeting and, uh, the CFO, the chief financial officer and, uh, was meeting with the team and the chief, um, financial officer said, look at our training that we're doing with all of our people is costing us too much money. It's a big line on our budget.
And, um, I want to, I want to pose to people like, uh, you know, that we reduce the training and reduce, stop training them so much because what if we train them? And then they just leave and go to another company. And the chief executive offer, the CEO said. Well, okay, that might work if we, you're worried about if we want to train them and they leave. But what if we don't and they stay?
So the reality is, is that when, when you're going to train people, it's our obligation as an owner to train. Here's the problem that, that generally happens is the owner does all the training.
And then they're working, they're trying to get the vision of their business going, they're trying to do all the work, uh, they have a family just like everybody else, they're cutting out their time, they're often the highest ticket earner, and because nobody wants to work after hours nowadays, they have to do the training during the salon, they do the training during salon hours, so now they have two factors that are in there financially. Number one is, I've taken myself away from the station.
So therefore I'm I'm not generating revenue. And if you think about what that is, and let's just say that it's an average ticket is 100 an hour that and they've taken. Let's say just even two to four hours to train time, that's 400. And then you times that by, even if you're just doing one training a week, times 50 weeks and so on, you know, I'm not the math guy. So anybody listening and watching right now, you can get out your calculators and do that. None of us are. It's okay.
No. So, but the reality is, is the time that it takes and ends up with either the owner and or an educator that you have on board, if they're doing it all themselves. They burnt out and then it doesn't happen. And then the promise that you made of training up the people doesn't get met and they leave. And it's this cycle. It's like this, like the, the, the, the front door Bergdorf Goodmans.
When you, you take that, you walk in and if you keep going, you just jump back out rather than getting into the good stuff. And it's the same thing that happens in the salon. So that's the first part about what if you train them and they leave. And then the other part is the, the young kid that's out there, they want balance. They went through all this stuff. They, they, they want balance in their life. But more than anything, if you look at them right now, they're cause driven.
So what are you doing to create a cause for your salon, for the vision of where you want to go? People will buy into a vision and money is not a vision. No. So, but they will buy into your vision. I'm not saying you shouldn't be compensated, you should be compensated a lot for it, but is what are you doing to create something that those kids want in the future?
It's funny just on this last, uh, just a couple of days ago, I was speaking and somebody came up to me after and he said, your, your, your definition of want versus goals is, was it really impactful for me? And, and what I, uh, this came from a training that I did, and I was trying to find out what this, this particular person wanted as a goal. And it went just down this dark hole and I couldn't pull them out of it. Uh, so I have a, a teacher, uh, that clears people.
You know, clearing just means when you have issues in your head and they help you talk about it and get through it and so on. And she said to me this, that it was really interesting. Um, uh, you know, it's funny when she told it to me, I wrote it and I have it every time right near me here. And she said, and I mark this, goal setting often brings up a negative charge. Because if we didn't get the goal in the past, we'd set a goal, we didn't get it, doing whatever.
So we feel we're failed at our goal. So there's that negative charge. So the emotions come up. And so that's what happened from past fails goals. But if you, instead of saying that it's a goal, if you say, what do you want, it brings it into the future. So if, if the salon owner would just, we advise this in our salon associate accelerator is before you even start your training, sit down and sit down in a want meeting. And the want meaning can be very fast.
We have, we have, um, sheets that we get them to fill out where you fill out the things that you want for personal development, um, for, or just to improve for your career. What do you want personally? I want to buy a new house. I want to buy a new car. I want, uh, I want to get out of my rental unit or I want whatever that is. And then what is it that you want, uh, for yourself for the future? Like I, I You know what's about for family.
I want I want to have take my family on a European trip, or I just want to be able to pay my own. We're going to Europe in two years, and I want to have enough of this. And if that owner can take a look at what are your wants help you to get that.
If that just means taking a little bit of money out every, uh, month, every week, just to set aside, to set up a, a bank account for that person so that now you see, now what you're dealing, dealing with here is you're building up a loyalty or a trust in that in the person. 'cause I'm not just looking at how much money can you make me. I am investing in your future. And that would that cause driven effect. I don't know about you, but I'm getting goosebumps up right now.
But if you can invest in that person's life and you can make a change to them where they grow, they attribute that to you. My, my, my, uh, I learned that inadvertently from Bill Ross, who was, um, my, one of my very first, not my first salon owner, but the first salon owner that made a difference in my life. And he would do that with me, inadvertently, it wasn't called that then, but he said, look, Chris, what do you want? What do you want to go? What do you want to do? And I had no money.
Um, uh, and I said, I want to go to Sassoon's and he said, look, well, let's make that happen. Here's how we're going to do it. And so on. And so that what that was pivotal in my, in my life career, and if I wouldn't have had somebody that would help me along on that, I would, I would not say I would have never got there, but I wouldn't have got there sooner.
And, and so to this day, I, I trust, I respect, uh, that person changed my life, even though when I said, look it, I want to leave, um, and, and, but I want you, I want, I would just assume you and I made a partnership together. And he said, okay, let's do it. And then, but then he said, no, Chris, you're better on your own. And you know what he did? He took me to the bank and he explained to the bank why, at that time, I was a bad risk, why I was a good one.
And when I left, he said, Chris, here's your three months bookings that you have. I've all told him where you work. You know, and amazing. And so it's when you do that for people, when you do that for the young kid, if you're going to do that, I can, for those of you listening right now, I've got this grizzly old white beard and hair and so on. So I'm not, you're probably going, who the hell is this?
But I've learned that, um, You've got to help people along, you've got to help them in their mission of what they want to get a life. And if, and it's an old, old saying, but if I give you what you want, then you'll give me what I want. It's not the other way around. I've got to give first,
man, Chris, as I'm listening to you describe all of this, I can't help, but literally consider what you did, what you just described as. It's all the same principles and the same ideas, right? Like earlier how I said, Oh, you put the client with the, with the stylist and the client interaction, right? The client is the hero of the story. I always tell people to, um, to figure out what their desires are. their wants, just like you said, right?
Where do they want to go in their life with their hair? How can you help them? How can you set the stage for this is our relationship that we're having together? It's literally the same thing, but it's the salon owner putting the stylist as the hero of that story, right? And they're the mentor and they're the guide. And so I just, I love this so much because I feel like you can step back so many layers. Right?
And the same principles apply, but we try to just get in our heads and get all confused about stuff. And it's like, it's, it can be so beautifully simple. So I just had to share that, that like, as you're describing this, I'm like, Oh my God. Yes. Yes. It's a, it's a consultation. It's literally a consultation. It's a life
skill, you know, is that is if you want to get things out of life, you have to know how to communicate to people. It's just like, um, and, you know, again, I'm a hair cutter. So for the people that's scary right now, uh, just, you know, listen to me anyway. Uh, but. I always knew that I had an eye where I could tell what looked great on people, but I wasn't so bold and so in your face that I would say, this is the only thing that is going to help you. This is what you must do.
So in other words, I had no, no problem. Somebody had long hair and I saw them with short hair. I knew that that's what, where they needed, but I also know that some people want to do it right away. And some people need steps. So I would never go to somebody and say, you should wear your hair short because if they said no, well, then I'm kind of out in that field. But if I could say to them, listen, I've got, I've got some ideas and I've got about three, four ideas that I want to run by you.
And, uh, I'll, I'll talk to you about them. And then I'd love to know. Which one excites you the most and then you can go anywhere you want, you know, I can talk about, listen, I want to go like, I'm just making stuff up right now. I'm coming from the University of MSU making stuff up. I don't usually that word, but that making stuff up as well. You can put any S word you want in there. But I would say to them, look at, uh, you know, I'd love this is what I really, this look, et cetera.
This is what it would do to you, but also, okay, good. That's one side. Let's set that aside for a minute. And then I would talk about something that was more medium or how we could transfer this, this link from one to the other. And, uh, and, and, and inevitably. I would always get them to the end game because I planted the seed and some would bite right away. Say, look, take it off because they trusted me.
The others would say, I want to go from three to two to one and I get them there eventually. Or I might've just get them to two. That might be the only place that they ever, they ever, that was their, that was their stop line in, uh, in where their taste and where their. Uh, the fear level was so comfort. Yeah, their comfort. Yes. So, but anyway, that's, that's kind of what I feel is that's a life skill that's in there.
And if you can use that in your associate program prior to telling them what they need to do to get up to what, and here's the biggest thing that I think that it's the hardest part for trainers, um, is that. They, they have internally, they have a benchmark of what work should look like. Just like, you know, to use your example, you said I went into a salon, I wanted a round brush with a nice bouncy curls.
But if that girl doesn't know what round brush, round brush, bouncy waves curls are, and what she has to meet up to. Then she's floundering. That's why she had to go. Well, I usually use an iron and I can get something similar out of that. The point is, what is the salon doing to identify what is the minimum salon standard for a bob? What is the minimum salon standard for for a curling iron?
It might be a root tongue or a spiral tongue or beach waves or what or or or or and what are all those disciplines and what is your minimum salon standard? If you can apply that, even if it's just use an old fashioned look book, you know, in our, in our, in our program, sort of our next step that we're adding into it is templates where you take your pictures, you put them on your template.
And that is, I won't say the minimum salon standard, but that's a standard that you expect anybody to reach before they earn a spot at a chair. And I'm going to repeat that again, earn a spot. At a chair. It's not an entitlement. I didn't hire you to do this. You have to meet the salon standards. And if I can train you as quickly as possible to get up to that salon standard, I'm helping you grow. And it doesn't work the same.
Like when, you know, a few years past, it was, you went under a six month to three year apprenticeship, making nothing, sweeping the floor. That taught me a lot. Sure. But what if I, what if I could work ahead?
What if I'm an ambitious young person, and I, and I know that there's only one or two training nights a week or training days, um, in the week, I do not subscribe to, that was a slip of tongue, what I used to do when it was allowed, train after hours, but nowadays you can't do that, you've got, they should come in, they need to be paid, your educator needs to be paid, and you train them, but you get them up to speed as quickly as possible, however, As an associate, if I'm ambitious and I
want to work ahead, then I can do that. And, and that's where the difference was, Crystal, is what I find that people want right now is, and what burns educators and salon owners out, is I'm teaching the same thing and then I get somebody on the floor and they either get caught in that revolving wheel and they go out and I got to train another one or I grow my business and I got to train another one and I'm not doing the things that I love to do.
Apply, you know, apply the vision that I have for my business and doing hair. And we all know that training happens in what's called a see do environment. I've got to see it. In other words, you know, uh, Salon Owner X has to show me how to do that bouncy blow wave and blow dry, blow out, and then I've got to do it. And I have to practice it a few times until I get my standard up to at least what that is or exceeded.
Then, then any, but then the owner can go, Hey, listen, I'm doing a haircut and how I can just go and do another haircut. You can do the blow dry and the stylist, the consumer is just as happy as when you did it. I mean, for those of you right now, my, I have had, uh, two trigger, trigger fingers that have, you know, from braiding and braiding and braiding and doing these avant garde looks that I, I screwed up two of my fingers, my hand, I just had surgery on them. But when I went there.
The, I was in there for three, uh, I think it was three and a half hours. Uh, everybody else took care of me. There had people filling out files, doing all these things, doing this thing. I only saw, I didn't even, when I went under, I didn't even see the, uh, the, uh, the doctor. He talked to me for two minutes before we went in and no regrets. Yeah. But when, when, um, I never saw him at the end, they checked me out. So out of that three hour or four hour procedure. He, he did the operation.
The operation lasted about 20 minutes. Everybody else took care of me, you know, and that's the way that you turn people into six figure stylists is you can't do every one of those stages. And, and say, Oh, look at what I did. It's how do you compartmentalize? How do you, or departmentalize what that's happening? Train my associates so that they can do the blow dry. They can do the root retouch. They can do, uh, they can do whatever I need to do so I can move on to my next higher ticket item.
That's the way we make money, you know, and
then, you know, in the medical field, just to relate this back, like they have, what's known as a standard of care, right? So there's an assumption that every nurse, every person that worked on you, they understand the standard of care. So you're going to get the same level of care from everybody and it's interesting that we don't Employ that more in the salon, right? A typical standard of whatever you want to call it, standard of hair, right? Oh, that's kind of a
cool. Yeah. Well, it's, it, it comes from, I'm, I'm wondering, and this is not, not based on fact. It's not based on anything else other than, you know, I think that we've come, we've lived in an industry where it's so competitive. It's my it's about look at my work as opposed to the salon quality of work. So if I do, I can do an amazing haircut and that's what I want to do, then I can do that for those people that just want to do if they're only doing color. Great. Do the color.
I realize nowadays, everybody's switching back and forth, but it is stay to what, you know, you don't know it and you want to know it, learn it. But the reality is whatever you're doing that cut and color, that's what they came here for you for you. You know, they came for you the highlight. They didn't come to you for the retouch. You know, the retouch can be done by any way. That's just maintenance, the creativity, the, the spark.
Came from you to do the transition of the Balayage, the highlights, the custom color that whatever, but you know, you can get somebody else to apply all those things. Do the apprentice. That's now. Now they're contributing back to what their finances. We did a little study just a little bit back for this, for the show. And we were looking at what the average associate costs you. And, and, uh, I, I based it on that. If you had, uh, if you had to pay.
Okay. Your, uh, we always tell the owners should not teach you if you got to do at the beginning. Great. But you train somebody else so they can take that over. And then we said if that high ticket item, let's just say they were 100. Uh, that your average ticket price with everything included, and I know it's far more than that, but let's just keep it low. That's 400 a week, times say, 50 weeks. That, there's that cost.
Then, what do you, that's what you just have to, that's your lost revenue that you would be losing if an educator or the salon owner is teaching the lesson. Then, then you have to add into that, so you do that plus your 42 weeks, I think it came to, I can't remember what it was, like, I had the fingers here, but I'm just gonna let it go. Uh, then you have to pay your minimum wage or whatever that you're going to pay for your associate just for those four hours.
And then you have to think about what is it that, um, uh, that you, what are you missing out on? What are the wages you have to pay for both those people? And it ranged. Anywhere between 16, 000 and 29, 000 to train an associate over six months. Wow. So, you know, our mission is how do you get them on the floor contributing faster so that they're paying for themselves? You're not having to go out of pocket and to me, that's the, that's the biggest thing about the associate programs.
So we help to train them on what's your, uh, what's the standard of the shampoo that you're doing? What's the standard of being able to, um, even for, uh, for rinsing out a foil and a, uh, and a retouch at the same time. So you're not mixing together for your blow dries. What is it? And then as you consider past, we always say, We don't, we don't feel that you should train haircutting in at least the first month or so of your training.
It should be all on the standards for the minimum services that they can contribute to financially, then get them on their cutting program. I had an interesting conversation with a, with a young lady out of Alabama just the other day, who's using the program, and she says that we also do, uh, before they can graduate onto the floor, what we do is we have opportunity days. And Saturday is our Saturday is our slowest day.
That still freaks me out because in my era, that was always the busiest day, but she said that that's our opportunity day because it's the slowest day and that's where we put our juniors on the floor and they have to do. At least just a minimum of two clients a week in order to graduate, you have to, and these are people you have to bring in to the fold and then, uh, and, and they're paid for services. They're just at a lower rate, et cetera.
So in the, in the program that we have, we have quizzes that so you, we can tell that, you know, the information and you've gone through the information. So the C do that we do instead of you doing the C and the associate doing the do the repeat. Okay. We do it with the videos where you we train them on the videos in some, uh, in segments of what you do, they do it. And then all the owner or the educator has to do is check their work. So they're still behind the chair. They're still earning.
So the main income that you have to worry about is just how do you get them on the floor quickly so that they're taking over service that the educator is, or that the senior stylist is doing so that pays for their wages. Wow. Yeah.
Chris, all of this is so great. Um, I've, I've enjoyed all of this conversation. I do feel like some of it is a little bit. high level thinking, right? And like, it's kind of hard to wrap our brains around if this is the first time we've heard this kind of conversation and information happening. So I would love for you, like if I have some listeners that are like associate curious, right?
Like maybe they're independent stylists that are ready to take on an assistant or maybe they're salon owners that are like, Hey, this sounds pretty awesome. What would be like step one to dip their toes in something
like this? Uh, now you're referring to step one as if you want to take on an associate. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, or
like if you're yeah, if you're gonna take on an associate, what's like the best first steps here?
Yeah, well the to me is is um assessment Um, you know usually and this is what I hear from so many people right now that I They're people are having such a hard time hiring That they, they want them just to pass the mirror test, you know, put a mirror underneath your nose. If it fogs, you got the job problem is you're bringing in all of the other problems that they've had before. That makes sense. So what we say is you need to assess.
And that's one thing about the training program that we have is that we build in assessments, one of which is what we call a new hire assessment. And inside there, you would, I would hire them. Because you, they, they're going to come from a variety of sources. They're going to come from a school. They're going to come from another salon, uh, or wherever. But you need to know what their level is from the minimum salon standard that you have. So before you hire them, you know where they stand.
Now, so many people will say to me, Chris, Uh, you handsome devil. Um, see everybody laughs when I say that too. So we'll just say, so Chris, um, and what I'd say to them is look at get up, you know, is get them to do come in and on their first visit, they should do, um, a haircut. That includes, uh, you know, a iron work or and a blow dry and, and here's the kicker. Did they sell any retail? Did they talk about retail? Did they purchase it or not?
And when we bring this up, we have a. We have a form that you fill out and you just grade them. Now, this to many is going to sound like, oh, they did bad, so I don't hire. And that's not what this is at all. It's an assessment, so you know what to train on. And you ask, you can ask them at the end, is Are you willing to go through this? Cause this is going to be your training program. So just hiring and getting somebody to do stuff can set it up for a consumer, the person that's coming in.
And if you're getting them to jump in and do the color service, the blow dry, the whatever, and it doesn't meet your standard, that could be a bye bye notice. You know, client goes, Oh, well, I'm not, you know, crystal is just now pawning me off on somebody who doesn't do as good a job. Therefore, my trust and my loyalty has gone away.
So the first step that I would say, assess, simple assessment, do it on one visit, where they bring in a customer, they bring in a client, they do the cut, the color, the iron work, the retailing. And you grade them on it. Secondly, they come back for a second visit. And they bring in a color client. Could be the one that they did the week before. They have to do, uh, uh, a retouch. You're gonna ask them to do a foiling. You know, and that, they could do that on a mannequin as well.
You know, if they can't find somebody to do it. Because you want them to do a couple of different patterns. So you find out what their blow dry skills, uh, what their, what their foiling skills are like, and again, not to hire, not to fire, but to grade so that you know what your training schedule is with. And here's the other thing, is so many people will bring somebody on and say, you have to know everything before I'm going to grant you access to something. Right.
At least that's the way when we trained, you had to be good at cutting. You had to be able to do it. All of this, you had to have your 10 haircuts that you had to do, and you had to do them. Well, uh, they had to be repeated 10 times so that you showed you were consistent. And, um, you can't do that anymore. You've got it. They want to be on the floor. They want to get to it as quickly as possible.
So if they can do a shampoo as, and you graded them on their shampoo, they can do it, get them doing the shampoos right away. If they can do a color. Excuse me. I don't remember eating that. Um, okay. Old jokes. Old jokes. Um, if they can do a, a, a, a proper. Uh, retouch that meets your standard, get them doing it right away. You know, you, they don't have to wait the two weeks, the three weeks.
Get them to do the skills that they do really well, get them on the floor, get them participating financially, and then train on the rest. Simple. Yeah.
Man. It's so funny because when you describe it, it sounds so simple, but if you've never even thought about this before. Like, I've had assistants before too, right? And it was like, I didn't know what I was doing. I just had someone that was curious and wanted to come learn from me. So I was like, sure, come on in. I didn't have any systems. I didn't have any processes. It was just like winging it the whole time. And it was kind of clumsy. And it took a long time. So I love that.
Um, Chris, I would love for you to tell me if my listeners would like to get ahold of you and learn a little more from you. Where can they find you on this? Big wide internet. Yeah.
Well, first of all, thank you. And, and the, the best way to do is, uh, is, uh, go to, um, trainers playbook. com trainers playbook. com. And that will give you all of the assets that we do. And we have on there. And if they want to go inside there, then, uh, inside there, that'll talk about the salon associate. Program that we have. So, uh, and I believe, um, we have a short site, a shortcut to that. Um, and I think if it's just.
Uh, I'm afraid I'm going to give the wrong information, but I know there's a bitly bit. ly slash, um, slash trainers playbook, I believe is what it's called. And they can go there as well. It's a shortcut to get to it, but it'll tell it gives all the stuff that we do on there, but that'll take them right to salon associate training and it's on there. And what we've done is we figured out that based on if you look at that, somebody is training anywhere between 16, 000 and.
Um, and 29, 000 to train over six months. And if you can do that and do that for a price that's marginal on that, then it makes it worth your while to have somebody else to do the training and then free up your own time.
Amazing. I will make sure to have links to those in the show notes here to make it simple for everybody. Um, and then last quick question for you here on social media, do you, are you the one that handles your social media? Like if someone sent you a DM, is it you, or do you have an assistant doing that for
you? Yes. I mean, first of all, you're a parent and you take a look at my, my grizzly beard, my white hair and you went, no, he probably doesn't do his own. Uh, you're very correct on that. I have, I have my peeps look after a lot of that. I do get into some of it when they, when they get to it because, uh, they deal with it much faster than I do. But if they DM even at, um, even at, at coach Chris Barron. And that's, uh, C-O-A-C-H-C-H-R-I-S and then B-A-R-A-N.
Then that'll get right to this, either myself or people, and my peeps will take care of them.
Wonderful. Well, Chris, this has been such a pleasure to have you on here, and I feel like we could just spin in circles about this stuff all day long. 'cause like I'm just nodding the whole time as you're talking. Yeah. I'm like, yes. I love it. I love it. It's obvious that you have. Um, experience in this industry and that you have some great stuff to share. So I can't wait to get this episode out there for you. And again, just thanks so much for coming on today.
It was absolutely my pleasure.
Awesome. Okay, well, we'll be in touch and uh, I guess I'll see your peeps on Instagram, . Thank you. Okay, bye-Bye. I mean, did he, or did he not deliver? That was fantastic, right? I mean, thanks again to. Coach Chris Barron for coming on the show and sharing those little nuggets of wisdom with us. Um, I truly feel like conversations like this are going to change and shape our industry for the better, really. So excuse me and my cold.
Uh, I hope that you got some helpful insights and little nuggets to carry with you of ins inspiration and information, um, moving forward. And also, if you enjoyed this podcast episode, friend, I have an ask of you. Will you share this with a fellow stylist that you think would enjoy it and gain something from it and, um, pass it on? Maybe send it in a text message. I know when I send my friends Text messages with links to podcasts. I usually get responses from them.
And when they do it to me, I actually go look. So, um, what I'm trying to say is tell your neighbor, tell your friends, if you liked this, it definitely helps share the message, spread the joy if we share it with more stylists, right? So, um, thank you so much for listening. It's always a pleasure for me to be here as your hair mentor. And as I always love to say, Have a wonderful hair day my friend, and I'll see you next time. K bye!