(03:54) Tracey
Hello and welcome back to Beyond Common Business Secrets. I am here with an amazing innovator in the salon world Jen Leblanc who is the Chief Operations Officer. I'm sorry that's right she is an officer for sure Salon Roots And Ends Studio in Medina, Ohio. And Jennifer happens to be a very dear friend of mine who I love and adore. Jen, I appreciate you being here so much with us today.
(04:28) Jennifer
Thank you. Absolutely thanks for having me. Yeah thanks so much.
(04:30) Tracey
It's so funny. People always think, because we're we're in Ohio together that we actually see each other but you shot a woman we saw we saw each other over the summer and that's about
as good as it gets. Right now, I feel like it's so funny so but you are like a phone call away and close and so it's always great knowing that there's other business leaders like right in our backyard and you have been that person to me for so many years and I'm just so honored that you're here today thank you.
(05:02) Jennifer
Thank you, thank you so much.
(05:09) Tracey
So the reason why I invited Jen on Beyond Common Business Secrets today is because she has such an interesting perspective of how she is successful in the salon world that I really love her viewpoint. And she looks at things in a very different way. So Jen, you just have to be you and that's what I think our listeners are going to enjoy, okay because the business secrets are really always based on the life stuff right? Like what really happens behind the scenes? So the thing that I wanted you to share with us is, what do you really think it takes now in this day and age to be successful in the salon industry right now?
(05:56) Jennifer
I love it, that's a great question. You know, one of my pet peeves in our amazing industry is that,
There are so many that believe because it's always been done that way, this is always how it has to be done. And because people found success for decades doing it this way, that it's not possible to find success, you know evolving and doing it another way. And I thought right I think I know COVID changed that perspective for a lot and it gave them time to really sit back evaluate their business and make game-changing decisions that hopefully were instrumental and in a positive way for them and one of the first and foremost things that comes to my mind because it's one of my first loves is technology.
(06:53) Jennifer
Technology is such a player now in not just our industry but in every industry. Everything is going so mobile. Everything is going to kiosks you know and here at Salon Roots we're a deskless salon, so we operate on a lot of different tech platforms that allow us to be just as efficient while being not totally people-less. But we have technology in place to be more efficient
with the people that we do have. So that would be my first you number one. You have to be tech savvy. Gone are those days where people inherited because they didn't have to figure out technology. That's over right? You know what I mean? And the biggest thing is I think that the salon industry is notoriously slow to get on board with technology. And you know and change and develop and things like that because it’s intimidating. I just do hair. But if you really delve into it, it has evolved so much from Instagram now, you have TikTok, tac and you have Reels and you have Facebook gone are the days that you can just post a picture and be done with it. You can do that. But you're going to be buried at the bottom of somebody's feed because it's not as relevant as you know being a current player in the game for sure.
(08:24) Tracey
I love that. Like I said, you always have the best perspective. You know what I was just thinking that I really would love to share with you? What drew you into the salon world? What is your story of how you ended up amongst us?
(08:43) Jennifer
So it's pretty fun. I actually am an entrepreneur at heart for sure. Total entrepreneur and I had owned a marketing company and it was a diverse marketing company if I did a bunch of different businesses from landscaping businesses to manufacturing businesses across the board. And I was very good friends with the co-owner here, Jen and Troy. And she did my hair and she had done my hair for years prior. And we were chatting one day and salon roots had just been open for just over two years. And they were in a different location, much smaller location and she was kind of bouncing some ideas off of me in regards to things that she would like to grow and develop within the salon. And I said, “You know what? I'll take you on as a client and it'll be completely pro bono. We'll see if my knowledge can be any benefit to you in the salon world. Let's just see what happens.
(09:44) Jennifer
So we did that and one year of success turned into twelve years of success, turned into wow now we're salon today 200 salon. I was spending the majority of my time working on projects for them. And I loved it. I was all in. So I kind of say that I have a marketing tech business brain but my heart is in hair. And because I was so close with everyone that was somebody within our salon family, it just meant more and it was like a drug that I couldn't get more of it as much as I wanted it. As much as we got it. That was a success. So after about almost two and a half years
They came to me and asked me if I wanted to be employed by them full-time. And from there the rest is really history with that.
(10:38) Tracey
I love that. And I think that's why I have always found your perspective. So amazing because you do have that great marketing knowledge that techy brain but you are all in on the passion
when it comes to hair from day one that's why I met you. I thought you did hair.
(10:57) Jennifer
Yeah absolutely. A lot of people think that, you know what I mean? And there is something to be said for the appreciation of the art of hair. And that is something that I think is really understated across the board on a lot of different levels. And what I mean by that, is you know.
And I hear it a lot when I interview apprentices, or I interview potential trainees within our family. And I always interview the potential employee and we interview their family at the same time. One of the common things that just makes me want to blow up my brain that I hear is usually from dad, sometimes from mom sometimes from both is I will not understand why my daughter just wants to do hair. They just want to do hair and nothing gets me fired up internally more than that because there's so much you know. I start spitting out, do you know the chemistry involved in this? This does not equate you know.
(12:07) Jennifer
Gone are the days where if you can't go to college, you're gonna go do hair you know. Most of
the salon world that I'm very close with is making six figures okay? They are six figure hairdressers. I know a handful of people that are actually successful in what they went to college for, you know. I'm a big fan of the trades. I will just kind of stop with that. I'm a big fan of the trades because of that. There's so much more to it when you start really breaking down just doing hair, the geometry behind it, the chemistry behind it, the people skills, the communication
Skills. You have to have all of the above in order to be successful in being a hairdresser without a doubt.
(12:59) Tracey
What would you say would be the three most important qualities or tools that you think it takes to run a successful salon?
(13:18) Jennifer
Okay, you got you got to be innovative. You have to be consistent, and you have to be able to show appreciation, and gratefulness for those around you. That makes that particular salon world move, rotate, grow, evolve.
(13:47) Tracey
So what does consistency look like for you in the business world inside your salon? What does consistently look like for you?
(13:52) Jennifer
Well, consistency falls into a lot of different ways on a lot of different levels. We could say, you have to be consistent and come on time to work every day. We have to be consistent in the business decisions that we make for the business. We have to be consistent in our disciplinary
Actions. We have to be consistent in upholding our culture. We have to be consistent with our brand message. Whether it's on our website, whether it's on our Instagram Page, whether it's on
Facebook, we have to be consistent with how we operate as a team. And we all have to be meeting those same levels of standards regardless of what that might look like.
(14:32) Tracey
So what do you guys do or put into place to make that happen? Because this is a common struggle I hear from salon owners across the board. They love the idea of this. But how do you actually make it the living breathing consistency that you guys have in your business?
(14:52) Jennifer
Years of hard lessons.Years and years and years of hard lessons. For real, a lot of personal growth and a lot of awareness amongst each other of how we all communicate and how we all need to meet each other at different levels. And that doesn't happen overnight. And then knowing what levels of accountability we are each holding each other too. I hold Jen and Sheila, the two co-owners have their levels of accountability and then I have levels that I push and push with them so that they uphold. So that they have somebody pushing with them, so that it isn't the top that just falls down. Everything just kind of rolls downhill. It starts by us pushing our team and then us being an example from how we handle ourselves on the salon floor, how we handle ourselves behind the chair, how we handle ourselves on the phone, how we handle ourselves even replying to a message from a client via Instagram. We all need to make sure that we're communicating on that exact same level so that there's no gray area.
(16:02) Tracey
Oh, I love that I think that if you guys need to pull over, you need to pull over and write that down right? That's a really good note because that really makes it tangible. I can do that so thank you for your words of wisdom there. What do you see as the challenges and struggles in
the salon industry right now?
(16:29) Jennifer
Staffing is absolutely, positively. The staffing and recruiting is probably the number one talked about hardship for salons right now. And it's not just salons. It's businesses across the country. But for us, we actually just hired somebody. She starts on Monday. And I'm so excited. I'm over the moon to have a brush of fresh air. I'm over the moon to have new blood. We haven't had a full-time nail tech that just did nails. In three and a half years, we've had girls that do both and we have a really really strong following of those services so I'm super excited how Danielle found us and I'm a big follower of Stephanie Fox and talent match. I've really been able to take a lot of what I have learned from her and kind of plug it in. And it works. So I'm really excited to have some new blood. But staffing for sure.
(17:30) Tracey
Are you guys putting a lot of exactly who you are about your culture into your recruiting practices to attract? Yeah, which is what you and I have talked about forever, is like setting the culture, and why it's important to how we show up as business leaders. And I will love how Stephanie has taken it and really applied it to the recruiting aspect.
(17:55) Jennifer
So yeah that is a beautiful thing. Yeah and I think it's I mean it when you think about, you talk about it, you're like well of course you know. But it's being able to take that message and really spread it out amongst the brands this new hire found us completely organically by falling in love with our website. So it wasn't a Facebook Ad. It wasn't anything like that. She found us by finding our brand and loving how we represent ourselves across TikToks and Instagram, and Facebook, and things like that. We are definitely not a spa. And that's one thing. So we provide nail services and we have a very large following of nail services for our staff but we're not a very quiet atmosphere. it's a louder salon floor. We're laughing, we're having fun. And she's absolutely head over heels with that idea. She comes from a place of scrub-like uniforms and a very formal setting. And she would like to be more intimate with her guest, and kind of be more of a part of those things. So we're really excited to add this back into our repertoire of services full time.
(19:15) Tracey
That's amazing. What else have you guys been doing in your recruiting and staffing like to kind of help overcome the challenges? I mean it's across the board. I mean there's not one business owner that I've talked to this week, this month, this year if I'm being a thousand percent honest that has not said, there's fear that comes up around that it used to be that we could just set our business goals right and that kind of fell into place. But that's like a little bit so like what have you guys put into place to help you guys overcome this challenge?
(19:50) Jennifer
Well, we are definitely expediting the speed that our girls work through the education program because it doesn't seem like there's a shortage of younger talent. It appears that the shortage is more like those that would be ready to hit the floor. So the first thing is, we are really expediting our education process to get them in, get them on the floor, get them moving. Even if it's not overnight that's just we're just speeding up our current process to introduce them to more opportunity days sooner would be the best way. It would be the best way to put that. And with that, you know there is so much to be said about making sure that the quality of education that they're receiving is able to equate to them moving to the floor at a quicker pace, it doesn't do any good for us to push artists through super fast and then they see five guests a week and not one of them comes back and they hammer me with three out of five bad reviews of their service. So we also at the same time are being extremely careful of what that looks like. So even though we are expediting, we are not pushing them into services that they're not comfortable in doing and things like that. But we're trying to slowly speed up that process.
(21:04) Tracey
Jennifer, thanks for saying that because that is been another challenge across the board, not
just in the salon world but everywhere like thinking that, i'll just hire more people and push them through but you're touching on the fact that like yeah especially in the salon world. it's not that easy, right? The customers we have do not want that like your brand stands for a specific level of quality and people need to get that at hello. So I love that you guys are taking into account how we can speed up the process but still produce the quality that our customers have known because they expect? I think the sweet spot is that you're saying all the right things, like working so hard on being really clear about who your culture is, that consistency daily, making that show up in all the social places that you guys are just out there showing who you are because I'm right with you guys. I never liked being in a spa environment when I was on this lawn. I like fun and energy right so knowing that before you walk in a place is awesome. That you're like getting that person that really wants that. So that's amazing. And the fact that there are ways to speed the process. I think that's really essential for people that are looking for employment. If they have a mapped out career path that I can get there quickly but I'm gonna be confident in my skill set. I mean I think it's amazing that you guys are doing that because I know the back end work that goes into that so air hogs to you my friend yeah.
(22:40) Jennifer
For sure
(22:41) Tracey
That's hard, you know. like The thing is, there are steps and processes that makes that really be
where I'm sure most of your attention is daily.
(22:53) Jennifer
Yeah, well. That's hard for owners because they're the ones that you know, we've tried having our managers do the education. And we've tried just releasing it out to outside education which we do a ton of. But Jen and Sheila really have taken into the fact that if they're gonna grow as a business, they have to be the one to grow the people. They have to be the one hands on. As much as sometimes it's frustrating or it's hard. Time is always of the essence but we are closed on Fridays and that's something that we will keep now because we are closed and it's a massive employee perk. Every other week our staff gets an automatic three-day weekend and some of the girls get a four-day weekend because some of them don't work on Mondays ever. So that's a really big perk for them. We've been able to really kind of work all that in together.
(23:51) Tracey
I remember when you guys were testing this, “the close on Friday”. How long has it been now that it's been like officially?
(23:59) Jennifer
A year and a half, because we came back from COVID, closed on Fridays.
(24:03) Tracey
And how to like at the beginning, which is when I remember talking to you about this. You know like that the questions you were feeling from customers versus,
(24:15) Jennifer
We still get a lot of questions. Like last year we did open up some Fridays for a holiday to help with the holiday surge this year. And we like the fact that everyone was in a different space last year, and to spread some people out more this year, I feel like we're all still on the same page for lack of better knowledge. I feel like we're all in a better place as much as we can be. And we probably won't because we have a lot of team things that we've planned for December on Fridays in addition to education and things like that. But fun things, to give the staff something to look forward to. But some people will be like, “Well you're open on Mondays, right?” That's usually, I thought you were closed on Mondays because all salons are closed on Mondays. You're like no we're actually closed on Fridays and once given the opportunity, we can actually tell the guests why we're closed on Fridays. They're always like, “Oh that's so cool, I wish I worked here. There's a lot of businesses that have really delved into that four-day workweek or half-day Fridays and things like that. So this isn't a new concept. We've just gotten on board with it.
(25:25) Tracey
Yeah, I really believe that COVID gave the Salon Industry the permission it needed to look into those alternatives because I think I shared this with you, I was so guilty of that as an owner. Before COVID that is the way it is. This is how it's been like I have to do this. And after the same thing like we totally changed the number of days open and it was fine. We didn't even skip a beat in the revenue. That's the crazy thing. Had anyone told us years ago, we would have been doing it right. So that's why sometimes we just have to extend appreciation to the fact that COVID kind of hit because there are so many great discoveries that we don't pay attention to.
(26:12) Jennifer
Yeah that's for sure
(26:14) Tracey
Well, that's so cool. I didn't realize that you guys had kept up with it, so that's awesome, that's amazing. Do you have any future, like you guys have been always so visionary like being one of the various first ones in the country to adopt that hybrid model roots to ends. You share a little bit about how that came about with our audience and then after that, I want to talk to you about what's next? Where's that vision of your business going?
(26:43) Jennifer
We have a commission-based salon which is salon roots. It has 15 employees and we are celebrating 16 years this December. We are going to hit our sweet 16, so yay! And we're going to have some fun. I think we're going to do a week of sweet 16 fun vibes. and you know all that kind of good stuff. We're still working on our plan for that. But seven and a half years ago, we had a group of employees that came to us and had said they wanted to booth rent and we collectively had said, no. Salon Roots will not be a booth rental salon. and they said well we have an opportunity to go rent a chair for 50 bucks a week. And we think we're gonna do this and they were our three top people. We raised them from Medina County Career Center
sent them to Soho, sent them to Toronto. We sent them to train all around the world and we never actually truly thought they would leave. We just didn't like that. We were just like, no you
I know and I will not want to say we blew them off but we didn't. We didn't probably take them as
seriously as they were because they were very serious in what their request was.
(28:02) Jennifer
And about a week and a half later, all three of those girls.. at the time Salon Roots had 28 employees. So we were a lot larger than what we are. Every chair in the salon was filled all the time. And it was crazy awesome but it was crazy. And a guest had come in with a letter and had said, “Hey I got this letter a couple of days ago. I'm so confused so-and-so is right here but this letter says that my next appointment is here.” And we were like the bomb of Hiroshima Hit Salon Roots that day. And obviously, it was devastating. And from there that part is history. But essentially all three of them left probably in the coolest fashion that you could leave a business and whatnot. We definitely were beaten and defeated for a period of time. But we quickly started to put our brain to work that said okay Salon Roots are popping up everywhere. matter of fact, there's a solo in our parking lot here at ends and Salon Roots. I mean that's like walking distance. It's not going away so what are we going to do in order to combat this and if you can't beat them let's find a way to join them. But join them in our own way. We're not going to convert Salon Roots to booth rental. That wasn't the game plan. But because Jen and Sheila are owner-operators behind the chair, a lot of the decisions that they make are for the hairdresser. And what I mean by that is they're pro hairdresser decisions. And that's really like where my brain comes into effect as the balancer, as the business mind of well that's great but we have to do this in order to stay in business. Or that's great or we still have to meet these needs etc. But all their decisions are definitely pro hairdresser decisions because they are one, just being honest. That's what they do for a living. They have the hairdresser hat, then the owner hat. Yes okay Operation Owner, got it okay.
(30:18) Jennifer
So kind of get together and brainstorm and they said let's open our own and let's make it part of our growth pattern. And it was seven and a half years ago. It was extremely controversial. I was definitely not a well-liked face in Ohio Salon connection meetings. And matter of fact, people actually didn't want me there. Because they kind of identified us as no longer a commission-based salon but somebody that had both and it was we were really looked down upon at first because owners looked at it as we were trying to hurt them. But the truth of the matter is is that we created it to be an insurance policy for us because if somebody was going to
leave us to go booth rent which when you had 27 people. And you have these Solas and your Salon House popping up. I mean the risk is there. It doesn't matter how good of an environment you create, the risk is there. And we already experienced the rawest form of that heartbreak that
there possibly could be. We had been researching in Medina, we had been looking around like crazy trying to find a place that we were gonna rent prudential was in our same plaza. Jennifer had been in contact with the realtor and he was like hey Prudential's moving out and it already had half of the rooms were already built out and over a hundred square foot boxes. And we were like yeah that makes sense. All we had to do was remodel half well in the insides of the rooms obviously. But then the other half was like a new build because we had to build rooms on the other half. They had like a really big open space and things like that so we took that open space and made and made different size suites.
(32:10) Jennifer
And suddenly it took off. We had seven root girls move over. And then we had seven from other salons throughout the Medina Area and whatnot. And we've never looked back and now I get two emails a week from Salon Owners across the country looking to get on board with this idea of growing stylists. We call it growing from roots to ends. But how could they do booth too? So that it creates part of a growth pattern, not an exit strategy. It all starts with you know I always say before you open it ends you have to make sure that your pipeline from your feeder salon is strong because you're essentially growing them to leave so you need to make sure that you're growing them and that rate of growth continues to match. And you're going to have those that want to stay. I have some senior employees at roots that have zero interest in any way shape or form of ever owning their own business ever, booth renting and anything like that. And they are happy as a clam and will die at Salon Roots. And then there's those that are really open. They are really open when they start to work for us. I at some point do want a booth run. Or I at some point want to own my own salon. So I want to do this and then I want to, I'm going to go to the end to get my feet wet, and then I'm going to go to a rental booth. Or I'm going to open my own salon so it's super fun. It's definitely something that you have to have your eyes and ears open all the time. Because you have to make sure that you have no weak spots in either. So the competition in this area for booth rental is pretty fierce. Like I said solo's in my parking lot and Salon Lofts is 11 miles down the road. So you have to make sure that you're on your a-game at all times.
(34:09) Tracey
Well, I love that you guys took that pain and suffering because we've all been there. I think any business owner listening to this can relate. Even for other employees that are part of a salon family, it hurts them when it happens. So you guys had that huge pain and instead of being resistant to
obviously what was coming were changes in the way we do business right? Instead of resisting the changes or going completely the opposite way which is very different from your own culture, you really were such innovators in making it both. And when you said there were people that were like oh uh we don't know if we. But I remember reaching out to you saying, I need you to tell me everything because I thought like I'm always open to like okay convince me. Let's have a healthy debate but I was very passionate about the fact that I have never been anti-booth rent never. But people will peg me like that sometimes. But here's the thing, I am for growth and development. and not for people being sold something that they're not ready for. I know that you guys have made it like here's the raw honest truth. You have to have a certain skill set to actually be an owner right? And you just said that there are the people that want to be employees and that's the thing. Giving people the opportunity to make educated decisions I think is essential in any business and you guys do that so well.
(35:42) Jennifer
That's because I don't want a flood to end here with people that are going to leave in six months. I'm not in that kind of business. I want to actually grow people and I want them to stay. A lot of our competitors are essentially what I like to say are in the Real Estate Business. So they have rooms and they're going to sell them. and if you're going to stay for 90 days, great. They're just going to put another body in there for 90 days. and that's the game they play. We're not in that same game. We're not in that same lane at all.
(36:12) Tracey
And that's why I think you stand out from the competition because you definitely are educating so that people can make their own decision based on what's right for them. I think I will for the love and care that I have for our Salon Industry as a whole, that's the part that hurt my heart. I saw so many people who made an emotional decision because they had one bad conversation with their boss or something and decided that they're gonna be their own boss but not be prepared for what it's like and then exit the industry altogether. And they were like on their path where they were working to earn six figures or were already doing it and they kind of blew up their life. So that was the thing of okay. Well, where's this going and as an industry how can we understand that we're all different but we're all the same? How do we make our industry better?
(37:04) Jennifer
Yep for sure.
(37:07) Tracey
What innovation are you guys up to now? Because you know you're always on the forefront of this. Gotta share you know.
(37:14) Jennifer
Honestly, because we're so far in that we're on holiday right now. So my focus is I actually create road maps. I have my 2022 roadmap that I've been thinking about and kind of writing things down. And a lot of it is still making how we operate right now. More efficiently and working closely with MEVO which is our Salon Software partner. I love beta testing things for them and being able to bounce ideas off of them. One of the things that we really want to continue to grow especially is our online e-commerce business. It's grown exponentially in the past almost 24 months. We've had it for a little over four and a half almost five years but we're going to continue to put more effort into making it more shoppable and making it easier for our guests and really continuing to hammer that out there to everybody. But as far as you know is what's next, I think for us anyways is continuously finding out how to continue to refine our present process to be more efficient and possibly be able to duplicate it. And do another one but I feel like in order to do that, your process has got to be so secure that you can't just double it. It's got to be so tight that there are no leaks in the system.
(38:39) Tracey
Right, because you don't want to double the problem because that's right, that's a fun thing common in our industry. So another blessing that you're. That's the thing I'm like you don't open another one until you got that right because I coached on all the time, I'm like no no yeah because that little water leak, that little drip of that water all of a sudden turns into complete mutton soon after a while. So if you had to offer up one Business Secret that everyone should know, what would it be? What's your Business Secret that you have for everybody?
(39:17) Jennifer
My secret sauce, yes my Jennifer Le Blanc Secret Sauce is Persistency. I am the absolute most persistent person you will ever meet in your entire life for sure hands down. What makes you so
Persistent? I will not take no for an answer even if it's in regards to can't be done impossible. I will figure out a way and not be annoying persistent but continuously looking to evolve and figure out an answer or being a solution provider to the situation versus just rolling over and being like okay well I will that's just not gonna work. Persistency because at the end of the day persistency is consistency. You have to be doing and you have to be diligent. Part of that is being driven by passion in order to be the best or whatever drives you. So my secret sauce and it's very well known is being persistent.
(40:19) Tracey
I love it. So Jennifer, if people wanna either apply to work with you, yeah call you because they need help with setting this up in their business, how can people get in touch with you? What's the best way to connect with you?
(40:32) Jennifer
Probably my email address is Jennifer Leblanc at salonroots.com and that's J e n -LEB-L-A-N-C
at salon roots.com. I also co-host a room on Clubhouse with Rowena Yeager in the Leadership Circle. So that's always a great way to follow us. Listen in we try to do one to two rooms a week. Right now with the holiday, it's more like one room and then obviously Instagram. You can follow Salon Roots. You can follow Jennifer Leblanc 2018 and you can find me on Facebook.
(41:02) Tracey
Jennifer, thank you so much for being here. I am so grateful. Is there anything you want to add?
(41:09) Jennifer
No, thank you for having me. It's been so fun and good to see your face too.
(41:15) Tracey
It's so good to see you and you guys seriously go check out Jennifer. She's all over Social Media and she's a marketer. Go check out what she's got going on, she's amazing.
Hello and welcome back to Beyond Common Business Secrets. I am here with an amazing innovator in the salon world Jen Leblanc who is the Chief Operations Officer. I'm sorry that's right she is an officer for sure Salon Roots And Ends Studio in Medina, Ohio. And Jennifer happens to be a very dear friend of mine who I love and adore. Jen, I appreciate you being here so much with us today.
(04:28) Jennifer
Thank you. Absolutely thanks for having me. Yeah thanks so much.
(04:30) Tracey
It's so funny. People always think, because we're we're in Ohio together that we actually see each other but you shot a woman we saw we saw each other over the summer and that's about
as good as it gets. Right now, I feel like it's so funny so but you are like a phone call away and close and so it's always great knowing that there's other business leaders like right in our backyard and you have been that person to me for so many years and I'm just so honored that you're here today thank you.
(05:02) Jennifer
Thank you, thank you so much.
(05:09) Tracey
So the reason why I invited Jen on Beyond Common Business Secrets today is because she has such an interesting perspective of how she is successful in the salon world that I really love her viewpoint. And she looks at things in a very different way. So Jen, you just have to be you and that's what I think our listeners are going to enjoy, okay because the business secrets are really always based on the life stuff right? Like what really happens behind the scenes? So the thing that I wanted you to share with us is, what do you really think it takes now in this day and age to be successful in the salon industry right now?
(05:56) Jennifer
I love it, that's a great question. You know, one of my pet peeves in our amazing industry is that,
There are so many that believe because it's always been done that way, this is always how it has to be done. And because people found success for decades doing it this way, that it's not possible to find success, you know evolving and doing it another way. And I thought right I think I know COVID changed that perspective for a lot and it gave them time to really sit back evaluate their business and make game-changing decisions that hopefully were instrumental and in a positive way for them and one of the first and foremost things that comes to my mind because it's one of my first loves is technology.
(06:53) Jennifer
Technology is such a player now in not just our industry but in every industry. Everything is going so mobile. Everything is going to kiosks you know and here at Salon Roots we're a deskless salon, so we operate on a lot of different tech platforms that allow us to be just as efficient while being not totally people-less. But we have technology in place to be more efficient
with the people that we do have. So that would be my first you number one. You have to be tech savvy. Gone are those days where people inherited because they didn't have to figure out technology. That's over right? You know what I mean? And the biggest thing is I think that the salon industry is notoriously slow to get on board with technology. And you know and change and develop and things like that because it’s intimidating. I just do hair. But if you really delve into it, it has evolved so much from Instagram now, you have TikTok, tac and you have Reels and you have Facebook gone are the days that you can just post a picture and be done with it. You can do that. But you're going to be buried at the bottom of somebody's feed because it's not as relevant as you know being a current player in the game for sure.
(08:24) Tracey
I love that. Like I said, you always have the best perspective. You know what I was just thinking that I really would love to share with you? What drew you into the salon world? What is your story of how you ended up amongst us?
(08:43) Jennifer
So it's pretty fun. I actually am an entrepreneur at heart for sure. Total entrepreneur and I had owned a marketing company and it was a diverse marketing company if I did a bunch of different businesses from landscaping businesses to manufacturing businesses across the board. And I was very good friends with the co-owner here, Jen and Troy. And she did my hair and she had done my hair for years prior. And we were chatting one day and salon roots had just been open for just over two years. And they were in a different location, much smaller location and she was kind of bouncing some ideas off of me in regards to things that she would like to grow and develop within the salon. And I said, “You know what? I'll take you on as a client and it'll be completely pro bono. We'll see if my knowledge can be any benefit to you in the salon world. Let's just see what happens.
(09:44) Jennifer
So we did that and one year of success turned into twelve years of success, turned into wow now we're salon today 200 salon. I was spending the majority of my time working on projects for them. And I loved it. I was all in. So I kind of say that I have a marketing tech business brain but my heart is in hair. And because I was so close with everyone that was somebody within our salon family, it just meant more and it was like a drug that I couldn't get more of it as much as I wanted it. As much as we got it. That was a success. So after about almost two and a half years
They came to me and asked me if I wanted to be employed by them full-time. And from there the rest is really history with that.
(10:38) Tracey
I love that. And I think that's why I have always found your perspective. So amazing because you do have that great marketing knowledge that techy brain but you are all in on the passion
when it comes to hair from day one that's why I met you. I thought you did hair.
(10:57) Jennifer
Yeah absolutely. A lot of people think that, you know what I mean? And there is something to be said for the appreciation of the art of hair. And that is something that I think is really understated across the board on a lot of different levels. And what I mean by that, is you know.
And I hear it a lot when I interview apprentices, or I interview potential trainees within our family. And I always interview the potential employee and we interview their family at the same time. One of the common things that just makes me want to blow up my brain that I hear is usually from dad, sometimes from mom sometimes from both is I will not understand why my daughter just wants to do hair. They just want to do hair and nothing gets me fired up internally more than that because there's so much you know. I start spitting out, do you know the chemistry involved in this? This does not equate you know.
(12:07) Jennifer
Gone are the days where if you can't go to college, you're gonna go do hair you know. Most of
the salon world that I'm very close with is making six figures okay? They are six figure hairdressers. I know a handful of people that are actually successful in what they went to college for, you know. I'm a big fan of the trades. I will just kind of stop with that. I'm a big fan of the trades because of that. There's so much more to it when you start really breaking down just doing hair, the geometry behind it, the chemistry behind it, the people skills, the communication
Skills. You have to have all of the above in order to be successful in being a hairdresser without a doubt.
(12:59) Tracey
What would you say would be the three most important qualities or tools that you think it takes to run a successful salon?
(13:18) Jennifer
Okay, you got you got to be innovative. You have to be consistent, and you have to be able to show appreciation, and gratefulness for those around you. That makes that particular salon world move, rotate, grow, evolve.
(13:47) Tracey
So what does consistency look like for you in the business world inside your salon? What does consistently look like for you?
(13:52) Jennifer
Well, consistency falls into a lot of different ways on a lot of different levels. We could say, you have to be consistent and come on time to work every day. We have to be consistent in the business decisions that we make for the business. We have to be consistent in our disciplinary
Actions. We have to be consistent in upholding our culture. We have to be consistent with our brand message. Whether it's on our website, whether it's on our Instagram Page, whether it's on
Facebook, we have to be consistent with how we operate as a team. And we all have to be meeting those same levels of standards regardless of what that might look like.
(14:32) Tracey
So what do you guys do or put into place to make that happen? Because this is a common struggle I hear from salon owners across the board. They love the idea of this. But how do you actually make it the living breathing consistency that you guys have in your business?
(14:52) Jennifer
Years of hard lessons.Years and years and years of hard lessons. For real, a lot of personal growth and a lot of awareness amongst each other of how we all communicate and how we all need to meet each other at different levels. And that doesn't happen overnight. And then knowing what levels of accountability we are each holding each other too. I hold Jen and Sheila, the two co-owners have their levels of accountability and then I have levels that I push and push with them so that they uphold. So that they have somebody pushing with them, so that it isn't the top that just falls down. Everything just kind of rolls downhill. It starts by us pushing our team and then us being an example from how we handle ourselves on the salon floor, how we handle ourselves behind the chair, how we handle ourselves on the phone, how we handle ourselves even replying to a message from a client via Instagram. We all need to make sure that we're communicating on that exact same level so that there's no gray area.
(16:02) Tracey
Oh, I love that I think that if you guys need to pull over, you need to pull over and write that down right? That's a really good note because that really makes it tangible. I can do that so thank you for your words of wisdom there. What do you see as the challenges and struggles in
the salon industry right now?
(16:29) Jennifer
Staffing is absolutely, positively. The staffing and recruiting is probably the number one talked about hardship for salons right now. And it's not just salons. It's businesses across the country. But for us, we actually just hired somebody. She starts on Monday. And I'm so excited. I'm over the moon to have a brush of fresh air. I'm over the moon to have new blood. We haven't had a full-time nail tech that just did nails. In three and a half years, we've had girls that do both and we have a really really strong following of those services so I'm super excited how Danielle found us and I'm a big follower of Stephanie Fox and talent match. I've really been able to take a lot of what I have learned from her and kind of plug it in. And it works. So I'm really excited to have some new blood. But staffing for sure.
(17:30) Tracey
Are you guys putting a lot of exactly who you are about your culture into your recruiting practices to attract? Yeah, which is what you and I have talked about forever, is like setting the culture, and why it's important to how we show up as business leaders. And I will love how Stephanie has taken it and really applied it to the recruiting aspect.
(17:55) Jennifer
So yeah that is a beautiful thing. Yeah and I think it's I mean it when you think about, you talk about it, you're like well of course you know. But it's being able to take that message and really spread it out amongst the brands this new hire found us completely organically by falling in love with our website. So it wasn't a Facebook Ad. It wasn't anything like that. She found us by finding our brand and loving how we represent ourselves across TikToks and Instagram, and Facebook, and things like that. We are definitely not a spa. And that's one thing. So we provide nail services and we have a very large following of nail services for our staff but we're not a very quiet atmosphere. it's a louder salon floor. We're laughing, we're having fun. And she's absolutely head over heels with that idea. She comes from a place of scrub-like uniforms and a very formal setting. And she would like to be more intimate with her guest, and kind of be more of a part of those things. So we're really excited to add this back into our repertoire of services full time.
(19:15) Tracey
That's amazing. What else have you guys been doing in your recruiting and staffing like to kind of help overcome the challenges? I mean it's across the board. I mean there's not one business owner that I've talked to this week, this month, this year if I'm being a thousand percent honest that has not said, there's fear that comes up around that it used to be that we could just set our business goals right and that kind of fell into place. But that's like a little bit so like what have you guys put into place to help you guys overcome this challenge?
(19:50) Jennifer
Well, we are definitely expediting the speed that our girls work through the education program because it doesn't seem like there's a shortage of younger talent. It appears that the shortage is more like those that would be ready to hit the floor. So the first thing is, we are really expediting our education process to get them in, get them on the floor, get them moving. Even if it's not overnight that's just we're just speeding up our current process to introduce them to more opportunity days sooner would be the best way. It would be the best way to put that. And with that, you know there is so much to be said about making sure that the quality of education that they're receiving is able to equate to them moving to the floor at a quicker pace, it doesn't do any good for us to push artists through super fast and then they see five guests a week and not one of them comes back and they hammer me with three out of five bad reviews of their service. So we also at the same time are being extremely careful of what that looks like. So even though we are expediting, we are not pushing them into services that they're not comfortable in doing and things like that. But we're trying to slowly speed up that process.
(21:04) Tracey
Jennifer, thanks for saying that because that is been another challenge across the board, not
just in the salon world but everywhere like thinking that, i'll just hire more people and push them through but you're touching on the fact that like yeah especially in the salon world. it's not that easy, right? The customers we have do not want that like your brand stands for a specific level of quality and people need to get that at hello. So I love that you guys are taking into account how we can speed up the process but still produce the quality that our customers have known because they expect? I think the sweet spot is that you're saying all the right things, like working so hard on being really clear about who your culture is, that consistency daily, making that show up in all the social places that you guys are just out there showing who you are because I'm right with you guys. I never liked being in a spa environment when I was on this lawn. I like fun and energy right so knowing that before you walk in a place is awesome. That you're like getting that person that really wants that. So that's amazing. And the fact that there are ways to speed the process. I think that's really essential for people that are looking for employment. If they have a mapped out career path that I can get there quickly but I'm gonna be confident in my skill set. I mean I think it's amazing that you guys are doing that because I know the back end work that goes into that so air hogs to you my friend yeah.
(22:40) Jennifer
For sure
(22:41) Tracey
That's hard, you know. like The thing is, there are steps and processes that makes that really be
where I'm sure most of your attention is daily.
(22:53) Jennifer
Yeah, well. That's hard for owners because they're the ones that you know, we've tried having our managers do the education. And we've tried just releasing it out to outside education which we do a ton of. But Jen and Sheila really have taken into the fact that if they're gonna grow as a business, they have to be the one to grow the people. They have to be the one hands on. As much as sometimes it's frustrating or it's hard. Time is always of the essence but we are closed on Fridays and that's something that we will keep now because we are closed and it's a massive employee perk. Every other week our staff gets an automatic three-day weekend and some of the girls get a four-day weekend because some of them don't work on Mondays ever. So that's a really big perk for them. We've been able to really kind of work all that in together.
(23:51) Tracey
I remember when you guys were testing this, “the close on Friday”. How long has it been now that it's been like officially?
(23:59) Jennifer
A year and a half, because we came back from COVID, closed on Fridays.
(24:03) Tracey
And how to like at the beginning, which is when I remember talking to you about this. You know like that the questions you were feeling from customers versus,
(24:15) Jennifer
We still get a lot of questions. Like last year we did open up some Fridays for a holiday to help with the holiday surge this year. And we like the fact that everyone was in a different space last year, and to spread some people out more this year, I feel like we're all still on the same page for lack of better knowledge. I feel like we're all in a better place as much as we can be. And we probably won't because we have a lot of team things that we've planned for December on Fridays in addition to education and things like that. But fun things, to give the staff something to look forward to. But some people will be like, “Well you're open on Mondays, right?” That's usually, I thought you were closed on Mondays because all salons are closed on Mondays. You're like no we're actually closed on Fridays and once given the opportunity, we can actually tell the guests why we're closed on Fridays. They're always like, “Oh that's so cool, I wish I worked here. There's a lot of businesses that have really delved into that four-day workweek or half-day Fridays and things like that. So this isn't a new concept. We've just gotten on board with it.
(25:25) Tracey
Yeah, I really believe that COVID gave the Salon Industry the permission it needed to look into those alternatives because I think I shared this with you, I was so guilty of that as an owner. Before COVID that is the way it is. This is how it's been like I have to do this. And after the same thing like we totally changed the number of days open and it was fine. We didn't even skip a beat in the revenue. That's the crazy thing. Had anyone told us years ago, we would have been doing it right. So that's why sometimes we just have to extend appreciation to the fact that COVID kind of hit because there are so many great discoveries that we don't pay attention to.
(26:12) Jennifer
Yeah that's for sure
(26:14) Tracey
Well, that's so cool. I didn't realize that you guys had kept up with it, so that's awesome, that's amazing. Do you have any future, like you guys have been always so visionary like being one of the various first ones in the country to adopt that hybrid model roots to ends. You share a little bit about how that came about with our audience and then after that, I want to talk to you about what's next? Where's that vision of your business going?
(26:43) Jennifer
We have a commission-based salon which is salon roots. It has 15 employees and we are celebrating 16 years this December. We are going to hit our sweet 16, so yay! And we're going to have some fun. I think we're going to do a week of sweet 16 fun vibes. and you know all that kind of good stuff. We're still working on our plan for that. But seven and a half years ago, we had a group of employees that came to us and had said they wanted to booth rent and we collectively had said, no. Salon Roots will not be a booth rental salon. and they said well we have an opportunity to go rent a chair for 50 bucks a week. And we think we're gonna do this and they were our three top people. We raised them from Medina County Career Center
sent them to Soho, sent them to Toronto. We sent them to train all around the world and we never actually truly thought they would leave. We just didn't like that. We were just like, no you
I know and I will not want to say we blew them off but we didn't. We didn't probably take them as
seriously as they were because they were very serious in what their request was.
(28:02) Jennifer
And about a week and a half later, all three of those girls.. at the time Salon Roots had 28 employees. So we were a lot larger than what we are. Every chair in the salon was filled all the time. And it was crazy awesome but it was crazy. And a guest had come in with a letter and had said, “Hey I got this letter a couple of days ago. I'm so confused so-and-so is right here but this letter says that my next appointment is here.” And we were like the bomb of Hiroshima Hit Salon Roots that day. And obviously, it was devastating. And from there that part is history. But essentially all three of them left probably in the coolest fashion that you could leave a business and whatnot. We definitely were beaten and defeated for a period of time. But we quickly started to put our brain to work that said okay Salon Roots are popping up everywhere. matter of fact, there's a solo in our parking lot here at ends and Salon Roots. I mean that's like walking distance. It's not going away so what are we going to do in order to combat this and if you can't beat them let's find a way to join them. But join them in our own way. We're not going to convert Salon Roots to booth rental. That wasn't the game plan. But because Jen and Sheila are owner-operators behind the chair, a lot of the decisions that they make are for the hairdresser. And what I mean by that is they're pro hairdresser decisions. And that's really like where my brain comes into effect as the balancer, as the business mind of well that's great but we have to do this in order to stay in business. Or that's great or we still have to meet these needs etc. But all their decisions are definitely pro hairdresser decisions because they are one, just being honest. That's what they do for a living. They have the hairdresser hat, then the owner hat. Yes okay Operation Owner, got it okay.
(30:18) Jennifer
So kind of get together and brainstorm and they said let's open our own and let's make it part of our growth pattern. And it was seven and a half years ago. It was extremely controversial. I was definitely not a well-liked face in Ohio Salon connection meetings. And matter of fact, people actually didn't want me there. Because they kind of identified us as no longer a commission-based salon but somebody that had both and it was we were really looked down upon at first because owners looked at it as we were trying to hurt them. But the truth of the matter is is that we created it to be an insurance policy for us because if somebody was going to
leave us to go booth rent which when you had 27 people. And you have these Solas and your Salon House popping up. I mean the risk is there. It doesn't matter how good of an environment you create, the risk is there. And we already experienced the rawest form of that heartbreak that
there possibly could be. We had been researching in Medina, we had been looking around like crazy trying to find a place that we were gonna rent prudential was in our same plaza. Jennifer had been in contact with the realtor and he was like hey Prudential's moving out and it already had half of the rooms were already built out and over a hundred square foot boxes. And we were like yeah that makes sense. All we had to do was remodel half well in the insides of the rooms obviously. But then the other half was like a new build because we had to build rooms on the other half. They had like a really big open space and things like that so we took that open space and made and made different size suites.
(32:10) Jennifer
And suddenly it took off. We had seven root girls move over. And then we had seven from other salons throughout the Medina Area and whatnot. And we've never looked back and now I get two emails a week from Salon Owners across the country looking to get on board with this idea of growing stylists. We call it growing from roots to ends. But how could they do booth too? So that it creates part of a growth pattern, not an exit strategy. It all starts with you know I always say before you open it ends you have to make sure that your pipeline from your feeder salon is strong because you're essentially growing them to leave so you need to make sure that you're growing them and that rate of growth continues to match. And you're going to have those that want to stay. I have some senior employees at roots that have zero interest in any way shape or form of ever owning their own business ever, booth renting and anything like that. And they are happy as a clam and will die at Salon Roots. And then there's those that are really open. They are really open when they start to work for us. I at some point do want a booth run. Or I at some point want to own my own salon. So I want to do this and then I want to, I'm going to go to the end to get my feet wet, and then I'm going to go to a rental booth. Or I'm going to open my own salon so it's super fun. It's definitely something that you have to have your eyes and ears open all the time. Because you have to make sure that you have no weak spots in either. So the competition in this area for booth rental is pretty fierce. Like I said solo's in my parking lot and Salon Lofts is 11 miles down the road. So you have to make sure that you're on your a-game at all times.
(34:09) Tracey
Well, I love that you guys took that pain and suffering because we've all been there. I think any business owner listening to this can relate. Even for other employees that are part of a salon family, it hurts them when it happens. So you guys had that huge pain and instead of being resistant to
obviously what was coming were changes in the way we do business right? Instead of resisting the changes or going completely the opposite way which is very different from your own culture, you really were such innovators in making it both. And when you said there were people that were like oh uh we don't know if we. But I remember reaching out to you saying, I need you to tell me everything because I thought like I'm always open to like okay convince me. Let's have a healthy debate but I was very passionate about the fact that I have never been anti-booth rent never. But people will peg me like that sometimes. But here's the thing, I am for growth and development. and not for people being sold something that they're not ready for. I know that you guys have made it like here's the raw honest truth. You have to have a certain skill set to actually be an owner right? And you just said that there are the people that want to be employees and that's the thing. Giving people the opportunity to make educated decisions I think is essential in any business and you guys do that so well.
(35:42) Jennifer
That's because I don't want a flood to end here with people that are going to leave in six months. I'm not in that kind of business. I want to actually grow people and I want them to stay. A lot of our competitors are essentially what I like to say are in the Real Estate Business. So they have rooms and they're going to sell them. and if you're going to stay for 90 days, great. They're just going to put another body in there for 90 days. and that's the game they play. We're not in that same game. We're not in that same lane at all.
(36:12) Tracey
And that's why I think you stand out from the competition because you definitely are educating so that people can make their own decision based on what's right for them. I think I will for the love and care that I have for our Salon Industry as a whole, that's the part that hurt my heart. I saw so many people who made an emotional decision because they had one bad conversation with their boss or something and decided that they're gonna be their own boss but not be prepared for what it's like and then exit the industry altogether. And they were like on their path where they were working to earn six figures or were already doing it and they kind of blew up their life. So that was the thing of okay. Well, where's this going and as an industry how can we understand that we're all different but we're all the same? How do we make our industry better?
(37:04) Jennifer
Yep for sure.
(37:07) Tracey
What innovation are you guys up to now? Because you know you're always on the forefront of this. Gotta share you know.
(37:14) Jennifer
Honestly, because we're so far in that we're on holiday right now. So my focus is I actually create road maps. I have my 2022 roadmap that I've been thinking about and kind of writing things down. And a lot of it is still making how we operate right now. More efficiently and working closely with MEVO which is our Salon Software partner. I love beta testing things for them and being able to bounce ideas off of them. One of the things that we really want to continue to grow especially is our online e-commerce business. It's grown exponentially in the past almost 24 months. We've had it for a little over four and a half almost five years but we're going to continue to put more effort into making it more shoppable and making it easier for our guests and really continuing to hammer that out there to everybody. But as far as you know is what's next, I think for us anyways is continuously finding out how to continue to refine our present process to be more efficient and possibly be able to duplicate it. And do another one but I feel like in order to do that, your process has got to be so secure that you can't just double it. It's got to be so tight that there are no leaks in the system.
(38:39) Tracey
Right, because you don't want to double the problem because that's right, that's a fun thing common in our industry. So another blessing that you're. That's the thing I'm like you don't open another one until you got that right because I coached on all the time, I'm like no no yeah because that little water leak, that little drip of that water all of a sudden turns into complete mutton soon after a while. So if you had to offer up one Business Secret that everyone should know, what would it be? What's your Business Secret that you have for everybody?
(39:17) Jennifer
My secret sauce, yes my Jennifer Le Blanc Secret Sauce is Persistency. I am the absolute most persistent person you will ever meet in your entire life for sure hands down. What makes you so
Persistent? I will not take no for an answer even if it's in regards to can't be done impossible. I will figure out a way and not be annoying persistent but continuously looking to evolve and figure out an answer or being a solution provider to the situation versus just rolling over and being like okay well I will that's just not gonna work. Persistency because at the end of the day persistency is consistency. You have to be doing and you have to be diligent. Part of that is being driven by passion in order to be the best or whatever drives you. So my secret sauce and it's very well known is being persistent.
(40:19) Tracey
I love it. So Jennifer, if people wanna either apply to work with you, yeah call you because they need help with setting this up in their business, how can people get in touch with you? What's the best way to connect with you?
(40:32) Jennifer
Probably my email address is Jennifer Leblanc at salonroots.com and that's J e n -LEB-L-A-N-C
at salon roots.com. I also co-host a room on Clubhouse with Rowena Yeager in the Leadership Circle. So that's always a great way to follow us. Listen in we try to do one to two rooms a week. Right now with the holiday, it's more like one room and then obviously Instagram. You can follow Salon Roots. You can follow Jennifer Leblanc 2018 and you can find me on Facebook.
(41:02) Tracey
Jennifer, thank you so much for being here. I am so grateful. Is there anything you want to add?
(41:09) Jennifer
No, thank you for having me. It's been so fun and good to see your face too.
(41:15) Tracey
It's so good to see you and you guys seriously go check out Jennifer. She's all over Social Media and she's a marketer. Go check out what she's got going on, she's amazing.
