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Welcome to the Salon Owner’s Podcast, Phorest FM Episode 56. Co-hosted by Killian Vigna and Zoé Bélisle-Springer, this show is a mix of interviews with industry thought-leaders, roundups of our most recent salon owners marketing tips & tricks, all the latest in and around Phorest and what upcoming webinars you can join. Phorest FM is produced every Monday morning for your enjoyment with a cup of coffee on your day off.

Phorest FM Episode 56

It’s the end of the year. You’re tired, everyone is tired, but before we head off, we have one last Phorest FM episode to wrap it all up. This week on the show, Killian and Zoe discuss a few of their favourite interviews throughout the past year, support hours over the holidays, the Salon Owners Summit Agenda and more! For one last time in 2017, join us for the latest episode of Phorest FM, the Salon Owners Podcast!

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Transcript

Killian Vigna: Welcome to the Phorest FM podcast, episode 56. I’m Killian Vigna.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I’m Zoe Belisle-Springer.

Killian Vigna: For the last episode of the year, we’ll wrap up 2017 with our top two favourite episodes of Phorest FM.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: We’ll give a quick overview of the upcoming Salon Owners Summit.

Killian Vigna: We’ll share our Phorest Salon Software support opening hours over the festive holidays.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And lastly, discuss what’s coming to Phorest FM in 2018. But as always we top off the show with our upcoming Phorest Academy webinars.

Killian Vigna: This podcast is produced every Monday morning for your enjoyment with a cup of coffee on your day off. Now let’s get into the show. Morning Zoe!

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Good morning Killian, how are you?

Killian Vigna: I’m good now, it’s kind of sad now. It’s the last one for the holidays.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I know, yeah, but, I mean we had a great year when you look back.

Killian Vigna: It has been a great year. I just can’t believe that this day next week is actually Christmas Day.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I know, it’s been so fast.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, didn’t realize that until the calendar today.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Killian Vigna: Check my calendar for next Monday, “Oh wait, holidays.”

Zoe Belisle-Springer: It’ll be nice to have a week off.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, well I suppose while support are gonna be in we may as well just mention now what their opening hours are going to be.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, fair enough. So there will be an email going out to all Phorest clients so don’t worry if you don’t catch them all here and, I mean, hours might change a little bit but at the moment everything is preliminary and so the 24th of December, support hours will be from 9 AM to 6 PM European time. And then until 9 PM too for the US cover. And then the 25th, 26th, everyone’s off. 27th to the 30th, its normal hours. And then 31st of December, again, 9 AM to 6 PM European time, until 9 PM for the US cover. And then, 1st of January again, off. And then from the 2nd of January, we’re back to normal.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, sounds like a bit of a mouthful but it’s pretty standard for kind of, most office places.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and I like I said there will be an email going out to all Phorest clients this week just to make sure that everyone has it noted down somewhere, if anything happens, we’ll be there to help you out.

Killian Vigna: Exactly, just call support!

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So otherwise, I mean on the show, what were your two favourite episodes of Phorest FM this year? We’ve had a pretty intense year with loads of things going on.

Killian Vigna: You’re looking, were pretty much just going on to 60 episodes. I’d say roughly half, just under half of those would be interviews so it’s been incredibly hard to pick two, just for myself.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Killian Vigna: I’ve been going through this list up and down, up and down and even you, I think we both pretty much picked similar ones and stuff like that but two that stood out for me… One was Episode 26 with Phil Jackson on using email marketing in the hair, beauty, and spa industry. And why I thought that one was so good is, it was a book that we have in here it’s The Hairy Book of Email and it’s written by Phil Jackson.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I love the title.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, it’s a great title and he has two of them as well, kind of in that series. But this one, because at the time I was focusing on email, that was kind of my main job, but just really enjoyed having this conversation with him. Like, for me coming from a marketing background it’s all like, you know, sparkle, sparkle, and glitter and things like that-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, where he was like, no images, no nothing.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, no images, keep it absolute bare minimum and as if you’re emailing your sister or your friend or someone like that. So kind of build avatars, he calls them, they’re kind of like personas and stuff like those. Just keep it so simple with all your appointment reminders, confirmation emails, stuff like that. Your emails, like anything with loads of images or stuff like that start to kind of look, I suppose… When I open up my email inbox and I see a really, kind of visual email I know it’s pretty much just like a sales or marketing thing or something.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Killian Vigna: So when you see that it’s just pure black and white, plain and simple text, you think it’s actually from someone so you’re more inclined to read it.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, it makes it more personable, yeah.

Killian Vigna: And that was just touching off the iceberg of stuff that Phil went through. He was going through, like, I suppose some of the biggest issues are salons aren’t sending enough emails, they’re not targeting the emails. The emails sent, they don’t look interesting and that’s kind of a variation of what we were saying now, when we were saying keep it black and white and simple you still need to kind of use interesting words and stuff that’s going to appeal and stuff like that.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh of course, yeah.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, and forgetting to put cold actions was a big one as well.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes.

Killian Vigna: And we saw that in our system when we were checking out a lot of the emails being sent out. People are, like they have online booking links and go to their store links but they’re just forgetting to put them in. So I’m reading your email, you.-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And I can’t access it.

Killian Vigna: And I can’t access it, yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh yeah, definitely that, no it was a really interesting conversation and he has his book, I believe it’s on Amazon.

Killian Vigna: It is, it’s on Amazon and there was a link included in that one as well.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Now see, for myself, I know it’s a really tough job to pick two like you said. Because I think that a lot of the interviews each had their little elements to them but one that did stand out to me was the one we did with Richard McCabe, episode 39.

Killian Vigna: The iSalon coach.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yes, exactly, so he was chatting about how to build a salon culture and systemizing the operations in that salon. It was just brilliant to hear him talk about the new generation coming into the salon and how people are looking for a culture and belonging to something rather than just having that day to day job. You know?

Killian Vigna: Yeah, like don’t treat your salon like it’s a retail store where it’s kind of kids coming in, sitting there, stacking shelves all day and it becomes monotonous and stuff like that. You’re not, you’re a salon and there’s just so much potential to have an unbelievable culture there. It’s like keep all your staff engaged, keep morale open, like keeping your morale up is as simple as just getting your team involved.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah definitely and I mean I’m just thinking back at the blog that Ronan Percival, our CEO, wrote, I think it was probably July or something like that and he was saying like, the industry’s shifting towards an ‘experience’ industry.

Killian Vigna: Yeah like, it’s not, like we’ve gone from the consumer industry now to its experience. It’s I walk through your front doors, yeah I’m the customer and it’s usually like customer’s right and stuff like that but when you’re providing this unbelievable experience that kind of makes me look around and go, I suppose take a breath or whatever.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah I mean.

Killian Vigna: That’s somewhere I’m going to want to come back. It’s not just because you’ve rallied around me as a consumer is everyone in there feels at ease.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly.

Killian Vigna: It’s the environment that I’m walking into. I don’t sense any tension between customers or staff or there’s no [crosstalk 00:06:34] –

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Well I mean David Burnham was just saying it a few weeks ago. He was saying, you know, when people come in to a salon, a spa, any sort of business now. They expect, the bare minimum is to come out looking great, you know?

Killian Vigna: Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: What will make you stand out after is the experience you give to your customers. Because we’re at a stage where everybody, like the bare minimum that you can give is a nice cut or a good treatment, you know? So that was a really interesting one for myself anyways. But I also really enjoyed episode 43 with Alan Stewart on the importance of online bookings and technology and things like that. Just for the story of it.

Killian Vigna: Yes, he was very good.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: It was so amazing to hear him talk about how things were being done when he first started out and how things changed since and how he embraced technology well before anyone else in the industry did.

Killian Vigna: Yeah like he was so innovative in his ways. He was saying he was looking for the likes of an online booking tool. Now, there was no one in the salon industry doing this and this is where all his research started. He was kind of looking at what are other salons doing and stuff like that and he realized he knew he wanted something but no one else was doing it so he couldn’t find it so he actually looked outside the industry. It was airlines.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Airlines, yeah.

Killian Vigna: Yeah so it wasn’t just, “What are we doing? What are my competitors doing? What am I doing?” It’s what is everyone else doing? So he realized you could go online, you could book your seat in the airlines and he was thinking, “Why can’t we take that practice and introduce it into our salon?” And it helped him grow massively, he has, like eleven salons now across Scotland.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: That’s Rainbow Room International for anyone who doesn’t know Alan Stewart.

Killian Vigna: Yeah and it was also, and I like this bit that we just discovered early in the interview was that’s also how he met his wife.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah.

Killian Vigna: By setting up this second salon with her and it was nearly twice the space than what his original one was?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh, I can’t remember the exact numbers but it was something quite big. It was quite of a challenge.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, like, he set up a salon without any intention of expanding or branching out or anything like that and it wasn’t until she basically asked to have her own salon.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah it was interesting.

Killian Vigna: Yeah it’s just a great story, it really was.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So, yeah, I mean that was the two big highlights for me. Now, as I said, kind of hard to pick just two. Like I really enjoyed Jenny’s as well.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, like I know you loved Jenny’s from Mimosa because of the whole eco and things like those.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, I’m quite close to nature as well.

Killian Vigna: Then we have like, our regular guest bloggers like Michelle Bolger and Valerie Delforge who are always great when they come on. They always seem to simplify topics so well so like, it genuinely was hard to pick up like, I’m looking at the list here. We’ve so many different interviews but I suppose more recently one with David Barnett. I just thought that was a really fun interview to do. The man from the High Performance Stylist. The man is just full of energy, he really is.

Like he’s quite clearly passionate about what he does and one of the techniques that he shared, it just seems like a simple technique but it’s what helped him generate so much revenue from products, from retail. So it was almost like a three-point contact approach sort of. So it’s like, so here’s the products I’m using in your hair, leaves the products in front of them to sit there and look at for the next hour and then brings the products up to the till and go, here’s what I used. Now would you like anything else or-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Right. Do you need anything for home?

Killian Vigna: Do you need anything for home? It was just a simple idea but he’s armed with all these different ideas so looking forward to getting him back on the show again.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Well, speaking of which.

Killian Vigna: Which I why I said it, yeah, I’m not doing favouritism here, David Burnham is coming back on the show.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, but before we get on to that, do you want to go through the salon owners summit agenda?

Killian Vigna: Yeah because we’re pretty much going to be back from holidays and this hits off. It’s like, the 8th, the 8th of January.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah absolutely. So on the 8th, the whole day starts at 9 AM. Now the Summit is sold out, there is a waiting list if anyone is looking for any tickets you can access that waiting list through Facebook on our event page. But yeah, so for the agenda, 9 AM is registration and networking. And then at 10, we’ll have Ronan Perceval say a little welcome and introduction and things like that. At 10 past 10, we’ll have our first speaker, Gavin Hoare. He’s been called the master of all salon managers I mean he is, he’s managing the ultimate super salon with 90 staff, 1200 clients per week and 250 hair and beauty treatments and services. I mean it is massive.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, easy work like.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So his topic for the talk is Act Like the Expert You Are. Then at 11, we’ll have our first workshop. This is a new introduction to the summit so we’ll have three workshops throughout the day. Everybody’s going to be able to do all of them, it’s just a rotation throughout the day so the first workshop is there from 11 to 11:30. Then we have a coffee break. Then at 12, we have our second talk of the day with Steve Martin, not the actor, we’ve been asked many times-

Killian Vigna: No, although he does look similar.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: His talk is all about the science of persuasion so Small Changes that Spark Big Influence is the title of his talk. Then we have a lunch at 1. After that, we’re coming back to the whole day with workshop rotations again so the second and third workshop. And from quarter past 3 to quarter to 4 we have Valerie Del Forge giving a talk on managing and motivating your staff for success. And finally.

Killian Vigna: Yes, it’s the big one.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Finally, the highlight of the day that everyone’s waiting for, is the keynote speaker Tabatha Coffee and it’s all about Rules For Good Business. And then obviously we do close off the day. And oh there’s going to be a Q&A after that for 15 minutes. And at 5 PM Ronan is going to give out his closing remarks and then we have our after party in the Lita.

Killian Vigna: Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So it should be a very busy day but a very fun day.

Killian Vigna: It’s a long day but there’s just so much you’re going to get out of that. Like, the speakers alone, brilliant. But also the introduction of workshops, so it breaks up the day nicely. You’re not just sitting there listening to talks all day trying to memorize everything, take your notes in. You’ve got these workshops down that can actually help you put these things into practice. And did you actually mention what the workshops were? So.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I did not, no. So there’s going to be one on salon visual merchandising. One on GDPR and one on health and wellbeing.

Killian Vigna: That GDPR one, I know there’s going to be queues for it. I’m just dying to hear about GDPR.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah well, what’s good about this is that everybody, the 450 people attending will be just in rotation so everybody’s going to have access to all three workshops. It’s not like you have to choose one, you know.

Killian Vigna: So yeah, then on Tuesday, which is the 9th of January we have Inside Phorest again.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah so that was the first time we did it last year and it was a great success so essentially what it was is [crosstalk 00:13:25] –

Killian Vigna: Was last year the first one of it, was it?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, very first time.

Killian Vigna: Okay because there was a lot of people there, it was about 80 people.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, so essentially what it was is that our product director was kind of giving an overview of what was coming for Phorest in 2017 so this year. Same concept next year so what’s coming into Phorest in 2018 and but we had such a great demand for it last year that we actually have two sessions this year instead of just one. So there’s going to be one in the morning, one in the afternoon and between that we actually got our spotlight too!

Killian Vigna: Yeah so for the first time ever you’re going to get to see Killian and Zoe live.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yup, Phorest FM live episode. So the idea behind this whole episode is that, you know, we’ve been behind the scenes for a year now. From looking at the data, I mean it is going well so we assumed, you know, it’s something that people do, live podcasts, you record it with an audience in front. And it should be interesting. It’ll be a challenge. It’ll definitely be a challenge.

Killian Vigna: It’s definitely going to be a challenge because I remember you were saying that when we started this a year ago both of us were thinking there’s no way we’re doing this. Who’s going to listen to us? And like you were saying, the listenership has just gone up so much that now the marketing team have decided, “Oh yeah, time to do a live one.” So, while it’s all well and good sitting here in front of a laptop recording an episode away and everything is nice and kind of calm, it’s going to be the first time that we’re going to have a hundred pair of eyes staring at us.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh yeah, but like listen, we’ll have a few guests at least. We’re aiming for three guests so David Barnett has been confirmed.

Killian Vigna: David Barnett.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: He will be there. We’ll have someone from Phorest.

Killian Vigna: Sean Sullivan, yeah, so Sean Sullivan, his background is kind of in business analysis so what he’s going to do, he’s gonna talk you through some of the like, I suppose the big reports in Phorest Salon Software that you wouldn’t usually use. The whole theme of this live episode is we’re going to look back on the last 12 months of your business. We’re going to see where, I suppose, there’s areas that you can learn from, things you can kind of take away from the last 12 months that worked, didn’t work. Analyze that. When I say analyze it, you’re just taking a look and going right, Why did that work? Why didn’t that work? Sean’s going to go through some reports and stuff like that and then we’re going to look into the future then. Look into the future… the next 12 months.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: So we’re gonna have a third guest there but we’re still waiting on some confirmations so.

Killian Vigna: Exactly, yeah so that’s going to be an exciting day and like, it’s going to be like this 20, 30 minutes long but yeah, it’s going to be.-

Zoe Belisle-Springer: It’s all gonna be recorded, it’s all going to be filmed. Essentially what’s going to happen in January with Phorest FM is that we’re going to start with a live episode from the summit, so that’s going to be released on January 8, on that same day. So it’s a bit of interviews, a bit of vox pops, a bit like we did last year essentially.

Killian Vigna: Similar to last year, yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, and then the next week we’re going to have an interview with MJ Deziel who is a hairstylist and works with Redken. She’s based in Canada so that will be really interesting. I don’t want to spill too much out of the bag.

Killian Vigna: I was just about to say it but then I was realizing, no maybe not. Yeah.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah, it’s a really interesting episode so.

Killian Vigna: It’s still a while for it.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yep, and then January 22nd we’ll have that Inside Phorest episode that we’ll release. Now of course, people who have attended will have already seen it but for everyone else that’s on January 22nd. And then on January 29th again, our monthly round up. So we’re kind of keeping the same formula this year.

Killian Vigna: This for us, this is kind of like our round up as well. Our round up like where we were talking about the last few episodes. Myself and Zoe, we’re going to be a bit more kind of, on the ball with this on Twitter and stuff like that. I supposed we’re going to kind of be outreaching a bit more. Basically, we want to get the conversation going online as well.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Oh yeah, 100 percent. I’d love, to be honest with you, I would love to get back on to that stage. You know, early days in the podcast we tried to do that Phorest FM chat on Twitter.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, hashtag Phorest FM.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: And it never really worked out cause we didn’t really get any people to comment or anything but I’d really love to get that off the ground in 2018.

Killian Vigna: Yeah because like I said, when we started this we were thinking, “Who’s going to be listening to this show?” But obviously, the data shows that we have quite a listenership so I’d love to just kind of, I suppose, get interacting with you guys. We’d love to hear your feedback. What are you enjoying most about the show? What can we improve on? Like, some honest great feedback because we have, we winged this show for the first couple of weeks and then we decided alright we kind of have our format and as the listeners were coming in, as you guys were kind of listening more and more we were realizing alright, well we got a lot of listeners for this episode, which means we should bring more industry experts back into the show. So that’s been one plus for us but we’d just love to know what else you want to hear.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: That and also, you know, sometimes we can miss things. You know, so if you have any really cool stories to share with us, let us know so we can get you on the show as well, you know? Because we’re always looking for guests.

Killian Vigna: Yeah, we’re always looking for guests but it’s nice to do a little, kind of, spotlight every now and again so with MJ, that was a really cool, not going to say it too much but we came across this project that she’s working on. We just thought something like that should be shared, it’s so cool.

Jenny from Mimosa with the eco-salon, like, none of them approached us, we actually just came across it on Instagram and stuff like those and we just thought, you know, they deserve to kind of, have a shout out about.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly.

Killian Vigna: So if you’ve got a story that you think other guys would be well up for listening too, yeah, give us a shout and we can get you on the show.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah I suppose so that’s kind of what’s coming up in 2018. The format’s going to be the same and essentially I mean, we’re just looking forward to bringing it up to the next level.

Killian Vigna: Yeah exactly. We see 2017 has been a big year for us. This is our first full complete year so now we’re just dying to see how 2018 rolls out.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Yeah well ideally, I think if we can get- If the first live podcast that we do in the year goes really well. I think-

Killian Vigna: You say we’re going to start doing more live episodes?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: I think so, it could be interesting.-

Killian Vigna: Or Facebook lives?

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Well no, but I’m saying like maybe once a quarter or something like that. Could be interesting.

Killian Vigna: Do you want to see myself and Zoe or do you prefer just listening to us? Let us know hashtag Phorest FM.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Right so, if we move on to our final section of today’s episode, which is the Phorest Academy webinars. So in January, we have two, particularly. So the first one is on January 15th and it is with Valerie Delforge so How to Motivate Your Team. This is from 1 PM to 2 PM UK Ireland time and what she’ll bring you through in this webinar, essentially these are all once off webinars with Valerie Delforge. We’ve been doing them for a few months now. Different topics every time. This one, in particular, is successfully managing your staff,  creating individual development plans for your team, getting through a challenging day together, and I think that’s just a great topic to kick off the year.

So that’s there, the 15th of January and then the 22nd of January we have our Instagram Masterclass with Chris Brennan, so that’s the usual one from 3 PM to 4 PM UK Ireland time, 10 AM to 11 AM US Eastern time and you can all sign up to these two webinars through Facebook in our events section if you go onto the particular webinar you’d like to join, just click on that, find tickets, and sign up for that.

Killian Vigna: And tickets, as always, are free.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Exactly. So-

Killian Vigna: That’s our Christmas wrap.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: That’s right and it went so fast.

Killian Vigna: 2018’s gonna go even faster.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Don’t tell me that.

Killian Vigna: Well listen from both of us here I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year.

Zoe Belisle-Springer: Absolutely.

Killian Vigna: And looking forward to getting back to it in 2018, after the holidays of course. All the best!

Thanks for reading!

#LetsGrow

Catch up on the previous Phorest FM episode, or check out the next Phorest FM episode!

Note: Phorest FM is designed to be heard, not read. We encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion which may not translate itself on the page. Podcast transcription by Rev.com