Education, Expectations & Difficult Clients [EP:141]

Navigating Education, Prom Season, and Handling Difficult Clients

In this episode, we discuss a variety of topics, including Buzzsprout's new communication feature, 'fan mail,' the importance of micro-education in the hair industry, and the benefits of one-on-one or small group classes. 

We also share a story about a successful one-on-one class that led to significant growth for the stylist. 

The episode takes a turn into prom season challenges, emphasizing the impact of social media on client expectations and the critical role of thorough consultations. 

Finally, we explore strategies for dealing with difficult clients and the importance of maintaining professionalism while responding to negative reviews.

00:00 Opening Banter and Podcast Updates
00:25 Introducing Fan Mail: A New Way to Connect
01:16 The Power of Micro Education in the Beauty Industry
03:16 A Deep Dive into One-on-One Education
05:39 The Impact of Personalized Learning
09:38 Shifting Gears: From Education to Business Insights
09:53 Embracing Education in Business Culture
15:19 Navigating the Challenges of Prom Season and Social Media Influence
16:39 The Reality of Glam Expectations vs. Personal Identity
16:46 A Prom Night Crisis: Expectations, Reality, and Salon Solutions
18:35 Learning from Experience: Adapting Salon Consultations for Authenticity
19:08 Navigating Professionalism and Client Expectations in the Beauty Industry
20:36 Dealing with Difficult Clients: Setting Boundaries and Maintaining Professionalism
21:07 Embracing Negative Reviews: A Business Strategy for Growth and Authenticity
23:01 The Power of Saying No: Protecting Your Business and Team from Toxic Clients
30:43 Concluding Thoughts: The Importance of Authentic Client Relationships and Business Resilience

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Transcript

141
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Jen: [00:00:00] Heh.

Todd: right. What's up, everyone. Welcome back. Happy Monday. I told myself I wasn't going to say that. Happy Monday this week.

Jen: And yet you did.

Todd: And here we are. Yeah. I don't know why I said that or when it started, but it is what it is. before we start, we have a few different things we're talking about today, all different sort of directions.

Cause I couldn't get my brain to stay straight. But before we start, I wanted to let people know that there's a new feature that was released through Buzzsprout, which is where we host our podcast.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: people talk to us. So to let

Jen: Oh,

Todd: it's called fan mail, I think it's going to look sort of like text.

And I think there will be a link or a button in the show notes, and people can just kind of communicate with us right there as they're

Jen: that's cool.

Todd: are listening to podcasts on their phones. So it's what they have. So that, yeah, it totally makes sense. And I thought that was pretty cool. So [00:01:00] if you're listening and you have something to share with us, or you want to agree or disagree or yell at us or be our friend or whatever the hell you might want to do, click that button.

I will enable it for the show. I think we just turn it on in the settings and it's

Jen: Okay.

Todd: from what I saw. So let's talk about the class you did. I know we touched on some on one education in the past. And I. Don't really like the term micro, but we had talked about micro education as being something that I see benefiting the industry and the people that really want to not just go around taking classes to take classes from people that are famous on Instagram and then

Jen: Cause I'm not famous.

Todd: I wasn't talking about you in that, in this case, but.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: What I meant was I think that everyone should be doing this. And I think that the whole industry would, well, not the whole industry. [00:02:00] See, you got me off my track.

Jen: Sorry.

Todd: Sorry, listeners. Jen's contract is almost up. That's what I told you this morning. We're looking for a new co host. Anyways, think there there's people that want to go to classes just to go to classes, right? Oh, this guy has 500, 000 followers. He must be good at hair. I'll go to his class. And then I can post that I went to this person's class and I can tag them. I don't know why or what that does for you, but cool.

If that's you cool. I'm not saying don't do it. Do what you want. Don't let me tell you what to do, there are a group of people that want to go to education and fucking actually take something out of it and apply it. in the real world and try to step up their game or try to a lot of the stuff I'm trying to learn right now gonna expand my client base.

Like I'll be able to do a lot more with hair. So it's different when you go to this class and it's, you know, there are a hundred people there and you're just sort of [00:03:00] watching. somebody on a stage. There's a time and place for that too. Like I said, it's cool. But if you really want to get down into it, working one on one or working in a small group, even if it's like four or five people to

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: that's where the magic can happen. And so you recently had, or you were approached by someone and I'll let you tell the story, but you ended up with a, I know we touched on a few weeks back maybe, but You've actually gone through. So talk to people and tell them about that experience

Jen: So I, I, the beginning of the year I taught a class and at the end of the, I think it was a blonding class. And at the end of the class, the one was like, I would like to hire you to Like teach me one on one. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Reach out whenever literally inside. I was like, I've, I teach one on one in the salon all the time, but I had never been like directly somebody wanting to hire me.

So. The fear of that, I was just like literally blew her off. And then I taught this haircutting class to a big group of people. She was there and [00:04:00] she's like, I really want to hire you. So at this point I'm like, wow, this woman really wants to hire me. So I was like, I guess screw it. Like you say all the time, like don't do something if you're not asked.

At this point now I've been asked twice and she had been DMing me through Instagram, like, please don't forget about me, please don't forget about me. So I'm like,

Todd: and you were

Jen: okay. Yeah, I was totally, it was, it was scaring the crap out of me. And at the second class, when finally we were back one on one, she's like, I just, the energy you put out, the way you talk, she's like, you make me want to learn.

You make me feel comfortable learning, which is why I would like to hire you. Like she explained that. And I was like, okay, so let's do this. So the next available I had was the beginning of May and we went in, our salons closed Wednesday morning. So I had said to her, if you want, we can, we can do this.

Book a Wednesday morning for like three, three and a half hours and just do some one on one stuff. So as it got closer, we just came up with an agenda of like the things she personally needed to work on. What was like most important to her? What did she want to get out of it? Some of it was Just going over foiling placement [00:05:00] and we didn't use a model or a mannequin for that.

We used a mannequin, but we just kind of talked through that. She really just needed to like visualize some things and show me what she was doing and ask me some questions and then,

Todd: can I interrupt you for one second?

Jen: yeah,

Todd: that's really cool. And that's one of the big takeaways. I want people to see if you work one on one or in small groups, you can sit down. There doesn't need to be a set format. Maybe you guys came up with. What you're going to work on beforehand, but then you're like, okay, we can just sit and talk through this

Jen: yeah,

Todd: you had a class with a hundred people, you're not gonna be able to do that for every

Jen: right.

Todd: So you're getting

Jen: absolutely.

Todd: detail and attention to your specific needs. Go

Jen: Yeah, it was very customized to what she wanted out of the class. And I've been doing hair for so long and now educating for most of my career that I knew kind of whatever, whatever avenue she picked, I could, I could help her if nothing else, I could help her get a little bit better. Right. So then we got it.

Haircutting was a big thing for her. Where does she stand? How does [00:06:00] she hold things? She pretty much is like, I just wing it and lucky for her. A lot of the stuff she just wings, she has some pretty good habits. So. We were able to get through, I think, two different haircuts on the mannequin. And then we did a live model.

So she brought someone to film so she could take all this content back. And then we did a haircut on the person she had brought to record to do a live haircut in person and really get the feel of a consultation. We even went through a shampoo and then did this haircut together. So we went through, let's say, I think a total of three haircuts.

And then a portion of foiling placement, went to low light, went to do certain things like that.

Todd: Someone out there was like, wait. She brought someone to film? What if she shows somebody else? How do you feel about that?

Jen: Totally cool. Don't care.

Todd: And she paid for this class,

Jen: Yeah. Yep. Yep. We set up a fee in the beginning of what I told her my rate. She was like, totally cool. And that was it. And then it was just bring a mannequin and let's, like I said, I [00:07:00] did ask her ahead of time. So I had a little bit of an idea of what she was looking for so I could feel like I was prepped for her.

Todd: and your rate is much higher than a, than a class would be, right?

Jen: Correct.

Todd: We don't need the amount here because it's always going to be different

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: people need. But I just wanted to point that out too, but do you feel like, or did she express that she got the value out of that?

Jen: Absolutely. Like even, so she hired me for technical advice, right? But came out of it was, wow, I love your combs. Oh, she even said she has like, I think 20 pairs of scissors. And she's like, honestly, Jen, I just buy a new pair of scissors whenever I think I need to get better at haircutting, thinking the scissors going to make me better, not realizing I just needed to hire you to get better in these scissors.

I don't need to have 20 of them. So she was able to use, cause I took out all of my tools. So I'm like, use some of my stuff and see. And she's like, wow. I need brushes like these. I need combs like this. I could use a scissor like this. Whatever it was, even like the working flow. And she was like, this is really amazing.

So [00:08:00] she also got extra out of it that obviously she wasn't anticipating. And then the video footage that day, she was like, I'm going to cancel the rest of my day. I want to go home and practice everything you just showed me. So worth it in the sense of, she didn't even take clients that afternoon. Cause she was like, I want to really get this like instilled in my brain.

Todd: Yeah, I would advise people if they set up a one on one class with somebody, don't try to go work after.

Jen: Yeah. Your brain's going to be fried.

Todd: sounds cool now, but you get so much more into it and so much more detail that your brain is just full after. And You probably will need a nap. So

Jen: it was cool. She left and, and she works in an environment right now where she feels it's a culture that just, they don't support each other. That's just the stylist world she lives in, unfortunately. And when she left, she's like, I feel like I can, I personally feel like a confident hairstylist. Like I can do, I feel like put out even just better work and be really proud of it.

So I had a blast. It was really fun. And it was very cool to see somebody [00:09:00] Grow in a few hours so much and then like feel passionate and more inspired to go do hair. And she was already doing great hair, but somehow us working together was like the co sign of like, wow, I'm, I'm a stylist. I do great hair.

It was very cool. And actually at the end, some of our staff started coming in. Cause we ran a little over, whatever. And they were like, what are you doing? And they were like, that was really cool. And they were talking to her and she just, the whole, the whole feeling. She just felt, she was like, I want to work here.

Like, it was just really cool.

Todd: message me. So we ran a class, then a group class our team on Monday. What were your takeaways from that?

Jen: Oh,

Todd: takeaways too,

Jen: so

Todd: in, in how it relates to business and overall with our staff, that's

Jen: yeah,

Todd: not the exact takeaways, like cut the hair this way, but.

Jen: no, no, no. I getcha. So I think we recently hired an esthetician that came in and we use Slack to communicate [00:10:00] and she reached out like maybe a few weeks ago. And she was like, are we like an education salon here? And I was like, I mean, we do education. She's like, I have never seen a salon do as much education as you guys do in here.

And of course, I'm sure this makes you proud. It makes me proud. Cause one of our core values is education. And we truly have education going. All the time, if not daily, weekly, and I'd say it's most often daily. And then we have carve out times where we host classes, like close down the salon to really have it.

And I think a business takeaway as an owner, it's so easy to get wrapped up and your staff that you're trying to create a date for a class and get everyone to go. And if you're as big as we are, even if you're not that, even if you, if you have a few people, not everybody can always attend and you need to get over that in today's world.

The way we do it is we book the class for the schedule that we see, you know, we don't have to take move clients around because we're open seven days a week. And then on top of that, can Todd and I get there and can we get a sitter? And then here's the class. If you can make it great, let us [00:11:00] know. And if you can't totally cool, like it's their loss, not now the business's loss.

And previously, like in years past, I think I used to look at it as like, well, if you can't make it, like, how are we going to teach you and how are you going to learn and start to realize, like, I, we have to focus on the people that want to learn, want to take it. And I, and we let them. At certain levels, take it as they want.

Like we had someone in this class that was like, I just really want to watch. So cool. If that's your, if that's your learning style, she's been doing her for a good amount of years that I actually think there was value if she watched, she actually ended up being the model. But I think as a business owner, you come in and for me, It's very important to let the class kind of organically develop.

So there's a loose plan that I have with the educator. Todd would be included in this case. I was just sort of like facilitating it with the educator. And that loose plan was the things that either we have for reduce coming in or what I see for the staff that they could really use some help for curating their haircuts and taking them next level.

Then what happens after there, this class, now we trust the educator. We've got kind [00:12:00] of a loose agenda. So I want. The educator and the staff now to curate, what does this class look like? And that's organically, it actually took a little bit of a different path. And we ended up having a live model and the staff working on their mannequins, watching the live model and the takeaways they got out of it.

Everybody had something different, but everybody left feeling inspired, motivated, and I could see yesterday we're putting things into like implementation, right? Trying something new, doing something different. So. For me, that was like, it was such a win. And then, you know, Todd had followed up with the staff through our Slack communication, just like his takeaways, like what we wanted for them, for the class and like asking them again for feedback on it and.

The next part of this education is to have like some team building. Right. So it, it hit all the boxes for that. So it was a big win.

Todd: Yeah, I, I really enjoyed it. I actually watched too. I had a mannequin and then decided, you know what? I think I'll get more out of this if I just sort of poke around and watch and I got a ton out of it. [00:13:00] And like you said, I shared that with the staff and had great conversations. Engagement with this team through Slack afterward. And they were listing a bunch of stuff that they took away to the point where I was like, we have to actually get this to, you know, it's funny. I'm about to say her name. And she was like, I heard my name on your podcast and it was weird. It was weird to hear my name, but shout out again, Sam. You

Jen: Yes. Yeah, it was not a time waste. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So

Todd: come out of that. And I agree with you. We used to, or I used to be like, why can't this person make it like, or that person really should be here. But it's the same as when you walk into your business and we've all been guilty of this.

I still fight this, but you walk in and you're like, why is that dirty? Why is this, why is that cup sitting there that shouldn't be there? Why is somebody's phone just tossed like over here with a cord running like, and you start to see all the negative things and you [00:14:00] close your mind off from seeing all of the positive things, all of the good that the people are bringing to the team.

So I try and it's, it's like an active pursuit, right? But I try to now just focus on the positive. Like you said, we focus on the people that were there, not the people that weren't there. And. Some people just aren't as into education. Some people say they want education and they don't last at our salon because they don't really want education. They want to say they want, they want to go to a class and watch probably, and then tag the person. That's probably what a lot of people want to do. But we've been curating this team where we had, I think only two or three people not there for whatever reasons they have other jobs or whatever. And that's fine. But the majority of people were there Everyone had just positive things. And then the last thing I'll say before we move on is that implementation thing is so huge. So to hear that, cause [00:15:00] I wasn't in there yesterday, but you're in there. And to hear that people are actually implementing things, they're actually getting fucking better. They're actually getting fucking better, dude. That's what you have to do. Yeah. anyways that was a good time. What you want to talk about? So switching gears from education to. media for a little bit and the prom stuff. Do you want to talk about that? Cause I wasn't in there and I felt actually terrible because it's high school age and I know what I was there.

Like we've gone to high school, we've been through it and we're removed. And looking back now as a parent and even as a business owner or just someone that does hair and wants people to be happy, I felt. Bad in these situations. So you want to touch on what, what we kind of came up with?

Jen: prom's always tricky, you know sometimes it can be the moms that are the problem [00:16:00] sometimes it's. The people going to the prom that, you know, just can't speak up, but what we really saw with this last group of people that came in for prom is the influence of social media and them coming in with pictures of trying to look.

Like somebody from Met Gala or somebody that is an influencer and it looks nothing like them. And they have this hair and makeup picture and it's so far from their normal life. Like there may be like a sweatpants, sweatshirt girl with their Crocs, right? And they're coming in with this like over the top glam look.

And there may be a few percent of people that that would work for, like they really want to be glam. What we're seeing is. They've got this inspo and it's so far removed from them that we had one at the end of the day last weekend And she looked gorgeous if if she would have allowed us to share the pictures which she had asked not to after If I could show you that with what i'm saying you'd be like, [00:17:00] oh my god That was amazing And if I could show you her inspo picture with that It was spot on for hair and makeup with exactly what she asked for but in reality when she got home, it's so far from who she is as a human that she Felt I'll say ugly would be the word.

And so we get a call from the mother and she's like, my daughter's upstairs, hysterically crying, taking off her makeup, taking down her hair. And I, so we're close. And so I'm like, go ask your daughter if she'll come back in. She's like, what time are you open to? I'm like, well, we're closing now, but there's still four of us here cleaning up and we will all stay to make sure we can get her hair and makeup where she wants it so she can make it to prom on time.

She's like, knowing my daughter, she's going to say no. I'm like, totally get it. Just call me back. So she calls you back and she's just like. It's not going to happen. Her biggest thing is please don't post the pictures because whatever. Well, I'm like, you can sure done. And I actually, as a mom myself, I said to her, to the mother, I'm like, I'm so sorry, we try so hard.

And I know the people that worked on her asked her numerous times throughout the process of the hair and the [00:18:00] makeup. Like, do you feel it? Do you, do you want to change anything? I wish she would have spoke up because we want them to leave happy. Never do we want someone that's crying when they get home, but in the reality is.

She wanted to try to look like someone else and that was achieved, but then in reality was like, this isn't me, but wasn't able to say that in the salon. And I truly, when I got off the phone with my mom, I was like, I'm so sorry for you because now you have to go deal with your teenage daughter and get her ready for the prom, which somebody does follow her on a page and she went and she looked great and she seemed like she had a good time.

It just is. Unfortunate for that experience. And it happens every prom season. There's some sort of experience, but we learned for the next two proms coming up, we're going to talk to them when they come in for makeup and hair, like, what is your regular life look like? And now we're going to speak to them kind of like you real, like just in a different way to bring them into reality and try to make sure what they're asking for is what they want.

And also like talk through that in a different way and just consult differently because we, we learned.

Todd: Sure. Yeah. [00:19:00] You never want somebody to be upset. I think that age group is just, it's, it's difficult to

Jen: Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.

Todd: so he's, he's fifth grade going into sixth grade it's difficult for him to speak up even in, even in like. Comfortable situations where like, why what's going on?

Why are you upset? And he won't speak up. But, I, I do think it's on us as the professional. Everyone wants to talk about how professional the industry is. So if you're listening, if you're coming out of school and you're like, I want to do all these glam looks and things. Once again, I'm going to say this.

It's not about you. It's about that person that's sitting in your chair and you've got to be able to do what's Best by them. Now, if the person is requesting that, that is what it is, right? So that's what you have to go on. But as a professional, I, I do think that we do hold some, it's a lot of dues. I think that we hold a lot of the accountability or at least some of the accountability, [00:20:00] because we know, I don't know if you had a haircut that you were like, this is just not going to work on this person, would you do it or would you not? You know what I mean? So that's, that's a question you got to ask

Jen: Mhm.

Todd: with makeup and, and updo's, right?

Jen: And our takeaway was we're just gonna consult differently for the next proms and have a different approach. We kind of troubleshooted through it yesterday too cause we were all back in the salon. Kind of just how to make sure we can avoid that or at least we're putting our best foot forward and kind of consult in today's world with social media and, and some different things that will change this weekend coming up with the next prom coming in.

Todd: So now I want to touch on a different type of client. I want to touch on the jerk clients. Cause you're going to have jerks

Jen: Cause they're there, yes.

Todd: Jerks exist in the real world, right? I. Drive to the grocery store. Somebody is going to try to cut you in line. Somebody is going to try to cut you at the light.

Somebody is always trying to be a jerk, right? They're far more important than you. And that's how [00:21:00] they view the world. And that's cool, but not here. So we don't, we don't take that stuff. And I, I kind of wanted to just touch on this because I want to give people permission to not service every client.

And from an authority standpoint permission, but just sometimes you need to hear someone else be like, don't have to take that shit, you know? So I posted this, I posted something on my stories last night. That was like, you know, sometimes clients are just. Dicks that have to be checked and called out and there's no repercussion.

I think a lot of that goes to social media cause you can just go on there and type whatever. And it's not acceptable. So sometimes you have to kick people out and we had to kick someone out of two people out of our business last week or this week, or I don't even know when it was. It was last week. 

Jen: As they're threatening to leave bad reviews. So I think as a business owner, you're like, Oh, don't leave a bad review. But who cares?

Todd: we'll get there. So basically [00:22:00] what happened was this person walked through the door. They, they had been in maybe a week before, two weeks before You don't remember? You were the one that told me about it.

Jen: I wasn't there

Todd: Oh,

Jen: even when the client was there before. So maybe it was two weeks. I don't know.

Todd: So anyways, they had some work done, came, came back through the salon to, I guess, fix something, but it was something that we hadn't done. The reason why I was asking you what was going on, cause I don't speak color. And so. I thought you could help me out with this, but just do this instead. 

Jen: I wasn't there for any of this, any services that were done prior or after from what it sounds like from what I was told is she didn't like her root color when she came back in, but when she had been to our salon before, we never did her root color. Yes.

Todd: So she was trying to get thank you for explaining

Jen: You're welcome. But

Todd: make

Jen: yeah,

Todd: than me

Jen: so the part that she didn't like was the part either she did herself or it was her natural color that she didn't like it was nothing that we had done to it.

Todd: Right. So

Jen: So there [00:23:00] was nothing.

Todd: there's your first thing. The second thing was she was demanding a discount. And she wanted the next stylist to discount it because she felt like we made a mistake, which we didn't make. We didn't touch that part of your hair.

Jen: Mm

Todd: The rudeness happened. So the, the options were explained.

They were, you can either have this or not period that's how we. We are professionals and look, this is going to damage your hair and we're not going to do it. So comes the, well, if you don't make it right, we're not going to look highly on your business or

Jen: hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Todd: it means we're going to leave bad reviews. Great. Bad reviews are awesome. You know why I like bad reviews? One, they're funny It comes across like, it's generally, Someone that didn't get their way and they're just mad. They didn't get their way. They're not even mad at what happened. They're mad.

They didn't get their way. They told you to do something and you said no. And people cannot [00:24:00] fucking handle that. So, and then the third reason is I want to show the world that we are not for everybody. I have never claimed that our business was here for everybody. Everyone's welcome. can walk through the door, but we're not going to be able to service everybody. It's just how it goes. That's how every business is. so we got the negative reviews and they actually weren't even

Jen: They were not bad. At all.

Todd: I thought they were going to be worse, but they weren't bad. And then I just did what I did. And I just am funny when I write. Respond to negative reviews because that's sort of the personality and brand of our business. I don't know if people remember when I think it was Wendy's getting bad

Jen: Oh.

Todd: and they just talk shit to the people.

Jen: Yeah, so

Todd: that is so, so clever. Go ahead. Sorry.

Jen: I think, something I want to point out here that's really important because I think people get really scared of bad reviews. Reviews are great either way, to be honest, and you shouldn't have all great ones. It's good to have a bad one here [00:25:00] and there but how you Here's the takeaway how you react to those bad reviews is very very important.

You are funny It's a little sarcastic, but you're not fighting with The person and I think i've seen this happen before with social media or reviews and you see like the owner fighting With the the client and that never looks well So that like if you have to fight take that offline, like, you know what?

Feel free to email me here. I've done that in the past like email me here We can fight over here, but we're not fighting publicly on social media But you will respond in a way that it protects the staff. It puts light on it. It's just there's really not much else to do Yeah, it's not much else to do and it's, it's great.

But I think as an owner, you do still have to respond to these, but be careful to not be responding in a way that you're being emotional because that is just, there's no place for that. Like just say something, get it over with. And then as people look at your business and look at your reviews, they're going to look at the bad reviews and then they're going to look at your response to it.

So it, it really does help those bad reviews not be so bad. And it gives you, it gives someone what you're [00:26:00] doing in your business. Like you're funny. So they realize that our business, we have an owner that's a little bit sarcastic and funny.

Todd: yeah. And it, it, it spins it in a way

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: like a lot of times with reviews, people are claiming things that aren't true. Like we had one woman that went off. She, she wrote this like whole monologue. And so I went through and bulleted out and responded to everything in a funny sort of, I think it's funny way. And I got. Messages from like even the staff were like, I have my father read this and he's never laughed so hard and it's just, that's who we are. We joke around a lot. We do hair and we have fun. And look, if you're not happy with something or you're mad because I didn't give you your way or whatever Sorry, but I don't know what to tell you.

So if you want to threaten me with reviews, I'm like, you're threatening me with a good time. Are you serious right now? Yeah. I love bad reviews. So now you don't want to get a million bad reviews, but

Jen: Right.

Todd: think having bad reviews is. The end of the world. Like

Jen: [00:27:00] No.

Todd: your favorite restaurant, whatever your favorite restaurant is, I guarantee they have some reviews where they're like, this is terrible.

I got sick. My whole family was sick. That's a, that's a popular one. My whole family was sick. I've worked in restaurants before your whole family would not be sick. There's no way, unless you guys all ate the same exact thing. So it's just, it's ridiculous, but I think you can spin it with humor. I think that you've come a long way because in the past that would have bothered you.

Jen: Well, that's why I think I was speaking to it. Cause as an owner, yes, I, it would have extremely bothered me very much stress, anxiety, all of that. And now I embrace it to like what you said. Any review is going to help us on Google. Good or bad, and I know I have you to respond to it in a way that's very clever and I don't have to stress about it.

So, and my, and actually even the staff, like, they're like, I know Todd's going to handle that, so it's all set. Like, and they can brush it off. They can do what they need to do and then move on.

Todd: Yeah, I'll always have our staffs back. And in this particular situation, I actually took one of our team members and was like, will you help me out with this? Because I don't I want, I do not want to [00:28:00] be talking about color. So I need someone that understands what

Jen: Right.

Todd: about to go out and give her her options, which are to leave at this point, because she was being extremely rude, cursing at not only the stylist that was to help her out with the consultation, but this other stylist that she saw first was there and she was

Jen: She was trashing her.

Todd: and, and all this stuff.

And I'm like, you cannot treat my team that way. Yeah. The there's, if you were a dude, I would have removed you.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: can't act like that in public, but these people think that they can do whatever the fuck they want without repercussion. And, you know, you're going to have people that are jerks and people that leave bad reviews.

And I had a review somewhere. I forget where, but it, It was from, I looked it up and the person just left like two stars or something. And I was like, you've never been to our business. I don't, I don't know. And then, so we've had actually bad reviews where the people in this, this shows you where, where these people's mindset is, but we had [00:29:00] one star review where this person left this huge thing.

And it was in response to another bad review. Do you remember this situation? But I had been a smartass and replied to it, and the person said, I wasn't going to leave a bad review, but based on how the owners acted. Blah, blah,

Jen: Oh, I do. Yeah.

Todd: all this, all this. Bullshit. Well, that review is gone. They took that review down.

So that goes to show you like they realized after that it's not that big of a deal.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: have to go around trying to trash a business and you're not going to, review is not going to. Like cancel your business. You're

Jen: right.

Todd: Right. So I just want people to know that. And if you need help responding, I would love, maybe I'll start a business

Jen: Yeah. Right.

Todd: people respond to bad reviews.

I would

Jen: And I think the other part that,

Todd: Dream job. 100%.

Jen: is that you, you are able to cancel clients. Like you're not a good fit here. [00:30:00] So I, I wish you the best of luck and I hope you find the best salon or whatever you want to say, but it, there's nothing wrong, especially like when you're in a consultation, if you don't feel like it's a good fit, your guts probably spot on.

It's not a good fit. So why even try to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation? Move on. Like there's move on. There's more hair to do on someone else.

Todd: Yeah. So what's funny is this person was talking about discounts during a free consultation.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: So we hadn't even, they just came

Jen: Well,

Todd: these ideas of what they were going to get. And, don't fall into that trap either. Given people giving in like that, cause just don't

Jen: no go.

Todd: to your, not fair to your loyal clients, not fair to you.

And you're going to have to see these people over and over. Do you want that? I don't

Jen: No. No.

Todd: Anything else, Jen? I think that's good. We're at like a half an hour.

Jen: That was great.

Todd: Well, thanks for listening. If you're still listening, I appreciate you. So does Jen. Get on my email list. I think I, I'll put the link in the show

Jen: Yeah. Blogs have been awesome.

Todd: I've been getting a lot of good response from [00:31:00] there and I enjoy doing them.

So the more, if I see, it's like anything, when you see a little bit of growth

Jen: Yeah. Gets you more inspired to do or yeah, do better.

Todd: So,

Jen: They are really good. And not just as Todd's writing them. I, I even enjoy them. Like they're really inspiring and they're, they're short and sweet too. So it's not like you're trying, it's not a lot like to read. It's very cool.

Todd: no, it's probably like a two minute read or less, I would say. And yeah, for the people that are sharing them and forwarding them I keep getting notes and people talk to me about that and I just, I appreciate it. So thank you very much. And we will see you next week. Bye.

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