Pricing Thoughts [EP:155]

Navigating Pricing Structures & Business Strategies in the Salon Industry

In this episode, Jen and Todd celebrate their podcast's upcoming third anniversary while discussing various aspects of running a successful salon business. 

They reflect on maintaining consistent content, adapting to life changes, and share insights into different pricing models, including a la carte, hourly, and hybrid structures. 

They also touch upon the importance of understanding costs, avoiding social media pitfalls, and preparing for the future. 

A special shout-out goes to Tracy from Kentucky for her feedback. 

The episode wraps up with personal takes on back-to-school routines and setting up future goals for continuous business growth.

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Milestone
00:09 Reflecting on Podcast Journey
02:01 Listener Shoutouts and Engagement
03:53 Back to School Anxieties
04:39 Diving into Pricing Structures
06:32 Challenges with A La Carte Pricing
14:30 Hourly Pricing Model: Pros and Cons
16:16 Client Reactions to No-Tip Policy
17:15 Establishing a Fair Haircut Rate
17:47 Understanding Profit in Pricing
17:58 Hourly Pricing Benefits for Staff
18:36 Service Providers and Tips
20:50 Implementing Add-Ons and Pricing
26:02 Social Media Announcements
31:44 Closing Thoughts and Future Planning

Links and Stuff:
Our (weekly) Email List

Find more of our things:
Instagram
Hello Hair Pro Website

Transcript

155
===

Todd: [00:00:00] All right. What's up, everyone? How's it going? What's up, Jen? How are you?

Jen: Great. How are you?

Todd: Amazing. So did you know that we are, I think next week will be three years

Jen: Oh, no, I did not know that.

Todd: of our podcast. I think it was, I think we launched on like September, like mid September, two years or almost three years ago. But I was looking at the numbers and I'm like, wait, 52 times three is 156.

So We are next week would be three years worth of content every single Monday. We've never missed one.

Jen: That's insane. That's

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: accomplishment.

Todd: Yeah,

Jen: pivots within that. We were in a good routine in the beginning and then, know, families and kids and all kinds of stuff. And now we just record when we can. Yes.

Todd: routine. We're going to talk about a little bit about pricing structures, just kind of [00:01:00] surface level stuff. But. Before we get there, I think, yeah, there's been a lot of ups and downs and like learning and stuff, but heading into the fall, I think will be a lot easier.

We have our youngest heading into school. Kindergarten, which is not awesome for lots of reasons and then awesome for other reasons. And I think it'll definitely make the podcast a lot easier. And maybe we can even get back to like, We were in for a little bit, we were like bulk recording where we do two or three episodes.

I feel like in a couple of weeks we would kick out like four to six weeks worth of content and then we just had it, you know,

Jen: Which is

Todd: I don't know if that's like looking back, I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I think there's something to sitting down each week and having, you know, the conversation and talking

Jen: I think to have a

Todd: a little bit.

Jen: or two, just in case stuff comes up, is not a bad idea.

Todd: Yeah, I like that idea [00:02:00] too. I do want to say we got another message from someone and I want to say shout out to Tracy, who is from Kentucky, who reached out and said, thank you.

Jen: And

Todd: I guess. Yeah. I just wanted to say you're welcome, Tracy. Thanks so much for listening and thanks for reaching out because we love that stuff.

So.

Jen: cool.

Todd: If you're listening, keep reaching out and not just you, Tracy. I'm not just talking to

Jen: All the

Todd: listening out there. Yeah. We, we constantly have people that are like, I listen to your podcast and we're like, really, you do like people out of the industry, people in the industry, whatever, and they're like, yeah, I've listened to it.

I love this episode or whatever. I love how you guys talk about this. And so if you're out there and you're. Wanting to reach out, we would love it. And we will make content based on what you want, which is really actually fun

Jen: Yes.

Todd: rather than sitting down and just talking about what we want all the time. [00:03:00] So we've been starting with opening takes and I know you're going to be like, Oh, I wasn't ready for this, but Hey,

Jen: It's all good.

Todd: got to be ready.

So my opening take is more of, I guess, sort of like a, a wish. I don't know if that even makes sense, but I hope that everyone had a good summer. I know summer's wrapping us, wrapping us, wrapping up for us here in the northeast. I know a lot of people are back to school. Our kids start on Monday when this episode comes out.

And things will get back to definitely more routine

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: and all that fun stuff. And then we'll get into the holidays. But I hope everyone had a great summer. We had a great summer. We took a last minute trip up north. Yeah, so that's all. That's all I got. Quick and easy. What do you got, anything?

Jen: Well, I was didn't know if I can't talk today, so I

Todd: That's okay.

Jen: take is going to be for all the people who are like me right now that are freaking the fuck out about the first day of school tomorrow my [00:04:00] anxiety is through the roof. I. much everyone came down this morning and there I was cleaning and setting up lunches and backpacks and realizing all the stuff that I didn't have. Our daughter's first day of school outfit is not working out. She didn't get the right lunch box cause I didn't get a new one. I'm trying to pack lunches and the one snack I don't have, we need to go get and we have the wrong agenda. So just lots of feelings. And then tomorrow I think I'm going to bawl my eyes out when Oliver gets on the bus as a kindergartner. So. For all of you that have all the feels that I have today and you have first day of schools or all the first things that are approaching I feel, yeah, shout out, I

Todd: Awesome. I like it. Let's jump into this pricing structure. You had brought this up maybe like a week, week back, two weeks back, whenever you brought it up a few days back, I don't remember.

Jen: inspiration like you do, you know, off of just seeing stuff. So I get a

Todd: Sure.

Jen: or something bothers me, I'm like, why is that bothering me? We should talk about it.[00:05:00] 

Todd: Did you have something specific where you wanted to jump off from? Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC.

Jen: say right now, there's not one size fits all.

Like if you think there's a black and white way that'll work for you, maybe it will, but I don't think anybody out there, I don't think you should follow just one way. We have tried lots of stuff. I have owned salons for now, I think 15 years, been through all different kinds of things. And what works for us may not work for you.

And. I think there are things to pick from both from all kinds of different things that we've kind of come together and actually the way we are pricing at HelloNow. com. Is the best, I think for us anyway. It's very consistent. It's clear. It's easy for our staff [00:06:00] to treat everybody the same. There it's just, it's, it's really nice.

It's forward. Like the word clean, it's just really easy to do. Not like, well, what do I do for this? Or what about this? And we've just come so far find a structure that works for us. And it's a little bit of everything.

Todd: Yeah, for sure. So let's I gotta stop saying let's jump into some different, I guess, models.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: So the, there are certain models that I don't like, and I don't like them for most people. And I'll explain that real quick. So for example, a la carte, a la carte is where everything is just individually priced.

And the reason that I don't like that is because I don't think based on the people that I talked to, that anybody did anything to think about what it costs to deliver a service. What they did do was look around and go, Oh, a glaze or. Whatever you want to call it, toner or whatever should be between 27 and [00:07:00] 31.

And they did that because they looked at the last salon they came from or the salon across the street or wherever. And I've had conversations with people like Tim Howard of Vish who say that the majority of salons that he talks to are losing money on that service, which tells me. It's not fucking price correctly.

Jen: Right.

Todd: I don't understand why copying prices would be. I mean, I do understand it. People don't know what they don't know. So they're just copying and they're like, Oh, that salon looks successful. So they must be successful. You have no idea what it costs for them to deliver that service. They probably don't even know.

Jen: Right.

Todd: you need to do is get with someone like Tim or figure it out yourself. It's easy to do math. And I know people are like, I'm creative. I don't want to do math. Then don't own a business because it's a big, huge part of it. Yeah. It's a big, massive part of owning a business. If you just randomly price a bunch of services, nothing starts to make sense.

And then you start to look at certain things and get pissed off. So for example, [00:08:00] I know of people that I've talked to in the past that will say, I hate doing men's cuts, quote unquote, because. I can't make any money off them. So when one books in, well, why are you charging 10?

Jen: Mm

Todd: Do you know what I mean? Like it's, it's your fault that you've done this.

So either, I guess my solution is to have something across the board. Like what we have, our haircut is our haircut. So everyone's haircut price is different, right? We have your haircut price is not the same as somebody coming out of school. But their haircut price is the same. So if your haircut price is 50, it doesn't matter who sits in your chair.

Women, men, boys, and girls, like the price is the same across the table. And that way nobody is salty. Also. I guess if you're that, if you can't figure out or you're not willing to figure out what you need to be charging to make yourself [00:09:00] not salty, then just don't offer the service. So another thing I've noticed when I first started out barbering, barbers would try to overprice, or a handful that I've seen will offer shaves, but they price them astronomically

Jen: Mm

Todd: so that people don't book them.

Jen: Right.

Todd: So stuff like that doesn't make sense.

Jen: to do them. Right.

Todd: Just don't do them.

Jen: Exactly.

Todd: offer them. I don't understand why you're offering something you don't want to do. 

Jen: It's a, I, I think it's a great conversation to be had if, if you don't mind doing, let's say kids cuts, right? Cause that's one that I think a lot of people charge like 15 for a kid's cut. So again, in the beginning of your career, you're like, Oh, I don't care. I'll take anything. And then as you grow your kid's cut somehow is still at 15 and you have 10 of them a day.

And you're like, this isn't worth it for me. So in that case, you have to decide like, Well, what price would it be worth it for you to do a kid's cut? Right? So [00:10:00] you would. Not do 10 haircuts a day on kids, but you might keep two of them and that might make you happy at the price they're paying. And I think if you start looking at services from a different view, right?

So if you, like you said, if you don't mind doing shaves. Then you price it at what you want to do. If you don't want to do them, the problem then becomes say a shave is 85. I don't even, we do them, but I don't even know what they cost to be honest. And then someone does book it. There's a perceived value at that price point that they expect.

And if you haven't been practicing them and you suck at it, then like, It's just a shit show all around. So I think there's a way to approach things as to like, if you don't want to do it, you shouldn't be doing it. If, as you get busier, you should be adjusting your prices for the busier part of what you want in your day and understanding that you're just not going to attract a bunch of people at a certain price point, but that should be okay for you when you get busy enough.

Todd: I agree with all of that. The perceived [00:11:00] value is something else that we should touch on, and I will. So, I don't do a ton of kids cuts. But when I do, I, like, I, for example, I'll back up. I know a lot of people will say, well, in my area, And then they'll say people won't pay X for X or X for Y, whatever.

Well, who are you to judge what people will spend? Maybe you won't spend that. We regularly have kids come in for 60, 80, 100 haircuts. Regularly. Constantly. And we're in Southern New Hampshire. We are not in a big city. We're not in New York. We're not in L. A. And people are paying. Coming in and with multiple kids, so they're coming in and paying hundreds of dollars for their kids to get their haircut.

They see the value. They see what we bring to the table. They see what we offer and we do things like we're not gonna probably get too deep down the rabbit hole on what we offer for services because I want to kind of keep this [00:12:00] quick, but like we treat kids like humans. We treat them. They're not adults, but we give them a little bit of that.

Do you know what I mean? Like, you're obviously not going to treat an adult and a kid the exact same way because they are different things. But, people are often like, thanks for treating my kid like a person. Because at a lot of places, kids are treated like what's the word I'm looking for, like an annoyance, like something that somebody has to deal with, you know, and that's how it is your service provider.

You should be providing services to whoever's willing to sit in your chair. And I guess if you don't want to, I'm not anti not doing services. So if you're like, I don't want to do kids under 12 or whatever, and you're out there good for you, don't do it. I would never judge anybody for that. But if you let a kid sit in your chair, and you don't give them any sort of experience, then what, like,

Jen: on you.

Todd: Yeah, that's, I stole that from me.

Okay.

Jen: And I think what happens is, is that again, you priced your kids cuts really low. So now you [00:13:00] probably are trying to book them in like a 15 minute spot. So it makes it a little bit more worth it to you. So you're just rushing, you're rushing, you're rushing them kids. Like to me, I want to talk to them.

I want to look at them. I want them to be part of the consultation. I feel like it's a great learning experience for them to, to deal with me and not talk with through their parents. You know, obviously I, I. Include the parents too, but I want that child to be excited to have time with me. And so price that accordingly.

And I actually take the time with them. So I think some of those services, if you don't feel like you can raise the price on it to something that makes you not feel salty, you end up just shortening the time and then they get a crap experience. So you have to figure out, I guess, as a service provider, which one are you?

Crap experience or great experience. And. You need to walk the walk in that every single day with every single client. Right.

Todd: in our salon too, that have said to me, I want my men's cuts to take as little time as possible. And I'll say, why? And they're like, because I don't [00:14:00] make money on them or I don't want to do them or whatever. And I'm like, well, you don't have to do them. And it's blows my mind because the people that are saying this are not necessarily like known for their men's cuts.

Like they're not good. You know what I mean? This might be somebody through our salon or somebody just starting out. And so I'll be honest with them. Like you need to work on those before you can complain about them. You know what I mean? You like at least put in some effort. You want men to sit in your chair and pay you, but you don't want to do your part of the equation, which sort of blows my mind.

So let's shift, I guess, to something that we tried that was. Not a failure, but it didn't work, was hourly, like a strict hourly pricing. And there's a bunch of, I guess, ways that people will interpret hourly pricing. How I take it, is it's an hourly price and everything's included. Including your tip, including your chemical services, including everything.

Here's where that breaks down. We had overwhelming amount of people come to [00:15:00] us. Clients, not staff. Wanting to tip. We tried to remove, we took tippy out and it was a major mistake. People were like, well, how do I tip? And we were like, no, it's included. Like idiots, you know what I mean? And hourly pricing is if you do strict hourly pricing, again, I'm not judging.

If it works for you, good for you roll with it. What happened in our salon is clients felt like we were taking away their, like their ability to tip.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: is probably not the word I want, but I can't come up with something better right off the top of my head.

Jen: for them. They were like, I, I want to do that. Like, that's how that's their love language for a lot of them. That's what they want to do. And. Yeah, we, we were removing that thinking, Oh, that's going to be so much easier. We're we're moving into 2024. This is like the, or it wasn't 2024.

It was a while back, but like, this is innovative and new and cool. And there were just that we started seeing, like that we were like poking at. And since [00:16:00] we talk about this all the time, we're always innovating. When I was pivoting, like, okay, this

Todd: Always.

Jen: So we were like, If they want to tip, they can, why are we telling them they can't? And tippy is a great way to make it super easy for them. So they don't have to run to an ATM or remember to bring cash. And it was

Todd: This episode is not sponsored by Tippie.

Jen: I know

Todd: If you're listening to Tippie, sponsor us.

Jen: Yeah, you should. It was the first part of hourly that we were like, okay, this part's not working. So we will bring back tippy. Cool. You want to tip tip, but what it did

Todd: I remember having clients being upset and reaching out like after and they're like I felt bad that you wouldn't let me

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: like you cut my son's hair or, you know, you, we needed a haircut last minute and you were able to squeeze us in and we weren't able to reciprocate like a thank you because you did something for us.

We wanted to do you did something extra for us. We wanted to do something extra for you. But you wouldn't accept it. And that's when it sort of hit me. And I was like, I'm hurting people's feelings. I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to be [00:17:00] providing an experience, a good time, something fun or something that they need.

And I wasn't giving that to them. Now I still have clients that don't tip and that's totally fine too. I don't care. I'm not salty about it because.

Jen: Same.

Todd: What we did do by working through hourly prices is we came up with a haircut rate for everybody and that's your haircut rate across the board and that's what you're happy with making.

Jen: Right. Yeah.

Todd: if you are out there and you're like, well, I rely on my tips, you can build that in. Nobody said you can't build that in. And that's not taking advantage, it's not price gouging, it's not doing any of those things, it's working the numbers, the math, sorry again,

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: what you want to make. If you don't work

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: If you don't work profit into your pricing, it's not going to just be there. It doesn't just appear.

Jen: I

Todd: So you've got to figure that stuff out. Another, go ahead.

Jen: I was going to say the, the [00:18:00] logical part of what hourly did do for us and for our staff when people come to work at hello now is starting to realize exactly what Todd was saying is like off of a haircut. Like, you know, nothing is 100 percent commission, no matter, even if you work for yourself, a haircut, you still have to Pay to keep your tools up.

You have to pay for the products you're using, whatever. So it was kind of like when we break it down, you know, what do people want to make off of that haircut and what they started to look at or what they now, the perceived value from our staff side is that they actually are making an income off of the services they provide. So their tips now are extra where I think. that majority of the service providers in this industry, look at their tips as the income and what they're doing as services, just like extra, which is why they always discounted. They'll be like, Oh, I'll just charge them this because they'll tip me more rather than

Todd: Owners.

Jen: right.

You are a service provider. The services should be your paycheck. Right. And anything you get on top of that, that's, that's your extra. And it's, I think a lot of people look at that [00:19:00] backwards. And what it also allowed us to do is come up with a great structure for our staff. So they can, they know if they book so many haircuts a week, if they're doing colors without any add ons, cause that's something else we added after that their income is at least this.

So it's very easy for them to math and they math, right? So we're helping them become great service providers while doing math. So they understand how to make a living doing hair.

Todd: I see a lot of owners that will say, I'll take my employees tips at the end of now. I don't even know my employees tips,

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: but they'll say, I'll take them. I'll take my employee's tips, add that, and then we divide. So if they worked 30 hours, we add everything up and then divide, and that's actually what they made.

Yes, that's what they made, but that's not you giving them that. And that's how you're trying to flip it. You're saying like, well, you made X, you didn't make this. Like, yeah, not, you can't really do that. It doesn't, it doesn't work, and it's not,[00:20:00] 

Jen: well, for both of us, the employees tips, those are theirs to deal with. don't, if they want to include that in what their income is and what they're making cool, our job is to make them great technicians and give them a great wage.

Todd: yeah, and we advise them. We tell them what to do as far as. Taxes and things like that, but it's on them to be professional or not like that's their choice, you know, so I worked in restaurants for a long time. You're gonna have weeks that are good. You're gonna have weeks that are bad. Same with hair. So you can't rely on tips.

So owners out there that are like, well, You know, on average, you'd make this amount of tips, blah, blah, blah. That's not how that works. Tips are supposed to be above and beyond, not part of the base.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: to include it as part of the base. The other thing we did with hourly is we took that hourly structure and we broke it down into, to keep it simple, basically a haircut rate and then a chemical [00:21:00] services rate, or anything that involves chemicals.

At all, so color you know, a perm, whatever would be one rate, and that is to cover the cost of those products, the additional products that you're using. The other thing we do is we work with fish, so we have add ons, so it's not, we're not just like, It costs this for sometimes you'll see pricing. That's like, if you have short hair, it's this price.

If you have medium hair, it's this price. If you have long hair, if you have anything longer than this long hair, it's this price. Well, what we do is charge people what we use because we know how to do math. So we have an allotment that is included in that rate. And then Vish calculates anything above and beyond.

We have not had a single complaint that I'm aware of. Of that add on anywhere.

Jen: Sometimes it's like nine cents, [00:22:00] over months and years, that nine cents adds up just

Todd: Yeah. It's our 9 cents that we put up there. So it's, it's ours to recoup, right? That's how business works. I'm sure there's a lot of people that are like, that's the cost of doing business. That's another thing that I see a lot of, but

Jen: this is how we do it. And it's working very well. 

Todd: The cost of business thing is, is interesting because the cost of business has always been passed off to the client or the customer in any field ever. I don't understand why hair is like tries to stand on this like soap box and be like,

Jen: do? They just do, Oh, I added an extra bowl. It's just an arbitrary 10. That's how they do it. They just add an extra like, Oh,

Todd: yeah,

Jen: here. That's 10 per bowl. They don't even know what the cost per bowl is costing them. That might be enough. It may not. You have no idea.

So a client doesn't notice because 10 is like a round number. Ours is like, Nine cents, if that's all we use, we literally only charge for the extra. So we're saving them money at our salon. We're at your salon. You're just like 10 bucks extra should cover it.

Todd: certain other things too. And we [00:23:00] weren't willing to work under the, it'll all like wash out in the end because that is a sloppy way of doing business. Like the whole hourly strict hourly to me is sloppy. It's like, I don't want to take the time to figure everything out. So we'll just

Jen: Lazy.

Todd: blanket number and it will all come out in the wash again, not attacking.

If that's the way you choose to run your business and it works for you, go nuts. Hopefully you have profit. But we had certain products like saison straightening or smoothing, rather smoothing treatments, whatever, they just didn't fit. It didn't fit in there. So, you know, you had to make adjustments for that stuff.

What were you going to say?

Jen: We also did like in the beginning, everything was included. So I was like, no, when you do an eyebrow wax, we want to add it on. We also, I do feel like in this industry, people are excited to like add things on to try to like up their ticket sales and this and that, and not in a bad way, but in a way that gets them excited.

Like, so now I know if I book all my colors

Todd: I don't know why that would ever be considered [00:24:00] bad.

Jen: I don't, I don't know why either, but I know some

Todd: You work in a restaurant, you off, you don't offer dessert because it's an add on, like

Jen: You

Todd: work at the car dealership, you don't offer leather because it's an add on. You want to solve people's problems. What do they want? What are they looking for out of the experience?

Jesus.

Jen: case,

Todd: Why is it so complicated?

Jen: week and they know if they have so many colors and so many haircuts, okay, here's my projected number. It's very easy for them to figure that out. And then on top of that, maybe there's, we offer a few different like hair treatments and certain things, and this way they can align themselves with which ones speak to them and to their clients and offer that too.

And then there's just like this fun, it's, it's like a game, right? And it's very cool. Cause now they are able to have really busy weeks or they're able to just do their regular stuff and have like their. Regular weeks. And it's, it's their choice and it sort of aligns well with all the different type of personalities we have in an Hello. There are those that are go getters and they want to do all the stuff. And then there are those that are totally fine with just their, their regular stuff. Both fit well in our structure and both do well [00:25:00] financially.

Todd: Yeah. I, I, I get confused when you try to blanket statement everything it's because you want your stat, like our staff is rewarded for, you know, Going out of their way to solve additional problems for people. And that's how you need to be compensated for things. It's 2024. Things aren't getting cheaper. I don't know if people are holding out for inflation to go away.

Inflation has been the same for, I mean, it's gone obviously up and right now it's crazy, but. Inflation has been inflation. It's a thing for the past ever. Like it's like the prices of things are not going to go back down. And there are sort of certain examples in our world, like gasoline and things like that.

Yeah, that fluctuates, but I don't anticipate the cost of products, like just dropping these companies. Aren't going to go, Oh, 5. Now it's the sixties. Like, they're not going to do that because they're making [00:26:00] the 15 per tube or whatever the price is. Okay. You know the other thing I had to talk about, unless you want to rant on that more, was the social media curse, and I think that you are, this is something that I'll die on a hill for if I need to, but you do not need to announce stuff on social media.

Jen: I agree.

Todd: Every time that I've tried to do it, it fucking backfires. People get confused. People wonder why we're announcing it because no other business does this. And sometimes you're influenced by stuff and you make mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes with this. And sometimes it just seems fun. Sometimes you feel like I want to be first to the party.

That sort of thing. So, you know, when you go out and if you change your pricing, if you increase your rates, say that's probably the easiest change, not maybe changing the pricing structure of your business, but like, let's do a price increase. You don't need the, Hey guys, I tried to hold off [00:27:00] as long as possible.

It seems desperate to me. Sorry. It's just the way it comes across. Why are you trying to hold off as long as possible? You should be not holding off. It's a business. You need to make money. If you're not making money at a business, then it's not going to be worth having.

Jen: right.

Todd: not worth having, then you're going to let down your, at least your clients, if you're an independent person, or if you're a salon owner, you're going to let down your staff because if you don't exist, then they don't have jobs.

And I understand they can just find another job, but. You have to have that stuff built in, like our prices continue to go up. Why? Because that's how business operates. And I'm not going to shy away from that. And I'm not going to say like, Oh, we don't do regular price increases here and there on stuff because we do.

I'm not trying to hold off on stuff. I'm trying to keep our business strong so that we can have employees that are well compensated for the work that they do. And [00:28:00] are stable. Can you imagine if we were like, I don't know guys, we might have to do some discounts because we can't make it this month. Do you know what that would do to your staff?

Do you know how stressed they would be? Some of these people are, you know, younger, or say starting out and have their first baby. Homes and things like that. Like they can't, I mean, I guess they could, but they don't, definitely don't want to be like on edge all the time. Like, is this place going to work?

Is this place going to last? You know what I mean? So you it's yeah.

Jen: come in to be creative.

Todd: And it needs to be stable. And if you're like scared to do a price increase, so you go online, especially like things like Instagram, because all you're going to get is positive feedback.

Jen: Mm

Todd: And that could be. Not be what reality is, say, say you have clients that have questions or say you have clients that have an issue or can't afford you anymore.

And now they're sort of looking at social media or they're probably not like the people that you're talking to. It's the [00:29:00] same thing with your procedures and your policies. I helped someone with this recently. They were going to post their cancellation policies online. Now, again, if you do this, I don't care it's on you, but we went over it again and again and again.

And finally, she said to me, the more we talk about this, the more corny it sounds. And I said, right, it seems corny that you're going to announce that you have a cancellation policy. Do you know how many businesses have cancellation policies and don't feel the need to announce them? A lot. I don't know how many.

That was rhetorical, but a lot of them, right? If you read the fine print on Delta or whatever, I'm sure they have cancellation policies, but if you look at their Instagram, nowhere on there does it say like, hey guys, if you're, you know, if you're canceling within 70

Jen: lot

Todd: hours,

Jen: you're, it sounds like you're talking down to the person like people are

Todd: Well, it's very, maybe

Jen: your policies, your procedures on your website, which you should have one. That's where everything would be laid out if you need to give them any of that information or like for us, when [00:30:00] text confirmations go on email confirmations go out, there's always a little blurb about certain things that are our policies at the salon.

That, that's where that lives, and if somebody's really concerned with what your policies are, they'll ask you. They don't need you to be like, oh, just in case you didn't know, they're like, I'm not an idiot. I know.

Todd: we should wrap there. I get stuff to do today.

Jen: Sure.

Todd: I don't, I don't really have anything else to add to that. I think I've said my piece on the whole, on the whole, like hourly versus a la carte and blah, blah, blah. And it was a thing for in the industry where people were, I felt like sort of arguing over which was better. It's not that one's better than the other.

It's that what you have, look at what we did. We took an a la carte approach that was dated. We updated it and then we worked it into strict hourly, which sucked. And then we came up with this thing that was our own that we do at hello. And [00:31:00] I don't know what you would call it. Maybe you would call it some sort of hybrid system or whatever, but I don't care.

I don't want to label it. If anybody is curious, I will happily jump on a phone call and break everything down of what we do and how we look at our numbers so that they make sense. And again,

Jen: understands it too. That's important. Not just like you said, some arbitrary number. That's just like, Oh, here's your toner at 27. Like, why do you even know what that costs you? Are you even making money at that point? Cause

Todd: I, how much does it cost to deliver that?

Jen: And that's for someone who's, if you're independent, commissioned, whatever you are, like you do need to know how much product are you using?

Does that number really give you the return that you should be getting? Like, and if you don't know that stuff, like, yeah, jump on a call. We can start there.

Todd: So, all right, give us a closing take, Jen. What do you got? Can be anything. It doesn't have to be even related here.

Jen: All my parents out there, good luck with your first day of school with your children, whether it comes to hopefully no meltdowns in the morning or your routine. And [00:32:00] I wish you all the success.

Todd: Mine, my closing take is we're coming up on closing in on the last quarter of the year. Which includes the holidays. So what are you thinking about this fall, which is what a few weeks away?

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: when fall officially starts three, three weeks or so. So what are you going to do this fall to set up for winter to set up your end of year, which then sets up the beginning of next year?

See where I'm going here.

Jen: Yep.

Todd: if you don't think about the future, I challenge you, whoever's listening out there to think about the future, grab a pen and pad and write down some goals. This is what I'm going to do in these months. This is what I'm going to do in these quarters. And this is how I'm going to kick off 2025 and just crush it.

Jen: Love it.

Todd: All right. Thanks so much guys. Jump on our email list and wherever else hit us up, send us a text, all that fun stuff. We'll see you next time. Thanks. Bye everyone.

​[00:33:00]