Bad Reviews & Business Challenges [EP:157]

The Battles of Business: Negative Reviews and Entrepreneurial Struggles

In Episode 157, Jen and Todd discuss handling negative reviews and share their experiences with a particularly challenging one-star review. 

They discuss the common misconception that being great at a skill, like hairstyling, automatically translates to business success. 

Jen reflects on parenting milestones and mentorship, while Todd emphasizes the importance of communication and dealing with both clients and business partners. 

Together, they offer practical advice for aspiring business owners, highlighting the need for constant adaption, robust systems, and unwavering dedication.

00:00 Introduction and Episode Setup
00:44 Opening Takes: Personal Reflections
04:01 Discussing the Negative Review
07:09 Handling Difficult Clients
15:46 Challenges of Entrepreneurship
21:13 Client Communication Boundaries
22:10 Handling Financial Stress in Business
24:26 Decision-Making with a Business Partner
26:20 Marketing and Investment Strategies
27:08 Entrepreneurial Mindset and Risk Management
31:50 Effective Communication in Business
34:41 Dealing with Distributors and Sales Reps
39:01 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

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Transcript

157
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Todd: [00:00:00] Anyway. Here we go. Attempt number 12 or whatever, recording episode one 57. We're talking about some negative reviews today.

We got a negative, we got a one star review. So we're going to talk about that. And we're going to talk about how it's difficult to run a business.

Jen: Very

Todd: And I think a lot of people out there think if you're good at hair, that you are good at business.

Jen: completely separate.

Todd: Yeah, those two skill sets are not even close to the same thing at all.

Jen: No. And

Todd: So,

Jen: you see people struggle when they are like, I do great hair. I'm going to run a business. And then they're like, this is really hard. I want to quit. Yeah, we know.

Todd: let's start with an opening take,

Jen: Oh shit.

Todd: haha, and I'll go first. So you can have time to not listen to me, but think about what you're going to say after, which isn't listening. Alright, so you go ahead and enjoy that. Mine's short [00:01:00] though, so I'm sort of stalling here for you. My opening take is, I read a comment on the gram that was not true.

And I know for a fact it wasn't true, but the person was sort of taking credit for something that didn't happen. One, and two, they were insinuating that in order for them to do something good, someone else had to do something bad. And that's not the way the world works.

I just don't know why so many people are stuck in that. In order for me to be good at X. Someone else has to be bad at it. That doesn't, it's like people that think they make less money. I'll make more money. It doesn't matter how much someone else makes. It doesn't matter how good at something someone else is.

Todd: It has no effect on you at all. Talking bad about [00:02:00] or thinking that somehow putting down one person is making you look better is flawed. That's my opening take.

Hopefully I stalled that long enough for you to have something.

Jen: no, I'm feeling flat right now, man. Dang, I'm going to go, I guess, off of my last opening take last week, because it's

Todd: Alright.

Jen: Where our lives are at. So for those of you who are new to listening, we have three children and this year in the school year, we're going to have a baby. All three are in school full day on the bus.

So our youngest child is now full day kindergartner. our last episode, I was definitely having a lot of anxiety and actually maybe even a little bit of a panic attack about it and was very emotional. But what I think is really cool is when you, you, you do your best as a parent and then you see your kids thriving in these new environments that.

You know, they're going to do good, but until they get in those environments, like you need to see them do [00:03:00] good. So it's been very cool to watch our kids come into a routine, pivot where they need to for all kinds of things. We're asking them from bedtime to lunches to snacks and truly complained very little. Having said that as a parent, I'm also as. You know, a salon owner, a mentor, as Todd just said, apprentice, which in the state of New Hampshire is 3000 hours is just about to finish her program. So as a parent, I'm proud there. And then when I go into the salon and I mentor my apprentice, Emma, and I see her growing and I just spoke with her yesterday and she was like. When this started, I felt like it was going to take forever, and then now I'm here, and I miss you, and I want to be with you all the time. It's just another proud moment. If, if you set up these people you love to do great things in the world, when they're ready to go do them, they do them well. And if there are people around you who are not doing things well, you've got to set them up better. That's my opening take. How's that?

Todd: Awesome. Alright. [00:04:00] Let's dive into

Let's dive into that bad review.

Jen: Okay.

Todd: wanted to talk about this, so. We got a one star review. And I honestly, I don't really have much to say about it. I know you do. It, these things used to bug me. I know they used to bug you. When I had my gym, I just learned how to deal with stuff. And you, I think for a lot of people listening, for starters, there's, you know, three sides, they say to every story, my side, your side, and then what actually happened.

Sometimes you'll get a review. That's just batshit crazy. And it doesn't even make sense. So I, I really don't know what else to say about it without being rude because I want to just be rude. I want to say the person's name, but everyone listening can just go on and look at our one star reviews. You can see the person's name

Jen: think it was a 12 page review.

Todd: and they talked all about how they went somewhere else and they're so happy and blah, blah, blah.

Now, keep in mind that this person, okay, came into our salon, [00:05:00] set up a consultation, came into our salon just for the consultation, was happy with it, left. Booked another appointment, came back, saw one of our hair pros, , and was happy.

Paid, tipped, and rebooked their next appointment. Left, called to say how happy they were with the service. They told the stylist, you really know what you're doing. I can't wait to see you again in eight weeks. Then we got an email that said, I've been reaching out and reaching out and reaching out. I've sent multiple emails.

So there was one email and I think the, on the review, it was like 20 pages long. So I was like, no, nobody's reading this shit. I think it said that they reached out and called and called and called, which is just simply not true. But [00:06:00] I just, when you have someone that's a lunatic, there's only so much you can do.

Right. So that's not a reflection of you. And if you are, if I make this a video clip and you're watching me, you'll see that my same resting bitch face didn't change at all. I just, I simply, it doesn't affect me, is definitely a reflection on that person, less than it is on me because it's a, if you, if you go read it, You'll be like, this is absurd.

And now I have fantasy football draft stuff popping up after I yelled at you for not knowing how to turn off your notifications. So anyway, I don't know what you want to talk about, but I guess I'll, I can jump in if you have any anything else. I don't

Jen: story, the background is great. I woke up this morning and I think the bad review came in at like 3 46 am our time. And I

Todd: another, [00:07:00] another red flag, by the way, who is up at 3 a. m. Leaving reviews on businesses

Jen: I

Todd: either way, good or bad

Jen: Yeah, and I, as an owner, any owners listening, or if you run your own business, there are fires to put out daily, sometimes by the minute, sometimes by the hour, but it definitely doesn't help when your day starts with a shit ass review, one star, and then I, I didn't have my glasses on, so I couldn't really even see what the lady was saying, but I was aware of what was happening I actually yesterday had Todd and I had gone over the email this weekend and I had talked to the service provider already knowing I was in the day this client was in and she had pulled me aside that day to be like, I think my client's crazy.

I might need your help. But I kind of observed a bit client left. Happy was rebooking. I'm like, Oh, we're, we're totally good. So when the review came in, I was like, Oh, this is interesting, but. I had the backstory So when I wake up this morning, my old self, like a couple of years ago, this would have ruined my whole entire day.

Like, I don't even know if I would have been able to do certain things like, Oh my God, we have to get ahead of this bad review. It's so bad, [00:08:00] but where we are today, we do so much work with the staff to get them at a level. If they're on the floor doing hair, they deserve to be on the floor doing hair. We, we just put so much effort into the business and the branding that a bad review to me now is generally kind of funny.

And I'm in. Joying that the person I am as a leader. No, I'm not like, it doesn't make me so upset that I'm like losing my mind. And I know that Todd will take care of it. I asked him this morning and he's like, you know, me Jen, 24 hours and I will respond. I think as you come

Todd: Yeah. I don't. I don't, I don't bend over for somebody that's like, I reached out several times. First of all, you reached out twice or no, you reached out three times. You reached out one time to say on the phone, how awesome.

Jen: we were.

Todd: Appointment was, then you reached out through email saying how everything was pretty much fine and I, I, I don't want to read the email, but the email said that everything was okay [00:09:00] ish.

Like it wasn't a completely happy, but you know, not the end of the world. And then woke up to a one start with you,

Jen: it.

Todd: right? She didn't want us to fix it. She wanted some money and we don't do reviews. It's on our refunds. It's on

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: website. So I don't know what to tell you. I would have had somebody fix it for you, but you said it was fine.

So I don't know what we would be fixing. It was only not fine when we didn't reach back out as soon as soon as possible. And it was Labor Day weekend, by the way, folks. So I'm not

Jen: Follow up on something until we talk to the person that's done the hair. So we have our

Todd: right. It's

Jen: our hair pros back first, and then we go from there. And I had already had a little bit of her backs. I knew what I was in the salon through the weekend. So I sort of had a feel for this is what was going, but I think you have to embrace one star reviews.

You're going to get them. It's where it's at. I. I think if you, if you do enough work to get enough reviews on Google anyway, good. Like you said, Todd, this [00:10:00] review was obviously so crazy that Google didn't even put at the top of our review list. you know, I, I think there's just people out

Todd: Oh, and it didn't change anything. You know, we have a couple of hundred, not a ton, but we have a couple of hundred reviews that are all five stars and we have like four reviews that are one star, so that's

Jen: And

Todd: that's.

Jen: going to get that

Todd: Yeah, that's the balance that I'm willing to have. I will tell you this right now to anybody listening, hello, hair was not built for everybody.

And I don't care. I would never try to build a business for everybody that when you do that, you end up at just

Jen: for

Todd: this mediocrity, like, yeah, it's, it doesn't make sense to me. You have to have sort of a target clientele. You have to have a dollar range that you're working within because you have to bring in a certain amount of money because.

You have to operate with profit, or why do you have a business? So you have to counter, you have to like, apply all of those things to [00:11:00] sort of the bigger picture. Is I guess what I was trying to get at there.

Jen: And I just, what I've learned over however long I've owned businesses is just, you know, if something comes up on social media, we get bad reviews or somebody writes something we'll respond and just say, Hey, you know, if you want to email us here, we'd love to talk about this further. We don't ignore people, but we also don't need to get in an argument with somebody that's on a social media platform.

For Google. You know, Todd will respond to the review, like he said, within 24 hours and use way

Todd: Maybe, I,

Jen: to people. If you look at some of the, if now you go on and look at our reviews, and we've had a few bad ones, they're quite hilarious. The way he is, he typically responds. So if you need a good laugh, I would actually go check that out.

Cause it's kind of

Todd: well, well look. You have to run, you, you want to have some sort of branding and some sort of identity and our business is just, it's light and fun. We don't take ourselves all that seriously. We, I love [00:12:00] sarcasm, you know? So all those things, I think I had a woman one time said that she had the worst day of her life at our salon.

And I was like, things are looking up for you then, because if that's the worst day of your life, that you're doing pretty good.

Jen: Yeah,

Todd: Right? The worst day of your life is because you didn't like your haircut in the salon. Yeah, good. Good for you. You're doing way better than I am. Like, I've had way worse shit in my life than a bad haircut.

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: You know, can you imagine how entitled somebody is or how, like, spoiled they must be to write something like that, you know? And that's where, again, it's, even when I had my gym, it was always, what's that saying? The squeaky wheel gets the oil. It's just the people that bitch tend to, to take our attention, which I clearly don't have right now, and they just suck it up and they use so much of your bandwidth when it doesn't have to be like that.

It's a choice. How you react as a choice. That person writing that review, I, I [00:13:00] can't do anything about that. That was on them. They decided to write that. They decided to attack somebody on our staff by name. They didn't have the correct name. They used a random name of someone that I've never even heard of.

Multiple times through there. So, I'm like, this person's not even, like a, this person is just sort of like a joke. Like, it doesn't make sense. Sense. None of this makes sense. You know, you called this person, asked for her and then praised her and said, you know what you're doing. You also were told that your color or whatever it was, was unrealistic for that, for that appointment.

So you gave leeway there. It just, I can't change somebody lying after the fact, so I'm not going to try and how, what I can do and what I can influence is how I react to it and I'll react when I choose to react.

Jen: hmm.

Todd: So maybe she'll get 24 hours. Maybe she'll get 72. You know why? Sometimes people just want their attention

Jen: Mm

Todd: [00:14:00] and I have, we have so many amazing clients that go out of their way to leave reviews that I'm grateful for.

And those are the people that I'll reach back out to immediately, usually by the next day, a few days at tops. Like when I, when I see the reviews, I try to really check them like once a week, but if I get an email that reminds me and I have a second, I usually go on there and I'm like, thank you so much for taking the time because it makes our day,

Jen: Mm hmm.

Todd: you know, and then we have all the clients that leave reviews on, we have an internal review system.

In there. And sometimes people complain in there again, it's super rare. Maybe it's a couple of times a year. Somebody is not happy, but again, we're not trying to be for everyone. So I think that's the lesson that you take away is that you're not for everyone, which means you're going to have people that aren't happy.

And then the second part of that lesson is how they react is not a reflection of you. It's a reflection of them.

Jen: Totally.

Todd: it is what it is.

Jen: curveballs is really important, and it, it, like, you gotta keep your head straight. [00:15:00] Focus on all the positive ones. we focus all the time on all the hair pros under Hello Hair Co. getting Reviews and mentioning their name and all that. And we'll continue to focus on that because that's, what's going to build our brand and their own personal brand within our salon.

So don't let one bad review ruin your day or any minutes in your day, because it's

Todd: Yeah, the stylist that got called out by name at our, this last review doesn't even, I don't even know who that person is.

Jen: it. It's even funny.

Todd: I don't have anybody by that name that works for us. So obviously, obviously I could look up the service and the client, but. If I went off the name, I would be like, I don't have any indication you've ever even been at my business, but here we are,

Jen: Maybe it's a review. She puts it all salons. I don't know.

Todd: it could be, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, we want to talk about what else were we talking about? Oh difficulties of entrepreneurship. So I don't even know where to start with this one either.

Jen: Yeah, this is a struggle. I feel like we've seen on some different social media groups we're a part of right now. And it's, [00:16:00] I'll say in general, it feels like we're seeing a lot of hairstylists that. I would say fairly busy, whatever their standard of fairly busy is like they're busy behind the chair doing clients. They have decided to go and open a salon. It seems like a lot of them are at this like four year mark and are absolutely miserable. They are financially strapped beyond anything they can afford. And are basically just feeling, I think their words were depressed. They are just not enjoying anything that they have committed to and, you know, kind of what should they do?

And Todd and I have

Todd: I see the term defeated on there a lot where

Jen: That

Todd: will say that. It is interesting too, that you brought up the four year mark. Cause I keep seeing, I've been doing this for four years and I'm ready to quit. And I'm like, we've been four years. Well, we're, I guess we're closer to five now, but. We are at like four and a half years or approaching four and a half years.

And I feel like our salon is in a stronger position than it's ever been.

Jen: absolutely than any business [00:17:00] we've

Todd: Not

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: that's not, that's not intended to like brag or anything like that. It's just intended to say that there is a way that you can make it happen.

Jen: And it constant work on your business. It requires. Everything we've talked about before, which is like a mission statement, core values, a vision. It requires you having an accountant. It requires you knowing your numbers. It requires you marketing. It requires you leading your team. It requires you always hiring, requires you training your team.

Like it's exhausting, but yet if, if you're sitting there and maybe you're wanting to see what I posted on these pages, if you haven't done any of that work, say you're defeated. You just didn't do the work. So you're now handed what. Is like the worth of the work you put in, which is nothing like just going and doing your clients.

Doesn't mean that everyone's going to show up and do their clients. Nobody's going to work as hard as the owner ever, ever, ever. It's not going to happen. And nobody's going to do the work the way you want. Or I hear all the time, like these people coming out of school, they have no idea what it's like, like. [00:18:00] No, they're in their own world. Those are the young professionals that you will be hiring to work in your salon. So figure out how to motivate them, how to get them excited about what the steps are for them to help build the business with you. That's on you to figure that out. Like not, no,

Todd: They are, they are right about that though. The people coming out of school have no idea how it was when they opened their salon 40 years ago, because it wasn't 40 years ago. They weren't even born

Jen: even four

Todd: when somebody,

Jen: high school, probably like they weren't thinking about

Todd: right.

Jen: business. Mm

Todd: at all. Or owning one or running one. You know what I mean? Like they, it's not on them.

It's not their responsibility to, to suffer with you. If you're somebody that's out there, that's because misery loves company, right? So if I'm not doing good, everyone has to not do good.

Jen: You have to lift them up.

Todd: There's no, and I know that's hard. That's part of entrepreneurship is that you have to stay on all the fucking time.

Jen: Yes. That's part of it. That's why not all businesses are successful. And those business owners that have been in business for a long period of time, four years is not a long [00:19:00] period of time will tell you like there's, there's ups and downs. I see all the time. People even like when I get here, it's going to be all set.

As soon as you get here, you're coming back down here to come back up here. There's never, it's never going to stay here. The bar's here. Now it needs to go higher than it needs to go higher. You need to keep working. If that sounds exhausting, you should not own a business.

Todd: Yeah, I would be a, I'm a big advocate for it. Not everyone should be an entrepreneur. It just, it's a skillset. That's not, it's not the same as cutting hair just because you cut hair. Well, it doesn't mean that you look at anything else. Like I used basketball as an example with you earlier at breakfast.

When, when you look at somebody and they're like, Oh, I'm really good at basketball because you. Play pickup games at your local rec. Like what does that have to do with like the NBA or the Olympics? Like, are you that level? Like, and even, even those two things are different, but now you [00:20:00] have a, say you have a basketball player that's in the NBA, does that automatically mean they can own a team and know what they're doing?

Jen: Right.

Todd: You know, these things don't correlate and yeah, it just, it doesn't make sense to me. I talked to somebody once that said, I want to work for someone for five years and then open my own place. And I said, interesting, why five years? That's pretty specific, right? Of comment. And this person was like, well, I don't want to have any questions that I don't know the answers to.

And I was like, Oh God, that's going to take a lot more than five years.

Jen: You're always

Todd: It's going to take, going to take more than five lifetimes. You're never going to have all the answers. The important thing is, yeah, the important thing is knowing where to get the answers. It's not having them all off the top of your head.

That doesn't make you any better than anybody else.

Jen: Where do you go to find them?

Todd: So interesting. One of the challenges I had that is kind of a suck thing or not is balancing [00:21:00] your work and your outside of work. And like maybe a year or two ago, we saw this explosion of like boundary talk on social media. And it was like boundaries, boundaries.

Your clients shouldn't. Your clients don't deserve to contact you and they don't deserve this and they can't have your phone number. Well, look, angry Alice, I don't know why you started working in a service industry if you're so miserable and don't want people to talk to you. I'm not saying go give out your personal phone number.

That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is that there are a lot of successful people that their clients have their phone numbers. Lots of them. I know one of them, it sleeps next to me every night,

Jen: Might be me.

Todd: you know, and I have clients that have my phone numbers and they'll reach out to me like I don't have a problem with it.

It's not a huge thing. Like if somebody is, I've had people that are running late and they're like, Oh my God, you know, they're not going to call the salon. They're, they're probably just thought. And they're like, text Todd and let them know, like, I, I appreciate what they're trying to do. I don't [00:22:00] look at it as this negative

Jen: Yeah.

Todd: thing that somebody

Jen: has my phone number. It's a matter to me. I'll answer if I want to and won't if I don't.

Todd: obviously with owning a business, there's going to be financial stress.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: if you're not in the position to deal with that, and I'm not saying that don't take a risk or whatever, like you're going to have risk. That's risk taking is the name of the game, right? You're going to wake up every day and you're going to love taking risks.

But what I am saying is if you don't think that you can mentally handle that, you shouldn't take on running a business. You shouldn't take on buying a business because it's another thing that I keep seeing sort of come up again and again is people will say, I don't have the money to invest in. Whatever I need when they, so you ask for a recommendation.

What, what do you guys do to get clients in? Well, I do this for marketing. I don't have money for marketing. Okay. Well, you asked what I did, like,[00:23:00] 

Jen: We didn't either. And

Todd: you know what I mean?

Jen: but we understood the importance of what that marketing would do a long game. And we figured out how to strategize and make that happen. And there were all kinds of different plays that Todd and I needed to make and sacrifices that we needed to make for the business in order to afford the marketing so that we could grow the business.

We understood when we opened that we want to fill it with the right people who work there and enough clients to keep everybody busy, we also realized that that means. The hair pros have to do a certain thing, but the money that needed, it wasn't just there, it's not sitting there, but how do we, what do, what do we need to create?

Like, what's the solution? There's always a solution. And also it's how much do you want to work to get there? If you're like, I only want to work three days. Well, then again, you shouldn't be doing it. But that meant us working constantly for two years ish, putting in work. We were working, working, working, working in order to get where we needed to be.

Todd: Yeah. True story. So [00:24:00] yeah, it's just financial stress. That's definitely going to be something that you're going to have to overcome mentally. No, I I've no, I know of people and I've heard of people, and I know you do too, Jen, that, that financial stress caused them like health problems. You know, just being so stressed out all the time.

So you've got to watch that stuff. This isn't all, you know, rainbows and unicorn fucking hair.

Jen: No, you're lucky if you get

Todd: it's all this stuff to it. Most people might not think about this, but when it comes to like decision making, that can be quite stressful too. Especially if you have a business partner, especially if that business partner is your spouse, like we have.

So we have times where we fight for the things that we want or that we truly believe, like if Jen has something. That she's like, this is a non negotiable. She'll fight me on it. And I'm not talking about arguments where we're throwing stuff around or anything crazy like that. I'm just talking about, I might say, I don't think [00:25:00] that's a good idea.

And she's like, we have to try, I feel like we have to try this. And I usually know, like when she's into it enough that she's willing to like roll the dice or she pulls that. I think we should try this. I know you disagree. I know you don't like it, but I think we should try this. That's usually when I'm like, okay, you're in charge of it.

You know, go off.

Jen: Usually you say, it looks like you've made up your mind and yeah, exactly. Like you're in

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. You're in charge of it.

Jen: how does it work? of times this comes up in the beginning. How does it work for the mission, the core values and the vision of like what we've laid out for our brand? Like, does it

Todd: Yeah. Make it

Jen: And

Todd: make sense.

Jen: like, does it make sense and make it make sense to me within what we've created? And that's not always fun. Like the fun part is just like, I got this great idea, but it makes me poke holes in it. It makes me look at it and it makes me challenge. Am I making the right decision for the right reasons?

Not just because, Oh, that'll be fun and cute. Like, so. I now make better decisions for the business in the business because of that, because now I realize like these, these are the, [00:26:00] these are what we laid out and what needs to like fit into that. Also, Todd will say to me, and if it doesn't, do we need to switch that?

Are we moving in a new direction? Are we innovating on our mission or our core values? Have those changed? At this point they, they'd have not. But there are great questions that we have to have when we're making decisions. Yeah,

Todd: Yeah, I can't think or I guess maybe the marketing was the first thing that I was like, Jen, we need this. And you were like, I don't know if we have the money in the budget for that. And I was like, no, no, no, no. We definitely do not have the money in the budget for this, but we need it. And you were like, well, I don't know.

And I was like, well, I already set it up. So I don't know what to tell you.

Jen: think

Todd: I don't think I had a place

Jen: the,

Todd: at that point, but.

Jen: you were just like, this is what, what's going to happen over this X amount of times. This is how we're gonna. Look at the numbers. We can actually measure it. We can measure the success. We can look at this. And if you want to be where, where we are now at four and a half years, this is the only way to get there.

So. know, otherwise we're out of snail [00:27:00] space, snails pace, which we couldn't afford to be at. So it was kind of like, what do we need to do this? And I was like, yeah, that makes total sense.

Todd: Yeah, I think there, there's going to be times where, and I guess this comes down to mindset too, which is another sort of, I feel like buzzword, but you need to have an entrepreneur's mindset because there are going to be times where you have to go all in on stuff and it is a risk and it is stressful.

But it needs to be calculated. And I don't know that like reading comments and stuff that people make, I don't know how calculated these people are actually being, because to have a total lack of knowledge of anything to run, like, how do you grow your business? I've been doing this for four years. So what have you been doing for four years?

That's my question. What have you been doing?

Jen: or very

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: you think, but it's not working like is,

Todd: If something's not working, you should have some sort of cutoff, [00:28:00] first of all. So say, I don't know, like with your marketing, like with SEO and things like that, maybe it's a year, maybe it's two years, maybe it's three years, whatever, and then you can reevaluate it, but you know, until that point, you don't have enough data to make a decision on it.

It's not the same as hiring somebody and they're not a good fit. If you hire somebody and they're not a good fit, maybe that's a 30 day, 60 day, 90 day approach, but you should have a cutoff of when you're going to address that person and say, Hey, this is not, this is not the best fit. So you have to have something that you're working on.

And if you. If you're listening and you're like, this is too much. I can't do this. I honestly, I would either double down on what you're doing. You probably need help. So you're going to have to hire somebody to help you at that point to sort of save your business. Or I would get out as quick as possible

Jen: We've

Todd: because if you're somebody that's, yeah, if you're somebody that's like, I bit off more than I can chew, I don't know what else to do.

I'm losing money. End it as soon as possible. It does not mean you're a failure.

Jen: [00:29:00] No.

Todd: does not mean that you can't do hair. It does not mean you can't open another business. It just means that you didn't make it. And most people do not.

Jen: Mm-Hmm.

Todd: So don't take that to heart. How, like what I said in my opening, how you react to, actually, I don't think I talked about that in the opening take, but either way, how you react to a situation is what defines you.

It's not.

Jen: our bad review chat. Yeah.

Todd: Okay. So it's not that you're, yeah, you're just, you're not defined by it. You're not a bad person. Cause you didn't make it as a business owner. More people are not going to be business owners. That are a lot more vast majority. What else we got? I

Jen: I

Todd: have some notes, a little loose systems and stuff like that. Those aren't fun, glamorous things at all. But they're necessary.

Jen: very

Todd: So I guess, I guess commitment to the tedious. Is [00:30:00] something that if you want to be successful and grow a business you're going to need that stuff in place. Now, if you're an independent person listening, you probably don't need any of this.

You can just squeak by. It's just you. I would have some, I would have some stuff in place like how, I know a lot of people don't think about a clientele. They think, well, I have enough of a clientele to be on my own. But the moment you start doing that is the moment that you're regressing in a way, because what happens when a client leaves?

You know, what happens when clients move on or move or the economy turns and some of your clients can't come and see you anymore, how are you marketing to new ones? And, and if you think that the salon you're at is going to continue to give clients to, if they start seeing some pain, you know, due to whatever might be going on in the economy or whatever.

That's not going to happen. They're going to take care of themselves first. So, which is pretty much the opposite approach [00:31:00] that we've taken.

Jen: right.

Todd: I'm to take care of our staff first, which is another thing that's not always easy.

Jen: Right.

Todd: We look at that as the best way that was the approach since day one for hello is take care of the staff first and everything else will fall into place.

Most of the time when I'm doing most of the time, the decisions we make positively impact our staff. But we do have to do what's best for the business.

Jen: We want the business to still be there, right? And they understand

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: Yes.

Todd: somebody might get upset at a decision that we make or a change that we make, but hopefully they understand that it's with the whole entire team's best interest at heart.

It's not, not saying no to something or not changing something because just because, you know,

I have communication on my list too, for things that are going to be a struggle for entrepreneurs. And business owners, whatever you want to call it. [00:32:00] And yeah, I, you're gonna have to learn how to communicate. You're gonna, you need it in all sorts of examples. So like, like replies to reviews, right.

You have to learn how to communicate. I've seen so many reviews that get a reply by the owner that the owner is like attacking.

Jen: Right.

Todd: And that's not a, that's,

Jen: for whatever their position is and like, that's not the place

Todd: yeah,

Jen: Right.

Todd: no, you don't want to fight people online. Now, if you're, I don't fault people if they're snarky or whatever, if that's how they are, if that's how their branding is, if that's how their business is run and there's nothing wrong with it, there's what there's restaurants where they're rude to you, right?

You go in. So, like, if that's how you run your stuff, then run it that way. We tend to have sarcasm, so keep an eye out for my sarcastic replies. Communication with your team. You know, I, I don't know if this person's a good fit. What do I do? Well, start with talking to them. I don't know why you're on Facebook.

I don't know why you're in [00:33:00] a group asking what you should do. You should ask a person if they're happy. Better yet, ask the person what you could do to make them happier. Maybe the person wants to leave your team, but they feel like they'd be letting you down. So they're sticking around. You don't know until you communicate with the person.

Jen: those are what I call hard conversations. There, there are not great. Always to have. They're not always great to have, but I find for us, like nine times out of 10, if, if there's a situation happening, whatever we sit down with somebody and, goes so great. Like they needed to say something or they needed the perspective to be turned around so they could understand like sort of what their actions were doing.

They're like, Oh my God, thank you so much for pointing that out to me. Or thank you so much for even caring enough to come to me. Like that's how they look at it. It's easy to, to be so afraid of a conversation, like you're. Literally going to a group, like, what do I do? And generally, whatever we're reading, we're like, why are you even, why do you even have to ask?

Like, clearly this isn't a fit. So go to that person. Like, I don't feel like this is fitting. Where are we at? They might be like, Oh, I don't, whatever. They're going to come back with their own thing, [00:34:00] but it's not going to be what you expect ever, ever. Is it going to be what you expect? But it's having that conversation of like, Hey, don't feel there's a vibe here going on. Let them talk to you, let them speak. And the more you do that, the easier it does become. I don't think it's ever super easy, but the communication part is, is key.

Todd: What about communication, even with, even with like a distributor? So we all know this example, the person that says, I just don't like saying no. I'm not good at saying no. I'm bad at saying no. Well, you're not cut out to run a business then because you have to actually say no to more things that you can say yes to.

That's a fact. So you have a distributor and they come in and their job is to sell you products, right? You need products to run your operation. They know that they solve that problem for you. So you've chosen them. That's clever marketing on their part. Now they want you to sell more products, of course, right?

And [00:35:00] that's good for everybody. As long as that's happening, what's not good for everybody is these salons that are sold on 27 different product lines, and they have. Just a mishmash of stuff because they think that's what's going to help, or they just can't say no. So going back to the communication, like.

You have to communicate with these people. No, this is not helping my business. This is in fact, stressing me out. And I guarantee you, if you have anybody half worth anything, they're going to probably apologize. And then they're going to say, how can I help you?

Jen: And then they

Todd: Is that. Yeah,

Jen: that's a boundary right there too, right? Like we had to do that when we opened hello and like, I don't need you coming in here with every new product you have or whatever you think. Like, first of all, that's a conversation you have with Todd and I, before you bring anything in, don't just drop shit off. I don't like that. It's never going to stay here. If you just drop stuff off, people do it all the time. And I'm like, this is never, there's not even a conversation to be had now. Cause you didn't respect us as owners. And then understanding where we come from. Like there was just a big sale with our [00:36:00] distributor and the rep was like, I know you don't stock a ton of retail, but I still feel, I need to let you know this sale is here if you want to take advantage of it.

Totally cool. But she understands where we sit with like how much retail we are willing to put on our shelf. Yeah. That's a good relationship, but we had to have some conversations leading up to get to where our relationship is.

Todd: and there's nothing wrong with that too. I mean, you're not being a jerk by saying to your, your sales rep that, Hey, this is what I'm looking for. So if you have something that fits that

Jen: hmm.

Todd: show it to me, and here's how I like to be contacted. And here's how I like to,

excuse me. Here's how I like to have that initial conversation like for us. I've had people stop in the salon before and drop off products and all the stylists get all excited. And they're like, can we get this? Can we get this? And the answer is no. Like I already knew it was cheesy before the person even walked through the door, the person walked through the [00:37:00] door, condescending to, they wouldn't even look at me.

I told them, I, I was like, I don't know what to tell you. And they started telling me about all these celebrities and celebrity hairstylists. And I was like, do you see any celebrities here? Do you think that like by you name dropping someone that you've never met, that I'm going to be like, Oh, I'll take your products now.

No, I'm not going to. So, and that's not our, if you're listening, that's not our current distributor, that was a rando that just walked in another thing. That's annoying that you have to have the conversation of, or it's annoying to us, I should say, is people that just drop in. You understand that we're in the hair industry.

You understand we run on appointments. You understand that our time is generally like busy. Right? Some more, some days more than others, but either way, if you want to drop in to say hello, do that. Do that. Come on in. Have a glass of wine. Sit down. If I have time, I'll give you a service.

Jen: hmm.

Todd: Whatever, but don't [00:38:00] drop in expecting to have business conversations in the middle of like, you know, a Tuesday.

Jen: I'm like, I'm shampooing someone like, oh, can I just leave? And I'm like, which part of I'm shampooing someone? Did you not understand? The person

Todd: Yeah.

Jen: gets my time. Not you who wants to sell me something. You can make an appointment.

Todd: Yeah. I I've said that to people too. I, one time I had some extension ladies stop in, ask for the owner. And I was like, oh, she's with a client. Cause I don't, I don't want to talk to you. So. And so I pretended that I was just an employee.

Jen: done that before.

Todd: And when I, when I said that she got like visibly upset that I wouldn't interrupt you.

And I was like, what now, now you're out,

Jen: No.

Todd: you just burned the bridge. So. Act with some integrity, but either way it's on you as the business owner or as the professional to communicate with people, how you want to be dealt with, how you want to be communicated with.

Jen: Love it.[00:39:00] 

Todd: That's it. All right, let's wrap it up. I don't know what we're actually at for time. Cause we had a bunch of stuff. So we're over 40 minutes.

What do you got in closing? Anything?

Jen: Oh gosh. You're killing me with these. I'm going to say in closing, don't let the bad reviews create a bad day. Focus on the positive things that you are doing. If you're feeling lost in your business, even hit us up for a phone call. Sometimes even a 30 minute chat with us could just be enough to realign where you're at and get you back on a path with some focus.

Todd: Yeah, for sure. So my, my closing thought is if you're listening to this, give us a review.

Jen: Oh yeah. I

Todd: Leave us a review on, on a podcast channel. It would help us boost the show

Jen: cool.

Todd: and it'll keep us interested in doing these. So other than that, I guess I've said everything I need to say today. I'm over it. [00:40:00] All right.

Thanks everyone. Bye.

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