Hair Is Segregated

[Music] hello everyone welcome to what used to be the 21 hats podcast and is now the business Advantage TV podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman in this week's conversation we talk about pursuing diversity in hiring and in marketing Dana White tells us about the challenge of getting white customers to come to a hair salon where most of the clientele is African-American Karen Clark Cole tells us about the challenge of persuading black job candidates to join a company that does not have a lot of black employees the question is not are they out there Karen says they're out there I guarantee they're out there this conversation which we recorded in January was timely when we had it before the world turned upside down and I believe it's even more timely today in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder and the protests that followed much has changed of course in the several lifetimes that have passed since January for example you'll hear the owners talk about how tight the labor market is which sounds a tad quaint now today in the middle of a full-blown crisis I fully understand that some of you listening are in no position to hire but some of you surely are and this may be a great opportunity to do the work and find the diversity your business has lacked the other time warp aspect of this podcast is our discussion of Karen's return from sabatical some of you may recall that after a stressful 2019 she took a few months away from the business to clear her mind we recorded this in late January just before her return and in this session she talks about what she planned to do differently this time it remains an interesting discussion of the CEO's role even in Good Times owning and running a business business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will if nothing else let owners know they are not alone in facing these challenges this week's lineup features Karen Clark Cole who is CEO of blink a user experienc research and design firm in Seattle Dana White who is CEO of paral Boyd a hair salon in Detroit and Jay goz whose businesses in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store at Jason home the episode is titled hair is segregated welcome everybody I'd like to talk about diversity today um certainly in hiring but also in marketing what can businesses do to Target specific groups of customers but let's start with the with the hiring part of it which tends to get the most attention and especially uh in the tech World um Karen let's start with you uh you're a woman uh I'm guessing you've given some uh some thought to uh to what it takes to reach beyond the usual group of uh of coding Bros remind us how many employees do you have and and how diverse a group have you managed to hire we're about 130 and in terms of men and women we're pretty equal split in the company and always have been but where we are really behind is in um racial diversity and that's something that we're working on um actively and certainly having different offices helps um being just in Seattle can make part of that that harder but um we have a really nice mix of Latinos and Latinas in San Diego that were really working hard to bring in and um and San Francisco is certainly a better Melting Pot than Seattle I think oh that's interesting yeah um and then we've got the East Coast which helps as well the fact that you're evenly split between uh men and women is uh impressive that that's got to be fairly unusual uh among your competitors I would guess am I right about that no I don't think so if you think about us as a design company if you were thinking of us as a development company then yes that might be the case but we have a pretty equal split of designers and researchers and those researchers are psychologists largely are people who are inclined in that direction um so it's kind of a different demographic than a typical Tech firm we also have some developers and and in fact actually most of our developers are women they're a small group really yeah there's a lot of energy behind um getting girls and women into coding certainly in the Seattle area um so I think there's a lot of progress that's been made there for us our biggest challenge actually is though having women in in really high level roles in the company so we have a lot of women across you know in the sort of base of the company but when you get up to the senior leadership there's fewer and fewer and we are you know and that just happened organically um and you know so now we're really paying close attention we're keep keeping positions open for longer so the the question is not are they out there they're out there there's I guarantee they're out there the question is do we need to to spend more time more energy and and be willing to be patient till we find a good pool of candidates and then we start looking at who's the best person for the job so what was happening before is that we' find a great candidate send them right through the process and hire them and not really wait till we had a really diverse pool of candidates and that for us has been the big change is really being patient to make sure that at least in our candidates we are diverse both ethnically as well as um gender based so that that's helped I want to come back to that especially you know what specifically you've tried to to make your pool of candidates uh more diverse what's worked what hasn't uh but but first let's let's go around the room um Dana you've told us your your hair salons specialize in serving women with thick and curly hair you I believe you've told us that your customers are predominantly but not exclusively uh African-American um first remind us how many employees um do you have I guess both full-time and Contracting I believe your your stylist are contractors um how diverse is your group so I only have one contractor she's my operations manager um but the rest of my staff are all employees and they're more diverse along uh gender lines than they are ethnic lines um the reality of my business especially here in Michigan is that hair is segregated um and it's and it's really really glaring because you have you know the guests who do come to me have said you know I don't want you know other people to know that I have to come to a black Salon to get my hair done because it's so thick um but it it it's just kind of how Society is Str structured where black women will go to a predominantly white Salon to get their hair done if there is a talented stylist that they feel confident can do their hair people who are not black will not come to a predominantly black Salon to get their hair done um so we find that at peral Boyd most of the um diversity comes in with gender um we have two gentlemen that work with us but it's mainly uh a woman dominating field that's a really interesting challenge for you correct me if I'm wrong I believe you got the idea to start this uh chain of uh hair salons in Brooklyn New York yes was the environment very different there was it less uh segregated yes it was so and and then I love that it wasn't you know like growing up in kalamazo where I'm from it you know it's very black or white in New York it's very everybody and so you know it was nothing for you to walk into a salon and sit next to somebody with red hair someone with blonde hair um there was a lot more freedom um an integration in the Hair World I've had Asian ladies cut my hair I've had Argentinian men cut my hair it's just a matter of the skill and them doing a good job um but I did notice that the convenience for women with thick and curly hair wasn't as readily available in other parts of the country as it was in New York the freedom and so I open per boy to kind of start to get that out to get you know women with thick and curly hair they don't they shouldn't be charged more they shouldn't have to wait longer um there are processes that you can do to to make it more efficient and hair freedom I guess Dana you said hair Freedom right that's great term thank you thank you wow in Michigan do you consider the um the segregated aspect of uh of your customer base to be something that you can and want to address or is that just the way it is nope it's it's something I can and will address um but again when you're talking in the workforce people have to come into a space that the employees reflect them the environment reflects them so I think you know the salons are beautiful and so okay they look good however um I just don't see people who are not black in Mass we have a few but there are some who are comfortable but I don't think in Mass they're going to feel comfortable being the only one in the room we've had white stylists and my you know black female clients don't want to go to her because the assumption is she doesn't know how to do my hair even though that's not the case and it takes that stylist a lot longer to show that she knows how to style that texture curlier texture of hair so it's just doing the marketing and I've actually worked with I'm working with someone now to say how do we Market to a diverse group and it is a separate marketing campaign and then we have to give it time to have that reflected in our salons when they come in have you had a white stylist who was successful in uh getting a um established in in your shop we have um but again it was really hard for her um even and and part of the reason that she left was because there just never seemed to be confidence there were guests who would see her and think that it was no longer blackowned and would leave and we'd have to go out to the parking lot no I'm it's still blackowned even when my first operations coordinator she was white and she walked in and they would automatically assume that she was my boss so it's it's it's something that it has to be worked at over time because because this is a lot of generational and societal things that have to be assumptions that have to be worked on in order to grow you're dealing with a lot there um I know like hey hey let me ask I have a question Dana it Lauren made a good point you're dealing with a lot but you sound energized by it is it do you you find that and we talked before about being an underdog do you think this is a challenge that you're excited to solve or is it sort of does it wear you down it it Can it can be frustrating because I I see the bigger picture and my mission isn't to soft my mission is just to make it easier for the business to grow so I'm energized because I think I have a plan to grow per boy being inclusive and also respecting the differences in our hair texture so there are businesses in the UK that says oh we're for everybody but your hair products only reflect one person you know a lot of salons say oh we're for everybody but then you have to call in a certain stylist to do her hair no you're not for everybody you don't even have the products that are conducive to a redhead's hair right so that's that's what I'm I'm I'm energized because I have a plan for perly boy not a plan to solve for this segregation in Mass right okay maybe that's next come on Dana be ambitious I'll get to it I'll get to it but today it's per boy fair enough well at least you're moving in the right direction yeah Jay how about about you um remind us how many employees you have and how diverse a group do you have uh there's 115 employees and it's I've never really counted but I it's probably about 5050 male to female and I have kind of an unusual situation in that I've got everything from people with art degrees working in the front counter you know designing framing to people with interior design backgrounds working in the home store to factory workers who are cutting frames and putting them together in the back and I have a lot of everything here I'd say it's very diverse um but as far as educational background the people that have art degrees usually are not minorities just by the way it is out there is this had an impact on how you look at who you hire or has the I know the the labor market has been tight for a while uh are you just trying to find people who can who are willing to and can do the job that's always been the case and I would say you know Karen used one word she said patient I would add another word to that because you know I do a lot of speeches on hiring and firing I would use the word disciplined that this concept of oh get 10 people and hire the best one well if the best one's not good enough that's not a good plan um you have to stay disciplined at waiting until you find the right person and I can't say this enough every opportunity I have I I try to get this out there the biggest problem with businesses with bad hiring is they don't check references I can't tell you how many people I talk to in my case I've been in business for 41 years I've been through I don't know 500 employees 600 employees I've gotten three reference calls in 41 years generally people don't call references and they rationalize it and calling references is a good thing so we have a very discipline hiring approach we write a really good ad that tells people why they should come here we get a big pull the candidates in we interview them thoroughly a lot and then we check references and I I can't I Jay you're absolutely right and it does require patience because it's everyone you know go go go but yeah it's discipline and patience for sure yeah so the answer is we wait until the right person shows up and it's turned out to be I'm in Chicago so it's turned out to have you know good diversity but I can't say that I've I've gone out in particular trying to hire particular kind of person have you thought at all about uh you know in a time when it is tough to find good candidates reaching out to uh people who might not otherwise have thought to uh apply for one of your jobs um it is absolutely gotten much more difficult lately and I will tell you that for a a $14 an hour job you know cutting frames or something it is the candidate pool's gotten much smaller and we have we have tried to do the socially responsible thing of hiring we hired like six people four four of them came from some kind of halfway house through a program and another couple came from they were in prison for non-violent crimes and you know we so we've we're trying to give people opportunities and in some cases the second chance and to increase the pool of candidates out there has that worked for you thus far no in one word um out of the six uh after 6 months there are zero left and it's extremely frustrating and I will try again I'm not making a generalization but in my little my little test tube sampling here they all conked out you know it starts out with doesn't show up on Monday and then doesn't show up on Monday and Tuesday and then just doesn't show up again you know I don't know if you saw it but we just did ran an item uh in the morning report about a Manufacturing business where 80% of the employees uh have a criminal background and they they specialize from uh in hiring from that pool and they've had real success doing it in part because they they learned a lot of lessons the hard way and I think they wound up hiring a a social worker who's a full-time employee to to help with the transition uh which clearly indicates how hard it is they pulled it off but it wasn't just it wasn't just good intentions they had they hired a social worker and they they had to really dig in and work on it because it it from my little sampling it's just it's just not as easy as having good intentions and hiring some people and fearing oh well they're getting a second chance and I'm sure they'll work out Caren let's go back to you what have you tried in terms of reaching out uh to different communities you said that you that's where you want to put more emphasis going forward sure in Seattle what we were finding is um you know how do we attract black people when we don't have a whole lot in the company and what we so we started talking to local folks who were willing to help us and the feedback we got is well um no one wants to be the first and only and so but they're not going to come and they're not going to you you have no chance if you don't have trust and you don't have a relationship already and so so our HR team started working really hard on you know going to different community events where we could have you know a really diverse group of people and just started being out there and building relationships and having them know who we are um long before we're hiring and and that made a difference um and same with the Latino population in San Diego same thing and you know we have luckily we have some great employees who are real Advocates and understand that we're trying to get there and they're helping us um so it's you know it's like everything its relationships and its trust so that's you know to me that's kind of like okay good we know how to do that and it's a lot of work and you know it's like what Jay's saying it's discipline and patience to make sure that we're out there and we're thinking about it a lot because it's it's easy to forget about it and just keep moving we're going quickly we're growing fast um and but but I tell you when we do it it is so much better just get the diversity of opinions and ideas and it's just such a better place when we do it I was surprised with what you said about the difference um between Seattle and San Francisco that it's a little bit easier uh in San Francisco well I don't know about that for sure I mean it's a bigger city you know there's there's more people there um certainly in terms of our kind of work so I think that helps but the market is tight everywhere especially for the type of people that uh that you're trying to hire yeah I mean that that's all that that's a whole separate problem right has it gotten a lot harder in recent years to to find no I don't think so actually I would say it's the opposite because for us in particular there's more people who are trained in the kind of work that we do like the colleges now are spitting them out by the thousands whereas when we first started blank there was nobody there there was not one single program that produced a candidate that was trained for us and now we work with the colleges you know we're in there teaching uh and there are thousands of them so there's just way more people in the market um and you know being you know the the flip side of being in the tech Hub of Seattle is you know the Amazon and the microsofts and the Facebooks and the Googles and the Starbucks is they all bring these people to the city and then when they spit them out because they're so burned out then we get an opportunity to get them so they're bringing there's so many people here it's I think it's easier I mean it's still hard there's no question but there are more people around for sure part of this is marketing in that there are people that would be great at your job that don't even know that kind of job exists and they you know you have to think about where are you putting your ads and because most people don't wake up and go oh I think I'll go to work on a picture framing Factory isn't even they don't even know there is such a thing so you have to figure out where to get the ads and where to reach out to people that all they know is to go to work in McDonald's or something I mean because and Jay do you target colleges like going to the art schools and letting them know these are jobs you can get um I don't that part's easy I know I don't need to because we just just pointed you know this is a great job for for someone that's got an art degree so those we have no problem attracting those people it's working in the factory that's becoming the problem we went to agencies that are looking to place people in the factor so it is partially about marketing and it's partially about people don't think much about the ad they stick out there and the ad makes a Hu I was at a picture framing convention one time and lady goes Jay I'm having a hard time finding people I go what's your ad say she goes Junior framer want I go well there's your problem who wants to be a junior framer just say a framer wanted you don't have to put Junior in front exctly right just a repellent you know totally agree just one little word could make a huge difference in your a lot of people don't want to work for the big Corp coration putting in your ad work directly with the owner to blah wow that's very appealing to a lot of people so you know and that's why people leave some of these big corporations they want to work where they here's a phrase they want to make a difference that's a huge thing for a lot of people so you put in your ad work somewhere you can make a difference all of your input will is valued and blah blah blah and all of a sudden you get a better you bet get more candidates and better candidates Dana uh the way you described your situation it sounds like your challenge is less about uh finding diversity in your hiring and more about diversity in your marketing who you bring in I think that's you know ultimately where uh your challenge lies have you thought much about how you can handle that kind of marketing that keeps your your salons safe for your existing clientele but bring attracts uh other people who make not have thought about it in the past yes and I I have and I think it is I think it is the marketing um not only to the customers but again it is the marketing to Future um employees of per boy because again and me not trying to solve for segregation as a whole I think it's going to be people coming into pely void once we Market to them and seeing a reflection of themselves to feel comfortable you know there is um a young man here in Detroit who said you know everybody shops at Target black people white people everybody shops at Target black people go to Target white people don't go to Shrine of the black Madonna and Shrine of the black Madonna is a small targetlike Shop in Detroit right that black people go to if they need odds and ends or at least they used to I don't think it's open anymore but that's the example and I think in solving for that as far as hair care it's a matter of me not only marking marketing to a new market um but making sure that when I do Market that when they come in there is some reflection of themselves I've talked to other um African-American business owners and a lot of the times they hire a white person to be at that front desk so then when they do get diverse clientele black people aren't going to be like oh my God there's a white receptionist I'm leaving no we see white receptionist practically everywhere we go but black white women they walk into a room not white women but white people walk to a room full of black people all the time they're going to look for someone that reflects them and I don't even think that's just exclusive to you know white or black I think in any Community it's human nature yeah human nature I think they look for them so if we're going to Market to get you know more of a diverse clientele more diverse guest then we need to have that reflected in the salon as well have you thought about reaching out to specific groups yes we already have we've already started interesting I'm committed to thinking curly hair right and so there are other groups with thick and curly hair and I've started looking at you know a sample sides of the women that come to us already right so we have women who are Indian and redheads and then because we're open on Sunday and Monday we have um women who are Jewish with thick and curly hair that come to the salon so um we understand that unfortunately the people who are not African-American they want this to be a secret we had a a film crew in the salon and they were ducking the camera would you mind if we put you on camera yes I would and we eventually asked one person God it seems to be an issue what isn't she said I don't want people to know that I have to come here to get my hair done wow so not offended thanks for your money see you next week it's like hey I mean it's a business right we're not friends you know taking that information and making it work for us marketing to those groups as per boy being your best kept secret that's the marketing angle going to start with um and even though it's not a secret people are going to see you go in there you may not tell everybody it could be something that you're just not telling people but it's your best kept secret so okay that's what we'll do make it work for you what an interesting challenge uh Jay or Karen I obviously it's not as uh crucial to your businesses but have either of you had any success in your um marketing trying to reach out to groups that you haven't previously uh served I it's been going to the the actual you know physically to the community events uh rather than posting ads um so that that that does matter it does pay off it's good you know it's takes a lot of people hours to do that on a little different subject I will tell you though um having a diverse Workforce like in my factory there are some things that you don't think about you think everyone's the same and like for instance we used to give turkeys out for Thanksgiving a lot of people don't eat turkey on Thanksgiving Hispanics a lot of Hispanics do not eat turkey I didn't know that different ethnic groups you know do things differently and so now I give out a gift certificate for either a ham or a turkey so to FY I though I have some of those I give some vegetarians but my salese the uh The Artsy people I one of them cut me off on the way to work one day and I said you know that was pretty aggressive driving for a vegetarian so funny but no one showed up here with a with a tofu turkey yet though probably just a matter of time moving on now let me start with you Karen tell us about the sabatical ending well I have some trepidation you know there's things that I'm trying to be really um mindful of listening to to what am I what what are my fears what am I excited about what am I dreading and then make sure that I'm setting myself up for Success when I get when I go back and it's kind of nice because I from having had some distance those things are really clear whereas before they wouldn't have been and I'm excited just to go back and see everybody and hear how things are going and you know I've been watching on the sidelines but uh there's a lot of great stuff that's been happening and it's pretty exciting that I can go away and and everything is scking along just nicely so do that make you want to stay away a little longer or uh it makes me know that I can but there's you know there's lots of things that that I can get going and make a difference on so I'm I'm trying to be I'm trying to do things differently than when I left and that that's a challenge for sure to sort of not fall back into the same routine of you know 20 years is a long time I'm pretty um hardwired to go in and do certain things what do you want to do differently when you go back uh we going to you know a lot of various meetings at just sort of check-in meetings at different levels in the company my Chief Operating Officer can handle all of those meetings including like the finance meeting the you know the weekly GM meeting for all of our offices um those are ones that I typically go to and largely because I'm interested and I want to know how things are going but instead I'm going to try to channel that through him and so that he can um you know take in all the raw data and you know and put it into uh more of a strategic view that him and I need to work on together in terms of where the company needs to shift or go um so whereas I'm used to sort of getting the raw data and then having to take it and turn it into um you know turn it into the the information that we need so that we can make decisions about the company so I'm going to let him continue to do all that he's been doing it while I'm gone so but it's you know already I was looking at my calendar earlier today and I've got all these meetings from before still on my calendar I'm like yeah I wonder if I'm going to go to that I have to ask a question do you think there's any people there that are just wishing you weren't coming back oh J take a three month you take months off you take a long time off there's people that got more room while you're gone they're getting to do more and I'm just wondering I'm sure I am sure there are people like exactly what you just said they got more room they got to you know take the bull by the horns and so I am yes I'm sure there are people who are worried that uh-oh it's going to be back to you know Karen's involved in everything and so yes I'm sure there are people who are nervous although I don't think that many truthfully um I hope not anyway but have you thought about addressing those concerns directly yeah absolutely yes absolutely um yeah that's what I'm talking about do is say hey I'm not coming to this meeting anymore and here's why um and I think you know I hope people will feel empowered by that and see that I trust them and that uh I need them to do their jobs uh so hopefully in the end I think yes it will be you know next week they'll be a lot of wondering and then after that I I've got to you know put my money where my mouth is and do what I say I'm going to do and that for me will take a lot of discipline I haven't taken off months but I've screwed up and I wasn't paying enough attention to stuff and I've told told people listen this is all on me I just want you to know going forward here's what I figured out and people feel good about it and it shows that you evolved and you took the time off and you re thought some things out and you can absolutely turn it into a positive moment yeah yeah for sure I mean I think yeah I'm I'm pretty open in that work as well so I would say you know hey if this is tell me your concerns and let's um you know and then I would also ask people like how do you want me to be you know what what did you miss what did you miss what do you need and what do you not need do you get honest answers to that question uh it's hard to know um but it's I can still ask I mean if I don't ask I'm never going to know anything so you know I'll get the best answer that can be given but um I did ask my uh head of HR I'm like do you think I should come back and she uh gave me a resounding yes people you know I have a certain energy in the office that I I think people do appreciate which is you know I'm really proud of the whole operation and so um um you know a lot of you know and for me to J to your point is I'm going to have to make sure that I'm communicating that on a regular basis all right last segment I want to talk about uh another item that we ran recently in the morning report uh it's about Microsoft and what they did to uh to lessen their tax burden uh I won't go through all the details but essentially they shifted $39 billion in profits to Puerto Rico uh on on the advice of their uh Tax Consultants um it um it allowed them mention their name mention their name I think that's important what Tax Consultants KPMG yeah they should be ashamed of them themselves they uh managed to get them basically a a a 0% tax rate um there it became a it went to litigation uh there were emails that were released that showed uh people talking about this in terms like a pure tax play describing exactly what was happening here um I'm I'm curious as owners of smaller businesses what what do you think when you when you read a story like this Jay I got a sense you you have a problem with it it's it's revolting and and I I find it revolting that Kate that the accounting firm goes out there and is promoting this and this it's just it's just wrong and people are supposed to pay their taxes so that we can fix the bridges and and take and and help the needy and do whatever government's supposed to do like Microsoft doesn't make enough money they've got to cheat on their taxes for God's sakes and Bill Gates needs more money so he can give away more money it the whole thing's just revolting and as the small business owner who's dealing with with raising our own taxes and the health insurance it's just it's really disheartening that these companies that we all give money to that make billions millions and billions of dollars can't just pay their taxes and that these big accounting firms go ahead and and conspire with them to do it and I hope there's some backlash on them I really do what I found was amazing about that article is that the I I I hate to say it but I kind of felt bad for the IRS you know like it's you think about it it's like wow that's a real business too and they actually need to have the right people on staff you know they've had to hire law firms to help them fight this battle and I just thought wow you just think they have unlimited resources but they really don't I mean it's not at all and that's been a problem for several years yeah I mean they can't fight Microsoft CU they had budget cuts and you know so therefore they just sit and they watch it happen um and so and that you know of course makes me crazy because they have no problem calling me but not that I I'm not avoiding taxes but you know like they they seem to do a really good job of hassling the people who are you know paying the least amount of taxes but then that you know for the big guns where they can actually make a huge difference to the whole country they can't do it and that part I just found God that's depressing that's just so in you know the Injustice and that is incredible to me yeah the power Dynamic just just made me just shake my head I think we're experiencing that a lot now um in the world in the country you know those who have the power can shift $ 39 billion dollars to uh a territory and the IRS is is limited if if if limited is being not even fair but they can't even what can they do right and so but you know you let someone miss a payment on their $110,000 bill and they're ready to you know you know come after you or you take somebody like actors who have not paid their taxes due to poor money management and it's $300,000 and they're seizing homes and cars and giving you jail time right so I just but guess what that actor doesn't have the power of Microsoft so just it's kind of it's it's unfortunate that money you can go after money but the true wealth is power but where do you draw the line I mean nobody wants to pay more taxes than they're obligated to pay I think the line is definitely not no taxes I think the fact that there's 0% that's way beyond the line but you don't want to set a company up even though they can afford it I'm not comfortable setting up Microsoft to be fleeced right where they're paying so much money in in in taxes so you're right where is the line but I think with this case study that it's it's yeah it's just wrong they should not be able to do that it's not just Microsoft either you read about this with with apple too I mean all it seems like many of these companies do that and where's the line it's real simple most of their business isn't done in Puerto Rico period I mean it's pretty black and white I mean this isn't even pushing it this is just a sham that that one of the big accounting firms is is helping them do and uh that's really dis heartening and with that we are out of time thank you all my thanks to Karen Clark Cole Jay goz and Dana White again really appreciate your being willing to to share the way you do thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions remember we started the 21 hats podcasts to help business owners feel a little less isolated to let them know they aren't the only ones fighting these battles if you got something out of this conversation please help us reach more people tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter at 21h hats and let me know if you have a question or a comment or a topic you'd like us to cover my email address is L Feldman 21h hats.com see you next time [Music]