She Was a Hiring Goddess

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this episode is dedicated to Ivy Garfield back in 1996 J goz had no real hiring process and the results to prove it my hiring success rate Jay tells us was probably I don't know 30 or 40% which isn't much better than whoever walks in you hire and then he asked Ivy Garfield to take over his hiring as Jay explains Ivy brought an instinct and understanding of how to assess people she profoundly changed my business he tells us she was here 6 years most of my key people she hired they're with me 25 years later Jay talks about the secret to Ivy success and why entrepreneurs like him tend to be terrible at hiring even in Good Times owning and running a 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 same thing with the 21 hats morning report which you can subscribe to at 21h hats. substack docomo Cy note we're publishing this episode the week of Thanksgiving because of the holiday we will not be taping this week which means we will not have a podcast next week maybe you'll listen to this one twice and just a reminder you can always find a transcript of our conversations at 21h hats.com this week's 21 hats podcast lineup features Jay gz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist's frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home and Dana White who is CEO of paraly Boyd a chain of hair salons based in Detroit the episode is titled she was a hiring [Music] goddess welcome Jay and Dana as you know the whole premise of the of 21 hats in this podcast is that you have to wear a lot of hats to to build a business and no one can possibly be prepared to do all the things you have to do to build a business so how do people handle that one way I've heard from lots of owners is to try to find a mentor somebody who can offer some guidance and I'm I'm curious what your experiences have been in this area how do you find one how do you know you have the right one Jay have you ever had a mentor no and not only have I never had a mentor I've never had a job so I was just plopped in I started my business by myself my father owned a dime store I certainly had a a good idea of taking care of customers but I I never knew what happened in the accounting I he didn't advertise he had one employee Edna so I really was just thrown into the World by myself not knowing anything but the problem was I didn't know that I didn't know anything so um as I always say I don't want to brag I think I've made every mistake you can make and um it was extremely painful extremely stressful not efficient I don't think the word Mentor was even used much better back then never would even would have cross my mind it didn't occur to you to try to find one didn't even occur to me and I just went for years just fig you know try fail try fail and I did figure it out along the way but it was just a long I'm talking about uh 15 20 years I it looking back do you think it would have made a difference if you'd had a mentor I think really who you had a mentor your uncle oh no no no no I was very tight with my but he worked in my father's store with him he was of no I just he I grew up he played catch with me but he was not at all no I really did not I did have I did have a few good conversations with people over to the year that that I can tell you off top of my head things that were profoundly changed my head one was I was in a business group this guy was about 50 he's 50 something I was 30 and he said something to me that was maybe the smartest thing anyone ever said to me he said you know Jay everyone gets to a point where they realize they have limitations and usually when you hit 50 now when he told me that 30 I said oh my God that's pathetic not me and then I turned 50 and I thought oh my God was he on the money and then I had a guy tell me one time he said listen in business you got three potential problems Partners the bank and a landlord that was very profound too and you know what I got rid of my landlords almost all um I'm trying to get rid of my bank and I don't have any partners and I think that was also profound and then the last one I join a business group they're mostly older guys I'm probably 30 this guy looks across the table to me and all he says is so have you toughened up yet wow um that's like the extent of my mentorship the rest of it I just do you think it would have made a difference if you'd had one person through the years to talk to absolutely I liter I'm not exaggerating when I say this I literally went through 10 production managers over a period of I don't know two or three years this is the key person running your factory making frames yeah running for the framing I a framing Factory I had probably 30 people at the time 20 30 and I was trying to get out of the B and I was trying to get someone to run the thing and every time I'd hire someone and I think this is going to work out and then it didn't and I did have one guy Monroe Roth he's 92 years old now I hired a consultant and he looked at what I was doing and he said Jay I figured out your problem you keep hiring production managers and you think you're hiring CEOs boom right on the money what did you mean by that easy I knew exactly what he meant I thought you hire a guy who's older than you that's run a factory you tell them what to do and then you go back to whatever you were doing he's going to take care of it that's that that was half the problem and frankly he didn't get the other half that was he was totally on the money with that that you need to train people and stick with them for months and train them you can't just hire someone and leave them alone and but when you're 30 and you hire a 50y old you think they know and they used to run a factory you assume they know everything and you don't need to do that that was the first problem the second problem was for the amount of money I was paying I was not going to get a really successful smart person to run a factory the guys that I were hiring were basically didn't work at you know were people that that failed at their last job let's just take a number let's say you decide to hire someone for $50,000 a year for a 50y old guy to pay him $50,000 or woman to pay them $50,000 a year to run a factory that's not a lot of money so who am I going to get for that I'm going to get people who you know were desperate for Jobs versus I hired a 27y old who that's a good job for a 27 year old who's making 40 right and here we are 25 years later and he's still with me and he's making a good income now and um I if I would have had a mentor oh my God one 60-second conversation would have would have given me the Clue the other probably the biggest mistake I've made in business for sure Cashwise I I I wasn't charging enough I was growing like crazy I was not didn't have a great bottom line and I should have charged three four five% more because I was giving a tremendous value and a tremendous service Dana you know because I've talked to you about this that's one of the common mistakes of entrepreneurs they're always afraid to charge what they should charge and people in the framing industry use the phrase oh well I want to be fair or you know I don't want to I don't want to you know rip anyone off those words are not the right word the right word is are you charging the appropriate price and the appropriate price is if you're giving a tremendous service and a tremendous product you need to charge a certain amount of money in order to have a bottom line you cannot simultaneously give the greatest service and be the cheapest place those two things don't work together and if you had charged more it would have presumably brought in a little bit more money but it also would have slowed the growth would that would that have been a good thing or a bad thing absolutely it would have been magical it would have both slowed the I was growing at 20 30% a year it was it was just it was non-stop chaos and um so yes it would have slowed the growth down but I would have not gotten into the bank thing of borrowing from the bank and I went to the bank I remember this like yesterday I this is the first time I ever bored from the bank and I went to the banker with my financials and I said listen I'm a little embarrassed I didn't make as much money as I thought it was going to opens it up goes to l p well you made money and that was the end of the conversation now if he wasn't a banker and he was a business consultant he would have said Jay or a mentor or a mentor right would have said what you got a 2% bottom line you're borrowing money why don't you raise your prices 5% you won't have to borrow money from the bank so yeah it those kinds of things Dana how about you what's your experience been have you had a mentor I have and so it's funny how you know Jay is saying I wish you know I could go back in time and tell myself these two things and those are the very two things that he's told me that have changed my business um I consider Jay a mentor uh it's not official you know we didn't go to the Mountaintop and declare it under the stars right I do have some I do have some paperwork I'm sending you to sign though right you know it started when we all met in Chicago for dinner and I was really really stressed out and I just kind of casually mentioned an overview of what I was stressed out about and Jay said Oh no you're fine that's just that's how business is and I look because it wasn't so much what he said it was how he said it and with his experience the ease at which you know he was like oh yeah that's fine and so I'm thinking these are red flags that I'm closing my doors and that was the beginning of me saying you know he might have some insight so over time you know even our listeners on the podcast can hear hey Dana you're paying somebody you know so many dollars per hour and expecting them to do uh you know $60,000 50 $60,000 a year job if you want your business to grow you have to pay the person well that's what Jay wish he could have had someone tell him well that's what he told me and it changed my business drastically Dana raise your prices raise your prices raise your prices so we did um and that bump in in price has helped so i' I I've had a mentor um and Jay has become my mentor and I think am I the main Mentor I want to be the main Mentor number one main Mentor right number one prior to Jay I was on the lookout for a mentor because I understand that it would be integral for my growth I knew that for my business I wasn't going to find a direct Mentor but I did know I need I needed someone who had enough business experience why is that Dana because you you feel like it's you're breaking new ground and it's a business that other people wouldn't understand exactly it's and it's not that other people wouldn't understand it it's just because I'm doing something different and I've had to bend some of the business rules to fit my business and so I knew I wasn't going to find a woman who had operated a Walkin only lean manufactured hair salon for 10 years 20 30 years right I know I was the one I know I'm doing it but it doesn't mean that I couldn't find somebody who had had years of experience in manufacturing had years of experience in business in general so that's what I found um unfortunately that Mentor mentee relationship became more about control and power than it did about this is not Jay you're talking about here it's not Jay at all no no no I have no power or control have no control um C and certainly no control that's hilarious no this was when I was looking when I you know some years ago I felt you know okay it's time for me to get a mentor I'm having a lot of questions that I need answered um from somebody with experience and so I you know found a mentor um you know asked them if they would be my mentor and they agreed and over time like I said that relationship although I did get very valuable things out of it um there were some things that I got that weren't so good there were some lessons that I got that weren't so good and can you give us a hint what are you talking about the lesson that I learned is for my for myself as a business owner um there are some questions that you grow up Dana meaning there are some questions you need to ask upfront um to make sure that the intentions of your Mentor are above board um and even though you may not get an honest answer just I was a little naive I think thinking oh yeah you just Mentor mentee um and that was not the case there were other things that they wanted that I was unwilling to give and that is how that relationship turned in from mentor mentee with a hint of control and power a need of control and power that were being exercised so we're talking about ulterior motives basically ulterior motives that's it um I you know they had ulterior motives although they gave me valuable Insight um really worked with me about this ever looming fear I would have about my business always worried that I was two steps away from failing or one decision away from failing they helped with that but what I didn't know was there's this undercurrent of ulterior motive and As I Grew as a business owner that you know came more and more and more to the surface did you meet this person and um develop the mentor mentee relationship kind of just by chance or had you been looking for a mentor I had been looking for a mentor um I was at an event and I saw this person and I said you know what I I heard this person speak and I said this may be the person you know I think this would be the person that you know may be a good Mentor so I approached them and they agreed um and for several years um we would meet and talk about business and I think one of the things I learned from a mentor mentee relationship is that it's not one-sided that they too were getting you know valuable lessons for me having been younger and my perspective on business um was different because I was younger um but like I said there were ulterior motives that kept that would occasionally percolate and I was naive thinking oh no no that's not what they meant oh no no right um but over time and as I grow grew as a business business owner I realized that yes there's valuable things that they're getting but it can't continue healthfully um if these ulterior motives don't go away or or not and I found that they were rooted in control and power and you know there was a power that was being wielded um a need a liking of seeing me squirm or you know having this younger person listening to you taking what you're saying as you know gold um and you know using that to their benefit so I you know it's not a great feeling but then you meet somebody like Jay who just wants to share what he knows and and you know and and then I've shared it with other people and I've had people can I talk to him I need to talk to him can I can I you mind if I call Jay so I'm unlisting my phone number I hope you sent them the link to the podcast when they ask they are some of them already listeners and that's another reason how they know who Jay is I have I have three things I want to share I went to a business seminar and I think it was the owners it was the owners of the white socks uh uh Jerry reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn and they were talking and you got to get perspective I've never worked anywhere I've never had a boss so I've never really gotten feedback and they're talking about some of the screw-ups they did in buying the white socks and it's like I literally sat there and thought Oh my God these two smart guys made mistakes I thought I was the only one making mistakes and I really didn't understand it that which is which was really a breakthrough and like which is why Dana when I said to you oh listen that stuff happens just getting off the hook with thinking you're not an idiot is a valuable thing like I used to torture myself all day long thinking about how stupid I was and I realized that when you're growing in business this stuff happens regularly that's the first thing number two is Dana has been and I certainly didn't do it for this reason but this has been an extremely trying here with all the social unrest and I had my window broken and the whole thing Dana has been a gift from God to help me understand this better I thought I did but I really didn't and this is going both I've told her this and I've told her this as much as I've helped her she's helped me so I'm not saying it always works out there with every situation but in this case she has given me insights that I would have never been able to get anywhere else so she owes me nothing and we are even so that's that's number two and number three is I like helping I like picture framers I like people that I I love picture framing that's my main business and I like helping people with stuff that nobody helped me with because it was extremely frustrating and I so I like and I I like being on the podcast because I want to help ease the pain of of all these people that are out there trying to figure this out because being an entrepreneur is a very lonely thing I've been dying to ask you about something that Laura s Ander said on the show last week uh about hiring uh she talked about how she has had Success Through The Years not hiring people to fill needs but hiring people who she thought were good people that she could bring in and then figure out what they would do the latest example is a salesperson she hired who's a longtime friend he'd been a sales rep who had sold her uh company things through the years he had uh moved on to do things and she decided she wanted to bring him in she hadn't been looking for a salesperson but he was available so they set it up and he's now responsible for 50% of the revenue at mateline TSH the uh yarn supply business that uh she bought some time ago so my question to you is does that make sense to you I think it I think that certainly can work and does work but I I don't know that that's in place of figuring out what you need putting an ad out writing the right but but that certainly can work I I certainly wouldn't call that in my mind a strategy for hiring I think but if you happen to find someone you like that you think is competent that that is into what you're doing yes certainly I think that would be a great thing to do but I still don't think uh I still think the conventional write a great ad put it out there interview five 10 people and find someone that's right I that works too which is what you did Dana when you hired your operations manager recently correct yes so we hired the operations manager we put out an ad um and several people applied um and she she applied so you knew what you needed you had a job that had to be filled and fortunately seemed to have found the right person yes when she applied it was great she applied we interviewed her you know she walked out and we were like whoa that was great um and again you know when I was looking to hire her I called up Jay or text Jay saidhe this is what I'm thinking about doing and he said these are the things you need to look out for and if her when here what her references have to say um and which all added up when she came on we shut down the salon for two weeks so we could do a hiring drive and it's been working out great Jay you were talking before about how much you struggled hiring that uh production person was there a turning point for you with the company where you figured out yes abs absolutely yes here it is I'm interviewing I'm I'm my turnover is horrible at this point my hiring success rate is probably I don't know 30 30 40% which isn't much better than whoever walks in you hire I mean if you probably just hire whoever walks in you'll probably have a 25% success rate so mine was marginally better than that so I'm interviewing this woman who's probably I don't know I'm probably well I know how year was I was 40 she was 35 let's say and um I'm you know having a hard time with the hiring thing and I asked her she's running a lighting showroom selling fixtur lighting fixtures so I said how many salese do you have she goes four I said how many did you have to hire to get to the good four and she goes four and I literally laugh out loud I laugh and I go wow either your standards are lower than mine or you're some kind of hiring goddess her name was uh Ivy Garfield so she starts hiring for me you hired her I hired her what convinced you that she was uh I figured I give it a shot I I needed a manager well now this was 1996 most of the people she hired from me still work for me she was a hiring goddess and I would sit through interviews with her and then they'd leave and she go what do you think I go yeah I think Lauren Feldman is a you know she work out okay are you kidding and then she would given 10 reasons why it wasn't going to work out and she was right so she profoundly changed my business she made me what what did she know well I'll tell you what she told me she and then there's the rest of the story which I'll share she said I'm going to tell you why I'm successful at hiring my parents got divorc when I was a year old my mother has no maternal instincts whatsoever I basically had to raise myself and I've learned not to trust anybody wow and that was the secret to hiring Absolut I that's I come up with and people this is one of those things people are going to take offense when I say this but I'm sorry I just have to tell you because this is going against something your mother told you and you've heard your entire life when it comes to hiring guilty until proven innocent don't just just because someone goes oh I'm a harded worker and you can TR doesn't mean that's true you need to check it out you need to call their references you need to ask the right questions they're really flush out oh you're good with customer service tell me about a difficult situation with a customer how do you handle it and I was I I've always said this entrepreneurs make the worst people hiring a lot of the time why they like people they want to talk about their company because they're proud of it and they got 20 other hats to deal with they want to get done with this and they want to get that person hired as a result and I'm as guilty as this guilty of this as anyone I was just doing it like that and people would tell and then over the years when I when someone left either I had a fire or they quit I would do an autopsy 80 90% of the time I would think back to yeah there was a red flag on the interview I just didn't want to pay attention to it or I didn't check the reference enough or she gave me her co-workers reference not her boss that hiring is an art and a science and I didn't get it and she profoundly changed my business and she was here six years most of my key people she hired they're with me 25 years later wow she was only there six years and yes that's amazing yes they're still with me rent I have people with me 25 years 24 years 23 years uh I've got a salesperson selling framing he's been with me 21 years that they're still here and um she moved to Oregon I she'd called me twice a year I would talk to her and um today's Thursday Tuesday and I got a call um she died she hit oh I'm sorry to hear that I I have to tell you I I got up at 2:30 in the morning I went in the kitchen I started Ty and I I just cried I just and I she she believed in me she believed in my company she believed in these people she she and I just I just it's it's really has shook me up and I I and and and part of the reason I'm telling you this is anyone who think that business is just business does when you work with people and you're on the mission together you know this is really the first person I can think of in 42 years that I worked with and that that that died and I I I just I just it's it's it kind of shook me to my core because she and I got I came to work and I talked to the people who she had hired and everybody was crying and I I I said good I said Ivy deserve people to be crying for her and uh I owe her I owe her a lot I she totally put my company on a different trajectory which is part of the reason why I'm thrilled to be able to to talk to Dana and anyone else and and help them because she helped me I'm sorry that you got that news I am so sorry to hear I was shocked I'm sorry yeah me too Dana does that guilty until proven innocent thing makes sense to you yes um I like guilty until proven innocent I like everybody is on stage like that's how I look at it when I'm sitting down within a candidate um the Oscar goes to I I I listen to their performance and I glean from their performance what I can understanding that they will break character at some point and then that's the meat of it that's when you get to see who they are who and really what they are and what they're going to do the way you can break through that performance make cracks in it is by speaking to their references because their references worked with them you know when the curtain was down behind the scenes so um that's what I do I'm not cynical I'm not saying everybody's a liar if you want hire great people I don't mean okay people if you want to hire great people and whenever I've done this speech in front of a bunch of experienced business owners everybody's head is nodding yes out of 10 people one's a great hire three of them three of them would be okay but just not at your business they don't you know they don't like retail they live too far there's lots they might be a great in ply doing something else so that gets us up to four and then there's another three or four who are just solidly mediocre they're okay they're not there they're and then the last couple came can't keep a job I mean that's so this isn't about being cynical this is about math that's what this is this is about simple math and since I've adopted this since I've gotten better at it our hiring rate here is I'd say 85% of the people we hire workout great and I'm happy to say that one of the managers she's hired I just coincidentally talked to her Saturday I went up to her and I said I just want to tell you something because they know how I feel about IV and stuff I go I just want to tell you something you know I've always used her as a gold standard I said you've gotten just as good hiring as she is and it's true I we've my people are now have gotten better at it and it's a group are better at it so and I would challenge someone to tell me what is more important as a business owner than hiring the right people I'd be curious I I'd be I would challenge someone to to tell me what would be more interesting that more important and when I do speeches I ask people in the audience it'll be 50 100 people I go I want some raise your hand if you've ever had some training out of how how to properly hire someone and like almost no hands ever go up it's just it's not even on the radar since hiring our operations manager we now have a wait list for people um and you know for hire we're talking about I had three people o October 19th and we're fully staffed with a weit list and for those of you that have been listening to this podcast since the beginning I hope you're as thrilled as I am that Dana is 10 years older than she was yeah year this year has aged all of us no I mean it but 20 years older and I you know I met you at New York at the Forbes thing that Lauren was there and I'm still I still smile when I think of this you sat up there and you said I don't do messy and I laughed I told you later like yeah business is messy it's I know what you're saying but but I think you've figured out since yeah it's it's it's messy and our job is to clean it up but um yeah the messy part can be you know there are business owners who get to In The Weeds that's messy yeah business owners who don't delegate properly that's messy there's business owners who need to be in control um and who have baggage from other jobs or insecurities from their life and they bring it into the workplace and messy andfunctional and extremely dysfunctional um I had a conversation with an entrepreneur yesterday and her leadership team although qualified are not empowered to do anything without picking up the phone and calling her and it's driving her nuts and so I had to have a real candid conversation about how she's contributing to that problem and you know she's like well you know she yells at them you know she run she said I run my house the way I run my business and vice versa I said these people that work with you are not your children great so then your employees and your kids will hate you then great that's you know you're constantly hiring you know I love what my operations manager said about constantly hiring but she's setting up an environment where we're not having to do so all the time what she's think by constantly hiring is that when a staff member leaves we don't have to adjust the business in order to keep the business running and in Ashley's mind the business comes first here's the business standard this is what it takes to open and operate it so finally paying somebody who has the experience and the knowledge to make sure that the business stays consistent so we can grow is invaluable so Jay you're right I would have never hired an operations manager had you said to me and Laura Laura said you can't afford not to right and I only know that because I tried treating $18 an hour employees as managers of 20 people and they just there it's a different level and that's I only know because like I said I've done it 20 times wrong can I just throw one thing in you mentioned um I read yelling is destructive Behavior end of the story and for those entrepreneurs that say that say oh well I'm just passionate no you're an no you're an you're yeah sorry I'm sorry stop never and I have said this to entrepreneurs you never ever show anger it screws people's heads you have no idea what you're doing to that but you have no idea what you're doing to their head you could remind them of their their their screaming mother their father it's not right you're humiliating them you're humiliating yourself it's just destructive I never show anger I might show and I think I showed it yesterday on the phone with my operations manager management disappointment and that's that's being quiet yeah and letting it sit with the answer the question that I've asked her and letting it sit and I'll stay there for a minute to get an answer and it's not an answer to be condescending it's not an answer to prove a point it's an answer to get under to get understanding so that yelling thing that people do and and some people do it because they believe for some sitcom they saw in the 70s that that's how you are a boss yeah know it's one of the last things that's left that it's okay to make fun of the screaming boss and it's it's not funny and here's the key if someone is really making if someone really it is it is more professional and more Humane and more productive to quietly if you've already told them something six times and they're not getting it you call them in the office and say Dana I I'm sorry but we've talked about this six times this is the wrong job for you today's your last day that's Professional Management humiliating in front of six people is not is not going to help them is not going to help your business and is going to hurt everybody so uh and believe me uh 30 years ago I was screaming because I was at the end of my rope and I'm not making excuse for it I was wrong but it's it's bad all right we're going to do something a little bit different this week which is Jay and I are going to make an apology I think I speak for both of us in saying we don't like to make mistakes but we're eager to correct them and we appreciate it when somebody calls them to our attention uh earlier this year over the course of several podcasts uh Jay I asked you about things you were doing to try to stay on the offensive during a a tough economic time and we talked about how you had a series of conversations with the owner of a picture framing shop who had announced he was he was closing that shop and in the process we made a couple of mistakes um I think number one we assumed that since we didn't mention his name his store his location that no one would know we were talking about but it turns out that some people in the industry did connect the dots and in retrospect we should have known better um and the second thing is I think let me take over from here let me take over that was your side that was that was you you can take that half of it and I I share that with you the other half is I figured out in the middle that I really didn't want to stick my neck out and I didn't think I wasn't sure it was going to work out for me so I I offered to to take to to sign a lease but wanted an escape clause and he didn't want to do that okay fair enough and then I offered to buy the mailing list because I was under the impression wrongly and this was my mistake I just assumed he was closing I said something about you know I don't remember exactly what I said about well he made a mistake I was wrong I shouldn't have made that assumption because I had I had no idea the the mistake was you assumed you knew more about why he was doing what he was doing and I just figured he just wanted to close the shop and move on which I completely understand and respect he lovely business and and he's a lovely guy and I will tell you I'm I was sick to my stomach when I realized that I said or did anything that upset him or gave the wrong impression I am profoundly sorry that certainly wasn't my intent I shouldn't have made that assumption and it sounds like he made a a good thing for himself and and someone else is taking it over good for both of them it's worked out well for him he sold the business and yes and I'm I'm happy for him and I'm happy for the person that did it I have to say when I picked all of the regular on this podcast I picked them precisely because I'd known them for years especially you Jay and because I knew that they would all speak authentically and unfiltered perhaps well as much as possible well that's the problem because sometimes I am UNF there is a line somewhere and I think we we may have crossed it in this situation well we did no we did I did not you I won't put this on you this is on me I I shouldn't have said that I feel particularly bad because he's a really nice good guy and I like him and I I'm just grossed out that I caused him or anyone else any grief well I'm glad you said that but I I don't want you to get too civilized we we want to hear your unfiltered thoughts as much as possible uh as close to that line as possible I'm curious this wasn't the first time that you've talked to somebody about the possibility of of buying a framing shop is that you have you you've been through that before right no I took inventory in my head I I'd say in the last I don't know five six years occasions have come up that either I knew someone was getting older or knew they were maybe selling it I have reached out to this would make the eighth frame shop and four of them ended up not selling they're still running it okay that's fine and three of them I called and said listen if you're ever interested call me they didn't they just sold to someone else maybe they don't like me maybe I don't know which is certainly possible and then this situation so I'm zero for eight and at this stage I think I'm done because I don't this is the Revelation I'm trying to be disciplined which is not good that's always been difficult for me I'm a recovering entrepreneur holic I need to stop starting businesses I need to stop buying businesses my business is big enough I never thought there was such a thing as that but there is and I I'm gonna I don't yeah I I need to stop doing that Dana you've thought about as you grow your chain of hair salons the possibility especially given what's happened this year of not just building from scratch but taking over uh an existing Salon is that something that you you still think is a possibility for you yes but not in the form of buying it um for per Le Boyd it would be a matter of um with the opportunity to expand nationally unfortunately several salons have closed and for safety reasons um many stylists have gone into Salon Suites what's a Salon Suite so Salon Suite is um a big space and all each of those that whole Space is broken into individual Salon Suites meaning there's a sink and a chair or two sinks and two chairs and that stylist is in that Suite by themselves so with an potential opportunity to expand to maybe you know two to five locations nationally wow what a time to come in and say hey I've got oh landlords are saying I can give you a discount or you can you know rent from me at a discount so that's what I've been looking at is the cost of buildout would reduce because I'm not spending as much because some of these salons are beautiful and they're already done it's good for the landlord no it's good for the landlord for everybody if you bought one of these Stores um to what extent does that make your job more difficult because nobody does it quite the way you do it uh do you get this an advantage uh if you're ret if you have to retrofit the store do you get an advantage if you're if you're taking on people who who have been working there previously and haven't been trained in in your techniques no I've had people email me several salons that are for sale and most some stylists in the salon don't know that the salon is going to be for sale and so they're all full service salons they're not like my salons so yeah buying a salon would be a challenge for me you know a lot of small businesses just close I mean in the framing industry there were 25,000 frame shops in America 10 years ago now there's eight so wait wait wait 8,000 right 8,000 yeah there were 25,000 now there's 8,000 but the bigger ones are the ones that are left so that doesn't mean the industry shrunk by whatever percent the 80% are people getting just as many things framed or is there less business no no there's it's a lot of things it's a combination of of the Baby Boomers are are in the large part done Framing and that drove a lot of framing it's a lot of frames now you know people are putting pictures on their wall without frames which is heresy but actually people do that there's that's unbelievable I know it's it's the beginning of the end of civilization probably but all right whatever um it the canvases that are stretched don't take frames uh and then and then there's Fred artwork you can buy in the stores now that 20 years ago there wasn't that many stores you could walk into and find a bunch of framed artwork and then there's some big chains there's there's lots of reasons and but and then here's one that people don't think about do you have a TV hanging on your wall I don't but I know what you're talking about right if right if the average apartment or house has one or two TVs hanging on the wall wherever that TV is probably would have been a picture that could be 10% of your walls in a house I mean so the the right there there's 10% right there and then the stores that are selling frame pictures that might be another 10% and then the Baby Boomers are done Jay you need a strategy to get TVs Off the Wall yeah no my strategy is I you know the industry is probably shrunk by 30% I think it's stable my strategy is just do a really good job for the people that do want to do Framing and it's it's okay and I will tell you and I'm dead serious when I say this I would challenge anyone you put a frame on a picture it looks better than without a frame so just saying on that note guys we're we are out of time my thanks to Jay goz and Dana White uh wait I have one more thing to say Lauren can we dedicate this show to Ivy Garfield Ivy Garfield yes we can do that we can do that because of the holiday we won't be taping next week which means we will not have an episode the following week uh but I hope you Dana and Jay and our listeners have a wonderful uh but most importantly a safe Thanksgiving we do want to see all of you back here thanks everybody thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions remember we started the 21 hats podcast 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 podcast follow us on Twitter at 21h hats and let me know if you have a question 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]