What Do I Have to Lose, Right?

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm Lauren Feldman your host every week I sit down with three business owners to talk about the challenges they're facing it's the kind of conversation you don't often hear in public our panelists address difficult topics like why their business isn't making as much money as they think it should why their digital marketing isn't working or why exactly they hired their brother-in-law owning a business can be a lonely and isolating Pursuit but at least you'll know that you're not the only one facing these issues got a question you'd like us to address send it to us and follow us on Twitter at 21h hats or on our website 21h hats.com let's meet this week's 21 hats podcast lineup with us today are Laura Xander CEO of Jimmy beans wool a digital version of a neighborhood yarn shop that is based in Reno Nevada Jay gz who has several businesses in Chicago including a picture framing shop artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason home and please meet Dana White who is with us for the first time Dana is founder of a chain of hair salons based in Detroit that specializes in helping women with thick and curly hair in creating the salons Dana adopted the principles of lean to make them operate as efficient as efficiently as possible and to allow women to walk in without scheduling an appointment Dana has two locations in Detroit and big Ambitions to take the chain National welcome to the podcast Dana thank you Lauren good to be here we're excited to have you here Jay and Laura and as always feel free to jump in but I I want to start by uh introducing uh Dana and talking a little bit about how she uh got into this Dana um before you opened this business you correct me if I'm wrong you were an international Labor Relations Specialist yes I was which meant what did you what exactly did that entail so it started with me working on behalf of a labor union for um gosh healthcare workers um it started with healthcare workers then went from there to teachers and then before I knew it um I was teaching um people in the Middle East how to negotiate contracts how to um you know have a healthier workplace environment um even though there were you know labor issues that you know here in America we would cringe at the thought but over in the Middle East it can be quite different so my job was to go over there and and help uh help workers manage that so given that experience I assume that managing your employees at your own business has been uh the easiest thing uh possible no absolutely not I mean it's been helpful when it comes to having um an eye or an ear towards the needs of my staff and and putting that uh up top but um for the most part labor it just depends on the industry and a lot of it depends on the culture around the industry and so having you know textile worker culture or a teacher culture or a healthcare worker or a nurses culture has not helped me in the beauty industry and if it has it's been minimal so how did you get into the beauty industry what what prompted this yeah so my own experience um and my the Fe experience of that on my family so I was working over the Middle East and I made a hair appointment um here in Michigan as I because I lived in New York at the time and I was coming to visit my family and I had to get my hair appointment before I could get my flight so to call back back and say hey can we reschedule this flight so I can make my hair appointment no that that didn't fly so um instead of flying directly to Detroit to spend more time with my family I actually flew into New York was there for a couple of hours in a place where you could walk in and get your hair done go back to the airport and then catch a flight out to be with my family and so my family had issues of their own in regards to moving appointments and it was just too much so I decided you know there are salons in New York where you can walk in but they weren't very deliberate about your time they weren't very deliberate about their customer service or the products that they were using so I decided to take that model that had been around since the 80s um and bring it into the new century and and peral Boyd was born Jay you've had that experience with having to balance your uh your flights with your uh your hair styling right yeah well my my Pilot's gotten fairly you know easy to work with he understands the importance of my here so we've worked it out Dana I understand the need the need that you saw there what made you think that this was uh you know a problem that you could address I still don't know if it's a problem that I'm addressing um no I I felt because it wasn't being done and and you know if if not me then who you know if not now then when so why not you know all you'll have to lose is your life savings and you'll have to start all over and live amen you know what I have right so I I did it and and seven years later here we are um looking to to go National or a franchise so that's you know I I I I didn't really think I could do it but I did think I could try you didn't just open another hair salon you tried to open a place that operated differently and if I recall correctly you actually called on some friends in the auto business that helped you think through almost from a manufacturing perspective how you handle your customers yeah it wasn't enough to just have a space that was walking only seven days a week right while my guests were in the salon I had to find the best way to be very deliberate about their time so I had two friends who are automotive engineers and lean was their thing and say hey what's the best and fastest way to get the shampoo out of the bottle where should I put the towels where should I put the shampoo um how should I blow dry the hair to get them in and out in a certain amount of time how what should we say on the phone um how do what should we use to cash them out and what should be the script so everything I literally took it from the time they walked in to the time they walked out and of course you can just have somebody come up to the door and not say anything right that's quick but we had to balance having great customer service giving quality service and then um getting them in and out in a certain amount of time and then how could I do all of this affordably so is this just to ask a quick clarifying question is this like a high-end Fantastic Sam's kind of thing I get that right yeah it's it's like a great clips for women with thick and curly hair but it's like it's highend it's like it it's really nice and they're like wow and and it really is deliberate about her being focused on the health care of the hair we have a lot of women who have thinning issues they have a lot of women who have color or damage issues so we don't cut or color we trim um and so we for the ladies who have color they come into our salon and get a steam treatment it makes the color last longer it keeps the hair more hydrated so a lot of our guests find that after like four three or four visits with us they're seeing a noticeable change in the health of their hair we've all seen these commercials on TV for years with the hair salons and it seems like they come they go can you give us an idea in the franchise model in the hair salon business like the Fantastic Sams that there's probably been not a hundred but I can probably think of three or four that I've seen come over the last 20 years and I don't even know if they're all in business still could you give us a snapshot as to how that whole franchise model thing has worked yeah so I think in the past it's I think it's also the market that they're trying to the market that they target women can be much more involved in their hair slim don't get me wrong men can too men have you know I have family members that go to the same Barber they've gone to when they were eight right now they're 50 but um I think that the franchise model I don't want to say it failed because you still have some Super Cuts and some B rcks and some Great Clips but I think it was too blanketed and it wasn't tailored enough right I think they had General haircuts right there it was very business right just get you in and out give you a good haircut I don't think they you know focused on the quality of the products they were using for the hair health and then I'm not sure if they really had to right cuz I don't know that Market but I think where that failed was for example our level of customer service is my managers are taught listening exercises so when you hear a guest in the chair speaking of their father that's sick in the hospital you're going to get a call from us in a couple of days how's your dad right or my daughter um you know is going to homecoming couple of days how was homecoming I just had a job interview how'd that interview go so I I don't think that they were doing that and then what I'm concerned with is how do we do it it when we get busier and when we scale if we go up to seeing a 100 guests per salon and managing that volume how do we keep that personal the other thing is is that my market has never seen anything like this before what do you mean when you say my market Dana so women with thick and curly hair you talk to women with thick and curly hair and they go and make an appointment at a salon and and they're upcharged right or that takes them longer because your hair is Curly so you're here um right now my market is predominantly African-American but we have a lot of red heads we have a lot of of women of Indian and Middle Eastern descent um because when they go and make an appointment at a regular Salon they are charged more their appointment is is longer so yeah God you are a genius thank you sorry you're a genius sure Dana I think it's worth emphasizing that uh from day one you've been thinking about this as something that you want to go big with and you know it wasn't you you opened one Salon just to uh to try to build a business and make a living that way in fact you've created custom technology that you might sell to uh to other hair salons but that would make it possible for you to uh to manage your customers along the lines of what you were just saying so that uh if a customer walked into your shop in Detroit and then you know a month later into a shop in Brooklyn or somewhere else the uh that that person in the next shop would know exactly who this customer is and how to treat them yep C it's all about we collect data now and I've just thought of technology that will allow us to collect data on a bigger scale um and I think it comes down to you know that's where we're going in business if you're not looking at artificial intelligence if you're not look at data collection on the front end as well as the back end I think there's got to be room in everybody's business to collect data because that kind of lets you know how you grow I want to solve this problem everywhere right because everywhere I've gone I've not been able to have it solved consistently so I want to solve this problem everywhere consistently right before I open I drove from New York City to the Grand Canyon in a chryler um hatchback or not a hatchback with a minian and I was in Iowa and I asked women there with thick and curly hair where do you get your hair done how long does it take how much does it cost and resoundingly it was the same thing and I've noticed that hair care has not evolved for this Market in well over 50 60 70 years so that was my impetus to go ahead and start it um and see if it'll work in in my you know original Hometown like I'm from caloo but I lived in Detroit for years um and then take it from there as you know uh the idea of the 21 hats podcast is to have the kind of conversations with business owners that you don't often hear in public so let me put you on the same hot seat that I put Jay and Laura and our other regulars on uh is your business and by that I mean the two existing locations uh in the Detroit area is it making as much money as as you think it should no it's not it's not and why not do you want the Dr Phil answer or do you want the I want the Dana White answer okay the Dana White answer is two reasons one I believe it is the market I and then that's just not my business it's several business owners in the Detroit Metropol area especially in the Detroit area that are saying Detroit is not as ready for small business comeback as it would like to be it's coming back but it's not where it needs to be for all of these businesses to thrive that's restaurants hotels you know service industry well let's well let's be specific about that though the question is why because there's not enough you know I have a very similar story to yours I started picture framing business it was a big hit I opened a store in the suburbs the numbers weren't as good as I thought and then I real realized I was in the wrong neighborhood I opened a third store and it was much better so the question is when you say they're not ready quote unquote for small business it's because the density of the customer isn't there okay that's a legitimate you know and and it's something that I went and out I went out to explored with my lender with other business owners I'm a you know I'm a Goldman Sachs uh 10 KB Alum it was something that the business advisers that you keep in touch with they were saying amongst their graduates that it the density isn't there that a lot of the restaurants wouldn't survive if they didn't cater because the people aren't coming in from the suburbs um they're not coming in from the suburbs and staying to eat and if they are they're only going to the bars and restaurants that they know they're not going to pay you know $20 for a steak they're going to pay10 to 12 for a steak so that's from the restaurant for my specific purpose it was I don't think I did a good enough job managing the expectations and putting out through marketing which I've done very little of who we are and how we're different that transition didn't hasn't quite happened for some of my guests yes but for other of my guests no they want the traditional Salon but they want to be walking only seven days a week but they don't know what it what who they have to be or what it takes in order for that to be there so for example you can't come to the salon and bring four kids and serve them dinner in the lobby in a walk and only salon right because you're not going to be there that long right we can't give you a color appointment based salon and so they come in and they want a color so they think it's either go to my stylist or go to peral Boyd which I'm trying to show them that you go to both so have you studied Jimmy John's at all because I hear a lot of similarities there and and the education of the customer and kind of creating a new segment of the market that takes a while for people to understand you know and catch on and the Dr Phil answer is I got tired I got tired and I did the minimum you're saying it's when you got tired it was the marketing that fell through the cracks no that no it when it got tired it was the growth meaning okay do more for data compilation do more for uh updating your training everything that kind of moves the business forward I did less of that and did the things that move the business forward you know every day payroll right uh Supply ordering inventory there are certain blocks in Chicago Hallstead if you're familiar literally every other storefront is empty every other storefront now you go to other streets that's not the case and I it seems obvious to me but you don't hear it talked about it I my belief in the city these days you better have one or two things you better have highrises or you better have parking if you got neither you don't have enough customers and the problem with Hall said where I'm talking about is there's neither and the reason why there are very few restaurants left in Lincoln Park which no one thinks about it's it's simple permit parking all of these side streets that people used to park in when they went to dinner all have permits now you can't park there unless you're a resident there's nowhere for people to park their car therefore the restaurants are not what they used to be and and I would think a hair salon's the same thing if you're near some highrises you got heavy density or they drive so I got to think that's one of the key elements to where the right location is does that apply to you Dana yep our highrises are businesses so what I'm going to do is like the DMC is across the street Detroit Medical Center uh Blue Cross Blue Shield is down the street what I'm going to do is open at 7 AM wow validate parking smart that's what I'm GNA do I'm gonna open at 7 before they have to be there at 9: and I can get you out by 8:30 so you have plenty of time so open at 7 a.m. validate parking take away the challenges but what I had to do because again my do Phil portion of this is that I got burnt out so that means staff wasn't as quality now that I've re been reinvigorated I have great staff right now now we can start talking to them about opening at 7 am. and not worry about losing people how did you get reinvigorated well first thing you know my mom is huge so my mother walked in and called me she got her hair done and said oh no no no no she called me and said that's exactly what she said she said oh no no no no and so I walked in and I saw I was never happy and I never wanted to be there and I'm like if you don't want to be there then close well no you don't want to close so I had to make a very hard decision and I had to fire a manager and that was ugly I hired an operations person who would oversee my new manager that manager that oversees both locations um and I and I had to not be afraid to command resp back I got so um and it was something I learned at small Giants is that I I'm managing people that used to bully me so I was like like me so it was it was this weird dynamic that I had to get rid of in order to make this turnaround in my business you were allowing them to bully you well when I was a kid they were but now you know when I grew up it was like that still that baggage was still there and and I learned that at the small Giants conference that was here in Detroit I was like oh my goodness so yeah it's learning to be the boss so Dan I want to talk about uh the marketing aspect a little bit I I think you did say that you haven't done as much of that as you you probably should have uh why is that money money and lack of confidence and actually knowing if I know what to do I know how I want the ads to look um and I've actually tried but again in this environment um you're looking at marketing companies that want you to pay $112,000 a month to try because they're used to your Art Vans your Suburban Chevrolets your Little Caesars Pizza your Meer Thrifty Acres which is a huge grocery store change here so if you guys know of a small marketing firm there's a ton of small businesses here that would love to give them business can tell you the problem because I've lived through it for 40 years the problem is there's it's they can't make money on little accounts they can't make enough money on them so you are forced and this is what I've done to kind of learn how to do it yourself and get graphic designer and I want to hear from someone who's had a lot of success doing exactly that and that's uh Laura Xander Laura you really got your business off the ground through digital marketing if I recall especially YouTube videos is that right yes um and then we've transitioned into you know print marketing and more traditional marketing as well what's what's worked really well for us is teaming up with a college you know and finding yes College either interns or graph as Jay said graphic designers you know working with a business professor and getting their whole class to do a project on your business um you've probably explored that so well I spoke at USC last year and they have opened up both Communications college and their business college so I literally just posted that internship last week for January oh perfect there are people out there in the world who that they're Mission driven and they would love to I have I have them working for me they love what they do here it's like they could go work at a big Ad Agency and be in an ad an ad Factory to where they're just doing one little piece getting yelled at by the art director or they can sit here with the owner of the company and couple of other people and brainstorm and figure out the ad and do it and execute it and it's a wonderful thing for those people but you got to find the people that want to be in that environment because they can make more money money at the big ad Ad Agency that's the reality the other talent pool Dana that I have really pulled from um and you might have similar experience are my own customers so my customers are more passionate about my product than just about anybody else and you'd be amazed at I mean I'm sure you know your customers are doctors they're lawyers they're graphic designers they're stay-at-home moms they're they're people who are smart and talented and some of them like Jay said don't want to go work at an advertising agency and might be willing to either trade or I mean they're going to be your best Advocates and your best marketers at least in my experience have you also made use of your customers as you know the to use the the phrase influencers people who you're not actually paying to to Market your business but uh who share what they create with uh with your yarn for example oh totally yep I mean that's the new and that's what I was thinking about when was talking about you know whether it's Fantastic Sams or Great Clips is that I'm not sure that they are those franchises are still relevant um and have not turned the corner in terms of kind of the digital you know social social existence and social marketing um and that seems like a huge hole and a huge opportunity um for her business is to really take advantage of that um and jump in with both feet yes so influencers um yeah people who are just active I mean we're really focused on the micro influencers right now um so we're kind of dedicating a percentage of our time and energy to what I call like the a listers but it's the B and the C listers that you know it's it's the rocky story you know they're the ones who are going to fight the hardest and who are going to work really hard for you and that we want to support because our whole goal is to get these B andc listers into the a list how do you do it how do you encourage people to share the spread the word um it's not I don't you just be you and just be real and be honest and be supportive and you communicate and it's just human it's Golden Rule I mean just be a good person you know and support people and if you like what they do interact with them and see if there's stuff you could do together and it I'll tell you what I I see all the time that surprise me you go to these websites and it says about us so you hit about us thinking and hear about Laura Story and you don't even hear the name of who owns the company they just go on oh we've been dedicated to blah the typical advertising baloney they don't even tell you who they are you know so just if you're just authentic and say hey my name's Jay goon I started this business because I thought I could give a better product and blah blah blah or whatever people are interested in your story if it helps them and and what you do does help them so I I do think there's an opportunity to stand out because a lot of companies aren't doing it yeah that's you know Lauren you talking about marketing and yes the digital marketing has been a big thing for us um but 17 years in and now just we are on our like third evolution what has really pushed this third evolution are the relationships that we've built over the last 17 years so it's not the digital marketing it's the fact that we've always been nice to people tell me Laura at one point when I was at Forbes we did a short story about you guys and and the success you were having uh with Facebook's lookalike uh ads uh which is where you you basically upload your uh your the emails for your existing customers and they come back to you with uh customers who have similar demographics based on their uh Facebook profiles and you can Target ads at this uh similar audience to the one that you already have um I'm curious I I think you've moved away from that and I'm curious why and I'm also curious whether you think that would be effective for um for Dana and and actually for Jay too so the reason that we've moved away from it is I believe that or at least my observation over the last like 15 years of kind of what's happening with digital marketing is that like fashion you know things come in fashion and then they fall out and it's like you know something snap chat comes in and everybody's on top of it and they're all loving it and they pounce on it to the point where um and this is the case in my opinion of Facebook advertising you know in the beginning it was kind of runchy it was kind of um it wasn't very attractive it wasn't organic it wasn't authentic we happened to kind of jump into it when it was at its high and it's most organic and most effective and then the effectiveness started to wear off because everybody jumped on that bandwagon and so then it becomes you know kind of I don't know what the right words are not dirty but you know it just became so commercial that um it it is TR it's very tra and it's just not a game that we want to play anymore um so sure we're still playing it and we're still doing some and we're participating but that's not where our focus is so our focus is now what's next you know how do we get in on not necessarily the beginning because the early adopters are the ones who end up spending way too much money for way too little um but trying to get in on the tail end of the early adoption and the beginning of kind of the mass curve you know so you see it with Instagram Instagram advertising now it's so saturated um it's fantastic and it's useful and I think it's probably at its peak in my opinion but it's going to start turning people off here pretty soon and we're all going to start ignoring it and we're all going to find a different platform to go to so do I think it would be helpful for them sure maybe dabble in it a little bit um especially if you can do you know you'll do some localized advertising but I personally right now am a big fan of going back to Billboards going back to print going back to like 1980s 1990s stuff that nobody else is looking at you know the key also though she's got a storefront and that's got to be the top way to get new customers people going by your your storefront and I saw Salon in Chicago was very funny they had a big picture of Christopher Walkin that says wkins welcome and it was funny and and using the storefront to get attention that's why we all pay a lot of rent to be on a storefront and you know most people's front windows are not really doing much and I think they could be doing more with it and and the signage signage is still critical signage and then um doing the classic like Grassroots marketing and I'm sure you've done this Dana but that's you know going to the church groups and giving a presentation going to the Girl Scouts meeting and giving a presentation and it doesn't you know we I got a lot of uh a lot of eyeballs on me not because of knitting locally but because of the business side of it so you don't have to talk about hair don't do a presentation on hair necessarily you go do a presentation on what it's like to be a female business owner in the Detroit up andc coming Detroit community and you end up and maybe you already have but you end up on the cover of Detroit magazine like that would be my goal because as I always say every person that reads Reno magazine knows someone who knits and so if I can get my face out there and my name out there with an unusual business you know something that you don't typically see it's G to stick Laura I think uh you also the kind of the secret with your YouTube videos was that they were not ads at all uh what you were actually doing was providing uh guidance uh helping your customers solve problems and figure things out and and do what they love to do uh better um and I'm uh first of all am I right about that and second of all I'm thinking there's there's got to be a car are to that for uh certainly for Dana and maybe for Jay too yeah absolutely again it goes back to being authentic before authentic was cool so we opened a storefront and then we built an online segment because like you we're in an area that has low traffic um we don't have a huge population it takes hours to get here from any other big city blah blah blah so um for us it was always how do I recreate the inore experience online so that's through the technology that you're talking about you know how do I make people feel like you know how do I answer the questions that they might have when they're in the store online and so we did that through YouTube videos um in the beginning and we were my husband was clever enough to realize that right when Google bought YouTube that if we use the right keywords and we created these things strategically and did it based on product names that Google would index us um and the SEO would really help us so that when somebody looked up one of our products our videos popped up as the first thing um but for you know for hair and for framing and you know of course doing how-to stuff but I also feel like that stuff's pretty saturated I mean we feel like that in our industry like there are everybody's caught on so what's next I mean I want to do virtual reality right so that's what's next so how do we create some virtual reality this is what it would look like if you got you know your hair straightened let's go back to the original premise let's do a little whiteboarding here so what are what are Dana's options option one is keep these two stores get the sales up make a really nice living have a nice life okay option two is franchise go National what's involved with that what kind of commitments involved with that what kind of potential problems third one is I guess taking an investor and own them yourself um let's flush that out a little bit because I think that's interesting and a good time to do that Dana any reaction to that yeah so I yeah that's a though I love those options um you know option one you know I think it's a combination of option one and option two um and I've learned recently that I don't I don't have to do one separately from the other they can be concurrent um option three taking on an investor I tried right and I I don't have children um but I I wasn't ready to give the promise of my children um and I hadn't found a investor who um I hadn't found as as Lauren had told me years ago which I I still use to this day is that unicorn investor um every I don't think investors understand that there is still room for um something new something very new right um I think they're used to investing uh in into different versions of the same thing and so when you do have something that is very new they approach it the same way um and I think a unicorn investor will see the problem that I'm solving for that it hasn't been done ever um and the way I'm doing it is different and approach investing with me that way understanding that your returns aren't going to come in the same form had you invested in an app that the returns are going to come differently but it this is a legacy investment this is long-term so I've been exactly where you're at I did talk to a franchise consultant and and I did think that whole thing out and at the moment I I realize that most successful franchises have three things they've got proprietary products they've got a name brand that's important that if you're traveling anywhere you can stop into the the same name that you were in your hometown or or across town or whatever else and they had some incredible system that was helpful to grow the business and I realized in the picture framing industry not one of those was valuable and as a result the franchises that have been in the frame industry have really not they haven't really worked and so so you know I would ask the question of have you done enough research to understand what the pitfalls of franchising is because when you take someone's life savings and you put them in the store and it doesn't go right they sue you I mean have you I mean that's that's a problem and I've talked to people FR there's plenty of franchises that have worked great and there's plenty that have been spectacular failures because of the here's the problem I see this is not a turnkey business the best franchises our TurnKey businesses a could run them and I don't think a could run your business and I know a can't run a good frame business that's a hard call because first of all you can't pull somebody off the street to do hair there has to be some semblance of training right you have to go to cosmetology school and have a license so you have a foundation as far as the operators Behind the Chair that's one thing the second thing is behind the front desk the front of the house that can be trained right how to move and that's why the technology when when it's adapted is important because it makes it that much easier but that can be trained that that techn not technology piece but the order the process that can be trained um I don't think you know I think you're right is think well you know can you know somebody just come in and push a button no um but I don't know if I want a franchise like like a Tim Horton's where you get a cup of coffee and you press a button for Americano you press a button for latte I agree you can train those things here's the Factor though the people that still haven't figured out it's not worth fighting with customers they just can't stop themselves I've seen people that they they just don't get it you can you can preach to them you can train them you can explain to them the customer giving you their hard-earned money it's not worth fighting with them and they just can't stop themselves from fighting with customers and that's what I would call a doing something the customers how do you I'm talking about you so you get someone who's great you they they're trained in hair cutting and they're great and they're trained and they know all the systems and some customer comes in that's having a bad day and says something to them that they don't like and they get into a fight with the customer you know no one's going to talk to me that way you just get out of here I don't need your business it happens every day it happens every day in retail I see it all the time it's and then when they go broke it's never their fault it's always the bank's fault or the government's fault or the landlord's fault it's never their fault do they have the system my question then to them would be you know I'm not setting them up to fail I'm not saying that these franchisers are but you do have a system Dana that one of those three elements yes I have a system for everything and I think it's also about setting up the franchisee to succeed right so if we're seeing that numbers are declining we need to go in and assess why you know I'm not saying that can be a process but there's a way there's a system in place on how to deal with customers and if you are not following that system I think that there are like in in franchises franchises can be pulled from a franchisee for a list of reasons or for two reasons and I'll tell you if you watch the McDonald's movie it was right there they were they failed they were starting to sell fried chicken out of them because the guy decided he s he should sell fried chicken and like I think Su I think I'm confident that successful franchisers have figured out they have to be extremely careful who they sell the franchise I think when I saw the founder it wasn't not only just the people that they hired it was also the operating agreement they were things they overlooked right and and the McDonald's Brothers weren't that was not their thing right but Ray Croc even said in the beginning oh gosh I didn't realize I'd have to tell them that they couldn't serve hot dogs right so their franchise agreements have to be tight my oper we have a way we answer the phone between 9:00 am and noon it's just a way we do everything the way we post a sign the way we everything like it's some and it works for some people and for those it doesn't work for we we you know we wish them on the way we have a an employee in Our Salon that wants to leave because they don't think they're making enough money we have a way that we have that conversation Dana as somebody who is like terrified of systems and rules and regulations like I hate them um cuz I want to just be able to do my own thing how do you balance that I also fully recognize that I need more systems in my life and more routine so I'm not bragging um in fact I'm sad about it but how do you balance all of those ways you do thing with a human element and like so they still have some freedom to kind of have that conversation in their way so our culture is not punitive even though we have the systems and processes in place you're not going to get in trouble right even if you've Buck the system take a pot and pop it upside somebody's head okay that's a conversation right and be ready to as as an owner we are ready to deal with the consequences of somebody not doing that however that has not happened why because it's an interactive culture right it's not dictating to you it's not no here is how we do it and if you can find a better way to do it which you probably can or maybe not let's talk about it and Implement no wonder no wonder you're so tired or that you got so tired this sounds like a lot of work it is but it's also the mo the the front end of the work comes from hiring the right people once you have the right people like I do now there's no the work is done and the work comes in the documentation and like when we debrief at the end of the night and they follow the protocol or they follow the systems of process in place as long as we've done anything if a customer is still upset there's nothing we can do it's about it gets back to the hiring piece which I've lived through exactly what you're talking about and the reality is my life is 180 degrees from where it was 20 years ago I was putting out fires all day long 25 30 years ago and I find finally figure out how to hire and once you have the right people it falls in place and I'm comfortable with letting them not want to say fall but letting them stumble right so when I hire I'm expecting that time when you've got the person who said you know what I'm going to do it my way the and it's not because Dana I I love being the boss and I love controlling and I love making everybody no I have learned that if you don't do this things this way things happen so I give them that leeway of time for them to hit their head and so when you uh when we have a very quick greeting when you call per boy so when you want to do the hi thank you for calling per Boyd it's a great day my name is and their phone drops twice and then now she's calling back a third time upset with you because she's had to cut you off because your greeting is so long right that's an example of how you bump your head right or when we say please don't uh just give them a free deep conditioner but no because you like her and you felt bad you've told her the next time she can come and get her hair done for free 3 weeks later so now she keeps coming in upset and making things up about how she can't stand her service because she knows that she can so there's all of these little things I let you hit your head a couple times I said see now do you realize why we only give a free deep conditioner within 72 hours my experience has dictated the process and some people think my that my my ego or me being on a Power Trip has dictated the process no we do things the way they are to prevent me putting out fires every day Laura does that answer your question it does but I'm thinking Dana don't franchise come come work with me and create systems for us please Laur you have my number you said something a couple years ago when I was in New York with you and you made your presentation with Lauren and you said I'll never forget I you said I don't do messy that's what you said don't do messy right and I said to myself good luck with that because business yeah no but you're fixing it but but and I believe in your business versus mine it makes sense to me that the franchise model could very well work how about you Jay what's going on with you what are you figuring out this week um I'm going through my once again for the third time the bank thing where you you figure out the right Bank to pick and they're local and they do a lot of small business loans because that's where their bread and butter is and you have a great relationship with your banker and and then they get bought out and then the next one up you think all right not bad um seemed to have been smooth and then about three months later they get bought out and now you're back with the big bank with the big billboards with the with the with the rules and the guy making a decision in some other City somewhere that you don't even know who he is and you can't get straight answers and so through no fault of my own I I'm I'm I'm I'm navigating that now Jay we've had a number of conversations on this uh podcast uh with with other people who kind of shy away from debt tell us why your Banker is important to you how how how do you use a bank um I think that debt is like riding a bicycle it will get you f it'll get you somewhere faster but if you're reckless you you could fall off the bicycle and crack your head open so I I don't think anybody who thinks debt is good debt is bad debt is both debt can be great it can help your growth and can help you finance Machinery can help you put a new inventory can help you or you could use it badly and get yourself into a bind so I've always used thatb and at this stage I've just had the Rev here's a shocking thing my kid's getting involved in the business now and he started to look at the books and he comes back to me and he says Dad do you realize that we're we're getting a review you know it's not an audit but you pay extra for a review I'm paying $27,000 a year to get the two accounts to sit in the office for about a week and go through stuff and they've been doing it for 20 years and have never really found anything so I'm paying $277,000 for R quote unquote so that I have the bank line well that pretty much is effectively doubling the interest in the bank line so I realized wait a second I've got some properties that have no mortgages on it I'm gonna go get a mortgage on the property and not have to get the review and save $27,000 because they're like two different worlds the real estate side is completely different from the business side and you know if you put down your 30% on the other side they just they give you the money and they leave you alone so I'm just figuring out how to navigate dealing with the bank thing again do you think you're going to have to change Banks again well it always reminds me of the Fable with the fox and the scor and Scorpion no no no I'm not goingon to sting you no no no why would I do that and then you get oh no no Nothing's Gonna Change oh no no nothing's going to change it's gonna be just like it was before and then when you get to the other side of there they sting you and it's like I is what I is so do I think the big bank is g to start acting like the bank that they bought no I think we're going to be right back like I the other two times that at the end of the day somebody the the economy is going to get a little soft and what's the first thing they do go after the retailers you know so um that's how I was at the last bank um I got jacked around and I found out later I asked my banker 10-year banking relationship I said what happened I never missed a payment and he said well you know how it goes I go no I don't explain it to me and he says quote unquote the new guy didn't like retail that was it that doesn't happen with the local Bank who needs your business these Mega Banks don't need small business business they've got the retail business they got big business they don't need us and even though they're here's a shock the people that write the ads aren't the ones giving the loans I know that's disappointing but it's true um it's so it's uh I won't even say frustrating I'm kind of used to it so do I think I'm gonna change Banks uh 5050 Jay goz Laura Xander Dana White thanks so much for joining us today yeah thanks for having me thank you thanks for listening everybody this episode was produced by Jess Thon founder of blank word Productions remember if you liked what you heard tell your friends tell your enemies subscribe like us and best of all connect with us follow us on Twitter at 21h hats and visit us at 21h hats.com let us know what questions or issues you'd like to hear our panel of fearless business owners address see you next time [Music]