Mini Moment #3: Making the First Hire: What Every Salon Owner Needs to Know

Transcript 

Welcome back to the Inner Sanctum. Salon Rising, the podcast Mini Moments brought to you by Timely. So we were going to talk about making that move to hire someone. 'cause that's that spot that I'm sitting in at the

Mm-hmm.

It might even just be a little mini coaching session, really, 'cause it's that

Excellent.

wracking thing that we talk about all the time, about where you want to be and being scared in the moment that you're in, that you need to take the step to be the person that is in that place where you wanna

Mm-hmm.

And where I wanna be is not working 26 days straight or something like that. Something ridiculous.

Yes.

needs day off

So

the person that can have a day off

I think the cool thing about your journey so far is it's been so salon rising, like from the beginning. Like again, I think we're like so good at bringing out a program of how to do, how to start your business from scratch salon rising wise, because you literally have lived the steps and have never done anything else other than what we do in Salon Rising, which has been beautiful.

the social proof.

Yeah, social proof that it works. And when you set it up from the beginning, you are laughing. How long have you had the salon for now?

Salon I settled in November.

Yeah, so seven months and you're already ready to hire, which is pretty insane.

Mm-hmm.

first of all, I think a really important thing when anyone is thinking, how do I hire, and you've already done this because you're salon rising, but before you even hire is, am I making the most I can make right now just for myself?

And looking at why am I hiring? What is it going to achieve? Because I think a lot of people just hire because they're like, I'm busy, I'll hire, but you've looked at all of the financials behind that and gone, am I able to hire? If they come on board and they don't make anything, am I able to cover it?

Am I able to build them? Do I have a demand of people? You know, all of these things. So you have hired, you do have an apprentice and she's school based, isn't she?

Yeah.

Yes. So she's in how many, how many days a week?

So I'm considered one of her subjects at school. So she's allowed a full day off to come and work in the salon. Then she comes in after school on a Wednesday, which is our late night, and then works until late night. if I'm open on a Saturday, which I was quite a lot, but I'm trying to flex it a little bit at the moment. She works on a Saturday with me and then if I just need her to come in, so yesterday I said to her, right, we're gonna do some training. Come straight from school. She was here for two hours. She did some training, she did some cleaning, and then she.

Quite a lot. So you've done your first hire and it's exactly how I hired, I hired like an apprentice, like an assistant to help me first because obviously the wages are lower and it helps not necessarily do you guys have to go that way, but Jen has looked at all of the things, so financials, she's like, yes, I can afford it.

She's looked at her time and said, yes, I'm exhausted. I'm gonna burn out this way. She's looked at her demand and said, yes, I can book somebody. So I think it's really important to look at all of those things. 'cause when I look at hiring someone, I know that it's going to take 6, 12, 18 months to build them.

Like it is not overnight. It takes time slowly and surely. It takes time. So you need to look at financials, whether you can afford that, and , if they can just cover themselves even in the first 12 months. That's amazing. So Jen has looked at all the financials.

I have, but then I have a week, like this week where literally everything canceled, and then you go into like panic mode, right? You're

Yes, yes,

this? But in my. I'm like, you should still do this,

yes,

those other things haven't changed. You

yes.

a million

And those things,

more clients.

those things will still happen even when you have staff like a couple of weeks ago for us, I was like. Should I even open my doors? Like it was just so quiet, right? So even the projection of what the week looked like, it looked quiet. By the end of the week, we ended up covering what we needed to cover, so it was great, or just a little bit under, but then we'll have other weeks where we're massive.

So these weeks will still happen, but potentially last week and the week before when you were really busy, you would've had the ability to make more in those weeks. Which then cover the slower weeks. So it doesn't make you pull back and go, oh, but we've had a quiet week. What happens? You just go into, what happens when it says quiet week?

And for me it was like training

also

annual leave. The girls took some time off, like it happens.

And if I look back, as you well know, really good at rebooking people. I look back and it's like a, okay, well this happened actually in a cycle, you know,

Yes,

ago. So,

yes

but yeah, but it's hard not to panic in that moment when you know that.

yes,

think I'm questioning that, but when I have like this, I'm shit.

yes. And you've gotta be brave and take the step, but you've looked at all of the other areas. I think the difference is, is

absolutely.

people just go, I think I'm busy enough. I'm making money. I'm, I'm tired. They don't look at like, are their prices right? You could also be fully booked but not be charging what you need to charge, and at which point if you just put your prices up, you could lower yourself down so it's not as exhausting and you could also be making enough.

And not have to hire, but you are not at that stage because you are also going, I don't wanna work 26 days straight. I need more time with the family. I need a little bit more flexibility. And I do have the demand there that could book someone else in. And then I'll be able to get more clients over time because I'll have an extra person that can fill it.

And what we need to really look at is what do they need to do in a week? So if you hired for someone for 38 hours, let's look at this in hair and beauty. If you hired someone for 38 hours in hair and their wage was gonna cost you, with wage and super say it was gonna cost you $1,400 a week, what actually do I need her to cover?

And if it's just that $1,400, like what can I do just to cover that or cover as much as I possibly can up to that? For the first six months, you know, and it's not a massive thing when it comes to hair. Beauty can be the same way. How much do they actually need to be doing? Because then you could look at it and go, okay, well if it's, $1,400, that might be three or four half head of foils, and then you're like, that would probably only be a maximum of.

15 hours, 15, 18 hours, and they could be standing around for the rest, but as long as they've covered themselves, that's okay, because they're gonna have time to learn off. You turn time to do some training. You could bring people in and do content. So it's okay because in the beginning it's like, okay, what's it gonna look like if they don't cover it all?

And what's it gonna look like if they just cover their wage? And then you are gonna have some support

Yes.

So that's exciting.

up that brain space too, right?

Yes,

have a lot of balls in the air.

and also it means that you won't have to do your shampoos if your apprentice is there. You won't need to do your blow dry, like you can have someone else's hands, if your new senior is doing your blow dry, it gives you an hour to get done what you need to get done.

In those little pockets of time that we, you don't have currently, or can you do the confirmations or can you do some Google reviews? Or can you, do a stop order for me? Can you tell me what we need? You know, you can start delegating some tasks out or you can give her some work to do and you can, you use that time to do the tasks that you need to do.

Yeah.

Super powerful. But what we wanna talk about is obviously how do you hire, because you're in the middle of this right now.

Yeah. Right.

How do you hire, so step one for you was on socials, but obviously as you're growing your business, socials aren't always the strong point to when to hire. So you actually did a.

I did.

The seek ad I think is really important, how people write it.

It's really important that you really try and convey what you want from somebody, how much minimum experience they have, what type of work they can do, what type of personality they have, what are the traits that are really important things like that so that you start to attract those type of people.

I always make sure that in my ads I say like. Send me a cover letter telling me about yourself, because if you put little specific things in that, that you want, you'll see if people are actually listening to what you need.

exactly.

Yeah. So then from there, if you've got a whole bunch of resumes and you got them through pretty quick.

Yeah, I did. I was actually really surprised because, I mean, we've always had that joke. It's like, you know, you get 7 billion from overseas and you do like, you do get those, but I was, I was surprised at how many, like really viable people, I had to contact. So I've contacted a couple, I've got one coming in this afternoon to have a chat, which will be really good. And again, like that was a funny one to navigate too, right?

Mm-hmm.

had someone come through who worked for one of our friends. I was like, um hmm, no, I can't do. So yeah, that was a tricky one to navigate, it wasn't tricky. It was just a pause, like, Hmm, okay.

How do we navigate this? What does that look like? Because, yeah. And again, how would we want that to happen? And Jen did it, like, luckily this salon did know that she was going to move on and Jen was able to like contact her girlfriend and have that like really beautiful conversation about it because she knew that it was happening.

But it's like what?

Really conscious of the confidentiality for the person. Right.

Yes.

and to be honest, like if it wasn't the fact that when I looked into it and this person actually had our friend as.

Their reference. Yes.

you're

then that's fine.

on your cover letter and on your resume if that

Yes.

doesn't know. So then I felt completely comfortable to contact her, but if that hadn't been the case, I might have just been like, thank you so much for your inquiry. unfortunately,

I, yeah. I think the thing is, is that if that wasn't the case, I would contact 'em and say, look, I'm very sorry, but. Your boss is a dear friend of mine, so I actually, unless, and she may have turned around and said, no, she knows it's fine. Like she's behind this and at which point, whereas and then she'd be like, okay, yeah, this is awkward.

Yep. Don't say anything. And you'd be like, yep, okay. I don't know how I'm gonna take this next bit. But you know, you do have that confidentiality clause. And I think it's really important to know how to sit, because again, everybody's looking for hairdressers. People work at different places and other people work differently and better in other salons.

And that's the cool thing about it.

And the funny thing was that when I actually contacted our friend about this, she was like, oh, I'm so glad she's contacted you.

Yes.

they were going through that, she's like, you were the person that I actually, she's like, that's why I said to you, you're hiring someone. But that was at a time when I wasn't

Yeah.

she's like, this is what I wanted to happen.

The cool thing that happens with that, I've got that too. Right. The cool thing that happens with that is, when you see I have that through a staff member, I have the resume came in and I could see the reference of who she worked for and I was able to be like, incredible. Like I can just ring my friend and my friend's, like hire her.

She's amazing. It's like going on a date with somebody and knowing that that person's already awesome. You just feel safe. So yeah,

The next part of that is looking at the resumes. I always say have a phone conversation. Because I think if you get a whole bunch of resumes and you have a phone conversation, you'll also pick up the vibe. And I think the vibe is really important. I can think about phone conversations I've had, and I was even saying to you the other day, I thought that I'd lost that.

Like I thought that when I got to needing to hire somebody that maybe it was just like, I'm like, do I actually vibe with people? And then I had three interviews over the phone and I just, none of them were right. So then. You are saving yourself that next step of like finding time to interview someone if you don't feel great and vibe on the phone if it doesn't feel like the right fit.

I don't think you should interview every single person just because you feel like you had to have a phone conversation first and then go from there.

Yeah, and I mean, just having phone conversations. I wasn't waiting to hear back from someone that was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for calling me. Unfortunately, I've just accepted something. I was like, perfect. Okay. That's saving me some time. You.

yes. And then the next is obviously meeting them in person. And anyone that says to me, how do you hire, I literally hire a five. So I will meet them myself and I'll be like, Ooh, I like love this person. And this feels amazing. And like we're really vibing.

I think the next important thing from there is having them in your space and feeling the vibe in your space. I think it's really important, and anyone that's listening, don't just do an hour trial, an hour's not gonna do anything of what you need, but. I think have them in for half a day.

Pay for half a day. Like if you are actually serious.

literally the next thing that I was just gonna say,

I do. If it's a long trial, yes.

and we think that long trials are better, so.

I think that long trials are better. I think at the end of the day, if it's just, getting 'em in for an hour, kind of feeling 'em out. Whereas I think if you're gonna have them in for half a day. I think that paying them is not a bad way to go because at the end of the day, you could bring in a blow dry model, a haircut model and you can actually get a feel of what this person feels like in your business.

Agreed,

Yeah. So that's the next step I would take. Getting them in. And then if you have a team already, your team will also be able to vibe them out. Yeah. And then from there, some people do week long trials where they can then come in for a week. You can like have them in for a week, spend a week together, and then go from hiring them.

But generally, after a whole day, myself and my team kind of know what that vibe is and we know who we're gonna hire, but I generally know

a really big ask for people as well. I feel

it is. But if you are,

do you,

if you are going to between like two people that you really love, you could probably do two days for one and two days for another to really kind of feel it out.

But I've never really had to do that. Generally by the end of one day, I know exactly whether they're right or not, just on the little things that they do. And my, and then I sit down and have a conversation with my team of how this feel. What does everyone think? Yeah. Go off that gut vibe. So that's just like a really simple blur out of hiring and how I do it.

And it is being generally successful most of the time, but then you have like a three month probation, a six month probation, whatever feels right for you anyway to make sure that, that that person feels great within your business. But that's pretty much how I hire and it's generally done me really well.

I hope that's helped everyone and if anyone has any questions, please jump in touch because this is just our little take on it.

But yeah, and obviously if anyone else has any insight, please feel free to share. It's about opening up the conversation.

Agreed.

yeah, I hope to see you in the flesh soon, girlfriend.

Bye Jen.

And thanks for joining us for a mini moment. Love you, babe. Bye.