SUMM IT UP

As stylists, we want to be there for our clients, while also setting professional boundaries around our time. Online booking saves time and takes some of the emotion out of setting up hair appointments. But today's guest says combining tech with a human touch makes for the best customer experience, and makes business sense too. 

Guest Missy Megginson is Director of Sales and Business Development at Schedulicity, a booking, payment and marketing software for salons and spas. She's a former salon owner and has been behind the chair for 20 years, most recently out of her own suite north of West Palm Beach, Florida. 

IG: @schedulicity

Learn more: schedulicity.com/essentials

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

Erin Gray and Annie MacArthur are The Hair Nerds, an independent pro beauty media and education company. Their signature events, called Hairventures, allow salon professionals to learn from top stylists around the world, as well as experience foreign cultures and build lasting friendships, at an affordable price. In this episode, Erin and Annie tell Blake about their recent trips to London and Tokyo (their favorite), and discuss the upcoming trip to Milan in June 2023. You'll also hear about the Hair Nerd's podcast, Dear Cosmo Babies, which is geared towards helping cosmetology students find their footing in the beauty industry. 

Follow the Hair Nerds on Instagram @thehairnerds, and book your next hairventure at thehairnerds.com. 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

We're still riding the high of Summit Unplugged, our first ever salon leadership conference and a time to really focus on ourselves and our wellbeing in the industry. (Did we mention it was on the beach in Cancun?!) If you missed this year don't worry: we've got a recap on this episode and info on how to get in on the next one. 

Blake also hosted our first ever live SUMM IT UP episode at the conference, which we're presenting to you here. Our guest is Chris Mahoney, a beauty industry business analyst and Summit's new AI Solutions Architect. Chris and Blake take the fear factor out of AI and explain how you can make tools like Chat GPT work for you, whether you want to improve your sales pitch, enhance your social posts, or make sense of your sales data. (And maybe even show your client how they'd look with a copper bob!)

Learn more about Chris Mahoney and book a discovery call. 

Watch Blake's highlight reel from Summit Unplugged.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

As Blake says, hair stylists these days are in such high demand, they could set up shop in the middle of a field and people would still come to have their hair done! In addition, the new generation of incoming stylists care more than ever about company culture, including fair labor practices, flexibility and social and environmental values. So salon owners need to adapt to attract and retain talent. 

Guest Jared Thompson is the co-owner of Deseo Salon and Blow Dry, a luxury salon company in Denver, Colorado. With a background in business, he brings important insights about how to recruit and interview stylists, how to cultivate a healthy and thriving salon culture, and what to do when someone is not a fit. Also, he makes a strong business case for offering higher compensation and greater flexibility with the aim of keeping stylists on board, rather than managing a high rate of churn. 

Learn more about Deseo Salon and Blow Dry at deseosalondenver.com, or follow them on IG @deseodenver.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

The last four years have been a big reset for the salon industry. When we shut down in 2020 we learned that many of our clients see us as essential workers. We saw a surge in demand coming out of lockdown. But now, we once again need to raise our standards to keep our clients. The pandemic years also accelerated a trend towards employees asking for more flexibility in shaping their schedules.  

Here at Summit we embrace these changes and want to grow salon companies that can support and retain stylists over the course of the life cycle. We've created new exclusive spaces online for the Summit community, and even redesigned our signature event -- the Summit -- to make it more accessible and closer to home.  Cofounder Dave Kirby -- our  Senior Director of Development, a shareholder and a board member at Summit Salon Business Center joins Blake this episode to discuss what's new for 2024. 

Find Dave Kirby on Instagram @davekirbympls.

Learn more about Dave and schedule a 30 minute discovery call. 

Explore Summit's program calendar for 2024. 

Learn about Summit's online community for certified salons, barber shops and schools

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

For Bil Neal, being a salon sales consultant isn't about pushing product. It's about building relationships and growing small businesses. Bil Neal is a salon business partner (SBC) with SalonCentric, a division of L'Oréal USA, working with Summit salons and other salon companies in southern Ohio.  Want to try out a new product without commiting? Call Bil. Want education for your stylists? Bil can set you up with an expert. Planning out your promotions for the year? Bil's your guy. And he's one of 400 SBCs working for SalonCentric across the United States who offer these services -- which often go underutilized in the industry.

Listen for a lively discussion with Bil and host Blake about all that, plus how to earn commissions on products beyond in-salon sales! 

Follow Bil on Instagram @bil.neal.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

Andrew Carruthers is a stylist educator and trainer and a Sam Villa culture ambassador, and coaches private clients inside and outside the beauty industry through his company The Journeyist. Our conversation this episode is about managing stress and controlling reactivity – skills essential to communication and leadership. You’ll learn simple breathing techniques from the Oxygen Advantage method, and get an introduction to Multiple Brain Integration (mBIT), a holistic practice for processing thoughts and feelings. Andrew Carruthers joins us from his home in Olympia Washington. 

Connect with Andrew on Instagram 

@andrew.carruthers  or visit his website thejourneyist.life.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

A member of the beauty industry since 2011, Colissa Nole recently left the salon company where she worked as a stylist and struck out on her own -- first in a booth rental space, and most recently her own space with a co-owner. While it's an adjustment becoming your own boss, Colissa says the change has allowed her to offer the best service of her career, and "fall in love with hair all over again." 

In this episode, Colissa Nole and host Blake Reed Evans discuss why she made the move, and the new challenges -- like having to schedule and reschedule all your own clients --   and joys -- like having old clients open up to you like never before. Also: Colissa is here to coach you through your own self-employment journey. 

Contact Colissa to learn more about Summit's new self-employed stylist subscription service: 

Colissa's Instagram

Colissa's page on Summitsalon.com

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

We’re living in a time of cultural transition. Individuals are openly expressing gender and sexuality with more freedom than before. At the same time, some still believe that expression outside of the traditional cisgender heterosexual frame is a bad thing. Others want to be supportive, but are unsure about the correct pronouns and terminology to use, or how to respectfully acknowledge queer identities.

As beauty professionals, we want all guests and staff to feel safe and welcome in the salon. So how do we normalize queer inclusivity in our lives and professional spaces? 

Emily Holiday is an activist and humanitarian, owner of Emily Holiday Salon, and a stylist at Sola Salons in Charlotte, North Carolina. She’s a facilitator for queer inclusivity and identity workshops for salon companies and other organizations. Emily considers herself a “brave space”-- that means she’s here to answer questions that might be uncomfortable or inappropriate to bring up in everyday life. 

Even if you’re new to talking about gender and sexuality, this episode is for you. Emily and Blake break down all of the letters in LGBTQIA+, talk about what it means to be non-binary, and get at the differences between gender, sexuality, and romantic attraction. Emily shares some simple yet brilliant practices that you can implement at your salon company. And so much more. 

Get in touch with Emily Holiday on Instagram: @emilyholidaybeauty.

QUEER EDUCATION AND CULTURE RESOURCES RECOMMENDED BY EMILY AND BLAKE

Janet Mock, a trans author and activist

The Human Rights Campaign, a leading organization in the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights in the US

The Audre Lorde Project, a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color community organizing center, focusing on the NYC area

Time Out Youth, a queer youth center in Charlotte, NC

Equality Florida, a statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization

Jonathan Van Ness, a non-binary hair stylist, influencer, writer, podcaster, comedian, and entertainer

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry.  Get in touch with Summit and let us know what you think of the podcast or what topics you’d like us to cover next. Thanks for listening! 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

Traditionally, the salon business in the United States  has been a segregated one. And while stylists at salons in the Black community performed braids, twists, weaves, relaxers, and silk presses on a daily basis, most white stylists had little or no knowledge of textured hair. In the past few years this has been changing, with more beauty schools providing and requiring texture education. Textured hair is increasingly visible in the media, more women are choosing natural styles, and more children are being born with mixed heritage. 

But our industry still has a long way to go. Want to learn about texture but don't know where to start? We've got you covered. 

Today's guest, Jamal Edmonds, is the owner and creative director of Lamaj in the City, located in Washington D.C. He's a stylist behind the chair and an educator for Mizani and Redken, specializing in textured hair. Jamal has been nominated for NAHA awards in 2018, 2021, and 2022. In this episode Jamal and host Blake Reed Evans talk about how to learn textured hair, and dig into understanding the trauma your client may have experienced around getting their hair styled. Also: doing textured hair on set, and competing in the North American Hair Association (NAHA) Awards. 

This episode was originally published in December 2021.

Follow Jamal Edmonds on Instagram @lamajbackwards.

Get texture education online with the Mizani Texpert Academy: thetexpertcollective.com/head-of-the-class.

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin, with editorial support from Tim Fisk. 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon.

Follow host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans. His DM's are always open! 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  or join our Summit Salon Community on Facebook to connect with others in the industry.  Get in touch with Summit and let us know what you think of the podcast or who you'd like us to interview next. 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

If you’re a business owner in a crowded space, you have to put your “why” front and center. That’s Tim Fisk’s philosophy, and it has paid off. As Director of Brand Development for Summit Salon Business Center, Tim helps salon and spa companies design or rethink their brand to attract both customers and new employees. He is the owner of Herdis, the Salon in Northampton, Massachusetts. Tim also opened Parker on Main Salon and Plum Boutique in Greenfield, Massachusetts, both during the COVID -19 pandemic. Tim sees the big picture, drawing a through-line from his own motivation to his companies, to the community impact of those main street businesses. We hope this conversation will inspire you to brand from the heart! 

We recorded and originally published this episode in March 2022.  To learn more about adding a boutique to your salon company, check out our episode with Summit boutique consultant LaShawnda Hall. 

Follow Tim and get in touch on Instagram: @timfiskis. Email Tim at tfisk@summitsalon.com. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin. Tim Fisk is the executive editor. (Yes, that Tim Fisk!)  Find all of our past episodes at summitsalon.com/summ-it-up-podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon.

Follow host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans. His DM's are always open! You can email him at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  or join our Summit Salon Community on Facebook to connect with others in the industry.  Get in touch with Summit and let us know what you think of the podcast or what topics you’d like us to cover next.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

The relationship between a stylist and their repeat guest is special. But if you build that special relationship with enough people over time, you might feel maxed out because your days are so busy. You have a waiting list. So you raise your prices, but that waiting list doesn’t get any shorter. 

Though you may feel like you can’t handle one more thing, this could be the perfect time to bring on an associate - a recent hair school grad to work with you behind the chair. And if you’re worried that bringing on an associate might upset that relationship you’ve built with your guests, Paige Lowe is here to allay your fears. 

Paige Lowe is a Summit Certified Associate Trainer, and an owner and stylist at Glam Street Salon in Libertyville, Illinois, where she works with multiple associates behind the chair. In this episode, Paige and host Blake Reed Evans dispel some misconceptions about working with associates, and discuss how to develop a partnership where both stylist and associate can grow. 

This episode was originally published in August 2022. 

Find Paige on Instagram @paige_glamstreetsalon, or reach out to her at plowe@summitsalon.com.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings.  Get in touch with Summit and let us know what you think of the podcast or what topics you’d like us to cover next. Thanks for listening! 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

The once-disparate worlds of salon and barbershop are moving closer, with changing gender norms around hair, professionals graduating from school with both skill sets, and barbershops shifting their business models. But the expectations of barber and stylist clientele are different, and any salon owner looking to add barber services to their menu should understand that. 

Enter Jessica Luppold, Barbershop Division Team Leader at Summit Salon Business Center. Also owner and master artist at Elayne James Salon & HairColor Studio in Middletown, Delaware. Jessica has a foot in both worlds and has done the research to prove it. As a Summit coach, she works with barbers to maximize their business potential through adopting tried-and-tested Summit systems like online booking, working on commission, and a leveled earning system. Jessica also works with salon owners to recruit and integrate barbers and barber-stylists into their companies.  

Learn more, or schedule a 30-minute discovery call with Jessica Luppold.

Connect with Jessica Luppold on Instagram @Jessicaloveshairbusiness.

Connect with the Summit Barbershop Division on Instagram @barbershopdiv_by_ssbc

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com.  We'd love to hear your personal finance tips! 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

Hayley Jepson (@the.resilient.hairdresser on Instagram)  has an  amazing story. A top-earning colorist, she left the hair industry over a decade ago due to burnout, thinking she'd never come back. Hayley became a  school counselor and a psychotherapist. Eventually, the knowledge she gained in that process brought her back to her first love -- hairdressing -- but this time with the tools to lead a healthy, happy life behind the chair. With her company The Resilient Hairdresser, Hayley provides online education and workshops for salons and stylists. She also developed a mental health training currently being rolled out by L'Oreal around the world. Hayley shares key insights in this interview on self-care and communication for stylists working both inside salons and independently, and salon owners managing employees. 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

With the flexibility and opportunities for advancement that the salon industry offers, not to mention the tips, you can make a great living. But the other side of the coin is how you manage your money. After all, you can have a full book at the salon and still be deep in debt.

 Peter Mahoney, President of Summit Salon Business Center, has a passion for educating salon professionals about personal finance. In this episode, Peter and Blake discuss practical advice for saving, investing, and getting out of debt. We promise, it’s not as scary or as complicated as it seems! 

LEARN MORE

Summit’s online Financial Awareness course, with Peter Mahoney, Blake Reed Evans,  Katie West, Jules Molina, and LaShawnda Hall

About Peter Mahoney

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com.  We'd love to hear your personal finance tips! 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

We’ve been wanting to speak with Sheri Doss for a while! Vice President of Brand Education, Events & Experiences at Redken, Sheri has helped inspire and change the lives of hair stylists around the world through programs like the Redken Exchange in NYC, the Redken Prolab in LA, and the Redken Symposium. Blake and Sheri discuss how Redken keeps education current with continuous reinvention, like creating smaller events around the country to keep up with stylists’ needs post-covid. Listen and learn about opportunities to level up your skills and the skills of your team. 

Connect  with Sheri Doss on Instagram @sheridoss_redken.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

If you work in a salon company you may be noticing a trend: the post-pandemic days when hungry guests were competing for your time, grateful for a return to professional haircare, are over. These days clients are a bit more picky about who does their hair, and the quality of service when they come to the salon. The always-current Heather Bagby, Vice President of Business Development at Summit Salon Business Center, has read the research. She returns to SUMM IT UP with a consumer trend update, and advice on how to build your customer service muscles and dial down negative messaging on social media. Also with the US election cycle ramping up, Heather and host Blake Reed Evans get into how to handle it when a guest brings up politics, or says something upsetting. 

Heather is also a co-owner of Shear Art Salon in Tampa, Florida, alongside Blake.

Follow Heather Bagby on Instagram @heatherbagby

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

With brick-and-mortar retail on the rise again, now is the perfect time to turn your passion for fashion or unique gifts into a boutique at your salon company -- or give your existing boutique space a refresh. A boutique can be a great addition to a salon company, but there are a few things you should know before diving in. (For example, you can expect to see your repeat customers a lot more frequently!)

Guest LaShawnda Hall is a boutique consultant and a front desk trainer for Summit Salon Business Center, and  a front desk coordinator and stylist behind the chair at UrbanEve Salon and Boutique in Pearland, Texas. In this episode, she answers questions including

•  Do I need a separate space from my hair salon to start a boutique? 
• Should I start online or in-store? 
• What kind of items do I purchase and where do I find them? 
• How do I get product off the shelves? 

LaShawnda has worked her boutiquing magic at host Blake Reed Evans’ salon company (Shear Art in Tampa, Florida), and she can do it for yours too. Learn more about LaShawnda Hall and get in touch at lhall@summitsalon.com. 

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

Faith Rivers contains multitudes. In the salon industry, she's worn many hats, including stylist, colorist, salon manager and manager of education and marketing for a major haircare brand. Faith also brings her experiences  in theater, journalism, and gender studies, as well as her Buddhist practice to bear in her work and in this wisdom-packed interview. 

Topics include: 

• Setting and maintain boundaries with guests
• Stay grounded in a job where you're exchanging energy with guests and coworkers all day long
• Tapping into empathy as a stylist
• Creating a safe and welcoming salon company for guests with curls and coils
• Recruiting and retaining staff with expertise in curls and coils

Follow Faith Rivers on Instagram @thefaithrivers

Connect with Faith on LinkedIn

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our new online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin.  Music in this episode by Doyeq.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings. 

Owning a salon is great but sometimes your life changes. Your family grows or you find yourself having to move far away, and the best decision for everyone is to sell the salon. It can be a hard choice - but if you are prepared it can also be the right choice for you and your family. In this episode, host Blake Reed Evans talks to Summit Salon Consultant, Chad Faass about selling his salon. Sometimes owning a salon and living your best life don’t match up. From making the initial decision to finally letting go, Chad tells us how he and his wife made it work, and how anyone can do it with the right plan.

EPISODE NOTES

Reach out to Chad Faass cfaass@summitsalon.com

Follow him on Instagram @ChadFaass

The Summit Salon website is: https://summitsalon.com/

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon.

Follow host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans. His DM's are always open!

SUMM IT UP is produced by Andrea Muraskin, with editorial support from Tim Fisk. This episode was edited by Amy Walters.

Follow Summit Salon Business Center on Instagram @SummitSalon, and on TikTok at SummitSalon. 

Find host Blake Reed Evans on Instagram @BlakeReedEvans and on TikTok at blakereedevans. His DM's are always open! You can email Blake at bevans@summitsalon.com. 

Visit us at SummitSalon.com  to connect with others in the industry. Join our online community for certified Summit salons, spas, barber shops and beauty schools.

Sign up for our newsletter, Your Weekly Game Plan to stay on top of our events and trainings.