The Backbone of Your Beauty Business Has Arrived
Whether you’re the head of a large empire or you’re just beginning to grow your business, each member of your team plays a significant part in running the show, and it’s absolutely crucial that everyone be on the same page when the curtains rise.
As the owner or manager of a salon, you can’t always be there to train new stylists, and it can be difficult to know where to begin when trying to teach your master stylists how to educate new hires. The goal is always to put the passion for the craft at the center of your educational training, but how do you do that while simultaneously running a successful business, communicating your company culture, and clearly defining your expectations? This is where Beauty Backbone comes in. Beauty Backbone is your digital training assistant, created to help your established stylists become solid educators all while maintaining your desired salon culture.
Beauty Backbone is the brainchild of three renown hairdressers who are very familiar with the struggles that come with owning and operating a business. Salon owner, Keri Davis, and her team of educators, Karla Lopez-Martinez, and Jonatan Rizo, came together to develop this digital education tool in order to help align their passion for beauty with the business side of things, and to effectively communicate that relationship with their entire tribe.
These three industry leaders found their stride while working together to build fresh experiences into their educational program at Gila Rut, a group of luxury salons in greater San Diego. Keri and her team came up with an extensive in-salon training program built around the five fundamentals of running a successful business—education, culture, aspirations, financial stability, and leadership. Their program was so successful for their own team at Gila Rut that they decided to share it with the entire industry in order to empower other salon owners and brilliant educators to become true industry leaders.
Consistency in Education is Key
Education is the cornerstone of every salon’s culture. It’s how your stylists master technical skills, and how they absorb the systems and practices that make your salon exceptional. The right educational platform allows you to retain amazing stylists and managers and continually grow your business.
Train U is Beauty Backbone’s built-in education tool. Jonatan developed this digital training platform shortly after joining the Gila Rut team because he wanted to find a way to make sure that all of the salon’s educators were receiving the same training, and thus delivering the same results.
This customizable training program includes everything from class guides and lesson plans to video tutorials for when you just need to see the lesson in action. The Train U program begins with instructive tools for your master stylists and top educators and trickles down to your newest employees and assistants in training. This top down approach is the perfect way to ensure that all of your stylists understand their role in maintaining the salon’s culture while still providing fun and engaging learning experiences.
Teams That Grow Together, Stay Together
Employee retention is even more important than client retention. At the end of the day, your clients are choosing your salon because of the stylists on your team. Once you’ve managed to build a strong and unified team, you want to keep them around, so you have to keep them engaged.
Beauty Backbone and the Train U program are also great tools for retaining stylists. This program has a specific timeline for stylists to follow, with check points along the way to keep them on track. This timeline makes it easy for new hires to know exactly when they’ll be out on the floor, and it puts the pressure on them to complete their training in order to get the ball rolling.
This program also provides additional engagement for your established stylists by providing opportunities to continue their technical training and advance their career with the goal of becoming educators themselves.
Sustainable Education Cycles Back
Beauty Backbone’s top-down approach to training creates an educational cycle within your salon team. Salon’s that use Beauty Backbone are encouraged to have all team members, regardless of their level of experience in the industry, go through the Train U program. Higher level stylists are then often selected to become educators for new members of the team.
This mentorship piece is a really valuable aspect to Beauty Backbone and the Train U program because it ensures that none of the students, assistants or trainees are being left behind. It can be hard to adjust to a new salon and learn the culture, but when you have your own people filling in as educators for your new hires, these connections grow organically and you’re able to build a really strong, cohesive team.
This top-down approach creates a truly sustainable cycle for education within your salon. As your stylists progress through their training, certain personalities will rise to the top and your next group of educators will begin to show themselves as they grow within the program.
If you want to learn more about the founders of Beauty Backbone and Train U, listen to the podcast that inspired this blog, episode 149. If you want more in depth information on each step in this powerful training program check out the Beauty Backbone website and watch their public webinars to learn just how this tool could truly service your team.